The WAWG Blog

Limbaugh Stays on the Ugly Side – During his Feb. 15 broadcast, Rush Limbaugh spun his reality-bending spiel after suggesting that big-box retail chain Walmart lobbies Washington lawmakers to keep Obama from “nationalizing” them — a statement that, if not a joke, can only be characterized as transparently false.

“The last time this happened was World War II,” Limbaugh said. “But that was because there was a war on and it made sense. But there’s no war on right now, other than the Taliban wing of the Republican party and its war against Obama and the Democrats.”

Of Republicans’ conflict with President Obama, Rush said, “but that’s hardly World War II,” then paused. “Although …” he began. “Well, wait a minute. Country is under assault, more so than we were during World War II, other than the Japanese. But the Germans never attacked us, the Japanese did.”

It is not the first time Limbaugh has employed wildly exaggerated World War II analogies to attack his countrymen. In August he began comparing Democrats to Nazis amid the health reform debate, suggesting that President Obama’s supporters are “brownshirts.”
(That’s not nice. – JLV)

Fox News Sponsoring Political Action Conference – Despite claims that they only report the news and do not support any particular group, Fox News is listed as a sponsor of the Xtreme Politically Active Conservatives (XPAC) lounge at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C. says in a video uploaded to the group’s Facebook page, XPAC’s Hope Ammen says, “You’re also going to get private meet and greets with young people who are getting out there to slap liberals.”
(That’s not nice. – JLV)

Ann Coulter Calls Vice-President Biden ‘a Drunken Irishman’ – In defending former Vice President Dick Cheney against criticism from current Vice President Joe Biden, the controversial conservative commentator fell back on an old ethnic stereotype: The drunken Irishman. “It almost is kind of effective to send out this drunken Irishman to respond to Dick Cheney,” Coulter said, referring to the war of words between the two vice presidents on this Sunday’s news talk shows. “It’s like sending out the White House dog. It’s saying, ‘We so don’t respect you, we’re sending in Joe Biden.”
(That’s not nice. Are you beginning to see a pattern here? – JLV)

Republican Leadership Demands That White House Post Health Care Proposal Online, Then Attacks White House for Doing Exactly That – On February 8th, Republican House leader John Beohner sent a letter to the White House, demanding that the White House post online any health care proposal it wished to discuss at the health care summit:

“If the President intends to present any kind of legislative proposal at this discussion, will he make it available to members of Congress and the American people at least 72 hours beforehand?

So, four days later, the White House accepted this demand, and announced it would post a legislative proposal online more than 72 hours before the summit:

“Since this meeting will be most productive if information is widely available before the meeting, we will post online the text of a proposed health insurance reform package.”

So, naturally, the next day, Boehner attacked the White House for giving into his demand:
“A productive bipartisan discussion should begin with a clean sheet of paper.”
(That’s not being constructive. – JLV)

We Have Demands! You’ve Met Our Demands? In That Case, Let’s Start Over. – In October, John Boehner issued the minority party‘s four demands for what they wanted out of health reform:

• Number one: let families and businesses buy health insurance across state lines.
• Number two: allow individuals, small businesses and trade associations to pull together and acquire health insurance at lower prices, the same way large corporations and unions do today.
• Number three: give states the tools to create their own innovative reforms that lower health care costs.
• And number four: end junk lawsuits that contribute to higher health care cost.

So what happened to these four items? Let’s see:

• Number one: As the “Washington Post” points out, the Senate version of the health reform has a whole section relating to the offering of plans in more than one state. Individual states can band together and allow insurers in one of those states to offer plans in all of those states, buying across state lines is in the bill.
• Number two: The health care bill includes health insurance exchanges. The more people that are allowed to participate in these exchanges, the greater the risk pool becomes and the lower the costs get. So, they‘re two-for-two with the second Republican demand already in the bill.
• Number three: Also in the bill. Section 1332 of the Senate bill is called the “Waiver for State Innovation.” Again, it allows states to opt out over the whole shabang if they can prove they have a better and cheaper way to do it.
• And number four: Yes, the Senate bill calls on individual states to develop new ways to deal with malpractice lawsuits—alternatives that could potentially be funded by Congress.

The Senate health reform bill addresses everything that the Republicans have identified as their main concerns for policy on health reform. And the Republican reaction is: the bill must be scrapped and start over.

Republicans think that it is great politics to derail this thing, even though it‘s got all of their demands in it.

And then Rep. John Boehner, Minority Leader of the House, has the gall to say, “There has been no attempt, not one attempt, by the administration or the Democrats in Congress to actually sit down and work with us.”
(That’s not being constructive. – JLV)

We Need to Talk! Well, Maybe Not. – John Boehner says he wants the administration to meet with Republicans and hear their ideas.

So the president says let’s meet and talk.

And Boehner says,”I don‘t want to walk into some setup. I don‘t know who‘s going to be there. I don‘t know how big the room‘s going to be. I don‘t know how—what the setup‘s going to be.” Yes, those were his actual words.
(That’s not being constructive. Are you starting to see a pattern here? – JLV)

Regards,

Jim

[It’s not about being nice, or bieng constructive, or being consistent – it’s about doing whatever it takes to defeat anyone who is not their president.]

Stimulus Foes See Value in Seeking Stimulus Cash: Pet Projects Irresistible to Lawmakers – More than a dozen Republican lawmakers, while denouncing the stimulus to the media and their constituents, privately sent letters to the U. S. Dept. of Agriculture seeking stimulus money for home-state pork projects.

“It’s not illegal to talk out of both sides of your mouth, but it does seem to be a level of dishonesty troubling to the American public,” said Melanie Sloan, executive director of the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. Watchdog groups say the lawmakers’ public talk and private letters don’t square, highlighting a side of government spending largely overshadowed by the “earmarking” process. While members of Congress must disclose their earmarks — or pet projects they slip into broader spending bills — the private funding requests they make in letters to agencies fall outside of the public’s view.

Goldman Sachs Helped to Hide Debt Fueling Europe’s Crisis – Wall Street tactics akin to the ones that fostered subprime mortgages in America have worsened the financial crisis shaking Greece and undermining the euro by enabling European governments to hide their mounting debts.

As worries over Greece rattle world markets, records and interviews show that with Wall Street’s help, the nation engaged in a decade-long effort to skirt European debt limits. One deal created by Goldman Sachs helped obscure billions in debt from the budget overseers in Brussels.

Even as the crisis was nearing the flashpoint, banks were searching for ways to help Greece forestall the day of reckoning. In early November — three months before Athens became the epicenter of global financial anxiety — a team from Goldman Sachs arrived in the ancient city with a very modern proposition for a government struggling to pay its bills, according to two people who were briefed on the meeting.

The bankers, led by Goldman’s president, Gary D. Cohn, held out a financing instrument that would have pushed debt from Greece’s health care system far into the future, much as when strapped homeowners take out second mortgages to pay off their credit cards. Critics say that such deals, because they are not recorded as loans, mislead investors and regulators about the depth of a country’s liabilities.

Abuse of the Filibuster Threat – One of the greatest obstacles to passing progressive legislation in Congress has been the over-use of the filibuster in the Senate. With upwards of “40 cloture votes since the start of the 111th Congress in January, this Senate is on pace to record the second-largest number of filibuster roll calls,” transforming what was intended to be a seldom-used procedural tactic into an all-out tool for obstructionism. (And think how out-of-whack this is when a single senator from a low-population state represents about as many people as a mid-size Texas town. – JLV) [Twenty percent of the population and 40 year old message machine controls our government.]

Regards,

Jim

Rewriting History – At their recent meeting, Texas State Board of Education member Don McLeroy proposed amendment after amendment on social issues to the document that teams of professional educators had drawn up over 12 months, in what would have to be described as a single-handed display of archconservative political strong-arming. McLeroy moved that Margaret Sanger, the birth-control pioneer, be included because she “and her followers promoted eugenics,” that language be inserted about Ronald Reagan’s “leadership in restoring national confidence” following Jimmy Carter’s presidency and that students be instructed to “describe the causes and key organizations and individuals of the conservative resurgence of the 1980s and 1990s, including Phyllis Schlafly, the Contract With America, the Heritage Foundation, the Moral Majority and the National Rifle Association.” The injection of partisan politics into education went so far that at one point another Republican board member burst out in seemingly embarrassed exasperation, “Guys, you’re rewriting history now!” Nevertheless, most of McLeroy’s proposed amendments passed by a show of hands.

Blackwater Billed US for ‘Morale Welfare Recreation’ Provided by Prostitute According to Former Employees – Two former employees of Blackwater Worldwide have accused the private security contractor of defrauding the government for years with phony billing, including charging for a prostitute, alcohol and spa trips. In newly unsealed court records, a husband and wife who once worked for Blackwater said they had personal knowledge of the company falsifying invoices, double-billing federal agencies and charging the government for personal and inappropriate items whose real purpose was hidden. They said they witnessed ‘systematic’ fraud on the company’s security contracts with the Department of State in Iraq and Afghanistan, and with the Department of Homeland Security and Federal Emergency Management Agency in Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina.

Super-Rich Tax Rates Fall, Fall, Fall, While Middle Class Suffers – The Council of Economic Advisers released its annual Economic Report of the President, which bolsters the case for allowing the cuts to expire. For instance, the report notes that “in recent years nearly half of all income — including both wages and salaries and non-labor income — has gone to 10 percent of families. The top 1 percent of families now receive nearly 25 percent of income, up from less than 10 percent in the 1970s.”
And at the same time that more and more income has become concentrated at the top of the scale, tax rates on the highest earners have been falling. Average tax rates on the middle 20 percent of Americans have risen since 1960.

Ad Uses Luntz Framing To Bamboozle Voters On Financial Reform – Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) is ripping a stunningly deceitful new ad running in his state. The ad is sponsored by a shadowy conservative group that uses Frank Luntz’s up-is-down messaging advice to confuse voters about the financial-reform legislation currently in Congress. Confronted with the problem that Wall Street banks are deeply unpopular and most Americans support efforts to rein them in, Luntz simply urged GOPers, in a memo, to depict the bill as a bailout for the banks.

Tester told the Billings Gazette that the ad — which is being run by the “Committee for Truth in Politics” (CTP) and labels the reform effort a “$4 trillion bank bailout” — is “not true.” “We’re not dealing with any $4 trillion bank bailout. To confuse people and put forward an ad with a lot of false information, and not tell people who you are?,” Tester said.

Factcheck.org, a nonpartisan group that checks accuracy of political ads, has also demolished the ad’s claim.

Fox News’ Crowley Claims that Bush Used Civil Courts on Reid Because Military Tribunals Didn’t Exist in 2001 – Monica Crowley this morning, appearing on Fox News’ Happening Now, followed in Newt’s footsteps in her eagerness to deny that shoe bomber Richard Reid’s case — also tried in civilian courts by the Bush administration — bore any similarity to that of “Underwear Bomber” Umar Abdulmutallab:

Crowley: “… Richard Reid was matriculated into the civilian justice system because military tribunals did not exist in late 2001 …”

In fact, as Julian Epstein points out, military tribunals have been around in the United States a long time — in fact, they’ve existed since the Revolutionary War. Moreover, the Supreme Court long ago set the precedent, in Ex parte Milligan (1866), that military tribunals used to try civilians in any jurisdiction where the civil courts were functioning were unconstitutional.

Crowley cannot even claim that she actually meant that Guantanamo Bay, where terrorism suspects bound for military tribunals have been held since 9/11, was not operating. In fact, terrorism detainees began arriving there on October 7, 2001, more than two months before Reid’s arrest on December 22.

So add this to the whole string of false statements made recently of those trying to make a case that the Underwear Bomber’s case was handled wrong. Lots of talk, and none of it based on fact.

Climate-Change Deniers Disagree with Science – A new analysis of global surface temperatures by NASA scientists finds January 2000 to December 2009 was the warmest decade on record. Looking back to 1880, when modern scientific instrumentation became available to monitor temperatures precisely, a clear warming trend is present, although there was a leveling off between the 1940s and 1970s.

In the past three decades, the GISS surface temperature record shows an upward trend of about 0.36 degrees F (0.2 degrees C) per decade. In total, average global temperatures have increased by about 1.5 degrees F (0.8 degrees C) since 1880.

“There’s always interest in the annual temperature numbers and a given year’s ranking, but the ranking often misses the point,” said James Hansen, GISS director. “There’s substantial year-to-year variability of global temperature caused by the tropical El Nino-La Nina cycle. When we average temperature over five or ten years to minimize that variability, we find global warming is continuing unabated.”

Regards,

Jim

Limbaugh to Republican Party: ‘Be proud of being the party of no’ – President Obama has asked Republican leaders to meet for a bipartisan summit to discuss health care legislation. Rush Limbaugh warned Republicans this was merely a “trap,” counseling them to miss the event and to wear the “party of no” label as a badge of honor. Limbaugh said on his radio show, “Do not be afraid of being the party of no if you don’t do this. Be proud of being the party of no.”

That’s all I’ve got today, but isn’t that all you need? (Or all you can stand?)

Regards,

Jim

Sir John Houghton Misquoted
Climate-Change Skeptics have been quoting Sir John Houghton, who played a critical role in establishing the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC), as saying, “Unless we announce disasters, no one will listen.”

The quotation has since become the iconic smoking gun of the climate skeptic community. The words are the very first to appear in the “manual” of climate denialism written by the journalist and arch-skeptic Christopher Booker. They get more than a million hits on Google, and are wheeled out almost every time a climate skeptic has a point to make, the last occasion being in a Sunday newspaper article last weekend written by the social anthropologist and climate skeptic Benny Peiser.

The trouble is, Sir John Houghton has never said what he is quoted as saying. The words do not appear in his own book on global warming, first published in 1994, despite statements to the contrary. In fact, he denies emphatically that he ever said it at any time, either verbally or in writing.
In fact, his view on the matter of generating scare stories to publicise climate change is quite the opposite. “There are those who will say ‘unless we announce disasters, no one will listen’, but I’m not one of them,” Sir John told The Independent.

Even though the quotation appears on about 1.77 million web links, no one seems to know where it originated. On the few occasions a reference is cited, it is listed as coming from the first edition of Sir John’s book, Global Warming: The Complete Briefing, published by Lion Books in 1994. But Sir John does not say it in this edition, nor in subsequent editions published by Cambridge University Press.

Newt Gingrich Lies About Shoe Bomber – When former House Speaker Newt Gingrich appeared on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and he assailed the administration for reading Miranda Rights to Detroit underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, Stewart drew a comparison to a similar situation that happened under George W. Bush.

“Didn’t they do the same with Richard Reid, who was the shoe bomber?” Stewart asked.
“Richard Reid was an American citizen,” insisted Gingrich.

WRONG! Reid is actually a British citizen of Jamaican descent.
Also, U.S. law requires Miranda Rights for non-citizens arrested in the U.S.

Later, when Gingrich acknowledged that part of his job is to reach out to the emotions of the American people, Stewart shot back, “I think that’s wise. And don’t let reality get in the way.”

Five-Year Old Denied Treatment by Death Panel Health insurance Company – Five-year-old Kyler VanNocker of Pennsylvania is ailing from a lethal childhood cancer known as neuroblastoma, and his insurer HealthAmerica is refusing to pay for the only known treatment that can save his life. His health problems have re-surged, and the VanNockers allege HealthAmerica is unjustly denying necessary care their son is entitled to under their insurance plan.

VanNocker’s oncologist told the Daily News last year that the MIGB therapy is the “standard of care” for neuroblastoma and “the results are often very good.”

Income Inequality Gap Soars Between Well-To-Do and Poor – There has been talk about income inequality over the past several years, but what is happening now is catastrophic. The Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston divided American households into 10 groups based on annual household income. Then it analyzed labor conditions in each of the groups during the fourth quarter of 2009.

The highest group, with household incomes of $150,000 or more, had an unemployment rate during that quarter of 3.2 percent. The next highest, with incomes of $100,000 to 149,999, had an unemployment rate of 4 percent.

Contrast those figures with the unemployment rate of the lowest group, which had annual household incomes of $12,499 or less. The unemployment rate of that group during the fourth quarter of last year was a staggering 30.8 percent. The next lowest group, with incomes of $12,500 to $20,000, had an unemployment rate of 19.1 percent.

Hypocrites!

• GOP Senate Candidate Rep. Mike Castle Takes Credit For Over $5 Million In Stimulus Funds He Voted To Kill
• In KY, McConnell Brags About Stimulus Projects, Requests More Money; In DC, McConnell Says Stimulus Should End
• Republicans Who Opposed The Stimulus Continue To Pan It As A ‘Failure,’ While Also Taking Credit For Its Success
• Jindal Tours Louisiana Attacking ‘Washington Spending’ While Handing Out Jumbo-Sized Stimulus Checks
• Rep. Shuster Bashes The Stimulus As A Failure While Taking Credit For Its Success
• Republicans Who Opposed The Stimulus Line Up To Criticize It Publicly, Request More Money Privately
• Kit Bond Touts Effects Of Stimulus Bill He Voted Against
• All In A Day’s Work: Rep. Kingston Smears The Stimulus On TV, Takes Credit For Stimulus Jobs In His District
• Mark Sanford now begs for stimulus money after he said it would lead to slavery

Pastor Wiley Drake Prayed for the Death of Congressman John Murtha – Southern Baptist Pastor Wiley Drake of Buena Park sent out an email Monday night, saying that perhaps his prayers had been answered with the death of Rep. John Murtha yesterday. “Maybe God took him out,” Drake wrote. “Maybe God Answered our IMPRECATORY prayer that we prayed every 30 days.”

The Pennsylvania congressman, a decorated former Marine who fiercely opposed the Iraq war, died at the age of 77 after complications from gallbladder surgery.

Drake has also prayed for the death of President Barack Obama. However, he dropped that because he wants to see Obama face charges that he is not a natural-born citizen and so cannot be president.

When Facts Don’t Agree with Ideology, Ignore Them – Matt Drudge and his anti-reason friends at Fox News have been saying that since it’s been snowing a lot in some places, that means global warming, or climate change, must be a hoax. Drudge and Fox News ignore the fact that the Winter Olympics in Vancouver is having a shortage of snow due to their warmest January in history.

Soft on Terror? Not Actually. – Have you heard the one about how the administration is soft on terrorism? Well, then how do explain this? Pakistani Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud has been confirmed killed by U.S. missiles that hit his stronghold in Pakistan’s northwestern tribal belt in mid-January. U.S. CIA-led missile attacks also killed Mehsud’s predecessor just six months ago.

Fact Checking the Texas Governor’s Race

Heat index: A fact check of Perry’s claim on taxes, state budget
Rated 3 peppers: a serious misrepresentation of the facts.

Heat index: A fact check of Perry’s claim on Texas Enterprise Fund
Rated 2 peppers: stretching the truth a bit.

Heat index: A fact check of Perry’s claim on free roads becoming toll roads
Rated 2 peppers: stretching the truth a bit.

Heat index: A fact check of Hutchison’s claim on Perry’s travels
Rated 3 peppers: a serious misrepresentation of the facts.

Heat index: A fact check of Hutchison’s claim on highway spending
Rated 3 peppers: a serious misrepresentation of the facts.

Heat index: A fact check of Hutchison’s claim on dropout rate
Rated 1 pepper: true or mostly true.

Heat index: A fact check of Medina’s claim on transportation study
Rated 3 peppers: a serious misrepresentation of the facts.

Heat index: A fact check of Medina’s claim on governor’s office spending
Rated 2 peppers: stretching the truth a bit.

Heat index: A fact check of Shami’s claim on executions
Rated 4 peppers: totally false

Heat index: A fact check of White’s claim on electricity rates
Rated 1 pepper: true or mostly true.

Mr. President, We Need Jobs! 😉 – C’mon, President Obama – comedians need your help! You want to create more jobs, then help America’s comedians who need more work!! Can you please mispronounce some words, mangle an expression, maybe do a tap dance while waiting for someone on the White House porch, try to exit a stage through a fake door, fall off a Segway scooter, try to give a shoulder massage to a female foreign head of state, anything! Please!

Oh, never mind. We have Sarah Palin. She makes me appreciate the intellect of Paris Hilton.

Regards,

Jim

Republican Officials Call Bush Administration Liars – Last week, several top Republican officials accused Obama Attorney General Holder of essentially fabricating a claim that the Bush administration’s Department of Justice successfully tried 300 individuals on terrorism-related charges using the criminal justice system.

Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) insisted, flat out, that the number wasn’t true. “If there were [300 convictions],” he said, “we would have heard about them.” Senator Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) called the claim “unsubstantiated” and demanded to know where it came from. Former Bush press secretary Dana Perino was even blunter, deeming Holder’s assertion baffling. “The 300 number is as false as false gets,” she declared.

So, where did the number come from? The Bush Administration Department of Justice, that’s where. Back in the FY 2009 Budget request submitted to Congress in 2008 (under the prior administration), it was the Bush DoJ which cited the 300+ figure. Not once, but twice — as evidence of its success in combating and punishing terrorist activity:

“Since 2001, the Department has increased its capacity to investigate terrorism and has identified, disrupted, and dismantled terrorist cells operating in the United States. These efforts have resulted in the securing of 319 convictions or guilty pleas in terrorism or terrorism-related cases arising from investigations conducted primarily after September 11, 2001, and zero terrorist attacks on American soil by foreign nationals from 2003 through 2007.”

And:

“Since September 11, 2001, the Department has charged 512 individuals with terrorism or terrorism-related crimes and convicted or obtained guilty pleas in 319 terrorism-related and anti-terrorism cases. ”

Neocon Loves the Bomb – On Fox News on Feb 8, John Bolton declared that “Iran simply has no intention of being talked out of its nuclear weapons program” and that “very severe sanctions” will not work. Later, when host Gregg Jarrett asked if military action is “the only answer,” Bolton agreed:

JARRETT: Is military force probably in the end the only answer?
BOLTON: There are two outcomes, one is Iran getting its nuclear weapons, the other is Israel or somebody uses military force to stop it. That’s where we are.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said war with Iran would be “disastrous” and “the last thing we need.” “There is no military option that does anything more than buy time,” Gates said last year. Retired Gen. Anthony Zinni answered war hawks like Bolton calling for military action against Iran:

After you’ve dropped those bombs on those hardened facilities, what happens next? … [E]ventually, if you follow this all the way down, eventually I’m putting boots on the ground somewhere. And like I tell my friends, if you like Iraq and Afghanistan, you’ll love Iran.

A top defense official said an attack probably would “incentivize the Iranians to go all the way to weaponize” their nuclear material and have “a number of destabilizing” consequences for the region. Bolton actually thinks attacking Iran “would lead to greater stability in the region” Have you heard that one before? Iraq?

Three Examples of Hypocrisy – Sen. Christopher S. Bond regularly railed against President Obama’s economic stimulus plan as irresponsible spending that would drive up the national debt. But behind the scenes, the Missouri Republican quietly sought more than $50 million from a federal agency for two projects in his state. But, in a letter to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, Mr. Bond noted that one project applying to the USDA for stimulus money would “create jobs and ultimately spur economic opportunities.”

Rep. Joe Wilson, South Carolina Republican who became famous after yelling, “You lie,” during Mr. Obama’s addresses to Congress in September, voted against the stimulus. Nonetheless, Mr. Wilson elbowed his way into the rush for federal stimulus cash in a letter he sent to Mr. Vilsack on behalf of a foundation seeking funding. “We know their endeavor will provide jobs and investment in one of the poorer sections of the Congressional District,” he wrote to Mr. Vilsack in the Aug. 26, 2009, letter.

On Feb. 13, 2009, Sen. Robert F. Bennett, Utah Republican, issued a statement criticizing the stimulus — but two days earlier, he privately forwarded to Mr. Vilsack a list of projects seeking stimulus money. “I believe the addition of federal funds to these projects would maximize the stimulative effect of these projects on the local economy,” he wrote.

Big Money from Big Media in Comcast-NBC Merger – Comcast and NBC have given a lot of money to members of Congress involved in the hearings trying to sway policy makers to support their proposed merger.

Here’s what The Hill reported:

Comcast and NBC Universal’s parent company have showered campaign contributions on members of two panels holding hearings Thursday on the cable giant’s proposed purchase of the television network. Comcast and General Electric have already spent $474,000 on contributions to members of the panels, about 70 percent of what they spent over the entire political cycle of 2008.

And the Salt Lake Tribune:

General Electric Chairman Jeffery Immelt sent Sen. Orrin Hatch a $2,000 campaign contribution the same day his company announced a deal giving Comcast controlling interest in NBC Universal. It was the first time Immelt has donated to the Utah senator, and yet the contribution capped a fundraising barrage during the previous month where top GE vice presidents and the company’s political action committee funneled a total of $23,000 to Hatch’s campaign account. Hatch is expected to play a key role in the congressional review of the controversial merger.

‘Nuff Said

Regards,

Jim

Scott Brown Says Different Things to Different People – At his first press conference as a U.S. senator, Scott Brown (R, MA) took another chance to side with the most orthodox conservatives, falsely claiming that the Recovery Act has not created “one new job“. However, there have been nearly 600,000 whose jobs were saved or created in the last quarter of 2009 alone. Brown understood this last week, when he asked Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick to increase “the pace of the state’s economic stimulus spending.” This came after reports that the stimulus had added more than 9,000 jobs last quarter (see graph below) to the 23,000 already created or saved in Massachusetts (UPDATE: saved or created 53,000 jobs in Massachusetts).

Writer Pens False Article, Pundits Repeat Her Falsehoods – Terri Cullen, who was recently hired by Reuters from the Wall Street Journal, wrote an article said that President Obama’s budget amounted to a backdoor tax increase for middle-income and even lower-income people, based largely on the scheduled expiration of income tax cuts passed in 2001. But the president had actually proposed keeping those cuts in place for all but high-income families. Reuters pulled the story after conceding it contained “significant errors of fact.” But by then, some prominent conservatives had seized on the article, and a few — notably Rush Limbaugh — insisted that the retraction meant simply that the media were protecting the president. Ms Cullen has now left Reuters.

The Money Shines Bright on Mitch McConnell’s Old Kentucky Home – After the Supreme Court handed down its decision two weeks ago, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the leader of Senate Republicans, praised it from the senate floor. He dismissed the notion that the decision might allow a flood of foreign money to influence our elections. Now we learn that Senator McConnell has received substantial funds from a subsidiary of a big foreign defense contractor that’s currently being investigated by the Justice Department for bribery. Senator McConnell has been quite good to that subsidiary — this year alone he’s requested seventeen million dollars in earmarks for its Louisville facility.

Health Insurance Company Raises Rates While Gathering Record Profits -Anthem Blue Cross in California will raise it’s premiums for health insurance by 39% on March 1, 2010. That’s 15 times faster than inflation.

In a letter faxed to Anthem Blue Cross, US Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius called for the insurer to publicly explain why it raised premiums. The rate hikes were “even more difficult to understand” in the light of soaring profits at Anthem Blue Cross’s parent company, WellPoint Incorporated, Sebelius said.

WellPoint earned 2.7 billion dollars in the last quarter of 2009, she said, calling on the insurance company to “provide a detailed justification” for the increase.

Additionally, WellPoint CEO Angela Braly earns an annual salary of nearly $10 million and held nearly $2 million in stock options at the end of 2008. Additionally, WellPoint spent nearly $9.5 million on lobbying against health reforms in 2009, labor advocate group AFL-CIO noted in a recent release.

A recent Harvard study published by the American Journal of Public Health found that over 45,000 Americans die every year for lack of health insurance — more than the number of Americans killed by kidney disease.

We Want it on TV! You’ll Put it on TV? Nevermind! – Republicans have been complaining that the entire health care debate has not been on TV. President Obama has now invited them to discuss health care in a bipartisan, televised setting later this month. the president said he wants “to look at the Republican ideas that are out there.” The reply? The House and Senate GOP leaders said Obama and his fellow Democrats must first shelve both the House and Senate versions of the health care bills under consideration.

Regards,

Jim

Have You Been Bamboozled by Bamboo Fabrics? – In their haste to capitalize on the recent interest in environmentally-friendly clothing, seventy-eight companies allegedly sold clothing and other textile products that are labeled and advertised as “bamboo,” but actually are made of manufactured rayon fiber. The fake bamboo fabrics are actually made using toxic chemicals in a process that releases pollutants into the air. The companies, including Wal-mart, Target, Amazon.com, The Gap, and Zappos.com, received Federal Trade Commission letters warning that they may be breaking the law.

Bank of America Executives Hid Losses to Further Merger According to Lawsuit – On September 15, 2008 Bank of America announced its plan to by Merrill Lynch and scheduled a shareholder vote to approve the transaction for December 5, 2008. By the time the approval vote was to actually happen Merrill had incurred over $16 billion in actual losses–losses known to top management at Bank of America. Not only did Lewis and others at Bank of America know about these losses, they knew more were on the way.

As directors and officers of Bank of America, Lewis and Price had fiduciary obligations to disclose this information to Bank of America shareholders before they voted on whether or not to approve a merger with Merrill Lynch. But rather than disclose this information, as required by law, they hid the losses so that the shareholders would approve the merger. Which they did.

Once the shareholder vote was secure Lewis ran to the federal government to subsidize the losses. According the the suit, Lewis then misled federal regulators by telling them that Bank of America couldn’t complete the merger without an extraordinary taxpayer bailout to cover the Merrill losses. According to a lawsuit by the State of Nw York, the fraud was not confined just to Bank of America shareholders. Bank management also failed to tell their own lawyers about the full extent of Merrill’s losses before the shareholder vote. In fact, once former counsel Timothy Mayopoulos learned of the losses (after the shareholder vote) he tried to confront Price but was immediately fired.

It’s worth remembering that when then Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and the Bush administration first responded to the near total collapse of the banking system, it was with a two-page bill that would grant nearly unlimited and unchecked power to Treasury to fund institutions as it saw fit. When Congress balked at the suggestion what was born was TARP, the universally derided bank bailout program and the perfect metaphor for the ethos gripping Wall Street that is just now going challenged in these lawsuits. By allowing institutions to reap the benefit of risky decisions while forcing taxpayers to subsidize the losses is it any wonder that Wall Street continues to think its okay to pay large bonuses and refuse to extend credit to small businesses?

General Mills Palm Oil Causes Rainforest Destruction – General Mills uses palm oil from plantations that destroy huge tracts of rainforests in Indonesia, Malaysia and Papua New Guinea. This has put Indigenous and forest-dependent people in jeopardy, as well as endangered species like orangutans, Sumatran tigers and elephants. Look at the photo below.

Send a letter to the CEO of General Mills telling him to commit to sourcing only socially and environmentally responsible palm oil.

Sarah Palin Uses Palm Prompter After Criticizing President for Using Teleprompter – During her speech at the Tea Party Convention Sarah Palin took a shot at President Obama for using a teleprompter to read his prepared speeches. The she had a question and answer session (prepared questions only) where she used notes written on the palm of her hand to answer the canned questions.

Climate-Change Deniers Funded by Exxon-Mobil – Free-market, anti-climate change think-tanks such as the Atlas Economic Research Foundation in the US and the International Policy Network in the UK have received grants totalling hundreds of thousands of pounds from the multinational energy company ExxonMobil. Both organisations have funded international seminars pulling together climate change deniers from across the globe.

A complicated web of relationships revolves around a number of right-wing think-tanks around the world that dispute the threats of climate change. ExxonMobil is a key player behind the scenes, having donated hundreds of thousands of dollars in the past few years to climate change sceptics. The Atlas Foundation, created by the late Sir Anthony Fisher (founder of the Institute of Economic Affairs), received more than $100,000 in 2008 from ExxonMobil, according to the oil company’s reports.

Atlas has supported more than 30 other foreign think-tanks that espouse climate change scepticism, and co-sponsored a meeting of the world’s leading climate sceptics in New York last March. Called “Global Warming: Was It Ever Really a Crisis?”, it was organised by the Heartland Institute – a group that described the event as “the world’s largest-ever gathering of global warming sceptics”. The organisation is another right-wing think-tank to have benefited from funding given by ExxonMobil in recent years.

Regards,

Jim

Invoking ‘Literacy Test,’ Tea Party Opening Speaker Suggests Blacks be Kept From Voting – The opening night speaker at the Tea Party convention suggested a return to a “literacy test” to protect America from presidents like Obama — a segregation-era method employed by southern US states to keep blacks from voting.

In his speech Thursday to attendees, former Republican congressman Tom Tancredo invoked the loaded pre-civil rights era buzzword, saying that President Barack Obama was elected because “we do not have a civics, literacy test before people can vote in this country.”

Southern states used literacy tests as part of an effort to deny suffrage to African American voters prior to Lyndon Johnson-era civil rights laws.

Michele Bachmann Says Obama ‘wants to annihilate us!’ (and other crazy stuff) – Michele Bachmann said in a fundraising letter which was sent out in late December, says, “Obama wants to use ACORN to radicalize America because he isn’t interested merely in defeating conservatives… …HE WANTS TO ANNIHILATE US! That’s the purpose behind ObamaCare, too.”

She also said in the letter, “What is happening in Washington right now is BIGGER than FDR’s New Deal or LBJ’s “Great Society”…and far more dangerous to our freedoms than both combined! Obama’s plans will do nothing less than socialize our economy and turn every citizen into a ward of the state.“

Also, “Obama is advancing a far-left agenda of … empowerment of radical community groups.”

Then she asks the reader to send money to the “ACU STRIKEFORCE.”

(Strikeforce? Sounds like she’s the one into annihilation. – JLV)
(And check out the comments at the bottom of the linked Minnesota newspaper article. Wow! – JLV)

Sen. Richard Shelby Blocks Obama Nominees, Trying to Get Air-Tanker Contract for His State – Saying that the Obama administration must change its approach to an Air Force refueling tanker contract, Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Tuscaloosa, moved Thursday to block Senate approval of at least four White House nominees for top federal jobs Thursday.

A spokeswoman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said via e-mail that Shelby had placed a “blanket hold” on administration nominees, a move that could affect dozens of candidates awaiting confirmation for a variety of posts.

“He is holding up all of the president’s nominations,” the spokeswoman, Regan Lachapelle, said.

Comcast/NBC Wants to be the Next “To Big to Fail” – Comcast CEO Brian Roberts and NBC President Jeff Zucker testified in front of House and Senate subcommittees Thursday as regulators decide whether to allow the proposed merger of the two media giants. Comcast is the largest cable TV and residential high-speed Internet company in the nation. NBC is one of the largest content providers.

The House hearing opened with several politicians waxing poetic about how the merger is great for America. While nobody in the room cracked a smile, their enthusiasm is laughable. The only people who could believe that the largest media merger in a generation is good for the public are either: 1) on the receiving end of the massive campaign contributions from said media companies; 2) bending to the phalanx of industry lobbyists swarming Capitol Hill; or 3) hoodwinked believers in the “all regulation is bad” approach that brought us Enron and the financial meltdown.

Watch Senator Al Franken (who used to work for NBC) tear into the Comcast CEO at the link. It seems that the CEO was less than truthful with Senator Franken and Franken caught him at it.

More Dumb Than Bad: Members of Subversive Groups in South Carolina Must Register – Terrorists who want to overthrow the United States government must now register with South Carolina’s Secretary of State and declare their intentions — or face a $25,000 fine and up to 10 years in prison.

The state’s “Subversive Activities Registration Act,” passed last year and now officially on the books, states that “every member of a subversive organization, or an organization subject to foreign control, every foreign agent and every person who advocates, teaches, advises or practices the duty, necessity or propriety of controlling, conducting, seizing or overthrowing the government of the United States … shall register with the Secretary of State.”

There’s even a $5 filing fee.

By “subversive organization,” the law means “every corporation, society, association, camp, group, bund, political party, assembly, body or organization, composed of two or more persons, which directly or indirectly advocates, advises, teaches or practices the duty, necessity or propriety of controlling, conducting, seizing or overthrowing the government of the United States [or] of this State.”

(While the intention of the law is apparently aimed at terrorists, it’s unclear in the law’s wording whether it can be applied to right-wing militias, or maybe the Tea Party, or people wanting their state to secede from the Union. _ JLV)

Tea Party Convention First-Day Hypocrisy – On the first day of the Tea Party convention, former congressman Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) offered a fiery defense of Judeo-Christian faith, but there was no opening prayer. There was talk about traditional American values, but there was no Pledge of Allegiance to open the convention.
— nor was there an American flag in the convention hall. Oops!

New Senator Opens His Big Mouth Too Soon – When sworn into the U.S. Senate yesterday, Scott Brown said, “”The last stimulus bill didn’t create one new job.”

“It didn’t create one new job?” one reporter at the press conference repeated, incredulous.

“That’s correct. We lost another 85,000 jobs again, give or take, last month (January).”

The very next day, the unemployment figures for January were released, which showed a larger-than-expected decrease in unemployment. Oops!

Iran Seeking Ultimate Weapon of Mass Destruction 😉 – The United Nations Security Council met in an emergency session last night amid reports that Iran may be seeking to acquire a 2008 Toyota Camry. The Security Council’s latest concern was prompted by intelligence reports that Mr. Ahmadinejad himself had been quietly shopping for Toyota parts in recent weeks on the popular online site Craigslist.

Regards,

Jim

Fox Cuts Away in the Middle of Obama Town Hall Live Feed to Air Critic’s Views – For the second time in less than a week, Fox News on Tuesday cut away from a live broadcast of a presidential address to air comments from a critic of President Obama.

Speaking at a town hall meeting in New Hampshire, the president laid out his argument that health care reform would actually save the government money in the long term by reducing health care costs.
“Well there you have it, a rather long answer to a question about health care from a recovering cancer patient,” said Fox News host Megyn Kelley, before introducing Dr. Marc Siegel, a Fox News contributor and critic of the president’s health care reform agenda.

During the wide-ranging debate that even some conservative commentators admitted the president won, Fox cut away mid-broadcast and went to a news-less interview with Rep. Peter King (R-NY).

Rush Limbaugh Says He Loves the Women’s Movement ‘Especially When Walking Behind It’ – Rush Limbaugh, the man credited with popularizing the term “feminazi,” says he’s a fan of the women’s movement — “especially when walking behind it.” Limbaugh made the comment to Fox News’ Gretchen Carlson on Wednesday, when Carlson asked him about his role as a judge in the 2010 Miss America contest, and noted that some critics say Limbaugh hasn’t “been a supporter of women in the past.”

Republican Strategist Gives Marching Orders on How to Kill Financial Regulatory Reform – Republican pollster and strategist Frank Luntz turned many heads this summer when he penned a report detailing how the GOP can sink health care reform. Now, a new document indicates he’s at it again, this time plotting to kill financial regulatory reform.

Like his health care paper, Luntz’ new 17-page memo dated January 2010, titled “The Language of Financial Reform,” — obtained by the Huffington Post’s Sam Stein — focuses on framing the issue in a way that generates distrust among constituents toward President Obama and Democrats’ reform proposals.

(Now you know what’s coming. Remember – They will say anything to gain control, no matter how much it may harm the principles of our nation – JLV).

Bank of America Approved Over $4 Billion in Pay for Investment Bankers and Traders – Bank of America Corp. approved more than $4 billion in 2009 pay for its investment bankers and traders, meaning those workers will collect an average of $300,000 to $500,000 for the year, according to a person familiar with the matter. The payout represents about 19% of the roughly $23 billion in revenue generated by investment-banking and capital-markets activities, this person said. The 2009 average will be close to what the bank paid during its peak compensation year of 2006, this person said. Unlike some rivals, Bank of America doesn’t disclose bonuses for its investment bankers, who typically are among the highest-paid employees at the nation’s largest bank in assets.

$100 Million Bonus Plan at A.I.G. – The American International Group has agreed to cut employee bonuses by $20 million and will distribute about $100 million on Wednesday, according to people with knowledge of the negotiations. But the reductions may not be enough to appease the company’s critics, who do not accept the company’s argument that it has to honor contracts established before its government bailout. A.I.G. first promised the retention bonuses to keep people working at its financial products unit, which traded in the derivatives that imploded in September 2008, leading to the biggest government bailout in history.

The Problems with the Bush Vision for Space – Anyone shocked by the cancellation of the Bush Vision for Space (Constellation Program) did not pay attention to the warnings given in 2006 and 2007:

From a Statement by Joan Johnson-Freese, Chair, National Security Decision Making Department, Naval War College, Newport, RI, Testimony before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, Space, Aeronautics, and Related Sciences Subcommittee, May 7, 2007:

Politically, the 2004 Bush space vision was always a vision bordering on fantasy. Though perhaps well intended, it was effectively doomed from the start. The vision as announced was a very broad-brush outline of intent, describing a return manned mission to the moon, as well as manned missions to Mars and beyond. But the devil is in the details, and those details must be in some way attached to reality. Three major circumstantial realities predetermined the outcome of that new vision. First were the budget issues. The domestic budget has been, and will likely remain, an effective hostage to the war in Iraq, homeland security concerns, and clean-up for Hurricane Katrina – and like events in the future…

Then, and now, I believe the vision did not consider even the basic tenants of successful strategy execution; matching goals, strategy to achieve the goals, and the resources required to carry out the strategy. …

The shortsighted and unrealistic timetables included in the Vision, including acceptance of a gap in U.S. spaceflight capabilities between the retirement of the Shuttle and the new vehicle becoming operational, created the Rubic’s Cube that we are dealing with today.

From a 2007 interview with Carl Wunsch, a professor of physical oceanography at MIT: – In February of 2006, NASA quietly dropped from its mission statement the phrase “to understand and protect our home planet.” In a report from the National Research Council released in January of 2007, a committee appointed by the Council’s Space Studies Board warns that a number of measurements providing critical information about Earth processes will cease to be made over the next few years. By 2010, it says, the number of Earth-observing missions will drop dramatically, and the number of operating sensors and instruments on NASA spacecraft will decrease by 40 percent. “The United States’ extraordinary foundation of global observations is at great risk,” the report’s authors write. …But the change seems to be more than symbolic. These days (2007), it isn’t clear why a good engineer or scientist interested in the Earth would want to work for NASA.

(When you hear conservatives howl about the renewed emphasis on Earth science, remember that science is the friend of real progress and the enemy of the status-quo (conservatism). Conservatives may say we need more scientific knowledge before taking action on climate change or pollution, but they will oppose conducting that very science. – JLV)

‘Climate Gate’ Charges Were False; Scientists Did Not Suppress or Falsify Data – Michael Mann, of Penn State University, featured regularly in the more than 1000 emails that were hacked from the University of East Anglia in the UK last November. His emails and comments have since then featured in countless blogs and news articles. Some have claimed the emails reveal that mainstream climate scientists have massaged data in order to demonstrate that climate change is caused by human activities. The scientists in the emails, including Mann, have also been accused of seeking to prevent the publication of skeptical research in academic journals.

Penn State University opened an enquiry into Mann’s behavior in November, shortly after the emails were leaked into the public domain. After sifting through 1075 emails and focusing on 47 that were deemed relevant to public accusations of misconduct leveraged against Mann, they have, by and large cleared his name.

The internal enquiry has found that Mann did not “participate in, directly or indirectly, any actions with an intent to suppress or to falsify data”. Nor did he “delete, conceal or otherwise destroy emails, information and/or data” relating to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s 2007 report.For the full report, click here (pdf).

Regards,

Jim