The Real Voter Fraud

The G.O.P. has had its panties in a bunch for so long now because A.C.O.R.N. had someone turn in a voter registration application with the name Mickey Mouse. I wonder how much of a stink Fox News will raise over real voter fraud?

Interesting that the G.O.P. of Pennsylvania are really the ones ripping off the taxpayers. Not really interesting. More typical, really. G.O.P. voter fraud is rampant across the country.

The Times Leader reports.

State Rep. John M. Perzel, R-Philadelphia

A former House speaker, an ex-lawmaker and eight aides Thursday became the latest — and the first Republicans — to be charged in a three-year-old investigation into the diversion of public resources and employees to legislative campaigns.

Attorney General Tom Corbett said that individuals within the House GOP caucus spent millions of taxpayer dollars on computer technology to gain an upper hand in campaigns, and that investigators can prove that some high-ranking officials and their employees tried to cover up their part.

The charges of theft, conspiracy, conflict of interest and obstruction of justice, and an accompanying 188-page grand jury report, were released Thursday, and the defendants were scheduled to turn themselves in today at a Dauphin County district judge’s office.

By the way, PA’s Attorney General Tom Corbett is a Republican.

A More Honest Fox Slogan

Thanks to the Daily Show

Little Chickenhawk Runs Away

Tom Tancredo can’t stand up to Markos Moulitsas and storms off set. Poor little guy.

more about "Little Chickenhawk Runs Away", posted with vodpod

10 Out of 10 Reputable Economists Agree

Just further evidence that if the teabaggers around our country screaming and hollering about out of control spending really cared about deficits they would be FOR passing health care reform.

In an open letter, some of the nations top economists write:

Successful health care reform is vital to the nation’s fiscal and economic future. The legislation the House will vote on in the coming days will guarantee security of coverage, limit the costs of care, create incentives for improved quality of care, and set us on the path towards sustainable economic growth. In short, the House health reform legislation takes the steps necessary to promote our economic health.

Specifically, the bill:

* Reduces the deficit by over $100 billion in the first 10 years, and continues to reduce the deficit in subsequent years, as judged by the Congressional Budget Office.
* Takes initial steps to “bend the cost curve,” and thus might lead to even larger cost savings than official estimates suggest.
* Covers nearly all American citizens and legal residents.

We urge House passage of the legislation, which provides a historic opportunity to realize the long-delayed goal of significant health care reform.

Signed,

Dr. Henry J. Aaron, The Brookings Institution
Dr. Mike Chernew, Harvard University Medical School
Dr. David Cutler, Harvard University
Dr. Judy Feder, Georgetown University, Center for American Progress Action Fund
Dr. Dana Goldman, University of Southern California
Dr. Jonathan Gruber, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Dr. Len Nichols, The New America Foundation
Dr. Alice Rivlin, The Brookings Institution
Dr. Meredith Rosenthal, Harvard University School of Public Health
Dr. Jonathan Skinner, Dartmouth College
Dr. Katherine Swartz, Harvard University School of Public Health

The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office has already reported that the Democratic plan would reduce the Federal Deficit while the recently released G.O.P. plan would actually add to it.

Any conservatives or teabaggers who say that current Democratic proposals for health care reform would add to the deficit are either liars, misinformed or tragically confused.

The 11/3 Project

Jon Stewart does a tone-perfect Glenn Beck send up. Since Glenn Beck’s existence serves no other useful purpose in this world, he might as well be good for comedy.What makes this segment so brilliant is how little the satire varies from its target. The “logic” of Stewart’s monologues and the fragility of the connections he makes are no more ridiculous than Beck’s and rely on the same false positives and flimsy associations as Beck’s own. A very enjoyable spoof of Beck’s inanity and insanity.

more about "The 11/3 Project", posted with vodpod

It’s Almost Cute

This just makes me chuckle.

On top of displaying a lack of understanding of civics, taxes or even manners, tuns out Conservatives can’t count either.

How many were there again?

From Thinkprogress.org:

After the 9/12 march on Washington, conservatives falsely claimed that over a million people attended, when in reality the closest thing to an official count — numbers given by the Washington DC Fire Department to ABCNews.com — placed the crowd at “approximately 60,000 to 70,000 people.” Though today’s anti-health care reform rally has been much more sparsely attended, that hasn’t stopped conservatives from inflating the numbers again. On G. Gordon Liddy’s radio show today, producer Franklin Raff, who was on the ground at the rally, told guest host Joseph Farah that the crowd is “just as big or bigger than” the 9/12 rally, which Raff estimated “at about a million.”

Capitol Hill police told NBC’s Luke Russert that the crowd was about 4,000.

Rep. Akin Gets His Moment in the Sun

In one of those rare moments of seemingly divine providence which almost seem like a bit of justice in response to an outlandish statement, Rep. Todd Akin messes up the Pledge of Allegiance after making the absurd claim that doing so “drives liberals crazy.”

Rep. Akins led the Pledge during terrorist Representative Michelle “wait til you see how crazy I am tomorrow” Bachmann’s “scare your congressperson into voting against you” march on Capitol Hill this Thursday.

more about "Rep. Akin Gets His Moment in the Sun", posted with vodpod

At the march, thousands of confused Americans showed up to fight against their own best interests at the behest of a few congresspeople doing their best to keep Insurance lobbyists happy.

Is the Huffington Post the New Drudge Report?

Today the Huffington Post ran the headline “Chris Dodd’s New Legislation Would Strip Power From Fed, FDIC” with the accompanying quote taken from the article:

Huffington Post's Editorial Team misleads its audience

wsj.com:

WASHINGTON — A key Senate lawmaker is readying legislation that would dramatically redraw how the financial system is regulated, setting the chamber on a collision course with both the House of Representatives and the Obama administration, which have championed markedly different approaches.

The bill, which is being readied by Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd (D., Conn.), would strip almost all bank-supervision powers from the Federal Reserve and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., according to people familiar with the matter.

When one follows the link and reads the actual Wall Street Journal article, one becomes privy to an entirely different story. Rather than stripping regulatory oversight from the Government, the Senate Banking Committee’s bill would assign strong oversight powers to a new body.

The bill, which is being readied by Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd (D., Conn.), would strip almost all bank-supervision powers from the Federal Reserve and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., according to people familiar with the matter. In their place, the bill would create a new agency in charge of supervising all banks and bank-holding companies, even the country’s largest and most complex institutions.

Mr. Dodd’s proposal also would create a powerful council of regulators, overseen by an independent White House appointee, charged with monitoring risks to the financial system.

Notice at what point the Huffington Post editorial team chooses to cut off its quote. Not at the end of a paragraph but instead at a point that paints Senator Dodd in an unfair light to its liberal audience, and audience that largely favors strong regulations.

While it isn’t clear what agenda the Huffington Post is pushing, the Huffington Post is run by media-savvy people who know that many people don’t read whole articles and only have time for headlines. Additionally, the fact that the Huffington Post chooses to quote a particularly misleading section of the article indicates a desire to drive the narrative on their part.

You just can’t get good honest news anymore.

Bob Cesca Nails Obama

Bob Cesca is one of the best political writers around, and I have yet to see him get one wrong.

As the far left and the far right increasingly pin their own pre-conceived worldviews, desires and even paranoia on our President, Bob Cesca does a good job at dissecting the truth of the change that we have seen in the year since we elected Barack Obama.

Bob Cesca: Hope, Change and The Long Road: One Year Later

Some choice bits…

Concerning the lunacy coming out of the Right Wing:

Of course the wingnut right — the Beck-Limbaugh-Palin Industrial Complex — has a significant head start. Plus, they’re immovable. Nothing this president does, short of resignation, will ever be greeted positively and everything will be pegged as a Nazi-Communist-Nixon-Carter-Terrorist usurping of American exceptionalism. However, on the left, there’s a growing discontentment that’s rapidly metastasizing into a similarly virulent and unchangeable anger. It not only threatens to fracture the president’s progressive base, but it could also force the president to retreat to the middle.

Concerning that change:

I’m not going to do the whole list, [of accomplishments thus far] but the tent pole items include setting a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq, opening up federal funds for embryonic stem cell research, equal pay for women, ending torture, passing a major economic stimulus bill, which has helped to boost economic growth and yank the Dow back from the cliffs of insanity, and it looks like we’re going to have a fairly solid health care reform bill with a public insurance option sometime this year (unless Harry Reid fumbles it). Last week alone, the president signed historic new hate crimes legislation protecting the LGBT community, killed the useless F-22 program, ended funding for ineffectual abstinence-only education, and was able to ballyhoo the first quarter of economic growth since 2007. Plus, per the president’s orders, the Senate finally voted to allow the Guantanamo inmates to be moved onto U.S. soil for imprisonment and trial.

What the FOX?

DailyKos picks up on a Media Matters article and makes a good point regarding some astounding Fox News spin.

Fox Puts Their Spin On Things

By BarbinMD:

Really? Yesterday in Virginia and New Jersey, voters overwhelmingly said that their vote had nothing to do with the President or his policies, while at the same time Nancy Pelosi picked up two more House votes for health care reform. Yet according to Fixed News, Democrats winning the only two congressional races on the ballot yesterday is good news for Republicans and should send a message to Democrats.

Sounds suspiciously like GOP spin, doesn’t it?