Liar McLying Face

Your reminder that the FCC (or rather, the three Republican members of the FCC board) were lying through their teeth when they killed Net Neutrality.



Documenting the laughable lies the FCC told at the hearing where it killed Net Neutrality / Boing Boing

The Snow is Falling

Paul Krugman has been firing on all cylinders recently. Now comes another indictment of the empty meatsack that is Mitt Romney.

What do Mr. Romney’s economic advisers actually believe? As best as I can tell, they’re placing their faith in the confidence fairy, in the belief that their candidate’s victory would inspire an employment boom without the need for any real change in policy. In fact, in his infamous Boca Raton “47 percent” remarks, Mr. Romney himself asserted that he would give a big boost to the economy simply by being elected, “without actually doing anything.” And what about the overwhelming evidence that our weak economy isn’t about confidence, it’s about the hangover from a terrible financial crisis? Never mind.

To summarize, then, the true Romney plan is to create an economic boom through the sheer power of Mr. Romney’s personal awesomeness. But the campaign doesn’t dare say that, for fear that voters would (rightly) consider it ridiculous. So what we’re getting instead is an attempt to brazen it out with nakedly false claims. There’s no jobs plan; just a plan for a snow job on the American people.


Do go forth and read, please. And ponder the immense damage that would be inflicted on this country and its people if this joker was elected President.

Well, Slap Me Happy

Good heavens. Found on the Fox News website, and presented in complete astonishment. Because when Fake Noise is calling your ass out...

On the other hand, to anyone paying the slightest bit of attention to facts, Ryan’s speech was an apparent attempt to set the world record for the greatest number of blatant lies and misrepresentations slipped into a single political speech. On this measure, while it was  Romney who ran the Olympics, Ryan earned the gold.

Fact: While Ryan tried to pin the downgrade of the United States’ credit rating on spending under President Obama, the credit rating was actually downgraded because Republicans threatened not to raise the debt ceiling

Fact: While Ryan blamed President Obama for the shut down of a GM plant in Janesville, Wisconsin, the plant was actually closed under President George W. Bush. Ryan actually asked for federal spending to save the plant, while Romney has criticized the auto industry bailout that President Obama ultimately enacted to prevent other plants from closing.

Fact: Though Ryan insisted that President Obama wants to give all the credit for private sector success to government, that isn't what the president said. Period. 

And then there’s what Ryan didn’t talk about.

Ryan didn’t mention his extremist stance on banning all abortions with no exception for rape or incest, a stance that is out of touch with 75% of American voters

Ryan didn’t mention how his budget would eviscerate programs that help the poor and raise taxes on 95% of Americans in order to cut taxes for millionaires and billionaires even further and increase — yes, increase —the deficit. 

I never ever thought I would say this about Fox News, but do go read the whole thing.

Liar Liar, Teevee On Fire

I agree with this wholeheartedly.

Known Liars Should Be Banned From TV

In this case, the Pinocchio is John Sununu, who insists--major fact-checkers and CNN to the contrary--that President Obama's welfare initiative does indeed cut work requirements. What I can't figure out is why people keep inviting him to soil their screens, other than the usual he said/she said nonsense. Got to get the "other side" to weigh in on the matter, even though the other side is spouting that the moon is made of green cheese.

(Of course, if this was ever implemented, Fox News would cease to exist, and climate-change deniers, Sarah Palin, and Mitt Romney's entire campaign would vanish. Which would be a feature, not a bug.)

Facts are facts, folks, no matter how much Fox News Fake Noise whines about "liberal bias." I also think there should be fact-checking for letters to the editor, and letters that assert things that are not truthful (which happens all the time in my local paper) should not be published. They're just "opinion," you say? Bullcrap. If your opinion isn't based on the facts, it isn't worth diddleysquat.

The Prickly Dish

Man. Andrew Sullivan is in an asshole-ripping mood today.

That last massive lie is at the core of Romney's political strategy. By removing that context (which is like talking about the sinking of the Titanic without mentionng the iceberg), Romney is knowingly arguing that the spending and debt levels of the last three years were some kind of choice by a president who just loves to strangle the US economy by spending much more money than we have. But the only president who made that choice was George W. Bush - by crippling revenues, even as he fought wars with no budgets and new entitlements with no end (Medicare D), rendering us bankrupt even as we desperately needed a rainy day surplus to fight the depression.

Obama did not have a serious choice; he had a fate. That fate was to pick up the pieces of the most catastrophic presidency in modern times. The final bouquet - after emptying the public coffers with no serious boost to employment, profits or growth - was the financial collapse, which both shrunk the economy, decimated revenues to 50 year lows, and automatically increased spending for the unemployed and poor in desperate need of help. Once you account for that - and the Nutting graph indeed shows that this was baked in the cake by the time Obama was elected - Obama has been, like most modern Democrats, far more fiscally conservative than any modern Republican.

The President should put Sully in charge of Internet outreach. 

"Nothing weighs lighter than a promise"

"Some persons make promises for the pleasure of breaking them."  ~William Hazlett

Cthulhu on a cracker. Now the House Republicans want to gum up the works, after John Boehner gave Mitch McConnell the green light to negotiate an agreement on the payroll tax cut with Harry Reid.

Boehner said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” program that the two-month renewal would create added uncertainty for workers, and employers and Congress should delay its holiday break to ensure that a one-year extension was passed.

Well, gee whiz, isn't that what the President demanded in the first place?

By opposing the Senate bill, Boehner is siding with conservative and Tea Party-backed Republicans in the House whom he has had difficulty bringing under control all year, particularly on budget and spending measures.

They defied his leadership in debt-limit negotiations that brought the United States to the brink of default over the summer and cost Washington its prized Triple-A credit rating from Standard & Poor’s.

This just shows what a terrible Speaker of the House John Boehner is. Nancy Pelosi would have these lizards quivering under their rocks by now.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat, noted on Sunday that Boehner had left negotiations on a compromise deal to Reid and his Republican counterpart Senator Mitch McConnell.

Boehner was also known to have been kept informed of the Senate negotiations that produced a deal on Friday night.

And now he's reneging. This isn't surprising, and certainly not out of the ordinary for Republicans. That doesn't make it any less reprehensible.

Moral of this story: If you want better legislation, don't yell at President Obama. Get off your ass and work to elect a better Congress.

Start with getting rid of all these Tea Party non-Patriots.

The Wolf in Newt's Clothing

"The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words.”    ~Philip K. Dick

This is a great article from Crooks and Liars, spotlighting Newt Gingrich's essential nastiness.

Newt Gingrich: 'Child Labor Laws Are Stupid'

I mean, really. Didn't we have enough of this sociopath in the 90's?

It's rather fascinating watching the Republicans dither and flail, frantically searching for somebody, anybody, who's Not Mitt. Of course, what they really want is the Zombie Resurrection of Saint Ronnie (with More Tea Party Braaaaaaiiiiinnns!), but unfortunately that's not going to happen. Still, that must make Mitt Romney's shriveled heart shrink just a little more, knowing how much his party is behind him.

This is the sort of thing that might come back to bite the GOP in the ass (assuming Romney gets the nomination).

I tell ya, it's the Greatest Reality Show on Earth.

"Instant Karma's gonna get you"

"Karma isn't fate. Nor is it a punishment imposed on us by some external agent. We create our own karma. Karma is the result of the choices that we make every moment of every day."  ~Tulku Thondup

Looks like Newtie's chickens are coming home to roost.

What Freddie Mac Was Paying For

Karma is a bitch, isn't it?

(By the way, if you haven't bookmarked The Politics Blog With Charles B. Pierce, you need to do so immediately.)

“While photographs may not lie, liars may photograph.”

A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to put its pants on. ~Winston Churchill

Via Daily Kos: the supposed "Weinergate" penis shots

My reaction: THIS was what all the fuss was about? Honestly, I've seen better erections in children's books.

Not to mention that if this wasn't created out of whole Photoshop cloth, I feel sorry for the erectee--he's suffering from some pretty severe Peyronie's disease. (Warning: link NOT safe for work. I happen to like this medical stuff, but your mileage may vary.)

Talk about making a mountain out of a molehill. But twisting facts--or plain making stuff up--is Andrew Breitbart's stock in trade, isn't it?