Video- New 'Meet The Press' set

Gregory seems a might proud.

Former Half-Governor Sarah Palin's current half-truths

By GottaLaff

Once again, Halfy McNotVP is mangling the truth to make Elected by a Wide Margin President Obama look like a weak, America-hating doody head (that's a political term I picked up on the street).

It's also rather contradictory to suggest Obama is reluctant to accept superpower status when one remembers how Halfy's crowd revels in accusations that he is an evil dictator who wants to control us, our pets, and the entire world:

Her ghost writers said the following in a Facebook post:

Asked this week about his faltering efforts to advance the Middle East peace process, President Obama did something remarkable. In front of some 47 foreign leaders and hundreds of reporters from all over the world, President Obama said that “whether we like it or not, we remain a dominant military superpower.”

Whether we like it or not? Most Americans do like it.

Here’s what the President actually said:

But what we can make sure of is, is that we are constantly present, constantly engaged, and setting out very clearly to both sides our belief that not only is it in the interests of each party to resolve these conflicts but it’s also in the interest of the United States. It is a vital national security interest of the United States to reduce these conflicts because whether we like it or not, we remain a dominant military superpower, and when conflicts break out, one way or another we get pulled into them. And that ends up costing us significantly in terms of both blood and treasure.

The corporate media has already picked up her side of the story, which means the punditiots will be pushing this misleading meme instead of, you know, the truth.

Which is exactly how Halfy takes control of the message and stirs up her wacky groupies.

"This Week on ABC" to be fact-checked

By GottaLaff

From the Department of It's About Time:

This week we’ve invited Pulitzer Prize winning website PolitiFact to fact-check the newsmaker interviews featured on the program.

The idea was first proposed by NYU journalism professor Jay Rosen and I thought it worth a try. PolitiFact editor Bill Adair, the St Petersburg Times’ Washington bureau chief, and I know each other from fact-checking forums and such (I was at the Fact Check desk during the 2004 elections) so I asked him if he’d be willing to give it a try. He was.

This is something many of us have been begging for for years now. You'd think "news" programs would have fact checked on their own and not have to be convinced to do so by NYU journalism professor Jay Rosen... back in 2009.

You'd also think that news oriented programs would do their level best to get the facts right in the first place. Instead, they go out of their way to prove how fair they can be by inviting opposing sides with opposing voices to over talk each other to prove their opposing points.

Facts have very little to do with it. Ratings do. Working their audiences into a lather does, because that generates higher ratings. And generating higher ratings leads to generating more money.

However, it does very little to educate viewers. And as I keep saying, an uninformed electorate means the end of a real democracy. Voters cast ballots for candidates who have more money, bigger megaphones, and effective messaging.

Please note that I did not say accurate messaging, but effective.

If viewers were knowledgeable and could spot misinformation more readily, they would be less likely to support those who disseminate it. And they would be much less likely to watch so-called "news" shows that push it.

So, kudos to This Week, but come on, it shouldn't have taken this long to do something as fundamental as busting the liars. And the idea that they have to boast about it suggests that, until now, many haven't been exactly reliable, trustworthy sources of information.

Video- MSNBC Fact Checks Health Care Summit Claims

Video- Fact Checking the Sunday Shows - January 31, 2010

Won't they go to hell for lying on a Sunday? Via Media Matters.

Fact checking the fact checkers

By GottaLaff

My pal Celtic Diva has kindly given me permission to cross post her blog entries when I see something that bears repeating.

This sure does (Please go to her place to read the whole thing.):

Politifact boasts a 2009 Pulitzer Prize win and they felt the need to take up President Obama's offer of "neutral fact-checking" of the issues discussed at today's retreat. Perhaps they are having an off day but it sure didn't take me very long to find some glaring errors in one of the claims made by Representative Price...fact-checking the fact-checking, if you will.

Here's the email I sent them asking them to correct their errors:

To whom it may concern at Politifact.com:

Rep. Tom Price, Georgia (R) accused the Obama Administration of repeatedly stating that the GOP offers "no ideas." Your article claims that is true, when several parts of your "fact-checking" are glaringly inaccurate.

-- Your article uses as one piece of evidence a speech the President gave at a labor picnic in Cincinnati, September 7, 2009. According to you:

At a picnic with labor officials in Cincinnati, Ohio, on Sept. 7, 2009, Obama complained that the critics of health care reform -- he didn't identify them as Republicans, but it was clear he was referring to them -- were not offering their own solutions. He said, "I've got a question for all those folks: What are you going to do? What's your answer? What's your solution? And you know what? They don't have one. Their answer is to do nothing. Their answer is to do nothing."

However, the actual transcript of the speech tells a different story--he was very specific as who he was addressing--the special interests who benefit if there is no health care reform:

And because we're so close to real reform, the special interests are doing what they always do-trying to scare the American people and preserve the status quo.

But I've got a question for them: What's your answer? What's your solution? The truth is, they don't have one.

It's do nothing.

When the insurance companies and others have expensive ad campaigns out slamming the health care legislation without offering solutions, I find the assuption he's addressing the Republicans to be rather dubious.

--Again, Mr. Price claimed the Obama Administration accused the GOP of offering "no ideas." However, according to your own article, the phrase on a White House blog post and repeated by Rahm Emmanuel and Robert Gibbs was "no new ideas."

President Obama was very clear that GOP ideas provided in committee were already incorporated into the health care legislation and some were rejected. Resubmitting those same rejected ideas would make that an accurate statement.

It is NOT the same as saying they have "no ideas."

Quite frankly, I'm surprised by your sloppy fact-checking. I would respectfully request that you correct your "Truth-O-Meter" so that it is actually more truthful.

You can email Politifact.com at truthometer@politifact.com if you wish to encourage them to correct their website.

You can view the entire video of President Obama at the Baltimore retreat here.

VIDEO: Fox News Fact-Checks Sarah Palin

By GottaLaff

You know it's bad when even ClusterFox points out Palin's lies:



The Fox checking the hen house.

White House launches "Reality Check"

Spread it around.

The White House has released a new website, the "Reform Reality Check," the latest "fact-check" sites, aimed at debunking some of the more egregious characterizations of the still-amorphous health care reform effort. It is a signal that the Obama Administration is settling in for a long slog against its conservative critics, a fight not just for the opinions of the great American mass, but for the actual facts about what health care reform will and will not do.

DCCC Site: Health Care Fact Check

By GottaLaff

Here is one more source for you to use to debunk the Rushpublicrazies' crazy:

(click on image to enlarge)

Commenter: "The act of homosexuality is unnatural"

By GottaLaff

From my post Liveblog: Obama speaks at LGBT Pride event at White House... I ran across this comment that just came in.

Please feel free to enlighten this Commenter (who unsurprisingly called him/herself "Anonymous"), since they made the request:

GottaLaff, please, by all means enlighten us on the "fact" that we all need to accept? I know plenty of Gays and some are very pleasant and others are mean spirited and militant about their cause. What does that prove? Nothing. Here's a fact for you. The act of homosexuality is unnatural, science proves that. Here's another one for you, less than 2% of the population is gay, however gays account for 1/3 of all child molestation cases. Please refute my views with fact and not the normal gay rhetoric. Thanks.

How very disheartening that there are people like this who are not only uneducated on the subject, and misguided, but don't source any of their own "facts", yet demand that I refute them with real ones.

I'd be happy to do the research and provide links, and will at some point, but I am otherwise occupied at the moment. Care to assist me until my load lightens a little? When there's a cry for help, as there is here, I like to do what I can to accomodate.

Weekly Fact Check Update

Since I forgot to put this up yesterday and I'm dying trying to find stuff to post, you get this a wee bit late. Here's what lies are bouncing around the intertubes.

Q: Is ACORN providing workers for the 2010 census?
A: No. ACORN employees will not be taking the census. The group is one of more than 30,000 "partners" that will help publicize the event.

Q: Is Obama planning to increase the federal tax on gun ammunition by 500 percent?
A: No such proposal has been made by the Obama administration. And nobody in Congress has introduced any bill to increase the 11 percent federal excise tax on ammo.

Q: Is it true that Al Gore's mansion uses significantly more energy than the typical home?
A: The main claim in a chain e-mail was true when the original message began making the rounds in 2007. Since then, the Gores have made several changes to their home.

Fact Check Weekly

Your info dose of what crazy lies are flying around the intertubes.

Q: Did Obama issue a policy that "no U.S. serviceman can speak at any faith-based public event"?
A: This claim in a chain e-mail is false. Army officials say there has been no change in policy regarding "faith-based" events. And the event the e-mail refers to wasn't a "faith-based" one.

Q: Would Senate bill 2099 put a yearly $50 tax on each privately owned firearm?
A: There is no such bill. A chain e-mail containing bogus claims refers to a bill that died more than eight years ago.

Weekly Ask Fact Check

A sampling of what's floating around in the intertubes from Fact Check.

Q: Did the Obama administration shut down a Georgia ammunition supplier? Is it trying to create an ammo shortage?
A: Georgia Arms still is doing booming business in reloaded military cartridges. The Pentagon quickly reversed a move to stop selling spent casings.

Q: Has Sotomayor written that states have the power to ban handguns?
A: A three judge panel that included Sotomayor issued an unsigned decision saying that the Second Amendment does not apply to states, therefore states can regulate and ban weapons.

Q: Would Sonia Sotomayor really be the first Hispanic on the Supreme Court?
A: Depending on your point of view, the late Benjamin Cardozo might be considered "Hispanic."

Weekly Fact Check

Always good to know what kind of b.s. is flying around in the intertubes.

Q:What percentage of Sonia Sotomayor's opinions have been overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court?
A:Three of her opinions have been overturned, which is 1.3 percent of all that she has written and 60 percent of those reviewed by the Supreme Court.

Q:Did the Obama administration burn soldiers' Bibles?

A: The military destroyed Bibles printed in Afghan languages to prevent distribution to local Muslims. But it happened during the Bush administration.

Q: Did the government issue new dollar coins without the words "In God We Trust"?
A: Congress ordered the words to be stamped on the edges of the coins, but an unknown number of "Godless dollars" were produced by mistake.

Fact Check Weekly

Just a taste of teh stupid that is going around the intertubes from our friends at Fact Check.

Q: Is Oklahoma as defiantly conservative as a chain e-mail says? A: The state is one of the most Republican in the nation, but the message exaggerates Oklahoma's laws on religion, immigration and guns.

Q: Is the Army demanding information about soldiers' privately owned firearms?
A: This is another false Internet rumor. A memo from one commander of a small unit in Kentucky was an isolated mistake that was quickly corrected; it wasn't Army policy.

Q: Did Michelle Obama make $317,000 a year while working part-time at the University of Chicago Medical Center?
A: This allegation in a chain e-mail is wrong: Obama's reported income was $103,633 in 2007, the year she reduced her work schedule to part time.

New feature- Fact Check Weekly

I keep on wanting to do this, but forget, so today I'll really do it. I get an email from Fact Check every week with questions that have been posed to them for debunking or correcting. I find them reflective of the stupid crap that floats around the intertubes.

Q: Would the "hate crimes" bill make it a crime to denounce homosexuality from the pulpit and give legal protection to pedophiles?
A: No on both counts. The First Amendment is still operative, and pedophiles would get no breaks under this bill.

Q: Did Obama accuse veterans of "selfishness" and whining? Would he have forced them to "pay for their war injuries"?
A: This chain e-mail contains fabricated quotes and misrepresents a budget idea that the White House scrapped.

Q: Did gun control in Australia lead to more murders there last year?
A: This 'Gun History Lesson' is recycled bunk from a decade ago. Murders in Australia actually are down to record lows.

Funny thing is that you can hear all of this repeated as truth on Fox News any day of the week.

Obama not qualified to be president. IWRC* Palin says so.

By GottaLaff

Pot. Kettle. Black. Oy.

Sarah Palin said Friday several of Barack Obama's comments about the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have been "reckless" and disqualify the Illinois senator for consideration as the next commander-in-chief. [...]

"Some of his comments that he has made about the war…I think, in my world, disqualifies someone from consideration as the next commander-in-chief," Palin told Fox News Friday. "Some of the comments he's made about Afghanistan, what we are doing there, supposedly just air-raiding villages and killing civilians — that's reckless."

"In my world". "In my world"? IWRC World, or should I say "IRWC planet", is the only place in the universe in which that would even begin to make sense. This is one of a multitude of reasons this Winky Twinkie Downhome Hockey Mommin' Folksy-Talkin' TrooperGatin' note-reader shouldn't be anywhere near the White House.

Palin was referring to an answer Barack Obama gave at a August 2007 town hall meeting with New Hampshire voters, during which the Illinois senator was asked whether he had plans to shift U.S. troops out of Iraq to other terrorist hotspots like Afghanistan.

"We've got to get the job done there and that requires us to have enough troops so that we're not just air-raiding villages and killing civilians, which is causing enormous pressure over there," Obama said of the U.S.'s mission in Afghanistan.

Those comments were immediately seized by GOP critics. The Republican National Committee sent out a press release shortly after calling them "offensive," and demanding he apologize. The McCain campaign has also highlighted the comments several times this campaign season. An AP Fact Check later reported Western forces had been killing civilians at a higher rate than insurgents.

So Gramm-pa McCain and his granddaughter IWRC were wrong. Again. Surprise!

*"In What Respect, Charlie?"

Hitting back hard: Obama's straight-talk memo to the press corps

By GottaLaff

If McCain can pilfer "change" from Obama, then he can swipe "straight talk" from McCain. Here's a sample of the OBAMA CAMPAIGN MEMO: Unraveling the myth of the Straight Talk Express that he sent out to the press corp:

While the media is slowly starting to call the McCain campaign on their dishonest tactics, McCain’s staff boasts that they don’t care. As a McCain spokesman told the Politico [you can read it here], “We’re running a campaign to win. And we’re not too concerned about what the media filter tries to say about it.”

He then goes on at great length to expose Palin/McCain for who they are, correcting their despicable myths with fact. Please go take a look.

H/t: Sean

Palin's Big Interview: The reviews are in

By GottaLaff

I'm having a lot of trouble figuring out if Lynn Sweet saw the same interview I saw:

Sarah Palin showed herself as steely and supremely confident--even when she stumbled over a question about the Bush Doctrine --and brushed off whether it mattered that she had never met a foreign head of state in her much anticipated first network interview as John McCain's running mate.

I'm sorry, what? IMHO, she came off as studied, yet unprepared, and played the role of "confident" without convincing me she actually was. When she stumbled over that question, she looked like a deer caught in the headlights, and very un-ready to be a heartbeat away from the Big Red Button.

Sweet gave her points for being able to pronounce "Saakashvili". So that's what it takes to be v.p.! Please ... Get real.

Here's more:

Gibson tested her when he asked about the "Bush Doctrine" (regarding pre-emptive strikes to protect U.S. interests) waiting to see if she knew about the doctrine that paved the war for the Iraq war. Gibson asked her if she agreed with the Bush Doctrine.

She tried to wing it---using the technique of asking "in what respect?" to get some clues about its essential elements--but Gibson made her squirm some until he gave up some details. [...]

A low point: trying to pass off she was some Russian expert because Alaska is near Russia's edge. "They're our next door neighbors and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska, from an island in Alaska."

Time for a quick fact check:

Sarah Palin attempted to deflect a question about the fact she has never met head of state by saying that "many" other vice presidential nominees in history hadn't met a head of state either.

However Palin was mistaken.

Every vice presidential nominee over the last 30 years had met a foreign head of state before being elected vice president.

"Have you ever met a foreign head of state?" Gibson asked Palin Thursday.

"I have not," Palin said, "and I think if you go back in history and if you ask that question of many vice presidents, they may have the same answer that I just gave you."

However Palin, who obtained her first passport two years ago, would in fact be the first vice president in 32 years who hadn't met a foreign head of state.

But never mind. She's pretty and wears the kewlest eyeglasses and she likes mooseburgers and never blinks. That's all you really need to worry about when you vote for the person who could potentially control a nuclear arsenal (and yes, she pronounces it "nuc-u-lar") and otherwise profoundly affect our lives.

It's Bush all over again. The country cannot be this easily fooled again, can it?