Bikini Graph, the sequel

By GottaLaff

I adore visuals. They're so easy to understand, even for the GOP:


The Bikini Graph is one of my favorites (and Rachel Maddow's).

Think Progress points out that today's numbers refute GOP talking points claiming that the stimulus created government jobs, but the private sector? Not so much. Well, GOP, about that? Not so much:

[T]he GOP should be pleased to note that, of the 290,000 jobs created in April, 231,000 of them were in the private sector. The private sector has actually added 523,000 new jobs in 2010.

This includes 44,000 manufacturing jobs, which is the most manufacturing jobs added to the U.S. economy since August, 1998. Overall, April was the strongest month for jobs growth since March, 2006. For the sake of comparison, here’s the change in monthly job loss or gain since December, 2007.

Sorry to burst your bubble.

Psst! GOP... The stimulus is working. It takes time, just as it took years to screw up the economy, it will take years to turn it around. Just as it will take decades to deal with the Gulf oil volcano. Just as it will take years to improve what's left of our health care system.

And guess what? It all moves along faster when you don't obstruct at every turn. Just an observation.

Networks dump Palin for Obama, plus Bonus Rightie Talking Points!

By GottaLaff

Time posted the following one-liner:

All three nets dump SRLC feed for Rose Garden remarks.

Yappy McEarSplit got three thumbs down from the Tee Vee Machine giants. How's that gratey-flakey thing goin' for ya?

And Greg Sargent saved us from linking to Drudge (which wouldn't have happened anyway) by providing a screen shot of "the state of the American right":

(click on image to enlarge)

1. Yappy is on that l'il list-o'-sleazebaggy quotes.

2. Yappy got crushed by the Tee Vee Networks.

Conclusion: Spreading nasty lies may not be the best way to go. Learning from mistakes can be fun.

Mid Day Distraction

Via Jed.

MythInformation: "Deem and Pass" Is NOT "Without A Vote"

By GottaLaff

Bill Scher clarifies something about the health care reform process that the corporate media won't. It's all that pesky"self-executing rule" or "deem and pass," that we've been hearing about.

Yes, the Big Ol' Right Wing Talking Point media outlets claim that it will be passing the Senate health care vote "without a vote."

Wrong:

MSNBC's First Read succinctly explains the process, in case any other professional journalists care to do their jobs.

...the health-care bill would be voted on INDIRECTLY, tucked into what's known as "the rule." The rule essentially outlines the rules for an upcoming vote -- in this case, it would be the vote on the package of reconciliation fixes.

By passing "the rule," the House also would "deem" the Senate bill passed (with a "hereby" statement. "We hereby deem..."). The House would then vote on the package of reconciliation fixes. But the Senate health-care bill would be considered passed even if they never vote on the reconciliation fixes [and] the bill must be signed by the president before the Senate takes up the reconciliation.

So there is a vote by the full House on whether it chooses to pass the Senate health care bill.

If any members of the House do not want to deem the Senate bill passed, they can vote no on the rule which would deem it passed.

Any members of the House who vote "Yes," would do so by recorded vote, so their constituents will be able to judge their actions.

Kinda sounds like democracy.

All that is accomplished here is the consolidation of a step.

Bill has much more, but that's the gist.

We're being fed misinformation and lies by the media again. And again.

This has to stop. How can democracy survive when an unsuspecting and/or low information electorate is not being given facts and context? Instead, we're shown car chases and Tiger Woods surrogates (coughAriFleischercough) after having faulty headlines jammed down our throats.

That's not educating viewers. That's not news. That's infotainment, a few sound bites, and an outhouse full of punditiocracy.

VIDEO- Axelrod: When You Go Into The Details, People Support The Healthcare Bill

By GottaLaff

Earlier today, I made the following point:

When voters are polled about what is actually in the bill, they overwhelmingly approve. When they are polled after being bombarded by smears and lies, they raise their eyebrows a little.

They should be raising their eyebrows at the party who is misleading them, not the effort to improve their health and save their lives.

Now Crooks and Liars has a clip from David Axelrod that drives it home... to Jake Tapper, who can't seem to extricate himself from right wing talking points:

TAPPER: But according to polls, the American people do not agree with what you think--

AXELROD: The polls are split, Jake. I mean, one of the interesting things that has happened in the last four or five weeks is that if you look at -- if you average together the public polls, what you find is that the American people are split on the top line, do you support the plan? But again, when you go underneath, they support the elements of the plan. When you ask them, does the health care system need reform, three quarters of them say yes. When you ask them, do you want Congress to move forward and deal with this issue, three quarters of them say yes. So we're not going to walk away from this issue.

Ding! Right answer.

Be afraid... It's a FreedomWorks SURGE!

By GottaLaff

Will the "surge" work? None of the others did:

(click on image to enlarge)

There message is "simple", because, well, so are they:

We will be storming the three House Office Buildings: Cannon, Longworth and Rayburn. Our message is simple: VOTE NO on Obamacare 2.0. [...]

... pick up an area map, office locations, talking points and lobbying tips [...]

Buses can drop off passengers...

How adorable... they're training their TeaPeas to be lobbyists. That's about as folksy as you can get.

Don'tcha just love how grassrootsy that gigantic hugely enormous, wealthy, powerful, Dickle Me Armey-run FreedomWorks is?

The Tea Tantrumers must have oodles of gratitude for those grassy-rooty buses, huh?

What would they ever do without their rich ol' corporate lobbyist sugar daddies....

VIDEO- Chuck Todd, Savannah Guthrie pile on Robert Gibbs re: terrorism

By GottaLaff

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

I see Savannah and Chuck got hold of a few GOP talking points. As Gibbs said, Savannah "greatly oversimplifies the process."

And she did, again and again.

How many times does this administration have to repeat the same information? The Underpants Bomber case was handled well and the outcome to date has been successful. He's spilled his guts and no torture was necessary.

Add to that the fact that our court system works well, and no terrorists have broken out of prison, nor has any city had problems when their U.S. federal courts were used to try them.

This looked like Chuck and Savannah piling on to create a stir with the intention to perpetuate a "controversy" and gin up their ratings.

VIDEO: Undermining Republicans on terrorists and Miranda rights

By GottaLaff

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

D'oh! Now what will the Rushpublic do? They really need to read their TelePalmer notes more carefully:

White House counterterrorism chief John Brennan revealed Sunday that he briefed four Republican congressional leaders on Christmas night about the arrest and subsequent handling of the suspect in an attempted sky bombing. "None of those individuals raised any concerns with me at that point," Brennan said on NBC's "Meet the Press." The revelation could undermine Republican complaints about the reading of Miranda rights to the Nigerian suspect.

For more information...http://www.politico.com

Right Wing Meme Alert

Rep. Frank Wolf claims trying terror suspects in civilian courts would be treating them better than our military.

Grassley was just on MSNBC saying the exact same thing. Must have been in the talking points memo this morning.

Video- Fox & Friends spends segment reading off GOP press release to blast Obama

Looks like they at least took Stenography in college. The memo they're reading off of is here. Via Media Matters.

Video- Fox & Friends promotes "tremendous" iPhone "conservative talking points" app that "fight[s] back against liberal lies"

They must be getting some sort of royalties from this thing because I've caught them pimping it quite a few times in the past couple of weeks. Oh, and it's lame as hell.

VIDEOS: Ben Nelson Open To "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques", Filibustering Supreme Court Nominee

By GottaLaff

Two major WTF Moments:




First, this:

Nelson declared that trials of Guantanamo detainees should not take place in the United States and detainees should not be imprisoned here. He distinguished between terrorists like the Blind Sheikh — who “committed violations of American law” — and those at Guantanamo to say the latter should be kept out of the U.S. [...]

Nelson also seemed to suggest that torture — or “enhanced techniques,” as he called it — could be used in the future:

NELSON: What we need to do is make sure that the intelligence information that’s gathered is accurate, that we do everything within our power to get good intelligence, and it may or may not consist of coming from enhanced techniques.

Is he serious? Why even bother being a Democrat? Did he not hear the words of those who actually did the interrogating (Ali Soufan comes to mind)... the very same people who said it didn't work, and that the prisoners were more cooperative when the questioners treated them as, you know, human beings?

He even used actual Rushpublic talking points, as in: "activist judges".

Appearing on Fox News Sunday, Sen. Ben Nelson warned the president against appointing an activist judge to replace the retiring David Souter. In the process, the Nebraska Democrat acknowledged that the scenario could present itself where he joined the GOP in voting against cloture. [...]

Earlier in the interview, he said that as the "author of the words 'extraordinary circumstances'" - the phrase that, per the 2005 compromise, now serves as a the basis of the filibuster attempt - "I do understand that there could be certain circumstances where you might vote against somebody on the filibuster."

This is exactly why I've been saying all along that, that just because we have 59 (or even potentially 60) Democrats in the Senate, there is no guarantee that we'd have a filibuster-proof majority. I've always maintained that the Conservadems would be a problem.

This is one time I have no desire to be right.

VIDEO- Jesse Ventura Continues His Right Wing Talking Point Demolition Tour On Hannity

Plows right thru 'em. Newshounds has the script.

David Sirota- Did Bush Keep Us Safe on 9/11?

Slam! Ka-POW!! Thwump!! More here. I have to admit that I very rarely comment on winger blogs or posts, but I regularly jeer Jacobus on her mind-numbingly stupid posts on The Hill.

Obama the pragmatic idealist

By GottaLaff

The L.A. Times' Doyle McManus analyzes President Obama's first few days in office, and concludes that he is "both idealistic and competent, which was nice for the country but a potential disaster for the satire industry." He also reminds us that he's not a saint. (I doubt anyone here at TPC thinks he is.) The righties love to push that line on the Tee Vee Machine, and we get more of that in this opinion piece:

At least he was being honest [re: "I screwed up."]. Obama's decision to accept Daschle's withdrawal wasn't the product of a sudden ethical insight; it was a ruthlessly practical political judgment. And that is characteristic of this idealistic president who, in a crunch, turns out to be -- like all successful politicians -- a pragmatist. [...]

Obama fans haven't cared to notice, but pragmatism has been the guiding nonprinciple in plenty of the president's decisions. Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner had tax problems too, but Obama correctly calculated that he would skate into office because his mission was too important to let a few tax issues get in the way.

Um, we actually have noticed. Give us a little credit for having eyes and ears. But let's let that one slide. Moving on:

None of this is surprising, nor is it necessarily bad. Some Obama supporters cling to their view of him as a saint. They need to get over that.

There it is again. Enough with the "you think he's the Messiah" line. We don't. Why doesn't McManus get over that? We simply find ourselves releasing all that pent up anger and disgust after 8 years of the president from hell. It's more about expressing our hope and expectations of a highly competent leader who is the anti-Bush. It's called relief, not idolatry.

Successful Democratic presidents have always sought a balance of idealism and practicality, and have always been criticized by their left wing for straying from perfection. Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson and Bill Clinton all proclaimed lofty goals and then cut deals. But in Obama's case, the goals were very, very lofty -- and the promise to change the way Washington works was always going to be the most difficult to keep. Last week, he gave up his remaining claim to sainthood [!!!] but preserved his chance to be a successful president.

That chance now rests on his economic plan, and Obama was right to put that before everything else. Two years from now, voters will know firsthand whether the stimulus worked; they are less likely to remember why Daschle didn't get a Cabinet seat. [...]

The question now is how many of his beloved long-term investments in energy, education and healthcare will Obama abandon to get a big stimulus bill passed? If his record is any guide, he'll give up whatever he must to protect the things he cares most about. [...]

"Those who accomplish the most are those who don't make the perfect the enemy of the good," Tom Daschle said then. "Barack is a pragmatist."

Some interesting points were made, but it would have been nice if McManus had dropped the Tee Vee Machine talking points. At this rate, if he's not careful, he may never achieve sainthood.

Why am I smarter than Chris Van Hollen?

Van Hollen is on right now with Norah O'Donnell (I'll give her props, she was just as hard with the R who was on) and predictably got hammered with the "100's of billions for contraceptives" meme. I figured since he is the chairman of the DCCC, he'd be prepared to deflect their talking points. No. Such. Luck.

Hey Chris, check this out-

First of all, the family-planning program that Pelosi supports expanding in the stimulus bill was created in 1972 under the leadership of Republican president Richard Nixon.

What's being proposed is an expansion in the number of states that can use Medicaid money, with a federal match, to help low-income women prevent unwanted pregnancies. Of the 26 states that already have Medicaid waivers for family planning, eight are led by Republican governors (AL, FL, MS, SC, CA, LA, MN and RI -- a ninth, MO, had a GOP governor until this past November). If this policy is truly a taxpayer gift to "the abortion industry," as John Boehner and House Republicans claim, where are the GOP governors promising to end the program in their states?

Next time you're going to go on the teevee Chris, drop me a line and I'll try and get you up to speed.

Added- Okay, I officially give up. I just surfed over to Fox where the "Chair of the DNC's Womens Group" or some such was also mawmawing herself to death about this with Neal Cavuto. Something really has to be done about all the mealy mouthing stupidity on our side.