Tag Archives: Politico

If You Watch The Mainstream Media, You Are Not Uninformed–You Are Misinformed

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I understand that the mainstream media is biased. That’s not anything new. That bias  makes room for the alternative media, which can also be biased, but at least is not all marching to the same beat. If you watch the mainstream media, you can generally pick out the word of the day. The reason for the word of the day is that the mainstream media is so full of themselves that they believe the only way to get an idea across to the American public is to echo it all day on all mainstream media. If you watch mainstream media, recognizing the word of the day can be an enjoyable game. Media lies are annoying, but media lies about events that shouldn’t even be newsworthy are just inexcusable.

The Gateway Pundit posted an article today about a misleading news story that should not have even been a news story. President Trump stopped at a church Sunday and asked the Pastor to pray for him. The Pastor did. That should have been the end of the story, but unfortunately it wasn’t.

The article reports:

Leave it Politico to LIE about the Pastor’s message.

Here’s there original headline: “Pastor Apologizes to Congregation Over Trump Prayer”

The only problem with Politico’s headline is that it was a lie. When you read the pastor’s statement, it’s clear that he’s merely trying to calm the members of his flock who might need to reconsider their lack of Christian welcoming to anyone who would require prayer, be they a prince or a pauper.

Please follow the link to read the entire article, which includes the Pastor’s comments.

The Pastor reminded his congregation:

“First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, 2 for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. 3 This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, 4 who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. 5 For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, 6 who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time.”  1 Timothy 2:1-6

The Pastor closed his statement with the following:

I wanted to share all of this with you in part because I know that some within our church, for a variety of valid reasons, are hurt that I made this decision. This weighs heavy on my heart. I love every member of this church, and I only want to lead us with God’s Word in a way that transcends political party and position, heals the hurts of racial division and injustice, and honors every man and woman made in the image of God. So while I am thankful that we had an opportunity to obey 1 Timothy 2 in a unique way today, I don’t want to purposely ever do anything that undermines the unity we have in Christ.

In the end, would you pray with me for gospel seed that was sown today to bear fruit in the president’s heart? Would you also pray with me that God will help us to guard the gospel in every way as we spread the gospel everywhere? And finally, I’m guessing that all of us will face other decisions this week where we don’t have time to deliberate on what to do. I’m praying now for grace and wisdom for all of us to do exactly what we talked about in the Word today: aim for God’s glory, align with God’s purpose, and yield to God’s sovereignty.

That sounds like a great prayer to me!

 

How Is This Not Harassment?

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Yesterday Politico posted an article about the Democrats in Congress’ ongoing quest for all of President Trump’s financial records. The article reports that President Donald Trump and his family are suing Deutsche Bank and Capital One to block subpoenas issued by House Democrats seeking Trump’s financial records. The President’s attorneys argued that the subpoenas serve “no legitimate or lawful purpose.” The scope of the subpoenas is ridiculous.

The article reports:

The committees, the Trumps’ lawyers said, have refused to provide copies of the subpoenas to the Trump family, and their scope was learned from Deustche Bank and Capital One. But according to the lawsuit, the committees are seeking “all banking and financial records not just concerning the individual plaintiffs, but also their own family members.”

“This means the subpoenas request documents about accounts of the plaintiffs’ children (and in some cases, grandchildren),” the lawyers said.

For most of the documents, the lawyers added, the committees are demanding records from the last 10 years but, for others, the request is “unbounded,” going back to the childhoods of individual Trumps.

“The House of Representatives is demanding, among other things, records of every single checking withdrawal, credit-card swipe, or debit-card purchase — no matter how trivial or small — made by each and every member of the Trump family,” they said.

We have people in Congress who are seeking the bank records of children and grandchildren. This is harassment.

Prepare For A Very Ugly Year In The House Of Representatives

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You can tell a lot about what is going on in the House of Representatives by the committee assignments. Based on the assignments being given out now, this is going to be a very ugly year. We have already seen two news stories in the past week that were an indication that facts don’t matter. We are going to see many more of those stories in the near future; and those stories, whether true or false, will be the excuse for the Democrats to begin impeachment proceedings against President Trump in the House of Representatives. The Democrats would do well to remember what happened to the Republicans after they tried to impeach President Clinton. What the Democrats need in order to avoid paying a heavy penalty for this move is to get President Trump’s approval ratings below 30 percent. They were able to do that with previous Republican presidents, but President Trump keeps fighting back (and the economy is providing jobs for people who might otherwise be disgruntled).

Yesterday Politico posted an article detailing some of the committee assignments that are relevant to the impeachment process.

The article reports:

The House Oversight Committee is adding a group of progressive flamethrowers to its ranks.

Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) won spots on the high-profile committee on Tuesday, two sources told POLITICO.

…The new members, all of whom are freshmen except Khanna, have been critical of President Donald Trump, and their addition to the committee comes as Democrats have pledged to launch wide-ranging investigations into the president and his administration.

Tlaib drew swift backlash when she vowed to “impeach the motherf—er,” referring to Trump. Republicans have discussed a censure for Tlaib for railing against Trump.

Not only did the Democrats not chastise Representative Tlaib–they rewarded her behavior!

The article continues:

Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the chairman of the Oversight Committee, dismissed concerns about the outspoken freshman lawmakers.

“If I based the choices going on the committee based on what people said or their reputations or whatever, I probably wouldn’t have a committee,” Cummings told POLITICO. “I am excited — there were a lot of people that wanted to come on our committee.”

…Rep. Dan Kildee, a member of the Democratic steering panel, said he was excited about the progressive picks.

“I want people to be aggressive, especially on that committee. It’s good to have people who aren’t afraid,” the Michigan Democrat said in an interview. “They’re going to be dealing with some pretty important stuff.”

The Democrats are continuing their effort to bring down a duly-elected President and totally undermine our representative republic instead of actually passing laws that will continue our strong economic growth. How sad.

Getting Things Done

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Yesterday Politico reported that Senate Democrats have accepted an offer Thursday from Senate Republicans to confirm 15 lifetime federal judges in exchange for the ability to go into recess through the midterms, allowing endangered Democrats to campaign.

This was not the result of anyone’s great negotiating skills–this was the acknowledgement of a practical fact–the Democrats wanted time to go home and campaign.

The article explains:

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) would be able to confirm roughly 15 judges if he kept the Senate in session for the next few weeks anyway. So Democrats OK’d an offer to confirm three Circuit Court judges and 12 Circuit Court judges as the price to pay to go home for election season.

Under Senate rules, even if Democrats fought the nominees tooth and nail and forced the Senate to burn 30 hours of debate between each one, McConnell would have gotten them all confirmed by Nov. 1. Democrats could have conceivably left a skeleton crew of senators in Washington to force the GOP to take roll call votes on the judges over the next few weeks, although that tactic is not typically employed by the minority.

The article reminds us:

McConnell and President Donald Trump will now have confirmed 84 judges over the past two years, including two Supreme Court nominees, after the deal. Democrats also allowed a package of judges to be confirmed in August as a condition of going home.

This is important because the Democrats have used to courts to get laws passed (which is not actually the duty of the courts) that they could not get through Congress. Changing the composition of the courts may slow down that process and bring us closer to the government our Founding Fathers envisioned.

And The Lies Keep Coming…

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Yesterday the Daily Caller posted an article with the headline, “Media Outraged After Trump Tricks Them To Cover Endorsements From Military Heroes.” The story explains that the media went to the Trump International Hotel expecting Donald Trump to take questions about whether he still questions President Obama’s birthplace. The media is trying very hard to make this an issue in the Presidential campaign (to illustrate that Donald Trump is not a good candidate?). When they got to the press conference, they were treated to a barrage of military endorsements for Trump. It wasn’t what they wanted or expected.

The article reports:

At the very end of the campaign event, Trump finally addressed the topic the media was there to hear. “Hillary Clinton and her campaign of 2008 started the birther controversy. I finished it.”

“President Barack Obama was born in the United States,” Trump said. “Period. Now we all want to get back to making America strong again.”

Many reporters, some standing on chairs, began shouting questions over the applause from the guests in attendance. But Trump, having accomplished what he wanted, took none.

Meanwhile, the media has tried very hard to hang the birther controversy on Donald Trump. Unfortunately, the age of google searches has made that impossible.

Yesterday Breitbart reported the following:

The mainstream media, from Bloomberg News to MSNBC to Politico to the Washington Post and more, have all confirmed: Hillary Clinton’s failed 2008 campaign for president did substantially further the birther movement.

…It’s not just Hannity, who’s opposed to Clinton’s election and is a supporter of GOP presidential nominee Donald J. Trump, who has confirmed that Clinton’s 2008 campaign and its allies pushed this.

In fact, Politico, in 2011, published a piece from two of its top reporters at the time—Ben Smith and Byron Tau, who have gone on respectively to BuzzFeed and the Wall Street Journal—specifically detailing how the Clinton campaign was behind birther rumors spreading.

The birther thing is something the media tried to use to attack Donald Trump. It is totally irrelevant at this point. The problem is that most of President Obama’s personal records remain sealed–even after almost eight years in office. That is unusual. That is actually why the birther controversy has continued–there are some genuine questions about some documents relating to President Obama. The mainstream media is getting desperate. They have lost any objectivity or credibility that they might have had. This election will probably mark the end of their influence on the majority of Americans.

The article at Breitbart concludes:

“With Clinton’s 2008 campaign manager admitting on national television and on Twitter that they promoted the rumors surrounding now-President Obama’s heritage, Mr. Trump has been fully vindicated,” Miller (Trump campaign senior communications adviser Jason Miller) said. “Not only was a Clinton campaign worker blamed and fired over the activity, we have now been informed that Secretary Clinton was aware of what was going on, with Clinton’s campaign manager even apologizing to Obama’s campaign manager. This still does not explain why Hillary Clinton failed to fire her chief strategist Mark Penn on the spot over the memo he sent her advocating she portray Obama as ‘fundamentally’ foreign. Hillary Clinton didn’t tell the truth about her emails and she didn’t tell the truth about her campaign’s role in pushing these rumors in 2008. This pattern is never going to change, and it’s why nobody trusts Hillary Clinton.”

There will be people who will vote for Hillary Clinton regardless of how many lies she tells. That is their privilege. It is my hope, however, that Americans are tired of the lies that surround Hillary and her campaign and will make a different choice.

This Really Should Not Be A Campaign Issue

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Yesterday The Hill posted an article about Democrat campaign ads claiming that the Republicans cut funds to the Center for Disease Control and that is the reason we are not successfully fighting Ebola.

The article reports:

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) launched an ad campaign on Monday blaming Republicans for cutting the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC)  budget to fight diseases like Ebola.

“Republicans voted to cut CDC’s budget to fight Ebola,” the paid online ads state, citing a 2011 budget vote that included cuts to the agency’s spending. At the same time, the ads point to the most recent House GOP budget resolution and argue that “Republicans protect tax breaks for special interests.”

That is a rather serious charge. Thankfully, it is not true.

On Sunday, Politico posted an article by Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal that explained that the CDC budget has not been cut–the problem is how the money going to the CDC has been spent.

The article at Politico explains:

Unfortunately, however, many of those funds have been diverted away from programs that can fight infectious diseases, and toward programs far afield from the CDC’s original purpose.

Consider the Prevention and Public Health Fund, a new series of annual mandatory appropriations created by Obamacare. Over the past five years, the CDC has received just under $3 billion in transfers from the fund. Yet only 6 percent—$180 million—of that $3 billion went toward building epidemiology and laboratory capacity. Especially given the agency’s postwar roots as the Communicable Disease Center, one would think that “detecting and responding to infectious diseases and other public health threats” warrants a larger funding commitment.

Instead, the Obama administration has focused the CDC on other priorities. While protecting Americans from infectious diseases received only $180 million from the Prevention Fund, the community transformation grant program received nearly three times as much money—$517.3 million over the same five-year period.

So where is the money going? The community transformation program pays for such things as “increasing access to healthy foods by supporting local farmers and developing neighborhood grocery stores,” or “promoting improvements in sidewalks and street lighting to make it safe and easy for people to walk and ride bikes.” So the problem is not how much money the CDC received–it has to do with how the money was spent. There is nothing wrong with helping communities, but it is not wise to do it at the expense of doing research on infectious diseases–the actual mission of the CDC.

Governor Jindal reminds us what the duties of our government are:

Our Constitution states that the federal government “shall protect each of [the States] against Invasion”—a statement that should apply as much to infectious disease as to foreign powers. So when that same government prioritizes funding for jungle gyms and bike paths over steps to protect our nation from possible pandemics, citizens have every right to question the decisions that got us to this point.

We need to get back to following the U. S. Constitution–it works very well when it is followed.

 

Where Did The Stimulus Money Go?

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Paul Mirengoff at Power Line posted an article yesterday about Kay Hagan, who is running for a second term in the United States Senate. Senator Hagan is the junior Senator from North Carolina. At the present time, she leads her opponent, Republican Thom Tillis, by three to five points. However, it appears that Mrs. Hagan’s husband’s company benefited from the stimulus bill she supported.

The article reports:

But Hagan suffered a blow over the weekend when it was revealed that, by virtue of the 2009 Stimulus Bill for which she voted, her husband’s company received nearly $390,000 in federal grants for energy projects and tax credits.

Hagan’s response to this story is that she did not help her husband win the federal funding. She also disputes any suggestion they have profited from the Stimulus.

As to the first claim, it may be true that Hagan did not intervene directly on her husband’s behalf. But soon after voting for the Stimulus, she told a North Carolina newspaper that “there’s a lot of renewable energy-generating capacity in the stimulus package.” Her husband’s company was in the renewable energy business and Hagan knew that it was a potential direct beneficiary of the Stimulus.

As to the second claim, it’s implausible to believe that the husband’s business did not profit from receiving almost $400,000 in federal grants and tax credits. According to Politico, the Hagans’ income from JDC Manufacturing increased from less than $201 in 2008 to nearly $134,000 in 2013.

Crony capitalism anyone?

We need to elect people who will put the welfare of America ahead of their own personal gains. Obviously, Mrs. Hagan had a vested interest in voting for the stimulus.

Preparing The Field

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Unfortunately we are now living in a country where the presidential campaign is never ending. The latest example of this is the selective release of excerpts from Hillary Clinton’s forthcoming book “Hard Choices” by Politico. The excerpts deal with the attack on the Benghazi outpost on September 11, 2012.

Fox News posted a fact check of the excerpt by Catherine Herridge, their Chief Intelligence correspondent. Ms. Herridge provides a very logical analysis of Mrs. Clinton’s narrative.

One excerpt from the book as posted at Politico:

“There were scores of attackers that night, almost certainly with differing motives,” she writes. “It is inaccurate to state that every single one of them was influenced by this hateful video. It is equally inaccurate to state that none of them were. Both assertions defy not only the evidence but logic as well.”

Note to Mrs. Clinton–no one in Benghazi had seen the video.

Fox News reports:

An independent review of more than 4,000 social media postings, conducted by a leading social media monitoring firm in December 2012, also found the YouTube video was a non-event in Benghazi.

“From the data we have, it’s hard for us to reach the conclusion that the consulate attack was motivated by the movie. Nothing in the immediate picture — surrounding the attack in Libya — suggests that,” Jeff Chapman, chief executive with Agincourt Solutions (now Babel Street), told Fox News.

Chapman said his analysts reviewed postings in Libya, including those from Benghazi, over a three-day period beginning on Sept. 11, and saw “no traffic in Benghazi in the immediate lead-up to the attack related to the anti-Islam film.”

Please follow the link to the Fox News article to read the rest of the fact-check. The upcoming release of this book is the first step in clearing the way for Mrs. Clinton to run for President. The book provides talking points for the Democrats on the investigating committee and will also make the Benghazi scandal old news by the time the election campaign is fully operational.

 

 

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Upside Down Logic At Work

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On Wednesday Bill Bennett and Christopher Beach posted an article at Politico about the legalization of marijuana. The article points out the contradiction of a liberal philosophy that wants to legalize marijuana while banning large sodas, sugary foods, trans fat, smoking tobacco, etc.

The article points out:

In his recent New Yorker interview, President Obama remarked, “I smoked pot as a kid, and I view it as a bad habit and a vice, not very different from the cigarettes that I smoked as a young person up through a big chunk of my adult life.” But then he added, “I don’t think it is more dangerous than alcohol.” Of the legalization in Colorado and Washington—never mind the unresolved conflict between state and federal law—he said, “it’s important for it to go forward.”

Got that? The same president who signed into law a tough federal anti-cigarette smoking bill in 2009 now supports marijuana legalization.

The article concludes:

What explains this obvious paradox? Do these liberals think that marijuana is somehow less harmful than a Big Gulp soda or a bucket of fried chicken? It’s hard to believe that’s the case, given the vast amount of social data and medical science on the dangers of marijuana.

Marijuana is destructive, particularly when used by teenagers. Does the people who want to make it legal believe teenagers will not be able to get it and smoke it? That hasn’t worked real well with either cigarettes or alcohol. Most of us probably know a teenager who used pot and paid a price later on–either in his ability to learn, moving on to other drugs, or side effects from some of the things added to the marijuana. Are we willing to make this drug easier for teenagers to obtain? This sounds like a bunch of 60’s hippies who are finally in control wanting to mainstream their counterculture. This is not good for our children, and it is not good for our society.

 

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Protecting Americans From The Truth

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It isn’t news to say that the American media is biased. It is a surprise sometimes, however, to see how biased. Below are pictures of the September 16, 2013, cover of Time Magazine. The Daily Caller posted these pictures in an article about the magazine covers posted on Monday. The covers with Vladimir Putin on them are the foreign editions. The cover featuring the college athlete is the edition sold in America.

So what was the lead story in the magazines with Vladimir Putin on the cover?

The Daily Caller reports:

The foreign covers acknowledge Putin’s triumph over Obama, telling foreigners that Putin “doesn’t care what anybody thinks of him.”

The protective covers arrive as Time’s managing editor departs for a job working for one of the architects of the Syrian debacle, Secretary of State John Kerry.

In “early summer,” editor Rick Stengel was asked by Kerry, and immediately accepted, the job of running the department’s public diplomacy mission, according to Politico.

Months later, the appointment was leaked to two media outlets.

Throughout the summer, Stengel remained editor of Time while it covered U.S. politics.

Most often, the covers of Time magazine are uniform.

There is a reason the major media is dying–Americans cannot trust the major media to tell us the truth. The corroboration between Democrat politicians and the mainstream media is a scandal that the mainstream media is never going to report, but as more Americans become aware of the relationship, they will find other sources of news.

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Laws For Thee But Not For Me

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Hot Air is reporting today that President Obama has found a solution to the high cost of ObamaCare for some Americans. Strangely enough, those Americans are the Americans involved in the government on Capitol Hill. When ObamaCare was passed, Senator Chuck Grassley put an item in the bill that requires that both members and their aides must be covered by plans “created” by the law or “offered through an exchange” — in other words, if Congress was going to vote this thing in, then they were going to have to live with it, too. Congress panicked when its members realized how much the price of their health insurance was going to increase under ObamaCare.

Hot Air quotes Politico on the solution to the problem:

Lawmakers and staff can breathe easy — their health care tab is not going to soar next year.

The Office of Personnel Management, under heavy pressure from Capitol Hill, will issue a ruling that says the government can continue to make a contribution to the health care premiums of members of Congress and their aides, according to several Hill sources. …

Just Wednesday, POLITICO reported that President Barack Obama told Democratic senators that he was personally involved in finding a solution. …

Obama’s involvement in solving this impasse was unusual, to say the least. But it came after serious griping from both sides of the aisle about the potential of a “brain drain.” The fear, as told by sources in both parties, was that aides would head for more lucrative jobs, spooked by the potential for spiking health premiums.

The bottom line–taxpayers will be paying for Congress’s ObamaCare expenses. No one will be paying for the taxpayer’s ObamaCare expenses.

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If She Didn’t Do Anything Wrong, Why Does She Need Immunity?

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I will readily admit to being a simple person–black is black, white is white, to me life is pretty simple. But sometimes when I see what goes on in our legal system and political system, I just wonder who is making the rules and if anyone making the rules has any common sense. This article is an example of my simplicity coming up against the complexity of our legal system.

Yesterday Breitbart.com reported that Lois Lerner has told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that she will not testify before them without being granted full immunity. Hmm. If she didn’t do anything wrong, why does she need full immunity?

The article reports:

On Tuesday, William W. Taylor III, attorney for Lois Lerner, the IRS official at the center of the Tea Party targeting scandal who invoked her Fifth amendment rights before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on May 22, set forward his client’s hard line conditions to return and testify openly before the committee.

“They can obtain her testimony tomorrow by doing it the easy way … immunity. That’s the way to resolve all of this,” he told Politico.

As I said–I am a simple person. If she didn’t do anything wrong, why does she need immunity?

 

 

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I’d Love To See The Guest List

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Yesterday Breitbart.com reported that the White House announced that it would hold a meeting to brief reporters on Benghazi. The meeting was initially referred to by Politico as ‘off-the-record,’ but the White House changed that to ‘deep background.’ I agree that the word deep is probably a good description, but background is not the word I would place after it.

Fourteen news organizations were invited to the closed-door meeting.

Politico reported yesterday:

The meeting was conducted on “deep background,” according to White House spokesman Josh Earnest, but sources told POLITICO that the existence of the meeting was “off the record.” The meeting began around 12:45 p.m. and postponed the daily, on-the-record White House press briefing until mid-afternoon.

The session was announced to reporters in the wake of an ABC News report showing that White House and State Dept. officials were involved in revising the now-discredited CIA talking points about the attack on Benghazi.

I would love to see which fourteen news organizations were invited to the meeting! Can you imagine what would have happened if Nixon had tried this with Watergate?

Breitbart.com tells us what to look for as a result of this meeting:

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said, “Deep background means that the info presented by the briefers can be used in reporting but the briefers can’t be quoted.” So expect a fair number of “White House sources” to appear in reportage for the next few days.

Four people died at Benghazi because they did not have adequate security, and when they asked for help they did not get it. Later the Obama Administration lied about what happened. Also, remember that the man who made the video that was not responsible for the attack is the only person in jail as a result of the attack. He is still in jail. It’s time to stop playing games and explain what happened.

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We Might Eventually Get Answers To Benghazi

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Breitbart.com posted an article today stating that whistle blowers are speaking to Congressional investigators about the attack on Benghazi.

Power Line posted the following tweet from CBS News reporter Sharyl Attkisson:

Finding out the cause of this tragedy and the reasons America left people there to die will not bring the dead back to life, but contrary to what Former Secretary of State Clinton said, it does make a difference.

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The “Gore Effect” Strikes Again

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It seems that every time global warming believers try to get together for a rally or a government meeting it snows or we have record cold temperatures. This has become known as the “Gore effect.” Well, the Gore effect has struck again.

Politico is reporting today that the House Science, Space and Technology Committee announced that it’s postponing its environmental subcommittee’s scheduled 10 a.m. hearing on the state of the science behind climate change. As a reason, it cited “weather.” Washington is expecting as much as 11 inches of snow today and tonight.

The article reports:

The session was apparently designed to shore up the knowledge of subcommittee members ahead of expected new carbon regulations from President Barack Obama. As of Tuesday evening, a committee spokesman had insisted the show would go on.

From the start, the idea of holding a climate hearing during a paralyzing D.C. snowstorm seemed ripe for snarky comments.

Don’t buy into global warming science? Here’s your March snowstorm — call up Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) and his grandchildren for help with your Al Gore igloo project.

In case you are a new reader of this blog, one of the best websites explaining what is actually happening with the earth’s climate is Anthony Watts’ site, WattsUpWithThat. I highly recommend it as an antidote to the climate change hysteria on the political left.

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The Schizophrenic American Voter

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Yesterday Mary Katharine Ham at Hot Air posted an article detailing some of the opinions of the American voters and contrasting those opinions with the way they voted.

The article reports:

A survey of 800 Obama voters, conducted last month by Benenson Strategy Group for the moderate Democratic think tank Third Way and shared first with POLITICO, finds that 96 percent believe the federal deficit is a problem and that 85 percent support increasing taxes on the wealthy.

Yet 41 percent who supported the Democratic incumbent want to get control of the deficit mostly by cutting spending, with only some tax increases, while another 41 percent want to solve it mostly with tax increases and only some spending cuts.

Just 5 percent of Obama supporters favor tax increases alone to solve the deficit, half the number who back an approach that relies entirely on spending cuts.

Their opinions put them much more in line with Mitt Romney than Barack Obama!

The article continues:

Meanwhile, according to polling by CNN, registered voters oppose Obamacare by a margin of 10 points — 52 to 42 percent. Independents like Obamacare even less, opposing it by a margin of 22 points — 57 to 35 percent. Clearly, voters didn’t think they were ratifying Obamacare when they pulled the lever for Obama.

…One thing that has not changed is that Americans still widely prefer a system based on private insurance to one run by the government. Currently, 57% prefer a private system and 36% a government-run system, essentially the same as in 2010 and 2011. Prior to the passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010, the percentage of Americans in favor of a government-run system ranged from 32% to 41%.

Obviously, I have no explanation for this. Either voters were not paying attention or they voted for a candidate who opposed what they actually believed.

 

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A New Low In Political Ads

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The group Priorities USA has produced a pro-Obama ad recently that essentially blames Governor Romney for the death of Joe Soptic’s wife. It seems that Mrs. Soptic died seven years after Governor Romney left Bain Capital. A company that Bain Capital had invested in during the time that Governor Romney led the company had gone out of business, and Mr. Soptic lost his health insurance. Thus Mr. Soptic blames that fact (and Mitt Romney) for his wife’s eventual death from cancer.

Breitbart posted an article yesterday explaining more of the timeline.

Breitbart reports:

The emotional thrust of the new ad is Soptic blaming Romney and Bain Capital for his wife’s death. He says she became ill “a short time” after he lost his job and his health care. But the timeline being presented in this ad is extremely misleading. According to a notice in the Kansas City Star uncovered by Politico, Soptic’s wife died in June 2006. That’s five years after the GST Steel plant was closed in 2001 and more than seven years after Romney left management of Bain to work on the 2002 Olympics in February 1999.

Politico asked Priorities USA to explain what Mitt Romney had to do with the death of a woman years after he’d left the company. Priorities strategist Bill Burton responded “We’re illustrating how long it took for communities and individuals to recover from the closing of these businesses.” But length of impact is clearly not what the ad tries to depict. It says the illness happened “a short time after” and then emphasizes the wife’s death just 22 days after being admitted to the hospital. In other words, the ad is intentionally misleading, suggesting to viewers that this happened shortly after the plant was closed, not years later.

The article further points out that Mrs. Soptic was still employed after her husband lost his job and still had health insurance until about 2002 or 2003.

I have a few comments on this. Why in the world would a husband exploit the death of his wife for political purposes when the facts don’t add up? What was the husband thinking? The ad is so outrageous to begin with, are the American voters supposed to take it seriously? Why lie about something that can be so easily checked? During my working career I worked for two different companies that were closed down, can I blame them for the fact that I was not able to save enough money so that I didn’t have to take out loans for my children’s college education?

I am truly sorry that Mr. Soptic lost his wife to cancer. That has to be a devastating experience. I also understand that ‘blame’ may be part of the grief process. However, this is ridiculous.

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Only In America

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The following quote is taken directly from the Politico website:

“At 1:00 PM, the Vice President will attend a meeting of the Government Accountability and Transparency Board in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. At 2:30 PM, the Vice President will meet with representatives of the National Sheriffs’ Association in the Roosevelt Room. These meetings are closed press.”

The Government Accountability and Transparency Board meeting at 1 pm is closed to the press. There is nothing I can add to that.

UPDATE: Amy Dudley, a spokeswoman for Biden, contacted POLITICO to offer this on-the-record statement: “The Government Accountability and Transparency Board has been holding regular meetings since its establishment as part of the Administration’s Campaign to Cut Waste last June. The Vice President was invited to drop by today’s meeting in anticipation of their forthcoming report. As has been the case with every meeting of the board, the minutes of the meeting will be posted online.”

If the minutes are to be posted online, why is the meeting closed to the press? Just asking.

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Creating A Circular Firing Squad

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Andrew McCarthy posted a story today on National Review Online about the Herman Cain scandal that seems to have taken over the media this week. Mr. McCarthy points out that Politico ran with this story without substantial evidence that the story was true or newsworthy. Politico has compounded that error by keeping quiet about the source of their story.

Mr. McCarthy points out:

But we’ve learned the most about Politico. Look, for example, at this: Politico this morning had a post about how, after Cain blamed Perry for being the source of the sexual-harassment story, Perry promptly turned around and floated Romney as the likely source. Yes, congratulations GOP on the circular firing squad — but that’s not the point. The point is: Politico knows who the source is.

Meanwhile, Politico has twisted the story to be about who leaked the story rather than whether or not the allegations have any foundation. Since Politico knows who leaked the story, that is rather questionable journalism.

Mr. McCarthy concludes:

When I was a prosecutor, it was considered serious ethical misconduct to suggest to a jury something the prosecutor knew to be factually untrue. If the defense called Witness A, and I was aware of the fact that Person B had robbed a bank, it would be a weighty impropriety for me to impeach A’s credibility by suggesting in my questions that A had robbed the bank. If the judge asked me a question, my choices were to give a truthful answer or to refuse to answer and explain why the law supported my refusal — making a representation that was false or misleading was not an option. And if I later learned that I’d been mistaken in something I’d represented, my obligation was to go back and correct the record as soon as possible. All this because a trial is supposed to be a search for the truth, and I would be perverting the process if I suggested that the factfinder should consider something I knew to be inaccurate or false.

I guess similar rules don’t apply in today’s journalism.

Unfortunately, he is correct.

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Just Wondering …

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The Daily Caller reported today that Herman Cain told reporters today that he would not answer questions about the alleged charges against him while he was speaking to the group Docs4PatientCare at the group’s annual meeting in Alexandria, Virginia. I have no problem with that–the whole story is ridiculous. The Women’s Liberation movement has made sexual harassment charges a joke–anything you decide makes you uncomfortable can be classified as sexual harassment. The standard is so low that opening a door for a woman can be considered harassment.

Anyway. I am wondering where these charges came from. I have no doubt that someone who claimed harassment was paid a severance and let go. I just want to know who she approached with her information. My actual guess is that the attack came from the Republican establishment. If they are really good, they will blame Rick Perry for the attack–that would eliminate two non-Republican-establishment candidates at once. I realize that I am in the tall weeds here, but I do wonder who gave the story to Politico. I don’t think Herman Cain has handled the charges well, but he is so inexperienced and understaffed that he can easily be caught off guard.

I do wonder who dug up the dirt and I am prepared not to believe anything I hear about the source until well after the 2012 election. The truth may or may not ever come out!

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