President Obama Nails Republicans On Auto Bailout – Hard!

I just love when our President calls out the Republicans on their stupidity. Since the media just plays along with them, it falls on the President to do it himself. And he does it sooooo well, doesn’t he?

Cross-posted at Angry Black Lady Chronicles

Democrats In Michigan – Don’t Play Games And Give Legitimacy To Santorum

This idea of Democrats going to the voting booth and casting a vote for Rick Santorum in the Michigan primary is wrong for many reasons.

The first is that it is a “punk” thing to do. I can’t believe grown adults would think to do such a thing, it isn’t cool when Republicans do it to Democrats and it isn’t cool this time around either.

The next reason is that it demeans our entire process of how we elect our leaders and trivializes the process. It’s not a media generated horse race or game, these are our elected leaders and it should be taken seriously.

And finally, it will only serve to give legitimacy to Rick Santorum, one of the most offensive and hard right nut jobs to ever run for President. Is that what you as a Democrat want, to give more legitimacy to a nut job who already is attracting too many wackos. Chris at Eclectablog delves into this a little further…

It’s a batshit insane idea. It subverts the intent of our primary system, it’s a complete waste of money in Michigan where Santorum already leads and, perhaps most importantly, it gives the Republicans something to point to and coalesce around. That’s the last thing we need at this point. Frankly, the idea of giving any support to such a homophobic, anti-woman candidate is just repulsive. I don’t understand how any Democrat could pull the lever/punch the chad for such an odious candidate. The karmic backlash/whiplash would be an ass-kicker.

If the Republicans want to demean our process and play games, let them. But we as Democrats shouldn’t stoop to their level, but should stick to the ideals and principles that have guided us for decades.

The fact that Daily Kos is pushing this idea is just one more reason why I quit going to that blog years ago. Markos, a former Republican, doesn’t seem to respect our election process or understand the consequences of elections. It’s serious business folks and affects people lives. Resist the urge to add fuel to the scorched earth tactics of those who don’t respect our system. Act like a grownup, please.

A Growing Rift Between Religious Groups And The GOP

I’ve never understood how people who call themselves Christians can belong to the Republican Party. I read the Bible many years ago and seem to remember lessons that taught me to care for my fellow humans, to show compassion, to turn the other cheek and to do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

That doesn’t exactly describe the modern Republican Party now does it?

With the craziness happening in the political world over contraception, the following story from ThinkProgress makes me think that the GOP is overcompensating in their reaction to the contraceptive issue.

Earlier this month, the nation was barraged with media coverage of the Catholic Bishops’ opposition to regulations promulgated under the Affordable Care Act protecting working women’s access to contraception. The loudness of the bishops’ complaints, which were echoed by conservative luminaries ranging from Speaker John Boehner to GOP presidential frontrunners Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney, easily could have conveyed the misimpression that churches and other religious groups are at odds with the Affordable Care Act.

On Friday, however, a broad coalition of religious organizations filed an amicus brief supporting the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion that should give the lie to any claim that the faith community opposes the ACA. The brief includes a number of major religious denominations, including the policy arm of the United Methodist Church, the General Synod of the United Church of Christ and the Presbyterian Church. Additionally, the brief’s signatories include a wide range of Catholic groups:

Benedictine Sisters, Boerne, Texas; Congregation of the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word, Texas; Dominican Congregation of Our Lady of the Rosary, New York; Dominican Sisters of Hope; Justice and Peace Committee of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Springfield, Massachusetts; Marianist Province of the United States; Sisters of Charity of St. Elizabeth Leadership Team, New Jersey; Sisters of Charity of St. Vincent De Paul of New York; Sisters of the Holy Cross Congregation Justice Committee; Sisters of the Incarnate Word and Blessed Sacrament, Corpus Christi, Texas; Sisters of Mercy West Midwest Justice Team, Nebraska; Sisters of the Most Precious Blood, Missouri; Sisters of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, New York; Sisters of St. Dominic Congregation of the Most Holy Name; Society of the Holy Child Jesus, American Province Leadership Team; Ursuline Sisters of Tildonk, US Province; JOLT, Catholic Coalition for Responsible Investing; Region VI Coalition for Responsible Investment, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee; School Sisters of Notre Dame Cooperative Investment Fund (emphasis mine)

And I would add that with Rick Santorum and Franklin Graham questioning President Obama’s faith, they are venturing into pretty dangerous waters. It seems to me that by going there, they are shooting off a warning signal to anyone who claims to be a Christian. You better watch out, you might be next!

Cross-posted at Angry Black Lady Chronicles

Yo, The Stimulus Worked – Thank You President Obama!

Common refrains from people who say it didn’t work:

• But Obama promised that unemployment would be less than 8%. Horseshit on a stick. First, he didn’t “promise” a damn thing, if everything an incoming president says is turned into a “promise”, well then there has been a whole lot of promise breaking going on in our history. Second, the cautious prediction made during the transition was based on the numbers that the outgoing Bush administration was feeding the Obama team. They were flat out wrong and completely underestimated what was going on in our economy. Hey media, that’s called context. Buy some at the local C-store.

• But soooo many people are still out of work. Yes, and that totally sucks. But that does not mean that the over 3 million people who did get jobs are insignificant or don’t matter. They do. If the measure for whether the stimulus worked is full employment, then those people will be waiting till the end of time — we’ve never had anything close to full employment. And you can damn well bet that those people still looking for work are encouraged by the fact that others are starting to find jobs, which of course increases the number of people looking and drives up the unemployment rate.

• But the stock market has been falling…..oh, wait, it’s going like gangbusters. Nevermind.

• But Fox News says we are still in a recession, the numbers are being cooked. The only thing cooking at Fox New is the meth that the anchors must be smoking during commercial breaks.

• But, but, but….let’s just all say it together, the stimulus worked. And yes, we have more to do, but don’t let the Republicans and the compliant media make you think that cutting taxes for the rich would have been much better, that is a big part of what got us into this freakin mess.

Michigan’s Emergency Manager Law Exposed

If you are concerned at all about Republican overreach, you must go read this post by Eclectablog (Chris Savage) and then click over to the full article in The Nation magazine. If you haven’t bookmarked his blog yet, you should do that right now. Chris is one of the hardest working humans alive, who is fighting for liberals and progressives in Michigan and the country. He is top notch, top shelf and top dog in my book. Here is a snippet from his wonderful piece, but GO….read the whole thing.

What are the qualifications for such a powerful office and the six-figure salary that accompanies it? Not much: PA 4 requires “a minimum of 5 years’ experience and demonstrable expertise in business, financial, or local or state budgetary matters.” Last year the state held a pair of two-day training sessions for EMs, both run primarily by companies that provide outsourcing services to municipalities and school districts. Yet PA 4 made the emergency manager the single most powerful person in the city.

Results were swift. In April the Benton Harbor EM, Joe Harris, decreed: “Absent prior express written authorization and approval by the Emergency Manager”—himself—“no City Board, Commission or Authority shall take any action for or on behalf of the City whatsoever other than: i) Call a meeting to order, ii) Approve of meeting minutes, iii) Adjourn a meeting.” The move in effect abolished Benton Harbor’s elected City Commission and replaced it with an unelected bureaucrat, perhaps the first time this has happened in US history.

I’ll Take Cognitive Dissonance For 200, Alex! The Fox News Alternate Reality Game

In keeping with the alternate reality created by Fox News and perpetuated by it’s minions like Rush Limbaugh, the anchors at Fox News are questioning the recent uptick in the number of jobs created in the private sector. They are pushing the idea that the books have been “cooked.” It is really astounding how obvious they are in their attempts to keep their alternate reality propped up. Alex Seitz-Wald at ThinkProgress spells it out pretty clearly.

If it weren’t improper to psychologically analyse strangers, one might think the Fox hosts are displaying a textbook example of cognitive dissonance here, a psychological phenomena in which people who hold a strong belief about something invent (sometimes far fetched) explanations for new evidence that conflicts with their existing views. Obama is bad for the economy, the jobs numbers show the economy is doing better, so there must be something wrong with the jobs numbers.

To illustrate how Fox News is selective in believing the job numbers, we only have to look at how they report when unemployment rises.

The Labor Department reported that employers added just 18,000 net jobs in June, the fewest in nine months. The jobless rate ticked up to 9.2 percent from 9.1 percent. The pace of job growth is not even enough to keep up with population growth — it would take about 125,000 jobs per months to do so — and certainly not enough to bring down the unemployment rate.

The article then goes on to quote extensively from the Labor Department’s report, while sprinkling in Republican talking points along the way. Not a single mention of any books being cooked or numbers being manipulated, because — you know — the bad numbers fit with the narrative.

What is disturbing to me about this tactic is that it works for their audience.They are feeding them exactly what they want and they really don’t care if their viewers are misinformed. In fact, I would argue that they count on it. Several studies of Fox News viewers have shown a huge disconnect between reality and the manufactured one that the right have been feeding them. Steven Benen wrote an excellent piece a while back on how disconnected Fox News viewers are from reality.

borrowed from White Noise Insanity

The quantifiable evidence is overwhelming. Eight years ago, just six months into the war in Iraq, the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) at the University of Maryland found that those who relied on the Republican network were “three times more likely than the next nearest network to hold all three misperceptions — about WMD in Iraq, Saddam Hussein was involved with 9/11, and foreign support for the U.S. position on the war in Iraq.” [...]

The problem is actually getting worse.

In December, PIPA published a report, this time on “Misinformation and the 2010 Election” (pdf). The point was to measure Americans’ understanding of a variety of key developments that news consumers would likely be familiar with. As was the case eight years ago, Fox News viewers were “significantly more likely” to be confused about reality.

It really scares me to think that viewers of the most watched cable news network live in a world where empirical reality has no place. They absorb only information that conforms to their beliefs and block any conflicting information, regardless of the source. And even when presented with clear evidence to the contrary, they either attack the messenger or just cover their ears and go “na na na, I can’t hear you.”

My theory on why they are successful at this tactic is that most of these uninformed viewers have a mindset that is based on emotion, fear and bigotry. Logic plays no role in their thinking and because of that, they are extremely susceptible to suggestions and selective facts they fit those biases and fears. Fox News only has to confirm those fears and play with those emotions. Fox News has made a science out it…except, of course, they don’t believe in science either.

Cross-posted at Angry Black Lady Chronicles

Photos Speak Volumes – President Obama Unfiltered

President Barack Obama makes phone calls to 10 American service members stationed around the world, from his vacation rental home in Kailua, Hawaii, Dec. 24, 2011. WHCA Presidential Communications Officer CPT Mallory Fritz and Military Aide Lt. Col. Sam Price coordinate the calls in the background. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

President Barack Obama arrives aboard Marine One at Osawatomie-Paola Municipal Airport in Osawatomie, Kan., Dec. 6, 2011. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)