Faux News, indeed

This survey took the time to prove what I already knew: 

Those who watched Fox News almost daily were significantly more likely than those who never watched it to believe that most economists estimate the stimulus caused job losses (12 points more likely), most economists have estimated the health care law will worsen the deficit (31 points), the economy is getting worse (26 points), most scientists do not agree that climate change is occurring (30 points), the stimulus legislation did not include any tax cuts (14 points), their own income taxes have gone up (14 points), the auto bailout only occurred under Obama (13 points), when TARP came up for a vote most Republicans opposed it (12 points) and that it is not clear that Obama was born in the United States (31 points).

Faux News Channel seems a pretty appropriate moniker, after all. All of the above are false. And all of the above are talking points pushed by Fox on a nearly daily basis. The "so-called" stimulus, the "so-called" public option, the "failed stimulus" and the best of all, the Lie of the Year.

Now, how is it that the folks at Fox can just apparently just make things up and stay on the air? Maybe it's because the edict to do so from the top?

Cliff Lee!

So who's your fourth starter? Hot stove season finally warmed up in always sunny Philadelphia. Cliff Lee is a Phillie (again).
Here's another Philadelphian named Lee to start off the day "shouting out loud":

Shouldn't Pretty Pictures make me feel better?

Take a look a the graph on the left and then in your best TalkingHead voice repeat after me: "Obama and the Democrats in Congress are bankrupting our nation with out of control spending."
Now giggle. There, feel better? No? How about if I tell you that the projections in the chart don't take into account the additional expenses of the new Medicare Prescription Drug Program (part D) enacted in 2003, because some of it's estimated 880 billion dollar cost is offset by savings elsewhere.
Still don't feel better?
It's stupid, and if you didn't laugh you'd cry. After 8 years of hearing how everything from 9-11 to the economy was Clinton's fault, then when Wall Street collapsed the Talking Heads on the Right had to go back to 1977 and blame Jimmy Carter for the housing crisis, suddenly the current budget crisis is the fault of the guy with less than 24 months in office. The guy that took office in the middle of the worst economic meltdown since the Great Depression.
I'm not exempting Obama or the soon-to-be-defunct 111th Congress from blame. They punted on the extension of the Bush Tax Cuts all Summer, when they could have forced the Republican hand, in a vain attempt to save their majority in the House. It was a calculated bit of political cowardice that backfired, and led directly, IMHO, to the current budget-busting extension awaiting approval by Congress.
I know, I know it's a "stimulus" bill. Parts of it certainly are, but not the estate tax provision. Don't take my word for it, hear (or read) it straight from the horse's mouth.
Lower taxes on estates, capital gains, and dividends "mean they (the wealthy) won't have to invest so aggressively, or risk as much - or create so many jobs."
Higher taxes on the wealthy mean less money to leave their heirs unless they invest aggressively and grow the estate. Lower taxes means the super-rich can park their money in safe, low-yield vehicles like Municipal Bonds and still leave a never-work-a-day-in-your-life fortune to their children and grandchildren.
Guess which of these two scenarios creates jobs and encourages the kind of investment that drives the economy?
So all that rhetoric about cutting taxes so the "job creators" can "create jobs"? Hooey. Taxing the rich forces them to put their money to work, which puts Americans to work.

Find the Lady

Watch carefully folks, as Sean Hannity lambastes the left for their use of "harsh vitriol" directed at Republicans, while calling the President "The Anointed One", just one of his pet names for Barack Obama.

Careful attention as the cards move around, Follow the Lady folks. Just as his favorite pollster, Frank Luntz, tries to explain the problem is neither side takes the time to listen to the other, Hannity interrupts him.

The short con continues as Hannity, the man that just referred to the POTUS as the "Anointed One", who regularly refers to Barack Obama as a "radical Socialist", who along with Rush Limbaugh have accused him of "promoting domestic terrorism", and derisively addresses President Obama as the "Messiah" nearly daily on his radio show, innocently declares the problem is strictly attributable to "the Left" and Luntz states he "doesn't disagree". Huh?

Finally, Hannity declares ala Glenn Beck that if he were to use such harsh terms as the President and Members of Congress used this week about the President, he would be fired.

So calling the President a terrorist would get you fired, huh Sean? Then why do you still have a job?

What, me worry?

Polls confirm the obvious: Conservatives don't actually care about the debt. Nor do they care about the deficit.

They want their money, and they want it all.

Damn the consequences, and all the gnashing of teeth and hand-wringing about "the world we're leaving for our children and grandchildren" is smoke and mirrors while they pick your pocket.

Ohhh - scary food police are trying to starve us!

Glenn Beck thinks the FDA is out to starve America!

I am amazed, and stunned, and as usual Jon Stewart helps me make sense of it all.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
The Food, the Bad and the Ugly
www.thedailyshow.com
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Nigeria Charges Dick Cheney in 419 scam!

Okay, not really. Instead they are charging him with an All-American crime, bribery.

Might I suggest some reading material for Mr. Cheney to while away his time behind bars, should his heart condition not exclude him from jail time?

Yet the rich get richer

"I mean, if we can't win that argument we might as well just fold up," he said. "These people are saying we are going to insist on tax cuts for the richest people in the country and we don't care if they are paid for, and we don't think it is a problem if it contributes to the deficit, but we are not going to vote to extend unemployment benefits to working people if they aren't paid for because they contribute to the deficit. I mean, what is wrong with that? How can it be more clear?" -- outgoing Ohio governor Ted Strickland

This interview with soon-to-be-former Ohio governor Ted Strickland is refreshingly honest, in a way that, unfortunately, is only displayed by Democrats exiting office, not those currently in office. Compromise isn't a one way street, and when the person you are attempting to compromise with is someone whose only goal is your political downfall I'd say it's a dead end street.

Or a back alley.

When up to 3.6 million Americans are gainfully employed due to legislation your opponent wanted to fail miserably because misery and controversy sell ads, and continues today to laugh about children losing health care coverage - when this is what passes for leadership from the right side of the aisle - the Left can't win that argument?

The Left, or at least the portion of the Left represented by the Democratic Party in Congress and the White House, passed major health care legislation that shaves over a trillion dollars off the deficit while covering 95% of all Americans, prevented another Great Depression and enacted legislation to reform Wall Street to help prevent a recurrence of the collapse that got us into the mess in the first place.

 Lets not even get in to the resurgent GM and the subsequent successful IPO.

All of that, a partial listing at best of recent accomplishments that directly benefit a vast majority of Americans, and the populist party is the Republican Party? The Party that insists on ending unemployment benefits for millions of Americans at Christmas? The Party that insists on a massive tax cut for the richest people in the land damn the consequences?

I wish Billy Mays was still with us. I bet he could sell the message for the Democrats.