Convention
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The Affordable Care Act actually will raise lots and lots of taxes.
the only way Obama dodged the unconstitutionality bullet was to have it declared a tax.
WSS
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But the stimulus most certainly included patronage and cronyism.
The word fraud was inserted by the author defending the president.
Unless it appears somewhere else which was not quoted.
WSS
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By the way about Falls point number 1, the plant closing: did candidate Obama say it would be open another 100 years or not?
WSS
By the way about Falls point number 1, the plant closing: did candidate Obama say it would be open another 100 years or not?
WSS
Yep. What's your point?
The point is that he's suggesting that Obama failed to keep it open despite suggesting that it could be saved. He gave it as an example of a broken promise. This is not something the Obama administration could effect in anyway, as the decisions were all made before he took office. It's deceptive and dishonest at best. Much like if I blamed the way you moderate the board for all the crazies taking over.
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By the way about Falls point number 1, the plant closing: did candidate Obama say it would be open another 100 years or not?
WSS
Yep. What's your point?
The point is that he's suggesting that Obama failed to keep it open despite suggesting that it could be saved. He gave it as an example of a broken promise. This is not something the Obama administration could effect in anyway, as the decisions were all made before he took office. It's deceptive and dishonest at best. Much like if I blamed the way you moderate the board for all the crazies taking over.
Yep. What's your point?
The point is that he's suggesting that Obama failed to keep it open despite suggesting that it could be saved. He gave it as an example of a broken promise. This is not something the Obama administration could effect in anyway, as the decisions were all made before he took office. It's deceptive and dishonest at best. Much like if I blamed the way you moderate the board for all the crazies taking over.
Do you expect the democratic side to be honest in their speeches? I can't see either side being too honest. They don't put a strong emphasis on it in politics in general.
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More than that, yes.
Of course, these are convention speeches and they're not meant to be taken as policy speeches. But you don't get passes or points for lying, or being dishonest. The number of straw men thrown up in the last few days has been remarkable. That stuff should be pointed out, and on both sides.
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As usual, Heck is cherry picking and partisan attacking.
Want some real truth?
Don't listen to Heck repeating lies.
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As usual, Heck is cherry picking and partisan attacking.
Want some real truth?
Don't listen to Heck repeating lies.
As usual, Heck is cherry picking and partisan attacking.
Want some real truth?
Don't listen to Heck repeating lies.
Well I think it's more a straw man than cherry picking.
the post, or any other organization dedicated to carrying the Presidents water, have a tendency to redefine the bullet points and then argue against them.
Heck does it to me and accuses me of doing it to him.
For example I don't believe Ryan accused anyone off illegality with the stimulus.
Still that money was doled out freely to those who support the president, especially unions, large contributors and other fellow travelers.
It's obvious with the latest calls for more stimulus slated for teachers police and firefighters unions.
So there was nothing untrue about that statement.
But the post claims Ryan accused the president of fraud, which he did not.
Remember the presidents flacks engage in political theater too.
WSS
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So I had to play last night hence I've missed both the Browns game and the Romney speech.
I'm assuming the latter was wildly inspirational and or an evil pack of lies.
WSS
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As usual, Heck is cherry picking and partisan attacking.
Want some real truth?
Don't listen to Heck repeating lies.
Well I think it's more a straw man than cherry picking.
the post, or any other organization dedicated to carrying the Presidents water, have a tendency to redefine the bullet points and then argue against them.
Heck does it to me and accuses me of doing it to him.
For example I don't believe Ryan accused anyone off illegality with the stimulus.
Still that money was doled out freely to those who support the president, especially unions, large contributors and other fellow travelers.
It's obvious with the latest calls for more stimulus slated for teachers police and firefighters unions.
So there was nothing untrue about that statement.
But the post claims Ryan accused the president of fraud, which he did not.
Remember the presidents flacks engage in political theater too.
WSS
Well I think it's more a straw man than cherry picking.
the post, or any other organization dedicated to carrying the Presidents water, have a tendency to redefine the bullet points and then argue against them.
Heck does it to me and accuses me of doing it to him.
For example I don't believe Ryan accused anyone off illegality with the stimulus.
Still that money was doled out freely to those who support the president, especially unions, large contributors and other fellow travelers.
It's obvious with the latest calls for more stimulus slated for teachers police and firefighters unions.
So there was nothing untrue about that statement.
But the post claims Ryan accused the president of fraud, which he did not.
Remember the presidents flacks engage in political theater too.
WSS
Steve is right that Ryan never used the word "fraud" so the Post is wrong to attack him for that. What Steve and Ryan are wrong about is that the stimulus was used as some sort of payback for political support and rife with cronyism. It's just not true. You can subscribe to the economic theory that says that counter-cyclical spending in a recession is wise or you can not subscribe to it (I don't know many economists who don't - the difference lies in degree and type), but to dismiss any spending that went to public employees as money "doled out freely to those who support the president" is just a load of shit, what Steve would call "flacking" for Romney. It's also a little odd considering the amount of job loss we've seen in the public sector.
If Romney were faced with the same economic crisis he would have done largely the same thing. Remember, back then Romney was calling for stimulus spending too: "Well, I frankly wish that the last Congress (had) dealt with the stimulus issue and that the president could have signed that before leaving office. I think there is need for economic stimulus. Americans have lost about $11 trillion in net worth. That translates into about $400 billion a year less spending that they'll be doing, and that's net of additional government programs like Medicaid and unemployment insurance. And government can help make that up in a very difficult time. And that's one of the reasons why I think a stimulus program is needed."
His may have differed somewhat, but I have little doubt that he would have used some of the money to shore up state budgets and prevent waves of layoffs as the recession deepened.
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Or Steve, take a look at what Ben Bernanke said this morning when he talked about the economy's headwinds. The first thing he noted was the continued drag of the struggling housing market.
Here's the second thing he noted:
"Second, fiscal policy, at both the federal and state and local levels, has become an important headwind for the pace of economic growth. Notwithstanding some recent improvement in tax revenues, state and local governments still face tight budget situations and continue to cut real spending and employment."
In short, it's the same thing he's been saying for a while: you idiots should quit dicking around and spend some government money that puts people to work doing productive things. And that's not because Bernanke is flacking for the president, or in bed with the unions. It's because he wants to help get the economy out of the rut it's in.
Obama's economic team was trying to do the same thing.
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So, aren't you the one buying the campaign spin, my brother?
Maybe the best way forward as we start the new year is to stop accusing anyone who defends Obama against unfair criticism of being a flack. Unless you somehow imagine that all the stuff posted in here (often by clueless nutjobs) is right on point, I'd say there's more than enough room to defend the president's policies from mischaracterizations, or outright lies.
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Or Steve, take a look at what Ben Bernanke said this morning when he talked about the economy's headwinds. The first thing he noted was the continued drag of the struggling housing market.
Here's the second thing he noted:
"Second, fiscal policy, at both the federal and state and local levels, has become an important headwind for the pace of economic growth. Notwithstanding some recent improvement in tax revenues, state and local governments still face tight budget situations and continue to cut real spending and employment."
In short, it's the same thing he's been saying for a while: you idiots should quit dicking around and spend some government money that puts people to work doing productive things. And that's not because Bernanke is flacking for the president, or in bed with the unions. It's because he wants to help get the economy out of the rut it's in.
Obama's economic team was trying to do the same thing.
Or Steve, take a look at what Ben Bernanke said this morning when he talked about the economy's headwinds. The first thing he noted was the continued drag of the struggling housing market.
Here's the second thing he noted:
"Second, fiscal policy, at both the federal and state and local levels, has become an important headwind for the pace of economic growth. Notwithstanding some recent improvement in tax revenues, state and local governments still face tight budget situations and continue to cut real spending and employment."
In short, it's the same thing he's been saying for a while: you idiots should quit dicking around and spend some government money that puts people to work doing productive things. And that's not because Bernanke is flacking for the president, or in bed with the unions. It's because he wants to help get the economy out of the rut it's in.
Obama's economic team was trying to do the same thing.
So where do you suppose and expect that extra stimulus would go? And where would you like to see it go?
WSS
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So, aren't you the one buying the campaign spin, my brother?
Maybe the best way forward as we start the new year is to stop accusing anyone who defends Obama against unfair criticism of being a flack. Unless you somehow imagine that all the stuff posted in here (often by clueless nutjobs) is right on point, I'd say there's more than enough room to defend the president's policies from mischaracterizations, or outright lies.
So, aren't you the one buying the campaign spin, my brother?
Maybe the best way forward as we start the new year is to stop accusing anyone who defends Obama against unfair criticism of being a flack. Unless you somehow imagine that all the stuff posted in here (often by clueless nutjobs) is right on point, I'd say there's more than enough room to defend the president's policies from mischaracterizations, or outright lies.
Oh I suppose that could be done on both sides.
But let's face it.
It hasn't happened since the Republic was founded and probably never will.
WSS
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I mean, I don't want to take half the arrows out of your quiver...
Look, the criticisms of Obama from the right are almost always way off the mark. Which surprises me because there are lots of criticisms to be made. The problem for Republican politicians is that many of them are far too tame to get their supporters excited because they've spent so much time in the fever swamp calling him a rabid socialist who hates America. So, you get what you've heard this week: he hates success, he hates the private sector, he thinks all good things come from government, he wants the government to run everything so he can pay back his friends, etc.
That doesn't mean we have to play there. Leave it for Cal.
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I don't really feel all that bad considering the Washington Post is supposed to be a respectable news organization.
I would think they should hold themselves to a higher standard than either Fox News or MSNBC.
So I don't think the term Flack is all that outrageous.
I don't think your reaction would be any more tempered had a similar type of response come from Matt Drudge about an Obama speech.
WSS
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Matt Drudge is a not a journalist. He's a partisan sensationalist who links. He never pens a thing, so I don't have to worry about what he says.
You're right to call this guy on what he got wrong. That's fine. Just because he writes for the Post doesn't mean he's perfect. But this isn't about him. This is about Ryan, and the liberties he took with the truth, with Obama's record, as well as his own record. Basically, he went beyond even what convention speakers normally allowed to do. He got stealing. He was too far off the bag. The media's job is to call balls and strikes, and I was surprised to see such universal condemnation of his mendacity.
Mitt Romney, you'll note, isn't facing the same criticism today. He left the completely untrue, like the welfare work requirement stuff, and the barely true/highly misleading stuff out of his speech.
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