Political News Bits of the Day

Discussing all things political in NW Arkansas and beyond.
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Re: Political News Bits of the Day

Post by Dardedar »

Debunking the “Entitlement Society” Myth

"Contrary to claims that government benefit programs are creating a dependent class of Americans who are losing the desire to work and would rather collect government benefits than find a job, a major report we issued today finds that these programs’ benefits go overwhelmingly to people who are elderly, disabled, or members of working households."

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Re: Political News Bits of the Day

Post by L.Wood »

Not too sure where this should go, perhaps under the "Other" forum. If so just move it. Useful stuff for younger Freethinkers and friends:

"6 Subtle Ways The News Media Disguises Bullshit As Fact"
By: C. Coville March 17, 2010

Cracked.com
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Re: Political News Bits of the Day

Post by Dardedar »

Why the US government doesn't work when republicans are involved.

From the minute President Obama took office, obstruction of judicial nominees skyrocketed — the average Obama nominee must
wait nearly four times as long for a vote as the average nominee at this point in the Bush presidency:

Image

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Re: Political News Bits of the Day

Post by L.Wood »

.
From the minute President Obama took office, obstruction of judicial nominees skyrocketed
I think Senate leader Harry Reid has had enough:'

"Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid tries to force vote on judicial nominees, end GOP filibuster
By Associated Press, March 12, 2012

WASHINGTON — Raising the partisan temperature in the Senate, Majority Leader Harry Reid on Monday used a parliamentary tactic designed to end a Republican filibuster against 17 of President Barack Obama’s judicial nominees.

Reid, whose move infuriated Republicans, has been complaining for months about the slow pace of confirmations of the president’s picks for the federal bench.

Republicans have argued the pace is consistent with Democratic approvals of former President George W. Bush’s court nominees. [see Dar's post above]They also have said Obama has been slow to nominate people to fill judicial vacancies

Reid filed a petition for cloture, which would limit debate and force a vote on the nominees. However, he would need a super majority of 60 votes in the 100-member Senate, and Democrats only have 51, plus two independents who caucus with the party. The procedure would require 17 separate votes — one for each judge — to limit debate and force an up-or-down vote. The votes are likely by Wednesday.
....
Reid, if successful, would force a vote for the 17 district court nominees before the Senate, but not the five appellate court nominees. Appellate choices receive more detailed scrutiny because appeals courts are often the last word in deciding major issues — or are the last stop before a case reaches the Supreme Court.

Washington Post

Under 1975 rules cloture requires 60% of the Senators to invoke. It shuts off filibusters and limits arguments to one hour and to the bill or issue at hand.
Currently Democrats hold 51 Senate seats, Republicans 47 while independents hold 2 seats and caucus with Democrats. This means Reid will need to find 7 Republican votes to invoke cloture so 17 judicial nominations can proceed.

Many cloture motions are filed, few succeed. See here.
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Re: Political News Bits of the Day

Post by Dardedar »

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Move On
.
.
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Re: Political News Bits of the Day

Post by Dardedar »

From Mediamatters:

Another Whopper From Fox's Graphics Department

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"There are several reasons why this graphic does more to confuse than to inform. First, Fox double-counted state taxes. They included the average state tax of about 23 cents per gallon both in the category "state" taxes and in the category "state & local" taxes. The total of both state and local taxes is 30.4 cents on average. Fox also placed $3.83 at the bottom, as if taxes are in addition to the price for gasoline. But the $3.83 figure already includes the taxes.

And in a continuing struggle with the concept of scale, Fox's three tax figures appear about 70 percent as large as the $3.83 displayed underneath, when mathematically they're less than 20 percent (and that's without correcting for the double-counted state taxes).

Fixing these problems, you would get a chart that looks more like this:

Image

http://mediamatters.org/blog/201203160013
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Re: Political News Bits of the Day

Post by Dardedar »

FCC decision strikes critical blow to right-wing radio dominance

"A Federal Communications Commission (FCC) decision issued Monday (PDF) will clear the runway for hundreds of new community radio stations that broadcast on low-power FM signals, bringing progressive, community voices to urban areas that have for decades only known what’s being broadcast by major corporations and America’s political right.

In other words, the dismantling of Rush Limbaugh was just the beginning, and the whole FM dial is next.

The FCC’s decision on Monday wipes away a massive backlog of applications for FM repeater stations, which are transmitters that repeat signals broadcast by corporate and religious radio operators — many of which rake in big listening audiences for right-wing syndicated talk shows."

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Re: Political News Bits of the Day

Post by Dardedar »

Conservatives versus Science: A New Scientific Validation of the Republican War on Science (and Republican Brain) Thesis

"The research is by Gordon Gauchat of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and published in the prestigious American Sociological Review. In the study, Gauchat uses a vast body of General Social Survey data to test three competing theses about the relationship between science and the U.S. public:

1) the cultural ascendancy thesis or “deficit model” view, according to which better education and engagement with science lead all boats to rise, and citizens across the board become more trusting of scientists and their expertise;

2) the alienation thesis, according to which modernity brings on distrust and disillusionment with science (call it the “spoiled brat” thesis if you’d like); and

3) the politicization thesis—my thesis—according to which some cultural groups, aka conservatives, have a unique fallout with science for reasons tied up with the nature of modern American conservatism, such as its ideology, the growth of its think tank infrastructure, and so on.

The result? Well, Gauchat’s data show that the politicization thesis handily defeats all contenders. More specifically, he demonstrates that there was only really a decline in public trust in science among conservatives in the period from 1974 to 2010..."

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"First, Gauchat shows something I also highlight: Graduate degrees are now much more numerous among liberals, and the graduate education gap between left and right is widening. This factor—reflecting liberals’ greater Openness to scientific information and new ideas, as well as unending conservative attacks on academia (and recourse to ideological think tanks to take its place)—is a key structural force involved in driving conservatives away from science.

Second: Gauchat also captures, once again, the “smart idiot” effect: Conservatives becoming more factually wrong—or, in this case, more distrusting of science, which to me is basically the same thing—as their level of education advances. Here let me quote in full, because frankly, the finding can only be called highly disturbing:
"…conservatives with high school degrees, bachelor’s degrees, and graduate degrees all experienced greater distrust in science over time and these declines are statistically significant. In addition, a comparison of predicted probabilities indicates that conservatives with college degrees decline more quickly than those with only a high school degree. These results are quite profound, because they imply that conservative discontent with science was not attributable to the uneducated but to rising distrust among educated conservatives."
The key question to pose, after reading Gauchat’s paper, is why this occurred. Clearly, The Republican War on Science’s politicization thesis is being strongly validated—a thesis that attributes the problem to the growth of a modern conservative movement, its need to appease its core interest groups and constituencies (corporate America, conservative Christians), its need to have its own alternative expertise and journalism (think tanks, Fox, Limbaugh), and so on."

Chris Mooney
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Re: Political News Bits of the Day

Post by Savonarola »

Darrel wrote:
"…conservatives with high school degrees, bachelor’s degrees, and graduate degrees all experienced greater distrust in science over time and these declines are statistically significant. In addition, a comparison of predicted probabilities indicates that conservatives with college degrees decline more quickly than those with only a high school degree. These results are quite profound, because they imply that conservative discontent with science was not attributable to the uneducated but to rising distrust among educated conservatives."
The key question to pose, after reading Gauchat’s paper, is why this occurred.
Two other factors that immediately come to my mind are confirmation bias and the fleeing of conservatism upon proper education.

We also see an inverse relationship between education level and conservatism in the first place. Thus, conservatives are becoming unconservative upon being educated. Which ones are more likely to be doing this? Why, the ones who realize that conservatism runs counter to science, of course. Thus, those with less distrust of science to begin with don't gain distrust, they leave conservatism, leaving the average distrust amongst conservatives increased. Now, for those conservatives who distrust science (or are more brainwashed by conservatism) but become more exposed to what science says -- including how much different disciplines of science are interrelated and interdependent -- maintaining conservatism requires distrusting more and more of these interrelated sciences. Thus, with conservatism firmly entrenched, the very strength of science -- it's bazillion cross-checks -- becomes science's own doom in the minds of increasingly educated confirmation-biased conservatives.
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Re: Political News Bits of the Day

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The new republican/Ryan budget is a complete fraud. Who could have guessed?

***
Pink Slime Economics
Paul Krugman

excerpt:

"...on Thursday Republicans in the House of Representatives passed what was surely the most fraudulent budget in American history.

And when I say fraudulent, I mean just that. The trouble with the budget devised by Paul Ryan, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, isn’t just its almost inconceivably cruel priorities, the way it slashes taxes for corporations and the rich while drastically cutting food and medical aid to the needy. Even aside from all that, the Ryan budget purports to reduce the deficit — but the alleged deficit reduction depends on the completely unsupported assertion that trillions of dollars in revenue can be found by closing tax loopholes.

And we’re talking about a lot of loophole-closing. As Howard Gleckman of the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center points out, to make his numbers work Mr. Ryan would, by 2022, have to close enough loopholes to yield an extra $700 billion in revenue every year. That’s a lot of money, even in an economy as big as ours. So which specific loopholes has Mr. Ryan, who issued a 98-page manifesto on behalf of his budget, said he would close?

None. Not one. He has, however, categorically ruled out any move to close the major loophole that benefits the rich, namely the ultra-low tax rates on income from capital. (That’s the loophole that lets Mitt Romney pay only 14 percent of his income in taxes, a lower tax rate than that faced by many middle-class families.)"

The rest...

New York Times
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Re: Political News Bits of the Day

Post by Dardedar »

Carville clip:

Santorum ‘a chicken with his head chopped off,

“Santorum never had a chance to set out after South Carolina. He was like a chicken with his head chopped off. The chicken is dead. The only person that don’t know that is the chicken.
“He can flop around all he wants to,” Carville added. “They’re not going to nominate him.”

Good clip: Daily Caller
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Re: Political News Bits of the Day

Post by Dardedar »

Mitt Romney will be the only presidential nominee since at least 1996 who left the primary season with a negative net approval rate.

The results: Dole +22, Gore +17, Bush +19, Kerry +17, McCain +19, Obama +18 and Romney -12.

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Re: Political News Bits of the Day

Post by Dardedar »

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If you've been watching the endless stream of conservatives bashing the GM Volt, you may find it disgusting how supposedly "patriotic" American conservatives will root against the success of their own country, if they think it goes against the interests of their conservative ideology. As if being smart with conservation of energy, is a bad thing. What they are really afraid of, is being wrong (perhaps it's from so much practice). This FOX box favorite talking point is a couple weeks past its freshness date.

Chevy Volt Sales Way Up — March Its Strongest Sales Month to Date

"After a short bit of trouble this Winter as numerous members of the GOP and conservative media attacked GM’s Chevy Volt, the Volt has bounced back with force. “The Volt had its strongest sales month to date in March, with sales of more than 2,000 vehicles. Sales nearly doubled from January to February and that trend continued into March,” GM wrote yesterday."
LINK

This rightwing GM guy gets sick of it and finally goes on FOX News to debunk the pile of the myths and whoppers FOX talking heads been pouring into the heads of their clueless listeners:

LINK
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Re: Political News Bits of the Day

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Re: Political News Bits of the Day

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KRUGMAN: Once Again, Republicans Are Wrong -- We Need More Inflation, Not Less

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"Paul Krugman continues to observe that those who have been doom-mongering about inflation since the financial crisis have been dead wrong.
The brief spike in inflation we've seen over the last couple of years--which some Fed critics immediately viewed as the beginning of the end--has again subsided. And inflation is now running below the Fed's target. (See chart below).
In Krugman's view, we need more inflation, not less. For several reasons:
Inflation erodes the real burden of debt, which we're still overloaded with (This is because debt incurred in old dollars can be repaid with dollars that are worth less)
Inflation encourages people to spend money instead of hoarding it (because the money will be worth less tomorrow)
The unemployment rate is still too high, so the Fed is falling short of one objective of its "dual mandate" (to keep inflation moderate and the unemployment rate high)."
Business Insider

See also:

KRUGMAN: It's Amazing How Idiot Inflation Scare-Mongers Just Refuse To Admit They're Wrong

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"There has been a new bout of inflation fears recently.
This follows a bout of inflation fears last year.
And the year before.
And the year before.
Each time, the temporary uptick in inflation that "inflationistas" have touted as the first sign of impending doom has faded away, leaving muted inflation.
At the beginning of the financial crisis, when the Fed first started printing money, and inflation fears first took hold, economist Paul Krugman pushed back. He argued that we were in a "liquidity trap" in which we were unable to use newly printed money--and, therefore, that the Fed's money printing was nothing to worry about.
And, so far, Paul Krugman has been right.
The prices of some commodities, especially oil and gold, has soared, but overall inflation has remained muted. (Not non-existent, by any means. But certainly not runaway hyper-inflation.)
Maybe, someday, the inflation scare-mongers will be right, and the dollar's value will be reduced to that of toilet paper.
But, for now, Krugman's winning."

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Re: Political News Bits of the Day

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Re: Political News Bits of the Day

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Oil rigs, drilling, drill baby drill.

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Re: Political News Bits of the Day

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What a pathetic bullshit artist. Piles of lies from Paul Ryan, nicely unpacked here:

Paul Ryan’s not-so-fact-based conversation
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Re: Political News Bits of the Day

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Tea Party vs. the Constitution.

Four minutes well spent.
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Re: Political News Bits of the Day

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Unexceptionalism: A Primer
By E. L. DOCTOROW
Published: April 28, 2012
New York Times

TO achieve unexceptionalism, the political ideal that would render the United States indistinguishable from the
impoverished, traditionally undemocratic, brutal or catatonic countries of the world, do the following:

PHASE ONE

Link
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