Teabagging GOP sucking on teat of Big Government

Surprise, surprise. The Teabaggers really do love Big Government bailouts. If they didn't, they would not be accepting this money and they would have already forced legislation to break up the too-big-too-fail. More on the fraudulent Teabaggers from Bloomberg:

Republican freshmen have made clear their disdain for expanding government, and openly opposed a financial regulatory overhaul enacted by Democrats in 2010 before the newcomers arrived in Washington. Their ranks include 10 Tea Party-backed freshmen on the House Financial Services Committee, part of a force that won election in a populist backlash to government spending that included emergency lending to major banks and bailout of firms including U.S. automakers. Still, the lawmakers haven’t passed, considered or even introduced legislation to address concerns about “too-big-to- fail” banks voiced by members of both parties and such Federal Reserve bank presidents as Richard Fisher of Dallas and Jeffrey Lacker of Richmond, Virginia. “I haven’t seen any of them putting forth legislation on breaking up the big banks or on other things that would genuinely prevent a bailout next time,” said Marcus Stanley, policy director of Americans for Financial Reform, a Washington- based umbrella group of organizations that supported the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act and other financial regulations.

GOP dissed research projects that ended up discovering useful things

Someone should ask the Republicans if Galileo was right in his battle against the Catholic church. (Though, to be fair, the answer is nuanced - though I seriously doubt they'll get that.) Speaking of Galileo, and the stars, this vid is cool:

GOP committee chair calls Obama admin "most corrupt government in history"

And House Committee chair Darrel Issa knows a thing or two (or three) about corruption.

Last year Rep. Darrell Issa retracted his statement that President Barack Obama was one of the most corrupt presidents in modern history, saying he should have parsed his words more carefully.

Tuesday, the California Republican's more careful parsing apparently included declaring Obama's government the most corrupt in history.

"We are busy in Washington with a corrupt government, with a government that I said more than a year ago was perhaps -- because of the money, because of the amount of TARP and stimulus funds -- was going to be the most corrupt government in history, and it is proving to be that, just exactly that," Issa said in a Bloomberg television interview.

Romney blames Obama for factory that closed under Bush

Are all Harvard MBA's as clueless about facts as Bush and Romney or are they the exceptions that prove the rule? D'oh!

Mitt Romney visited an Ohio factory, closed when President George W. Bush was in office, to make the case that President Barack Obama’s economic policies prevented the facility and others like it from reopening.

Standing in the middle of an empty warehouse floor yesterday, Romney blamed Obama for promoting measures that have slowed the economic recovery.

“It would have reopened by now, but it’s still empty,” the presumptive Republican presidential nominee said. “It underscores the failure of this president’s policies with regards to getting the economy working again.”

GOP congressman says 81 congressional Dems are commies

Someone is either desperate for attention or a complete loon. Maybe both. The Democrats barely even have liberals in Congress let alone communists. Making a bizarre statement like this only proves how extremely far right the GOP has become.

NOTE FROM JOHN: This is GOP Congressman Allen West, who is desperate for attention and a complete loon.

Democrats had better nip this kind of attack in the bud, now.  They did little to respond to attacks from Republicans in 2008 that labeled Obama a "socialist."  Now it's a generally accepted fact on the right that Obama is -- which is absurd.  What's ironic is that many on the left don't find Obama nearly liberal enough.

But our guys have a habit of letting this extremist, even dangerous, rhetoric fester on the right until it sticks and becomes "true."  Then some nut either picks up a gun and tries to assassinate a Democratic congresswoman or a judge, or less sensation but equally harmful, the public ends up believing that a health care plan that gets rid of annual limits and pre-existing conditions actually contains "death panels" when it doesn't.

Some lies you ignore, others you nip in the bud.  Democrats do the former quite well, the latter not so much.  (PS This story is from two days ago, but it's important.  We've seen what happens when we let republicans continually move the goal posts of decency farther and father to the right.  Our politicians, laws, and populace tend to follow.)

More here.

Bush regrets "Bush tax cuts" name, but not the cuts

After complaining about the popular name for his disastrous tax cuts for the rich, Bush then goes on to sell the benefits of his tax cuts for the rich. Despite there being no evidence to support the common right wing theory that tax cuts spur investment, Bush continues to promote this false theory. After all, what is Mitt Romney doing with the tax cuts that he received besides adding an elevator for his cars or tearing down his $12 million house and building something larger?

If the country is looking for something to boost the general economy and not just a few workers, tax cuts for the ultra rich is a bad idea. CNNMoney:

"I wish they weren't called the Bush tax cuts. If they were called someone else's tax cuts, they'd be less likely to be raised," he said in introductory remarks at a conference at the New York Historical Society.

The former president repeated the argument often used by Republicans -- that eliminating those tax cuts for the wealthy, as Democrats have proposed, would hit small businesses and hurt hiring.

"If you raise taxes on these so-called rich, you're really raising taxes on the job creators," he said at the conference, which was sponsored by the Bush Institute, which he opened after leaving office. "And if the goal is to create private sector growth, you have to recognize that the best way is to leave capital in the treasuries of the job creators."

Republicans reinvent math in order to claim health care reform increases deficit

When the numbers don't add up to the way you want, simply adopt a new form of math.

And who's behind this new math? The Koch brothers, of course, and their creepy friends at George Mason university, also funded by the Koch brothers.

You have to hand it to the Republicans, if you don't mind lying, then politics can be quite fun.  You get someone who has a title next to his name to just make up a lie, then have Limbaugh, Fox, the religious right, and the more extreme GOP members in Congress (aka the entire GOP leadership) repeat the lie ad infinitum until the media writes about it as a kind of he-said-she-said, implying that it might just be true.

Not only is our side more uncomfortable lying (which is a good thing), we outright stink at adopting a larger coordinated messaging strategy, in part because our guys are always too afraid to use the hard-hitting message that's needed, lest we appear "mean."

So get ready for GOP math, coming to a school new you (that already teaches GOP science).

That big mess, Lindsey Graham is busy spouting off about health care reform

Now that the threat of a DADT investigation has passed, GOP Senator Lindsey Graham sure is talking like a tough guy. He's also talking nonsense. From Yahoo:

South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham celebrated the second anniversary of President Barack Obama's health care law by calling it "a big effing mess," alluding to Vice President Joseph Biden's comment when the bill was signed in 2010.

"Two years ago at the Obama health care bill signing the Vice President was overheard telling President Obama, 'This is a big 'effing' deal,' Graham wrote on his official Twitter account, referring to Biden's profanity about the law's passage. "Unfortunately for them, two years later, the vast majority of Americans believe this has become a big 'effing' mess."

Speaking of big messes, Lindsey.

Well, of course the majority of Americans think it's a mess. That's because the majority of Americans have no idea what health care reform even does, nor do the majority of Republican opponents of health care reform. They've bought the GOP propaganda, as that Newsweek poll from last year showed. The majority of Americans don't like health care reform until they find out what it's in it, then they love it overwhelmingly.

When asked about Obama's plan (without being given any details about what the legislation includes), 49 percent opposed it and 40 percent were in favor. But after hearing key features of the legislation described, 48 percent supported the plan and 43 percent remained opposed.

The NEWSWEEK Poll asked respondents about eight health-care-reform provisions that Obama and many Democrats in Congress have generally supported. It found that the majority of Americans supported five of those provisions, three by particularly large margins. Eighty-one percent agreed with the creation of a new insurance marketplace, the exchange, for individual subscribers to compare plans and buy insurance at a competitive rate. Seventy-six percent thought health insurers should be required to cover anyone who applies, including those with preexisting conditions; and 75 percent agreed with requiring most businesses to offer health insurance to their employees, with incentives for small-business owners to do so.

So, correct, the public thinks it's a mess. And, correct, the public has no idea what's in it so they have no basis for deciding whether it's a mess.

The GOP lies. But the Obama administration doesn't do nearly enough to defend itself. It's doing more now, finally, and thankfully, but they need to get a lot better at this.

How Limbaugh and Beck's propaganda works

I am just completing some interior renovations and about to start some exterior work and so was talking to a couple of contractors. The first told me a conspiracy theory a friend of a friend had told him from the Rush Limbaugh show, whereby the government was alleged to be requiring spy cameras in every HD TV set. I have not been able to track down what Limbaugh might have said to have triggered this claim, but the 'Chinese whispers' effect is instrumental in the workings of this type of propaganda. The speaker makes a claim that is hedged with qualifications and caveats knowing that their words will be repeated without them.

The second conspiracy theory involved a story on Glenn Beck's site about a government 'plan' to ban PVC pipe. The headline has a question mark but it is clear that the reader is intended to believe this is a real proposal.

Banning PVC pipe in home building probably isn't much of a concern to most people but it would certainly worry the people in the building trade most of whom are the blue collar males who are the target audience for Beck and Limbaugh.

The propaganda follows a pattern that will be familiar to anyone who has watched Beck's show. First there is an incredibly detailed introduction that is designed to prove to the reader that the writer is an authority on the subject by stating a long list of essentially irrelevant facts that could be found on wikipedia. Next there comes a sequence of paragraphs that juxtapose facts in a way that is essentially irrelevant to the point but intended to create an association in the reader's mind. The big lie must be preceded by an advance guard of spurious but hard to check claims designed to distract attention from the blatant misrepresentation to follow:

First off, LEED certification is not cheap. Design and construction review of a new building can cost up to $27,500. In fact, in 2009, the USGBC made over $74 million from accreditation, membership dues, and certification fees. The non-profit organization reported $53 million in net assets at the end of that year.

It $27K for LEED certification expensive or cheap? It all depends on the cost of the building and the planning considerations. $27K would be rather expensive for a single residential building and a rounding error for a developer building an office block or a 100 unit residential community.

Next comes a completely irrelevant statistic:

The extent to which the federal government subsidizes the USGBC is made clear when you realize the amount of LEED-certified building space in Washington, DC, which has more LEED-certified space on a per-capita basis than in any of the 50 states. Over 18.9 million square feet, or 31.5 square feet per resident, is LEED certified in the Washington, DC; the closest state is Colorado, with 2.7 square feet per person.

Does it really make sense to compare a city to a state? Isn't it rather likely that Manhattan, Chicago and Boston have more LEED certified office space per capita than any of the 50 states as well?

Finally, after the preamble has prepared the reader and exhausted their fact checking efforts we get to the money shot, a statement that is clearly designed to get the reader whose livelihood depends on building houses worried:

And this brings us all the way back to PVC. As first mentioned, the GSA is considering new USGBC regulations that include the “avoidance” of the popular material.

As the proposal states: The intent is to “decrease the concentrations of chemical contaminants that can damage air quality, human health, productivity, and the environment.” And to this end, LEED will certify whoever uses products or materials “that do not contain intentionally added substances present in the end product.” This includes Polyvinyl chloride.

OK so assuming that the government is not intending to shut down the construction industry by banning PVC pipe, what is really going on?

What is really happening is that the LEED program has a 'pilot program' that developers can use to secure 'extra credit'. Participating a pilot is optional and many pilots list many different ways to score the credit. The pilot at issue here is Pilot Credit 54 "Avoidance of Chemicals of Concern". The criteria are hardly very exacting:

Use a minimum of 20%, by cost, of at least 3 building product and material types
meeting one of the options below

The option then lists a series of highly toxic materials; lead, mercury cadmium and so on. PVC isn't even in the list. So these are requirements that only apply to 20% of the building materials costs. A PVC building floating on a lake of mercury could qualify for the pilot credit provided at least 20% of the cost was other materials. I don't know how much my plumber spent on PVC pipe but I doubt it added up to more than a few hundred bucks. It certainly didn't amount to 80%.

PVC only appears in 'Option 2' which is an alternative option within the pilot and the wording is rather obscure:

Meet the requirements of Option 1.AND Use third party certified building products and materials that do not contain intentionally added substances present in the end product over the reporting thresholds
below. Calculate compliant building products and materials at twice the cost.

What this appears to say is that if your materials don't contain PVC or the other substances in concentrations higher than those allowed they count double. So you only need to source 10% of your components from these sources.

I can't see how a developer would have a problem meeting the requirements. My biggest building material expenses were concrete, framing lumber and plywood. The real challenge would be documenting that the requirements were met.

Remember that LEED is an optional program designed to illustrate best of breed, it is not regulation. This proposal isn't even a proposal for a LEED requirement. If the pilot requirements are unmeetable, nobody is going to meet them. If nobody meets them, the pilot proposals are unlikely to even become a LEED requirement.

This position is reinforced by a series of statements by what are cited as 'experts' but are really spokespersons for the PVC industry:

Allen Blakey, vice president of Industry and Government Affairs for the Vinyl Institute, says his organization is “astonished to see PVC added to the USGBC’s list of chemicals to avoid,” the report adds. According to Blakey, PVC is a material that’s been studied for some time by the USGBC itself.

And finally the writer heads off into crazy loopsville:

So why is LEED trying to blacklist the material?

Well, maybe it’s important to understand a little bit more about LEED’s “founding founder” Robert Watson, a man who infamously said “Buildings are far and away the worst thing humans do to the environment.”

This are not the ravings of a lunatic, they are the work of a deliberate, cynical propagandist. Deconstructing the propaganda is really not hard but it does require some critical thinking skills. The type of skills that Republicans would rather not see taught in schools.

First the reader needs to be able to identify the small set of factual statements that are actually relevant. Next the reader has to fact check the key claims by examining the original sources. In this case the key source is a document that appears to be written by lawyers for lawyers but even a quick glance demonstrates that it is being misrepresented. Finally the reader has to do a bit of work with Google to find the original source for the out of context quote. This is what I found:

Lest we forget. "Buildings are far and away the worst thing humans do to the environment," Rob Watson of the Natural Resources Defense Council tells Grist magazine (November 25). "All of the buildings in the U.S. consume more than twice as much energy as all of the cars in the country." Chicago has a building that does much better--the Chicago Center for Green Technology, at 445 N. Sacramento, is the third building in the country to receive a "platinum" rating from the U.S. Green Building Council.

AP: Increased US drilling didn’t decrease price of gas

AP's own analysis, confirmed by an outside expert, found no link between increased drilling and lower prices. This means that, yet again, the Republicans are proposing solutions (more oil production) to serious national problems (high gas prices), and the solutions have nothing to do with the problem at hand. They're simply proposals to pander to big business, which is what the GOP always does.

It's really quite scary that we have a party so bought off by big business. The Democratic party has its problems as well in this area - Big Pharma owns both parties, and Wall Street runs a pretty close second - but the Republicans raise pandering to an art form. They consistently propose sometimes-convincing-sounding solutions to problems, and the solutions have zero in common with solving the actual problem.

Abstinence education and banning birth control come to mind as ridiculous examples of ways to "decrease abortions."  Uh, no, quite the opposite in fact.  But it doesn't matter to the GOP if their solutions solve our problems as there's always an ulterior motive of sucking up to some fringe constituency.

AP:

When you put the inflation-adjusted price of gas on the same chart as U.S. oil production since 1976, the numbers sometimes go in the same direction, sometimes in opposite directions. If drilling for more oil meant lower prices, the lines on the chart would consistently go in opposite directions. A basic statistical measure of correlation found no link between the two, and outside statistical experts confirmed those calculations.

This sounded awfully familiar to me, so I searched around our archives, and voila.  The Republicans made a similar argument about federal regulations hurting the employment numbers, and how if we just get rid of the regulations, the jobs will come streaming back. The Associated Press says no:

Is regulation strangling the American entrepreneur? Several Republican presidential candidates say so. The numbers don't.

THE FACTS: Labor Department data show that only a tiny percentage of companies that experience large layoffs cite government regulation as the reason. Since Barack Obama took office, just two-tenths of 1 percent of layoffs have been due to government regulation, the data show.

Always remember, the Republicans aren't about solving problems for the the average American. They're about solving problems for the average corporate CEO.

Buffet rule would generate $47 billion, GOP unimpressed

Of course they're unimpressed, because it generates a much more significant amount of money than the GOP plans to tax the poor and middle class. Forget all of the GOP talk about how there are so many Americans who don't pay taxes and ought to pay taxes even though taxing them would never come close to solving any financial problems. Here's a plan that actually delivers, so naturally the GOP hates it. Bloomberg:

Implementing a “Buffett rule” to require a minimum 30 percent tax rate for the highest U.S. earners would raise $47 billion over the next decade, according to a government projection.

The estimate for the proposal backed by President Barack Obama comes from the Joint Committee on Taxation, Congress’s scorekeepers. Lawmakers updated the projection late today to reflect different assumptions about how taxpayers would adjust their capital gains realizations from an earlier $31 billion version.

“The president’s so-called Buffett rule is a dog that just won’t hunt,” Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah, the top Republican on the Finance Committee, said in a statement, adding that the proposal would have little effect on reducing the federal budget deficit. “It was designed for no other reason than politics. There is no economic rationale for it.”

Uh huh, the politics of raising $47 billion. Who needs it, right?

Blowback in the GOP war on teleprompters

John Chait makes a good point:

And speaking of a failure to communicate, the Republican war on TelePrompTers has poetically backfired. It began as a quasi-racist meme among the fever swamps of the right, a way for right-wingers to express their belief that Obama is a brainless talking doll. By catering to it, Republicans backed themselves into a position where they can’t use TelePrompTers at all. The result is a series of rambling election night speeches that manage to be at once frightening and dull. The speeches, like the race, just go on and on and on.

While I agree with Kevin Drum's response that the Republican candidate's speeches suck because the candidates themselves are sucky, Chait is also right that the candidates are worse than they need to be.

As John showed in his earlier post, with pictures, every modern US President has used a teleprompter for speeches. When the words used by the President can mean the difference between war and peace, the idea of a President giving extemporaneous remarks makes them nervous as heck.


Even the GOP base knows this and so Santorum is probably not helping himself when he attacks Romney for using a teleprompter. What has the GOP base riled up is not the use of the teleprompter but the fact that Obama is easily the best orator to be elected President since JFK. Clinton and Reagan were equally effective communicators but their forte was conversational rather than inspirational.

Whenever the reactionary mind sees a fact it doesn't like, it finds an excuse to ignore it.

Under what party did gasoline and oil prices reach their peak? Republican, of course.

Republican Governor Bobby Jindal, not known for his analytical skills, is now claiming that gasoline and oil prices have reached their highest levels in years (if ever) under the Obama presidency.  Perhaps Jindal is too young to remember that, in fact, gas and oil prices were higher under - who? - Republican President George W. Bush.

Politico, quoting Jindal's lie:

“The reality is, gasoline prices have doubled under this president, highest prices for oil and gasoline in a 150 years. People used to think it was because of incompetence from Obama administration on energy – I think it’s because of ideology. They’re pursuing a radical environmental ideology,” Jindal said on “Fox & Friends.”

In fact, the monthly average retail price of gasoline peaked at $4.26 a gallon in inflation-adjusted dollars less than four years ago, in June 2008. It then plummeted to $1.80 a gallon in the next six months during the global financial collapse. Oil isn’t near historic highs either.

Kudos to Politico's MJ Leee for catching the lie.  In other words, gasoline prices reached their peak - wait for it - during the George W. Bush presidency, that would be the Republicans.  Note the chart below, red is gasoline prices under Bush, blue is gas prices under Obama.  Guess who wins?

Click chart for larger version.

And if you look back even further, it appears that George Bush's peak gasoline price was tied for the highest ever (adjusted for inflation, noted as the "real" price in the chart I link to), and Bush's tie wasn't with Obama, it was with Jimmy Carter (in this table, Carter's oil prices were slightly higher than Bush's, which were higher than Obama's) and Woodrow Wilson.

Oil prices were also higher under Bush - again, red is Bush, blue Obama.

Click for larger version.

Keep in mind that Jindal, like Bush, is supposed to be an oil expert because his state, like Texas, produces oil.  Yes, well the one oil expert failed to realize that the other oil expert had some of the highest oil and gasoline prices in all of American history.