Pat Powers doesn't even make me sweat. In the midst of his virulent reposting of GOP propaganda (mostly to compensate for his dearth of original analysis), Pat throws up this video from the National Republican Senatorial Committee trying to make everyone think they're choosing between Carter and Reagan, not Obama and Romney:
Even novice high school debaters (blessed be the fresh-faced frosh who nobly answer that call of duty) would race to the podium to ask Pat to read the full paragraphs, not just the tiny context-free slivers that the video highlights.
I was all ready to Google, aim, and fire... but it turns out that fact-checkers have already deflated all four of these weak and sneaky attacks. Robert Farley at FactCheck.org killed three of those four attacks last November, when Rick Perry and Mitt Romney tried to make it sound like Barack Obama was saying things he wasn't really saying:
- "lazy"—President Obama was speaking to CEOs at the APEC summit in Hawaii last November. Responding to a question about improving Chinese investment in the U.S., the President said we as a government and nation had been somewhat lazy in promoting investment opportunities, taking for granted that other nations knew how great it is to invest her. He then laid out how his Administration set up SelectUSA to help state and local governments find foreign investors and make the sale.
- "ambition... imagination"—President Obama, campaigning in San Francisco in October 2011, spoke about how we can't base our economy on endless debt and consumption. He said we have to make stuff: big stuff, durable stuff, high-tech stuff. He prescribed more investment in education and infrastructure, and he likened that prescription to the public investments President Lincoln made to boost America's economy: the Homestead Act, the National Academy of Sciences, the Transcontinental Railroad, and the land-grant colleges.
- "soft"—This decontextualization is particularly egregious: the video starts in the middle of this sentence: "The way I think about it is, this is a great, great country that had gotten a little soft and we didn't have that same competitive edge that we needed over the last couple of decades." The Republicans can't stomach hearing President Barack Obama say this is a "great, great country." In this September 2011 interview, President Obama went on to say that America's scientists, universities, workers, and economy are still the best in the world. He's just saying we can't let our edge slip just because we think we're the best in the world. As John Kerry said last week, "...we are exceptional not because we say we are, but because we do exceptional things."
The "ATM" clip is another absurd 2011 retread trying to make a few out-of-context words branch out into yet another alternative dystopian universe. In a June 14, 2011, interview with Ann Curry on NBC, President Obama made this important and accurate observation about technology increasing productivity but decreasing the need for workers in the modern economy:
...there are some structural issues with our economy where a lot of businesses have learned to become much more efficient with a lot fewer workers. You see it when you go to a bank and you use an ATM; you don't go to a bank teller. Or you go to the airport, and you're using a kiosk instead of checking in at the gate. So all these things have created changes in the economy, and what we have to do now -- and that's what this job council is all about -- is identifying where the jobs for the future are going to be; how do we make sure that there's a match between what people are getting trained for and the jobs that exist; how do we make sure that capital is flowing into those places with the greatest opportunity. We are on the right track. The key is figuring out how do we accelerate it [President Barack Obama, interview, NBC News, June 14, 2011, as transcribed on Mediaite.com].
The President's ATM statement is not Carterian malaise; it's simple economic fact that workers have known since before John Henry raced that steam hammer.
The GOP is counting on people to just listen to the scary music and not take time to ask questions or read. They are counting on bloggers like Pat Powers and voters like you to be lazy and soft, to lack the imagination and ambition to check the facts. Don't let Republicans drive you into malaise. Use that information ATM in your hand to learn how the Republicans are insulting you with their slick and misleading editing of the President's words.
Romney lied about the hostage crisis.
That Reagan's campaign manager, Bill Casey died protecting the secret of paying the Iranians has been looping in my own twisted brain today, too.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2012/mar/07/mitt-romney/mitt-romney-says-iran-released-hostages-1981-becau/
Foreigners continue to rape the black hills, ancestral home of the Ree.
http://m.rapidcityjournal.com/news/canadian-company-adds-to-mine-claims-prepares-for-drilling-near/article_177737e9-8c5a-5ea4-922f-6fea0a9d4ec1.html
President Carter sets new record for longest serving leader:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/09/jimmy-carter-sets-record-as-longest-serving-ex-president/262143/
Does anyone else wonder what happened to the War College? It's not at all like it used to be. It's a GOP press release machine. Powers didn't used to blog like that.
All he does is promote gop events and post press releases. It's crap.
Powers needs to get out from under whoever he said he sold it too and start working for himself again.
And "Bill Clay" fell off the planet.
Cory, Pat Powers is a "has" been. I don't think he ever made anyone sweat with all the games he's played. Most see him for who he really is.
LOL Taunia, I think we all know why "Bill Clay" fell off the planet. The same "Bill Clay" that happened to "take a vacation" when Pat Powers was in trouble, happened to take that vacation the same time Pat Powers did. Didn't you all catch that in his responses to Cory? I did. I think we should stop beating around the bush and just come out and say: "Pat Powers was Bill Clay." Enough said.
Obama forgot about the platoon of T.S.A. Government agents you have to get patted down by when you head to your local airport. One kiosk gets replaced by 36 federal employees.
Well we tried body scans, but everybody was afraid they looked naked. Now everybody is afraid they are being molested.
Somehow in the midst of all of it, I flew enough to get executive platinum status on AA without ever being molested.
The dogs of war over at DWC look more like a pack of cur diving in the dumpsters behind the Golden Corrals of Lederville feeding on aborted rat fetuses.
You may actually be more cynical than I am, Larry. I would enjoy a reality show style competition to determine the winner/loser.
But I'll up the ante and say the DWC scavengers prefer their young to aborted rat fetuses as far as feeding is concerned.
Justin: for most of the summer I have been watching rattlesnakes in the chicken pen pulling mourning doves out of the air then devouring them like candy. Now the doves are gone and the snakes are stalking the cats up by the house.
Except I think the posters at DWC care so much about zygotes because they would like to borrow $100k from each of them to finance tax cuts for themselves. Why eat them when you can use them for collateral?
I actually have a perfect solution based on the GOP platform. If we could train enough efficient rapists, we could increase the population growth to the point where the pay as you go system still works perfectly. Shazam! We just saved Medicare AND Social Security.
I thank Rick Santorum for helping formulate my solution to Medicare and Social Security payment imbalances. Sure, Malthus might come into play eventually, but my lobby tells me Monsanto can solve all those problems.
The GOP survives in South Dakota only by its commitment to the marginalization of the electorate by telling us that we're too stupid to govern and that since the state was founded under the fire of Hotchkiss guns the people even seek subservience to the greater master.
Dionne: advantage Obama. WaPo
Just two minutes of your time...............
http://www.conservativenationnews.com/2012/09/powerful-new-romney-campaign-ad-hits.html
Gary Johnson is a viable conservative candidate: McClatchyDC.
I just want two minutes too.
Why are the "job creators" so lazy that they can't create jobs when our effective tax rates are the lowest in modern history, but you expect lowering rates further to increase productivity?
Second, how can you justify decreasing taxes as a "policy" to decrease the deficit when every bit of econometric research implies that tax cuts don't even come close to "paying for themselves", including three straight years of decreasing gross tax receipts from 2001-2003 without even adjusting for inflation or the impact of massive spending increases or population growth?
Finally, how can you look at the options of increasing taxes and/or decreasing spending to reduce the deficit and come up with the solution to cut taxes and not cut spending, including spending more on military than the Joint Chiefs are asking for when we are supposed to be exiting overseas "conflicts"?
I'm still waiting. I'll read all of Breitbart.com today if you can just answer the questions. I'm told the GOP only wants to talk about the economy (who would want to talk about making rape victims carry full term?). Or maybe this neo-con site you are promoting, whatever. But I'm sure Cory will be joking about that piece in less than an hour.
I want to understand how ignoring math is going to help our economy grow. It has to be incredibly complicated like Einstein's General Theory of Relativity and there is no way I can work through it even with my economics background without some help. Ann Romney somehow didn't help me at all.
Charlie points to the only hope Romney has: a mind-numbing onslaught of slick SuperPAC propaganda that depresses the middle, makes those voters stay home, and clears the path to the polls for the dedicated right-wing base to give Romney a slim edge.
The thrust of that video, Charlie, seems to be that all solutions are to be enacted immediately, regardless of which party controls the House or Senate. President Obama and the 111th Congress may not have enacted every policy they wanted (if they had, you'd be screaming that they did too much to America), but 2009 and 2010 were still the most productive two years in D.C. in decades. The President fried some pretty big fish in those two years. He'd have fried more if the GOP leadership in the 112th Congress had not adopted as its primary and only goal the defeat of Barack Obama.
Cory the only thing recorded in the ads are Obama talking. SLICK?
Charlie now attempting to pass Willard through the eye of a needle....
Romney fundraising in free fall, Obama surging: WaPo.
The Displaced Plainsman ably reminds us that if the wishful Carter-Obama meme floggers sorely misremember 1980. Obama is the charismatic Reagan; Romney is the weak nominee alienating his base, who can turn to a third-party candidate.
The
SwiftShow-boating of Willard Romney:http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0912/81017.html#.UE8YBYioBEk.twitter