"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public." -- Theodore Roosevelt

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Thursday, August 30, 2012

The Lying Liars "Fact Check" Paul Ryan's Speech



Paul Ryan delivered a stirring speech last night at the RNC-- so of course the Left decided to discredit and destroy him through flimsy and easily disproved lies. As Jacobson at Legal Insurrection pointed out Howard Fineman reacted by tweeting:


And not too much later we get this "fact check" from the AP:

"RYAN: Said Obama misled people in Ryan's hometown of Janesville, Wis., by making them think a General Motors plant there threatened with closure could be saved. 'A lot of guys I went to high school with worked at that GM plant. Right there at that plant, candidate Obama said: `I believe that if our government is there to support you ... this plant will be here for another hundred years.' That's what he said in 2008. Well, as it turned out, that plant didn't last another year.'

"THE FACTS: Although Obama did not explicitly promise to save the plant, Ryan is right that Obama implied that he had the backs of its workers when he spoke at the factory early in 2008 and issued a statement about its closure later. The plant halted production in December 2008, weeks before Obama took office and well before he enacted a more robust auto industry bailout that rescued GM and Chrysler and allowed the majority of their plants - though not the Janesville facility - to stay in operation. Ryan himself voted for an auto bailout under President George W. Bush that was designed to help GM, but he was a vocal critic of the one pushed through by Obama that has been widely credited with revitalizing both GM and Chrysler."

But as Ed Morrissey points out, the AP either lied outright over this issue, or did such an incompetent job of "fact-checking" that both writer and editor should be fired.

Morrissey points out:

1) The Janesville plant was notified of a pending closure in 2008 but continued to operate into 2009.

2) Obama visited the Janesville plant and promised to keep it and other plants like it open “for the next hundred years.”

From Obama's speech in Janesville at the plant:

"It was nearly a century ago that the first tractor rolled off the assembly line at this plant. The achievement didn’t just create a product to sell or profits for General Motors. It led to a shared prosperity enjoyed by all of Janesville. Homes and businesses began to sprout up along Milwaukee and Main Streets. Jobs were plentiful, with wages that could raise a family and benefits you could count on.

"Prosperity hasn’t always come easily. The plant shut down for a period during the height of the Depression, and major shifts in production have been required to meet the changing times. Tractors became automobiles. Automobiles became artillery shells. SUVs are becoming hybrids as we speak, and the cost of transition has always been greatest for the workers and their families.

"But through hard times and good, great challenge and great change, the promise of Janesville has been the promise of America – that our prosperity can and must be the tide that lifts every boat; that we rise or fall as one nation; that our economy is strongest when our middle-class grows and opportunity is spread as widely as possible. And when it’s not – when opportunity is uneven or unequal – it is our responsibility to restore balance, and fairness, and keep that promise alive for the next generation. That is the responsibility we face right now, and that is the responsibility I intend to meet as President of the United States. …

"Those are the steps we can take to ease the cost crisis facing working families. But we still need to make sure that families are working. We need to maintain our competitive edge in a global by ensuring that plants like this one stay open for another hundred years, and shuttered factories re-open as new industries that promise new jobs. And we need to put more Americans to work doing jobs that need to be done right here in America [emphasis Morrissey]."

And this was not the first time Obama made the promise to keep the Janesville plant open. In October 2008 candidate Obama issued this statement:

"Reports that the GM plant I visited in Janesville may shut down sooner than expected are a painful reminder of the tough economic times facing working families across this country. This news is also a reminder that Washington needs to finally live up to its promise to help our automakers compete in our global economy. As president, I will lead an effort to retool plants like the GM facility in Janesville so we can build the fuel-efficient cars of tomorrow and create good-paying jobs in Wisconsin and all across America."

3) After GM was bailed out by the government, the Janesville plant was one of the choices to keep open, but was eventually closed.

"In June 2009, GM considered three sites to locate a small car: its Orion plant in Michigan; Janesville, Wis.; and a Spring Hill, Tenn., plant slated to close in November. GM picked Orion and later reopened Spring Hill."

So, as can be clearly seen:

1) Obama made a promise to retool the Janesville plant and keep it open.

2) The Obama administration had the opportunity to fulfill this promise.

3) The Janesville plant was closed.

Further the AP mis-characterized what Ryan said by ignoring the line directly previous to their selected quote.

What Ryan said in his speech with the AP selected quote in bold:

"My home state voted for President Obama. When he talked about change, many people liked the sound of it, especially in Janesville, where we were about to lose a major factory.

"A lot of guys I went to high school with worked at that GM plant. Right there at that plant, candidate Obama said: 'I believe that if our government is there to support you … this plant will be here for another hundred years.' That’s what he said in 2008.

"Well, as it turned out, that plant didn’t last another year. It is locked up and empty to this day. And that’s how it is in so many towns today, where the recovery that was promised is nowhere in sight."

That's right, Ryan said that in 2008 the Janesville plant was about to close and many people liked what candidate Obama said about keeping the plant open for another hundred years. And the plant was eventually closed within the year. Ryan was dead-on right. The facts contained in his statement are easily researched, yet the AP characterizes this as Ryan/GOP lie not long after people on the Left, such as Fineman, demand that Ryan be called out as a liar. This is only one example of this nonsense. There are many, many more.

We're now seeing the basest form of partisan journalism (selective quotes and mis-characterization) disguised as fact-checking journalism. Let's remember that the problem, of course, does not reside solely within the AP.

To steal a line, the lying liars continue to lie...


Wednesday, August 29, 2012

MSNBC Skips Over Minority Speeches at the RNC

Mia Love
 
When identity politics is all they have left, the Left will edit out those people who don't fit the narrative. Oh, and attack them with racist names...

From Jeff Poor at The Daily Caller:

"One of the left’s favorite attacks on the Republican Party is that it is the party of old white people, devoid of diversity and probably racist.

"If you were watching MSNBC’s coverage of the Republican National Convention in Tampa on Tuesday night, you might believe those assertions, since missing from the coverage was nearly every ethnic minority that spoke during Tuesday’s festivities.

"In lieu of airing speeches from former Democratic Rep. Artur Davis, a black American; Mia Love, a black candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives from Utah; and Texas senatorial hopeful Ted Cruz, a Latino American, MSNBC opted to show commentary anchored by Rachel Maddow from Rev. Al Sharpton, Ed Schultz, Chris Matthews, Chris Hayes and Steve Schmidt."

Well, if they hadn't cut away then the MSNBC anchors would have just started calling Davis, Love and Cruz Oreos and Coconuts. At least they spared us that...

UPDATE:

And somebody keeps trying to deface Mia Love's wikipedia page. Someone attempted to add that Love is "a dirty, worthless whore who sold out her soul in the name of big business …." Cute, huh?

I don't know... but my first impression is that the perpetrator might be someone on the Left. Call it a hunch.

(h/t Instapundit)

Jacobson at Legal Insurrection has screen captures here.

UPDATE 2:

Oops. Looks like I gave the Left too much credit. Instead of calling Mia Love an Oreo in an attempt to deface her wikipedia entry, a person went for the "sell-out" and "House Nigger" labels. Keeping it hate-filled and classy...

It read:

"So in other words, she is a total sell-out to the Right Wing Hate Machine and the greedy bigots who control the GOP and love to see people like Mia Love be exploited like the House Nigger she truly is." Nice grammar, huh?




This is typical of the Left and absolutely the result of identity politics. The Leftist Democrats truly and fervently believe that they own racial minority's votes and racial minority's political views. Anyone not holding the imposed party line is immediately attacked as a sell-out, not really black/Hispanic/gay etc. The pattern is indisputable.

But hey, the Tea Party and GOP are the real racists because... um... because they disagree with Obama? Yeah... That's the ticket.

(h/t Twitchy)

UPDATE 3: Had to add this timely Branco cartoon from Legal Insurrection



Monday, August 27, 2012

London's King's College and Duke Study: Pot Smoking Permanently Lowers IQ

This should should come as no surprise to anyone who has been around users for any length of time...

From Stephen Adams at the Telegraph:

"Researchers found persistent users of the drug, who started smoking it at school, had lower IQ scores as adults.

"They were also significantly more likely to have attention and memory problems in later life, than their peers who abstained.
 
"Furthermore, those who started as teenagers and used it heavily, but quit as adults, did not regain their full mental powers, found academics at King’s College London and Duke University in the US."

[...]

"She [Professor Terrie Moffitt, of KCL’s Institute of Psychiatry, who contributed to the study] said: 'Adolescent-onset cannabis users, but not adult-onset cannabis users, showed marked IQ decline from childhood to adulthood.

"'For example, individuals who started using cannabis in adolescence and used it for years thereafter showed an average eight-point IQ decline.

"'Quitting or reducing cannabis use did not appear to fully restore intellectual functioning among adolescent-onset former persistent cannabis users,' she said.

"Although eight points did not sound much, it was not trivial, she warned.

"It meant that an average person dropped far down the intelligence rankings, so that instead of 50 per cent of the population being more intelligent than them, 71 per cent were."

And what's the drug of choice for professors on college campuses?