Tag: Congress

Who’s Lining, Wait I Mean Lieing, Hold On, Let Me Spellcheck That…LYING Now?

Trish

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We knew it would be painful, here in Northeast Florida, to read the comments following a news story about Republican voter fraud.

After it was revealed that Palm Beach County, Fla. prosecutors began investigating Strategic Allied Consulting, one of many names for a “voting consultant” firm run by one man and paid $3.1 million so far by the Republican National Committee to register (Republican) voters, the Republican Party of Florida dumped the firm.

Which leads us to this story on a Jacksonville TV news website, and the colorful comments that followed. The last names were removed to protect the stupid. But one of word of advice: before you attempt to correct someone else’s spelling, make sure your own is at least in the ballpark.

Even Republicans Think Romney Blew It with Libya Statement

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“Bungle…” “utter disaster…” “not ready for prime time…” “not presidential…” “Lehman moment.” And that’s just the Republicans.

— Subhead from Buzzfeed.com’s Ben Smith on a post titled, “Foreign Policy Hands Voice Disbelief At Romney Cairo Statement.” The story noted that senior Republicans felt Romney’s move “broke with a tradition of unity around national tragedies, and of avoiding hasty statements on foreign policy.” Smith added, this was the second time Romney has been burned by an early statement on a complex crisis: Romney denounced the Obama Administration’s handling of a Chinese dissident’s escape just as the Administration negotiated behind the scenes for his departure from the country.”

Fact or Fiction? With Joe Biden on the Campaign Trail, It’s Hard to Know

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bidenladybiker

That this picture appeared in our Twitter feed immediately after viewing a video from The Onion on Vice Pres. Biden’s hitchhiking journey to the Democratic National Convention* is pretty odd timing.

Quoting truckers and others who gave Jokin’ Joe rides and spotted him in low places along the route, the video suggests that the Veep parties pretty hard — harder, it would seem from the real-life photo, than some bikers. The one to Biden’s left looks as if he is considering how best to break up the discussion between Joe and the lady biker in this lap.

Here’s the video.

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AP Mixes Up Facts and Opinions, Even As AP Reporters Get President’s Name Wrong

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Meanwhile, it looks like the AP could stand to do more fact checking of its own.

“It would be more appropriate to make its complaint against CBO than against President Obama’s speech.”

— Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, in a post titled, “AP Factcheck Should be Billed to Romney Campaign.” Baker takes issue with Associated Press “fact checkers” who claim there would be no peace dividend from winding down the war in Afghanistan.

President Obama is working off a baseline set by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) that assumes war spending continues over the next decade. If he doesn’t intend to continue this spending then he is freeing up money relative to this baseline. AP may not like this method of scoring, but it is absolutely standard in Washington policy debates. Changes are measured against a baseline.

Baker joins others who suggest that the AP’s analysis might have been more correctly classified as an editorial than as fact checking.

H/T to The Nation

Clinton Beats Mitt in Tweets Per Minute but Not Michelle O

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22,087

Highest spike in Tweets per minute during Pres. Bill Clinton’s address to the Democratic National Convention on Wednesday, Sept. 5. The peak came at the end of the speech, indicating that audiences can focus for 49 minutes if the material is good. Clinton’s Twitter peak far outdistanced Mitt Romney’s (14,289) but did not surpass First Lady Michelle Obama’s the night before (28,003).

Buzz Over FOX News’ “Resident Liberal” Using L-Word to Describe Paul Ryan’s Speech

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kohn
FOX News' Sally Kohn

Who knew FOX News even had a “resident liberal?” Apparently they do, and the internets are afire over Sally Kohn’s description of Rep. Paul Ryan’s Republican National convention speech titled, Paul Ryan’s Speech in 3 Words: Dazzling, Deceiving, and Distracting.

Two things set apart the column from the others from fact-checkers who dispute almost every word uttered by Ryan and Romney. First, Kohn uses the L-word, something most mainstream outlets bar.

…to anyone paying the slightest bit of attention to facts, Ryan’s speech was an apparent attempt to set the world record for the greatest number of blatant lies [emphasis added] and misrepresentations slipped into a single political speech. On this measure, while it was Romney who ran the Olympics, Ryan earned the gold.

Second, the column appears on the FOX News website’s opinion page.

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