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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Alighieri who wrote (630030)	9/30/2011 8:16:37 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1576826

The Daily Caller Quadruples-Down on Its Wrongness —By *Kate Sheppard* \| Fri Sep. 30, 2011 3:05 AM PDT Earlier this week, I published a post pointing out that the Daily Caller's claim that the EPA plans to hire 230,000 employees to enforce new climate regulations is false. *Since then the Daily Caller* has quadrupled-down on the claim, despite a number of other outlets—first Politico, then Greg Sargent's** Washington Post blog—also pointing out that it was flat-out wrong. Now the Caller has published an editor's note that, rather than reasserting the claim, attempts to reframe their entire argument. In the note, David Martosko, the Daily Caller's executive editor, claims that the EPA "might hire as many as 230,000." This is a different argument than the Caller was making earlier this week, which was that the EPA actually planned to do this. (It's also different from the argument the Caller made to Politico, which is that its claim was true simply because massive bureaucratic overreach is what EPA is wont to do.) But the argument still misclassifies the entire context of the figure, which is that it came from a legal brief in which EPA was defending an attempt to avoid taking that action. Despite what Martosko claims, Greg Sargent didn't vindicate the Daily Caller's story—he merely offered the publication another opportunity to once again defend its (false) claim. The Washington Examiner story, which Martosko also suggests vindicates the original piece, actually points out that the Caller was wrong in its claim that the EPA is asking taxpayers to shoulder the cost of the regulations, and reiterates the fact that this is exactly what the agency is trying to avoid. As a side note, dismissing Mother Jones as a "fringe" publication doesn't make the Daily Caller's original story any less false. See David Corn's piece for more on that front. motherjones.com

To: Alighieri who wrote (630030)	9/30/2011 8:26:58 PM
From: tejek	Respond to of 1576826

Ask Bentway about a scifi short story he linked to me a while back. The guys in the Daily Show video........the gun owners who barely speak English.......epitomize the gist of the story. And now there is a film that has the same theme; that the dumb are fukking like rabbits and will predominate just by their sheer numbers.

To: Alighieri who wrote (630030)	9/30/2011 8:45:44 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 1576826

A quiet record of foreign policy successes A few years ago, before the 2008 elections, Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) proclaimed on Fox News that al Qaeda members would be “dancing in the streets” if Barack Obama were elected president. Given Anwar al-Awlaki’s death, and al Qaeda’s brutal losing streak in recent years, it’s probably safe to conclude that King’s buffoonish comments look even more ridiculous now than they did at the time. Indeed, given recent developments, NBC’s First Read raises a good point about President Obama and foreign policy. No president since George H.W. Bush has had more foreign-policy successes happen under his watch than President Obama. The death of bin Laden. The dismantling of al Qaeda. The ouster of Khaddafy. And the end of combat operations in Iraq. Yet when you look at polls and Obama’s approval rating, he’s getting almost no credit from the American public, a la Bush 41. Noting the lengthy list of the Obama administration’s counter-terror successes, ABC’s Jake Tapper asked, “Remember when Rudy Giuliani warned that electing Barack Obama would mean that the U.S. played defense, not offense, against the terrorists? If this is defense, what does offense look like?” Good question. Taking a step back, though, I’m still struck by the extent to which this White House chooses not to take foreign-policy victory laps. If the Bush team had built up this impressive a record, is there any doubt there would be pictures of Dick Cheney and Bill Kristol chest-bumping on the South Lawn? What’s more it’s not just counter-terrorism. There’s far more to foreign policy than striking bad guys, and Obama and his team have a string victories on the global stage — I still think the New START treaty is under-appreciated — that are routinely overlooked, at least by domestic audiences. As we discussed last month, that the president has proven to be an effective international leader is no longer much of a question. But because Obama doesn’t feel the need to don a flight-suit, it seems as if the political world and much of the public just doesn’t notice. Why does the administration choose not to invest more energy in patting its own back? If I had to guess, I’d say it comes down to two things. One, Obama doesn’t bring a dance-in-the-end-zone style to his responsibilities. Bush tried to milk national security for political gain, and maybe the president found it distasteful and prefers a classier approach. And two, it probably wouldn’t matter much anyway — Americans’ interests are focused so heavily on the economy, nothing else sways public attitudes. But that leads to another question: should Obama and his team do more chest-thumping and take more victory laps? Should they try to get the credit they deserve, and reinforce the image of Obama as a skillful and effective leader? I don’t think it’s a stretch to say a Republican president with a record as impressive as Obama’s would be talking about little else.

To: Alighieri who wrote (630030)	10/2/2011 3:47:37 AM
From: tejek	1 Recommendation Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1576826

He's baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack! "We don't believe in the kind of smallness that says it's okay for a stage full of political leaders -- one of whom could end up being the president of the United States -- being silent when an American soldier is booed. We don't believe in that," said Obama to loud cheers and a standing ovation. "We don't believe in standing silent when that happens. We don't believe in them being silent since. You want to be commander in chief? You can start by standing up for the men and women who wear the uniform of the United States, even when it's not politically convenient. We don't believe in a small America. We believe in a big America -- a tolerant America, a just America, an equal America -- that values the service of every patriot." [watch his speech] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/01/obama-hrc-speech-gay-rights_n_990574.html?icid=maing-grid10%7Chtmlws-main-bb%7Cdl1%7Csec1_lnk3%7C100752