Fact Checking Sally Kohn

Sally Kohn’s opinion article on Paul Ryan’s speech last night is making the rounds with liberals. The thinking goes that, hey, her piece was published on Fox News so it couldn’t possibly be liberal and everything in it must be true. That idea is, of course, absurd but I’ve decided to go through and refute the “facts” she lists in her article one by one.

Her first “fact” deals with Ryan’s attack on the President for presiding over the only national credit downgrade in American History:

Fact: While Ryan tried to pin the downgrade of the United States’ credit rating on spending under President Obama, the credit rating was actually downgraded because Republicans threatened not to raise the debt ceiling.

In reality S&P said they downgraded the rating because “The downgrade reflects our opinion that the fiscal consolidation plan that Congress and the Administration recently agreed to falls short of what, in our view, would be necessary to stabilize the government’s medium-term debt dynamics”.

Not because, as Sally Kohn says, “Republicans threatened not to raise the debt ceiling”.

Her second “fact” deals with Paul Ryan’s assertion that, despite then candidate Obama’s assertion that he’d keep the Janesville GM plant open for 100 years in 2008 it didn’t even last through 2009:

Fact: While Ryan blamed President Obama for the shut down of a GM plant in Janesville, Wisconsin, the plant was actually closed under President George W. Bush. Ryan actually asked for federal spending to save the plant, while Romney has criticized the auto industry bailout that President Obama ultimately enacted to prevent other plants from closing.

As my post from earlier today calling out Politifact’s lies explains, the Janesville GM plant continued building trucks until April 23rd, 2009. That’s completely indisputable, and Sally Khon is either lying on purpose or too lazy to look into the details.

Kohn’s third “fact” isn’t exactly clear but I’m guessing she’s referring to Paul Ryan’s attack on President Obama’s now infamous “you didn’t build that” speech:

Fact: Though Ryan insisted that President Obama wants to give all the credit for private sector success to government, that isn’t what the president said. Period.

This statement isn’t remotely one of fact. It’s very obviously a statement of opinion on both what Ryan and Obama said. One that I couldn’t disagree with more. Period.

Her fourth, and final, “fact” deals with Ryan’s attack on how the President cut money from Medicare in order to make Obamacare’s financials seem more palatable.

Fact: Though Paul Ryan accused President Obama of taking $716 billion out of Medicare, the fact is that that amount was savings in Medicare reimbursement rates (which, incidentally, save Medicare recipients out-of-pocket costs, too) and Ryan himself embraced these savings in his budget plan.

Frankly, she doesn’t even appear to dispute that $716 billion is being cut from Medicare. She simply calls it “savings” and, in an obviously sloppy mistake, links to a Politifact post about welfare waivers. Heck, even the NYT post she also links to says “The 2010 health care law cut Medicare reimbursements to hospitals and insurers, not benefits for older Americans, by that amount over the coming decade” right in the second paragraph.

So, as you can see, none of the “facts” in Sally Kohn’s piece are accurate. The piece can’t stand on its own two legs. If this is the best the left can do at “fact checking” it should give up the pursuit altogether.

Live Tweeting President Obama’s State of the Union Speech

Well the last time I live tweeted an Obama speech people really seemed to enjoy it so I figured, why not, I’ll take on the State of the Union too. So here you go… all my tweets from last nights speech and from the Republican response given by Bob McDonnell. My point in bla bla translating the two speeches wasn’t necessarily that they were poorly delivered (and actually I think McDonnell did a pretty amazing job in his speech) but, rather, that, like nearly all modern political speeches, they are nearly meaningless rehashing of already known, and even decades old, talking points surrounded by overwhelming heaps of tired rhetorical tricks and lots of bla bla.

Anyway, enjoy:

Obama: bla bla bla bla bla hey guys bla bla bla the constitution says I gotta bore you to death tonight

Obama: bla bla bla bla I inherited a mess just like the world wars bla bla *Biden head shake* bla bla bla

Obama: bla bla bla bla random small town reference bla bla bla wall street hates children bla bla

Obama: bla bla bla bla this is the hardest presidency EVAH bla bla bla *fox letting teleprompter screens in the frame* bla bla Continue reading Live Tweeting President Obama’s State of the Union Speech

Twitter Army Takes Over White House Press Corps; Then the World

The day that the small twitter army dedicated to getting the White House press corps to put up South Park versions of themselves as their icon on Twitter has been working tirelessly towards is now one step closer. Yes, this post is the official proclamation of victory on the #cartoonmajor front of our campaign!

As of today Major Garret of Fox News is SouthParkified!

Here is his tweet of acceptance into the #TWoonhunks twitter army:

#cartoonmajor

From this one small tweet grew an unstoppable movement that has now produced real change.

Where as we used to have but one SouthParkified White House reporter, Jake Tapper of ABC, we now have three. The second convert, who got caught up in the #cartoonmajor saga, is Asylum’s Tommy Christopher. The future is bright for our movement thus we cannot rest on our accomplishments and must continue to fight the good fight until there isn’t a White House press corps twitter icon left standing that hasn’t felt our touch. Onward I say! Onward!

Of course that call leads to the inevitable next question, now that Major Garret is on board who should be next?

Fox Business Wins Suit Against Treasury

fox business

Looks like the Treasury will actually how to tell us all how they’re wasting our money. That’s the end result of Fox Business Network’s Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against them:

FOX Business Network has won a victory against the Treasury Department in its Freedom of Information Act request for details about the government’s bailout plan.

Judge Richard J. Holwell of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York said in a decision Friday that the government is directed to comply with FOX Business’s request under the FOIA “within 30 days and to produce a Vaughn index with 45 days.”

That means Treasury must comply with FOX Business’s request by Monday, April 23, and must produce a Vaughn index by Monday, April 6.

A Vaughn index details which documents have been withheld and why.

This is great news for those of us who, for some crazy reason, don’t blindly trust the government to spend our money in a wise or responsible way. Here’s exactly what FBN was looking for in this suit:

FBN asked the Treasury Department to identify, among other issues, the troubled assets purchased, any collateral extended, and any restrictions placed on these financial institutions for their participation in this program.

Not exactly unreasonable. Definitely important.

Good work FBN.

Obama, Fox News, CNN, HuffPo Twitters All Hacked

obama twitter hacked

From CNN:

The Twitter accounts of President-elect Barack Obama, CNN anchor Rick Sanchez, Britney Spears, Fox News and 29 others were hacked Monday according to the microblog site, leading to false and inappropriate messages being posted on their accounts.

Among those inappropriate messages were, apparently, Continue reading Obama, Fox News, CNN, HuffPo Twitters All Hacked

Is Bradley Jacobs of Us Weekly the new Dick Harper?

So, Bradley Jacobs, the senior editor of Us Weekly appeared on Fox News’ American Election HQ at 5:55 today to defend the hit piece they slapped on their increasingly worthless (and I mean by the minute) cover page. And as you may have already guessed, it was atrocious.

But, as the clearly unprepared, stumbling, and bumbling hack, Bradley Jacobs, fumbled his way through the first half of the interview… ok, actually the entire interview… I couldn’t help but be reminded of the scene in “Fun with Dick and Jane” where Jim Carey’s character is taken completely by surprise and gets utterly man-handled (or in this case woman-handled, gosh I’m so clever). I couldn’t help but laugh a little bit… (I can’t say the same of the rest of the content of the interview)

But don’t take my word for it… compare the videos yourself:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PvZjVnnTnk

UPDATE: Do my eyes deceive me or did Us Weekly wipe (looks like their comments section is back up and running now… simple glitch or something more?) their site clean of the 5600 (looks like there’s almost 6000 comments now) negative comments they received on their hit piece? (here’s a cached version of the page so you can get an idea of the comments, you know… in case the comments section suddenly goes down again)

UPDATE: More bumbling idiots from the left come out after Palin… Proof positive that her speech hit home!

UPDATE: MASSIVE backlash directed towards Us Weekly…

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Biden and Pelosi are called out for being… well… Liars

Pretty Pelosi

So it seems that Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi are up to their old lying ways, again. (UPDATE: And Again!)

Added to her long line of falsehoods and mistruths (exactly like… um.. all politicians) is a fresh fabrication she made to Brokaw on meet the press. In a if-it-wasn’t-disturbing-it’d-be-funny kind of way she claimed that, on the issue of the Catholic Church’s position on abortion, “I have studied [it] for a long time”.

And what did the apparent expert on Catholic history and doctrine conclude about the issue of abortion?

Well when Brokaw reminded her that “The Catholic Church at the moment feels very strongly that it (life) begins at the point of conception”

She retorted him with her expert opinion that “I understand.  And this is like maybe 50 years or something like that.  So again, over the history of the church, this is an issue of controversy”

Now her comment of “and this is like maybe” might tip you off that she didn’t quite know what she was talking about but in case you weren’t sure here’s some helpful evidence that shes just flat out lying…

From the first written catechism of the christian church circa 70 AD: “You shall not procure [an] abortion, nor destroy a newborn child”

Then there’s what Saint Hippolytus said in 228 AD: “Women who were reputed to be believers began to take drugs to render themselves sterile, and to bind themselves tightly so as to expel what was being conceived, since they would not, on account of relatives and excess wealth, want to have a child by a slave or by any insignificant person. See, then, into what great impiety that lawless one has proceeded, by teaching adultery and murder at the same time!”

And then there’s the case of Tertullian, who is known as the founder of the Latin Church, who wrote this in198 AD: “In our case, murder being once for all forbidden, we may not destroy even the fœtus in the womb, while as yet the human being derives blood from other parts of the body for its sustenance. To hinder a birth is merely a speedier man-killing; nor does it matter whether you take away a life that is born, or destroy one that is coming to the birth. That is a man which is going to be one; you have the fruit already in its seed”

Now, of course, Nancy didn’t cite these fathers of Catholicism. Instead she cited another famous father who wrestled with “ensoulation” (not abortion, he thought it was always wrong). That famous father was Augustine and Pelosi tried to use his genuine and honest working through of the question of “ensoulation” to try and claim that her pro-abortion positions are acceptable to the Catholic church.

However, not only are her pro-abortion positions unacceptable to the Catholic church but they would have most assuredly been unacceptable to Augustine himself because he believed that “To deny that the young who are cut out limb by limb from the womb, lest if they were left there dead the mother should die too, have never been alive, seems too audacious”.

I think the best description of Augustine’s beliefs comes from The New Dictionary of Theology which states: “Augustine, while condemning abortion, wrestled with the question of ensoulment (at forty-six days for Augustine) and the formed and unformed fetus, concluding that there was no solution to this, but that the killing of either was to be condemned”

So this much is blatantly clear, the Catholic church isn’t now and never has waffled on its position regarding abortion. The Catholic church is and always was Pro-Life, not just over the past 50 years. This conclusion is supported by Archbishop Donald Wuerl who said “The current teaching of the Catholic Church on human life and abortion is the same teaching as it was 2,000 years ago”. (and no, I’m not Catholic but you don’t have to be just to know their consistent position on abortion)

But don’t worry Nancy, you’re not the only high profile Democrat to flat out lie about the history of the Catholic church’s position on abortion over the centuries. That’s right the new vice presidential candidate Joe Biden has a history of misrepresenting the history of his church in order to make it seem like his pro-abortion stances and his faith don’t really conflict.

In a 2006 interview he stated “That debate in our church has not morphed, but changed over a thousand years. It always is viewed by the church as something that is wrong, but there’s been gradations of whether it was wrong. You know, from venial or mortal sin, as we Catholics say, and versions of it”

Now naturally both of these remarks have pissed off many Catholic leaders and politicians. So much so that Biden has even been warned to stay away from communion by the Archbishop of Denver. I find these responses to be appropriate and overdue from the pro-life community.

I would urge the same kind of reactions from other prominent church and pro-life leaders. We, as a community, need to regrow a pair and start denying certain privileges from those who support actions that are so completely contrary to all that is good and decent on God’s creation… you know, like murdering your own children before they even have a chance to be born.

UPDATE: This isn’t exactly what I had in mind when I called for new action but atleast they are making a statement…

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