The $4 Per Gallon Obama? FactCheckers Say "No" on Palin FB Page

Here’s what Sarah Palin said on her Facebook page:

Is it really any surprise that oil and gas prices are surging toward the record highs we saw in 2008 just prior to the economic collapse? Despite the President’s strange assertions in his press conference last week, his Administration is not a passive observer to the trends that have inflated oil prices to dangerous levels. His war on domestic oil and gas exploration and production has caused us pain at the pump, endangered our already sluggish economic recovery, and threatened our national security.

The evidence of the President’s anti-drilling mentality and his culpability in the high gas prices hurting Americans is there for all to see.

Click here to see the rest of her faulty reasoning….

The sweet news is that on her FB page, beyond all the crazy true believers like this:

There were several toward the end that had to be critical thinking ‘ringers’ capable of connecting the logic dots:

So for all of you on our side, it’s important to scan these places occasionally, and nip in and leave a crumb of ‘reason’ (just so the other side knows it when the see it).

Here’s what the critical thinkers had been reading:

This is from FactCheck.com/Annenberg School of Public Policy -

Conflicting, false and misleading statements on oil production and gasoline prices have become the currency of politicians lately, as oil tops $100 per barrel and gasoline hovers near $4 per gallon. Among some of the claims that got our attention:

• Top Republicans blame President Obama’s moratorium on deepwater drilling for rising gasoline prices. The moratorium delayed drilling of some new wells, but did not affect the output of wells already in production. A projected drop in total domestic oil production this year should amount to six-tenths of 1 percent of all U.S. consumption of liquid fuels. A Wall Street oil analyst told us the moratorium has had “zero” effect on prices.

• Obama said domestic oil production last year was its highest since 2003. That’s true — but U.S. oil production is projected to drop this year.

• Rep. Kevin McCarthy said “under this administration our output has gone down 13 percent.” McCarthy is wrong — U.S. oil production was up in 2009 and 2010, and is projected to decline only 2 percent this year.

• Sarah Palin said Obama is “allowing America to remain increasingly dependent on imports” from unstable countries. But there has been a decline — not an increase — in total oil imports from Middle Eastern and African countries, as well as countries identified by the State Department as “dangerous or unstable,” since Obama took office.

Semper Vigilans! Readers! Ain’t social networking grand!

-maven

Fight GOP front groups distortion of healthcare reform

I’m getting all kinds of messages from healthcare advocacy groups like HCAN - in addition to ‘reality check’ organizations like FactCheck.org - saying that the Shadow GOP is mounting a massive inititative to tarnish/destroy any House candidate who stood strong for healthcare reform. The ads, mostly from your usual bogus GOP front groups like the 60 Plus Association, are gaining strength around the country. They’re trying to convince mostly seniors that terrible … TERRIBLE things are in-store for them as Medicare is destroyed thanks to “Obama-care”.

This isn’t just taking some numbers out of context, or putting a spin on various provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, passed earlier this year. It’s much worse. They are telling outright lies. Never one to take it all for granted or at face value - unlike most so-called ‘conservatives’ - I went to the assessments provided by the Chief Actuary of the Department of Health & Human Services. It’s not gripping reading, but I wade through this stuff anyway. Although I may not be the most sophisticated in reading a lot of statistical information and graphs, I can understand some basics like money saved over a period of time.

Medicare is going to save a boatload of money under the PPAC Act. A vertible, verifiable boatload. In excess of $500 billion, in fact, over the course of the next nine years. Much of these savings will be in the form of much needed reform of widely reported fraud and waste within the system.

Why would anybody fight that? Citizens wouldn’t if they would simply read the actual numbers. The insurance and private hospital industry and their lobbying groups would.

They stand to be cut out of the rich feeding frenzy they’ve had for too many years - unregulated and all theirs for the taking.

Are you willing to just sit there and let corporate America take away hard won gains toward a rational, democratic and modern healthcare system?

Can you just read through the real facts and disseminate them to everybody you know? Especially to all the senior citizens you know - since they are the unwitting targets of these front groups employed by the GOP corporate machine.

Here are the resources you need to fight back:

HealthCare for America Now - point by point on what the Act will and won’t do, despite GOP claims to the contrary.

Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act - a rundown/ClifNotes of what the Act really says.

Americans United for Change - read the press release regarding the memo that was sent to frighten seniors in Ohio. Remember, what gets around in Ohio, gets around everywhere these days - including Nevada.

And, while you’re at it, check out the people behind the 60 Plus Association. Read the resume of James L. Martin, their Director. Note the curious gap in it - like 23 years. His claims of achievement seem to center around his Korean War experience and his involvement in 60 Plus. What the hell was he doing in between … besides wagging his finger at us?

Their President, Amy Noone Frederick seems to be a bit light in the resume department as well, but we know that she loves to cook, run, golf an sail.

Finally, their national spokesperson is Pat Boone. Doesn’t that just tell it all?

And remember, thanks to the horrible SCOTUS Citizens United decision, we aren’t able to know who is funding the 60 Plus Association.

Players Guide to front groups in the 2010 campaigns

This from FactCheck.org-

Independent political groups — both new and existing — have committed themselves to spending heavily to influence the outcome of the 2010 elections. Some are taking advantage of a recent Supreme Court decision by funneling money from business corporations or labor unions into the election process. Many of these groups avoid making public disclosure of their donors. Who are these groups and who’s behind them?

Below is a list of some major groups that have been — or say they will be — active in this campaign cycle. This is not a comprehensive list, and additional groups will be added as the campaign season unfolds.

We selected these groups based on how much money they have spent, or say they plan to spend, or how much media attention they have attracted. Most of them have pledged to spend tens of millions of dollars in the 2010 elections.

Our “Cash Attack” coverage of 2010 political ads by corporations and unions is supported by a grant from the Carnegie Corporation.

Irrational anti-immigrant screed dissected and exposed

Don’t you sometimes wish the right wingnuts would understand that bold face with lots of !!!!!!!!!!!!!, and in different colors in an email doesn’t make up for poor or ‘cherry picked’ data, insufficient logic and gross generalizations. Oh, and providing hyperlinks to websites that are blocked to all but paying subscribers, or linked to well-known right wing foundations with an ‘agenda’ aren’t very helpful, simply serving to widen the credibility gap.

I’ll dissect this one on illegal immigration.

First, the nonsensical email:

Perhaps you have already seen this, but it really spells out the reasoning behind the AZ bill

This article will open your eyes as to what is really happening to our country’s economy.  Read it if you wish to be informed so you can make the right decisions when it comes time to vote!

It’s easy to dismiss individual programs that benefit non-citizens until they’re put together and this picture emerges.  Someone (AZ) did a lot of research to put together all of this data. 

Often these programs are buried within other programs making them difficult to find.

A Real Eye Opener   
WHY is the USA BANKRUPT?

Click to read more ...

Legal or illegal, does immigration cost us jobs?

The Tea Party, and other xenophobes, would have us believe that immigration - legal or otherwise - is bad in every way. Like so many of the issues the right attempts to address, the issues are far more complex than their rank and file take the time and effort to understand. Unfortunately, their jingoistic sloganeering is what ends up in the media sound chamber, and is picked up as ‘fact’ by too many people.

Again, I have provided you the links to the immigration reform organizations mentioned in this analysis. Go to their sites, and peruse the About Us sections, and their Boards. It can often be quite revealing. The 23 member group of Supporters for NumbersUSA includes eight who are ‘deceased’. I find that puzzling. You have to wonder why they can’t come up with a group of completely living Supporters; individuals who can speak on their on behalf regarding their support, unlike people like the late Edward Abbey. The Daily Kos had an interesting article about NumbersUSA, by Alfredo Martin Bravo de Ruedo Espejo, “The Charming Racism of Numbers USA”.

FAIR ( Federation for American Immigration Reform) may not be exactly what it seems either, looking at some analysis on RightWeb (“Tracking militarists efforts to influence U.S. foreign policy”):

Click to read more ...