When Discussing Leaks, Freedom of the Press and The Obama Administration, Shameless Hypocrisy is Synonymous With Conservative Republican

When Discussing Leaks, Freedom of the Press and The Obama Administration, Shameless Hypocrisy is Synonymous With Conservative Republican.

On the heels of reports that the Justice Department had subpoenaed e-mails from a James Rosen, a reporter with Fox News, Rubio came out with a statement accusing the Obama administration of harassing journalists “they deem unfriendly” to the White House. Now, never mind that Rubio seems to be saying that Fox reports are unfriendly to Obama (that’s a no-no that contradicts the “Fair and Balanced” meme). The worst thing is pretending that this was a targeted attack on a reporter who had undertaken a mission against the White House. Rosen did his job and did it well; sweeping him up into partisan hackery is a disservice to his role as a journalist.

The real story is contained in the F.B.I.’s affidavit in support of the search warrant, filed in May 2010 at Federal Court for the District of Columbia. Reading the document makes clear that this was no targeting of a reporter who was after the administration but a legitimate national-security investigation.

I’ll get into the details in a minute. First, a side trip.

Yes, I think it’s wrong for the government to subpoena records from journalists involved in national-security reporting (particularly since I do it myself). I do believe it has a chilling effect on the ability to gather news about potential abuses masked by inappropriate classification. And most reporters don’t disclose things that should remain secret—like the names of undercover C.I.A. agents (see Bush administration: Valerie Plame), war plans, or locations of troops. And I know for a fact that if government officials ask that a story not run on national-security grounds, good news organizations always hear them out and sometimes agree.

And I was delighted to see that, finally, Republicans are starting to agree with me. Take Rubio’s own statement on the Fox controversy, where he states:

    National security leaks are criminal and put American lives on the line, and federal prosecutors should, of course, vigorously investigate. But we expect that they do so within the bounds of the law, and that the investigations focus on the leakers within the government—not on media organizations that have First Amendment protections and serve vital function in our democracy.

Thank you, Marco! And welcome to the side of the journalists! I promise, now that there is a high-level government official proclaiming that, yes, media organizations should not be the focus of such investigations because of Constitutional protections, Rubio’s statement is going to be used from now until forever in every case involving investigations of journalists that print leaked information.

Too bad that Republicans don’t sing the praises of the First Amendment when the White House is held by the G.O.P. In fact, they do the exact opposite. In fact, they did the exact opposite when the Republican administration does the exact same thing that is now at the center of the Obama scandal involving the Associated Press—that is, seizing phone records of reporters. (Please note: The issue here isn’t whether they are right or wrong. What I’m talking about is the utter hypocrisy of the G.O.P. on this matter.)

Let’s take the most important disclosure of a classified program that occurred in my lifetime: the 2005 article in The New York Times that revealed the existence of the program to allow the government to wiretap Americans and others in the United States without a warrant if it was part of a national-security investigation. Somehow, I don’t remember Republicans banging the First Amendment drum when that story came out— instead, they were calling for reporters to be charged with treason, which could have led to them being executed.

But let’s look in more detail at how the Bushies handled that situation by reviewing an affidavit filed in 2011 by James Risen, one of the two Times reporters who broke the warrantless-wiretapping story.

    The Bush Administration was embarrassed by the disclosures I made and eventually singled me out as a target for political harassment. That administration speculated publicly about prosecuting me under the Espionage Act . . . I was told by a reliable source that Vice President Dick Cheney pressured the Justice Department to personally target me because he was unhappy with my reporting and wanted to see me in jail. After he left office in 2009, Cheney publicly admitted that the fact that I won a Pulitzer Prize for the NSA story “always aggravated me.”

I take it now, with their new celebration of the First Amendment and their recognition of the importance of journalists in a democracy, conservatives like Rubio are outraged by what happened to Risen. But that wasn’t all. Right-wingers, now clamoring for impeachment because of the use of subpoenas on reporters by the Obama administration, back in the Bush days were joining in the calls for charges, Risen says in his sworn statement.

    . . . an organized campaign of hate mail from right wing groups with close ties to the White House was launched, inundating me with personal threats. Meanwhile, protesters supporting the Bush Administration picketed my office, calling for me to be prosecuted. Right wing pundits and bloggers supporting the Bush Administration took to television and the Internet to call for the White House and the Justice Department to prosecute me for espionage. Failing that, they called for the Justice Department to subpoena me in a leak investigation, which right wing pundits said would have the same effect as prosecution, since it could force me to go to jail if I refused to testify about the identity of my confidential source(s) . . . In mid-March, after Attorney General Gonzales raised publicly the possibility of prosecuting journalists, the Director of the CIA, Porter Goss, suggested that it was his “hope” and “aim” that the leak investigations would lead to subpoenas requiring me to testify about the identity of my confidential source(s). Only two months into the investigation, Goss explained: “It is my aim and it is my hope that we will witness a grand jury investigation with reporters present being asked to reveal who is leaking this information.”

Administration. Umm . . . huh. Can’t hear that Right Wing First Amendment Marching Band that seems to be out in force now that Obama is using subpoenas against reporters. But you know, at least Bush wasn’t doing what just happened—that is, getting hold of phone records of reporters to see who they were calling and who was calling them, which is the current Obama scandal involving the Justice Department and the Associated Press. Oh, wait . . . just read more of the Risen affidavit:

    Brian Ross and Richard Esposito of ABC News reported on May 15, 2006, that senior federal law enforcement officials had informed them that the government was tracking the phone numbers of journalists without the journalists’ knowledge as part of an effort to root out the journalists’ confidential sources . . . the journalists’ phones were not being “tapped,” but the government was tracking the in-coming and outgoing numbers called and received on the journalists’ phones. The story stated that the government was examining the phone calls and contacts of journalists from ABC News, The New York Times, and the Washington Post (as) part of a “widespread CIA leak investigation.” . . . I have learned from an individual who testified before a grand jury in this District that was examining my reporting about the domestic wiretapping program that the Government had shown this individual copies of telephone records relating to calls made to and from me.

Where were the G.O.P. legislators and right-wing punditocracy when Bush was doing the same thing as Obama? Why, they were cheering! The hypocrisy is astonishing. How do they justify being in favor of the government obtaining the phone records of reporters during the Bush administration, while calling it a scandal under Obama? I don’t know . . . maybe they think the First Amendment applies only to the Associated Press and Fox News or something.

Which brings us back to the Fox situation and to Rubio’s claim that this was targeting enemies of the White House. The similarities with the reactions to the warrantless-wiretapping case are astonishing (even the reporters’ names are off by just one letter: James Risen at the Times, James Rosen at Fox).

The Fox case involved a report by Rosen in June 2009 that American intelligence officials had issued warnings that, should the United Nations adopt sanctions that were under consideration, North Korea would begin conducting new nuclear tests. According to the F.B.I. affidavit in the case, the information was top secret and was contained in an intelligence document disseminated to a small number of government officials that same morning. The report was marked top secret.

One of the people who accessed the report that morning was Stephen Jin-Woo Kim, a man of Korean descent who is a naturalized citizen (just mentioning that to say, hmm . . . where are the G.O.P. conspiracy theories about that?) and a nuclear specialist who was detailed at the time to the State Department. Kim worked in the same building where Rosen maintained a desk in a section for reporters. According to the affidavit, between the time the intelligence analysis was issued and the report on Fox News, the electronic user identification and password for Kim were used to access the classified document three times. And Kim’s phone records show that he called Rosen several times that morning. Moreover, about the same time that Kim’s user profile was viewing the classified document, two calls were place from his desk phone to Rosen. From there, the F.B.I. obtained security-badge access records that the F.B.I. says shows the two men left the building at the same time; the affidavit suggests that this involved a meeting between the two men. Within an hour, Fox News made its report.

An analysis of Kim’s desk and mobile phones showed dozens of calls between him and Rosen. During a September interview with the F.B.I., Kim told the agents that the best e-mail to use to reach him was a Yahoo! account. The next day, he called and said he was getting rid of the Yahoo! account and the F.B.I. should instead use a Google account he had set up. A forensic analysis of Kim’s hard drive, the affidavit says, found an e-mail from Rosen; the affidavit suggests that the e-mail had been deleted. Moreover, electronic records showed that after his interview with the F.B.I., Kim’s user profile accessed his Yahoo! account—which he told the F.B.I. he was getting rid of the next day—and viewed e-mails that had been sent from Rosen’s account.

At that point, the F.B.I. obtains subpoenas for the Yahoo! accounts of both Kim and Rosen. There, they find communications between the two of them in which they are using aliases—Kim is “Leo” and Rosen is “Alex.”

So, here is the scenario: Kim is one of a few officials who sees classified information about possible nuclear tests by North Korea. He speaks to Rosen of Fox. And shortly thereafter, Fox runs the story about the classified information. The F.B.I. questions Kim and then comes to believe that he is deleting information from his computer. So, knowing already that Kim is in communication with Rosen, it subpoenas both Kim’s and Rosen’s e-mail accounts.

Again, I don’t like this, but I also know it is the risk reporters take when they are covering national-security issues. But what I do find appalling is that the G.O.P.-ers who would never stand for this if the leaks came out of the Bush administration think it’s all hunky dory if classified information goes out from the Obama administration.

So Fox News reveals national security information to the world, including North Korea. Conservatives leap to the defense of Fox News, because if Fox News blew snot on their food, conservatives will always eat it and say thank you very much. There is a vital difference between the press leaks during the BushCo years and now. The leaks during the Bush years showed that Bush-Cheney-Rice et al, were breaking the law. Now it appears that if Fox News James Rosen maliciously compromised national security as a pure act of spite against the Obama administration. That Rosen acted in the interest of North Korea instead of being a patriot is no surprise, just look who he works for, anti-American Fox News. The home of perverts, weirdos, nationalistic ideologues, homophobes, overpaid millionaires with bad haircuts, sleazy pundits and conspiracy theorists. Those that do not like what the Obama administration did, well that fine. But they got subpenas from the courts and did not break the law. So until we change the laws, there is no scandal.

Republicans Got Their Lessons in Sequester Propaganda From The Soviet Politburo

Republicans Got Their Lessons in Sequester Propaganda From The Soviet Politburo

Barring a miracle of bipartisan cooperation over the next 12 hours, the sequester — a series of across-the-board spending cuts — will kick in tonight.

Part of the Budget Control Act of 2011, the sequester will likely shave 700,000 jobs and 0.6 percent worth of growth off the economy. Its cuts were designed to be so crude and damaging they would incentivize all sides to replace it with more well-thought out deficit reduction.

But thanks to the GOP’s single-minded fixation on spending cuts over tax increases, that effort failed. Republicans spent the last two years treating every debate over the deficit as if it were occurring in a historical vacuum, accusing Obama of failing his own commitment to balance, repeatedly scoffing at new tax revenue, and insisting that “it’s finally time” to “get serious” about cutting spending, even as trillions of dollars in cuts mounted.

In short, the GOP has repeatedly thrown the spending cuts from each previous deal down the memory hole, demanding more and more while claiming that Obama and Democrats have unreasonably wanted to balance those cuts with new revenue.

Between the spring 2011 budget fight, the debt ceiling debacle, and the so-called “fiscal cliff,” the United States has cut almost $1.5 trillion in spending over the next decade, plus saving roughly $200 billion more in lower interest payments.

In fact, at the Wall Street Journal breakfast featured in the video, reporter Lori Montgomery brought up all these previous cuts point blank with Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI). Ryan’s rejoinder encapsulated the entire bizarre kabuki dance: “That was last session. We’re going forward now.” Montgomery and the other reporters literally busted out laughing in response. (Ryan’s logic doesn’t even work on its on terms. The new tax revenues in the fiscal cliff deal were part of the last congressional session as well, but he wants to count those.)

Meanwhile, on the opposite side of the budget ledger, the country will raise only $630 billion in new tax revenue over the next decade. That’s the context in which Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) insists “the tax issue is finished,” even as both he and Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) claim to be seeking a “balanced” agreement. As a result, everything from Medicare, to the military, food safety, air traffic control, nutritional support for women and infants, disaster relief, law enforcement, and health research looks likely to get the axe.

This is exactly what the old Soviet Politburo used to do, pretend what they just did or said never happened. They would literally, brazenly rewrite reality and accused anyone who disagreed with the new reality a traitor. Have you read the comments by conservatives on internet forums. They're all either too mentally deranged to be on the internet, too stupid to tie their shoes or the most blissfully uninformed people in history. And of course Faux News is always there to echo the propaganda from the Conservative Ministry of Disinformation.

Conservative Republican Hubris - New Documentary Looks at How Conservatives Squandered Lives and Tax Dollars

Conservative Republican Hubris - New Documentary Looks at How Conservatives Squandered Lives and Tax Dollars

A decade ago, on March 19, 2003, President George W. Bush launched the invasion of Iraq that would lead to a nine-year war resulting in 4,486 dead American troops, 32,226 service members wounded, and over 100,000 dead Iraqi civilians. The tab for the war topped $3 trillion. Bush did succeed in removing Saddam Hussein, but it turned out there were no weapons of mass destruction and no significant operational ties between Saddam's regime and Al Qaeda. That is, the two main assertions used by Bush and his crew to justify the war were not true. Three years after the war began, Michael Isikoff, then an investigative reporter for Newsweek (he's since moved to NBC News), and I published Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War [1], a behind-the-scenes account of how Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, and their lieutenants deployed false claims, iffy intelligence, and unsupported hyperbole to win popular backing for the invasion.

Our book—hailed by the New York Times as "the most comprehensive account of the White House's political machinations"—was the first cut at an important topic: how a president had swindled the nation into war with a deliberate effort to hype the threat. The book is now the basis for an MSNBC documentary [2] of the same name that marks the 10th anniversary of the Iraq war. Hosted by Rachel Maddow [3], the film premieres Monday night in her usual time slot (9PM ET/PT). But the documentary goes beyond what Isikoff and I covered in Hubris, presenting new scoops and showing that the complete story of the selling of that war has yet to be told.

One chilling moment in the film comes in an interview with retired General Anthony Zinni, a former commander in chief of US Central Command. In August 2002, the Bush-Cheney administration opened its propaganda campaign for war with a Cheney speech at the annual Veterans of Foreign Wars convention. The veep made a stark declaration: "There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us." No doubt, he proclaimed, Saddam was arming himself with WMD in preparation for attacking the United States.

Zinni was sitting on the stage during the speech, and in the documentary he recalls his reaction:

    It was a shock. It was a total shock. I couldn't believe the vice president was saying this, you know? In doing work with the CIA on Iraq WMD, through all the briefings I heard at Langley, I never saw one piece of credible evidence that there was an ongoing program. And that's when I began to believe they're getting serious about this. They wanna go into Iraq.

That Zinni quote should almost end the debate on whether the Bush-Cheney administration purposefully guided the nation into war with misinformation and disinformation.

But there's more. So much more. The film highlights a Pentagon document declassified two years ago. This memo [4] notes that in November 2001—shortly after the 9/11 attacks—Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld met with General Tommy Franks to review plans for the "decapitation" of the Iraqi government. The two men reviewed how a war against Saddam could be triggered; that list included a "dispute over WMD inspections." It's evidence that the administration was seeking a pretense for war.

 Amazing that conservatives Republicans even have the nerve to run for office and while doing so claim they are fit to lead the nation. No voter who cares about America should be casting a vote for one of the most treacherous political movements in history.

First Romney Exploited The Deaths of U.S. Diplomats, Now He Is Exploiting Veterans: Falsely Claims Pentagon Cuts Will Impact Veterans

First Romney Exploited The Deaths of U.S. Diplomats, Now He Is Exploiting Veterans: Falsely Claims Pentagon Cuts Will Impact Veterans

In a speech to the American Legion today, Mitt Romney leveled fresh criticism against President Obama, accusing his administration of cutting the benefits of veterans who are returning from Iraq and Afghanistan and going so far as to call plans to cut the Veterans Affairs Department budget a “crisis.”:

    Romney charged that the defense budget cuts would affect services for veterans, including the men and women returning from conflict overseas who need psychological counseling. Romney invoked the rising number of suicides – “This is a crisis,” he declared – as he sharpened his attack on the Obama administration’s proposed spending cuts.

But Romney’s claim — that veterans’ care will be negatively impacted by sequestration — is not grounded in reality. Earlier this month, the White House announced that virtually all of the Veterans Affairs Department budget will be exempt from mandatory cuts if and when sequestration goes into effect in January 2013. The only exception, according to VA Secretary Eric Shinseki, would be possible cuts to administrative costs. That means health care, vocational, and education services will remain fully funded while cuts are made elsewhere within the Department of Defense, despite Mitt Romney’s claims to the contrary.

Of course, if Romney were actually concerned about the possibility of losing funding for the Veterans Affairs Department, he probably wouldn’t have embraced Paul Ryan or his budget, which could lead to reductions in veterans’ benefits.

Previously the morally corrupt and defiantly unpatriotic Romney exploited the deaths of U.S. diplomats to score political points. Is there no sleazy depths to which sleazy scumbag Mitt Romney will not sink to become king of America.

Funny how lazy no good liberals have to pay to feed fake-patriot red-staters, Red States Outpace Blue States in Income Growth — Thanks to Food Stamps

Romnesia: The Ability of the Very Rich to Forget the Context in Which They Made Their Money

Mr 47% Mitt Romney Prefers The Company of Sexual Perverts Like His America Hating Buddy Marc Leder

Mr 47% Mitt Romney Prefers The Company of Sexual Perverts Like His America Hating Buddy Marc Leder

When Mitt Romney at a private fundraiser dismissed all Barack Obama voters as moochers and victims [1]—showing disdain for nearly half of the American electorate—he was speaking at the home of controversial private equity manager Marc Leder in Boca Raton on May 17, 2012. (It was Romney's second fundraising event in Boca that day [2].) This is evident from references made by Romney within the full video recording of the event that has been reviewed by Mother Jones.

When Mother Jones first disclosed secret video of Romney's remarks, we were obliged to not reveal details regarding the time and place of the event. That restriction has been lifted, as the story has garnered attention throughout the media.

At the fundraiser, Romney was asked how he could win in November, and he replied:

    There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that's an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what…These are people who pay no income tax…[M]y job is is not to worry about those people. I'll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.

Romney made those remarks before donors who had paid $50,000 a plate to attend the dinner at Leder's swanky house [2].

Leder has long been a fan of Romney. In January, the New York Times reported [10]:

    Years ago, a visit to Mr. Romney's investment firm inspired Mr. Leder to get into private equity in the first place. Mr. Romney was an early investor in some of the deals done by Mr. Leder's investment company, Sun Capital, which today oversees about $8 billion in equity.

The paper noted that Leder is something of a poster boy for private equity—and not in a good way:

    Mr. Leder personifies the debates now swirling around this lucrative corner of finance. To his critics, he represents everything that's wrong with this setup. In recent years, a large number of the companies that Sun Capital has acquired have run into serious trouble, eliminated jobs or both. Since 2008, some 25 of its companies—roughly one of every five it owns—have filed for bankruptcy. Among the losers was Friendly's, the restaurant chain known for its Jim Dandy sundaes and Fribble shakes. (Sun Capital was accused by a federal agency of pushing Friendly's into bankruptcy last year to avoid paying pensions to the chain's employees; Sun disputes that contention.) Another company that sank into bankruptcy was Real Mex, owner of the Chevy's restaurant chain. In that case, Mr. Leder lost money for his investors not once, but twice.

But Leder does differ from Romney in one significant fashion: how he likes to have a certain sort of fun. In August 2011, the New York Post reported [11],

    It was as if the Playboy Mansion met the East EBond at a wild party at private-equity titan Marc Leder's Bridgehampton estate, where guests cavorted nude in the pool and performed sex acts, scantily dressed Russians danced on platforms and men twirled lit torches to a booming techno beat. The divorced Sun Capital Partners honcho rented a sprawling beachfront mansion on Surf Side Road for $500,000 for the month of July. Leder's weekly Friday and Saturday night parties have become the talk of the Hamptons—and he ended them in style last weekend with his wildest bash yet. Russell Simmons and ex-wife Kimora Lee attended a more subdued party thrown by Leder—who's an event chair for Simmons' Art For Life charity—on July 29 together. But the revelry hit a frenzied point the next day before midnight when a male guest described as a "chubby white meathead" and a "tanned" female guest stripped and hopped into the pool naked.

If conservatives want to continue to lay claim to being the most morally perfect people on earth than they can also proudly wear the title of the most self-righteous hypocrites. Leder and Romney have a key goal in common, to make America into 16th century Europe and make sure the moots are deep enough and wide enough that the average hard working Americans they consider irresponsible peasants cannot get into their sex parties.

What Mitt Romney Doesn’t Get About Responsibility

The thing about not having much money is you have to take much more responsibility for your life. You can’t pay people to watch your kids or clean your house or fix your meals. You can’t necessarily afford a car or a washing machine or a home in a good school district. That’s what money buys you: goods and services that make your life easier.

That’s what money has bought Romney, too. He’s a guy who sold his dad’s stock to pay for college, who built an elevator to ensure easier access to his multiple cars and who was able to support his wife’s decision to be a stay-at-home mom. That’s great! That’s the dream.

The problem is that he doesn’t seem to realize how difficult it is to focus on college when you’re also working full time, how much planning it takes to reliably commute to work without a car, or the agonizing choices faced by families in which both parents work and a child falls ill. The working poor haven’t abdicated responsibility for their lives. They’re drowning in it.

And guess what, Mitt Romney would got get his own father's vote, Romney’s Dad Was on Welfare

Four histories of the right’s 47 percent theory - Romney may have put it into words, but the ideas behind it have been swirling for decades

Morally Bankrupt Mitt Romney and Seven Big Hypocrisies

Morally Bankrupt Mitt Romney and Seven Big Hypocrisies

Modern Republicans give us an opportunity to peer into the soul of a party that has embraced an open aversion to the truth. Meanwhile, their hypocrisy has reached historic proportions. It’s as if they have lost the ability to recognize the obvious contradictions they put forth. Or, more likely, they just don’t care, since lies and hypocrisy are an efficient way to score political points and smear opponents.  The hyper-hypocrisy of today’s GOP has spread through the party’s bloodstream. Below is a sampling of the most recent examples of rank right-wing hypocrisy.

1. Romney has promised that his first action on day one of a Romney administration would be to repeal Obama's Affordable Care Act. Of course, he wouldn’t have any authority to do that and attempting to pass legislation in congress would get stopped short in the Democratic-controlled senate. However, he may want to have a discussion with his running mate. It was recently disclosed that Paul Ryan quietly applied for funding [3] for a Wisconsin healthcare clinic in his district. The funds would come entirely from the Affordable Care Act that Ryan and Romney now propose to repeal.

2. In an interview on the Bill Bennett radio show, Mitt Romney lashed out [4] at what he considered to be false ads by a pro-Obama super PAC. In the course of his tirade he lamented that “in the past, when people pointed out that something was inaccurate, why, campaigns pulled the ad.” Romney said this even as he refused to pull his own ads that had been rated “Pants-on-Fire” lies by PolitiFact [5]. Subsequently, the Romney campaign decided to abandon any pretense to honesty [6] and declare that fact-checkers had “jumped the shark,” and that they would no longer “let our campaign be dictated by fact checkers.” In other words, we will lie if we feel like it.

3. At the GOP convention in Tampa, Ann Romney gave a keynote speech in which she told women, “You are the best of America. You are the hope of America. There would not be an America without you.” It was a naked attempt to appeal to women voters the GOP is having trouble connecting with. However, beyond her flattery she never uttered a word of support for issues of importance to women. There was no mention of equal pay, gender discrimination in the workplace, parental leave, or child welfare services like healthcare or nutritional programs. The only references she made to education were how fortunate her husband and children were to have the benefit of attending first-rate institutions that most Americans will never see. And the GOP platform strikes a markedly different tone by banning access to family planning services and effectively asserting that women, “the hope of America,” are not competent to make decisions about their own bodies.

4. The comments of GOP senate candidate Todd Akin regarding “legitimate rape” caused a firestorm of criticism from both Democrats and Republicans. Many on the right insisted that Akin withdraw from the Missouri senate race. However, most of the criticism was directed at the harm Akin caused to the GOP’s prospects of winning the seat, rather than to the offensive views he articulated. There was abundant gnashing of teeth over Akin’s stupidity for putting the election at risk. But when it comes to women, the right’s policies are actually a logical conclusion of Akin’s dumb outburst. In fact, Paul Ryan and Akin cosponsored a bill in the House that sought to redefine the term “rape.” Their bill would make federal funds unavailable for victims unless the crime was deemed “forcible,” which would have excluded many assaults that were statutory, incest or under duress.

5. Fox News and Romney have both recently made an issue of legislation in Ohio that would remove early voting availability for all voters except those in the military. The Obama Justice Department challenged the law arguing that every voter should have early access to the polls. Romney and Fox responded by accusing the president of wanting to make it more difficult for soldiers to vote, even though the administration’s position is to make voting easier for everyone. What Romney and Fox did not mention was that their position would have denied early voting to over 900,000 Ohio veterans (in addition to millions of other Ohio residents) who were not included in the GOP’s bill. [Note: An Ohio court just ruled in favor of the administration's position, but the Ohio Secretary of State insisted he would defy the court order to open the polls.]

6. Mitt Romney’s problems with his financial records are well known. He continues to refuse to release more than two years of his tax returns even as more evidence comes out that he has engaged in shenanigans involving off-shore banks and other tax avoidance schemes. [7] Nevertheless, Romney had the audacity to address a group of donors and complain about big businesses that “save money by putting various things in the places where there are low-tax havens around the world.” Apparently that’s only acceptable for wealthy presidential candidates.

7. Are you better off now than you were four years ago? Mitt Romney says yes. The key issue of the Romney campaign from its inception has been his contention that the economy is in dismal shape and that it’s the president’s fault. Romney has said on numerous occasions that Obama may have inherited a troubled economy, but he made it worse. However, when asked by radio host Laura Ingraham about improving economic indicators, he said, “Well, of course it’s getting better. The economy always gets better after a recession.” Ingraham was stunned and gave Romney a second shot noting that he wasn’t helping his argument. Romney held firm saying, “Have you got a better one, Laura? It just happens to be the truth.” Soon after, Romney went back to falsely accusing Obama of making things worse.

Can anyone listen to a conservative Republicans say the the word values, or morality or freedom and not start laughing. back in the 1950s one of the wacky Right's big conspiracy theories was that the government plan to fluoridate water would mess up your "precious bodily fluids". Now it seems that everything from women's health care to good schools to clean rivers to making a living wage are all conspiracies and Republicans are against them. Having a democratic republic has become a conspiracy to interfere with the right of conservatives to take away the rights of other Americans. The country is so divided because most Americans refuse to join up with some wackos that don't have a clue what reality is, much less genuine love of country.

Florida Governor Rick Scott is literally one of the biggest criminal thieves in history, so of course Republicans voted him into office. The ability to steal from working class Americans is a huge virtue to conservatives. Rick and Florida legislators go on a modern witch hunt to purge unqualified voters, that cost millions of tax dollars. here is what they have found; Unintended Results From Florida's Voter Purge: One Illegal Canadian

Paul Ryan (R-WI) & Hal Rogers (R-KY) Quietly Requested Obamacare Cash

Anti-American proto-fascist Erickson thinks he has a sense of humor. What's funny is the level of delusion.

Paul Ryan (R-WI) & Hal Rogers (R-KY) Quietly Requested Obamacare Cash

Republican vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan is barnstorming the country, promising to repeal every provision of the Affordable Care Act if the Romney-Ryan ticket is elected. But a letter he wrote to the Obama administration may undermine this message.

On December 10, 2010, Ryan penned a letter to the Department of Health and Human Services to recommend a grant application for the Kenosha Community Health Center, Inc to develop a new facility in Racine, Wisconsin, an area within Ryan’s district. “The proposed new facility, the Belle City Neighborhood Health Center, will serve both the preventative and comprehensive primary healthcare needs of thousands of new patients of all ages who are currently without healthcare,” Ryan wrote.

Paul Ryan's request for Obamacare funds

The grant Ryan requested was funded directly by the Affordable Care Act, better known simply as healthcare reform or Obamacare.

The letter, among several obtained by The Nation and The Investigative Fund through a Freedom of Information Act request, is a stark reminder that even the most ardent opponents of Obamacare privately acknowledge many of the law’s benefits.

Federally funded health clinics have long provided a broad range of vital medical, dental and mental health services to underprivileged communities across the country, regardless of a persons’ ability to pay. To meet the goal of expanding coverage, the Affordable Care Act provides for a sweeping expansion of such clinics, including $9.5 billion for operating costs to existing community health centers and $1.5 billion for new construction.

In public, Ryan has cultivated a profile as one of health reform’s most outspoken critics. He savages the Affordable Care Act as an example of “Washington’s reckless spending spree,” as “irresponsible,” and has warned repeatedly that it would place the “federal government squarely in the middle of health-care decisions.”

Explaining his “philosophical difference” with Democrats, Ryan told ABC News this summer that he would seek to repeal the “entire law” because healthcare rights come from “nature and God,” not the government. He expressed dismay that the Supreme Court upheld the law during the interview.

Despite Ryan’s quiet support for an Affordable Care Act clinic grant in his district, the Wisconsin congressman’s promise to repeal Obamacare would undermine the law’s five-year plan to rapidly grow the health clinic system in America by withdrawing the necessary funds. The so-called Ryan Budget plan would also decimate other federal support for health clinics, according to an analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

Before Republicans broadly agreed upon a strategy of opposing any health reform proposal embraced by President Obama, the party once supported access to healthcare using clinics. The Bush administration requested and received modest increases in federal health clinic funding over the years. Now, however, the GOP has made opposing the entire Affordable Care Act a central plank in its platform, and virtually no lawmakers have been willing to praise it while speaking to the media.

Ryan isn’t alone in shaking his fist at health reform with one hand while extending an open palm behind closed doors.

As I reported over a year ago, even Congressman Hal Rogers, a conservative Representative from Kentucky, and former Senator John Ensign, a rising star in the Republican Party before he resigned in disgrace, wrote letters asking for health reform grants while calling for absolute repeal. Rogers called health reform “socialistic” and a “monstrosity.” Nevertheless, he requested Obamacare funds for a nursing clinic in rural Clay County.

How many faces does the average conservative have? As many as it takes to get what they want, what makes them look good to their constituents at any particular moment. As children people pretend a lot. It is part of the maturing process. Republicans pretend their entire lives, living in fantasy land. They believe, in their little fantasy land that wrapping their lies, hypocrites, and anti-American policies in the flag and claiming that God approves - means their stink smell like roses. Republicans are not patriots any more than the super nationalist Imperial Japanese were during WW II. Conservatives and their wacko ideas are variants of fascism, not Americanism.

After Bucking Federal Judge On Early Voting, Ohio Secretary of State The Conservative Anti-American Radical Jon Husted Ordered To Appear In Court. Why would a self proclaimed "patriot try to prevent senior citizens, students and non-white Americans from voting. The GOP's Disgusting New Southern Strategy: Take the Vote Away from Blacks, Roll Back the Civil Rights Movement

Republican drug addict, draft dodger, serial liar, and serial monogamist Republican Rush Limbaugh: "Feminazis" Won't Like Michelle Obama's Speech Because "Loving Your Husband" Isn't In Their "Playbook" One of the most morally corrupt idiots in the USA is still on the radio giving his opinions and a few dozen anti-American wackos still listen to him.

America hating Republicans join with women hating pervert Republican to Bash Sandra Fluke’s Convention Speech, Parroting Limbaugh’s Sexist Attacks. I'm surprised Republicans took a break from polishing their jack boots and ogling the neighbors through their binoculars to even watch the speech. maybe this is some kind of progress. 

As a Consequence of His New Fame, Americans Discover Paul Ryan (R-WI) is a Pathological Liar

As a Consequence of His New Fame, Americans Discover Paul Ryan (R-WI) is a Pathological Liar

A week ago, Paul Ryan’s political assets included — alongside his chiseled torso, plainspoken Midwestern demeanor, and the unshakable loyalty of the entire Republican Party — a firm reputation for honesty among the mainstream media. That reputation has suffered a massive, swift erosion. News stories about his speech at the Republican National Convention focused on its many rhetorical sleights of hand. Over the weekend, the revelation that he dramatically misstated a marathon time added a crucial, accessible piece of evidence to the indictment. Now liberals are calling him “Lyin’ Ryan” — a nickname that, a few weeks ago, would have seemed silly, like “Wimpy Palin.” Now mainstream pundits are defending Ryan with versions of the “well, all politicians fib” defense. Given that this constituency was once portraying Ryan as unusually honest, this represents a huge retreat for his political brand.

What happened?

Here’s what has not happened: Paul Ryan did not begin telling an unprecedented series of lies that suddenly exposed a predilection for shading the truth. His marathon boast is certainly odd and may well be a deliberate lie, but it could also be a simple failure to recall. The New Yorker’s Nicholas Thompson, arguing for the prosecution, contends that “for someone who does run seriously,” missing a marathon time by as a vast a level as Ryan does is nearly impossible. On the other hand, given that the race occurred in 1990 and was Ryan’s only marathon, perhaps the explanation is that Ryan just isn’t a serious runner.

And Ryan’s Tampa speech, while pretty dishonest, was not especially so by Ryan’s standards. Here you can see why Ryan must view the sudden attack of the truth squad so bewilderingly. Ryan has been saying things like this, and worse, all along. The bit where he sadly shakes his head and blames President Obama for the failure of the Bowles-Simpson deficit commission that Ryan killed himself has been a staple of the Ryan shtick for two years. Reporters usually bat their eyes and coo sympathetically. Now it has become evidence of his duplicity .

Ryan seems to have fallen victim to circumstances he didn’t quite foresee. The Romney campaign has spent the last several weeks practically daring the national press corps to call out its lies. Well beyond the usual exaggerations of a national campaign, Romney has built its entire message around two accusations — “you didn’t build that” and “just send them a check” — that are obviously false. A day before Ryan’s speech, a Romney adviser told reporters, “We're not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact-checkers.” The media that had spent the last two and a half years nuzzling gently in Ryan’s lap had been prodded with sharp sticks and reacted in the predictable fashion, though probably not predictable to Ryan himself.

The thing about Ryan is that he has always resided in a counter-factual universe. He is a product of the hermetically sealed right-wing subculture. Many of the facts taken for granted by mainstream economists have never penetrated his brain. Ryan burst onto the national scene with a dense, fact-laden attack on the financing of Obama’s health-care bill that was essentially a series of hallucinations, pseudo-facts cooked up and recirculated by conservative apparatchiks who didn’t know what they were talking about or didn’t care. His big-think speeches reflect the influence of fact-free conservatives and collapse under scrutiny.

During the last couple of years, Ryan took his act to the big city, expanding beyond his Washington conservative movement base and pitching himself to a broader audience as a straight-talking avatar of fiscal responsibility. That he managed to pull off the feat was completely incredible. Ryan’s entire career had been rooted in the “Reagan proved deficits don’t matter” wing of his party, and he spent the Bush administration consistently pushing for even more fiscally responsible policies than even George W. Bush could bear, and then spent the Obama administration relentlessly killing any effort to ameliorate those deficits. The genuine Paul Ryan is a man deeply devoted to reducing tax rates for Job Creators, and staunchly opposed to universal health insurance and other social spending. He is not a deficit hawk. The tension between Ryan’s policy goals and the persona he crafted was strained to the breaking point. When the press corps finally applied even the slightest pressure to it, it immediately and inevitably snapped.

The reason Republicans are not bothered by the moral implications of big lies told all the time - even about marathon times for goodness sake - is that conservatives voters encourage lies by responding so positively to them. And there is no political price to pay. In the bizarre immoral world of Republicans lies are rewarded, not punished. The conservative movement id based on THE BIG LIE. They lied us into a trillion dollar war, got 4000 Americans killed - notice no one has gone to jail for this treason. White House flak Scooter Libby committed treason, was sentenced and Bush commuted his sentience - a kind of reward for job well done. Republicans crashed the economy, told everyone is was Barney Frank's fault ( the most super powerful congressman ever) and voters rewarded them in the 2010 mid-terms. Betraying America is a time honored Republican tradition and Romney and Ryan are simply a continuation of that tradition.


The Fire Last Time

Dean Baker has exactly the right metaphor for journalists asking the really dumb “are you better off” question:

    Suppose your house is on fire and the firefighters race to the scene. They set up their hoses and start spraying water on the blaze as quickly as possible. After the fire is put out, the courageous news reporter on the scene asks the chief firefighter, “is the house in better shape than when you got here?”

    Yes, that would be a really ridiculous question.

    …

    A serious reporter asks the fire chief if he had brought a large enough crew, if they enough hoses, if the water pressure was sufficient. That might require some minimal knowledge of how to put out fires.

Obama came to office in the midst of the worst economic crisis since the 1930s. The question should be how well he dealt with that crisis — and in particular whether the man seeking to replace him would have done better.

And the facts of how we’ve done aren’t complicated: the economy was in free fall in January 2009; it stabilized and began growing by mid-2009; but growth has been disappointing, and employment has barely kept up with population. Here’s real GDP per capita:

And here’s the ratio of employment to population: graphs at link.

Would a Republican president have done better? If so, how? That’s the question — not the dumb “four years” trope.

Dear Clint Eastwood and other reality challenged conservatives.

Dear Clint Eastwood and other reality challenged conservatives. Take responsibility for the havoc you reeked on the economy. You broke it, you own it.

About the July Jobs Report

Job growth picked up in July, but a strong labor market recovery remains elusive.

    Private and government payrolls combined rose by 163,000 jobs in July, a significantly faster pace than in the prior three months.  Private employers added 172,000 jobs, while government employment fell by 9,000.  Federal employment fell by 2,000 jobs, state government employment fell by 6,000, and local government employment fell by 1,000.
    This is the 29th straight month of private-sector job creation, with payrolls growing by 4.5 million jobs (a pace of 157,000 jobs a month) since February 2010; total nonfarm employment (private plus government jobs) has grown by 4.0 million jobs over the same period, or 138,000 a month.  The loss of 543,000 government jobs over this period was dominated by a loss of 392,000 local government jobs.
    Despite the 29 months of private-sector job growth, there were still 4.7 million fewer jobs on nonfarm payrolls in July than when the recession began in December 2007 and 4.3 million fewer jobs on private payrolls.  Payroll job growth has averaged 151,000 over the year, and July’s 163,000 jobs are still well below the average of 252,000 jobs a month that the economy created in December through February (although warmer-than-usual weather played a role there by, for instance, allowing for more outside construction jobs).

Conservatives in Congress have blocked all job creation legislation in order to increase their chances in the election. Rep Michele Bachmann famously hoped that unemployment would remain high. Senate conservative leader Mitch McConnell(R-KY) famously quipped that his only goal was to make sure Obama had a failed presidency. Why do Republicans love the goals of the conservative movement and hate the USA. Perhaps Clint could ask that empty chair. In 2008, before Obama was elected Republicans ruled over a loss of about $17 trillion dollars of the nation's wealth. Yea, great idea, let's return these dangerous zealots back to power.

Urban Myths: How Conservative Neo-Nazi Dinesh D'Souza's Lies in "About 2016: Obama's America"

Urban Myths: How Conservative Neo-Nazi Dinesh D'Souza's Lies in "About 2016: Obama's America"

The marketing materials for the upcoming film 2016: Obama's America claim that it "takes audiences on a gripping visual journey into the heart of the world's most powerful office to reveal the struggle of whether one man's past will redefine America over the next four years." If the movie is anything like its source material, we can expect it will be a mostly fraudulent journey.

The movie is based on Dinesh D'Souza's book The Roots Of Obama's Rage, which received high praise from people like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, neither of whom have shown any qualms about promoting outright lies, distortions, and outlandish claims in the past.

The New York Times reports that the film is partially financed by billionaire investor Joe Ricketts, who previously considered financing a multimillion dollar political ad campaign linking the racially charged rhetoric of Rev. Jeremiah Wright to President Obama.

The central thesis of the book is that Obama has some sort of anti-colonial world view, handed down to him by his ancestors, that acts as the motivation behind his actions and policies as president. It is just another form of birtherism, albeit a more highbrow variety of the ongoing conservative conspiracy theory. Appearing on Beck's Fox show, D'Souza explained:

    Obama is not anti-American in that he wishes ill on America. He wants what's best for America. He thinks it's really bad for us to be a colonial power. And therefore, in his view, he is doing right for America by pulling us out, by knocking us off our pedestal, by in a sense taking us from being the world's arrogant superpower. He wants us to share the wealth. He thinks he's gonna get a better America. The problem is, he's stuck in this theory, he's frozen in this time machine. In a sense, he's a captive of the ideology of a Luo tribesman from the 1950s. It's an incredible idea.

D'Souza boosts this ludicrous premise (Obama ran for the presidency because he hates colonialism ... just like America's founders!) using several claims that are simply not rooted in reality. A few examples:

    D'Souza claims that TARP and the federal bailout were programs that "Obama launched." Both programs began under the Bush administration.

    D'Souza claims Obama went by the name Barack to adopt his father's "African identity," but Obama has explicitly said his name change "was not some assertion of my African roots."

    D'Souza insists that references in Obama speeches to a "nuclear-free world" are evidence of "anti-colonialism," but Ronald Reagan made multiple references to the same concept.

    D'Souza claimed that Obama supported the release of the Lockerbie bomber because he sometimes "supports the release of terrorists who claim to be fighting wars of liberation against American aggression." But the Obama administration formally opposed the release in an official letter from the State Department.

    D'Souza claimed that Obama referred to BP as "British Petroleum" in a May 2010 speech. He never did.

And D'Souza just goes on and on, inventing incidents that never happened, making historical claims that don't match up to the facts, shoehorning these made-up stories into a false narrative of racial resentment.

It doesn't appear that D'Souza has corrected or amended his flawed premise. 2016: Obama's America is just repeating the same falsehoods with moving pictures.

Conservative Republicans are literally organizing bus tours to go see this movie, because conservatives think if you repeat lies on film that magically makes them true.

 As head of the investment company Bain Capital, Mitt Romney laid off thousands of workers.

 Mitt Romney's advice on the foreclosure crisis: "Don't try and stop the foreclosure process."

 The former Bain Capital managing director said of Mitt Romney's tenure: "We had a scheme where the rich got richer." [Los Angeles Times,  12/16/2007]

 Mitt Romney set up shell companies in the Cayman Islands and Bermuda to avoid U.S. taxes.[Los Angeles Times,  12/19/2007]

 Mitt Romney calls Obama's payroll tax cut that would save middle class/lower income families $1,500 a year "temporary little band aids."

 Mitt Romney's first budget as governor included $240 million in fee increases.

Mitt Romney has proposed tax cuts for the rich and corporations that would cost $7.8 trillion over 10 years.

Mitt Romney's top economic adviser Greg Mankiw said the "offshoring" of American jobs was a good thing.

Mitt Romney, who lambasts the "failures" of government-backed mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, profits from investments in the firms.

Mitt Romney said that catching bin Laden would be "insignificant" and it's "not worth moving heaven and earth."

Mitt Romney pledged to expand a Bush-Era policy of permitting doctors to deny women access to contraceptives.

Mitt Romney said he supported the Ryan Republican budget plan that would effectively end Medicare.

Paul Ryan embraces the extreme philosophy of sex cultist Ayn Rand.

Paul Ryan wants to raises taxes on the middle class, cut them for millionaires

Paul Ryan thinks Social Security is a “ponzi scheme.”

Paul Ryan supports $40 billion in corporate welfare subsides for big oil.

Romney and Ryan Lack The Courage and Morals To Honestly State Their Plans To Detroy Medicare

The Venal, Morally Corrupt Serial Liar and Corporate Socialist Mitt Romney Tries To Explain His Medicare Magic Trick

Mitt Romney offered a white board presentation during a news briefing in South Carolina on Thursday morning that sought to untangle the campaign’s contradictory message about Medicare. Over the last week, Romney and Ryan have twisted themselves into a pretzel to attack President Obama for “stealing” $716 billion from Medicare, while trying to explain why Paul Ryan included the savings in his FY 2013 budget. Romney had previously pledged to sign the document into law.

During the presentation, Romney tried to lay out the differences. Obama takes the money out of seniors’ Medicare Advantage plans and cuts payments to providers, causing some to lose his coverage, he argued. The program’s trust fund would go bankrupt by 2024, under Obama, and seniors would lose access to the care they need. His plan, alternatively, would preserve the program for current retirees and keep it solvent indefinitely.

ThinkProgress explains why this is wrong:



The Obamacare savings slow the growth of Medicare over the next decade by, in part: eliminating overpayments to private insurers in Medicare Advantage, reforming provider payments to encourage greater efficiency, tying reimbursements to improvements in economic productivity, and reducing fraud and abuse. The law does not impact patient benefits.

As a result of these savings, “growth in spending will be restrained” and the life of the Medicare trust fund is expanded by eight years, the government estimates. Sixteen million seniors are also benefiting from the savings by receiving preventive benefits without deductibles or co-pays and saving more than $3.9 billion on prescription drugs.

Should Romney restore the $716 billion — and unless he institutes other yet to be specified reforms — we would move back to the old system of overpaying private insurers and providers. He’d be re-inserting inefficiency back into the system, jeopardizing the benefits that seniors are currently enjoying, and shrinking the solvency of the Medicare trust fund from 2024 under current law to 2016.

 Romney vs. Ryan On Medicare’s Solvency

Via Twitter, David Phillippe pointed out today that Paul Ryan has directly contradicted Mitt Romney on how to extend the solvency of Medicare. At issue are cuts to Medicare included in both Obamacare and the House GOP budget engineered by Ryan, which now total $716 billion over the current budget window. Mitt Romney told CBS on Wednesday he would undo those cuts and restore Medicare’s payments to their prior level, and claimed this move would extend the program’s solvency:

    ROMNEY: The president’s cuts of $716 billion to Medicare, those cuts are going to be restored if I become president and Paul Ryan becomes vice president… My commitment is, if I become president, I’m going to restore that $716 billion to the Medicare trust fund so that current seniors can know that trust fund is not being raided and we’re going to make sure – and get Medicare on track to be solvent long-term on a permanent basis.

Meanwhile, Ezra Klein notes that back in July, Paul Ryan told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos that the exact opposite approach would extend solvency:

    STEPHANOPOULOS: Your own budget, which Governor Romney has endorsed, would also have [$716 billion] in Medicare cuts.

    RYAN: Well our budget keeps that money for Medicare to extend its solvency. What Obamacare does is it takes that money from Medicare to spend on Obamacare.

Paul Ryan has the right of it — maintaining these cuts will extend the solvency of Medicare’s trust fund, while undoing the cuts as Romney insists will shorten its solvency. That’s because the cuts do not target seniors’ benefits, but rather the payment rates to health care providers. Overpayments to private insurers in Medicare Advantage are trimmed, overall provider payments are reformed to encourage efficiency, and reimbursements are tied to improved economic performance.

Since the securities flowing into the trust fund come from the payroll tax, which is not cut, the funding remains the same while the services-per-dollar those funds can purchase goes up. As a result, the solvency of Medicare’s trust fund is extended, and the gap over the next 75 years between Medicare’s funding and its expected payments shrinks.

Of course, Ryan’s implication that Obamacare uses the money from the cuts to pay for its own spending instead of extending Medicare’s solvency is also wrong. Trust fund accounting, which deals with Medicare’s solvency, is a conceptually separate framework from the unified budget accounting under which Obamacare’s spending falls. It’s perfectly feasible for the same cut to make room for new spending under the latter, while simultaneously improving Medicare’s solvency under the former. As Paul N. Van de Water put it, “That’s no different than when a baseball player hits a home run: it adds to his team’s score and also improves his batting average.”

So Romney contradicts Ryan on whether these cuts extend Medicare’s solvency, and both incorrectly claim Obamacare fails to do so. Welcome to politics.

Romney, Paul Ryan and sate level Republicans are in an absolute panic trying to get seniors to believe they are not going to cut Medicare. At the same time these gutless conservatives are lying about how Democrats and Obama strengthened the Medicare program.  No, “ObamaCare” Doesn't Cut Medicare

I’m sorry, but do Republican politicians have no shame? They’ve been running with the bold faced lie that “ObamaCare”, aka the Affordable Care Act, “cuts Medicare” since the day it was signed into law. Jesse Kelly pasted signs that “Gabby voted to cut $500 Billion Medicare” on his campaign signs in 2010. What do you do when a lie doesn’t stick? Tell a bigger lie. Now that Mitt Romney has selected Paul Ryan as his running mate Ryan’s “Path to Prosperity” Budget Plan that converts Medicare into a voucher system that will result in much high medical cost for future retires has become a campaign issue. So Romney figures the best defense is a good offense and has dusted off the old “Obamacare cuts Medicare” lie and upped the ante – now he claims the Affordable Care Act “cuts Medicare” by an absurd $700 Billion.

Whatever amount you want to use, the Affordable Care Act doesn’t “cut Medicare” – it saves Medicare by reducing expenses. Let SeniorCorps.org explain:

    Despite the doom and gloom tactics of some members of congress and talking heads, the cuts will come from two prime sources; (1) eliminating Medicare fraud, and (2) a reduction in the amount of payments that are paid into Medicare Advantage programs that are offered by private insurance companies.

Medicare fraud cost the program an estimated $60 Billion every year. By beefing up the enforcement of fraud detection, the Affordable Care Act enables the Medicare Administration to significantly reduce this waste. As for Medicare Advantage program, that was a program passed by a Republican Congress under the theory that private business can always do something better than government. Enron anyone? Medicare Advantage benefits typically cost much more than benefits directly from Medicare. As my blogging colleague Denise in her Medicare and More blog explains so well in her Paul Ryan’s Medicare Plan article today, Medicare administrative costs average 3-4%, while private insurance companies’ administrative costs average around 15%. One reason is that the Medicare Administration doesn’t pay hundreds of millions in salaries & benefits to CEOs like the big insurance companies do. And private insurance companies don’t like to lose money, so they got the Republicans to include a “risk adjustment” factor into the Medicare Advantage program that guarantees the insurance companies will always get paid more than their actual cost. It doesn’t matter if their higher costs are from bloated administrative costs or actual benefits paid out to enrollees, they always get paid more. The Affordable Care Act remedies that by reducing and capping payments to insurance companies offering Medicare Advantage policies. The leaner, more efficient companies will do just fine and continue to offer policies, while the companies with bloated costs will abandon the market. Capitalism at its finest. And seniors don’t lose a single benefit – if they don’t fine find a Medicare Advantage policy that meets their needs they simply re-enroll to get those benefits directly from Medicare.