Mittens: The first rule of Bain Capital Fight Club is that only I get to talk about Bain Capital Fight Club

May 23, 2012

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Willard "Mittens" Romney has made his experience at Bain Capital the centerpiece of his campaign (because he really does not want to talk about his one term as Governor of Massachusetts).

At the same time, Mittens argues that any criticism of his time at Bain Capital is evidence of "character assassination," and an attack on capitalism itself.

Sooo, Mittens can talk about Bain Capital, but no one else is permitted to talk about Bain Capital. What, is Bain Capital like Fight Club?

This is just as crazy as Newt Gingrich, after criticizing Rep. Paul Ryan's budget plan on Meet The Press Gregory, saying "Any ad which quotes what I said on Sunday Is a falsehood" — umm, no it's not, you actually said it!

Romney surrogate Gov. John Sununu (R-N.H.) does not agree with the president of Bain Capital Fight Club. He told reporters in a presser on Tuesday, "I think the Bain record, as a whole, is fair game."

Mr. Sununu, Cory Booker is calling for you on line one — he said something about "tag, you're it!"

Mittens' opponents in the GOP primary thought Bain Capital was fair game as well. "Who is this pretentious Gordon Gekko to tell us what is relevant and what we can talk about? F#%k him!"

Priorities USA Action has released this highlight video from the GOP primary on the subject of Bain Capital. (video below the fold).

The Tucson Weekly does fact checking right

May 23, 2012

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Maybe the staff at the Tucson Weekly should invite the staff of the Arizona Daily Star over for a course on how to do fact checking. Waddya think?

Jim Nintzel shows them how it is done. A Fact Check: The Citizens United Ad Now Showing in CD8:

The ad, which features an image of a sad elderly patient in a hospital bed, focuses on the same claims that we’ve already discussed in recent weeks about the “$500 billion in cuts” to Medicare under the Affordable Care Act.

Those claims have been repeatedly rated as “false” by PolitiFact and “misleading” by FactCheck.org, but they been recycled repeatedly by GOP political operatives since the 2010 midterm elections.

The Citizens United ad focuses attention on $130 billion in planned reductions in future expenses for the Medicare Advantage program, which uses private insurers to provide coverage to seniors, rather than the traditional Medicare program that the government runs.

“ObamaCare will gut the Medicare Advantage program,” the narrator says. “Jesse Kelly will save Medicare Advantage.”

A little bit of background on Medicare Advantage is helpful: About one-fourth of seniors across the country are now enrolled in Medicare Advantage, which was an experiment in seeing how the private sector could help hold Medicare costs down while providing better service for seniors.

While it has succeeded in providing, in some cases, better health-care benefits (such as gym memberships and vision and dental care plans), it has failed in keeping costs down. On average, Medicare Advantage costs about 14 percent more than traditional Medicare on a per-capita basis, according to Kaiser Health News.

The Affordable Care Act, as part of its effort to slow the growth of Medicare costs, introduces a variety of reforms for insurance companies that offer Medicare Advantage plans to bring costs in line with traditional Medicare.

Media fail at the Arizona Daily Star

May 23, 2012

Posted by AzblueMeanie:

Our sad small town newspaper, the Arizona Daily Star, fails us once again. The newspaper that cannot bring itself to publish a single fact check article on the "$500 billion cut to Medicare" lie that will not die — and you really should ask the editors why they will not do what the Tucson Weekly does — has yet another article by Brady McCombs in what appears to be an attempt at "gotcha" reporting, complete with a reference to a Breitbart.com video provided by the GOP.

McCombs' big reveal? Ron Barber supports reforming our broken healthcare system. Video proves Barber pushed for Obama health law, GOP says. Ooohhh, scary!

Here's a bit of history for you. President Theodore Roosevelt, a Republican, was the first to propose universal healthcare as part of his "new nationalism" in the Square Deal. His distant cousin, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, provided a safety net for the nation’s elderly, sick and disabled as part of the Social Security Act of 1935 in the New Deal. President Harry Truman made universal health care coverage part of the Democratic Party’s Platform in the Fair Deal. This goal was partially realized by the creation of the Medicare and Medicaid systems in 1965 under President Lyndon Johnson in the Great Society. And here's a schocker for you: President Richard Nixon expanded Medicare and Medicaid and worked with Sen. Edward Kennedy to propose universal healthcare coverage under the Nixon-Kennedy Healthcare plan of 1974. President Bill Clinton proposed national healthcare reform. And even Republican George W. Bush supported Medicare Part D and Medicare Advantage programs. See, U.S. Presidents And Health Care Reform: The History Of Public Health Politics In America.

In short, every Democrat who has run for office since FDR's New Deal has supported healthcare reform. It's been in the Democratic Party’s Platform since Harry Truman. This would only be a story if Ron Barber was opposed to healthcare reform.

Secretary of State Ken Bennett May Not Be A Birther, But He Is Still An Idiot

May 22, 2012

By Michael Bryan I can't even begin to imagine what possible benefit Secretary Bennett thought he might derive from his birther stunt. I suppose he saw Sheriff Joe milking that particular bull and thought, "Heck, I can get some mileage off that, too…" Well, Ken, I didn't serve with Sheriff Joe. I don't know Sheriff Joe. Sheriff Joe certainly is … Read more

Another GOP myth debunked: Obama’s excessive spending (not!)

May 22, 2012

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

I am convinced that the GOP gets away with this myth-making only because the vast majority of Americans are: (1) terrible at math, and (2) know little or nothing about economics. Low information voters are going to be the death of us all.

As Tea-Publicans tell this tall tale, President Obama is "spend, spend, spending" this country into economic ruin. One of the favorite bumper sticker slogans of these simpletons is "stop the spending."

Steve Benen posts today, The spending surge that never happened:

The notion that federal spending soared after President Obama took office is one of those "facts" that the political world just accepts implicitly. Republicans have repeated the claim so often (and so loudly) that it's no longer even questioned. Indeed, Mitt Romney promises to "stop the excessive overspending" on a nearly daily basis.

But MarketWatch's Rex Nutting took a closer look at the assumption that many assume is true, but isn't. (The MarketWatch piece included this great chart, too.)

Government spending under Obama, including his signature stimulus bill, is rising at a 1.4% annualized pace — slower than at any time in nearly 60 years.

But it didn't happen. Although there was a big stimulus bill under Obama, federal spending is rising at the slowest pace since Dwight Eisenhower brought the Korean War to an end in the 1950s…. There has been no huge increase in spending under the current president, despite what you hear.

It matters, of course, that a political myth is accepted as fact, especially when it's likely to be one of the driving messages of the 2012 campaign.

But let's also keep in mind that this has dramatic policy implications: the fact that the economic recovery is so weak and fragile has nothing to do with the debt and everything to do with not enough capital in the system, leading to too little demand.

In other words, the fact that spending growth under Obama has been so slow is practically a form of austerity, and it's bad for the economy, not good.

The biggest offenders, of course, were Saint Ronnie Reagan who quadrupled the national debt, and George W. Bush who doubled it again.

Ken Bennett reveals more about his motives than he planned to

May 22, 2012

by David Safier Let's forget birther controversy for a moment and look at SOS Ken Bennett's campaign statement against his current actions. Howie Fischer details the Bennett vs. Bennett moment in an article today. During the 2010 campaign, Bennett said the Secretary of State should be above partisanship. Bennett, when running for office in 2010, … Read more

Jesse Kelly’s energy/jobs ‘pipe dreams’ take another hit from reality

May 21, 2012

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Brad Plumer has a post today at Ezra Klein's WonkBlog that delivers another blow of reality to Jesse Kelly's energy "pipe dreams." Will cheap shale gas revive U.S. manufacturing? Not so fast:

It’s hard to think of an extravagant prediction that hasn’t been made about America’s recent natural-gas boom. Let’s see: Cheap natural gas will wipe out coal. It will make the U.S. energy independent. And, oh yes, it will create one million manufacturing jobs and revitalize the Midwest. [Cue Jesse Kelly]

That last claim comes via a recent report from PricewaterhouseCoopers. But over at the Council on Foreign Relations, Michael Levi casts a more skeptical eye on arguments that the age of cheap natural gas from shale will really lead to a dramatic revival of U.S. manufacturing.

There are reasons to think the overall impact will be fairly muted. Energy costs are still a small factor for many manufacturers. Levi points to a 2009 paper (pdf) by Joseph Aldy and William Pizer finding that “only one tenth of U.S. manufacturing involved energy costs exceeding five percent of the total value of shipments.” Aldy and Pizer estimated that a carbon tax, which raises energy prices, would affect manufacturing employment slightly — less than 3 percent — in the most energy-intensive industries like aluminum, cement, glass, and steel. The flipside is that lower energy costs, thanks to cheap natural gas, would have a similarly marginal impact.