Plan B Forum

If the media were objective, the headlines after the debate would all have been identical. They would all have announced the objectively indisputable fact:
The fact that they were not conclusively demonstrates that the mainstream media are overwhelmingly biased towards the right.

OK. I'll bite.

Please cite the specific lie of which you speak.

Parenthetically, the examples of the MSM's Obama-mania are too mountainous to even categorize, but what the hell, I'll play along.

Here's the hard-core right-wing NYT take on it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/01/busin ... d=all&_r=0

Here are three of Romney's most egregious whoppers for you, dgs49: Romney lied about his own health-care plan, about Obama and the deficit, and about Obamacare.

1. Romney Lied About His Health-Care Plan.
He said that it covers pre-existing conditions, but his own campaign has admitted that it does not.

In the debate, Romney said:

... pre-existing conditions are covered under my plan.

In fact, I do have a plan that deals with people with pre-existing conditions. That's part of my health care plan.

Shortly thereafter, however, top Romney adviser Eric Ferhnstrom admitted that, in fact, Romney's health-care plan does not cover pre-existing conditions:

Pressed by TPM’s Evan McMorris-Santoro, Fehrnstrom said those who currently lack coverage because they have pre-existing conditions would need their states to implement their own laws—like Romney’s own Massachusetts health care law—that ban insurance company from discriminating against sick people.

“We’d like to see states do what Massachusetts did,” Fehrnstrom said. “In Massachusetts we have a ban on pre-existing conditions.”

This is an admission that Romney’s statement in the debate was wrong. If his plan truly protected people with pre-existing conditions, as Romney says, it wouldn’t require states to do so on their own.

2. Romney Lied About Obama and the Deficit.
He said that Obama had doubled the deficit, but Obama has actually reduced the budget deficit by hundreds of billions of dollars.

In the debate, Romney said:

The president said he'd cut the deficit in half. Unfortunately, he doubled it.

In fact, however, the budget deficit for fiscal year 2012 is $300,000,000,000 LOWER than the budget deficit was for the last of the Bush budgets -- fiscal year 2009. As the Director of the CBO said in 2009:

The Treasury recently reported that the federal government recorded a total budget deficit of $1.4 trillion in fiscal year 2009, about $960 billion more than the deficit incurred in 2008. CBO notes, in its latest Monthly Budget Review, that the federal deficit rose as a share of the nations gross domestic product (GDP) from 3.1 percent in 2008 to 9.9 percent in 2009 [--] the highest deficit as a share of GDP since 1945.

And as the CBO has just reported:

The federal government’s fiscal year 2012 has come to a close, and CBO estimates that the federal budget deficit for the year was about $1.1 trillion, approximately $200 billion lower than the shortfall recorded in 2011. The 2012 deficit was equal to 7.0 percent of gross domestic product, CBO estimates, down from 8.7 percent in 2011, 9.0 percent in 2010, and 10.1 percent in 2009 ....

3. Romney Lied About Obama's Health-Care Plan.
He said that a board will determine what treatments patients can have, but Obamacare actually prohibits the board from doing so.

In the debate, Romney said that Obama's health-care plan

puts in place an unelected board that's going to tell people ultimately what kind of treatments they can have.

In fact:

Romney is referring to the Independent Payment Advisory Board, a panel of experts that would have the power to force Medicare cuts if costs rise beyond certain levels and Congress fails to act. But Obama's health care law explicitly prohibits the board from rationing care, shifting costs to retirees, restricting benefits or raising the Medicare eligibility age. So the board doesn't have the power to dictate to doctors what treatments they can prescribe.

dgs49 wrote:Parenthetically, the examples of the MSM's Obama-mania are too mountainous to even categorize exist only in the minds of deluded right-wing paranoiacs, but what the hell, I'll play along.

Fixed that for you.

but Obama has actually reduced the budget deficit by hundreds of billions of dollars.

So the 6 trillion dollars in debt he has added could have been worse?

The national debt would be a lot lower if congressional Republicans had not been deliberately sabotaging economic recovery.

So Romney lies more than Obama does he?

Surely that makes him a better politician?

Sean wrote:So Romney lies more than Obama does he?

And the Pacific Ocean is rather more damp than is Death Valley.

Lying is front page in the Republican playbook:

_____________________________
George H.W. Bush Press Secretary in 1984: Lying During Debates Is a Republican Strategy

Faye Joyce:

George H.W. Bush Press Secretary in 1984: Lying During Debates Is a Republican Strategy: The Republicans are unabashed in their discussion of their ability to use the television medium. "You can say anything you want during a debate and 80 million people hear it," observed Peter Teeley, press secretary to Vice President Bush. If reporters then document that a candidate spoke untruthfully, "so what?"

"Maybe 200 people read it or 2,000 or 20,000," he said.

http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2012/10/g ... ategy.html
______________________________

yrs,
rubato

oldr_n_wsr wrote:

but Obama has actually reduced the budget deficit by hundreds of billions of dollars.

So the 6 trillion dollars in debt he has added could have been worse?

Most of the 6 trillion was added via the effects of the Republican-engineered collapse, not presidential action.

More than half a million lose jobs per month = more people on unemployment = more unemployment checks.
More than half a million lose jobs per month = more welfare checks.
More than half a million lose jobs per month = more food stamps
Property values collapse = lower state and local taxes collected = state employees laid off = all of the above,


Only someone who is unthinking blames the added debt on Obama and not those who actually caused it.

yrs,
rubato

rubato wrote: George H.W. Bush Press Secretary in 1984: Lying During Debates Is a Republican Strategy

Interesting that you did not bother to link to the original piece by Faye Joyce which was on MICHAEL MOORE dot com, instead choosing to take a fourth-hand snippet which som blog-bloke took from her third-hand snippet. The overwhelming bias of Ms Joyce (and Moore) is of course to remain absolutely neutral.

The statement attributed to the press secretary says this. People can lie in televised debates and impress millions. The lie may be exposed later but few people will know of it and the liars say "so what?"

He does not say that is Republican strategy. Nor does he say that is Democrat strategy. Was he asked? Was he responding to the question "What is the worst problem with televised debates?" Or "Why do you think person X lied on TV last night?" Or "What is some stupid arsehole going to post on Michael Moore dot com that is most likely to have a biased and misleading headline?"

The liar is Ms. Joyce. She outright declares that the man was detailing Republican strategy with not one single shred of evidence to present. But it's effective - the blog dysentery is amazing. That's how lies work

Meade

ed spell correction

A few points about Mitt's "lies":

Regarding a "solution for the uninsured," a few things should be noted. The number of people who are not able to obtain insurance due to the specific problem of having a pre-existing condition (as opposed to it simply being too expensive) is fewer than 100,000, in a nation of more than 300 million souls. Metaphorically speaking, this is a pimple on the ass of a single percentage point. The "solution" in Obamacare is to burden the other couple hundred million with commercial health insurance, directly or indirectly, with significantly higher insurance premiums, in order to solve the problem of those with expensive pre-existing conditions. Secondly, mandating that insurance companies cover something is rather a left-handed benefit; it costs the government nothing, but costs the beneficiaries greatly. Not a solution at all, in any real sense of the word.

For those who would care to understand how the Mitt-ster addresses the issue of uninsured applicants, here is an article that explains in detail. I apologize for the fact that it can't be read in 60 seconds.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/aroy/2012/1 ... bamacares/

In short, Romney's plan DOES address the issue of the uninsured, but not so simply that the treatment can be printed on a bumper-sticker, or explained in a 120 second sound bite, extemporaneously, in the course of a televised debate.


Now for the budget deficit.


The average annual budget deficit during President George W. Bush's presidency was $250.7 billion, ranging from a high of $458.6 billion in 2008 to a low of a $128.2 billion surplus in 2001. The deficit in FY 2009 - the one that Barry claims he "inherited," included $700 billion in one-time stimulus and emergency funding, so was not representative of the real structural deficit at the time. The 2008 mnumber is a better baseline from which to measure. Also, one might note that according to numbers published by the Whitehouse in 2008, the budget projections for the following years were, 2008 (est) $451B, 2009 (est) $413B, 2010 $339B, 2011 $318B, and 2012 $187B. To the extent that Barry "inherited" a budget deficit of $1.3T (an assertion that is literally correct but dramatically misleading), he "inherited" it from his Uncle Harry and Aunt Nancy. Not from Bush43.

Looking at the real facts and figures, it is absolutely true that Obama and his fellow travelers in Congress more than doubled the federal deficit between the time he took office and today.

rubato wrote:

oldr_n_wsr wrote:

but Obama has actually reduced the budget deficit by hundreds of billions of dollars.

So the 6 trillion dollars in debt he has added could have been worse?

Most of the 6 trillion was added via the effects of the Republican-engineered collapse, not presidential action.

More than half a million lose jobs per month = more people on unemployment = more unemployment checks.
More than half a million lose jobs per month = more welfare checks.
More than half a million lose jobs per month = more food stamps
Property values collapse = lower state and local taxes collected = state employees laid off = all of the above,


Only someone who is unthinking blames the added debt on Obama and not those who actually caused it.

yrs,
rubato

For two years Obama had the house and the senate at his control/advantage. All he did was through money at the problem, your money and my money and my kids and grandkids money. (sorry if you have no legacy, but I do care about my childrens and possible grandchildrens fortunes). To not much avail. Yes, more unemplouyment leads to more expences blah blah blah. But what has he done to expand the base of taxpayers? Unemployed workers pay no taxes (oh wait, they do pay income taxes on their unemployment checks). The $405.00 Unemployment check I received was diminished to $385.00. Why don't they just say we are only giving you $385.00 and you owe no taxes on that "earned" money?

Cause and effect is a bastardly thing. Sure the past comes to haunt the present. But not doing much to help the current situation and just blaming the past does nothing. Live for hte day. Fix what you can today. Obama has done little to nothing to fix things. In fact, I think he has done nothing but hinder the process.

But only those rose colored glasses wearing Obama/Democrat loyalists don't see the bad and only see the "pink".

The level of desperation should be flabbergasting. But it is not, because we have all come to expect it.

So we get this:

The number of people who are not able to obtain insurance due to the specific problem of having a pre-existing condition (as opposed to it simply being too expensive) is fewer than 100,000 .....

"not able to obtain ... as opposed to it being simply too expensive"?

Huh?

Last time I checked, if something is too expensive for one to obtain, then one is not able to obtain it.

The fact -- the simple, unadorned fact -- remains that after Romney said that his health-care plan covers those with pre-existing conditions, his own campaign admitted that it does not.

oldr_n_wisr wrote:For two years Obama had the house and the senate at his control/advantage.

When did the Democrats have a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate?

And that was used? or were the proposals not even attempted?

Here I thought Obama was going to try and bring about a gov that would reach across the aisle? Sure there woudl be resistance, but Clinton was able to get things done, and Obama said he would too. Sure there are always those who are going to make it difficult, but compromise is the way to bring heads together. The dems have good ideas and the repubs have good ideas, the role of the leader (the COMMANDER INCHIEF) is to bring those ideas together and find some common ground. I saw none of that, it was his ideas or no ideas. And I am not saying it is all his fault, just that the leader needs to bring the waring factions together, and he did not.

Your don't have to take the Democrats' word, oldr. Just ask Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell:

“We worked very hard to keep our fingerprints off of these proposals,” McConnell says. “Because we thought—correctly, I think—that the only way the American people would know that a great debate was going on was if the measures were not bipartisan. When you hang the ‘bipartisan’ tag on something, the perception is that differences have been worked out, and there’s a broad agreement that that’s the way forward.”

Another illustrative McConnell quote: "The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president."

The single most important thing. Not job creation. Not improving the economy. Not healthcare reform. Not debt reduction. Not deficit reduction. Not national default. Not avoiding a "fiscal cliff." Not ending overseas entanglements. Not education initiatives. Not infrastructure repair. No. The single most important thing on the GOP agenda was to make sure Obama failed. And fuck everything else.

Another illustrative McConnell quote: "The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president."

The single most important thing. Not job creation. Not improving the economy. Not healthcare reform. Not debt reduction. Not deficit reduction. Not national default. Not avoiding a "fiscal cliff." Not ending overseas entanglements. Not education initiatives. Not infrastructure repair. No. The single most important thing on the GOP agenda was to make sure Obama failed. And fuck everything else.

Come on, Sue, you know better than to believe this liberal myth.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articl ... 15597.html

Washington Post fact checker Glenn Kessler gave the Obama quote two Pinocchios. "In the Democratic narrative, the top GOP senator signaled early on he had no intention of cooperating with the new president," Kessler wrote. To the contrary, McConnell uttered that infamous sentence during an interview about elections "at the midpoint, after Obama had enacted many of his preferred policies."

The [McConnell" interview was about the upcoming 2010 midterm elections, which netted the GOP six Senate seats and 63 seats in the House.

McConnell also said, "If (Obama is) willing to meet us halfway on some of the biggest issues, it's not inappropriate for us to do business with him." And: "I don't want the president to fail; I want him to change."

And it happened for a time.In December 2010, the Senate voted 81-19 for a deal to extend the Bush tax cuts for two years (to make Republicans happy) and to extend unemployment benefits and cut payroll taxes by 2 percent (to make Democrats happy). McConnell was one of 37 GOP "yes" votes. The president saluted the compromise package as "a win for American families."