Soaps.com - MESSAGE BOARDS

mediamatters.org/items/200902100019

During the February 10 edition of Fox News' Happening Now, co-host Jon Scott claimed that "the Senate is expected to pass the $838 billion stimulus plan -- its version of it, anyway. We thought we'd take a look back at the bill, how it was born, and how it grew, and grew, and grew." In tracking how and when the bill purportedly "grew," Scott referenced seven dates, as on-screen graphics cited various news sources from those time periods. However, all of the sources and cost figures Scott cited, as well as the accompanying on-screen text, were also contained in a February 10 press release issued by the Senate Republican Communications Center. One on-screen graphic during the segment even repeated a typo from the GOP document, further confirming that Scott was simply reading from a Republican press release. The Fox News graphic and the GOP press release both claimed that a Wall Street Journal report that the stimulus package could reach "$775 billion over two years" was published on December 19, 2009 [emphasis added].

All seven news sources and cost figures Scott and on-screen Fox News graphics referenced -- including the "12/19/09" Journal article -- were contained in the Senate Republican Communications Center's press release.

i thought when obama and mccain were campaigning they both said they would work for bi partisanship,, seems to me obama has been doing that......not so much the republicians, same old crap, no attempt to meet halfway, none

i am getting kind of sad, being a democrat and all and never making a correct decision, i may have to change parties

mediamatters.org/items/200902110018

In recent discussions of the economic recovery package supported by President Obama, Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh have repeatedly claimed that President Reagan's tax cuts were responsible for ending the recession in the early 1980s, suggesting that tax cuts, and not government spending, would be the most effective policy to end the current recession. However, several economists have stated that while fiscal policy had some impact during that period, in the words of an August 1983 Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report, "[l]ower interest rates after mid-1982 permitted the recovery to begin." Contrary to Limbaugh and Hannity's suggestion that policies implemented under Reagan would be effective at fighting the current recession, as Nobel laureate Paul Krugman has noted: "Right now, the [federal funds] interest rate is zero. The Fed[eral Reserve] can't rescue us this time, and that's why we can't do the things we did in the '80s."

The recession to which Hannity and Limbaugh referred began in July 1981 and ended in November 1982. The federal funds rate peaked at 20 percent in late May 1981 and dropped to 9.5 percent by mid-October 1982, while the discount rate peaked at 14 percent in early May 1981 and dropped to 9.5 percent in mid-October 1982.

Discussing the economic recovery plan on the February 9 edition of Fox News' On the Record, Hannity stated, "[W]e do have an example that did work. This -- and by the way, this is not the worst economy since the Great Depression. Ronald Reagan had 21.5 percent interest rates he inherited. ... [I]nflation was rampant. Unemployment -- we had lost 10 million new jobs. We have experienced tough economic times. His answer was to drop the top marginal rates to 70 to 28 percent." Hannity claimed that because of Reagan's tax cuts, "We created 21 million new jobs, doubled revenues to the government, and we had the longest period of peacetime economic growth in American history," adding: "That is my answer. Go give the money to the American people."

On January 30, Limbaugh made a similar claim in response to the assertion by CNN chief business correspondent Ali Velshi that "[t]his is not the economy that Ronald Reagan ever saw. We have not seen anything like this in our lifetime. Anybody who tells you this is how it works is lying," Limbaugh said: "[I]n 1986, GDP was down over 6 percent. We were in a recession. What was the centerpiece of Mr. Reagan's economic recovery plan, Mr. Velshi? Let me spell it for you: T-A-X-space-C-U-T-S." Limbaugh continued: "When Ronald Reagan took office in 1981, the top marginal tax rate, Mr. Velshi, was 70 percent. When Ronald Reagan left office in 1989, the top marginal tax rate was 28 percent. The only way you can say the tax cuts didn't lift us out of a recession is if you want to lie like Bill Clinton did and claim that the '80s were the worst economy in the last 50 years. But you go back, you look at the prosperity that was created by those tax cuts throughout this country, look at the prosperity that was created through the '90s that Bill Clinton got to claim the credit for."

However, many economists credit the Federal Reserve's reduction of key interest rates with initiating the recovery from the 1981-82 recession -- a change in monetary policy that is not currently available. For example, the August 1983 CBO report, titled "The Economic and Budget Outlook: An Update," concluded that "[l]ower interest rates after mid-1982 permitted the recovery to begin":

mediamatters.org/items/200902110009

A February 11 Wall Street Journal editorial falsely suggested that, unlike President Obama, former President Bush never used "a list of reporters preselected to ask questions" when deciding who would be called on at presidential press conferences. In the editorial, the Journal wrote that Obama, at his February 9 press conference, used such a list, and that his staff "had decided in advance who would be allowed to question the President and who was left out." It later stated, "We doubt that President Bush, who was notorious for being parsimonious with follow-ups, would have gotten away with prescreening his interlocutors." In fact, Bush also used such a list, as then-White House spokesman Ari Fleischer told reporters in a March 7, 2003, press briefing.

Further, during the February 9 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, Fleischer was asked by host Bill O'Reilly if "George Bush came in ... with a list of guys he was going to call on." Fleischer responded, "Yeah, I used to prepare it for him. I would give him a grid, show him where every reporter is seated. And there are some reporters, you know, in that briefing room, as you can imagine, Bill, you get a lot of dot-coms and other oddballs who come in there who aren't really mainstream." Fleischer added: "And I used to put them all out in one section. I would call it Siberia. And I told the president, 'Don't call on Siberia. Just stay right here and call on these people on the grid in front of you.' "

From the March 7, 2003, White House press briefing, the day after Bush held a primetime presidential press conference:

Q Last night, after the fifth time has looked down at an apparent list of reporters, [Bush] smiled and he said, "This is scripted."

MR. FLEISCHER: Are you going to complain he didn't call on you?

Q No, no, no. No, no. Which surely suggests that he did not write that script which gave two questions to one network, two questions to one wire service, and one to other vague and wealthy media -- but left all the rest, including Helen Thomas, ruled out in advance of any chance to ask, and left to serve only as window dressing.

And my question is, since you are always fair, Ari, in recognizing all of us, who was it that wrote that script that the President confessed to? Was it Karl Rove or Karen or who?

MR. FLEISCHER: It was me who gave the President a suggestion on the reporters to call. And the President called on all reporters, the President did not call on any columnists.

mediamatters.org/items/200902120001

During the February 11 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, host Bill O'Reilly falsely claimed that Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) "wanted to give mortgages to everybody." In fact, as Media Matters for America has noted, Frank has advocated for policies that emphasize low-income home rentals as opposed to homeownership. Indeed, in a 2005 speech on the House floor, Frank stated: "I always want to make it clear to people that while homeownership is very important, it should not be considered all of our goal in the housing area. A large number of people, for economic reasons and other reasons, will be renters." Further, in a profile of Frank for the January 12 edition of The New Yorker, staff writer Jeffrey Toobin wrote: "According to Frank, at the root of the real-estate crisis was a misguided notion that homeownership should be available to all people -- what President Bush has called 'the ownership society.' " Toobin quoted Frank saying in a speech that homeownership "is not suitable for everybody."

O'Reilly stated during the show, "When you have a guy like Barney Frank, who was supposed to be in charge of oversight, running the House Finance Committee, he didn't do his job because he was ideologically blinded. He wanted to give mortgages to everybody. So he's in charge of oversight. He didn't provide it."

In fact, during a July 25, 2006, House floor debate on the Federal Housing Administration's Manufactured Housing Loan Modernization Act of 2006, Frank stated:

FRANK: Mr. Speaker, we have a national goal of increasing homeownership. Homeownership is very important. I always want to make it clear to people that while homeownership is very important, it should not be considered all of our goal in the housing area. A large number of people, for economic reasons and other reasons, will be renters. It is a good thing if we can help people become homeowners, but we should not neglect the legitimate interests of renters.

Additionally, in a June 27, 2005, House floor statement, Frank said:

FRANK: Homeownership is an important part of our policy, but it is not the entire housing policy of the Federal Government; nor is it the entire housing need of the Nation. Some people will never own. There will be people who choose not to own; there will be people who for their economic circumstances will not be able to own. And there is no conflict between promoting homeownership and recognizing that decent, affordable rental housing will also be very important indefinitely for tens and tens of millions of Americans.

Further, in his profile of Frank, Toobin wrote:

According to Frank, at the root of the real-estate crisis was a misguided notion that homeownership should be available to all people -- what President Bush has called "the ownership society." "The 'I told you so' here is that homeownership is a nice thing but it is not suitable for everybody," Frank said at Boston College. "There are people in this society who don't have enough money to be homeowners, and there are people whose lives are not sufficiently integrated for them to take on the responsibility to be a homeowner. And we did too much pushing of people into inappropriate mortgages and into homeownership." He said that many people would always be renters, and that there was nothing wrong with this. "We need to get back in the business of building rental housing and preserving the housing we have," he said.

Additionally, while O'Reilly asserted that Frank "didn't provide" oversight from his position on the House Finance Committee, as Media Matters has documented, Frank has supported efforts to strengthen oversight of Fannie and Freddie, including:

In 2005, Frank, then the ranking Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, worked with then-committee chairman Michael Oxley (R-OH) on the Federal Housing Finance Reform Act of 2005, which would have established the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) to replace the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) as overseer of the activities of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. After voting for the bill in committee, Frank voted against final passage of the bill on the House floor, stating that he was doing so because an amendment to the bill on the House floor imposed restrictions on the kinds of nonprofit organizations that could receive funding under the bill.
In early 2007, as chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, Frank sponsored H.R. 1427, a bill to create the FHFA, granting that agency "general supervisory and regulatory authority over" Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and directing it to reform the companies' business practices and regulate their exposure to credit and market risk. Among other things, Frank's legislation, titled the "Federal Housing Finance Reform Act of 2007," directed the FHFA director to "ensure" that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac "operate[] in a safe and sound manner, including maintenance of adequate capital and internal controls" and to establish standards for "management of credit and counterparty risk" and "management of market risk." The FHFA was eventually created after Congress incorporated provisions that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said were "similar" to those of H.R. 1427 into the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008, which the president signed into law on July 30, 2008.
Indeed, in his profile, Toobin wrote:

In 2005, while the Democrats were still in the minority, Frank contributed to a bipartisan effort to put his objectives -- tighter regulation of Fannie and Freddie and new funds for rental housing -- into law. At the time, Fannie and Freddie were regulated by a small agency within the Department of Housing and Urban Development; the bill proposed to create an independent agency to monitor their operations. Frank and Michael Oxley, who was then chairman of the Financial Services Committee, achieved broad bipartisan support for the bill in the committee, and it passed the House. But the Senate never voted on the measure, in part because President Bush was likely to veto it. "If it had passed, that would have been one of the ways we could have reined in the bowling ball going downhill called housing," Oxley told me. "Barney, to some extent, is misunderstood -- with this image of him as a fierce partisan. He is an institutionalist. He believes in the House and in the process. He eschews the grandstanding style that so many members use and prefers to work behind the scenes and get something done."

As Media Matters has documented, media conservatives have repeatedly made false accusations to argue that proponents of the expansion of affordable housing -- including Frank -- are responsible for the financial crisis.

Typo or no typo, Fox News has long history of presenting GOP talking points as "news"
mediamatters.org/items/200902120017

On February 10, Media Matters for America documented that Fox News anchor Jon Scott had presented a GOP press release on the economic stimulus plan (typo and all) as Fox News' own "look back at the bill, how it was born, and how it grew, and grew, and grew." The following day, Scott acknowledged that the story was "prompted by a news release from the Senate Republican Communications Center" and apologized for including the telltale typo. Scott's report, however, was hardly the first time Fox News has adopted Republican talking points into its "straight news" reporting or presented Republican research as "news." Media Matters presents some of the highlights -- or lowlights -- of Fox News' GOP echo chamber.

Read the full article by following the link.

i cannot believe some people still think President Obama is not a citizen, i love reading that because it is so damn pitiful

grasping at straws

and the best part is, they can't come in here

Just look at the stimulus debate in the House. The Democrats included billions of dollars' worth of tax cuts in an effort to appeal to Republicans, and they dropped provisions the Republicans objected to, like funding for contraceptives. The Republicans, on the other hand, offered an alternative that consisted of nothing -- absolutely nothing -- other than tax cuts. And keep in mind that government spending on things like unemployment benefits and food stamps is far more stimulative than tax cuts, according to economist and McCain campaign adviser Mark Zandi, among others.

this is an excerpt from a media matters article, the republicians keep saying obama has failed at bi partisanship
seems to me it is the republicians who are failing dismally