- I really don’t care about the facts. If I find a really cool falsehood on which I can hang a half-witted, unhinged rant about the horrors of living in the United States, I’ll run with it.
‘Shorter’ concept created by Daniel Davies and perfected by Elton Beard, and shamelessly pilfered from Sadly, No.
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Ah, spring has sprung, and the sap is rising. Ever-so-honest Jeff Schreiber is at it again:
A few days ago, we learned that the Food and Drug Administration plans to force food manufacturers to reduce the amount of salt in processed foods consumed by Americans.
From there, widdle Jeffie goes off on an epic rant about “populist authoritarianism”, “forced changes”, “tawdry emails”, and a whole raft of other terrible, terrible insults to Red-Blooded Muhrkan Patriots. Go read it, really — it’s a tour de force performance.
There is, of course, one teeny little problem: the spark that ignites this conflagration of outrage is a steaming pile of moose dung:
FDA is “not currently working on regulations nor has it made a decision to regulate sodium content.” In an April 20 press release, the FDA stated: “A story in today’s Washington Post leaves a mistaken impression that the FDA has begun the process of regulating the amount of sodium in foods. The FDA is not currently working on regulations nor has it made a decision to regulate sodium content in foods at this time.” The release further stated that the agency plans to review a recent Institute of Medicine report on the dangers of excessive sodium intake in processed and prepared foods and plans “to work with other federal agencies, public health and consumer groups, and the food industry to support the reduction of sodium levels in the food supply.” [FDA, 4/20/10]
So, here’s the problem. Jeff Schreiber has a history of doing this sort of thing. But he is honest, oh so very honest, honest as the day is long — just ask him. And you do not dare refer to him using the term normally applied to someone who gleefully and repeatedly publishes falsehoods. Do so, and Schreiber will threaten you with all kinds of dire legal consequences. It seems that Jeff Schreiber doesn’t mind working very very hard to earn this label, but for some reason doesn’t want it actually applied to himself. Very odd.
So, I am open to suggestions. What, exactly, shall we call Jeff Schreiber that accurately reflects the level of respect for the truth that he displays, yet does not set off his litigious reflex? Any ideas?
“Honest” Jeff Schreiber is demonstrating once again his unwavering dedication to the rule of law — by suggesting that we throw the Constitution out the window because the Terrifying Brown People™ might make him wet his pants. Oh my stars and garters, the mere thought of actually trying a terrorist in a civilian court gives Widdle Jeffie the vapors.
But what Widdle Jeffie has carefully neglected to tell his drooling sycophants is that we already know that trying terrorists in civilian court has been wildly successful:
The Bush administration… prosecuted, after 9-11, 828 people on terrorism charges in civilian courts. At the time of publication of this excellent report from the Center on Law and Security, NYU School of Law last year, trials were still pending against 235 of those folks. That leaves 593 resolved indictments, of which 523 were convicted of some crime, for a conviction rate of 88%.
With regard to military tribunals, the Bush administration inaugurated 20 such cases. So far just three convictions have been won. The highest-profile is the conviction of Salim Hamdan, Osama bin Laden’s driver. The Hamdan legal saga, rehearsed here, doesn’t exactly suggest that military tribunals provide swifter and surer and tougher justice. In the end, he was convicted all right, but sentenced — not by a bunch of New York City Democrats, but by a military jury! — to five and half years.
Then, the tribunal judge, a US Navy captain, gave Hamdan credit for time served, which was five years. So he served six months after conviction. Today he’s back in — guess where? — Yemen.
So here’s the situation. Bush/Cheney found civilian prosecution a perfectly acceptable path to pursue in 828 cases. They’ve won convictions at an impressive rate in those civilian prosecutions. The most high-profile military prosecution was kind of a disaster.
Compare the conviction rates for trials of terrorist suspects in civilian courts versus military tribunals:
- Civilian courts: 88%
- Military tribunals: 15%
Jeff Schreiber would have us abandon the success of the civilian courts for the abject failure we call the military tribunals. Why? Because Widdle Jeffie is afraid: afraid that somewhere, some scary scary Muslim with a beard and a strange name might possibly get a fair trial.
Can’t have that.
Wingnuts cry the loudest that they and only they are the guardians of the grand traditions of the United states… and they are the very first to abandon those traditions when their unreasoning, bedwetting fear bubbles up from their panties. Cowards like Jeff Schreiber deserve just two things: ridicule and ostracism.
(hat tip: Firedoglake )
As noted earlier, the usual gaggle of wingnut bullshit artists like Jeff Schreiber, Jim Hoft (the biggest fucking liar on the Internet), and Dan Riehl have been crying great fat tears of horror at the prosopect that giant corporations will no longer be able to deduct from their taxes the bribes they were given by the Bush administration — bribes paid for by US taxpayers. Now comes more terrible, heart-wrenching news about the dreadful situation these huge, conscienceless corporations find themselves in:
Last week, Forbes magazine published what the top U.S. corporations paid in taxes last year. “Most egregious,” Forbes notes, is General Electric, which “generated $10.3 billion in pretax income, but ended up owing nothing to Uncle Sam. In fact, it recorded a tax benefit of $1.1 billion.” Big Oil giant Exxon Mobil, which last year reported a record $45.2 billion profit, paid the most taxes of any corporation, but none of it went to the IRS:
Exxon tries to limit the tax pain with the help of 20 wholly owned subsidiaries domiciled in the Bahamas, Bermuda and the Cayman Islands that (legally) shelter the cash flow from operations in the likes of Angola, Azerbaijan and Abu Dhabi. No wonder that of $15 billion in income taxes last year, Exxon paid none of it to Uncle Sam, and has tens of billions in earnings permanently reinvested overseas.
Mother Jones’ Adam Weinstein notes that, despite benefiting from corporate welfare in the U.S., Exxon complains about paying high taxes, claiming that it threatens energy innovation research. Pat Garofalo at the Wonk Room notes that big corporations’ tax shelter practices similar to Exxon’s shift a $100 billion annual tax burden onto U.S. taxpayers. In fact, in 2008, the Government Accountability Office found that “two out of every three United States corporations paid no federal income taxes from 1998 through 2005.”
I don’t know about the rest of you, but I think I need to curl up in bed and weep for a week, so distraught am I. O, the humanity!
(hat tip: Climate Progress)
Jeff Schreiber is an exceptionally honest man. At least, he never tires of making very very serious legal threats against anyone who intimates that he might be less than honest. A few days ago, Jeff published a very honest and straightforward post decrying the terrible economic consequences of the recently passed Affordable Care Act (aka “Obamacare”):
…Democrats… are enacting legislation which will directly stifle business development and growth… That added cost incurred by just these two organizations, John Deere and Caterpillar, will be passed along in the form of increased prices for products made by those two organizations.
Let’s examine this more closely. What, exactly, is the horrific, crushing “added cost” that has Jeffie clutching his pearls?
As explained in plain English in today’s Wall Street journal, “companies that provide this [Medicare Part D] benefit, as AT&T does, receive a federal subsidy, plus they can deduct the value of this subsidy from their taxes. The health overhaul cancels the deductibility of the subsidy.”
Let me ask a question of readers here in even plainer English: Can anybody actually be upset about the fact that giant corporations have to stop taking tax deductions for welfare checks they get for providing health care to their employees and retirees?
Well, clearly Jeff Schreiber for one is absolutely mortified that those evil, ruthless Democrats would even consider robbing brave, patriotic US companies of their hard-earned corporate welfare. I mean, come on now… isn’t the right to massive tax deductions for taking government subsidies enshrined somewhere in the Constitution? Or at least the Bill of Rights? Jeff Schreiber is a top-notch law student, so I am certain he could tell us exactly where this sacred right is codified.
It’s important to note that “honest” Jeff Schreiber did his readers a great service by neglecting to mention that the “costs” being reported by these corporations were, in fact, merely the loss of a double-dipping tax deduction granted to them under the Bush administration. Jeff Schreiber’s brand of “honesty” requires that he not confuse his readers with such obviously irrelevant facts.
Read the rest of this entry »- Having had my face rubbed in the fact that my accusations regarding the Democrats’ use of the self-executing rule exposed me as the laughable hypocrite that I am, I will now pretend that the Republicans used this tactic just once to fix an itty-bitty clerical error. Please ignore the historical fact that the Republicans have used the tactic more than 190 times. God forbid that I confuse my readers with any actual facts.
‘Shorter’ concept created by Daniel Davies and perfected by Elton Beard, and shamelessly pilfered from Sadly, No.
Jeff Schreiber is clearly a man of sterling character and scrupulous honesty. Just ask him. But do not, under any circumstances, pay any attention to what he actually does.
Like so much of the wingnut blogosphere, Widdle Jeffie is whining about the proposed use of the self-executing rule to pass health care reform in the House. This procedure will avoid an actual House vote on the Senate’s bill, by attaching the Senate bill to a package of fixes to be passed by the House. This, apparently, is just too too much for poor widdle Jeffie, and he lets the fauxtrage flow:
Are we really surprised anymore?
That’s the question I keep coming back to, as it becomes more and more and more apparent — not that it wasn’t already abundantly clear — that the Democratic Party leadership is prepared to pay any price and bend any rule and destroy any career necessary to bring about whatever procedural nightmare will equate to passage of their radical health care reform agenda.
A brand new headline from the Washington Post, just crossing the computer a little while ago, informs us that the “House May Try to Pass Senate Health-Care Bill Without Voting On It.” I can’t help but wonder if it’s even news anymore.
…
Why should we be surprised that [House Speaker Nancy Pelosi] will look for a possibly unconstitutional, definitely improper procedural loophole to use in the process of ramming said legislation down our throat?
You know, as a guy who runs a Web site like America’s Right, I look at an article like the one in question and think to myself: “Gee whiz, Jeff … is there even any value in pointing out that Nancy Pelosi has, yet again, shown that she simply does not care what America thinks?” And part of me says “no.” Part of me believes that, for Nancy Pelosi, disregarding the will of the American people comes as naturally as breaking campaign promises does for this president. The other part of me, however, cannot help but draw attention to it all. Its maddening.
So, are we really surprised anymore? Of course not. Are we outraged? Absolutely.
There’s certainly something missing from Widdle Jeffie’s tantrum that shouldn’t surprise anyone. That would be the fact that the self-executing rule procedure that has him wetting his pants has long been a favorite of Republicans:
When Republicans took power in 1995, they soon lost their aversion to self-executing rules and proceeded to set new records under Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.). There were 38 and 52 self-executing rules in the 104th and 105th Congresses (1995-1998), making up 25 percent and 35 percent of all rules, respectively. Under Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) there were 40, 42 and 30 self-executing rules in the 106th, 107th and 108th Congresses (22 percent, 37 percent and 22 percent, respectively). Thus far in the 109th Congress, self-executing rules make up about 16 percent of all rules.
On April 26, the Rules Committee served up the mother of all self-executing rules for the lobby/ethics reform bill. The committee hit the trifecta with not one, not two, but three self-executing provisions in the same special rule. The first trigger was a double whammy: “In lieu of the amendments recommended by the Committees on the Judiciary, Rules, and Government Reform now printed in the bill, the amendment in the nature of a substitute consisting of the text of the Rules Committee Print dated April 21, 2006, modified by the amendment printed in part A of the report of the Committee on Rules accompanying this resolution, shall be considered as adopted in the House and the Committee of the Whole.”
The substitute submitted by the Rules Committee did not combine all the amendments adopted by the three reporting committees, as is customarily done. Instead, it deleted two amendments adopted by the Judiciary Committee that would have required disclosure of lobbyists’ contacts with Members and staff, and lobbyists’ solicitation and transmission of campaign contributions to candidates.
It then further amended its own substitute by automatically deleting a third Judiciary amendment requiring a Government Accountability Office study of lobbyist employment contracts.
So, are we really surprised any more by Jeff Schreiber’s habit of carefully failing to mention relevant facts? Of course not.
Are we outraged? Nope.
But we are entertained. We’re pointing and laughing at “honest” Jeff Schreiber and his self-defeating, self-impeaching antics. Again.
(hat tips: Daily Kos and Media Matters)
It is, of course, an axiom that Jeff Schreiber of America’s Right is a man of unimpeachable character — just ask him. It is therefore a distinct honor to present yet another example of Schreiber’s scrupulous honesty.
In a blog post entitled Justice Obama? You Betcha!, Jeff Schreiber stated:
I, for one, would love to see Barack Obama on the Supreme Court. I just don’t think, ideological slant or otherwise, he really has a grasp of the law or of the Constitution, the document he believes to be “deeply flawed.”
Schreiber was challenged to provide the entire quote, rather than just two carefully selected words, and to present that quote in context. Of course, he responded promptly:
“I think it is a remarkable document … the original Constitution as well as the Civil War Amendments, but I think it is an imperfect document, and I think it is a document that reflects some deep flaws in American culture, the Colonial culture nascent at that time. And in that sense, I think we can say that the Constitution reflected an enormous blind spot in this culture that carries on until this day, and that the Framers had that same blind spot. I don’t think the two views are contradictory, to say that it was a remarkable political document that paved the way for where we are now, and to say that it also reflected the fundamental flaw of this country that continues to this day.”
Look at that quote. Just look at it and marvel at it. It is truly a shining exemplar of painstaking accuracy, as one can see by noting how very closely it matches Obama’s actual words (which can be heard at 45:26 in the original broadcast):
“I think it is a remarkable document, I think… the original Constitution, as well as — as well as the Civil War amendments, but I think it is an imperfect document, and I think it is a document that reflects some deep flaws in American culture — the colonial culture nascent at that time. African-Americans were not — first of all, they weren’t African-Americans. The Africans at the time were not considered as part of the polity that was of concern to the framers. I think that, as Richard said, it was a nagging problem in the same way that, these days, we might think of environmental issues or some other problem that, where you have to balance, you know, cost-benefits, as opposed to seeing it as a moral problem involving persons of moral worth. And, in that sense, I think we can say that the Constitution reflected a enormous blind spot in this culture that carries on until this day, and that the Framers had that same blind spot. I don’t think the two views are contradictory to say that it was a remarkable political document that paved the way for where we are now, and to say that it also reflected the fundamental flaw of this country that continues to this day.”
You see? You see how perfectly Jeff Schreiber reported Obama’s words? Is that not astonishing?
It is clear that everyone on the far right of the great American political debate owes Jeff Schreiber a huge debt of gratitude for setting the standards of honesty and character where he has.
As we all know, Widdle Jeffie Schreiber never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever lies. No sirree. Not once in his entire life has Widdle Jeffie said or written anything that isn’t 100% true and factual. Just ask him.
Too bad those who contribute to the sewer that is Widdle Jeffie’s blog aren’t held to the same high standards. Some delusional asshat calling himself Rick Saunders posted a well-debunked lie:
For a great expose on the abuse of the reconciliation nuclear option by the Democrats, check out this great primer by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich…
Reconciliation is not the “nuclear option”. It never has been. The wingnut press and their blogger hangers-on are furiously pushing this mendacious meme, trying to conflate what was called the “nuclear option” (a tactic once threatened by Republicans) and the thirty-year-old reconciliation procedure, in order to smear Democrats as “hypocrites”. It’s total hogwash.
Media have misrepresented or ignored history of reconciliation
Fox News falsely conflates reconciliation with “nuclear option.” Throughout the health care reform debate, Fox News has repeatedly falsely described the reconciliation process as the “nuclear option.” Fox News also recently seized on a Breitbart-promoted video to falsely accuse Democrats of hypocrisy for considering using the reconciliation process to pass health care reform because they had previously opposed the “nuclear option.” But, in fact, the nuclear option referred to a Republican proposal to change Senate filibuster rules on judicial nominees and was not related to reconciliation.
Media have pushed GOP claims that reconciliation “strange,” “extraordinary,” “arcane,” “lightly used,” “unusual.” Reporting on the Democrats’ possible use of the reconciliation budget process to pass health care reform, media outlets have advanced the Republican criticism that reconciliation is “an end-run around the normal legislative process.”
Media have not challenged GOP criticisms of reconciliation process. Media Matters for America has documented a pattern of journalists uncritically quoting Republican senators criticizing the decision to use reconciliation, without noting that those same senators — including Alexander, Grassley, and Sens. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Judd Gregg (R-NH), Olympia Snowe (R-ME), and Orrin Hatch (R-UT) — voted to allow the use of the budget reconciliation process to pass legislation during the Bush administration, including tax cuts.
I am certain that Widdle Jeffie Schreiber is ecstatic that Rick Saunders has taken on the challenge of posting lies like these to America’s Right. It must be a great comfort to Widdle Jeffie that he can keep his lily-white hands clean of the nasty business of perpetuating falsehoods like this.
It seems that Widdle Jeffie Schreiber, he of the unstainable “reputation”, has been giving lessons in being an ignorant tool. Behold Michelle Zhang, one of Schreiber’s groupies. Trying to support her thesis that the recent case of a school district spying on its students via laptop webcams must be an outgrowth of liberal philosophy, Zhang babbles:
Immediately a famous quote, often attributed to American Socialist Norman Mattoon Thomas, came to my mind.
“The American people will never knowingly adopt Socialism,” Thomas wrote. “But under the name of liberalism they will adopt every fragment of the Socialist program, until one day America will be a Socialist nation, without knowing how it happened.”
Golly, here’s a surprise… Zhang is spewing yet another dubious, unsourced chunk of wingnut propaganda. There’s no evidence whatsoever that Thomas ever made this remark.
But why should that stop Michelle Zhang? After all, isn’t it a wingnut’s God-given right to use whatever fantasies may be needed to shore up a shaky thesis?
Way to enhance your credibility, Michelle. Stay ignorant, now.