No Surprise here!

Posted: February 10, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: The Media SUCKS, the villagers, Voter Ignorance, We are so F'd | Tags: , | 45 Comments

A study released in December by a non-partisan group at the University of Maryland showed an appalling lack of knowledge on a variety of topics by US voters.  One of the most interesting findings of the study was that most of the lack of knowledge and out-and-out misinformation could be sourced to the media one followed.

The survey included fairly basic questions on programs like TARP, the economy, and taxes.  Answers  were mostly a straightforward yes or no and could be easily found with a little internet research.  The surveyed voters were just sadly uninformed and missed question-after-question in large and significant numbers.  Probably the most shocking finding was that the degree to being misinformed was highly associated with the source of news followed by the participant.

The most controversial part of the study comes at the end.  MSNBC and NPR audiences were found to be least misinformed on the basic questions of fact.  The study points to Fox News as the chief misinformer among the three major cable news outlets.  The following is a list of instances in which Fox News viewers were more likely to be misinformed on a given issue:

  • most economists estimate the stimulus caused job losses (12 points more likely)
  • most economists have estimated the health care law will worsen the deficit (31 points)
  • the economy is getting worse (26 points)
  • most scientists do not agree that climate change is occurring (30 points)
  • the stimulus legislation did not include any tax cuts (14 points)
  • their own income taxes have gone up (14 points)
  • the auto bailout only occurred under Obama (13 points)
  • when TARP came up for a vote most Republicans opposed it (12 points)
  • and that it is not clear that Obama was born in the United States (31 points)

Even more revealing, people who watched Fox News multiple times a day or everyday were found to be more misinformed than those who just watched Fox News occasionally

That’s a fairly interesting result.  The more you watch Fox, the more misinformed you’re likely to become. Now, we get this headline today from Media Matters and Eric Boehlert: “FOX NEWS INSIDER: “Stuff Is Just Made Up”.  That sure explains a lot, doesn’t it?

Indeed, a former Fox News employee who recently agreed to talk with Media Matters confirmed what critics have been saying for years about Murdoch’s cable channel. Namely, that Fox News is run as a purely partisan operation, virtually every news story is actively spun by the staff, its primary goal is to prop up Republicans and knock down Democrats, and that staffers at Fox News routinely operate without the slightest regard for fairness or fact checking.

“It is their M.O. to undermine the administration and to undermine Democrats,” says the source. “They’re a propaganda outfit but they call themselves news.”

And that’s the word from inside Fox News.

The ex-Fox employee whistle blower explains some of the ways that Fox distorts the story.  This just adds further evidence to the batch of leaked emails last year showing how a top news editor was found to have told staffers how to slant the news for the desired bias.   Here’s a sample on how Fox News insured that the Obama HCR plan was rebranded from its original roots in Romney Care and the Heritage Plan put forward in 1993 by then Republican Senator John Chaffee.

From: Sammon, Bill
Sent: Tuesday, October 27, 2009 8:23 AM
To: 054 -FNSunday; 169 -SPECIAL REPORT; 069 -Politics; 030 -Root (FoxNews.Com); 036 -FOX.WHU; 050 -Senior Producers; 051 -Producers
Subject: friendly reminder: let’s not slip back into calling it the “public option”

1)      Please use the term “government-run health insurance” or, when brevity is a concern, “government option,” whenever possible.

2)      When it is necessary to use the term “public option” (which is, after all, firmly ensconced in the nation’s lexicon), use the qualifier “so-called,” as in “the so-called public option.”

3)      Here’s another way to phrase it: “The public option, which is the government-run plan.”

4)      When newsmakers and sources use the term “public option” in our stories, there’s not a lot we can do about it, since quotes are of course sacrosanct.

This isn’t even the first evidence we’ve had that Fox deliberately misleads its viewers.  You may recall the 2003 study that showed Fox viewers mistakenly thought Saddam Hussein and Iraq were responsible for the 9/11 attacks on the Twin Towers.  There were also other mistaken perceptions about other circumstances surrounding the lead up to the Iraq invasion.

In the run-up to the war misperceptions were also highly related to support for going to war. In February, among those who believed that Iraq was directly involved in September 11, 58% said they would agree with the President’s decision to go to war without UN approval. Among those who believed that Iraq had given al Qaeda substantial support, but was not involved in September 11, approval dropped to 37%. Among those who believed that a few al Qaeda individuals had contact with Iraqi officials 32% were supportive, while among those who believed that there was no connection at all just 25% felt that way. Polled during the war, among those who incorrectly believed that world public opinion favored going to the war, 81% agreed with the President’s decision to do so, while among those who knew that the world public opinion was opposed only 28% agreed.

While it would seem that misperceptions are derived from a failure to pay attention to the news, in fact, overall, those who pay greater attention to the news are no less likely to have misperceptions. Among those who primarily watch Fox, those who pay more attention are more likely to have misperceptions. Only those who mostly get their news from print media have fewer misperceptions as they pay more attention.

The Maryland Study cited above has found more evidence that viewers of Fox News hold views on the economy based on out and out untruths.  Again, the facts and data are easily found in many other sources.

–  72% believe the economy is getting worse.

–  49% believe their taxes have gone up under President Obama.

–  63% believe the stimulus did not create any tax cuts.

–  47% believe that TARP was passed into law and signed by President Obama.

None of these things are true and can be easily fact-checked by checking government sites.   There are several things here that are extremely important.  The first is that print media is basically on the wane and followers of print media consistently score higher on knowing the facts.  The second is that Fox News consistently earns the highest rating.  There’s more people getting their news from a serious attempt at mass propaganda than an earnest daily rag.  The third is that we live in a democracy and people victimized by a propaganda outlet posing as a news source are a serious threat to our democracy. Misinformed voters make incredibly bad decisions. I have only to point to those same folks who cheered the Iraq invasion then that know better now to come up with a really good example of the true cost in lives and treasure of this kind of ignorance.

Obviously, this source is an ‘unnamed’ staffer who is no longer with Fox. These leaves the story open to the charge of unknown disgruntled worker.  However, the information jives with what we already know when examining the failed test scores of Fox News watchers and the contents of the 2010 leaked memos.  We also know that Rupert Murdoch writes millions of dollars of checks to Republican Candidates and has a large number or wannabe Republican candidates on air as experts.  Evidently, former governors of states with low populations and exceedingly low educational standards and economic performance can be cause enough to put one on the Fox payroll as some kind of expert.

There are many interesting observations offered up by the anonymous ex-staffer.

The source continues: “I don’t think people understand that it’s an organization that’s built and functions by intimidation and bullying, and its goal is to prop up and support Republicans and the GOP and to knock down Democrats. People tend think that stuff that’s on TV is real, especially under the guise of news. You’d think that people would wise up, but they don’t.”

As for the press, the former Fox News employee gives reporters and pundits low grades for refusing, over the years, to call out Fox News for being the propaganda outlet that it so clearly is. The source suggests there are a variety of reasons for the newsroom timidity.

“They don’t have enough staff or enough balls or don’t have enough money or don’t have enough interest to spend the time it takes to expose Fox News. Or it’s not worth the trouble. If you take on Fox, they’ll kick you in the ass,” says the source. “I’m sure most [journalists]  know that. It’s not worth being  Swift Boated for your effort,” a reference to  how Fox News traditionally attacks journalists who write, or are perceived to have written, anything negative things about the channel.

Indeed, the veal pen will rush to protect even the most dubious hack in the nastiest pen.  The problem is that most people believe what’s on a TV news program.  Maybe it’s because so many of us grew up with our much trusted Uncle Walter or Uncles Chet and David. Maybe it’s because it’s hard to fact check a mostly 24-7 operation reliant on pretty faces and glib voices. But, I know people that think that even Glenn Beck is a journalist and a fact checker.

We have what are supposed to be legitimate news programs as well as obvious political shock jocks on Fox that many people take seriously.    I’ve even had people tell me that the CIA Factbook site was either hacked by Cuba or not a legitimate site when I’ve used it as source of data to offset the memes of some rabid dog expert that’s blathered about US exceptionalism and how we’re number one on this or that.  You can’t spend a lot of time on the CIA World Factbook without noticing exactly how far we’ve been tumbling from a number one or even number 10 positions recently on nearly every imaginable positive measure of economic well-being.  Yet, we’re both dying under the yoke of socialist oppression while being exceptionally number one, simultaneously, according to Fox.

What’s the offset to this?  Well, I’m not sure considering the number of people that go to FOX and appear on FOX because it’s simply an echo chamber.  I do think the MSM should do more stories that point out misinformation available other places.  I also think that a few of them should try to start acting less like People Magazine and more like news magazine.  The corporatization and consolidation of Media obviously works against getting a good and decent media.  We get more coverage of Lindsey Lohen’s necklace escapades than news on Afghanistan or Gitmo these days.

A good part of living in a democracy and being committed to seeing it through is to remain vigilant against threats.  FOX News represents a clear and present danger. Perhaps the most we can do is just continue to find good sources of information in alternative media and then see that information goes out to our friends and family. I know I have to offset the Fox Effect with my Dad all the time.  It gets discouraging.

They think they own our Bodies

Posted: February 9, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: abortion rights, U.S. Politics, Violence against women, Voter Ignorance, We are so F'd, Women's Rights | Tags: , , , , | 100 Comments

Update:  Women’s Health Outrage of the moment: BREAKING: Appropriation Committee sticks gov’t-funding law that cuts $372 mil in funding for Planned Parenthood/family planning into HR358

The Republican Party is waging a war against American women and is being joined by a few bad Democratic sell outs.  Representatives like Joe Pitts are attacking the rights of women to make personal health-related decisions daily.  HR#3 is just the first of a series of bills designed to narrow definitions of rape, prevention, and what constitutes federal support of women’s reproductive health.  Any one that voted for any Republican under the guise of being pissed at Democrats should take this as a lesson.  Republicans cannot be trusted to do right by women.

This is nothing less than a crusade against the autonomy and adulthood of women. We need to take to the streets again. This is the latest affront: Under Banner of Fiscal Restraint, Republicans Plan New Abortion Bills.

All but invisible during the midterm elections, the abortion debate has returned to Congress.

Invoking the mantra of fiscal restraint that has dominated House action since lawmakers reconvened last month, Republicans began committee work this week on two bills that would greatly expand restrictions on financing for and access to abortions. Another bill, one that would cut off federal dollars to women’s health care clinics that offer abortions, is expected to surface later this year.

“This House is more pro-life than it’s ever been,” said Representative Joe Pitts, Republican of Pennsylvania and the author of one of the bills to limit money for abortions.

Democrats in both the House and Senate immediately fought back Tuesday, working closely with reproductive rights advocates. They have appropriated the Republican charge from last year that Democrats were working on a liberal policy agenda instead of on job creation and the economy, and turned it on its head.

We’re fortunate that some Democratic office holders are fighting against this religious crusade against American Women.  Others are not as reported here by StarkReports.  Is HR#3 so overreaching that it could end even the watered down abortion rights that we now know in the US?  Will Democrats like Harry Reid be complicit?  The Youtube above and the quote below cover the recent Democratic Press Conference on Republican attempts to control women.  It makes this important point.  Dozens of Democrats will probably join their crazed Republican counterparts to pass this abomination.  There is one thing in particular that I’d like to point out in bold below that will let you know why no woman that respects her own autonomy can vote Republican period.  This should also increase our skepticism of Democrats too.

Since every Representative in the Republican House majority is anti-choice, and since there are probably dozens of anti-choice Democrats that will join them, HR3 will assuredly pass the House.

In the Senate, Harry Reid is anti-choice and has been rolled by Mitch McConnell and the Republicans at every turn. Moreover, procedure in the Senate is much more amenable to minority priorities. Abortion supporters are hopeful, but nobody is saying with any degree of certitude that HR3 will die in the Senate.

With that in mind, I decided to ask the people in the room if they were willing to withhold their support from the President if he signed the bill if it reached his desk. Nadler dodged the question, saying it was premature. I pointed out that there was a reason he called the press conference: that he didn’t wan’t to see this bill become law. He stayed silent on the President.

The Republican party no longer represents a sane alternative to the Democratic Party.  Still, the Democratic Party cannot be trusted to do the right thing by women either.  Women have no choice but to ensure that any one that is willing to sell us out to religious extremists in the Democratic party does not get our vote.  PERIOD.

HR#3 and its counterparts make women second class citizens.  There is no other personal health decision that the government feels the need to make for any man.  This says that the majority of people in Congress and a good deal of them in the Senate do not think we are adult enough to make a ‘moral choice’.  It also continues the special treatment of fetus fetishists to opt out of paying taxes for women’s health while forcing the rest of us to pay for their bridges to no where, their murderous wars, and their religion-based stupidity like ‘abstinence education’.   The rape redefinition trick is still in these bills too.

One bill, the “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act,” would eliminate tax breaks for private employers who provide health coverage if their plans offer abortion services, and would forbid women who use a flexible spending plan to use pre-tax dollars for abortions. Those restrictions would go well beyond current law prohibiting the use of federal money for abortion services.

The bill, sponsored by Representative Christopher H. Smith, Republican of New Jersey, has drawn fire over language that undercuts a longstanding exemption on the ban on using federal money for abortions in the case of rape or incest; the measure narrows the definition of rape to “forcible rape,” a term that his office has never defined. Democratic lawmakers and others repeatedly hammered on the term, saying it suggested that victims of statutory rape and other crimes could not get abortions paid for with federal money.

While Mr. Smith’s staff said last week that the term “forcible rape” would be removed from the bill, the staff of Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, said that language remained intact as of Tuesday.

Another bill, sponsored by Mr. Pitts, addresses the health care overhaul head-on by prohibiting Americans who receive insurance through state exchanges from purchasing abortion coverage, even with their own money. The bill is essentially a resurrection of a provision in the House version of the health care law but was not in the Senate version.

The bill would also permit hospitals to refuse abortions to women, even in emergency situations, if such care would offend the conscience of the health care providers.

We now have senators whose narrow religious views will be used to define rape and will allow hospitals to let women die.  Many of you have heard this story before, but my daughter has already experienced some of this conscious clause bullshit during her forth year in Medical School while doing a rotation in Michigan.  A resident left my daughter–not a qualified physician at the time–and a nurse to clean up the remnants of a botched abortion that was rapidly going septic in one woman’s uterus.  That’s right.  This woman was left by a doctor to a fourth year medical student and a nurse as a result of an abortion-gone-wrong.  The doctor basically left her to die.  Thankfully, my daughter was a competent and conscientious caregiver and so was the nurse.  This last bill allows entire hospitals to walk away from dying women.

These bills would go no where with out the duplicity of Democrats like Nebraska’s wacko Senator Ben Nelson.  We need to make it loud and clear that we will not contribute to any mass campaign fund that includes support for people who believe women are not adult enough to make moral decisions for themselves.  You need to make sure that your donations do not go to Democratic Politician’s PACS that can sneak money to these culprits.  Lastly, we need a pledge that pro choice Democrats will not sell out women for any reason.  There needs to be an absolute understanding that these bills will not reach the President’s desk and if they do, the President will not sign them.

Woman’s should not be hung on a cross of bipartisanship or kumbaya centrist compromises.  It’s time to make that very clear. We do not want to return to the days of forced pregnancy or wire hangers. We need to know that we can trust each and every one of them to stand by us before they get any form of support from us.  This includes the President.

Rachel Maddow is on the forefront of this fight.  You can follow her efforts and get more information here at The Maddow Blog. Send letters to your congressman via NARAL.  Support Planned Parenthood here.  Read more Feminist bloggers on this.  We are not alone in our fear and outrage.  Here’s the latest from Shakesville:  ‘Take Your Legislation OFF  Me‘.

US Economic Malaise

Posted: February 8, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Economic Develpment, Global Financial Crisis, U.S. Economy, We are so F'd | Tags: , , | 15 Comments

I happened across the latest outlook for the global economy by Dr. Doom–Nouriel Roubini–over at Project Syndicate. We must share the same depressed muse.  His outlook is very similar to mine although he’s crunching numbers in computer models that I can only dream about.  It’s also a similar outlook to what Joseph Stiglitz indicated while in Davos.  You will not need sunglasses while facing the future if you’re in Europe or North America.  This will most likely be the decade of developing nations.  I don’t have the sophisticated programs available to Roubini but his forecasts seem reasonable.

The outlook for the global economy in 2011 is, partly, for a persistence of the trends established in 2010. These are: an anemic, below-trend, U-shaped recovery in advanced economies, as firms and households continue to repair their balance sheets; a stronger, V-shaped recovery in emerging-market countries, owing to stronger macroeconomic, financial, and policy fundamentals. That adds up to close to 4% annual growth for the global economy, with advanced economies growing at around 2% and emerging-market countries growing at about 6%.

The word anemic is never one you want to see when talking economic forecasts.  Roubini does identify a few possible black swan events related to things like the deterioration of the Spanish economy that could make anemic sound like a good thing.   His comments on the US economy indicate more of the same.  None of the same is pleasant.

The United States represents another downside risk for global growth. In 2011, the US faces a likely double dip in the housing market, high unemployment and weak job creation, a persistent credit crunch, gaping budgetary holes at the state and local level, and steeper borrowing costs as a result of the federal government’s lack of fiscal consolidation. Moreover, credit growth on both sides of the Atlantic will be restrained, as many financial institutions in the US and Europe maintain a risk-averse stance toward lending.

There’s some indication of our potential black swans in that paragraph.  Every economist is attuned to the solvency problems in states like Illinois, New Jersey, and California.  There is also no faith in the federal government’s ability to bail out any one but political donors.  The only hope I have for the situation is that it’s an election year and those do tend to be important states electorally for presidential wannabes.

The other trends that worry me are the trends in oil and food prices which could mean that huge countries like China may have to readjust their plans with their sovereign wealth funds.  Countries that import a lot of these items are going to be in for hefty bills. China is already experience inflation and has upped its interest rates.  Roubini is watching for further signs that they recognize the potential problem.  He also believes these tensions will further fuel currency tensions.

Roubini actually sees some upside risks and believes that we will slowly pull out of things.  He believes that all sectors are still engaging in balance sheet repair with the exception of the US government.  This is especially significant for the potential for jobs creation. If  corporations are lean and mean and things do improve, this could create some much needed labor demand.

Joseph Stiglitz wrote a column for the UK Guardian after his Davos trip for the World Economic Forum.  He may actually need to take the Dr Doom title from Robini.  He focused on some systemic things that you might find interesting.   Once again, we see an evaluation of the Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH).  This is something that should’ve happened years ago.  He also mentions some skepticism of the monetarist (aka Milton Friedman) positions of central banks on inflation.

But this time, as business leaders shared their experiences, one could almost feel the clouds darkening. The spirit was captured by one speaker who suggested that we had gone from “boom and bust” to “boom and Armageddon”. The emerging consensus was that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) forecast for 2009, issued as the meeting convened, of global stagnation – the lowest growth in the post-war period – was optimistic. The only upbeat note was struck by someone who remarked that Davos consensus forecasts are almost always wrong, so perhaps this time it would prove excessively pessimistic.

Equally striking was the loss of faith in markets. In a widely attended brainstorming session at which participants were asked what single failure accounted for the crisis, there was a resounding answer: the belief that markets were self-correcting.

The so-called “efficient markets” model, which holds that prices fully and efficiently reflect all available information, also came in for a trashing. So did inflation targeting: the excessive focus on inflation had diverted attention from the more fundamental question of financial stability. Central bankers’ belief that controlling inflation was necessary and almost sufficient for growth and prosperity had never been based on sound economic theory; now, the crisis provided further scepticism.

Read the rest of this entry »

More Insanity and Lies from US Christian Extremists

Posted: February 4, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Reproductive Rights, Surreality, The Media SUCKS, We are so F'd, Women's Rights | Tags: , , , , , | 18 Comments

The new year seems to have instilled a new level of craziness in our homegrown Christian Extremists.  Think that all that stuff you see over in under-developed nations couldn’t be brought over here?  Think it’s only radical Islam that wants to stick women in an Iron Age world?  Well, think again. Watch the video and be appalled.

Anti-Choice Fanatic Lila Rose says that  ‘Abortions Should Be Done in the Public Square’.

We’ll get back to Lila in La La Land in a bit.

First,some people have nothing better to do than to biblecheck the President’s knowledge on the “The Bible.” If it wasn’t embarrassing enough to have to watch the President of the world’s oldest pluralistic society make a speech so he can prove he’s not a “Muslim”, Fox Nation has to choose which version of the Bible he’s supposed to use to pledge allegiance.  Evidently, the only true Bible for Fox Nation is the King James version which has been shown to have severe translation and other problems.

Obama was  quoting from the New International Version, while Fox Nation was pointing to the King James Version to “debunk” him.

This would be funny if it weren’t so pathetic.

Most likely, they won’t bother to correct their story, and their goal will be accomplished: the readers that trust them will remember the time Obama “misquoted” the Bible, some more people will question the authenticity of Obama’s faith, and the smear machine will move on.

Exactly what is the point of having the President of our entire nation disenfranchise many of us through a “national prayer breakfast” any way?

While the president thankfully steers clear of “Christian nation” rhetoric there was simply too much of Obama the Christian yesterday.

Come to think of it, the National Prayer Breakfast often has this effect on politicians. Senator Joseph Lieberman, an Orthodox Jew, sprinkled so many references to the gospels at the 48th National Prayer Breakfast in 2000 that he made George W. Bush look like a desk officer for Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

Obama may earnestly believe that Republican Senator Tom Coburn is his “brother in Christ.” But such a sentiment sounds odd coming from a president who once reminded his Turkish hosts that ours is not “a Christian nation or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation,” but “a nation of citizens who are bound by ideals and a set of values.”

Such a nation, one would hope, would be led by a person who understands that this type of rhetoric can be deeply troubling to those who don’t believe in Christ. Just as it may offend those Christians who believe that Christ’s teachings tend to become distorted when they are mouthed by the worldly powers that be.

This comes after learning the politically significant and influential “Family” has caused Uganda to create laws that murder its GLBT citizens. David Kato was forced to return to a country that is leading a reign of terror on its GLBT minorities in a manner directly traceable to the narrow beliefs and traditions of extremist Christians in the US.  The Family makes the Muslim Brotherhood look tame by comparison.

In early 2010, as policy adviser to the UK’s all-party group on HIV and AIDS, I organised Mugisha’s visit to the Westminster parliament to meet the then foreign office minister and openly gay legislator, Chris Bryant. It was, for Mugisha, a vision of what politics could be like.

“At this moment [in Uganda] it would be political suicide for a [member of parliament] to come out and support lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people,” he marvelled.

Six months later, back in Uganda, the national newspaper, Rolling Stone (unrelated to the US magazine of the same name), splashed a story across its front page, outing Uganda’s “top one hundred homos”. The piece gave names and addresses of gay men – amongst them Mugisha and Kato, whose faces were pictured in the paper. On the front page a banner read, “Hang them!”

The lives of both men were in danger but instead of hiding, they fought back. Kato successfully took the newspaper to court winning the paltry sum of 1.5 million Ugandan shillings (650 US dollars) for invasion of privacy and a permanent injunction preventing Rolling Stone from running a similar story again.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called for Uganda to swiftly investigate the murder of  Kato.  This call was reiterated just recently by President Obama.  The Senate should investigate the role of US religious extremists in the murder.

“The Family”–also known as “the Fellowship”– is a powerful and covert sect of American Christian evangelical politicians and ministers who seek a decidedly anti-gay extreme Christian agenda both at home and abroad, and through its words put this hammer in the hands of all potentially intolerant Ugandans.

Enabled by President Lt. Gen. Yoweri Kaguta Musevani and his wife Janet Kataha, Ugandan parlimentarian David Bahati, (who in 2009 said, “Homosexuality it is not a human right,”) last year introduced a “kill the gays” bill which remains under active consideration. All are believed to be members of Ugandas’ Christian right wing “Family,” according to Jeff Sharlet, author of The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power, a tour de force exposé of “The Fellowship,” published in 2008.

Sharlet has appeared on MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Show, as well as on National Public Radio to discuss the shadowy “Family” sect that has included well-known evangelical minister Rick Warren, who delivered the invocational prayer at President Barack Obama’s inauguration in January 2009, much to the chagrin of LGBT activists.

Sharlet has authored a second book on the Family, entitled C Street: The Fundamentalist Threat to American Democracy, considered a deeper exploration of related sex scandals of Family-backed Republican politicians in Washington, D.C. It provides additional revelations about The Family’s role in the Ugandan government’s anti-gay reactions, which have brought rebukes from the Ugandan Supreme Court, but have also elicited a refusal by Rick Warren to condemn the Ugandan ”kill the gays” proposed legislation, along with a dubious claim that Warren had “nothing to do” with the anti-gay bill.

New York Times best-selling author Frank Schaeffer writes in “Evangelicals Implicated When Ugandan Gay Rights Activist Was Beaten to Death,” that the ”story of the Ugandan legislation to kill gays for being gay was intertwined with the Family and also with representatives of the wider “respectable” American Evangelical community. According to many pressreports, the genesis of the antihomosexual Ugandan bill may be traced to a three-day seminar in Kampala in March 2009 called “Exposing the Truth Behind Homosexuality and the Homosexual Agenda.” This seminar was led by Evangelical leader and hero to the Religious Right Scott Lively. He is best known for his Holocaust revisionist book  The Pink Swastika, which claims homosexuals founded the Nazi party and were responsible for death camp atrocities.”

“According to sources who attended the conference (and who were later widely quoted in the press), Lively told his Kampala audience, “I know more about this [homosexuality] than almost anyone in the world. The gay movement is an evil institution. The goal of the gay movement is to defeat the marriage-based society and replace it with a culture of sexual promiscuity.” The results of the seminar were dramatic. “The community has become very hostile now,” Frank Mugisha, executive director of Sexual Minorities Uganda, said in an interview. “We have to watch our backs very much more than before because the community thinks if the Ugandan government is not passing the law, they will deal with [gay] people on their own.”

They’re busy here too.  Some Iowans are on a crusade against GLBT families. Just when you think it’s safe to be a human in a developed nation, religious extremists bring out their burning crosses and witch hunts all over again.

Fox News via Bill Reilly has also been pushing Lila Rose’s heavily edited and misleading film showing that Planned Parenthood “provides advice to sex traffickers of minority youth”.  This is the latest right wing attempt to ensnare nonprofits serving the poor with lies and heavily edited video tape.   This tape is unbelievably being shown on FOX News as a credible source. New Jersey Governor Christie has promised to veto funding for Planned Parenthood now based on this highly edited and misleading document.

When the anti-abortion rights propagandists at Live Action began releasing their Planned Parenthood smear videos earlier this week, we explained that their claim that Planned Parenthood was covering-up “child sex trafficking” was clearly a lie.

That’s because way back on January 18, Planned Parenthood’s president wrote to Attorney General Eric Holder about the incidents and requested an FBI investigation into the possibility that “an individual or individuals are engaged in activities that violate several federal criminal statutes relating to sex trafficking involving minors.”

So Planned Parenthood obviously wasn’t covering up anything; they were fulfilling their obligation to keep children safe.

We also warned that media should be skeptical about the heavily edited video footage released by Live Action.

As it turns out, we were right to raise concerns.

Yesterday, Live Action released a video that it claimed showed a Richmond, Virginia, Planned Parenthood’s supposed “willingness to aid and abet sexual exploitation of minors.”

This comes on top of the attempt by Speaker of the House John Boehner and  U.S. House of Representatives to redefine rape to further remove access to abortions by poor and disabled women. Here’s that and some more news on Men with Minds stuck in the Middle Ages from young women’s website The Frisky.

  • Leave it to Kristen Schaal at “The Daily Show” to give the best assessment of Republicans’ attempts to redefine rape in the No Taxpayer Funding For Abortion Act. “Rape with benefits” and “rape-ish” are sooo becoming part of my vocabulary. Thankfully, the phrase “forcible rape” has been cut from the bill. [The Daily What via The Daily Show, Washington Post]
  • Former Oklahoma State Senator Herb Rozell suggested a pregnant woman who was nominated to the State Board of Education would be “worthless” because she would give birth during the legislative session and be totally obsessed with diapers or something. Rozell has been condemned by OK’s Governor Mary Fallin and other lawmakers, including two who said, “In this day and age, to have that type of attitude about a woman’s ability to serve is offensive, discriminatory and just wrong.” [Tulsa Beacon]

Here’s some interesting analysis on HR#3 and how the language got dropped by the CSM.  Thankfully, the GOP backed down.  Here’s some of the remaining horrors of the bill that our Democratic President shouldn’t sign if passed.

“I would caution against saying this is a victory, because the other provisions in H.R. 3 are so bad,” says Ted Miller, communications director for NARAL Pro-Choice America.

In addition to banning federal funding for abortion, the bill would eliminate tax breaks for health insurance premiums on policies that cover abortion-related expenses. It would also prevent women from paying for an abortion out of a health savings account.

A separate piece of legislation, H.R. 358 – the Protect Life Act, sponsored by Rep. Joe Pitts (R) of Pennsylvania – also seeks to bar use of federal funds for abortion under the new health-care law but is less far-reaching than Congressman Smith’s bill. Still, abortion-rights advocates are equally concerned about its provisions. On Wednesday, NARAL Pro-Choice America highlighted a new version of Congressman Pitts’ bill that they said would allow hospitals to refuse to provide an abortion to a pregnant woman even if her life was in danger.

In the last Congress, Pitts and former Rep. Bart Stupak (D) of Michigan succeeded in inserting a ban on federal funding for abortion in the House version of health reform legislation, but it was not included in the final version signed by President Obama. The day after the bill-signing, Mr. Obama signed an executive order aimed at ensuring the new law would maintain a ban on federal funding of abortions.

However, there are Democratic co-sponsors of that bill.  Micheal Whitney at FDL has a good run down of which Dems we should work actively against.  The DCCC invested $3.3 million dollars getting these jerks re-elected.

A look at the DCCC’s contributions to and on behalf of the 10 Democratic co-sponsors of HR3 show the committee spent a whopping $3,379,322.85 to keep these members in office – in 2010 alone. The list includes: Dan Boren [OK-2], Jerry Costello [IL-12], Mark Critz [PA-12], Joe Donnelly [IN-2], Daniel Lipinski [IL-3], Collin Peterson [MN-7], Nick Rahall [WV-3], Mike Ross [AR-4], and Heath Shuler [NC-11]. And God knows how many Blue Dogs that lost in 2010 and who were supported by the DCCC would have co-sponsored this bill.

Madamab has a Feminist Friday post up called ‘Feminist Friday: “Jekyll” and Hyde’ that thoroughly covers the depths of horror displayed in this bill.   Then, try this one on for size from an article from our neighbors to the north.  The “culture of life” clearly does not extend to living breathing children in many extremist sects.

Water torture of babies is one way some members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day instil fear of authority, a former member testified Wednesday.

“It’s quite common,” Carolyn Blackmore Jessop told the constitutional reference case to determine whether Canada’s polygamy law is valid.

“They spank the baby and when it cries, they hold the baby face up under the tap with running water. When they stop crying, they spank it again and the cycle is repeated until they are exhausted.”

It’s typically done by fathers and it’s called “breaking in.”

Jessop, who is from Arizona, testified about the practice during her testimony in B.C. Supreme Court.

Outside the courthouse, Jessop said water torture is common enough that there doesn’t seem any shame attached to the practice.

In her cousin’s baby book, there’s a handwritten note by her mother noting that when her daughter was 18 months old, she was becoming quite a handful and, as a result, was being held under the tap on a regular basis.

In court, Jessop said water torture was one of the reasons that she gave for gaining sole custody of her children after she left the group in 2003. She said her ex-husband, Merril Jessop, used it on “a lot” of his 54 children including her own.

“Merril was very abusive,” she said.

Think Europe is safer?  Well, try this cute one from LGF: Catholic Church Issues Guide on How to Convert Witches from the UK.

According to a new booklet from the Catholic Truth Society — the U.K. publishers for the Holy See — the faithful can convert Wiccans by following a few simple steps. The pamphlet, titled “Wicca and Witchcraft: Understanding the Dangers,” suggests that Catholics spark up conversations with these unbelievers about shared concerns such as the environment, The Telegraph reports.

And if you bump into a witch in a bar or coffee shop, the book adds, it’s important to recognize that “Wiccans are on a genuine spiritual quest,” providing “the starting point for dialog that may lead to their conversion.”

Why we continue to worry about religious extremists abroad when there are serious threats to our freedoms from religious extremists here in our own country continues to amaze me.   One bomb can only kill so many people.  Removal of religious freedoms and promotion of severe propaganda as fact by the media is a for more clear and present danger.  Why are we worried about Egyptian politics when we clearly have people in our own country who want to defy the U.S. Constitution and place us in an extremist Christian theocracy?

Dirty Little Secrets

Posted: February 2, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Corporate Crime, Team Obama, The Bonus Class, U.S. Politics, Voter Ignorance, We are so F'd | Tags: , , | 12 Comments

The overall corporate income tax was featured during the President’s SOTU address and by Republican circles.  I have mentioned that this particular rate isn’t even relevant anymore in posts and down thread comments because corporations here really don’t pay any where near the effective rate.

There are several reasons for this.  First, many of them now set up real or pseudo headquarters in tax and off shore banking havens like the Bahamas or Qatar and place a lot of their operations out of the reach of the IRS.  The second is the efficiency of lobbying efforts in getting them so many loopholes that most corporate revenues become exempt.  Despite this, corporations use public services and create social costs.  Social costs are those costs that the society gets to foot when corporations create problems they or their consumers can pass to the public.  A big example is smoking that creates incredible public health issues or pollution.  BP is definitely not taking care of the tab for its destruction down here and will most likely escape prosecution for costs the spill will continue to wreck on the environment, livings, and health of people and wildlife in the area.  Meanwhile, as an oil business, they are the beneficiary of many, many tax loopholes and direct subsidies.

I was glad to see some hard data–albeit anecdotal–on this phenomenon today in David Leonhardt’s op ed column in the NYT called ‘The Paradox of Corporate Taxes‘.  The narrative begins with the example of Carnival Cruises that has a special, extreme loophole that leaves the majority of its revenues untaxed while  it uses a number of public resources like services of the Coast Guard.  Corporations are cost minimizing and profit maximizing things.  They will employ an army of lobbyists and lawyers to help them. They even produce commercials that tout their environmental friendliness and their patriotism.  I always shake my head at the commercials of companies like GE and Boeing for whom competitive markets are imaginary and no bid government grants are major sources of revenues.  Yet, they act like they are burdened by taxes.

This is so untrue.

Carnival’s biggest government benefit of all may be the price it pays for many of those services. Over the last five years, the company has paid total corporate taxes — federal, state, local and foreign — equal to only 1.1 percent of its cumulative $11.3 billion in profits. Thanks to an obscure loophole in the tax code, Carnival can legally avoid most taxes.

It is an extreme case, but it’s hardly the only company that pays far less than the much-quoted federal corporate tax rate of 35 percent. Of the 500 big companies in the well-known Standard & Poor’s stock index, 115 paid a total corporate tax rate — both federal and otherwise — of less than 20 percent over the last five years, according to an analysis of company reports done for The New York Times by Capital IQ, a research firm. Thirty-nine of those companies paid a rate less than 10 percent.

President Obama indicated that he was willing to simplify the Corporate Tax Code and lower the overall Tax Rate for corporations.  In exchange, he asked Congress to remove all the pork, breaks, and exclusions they’ve granted many businesses–including ones that really don’t need it like the Oil Industry–over the years.  I doubt we’ll see any moves on the latter.  My fear is that will only see movement on the former thus cementing the de-funding of government by the by the very people who benefit from government largess. Many study shows that far more rich and upper middle class Americans and American Businesses use public services and public assets than the poor and working class.  After all, who uses the roads, the airways, the universities, the grants and loans, and the many tax loopholes?

While the official corporate tax rate is among the highest of developing countries, the effective rate is among the lowest of the countries that actually have economies that don’t function as tax havens or off shoring banking centers.  Even Republican economists will pony up that data.

“A dirty little secret,” Richard Clarida, a Columbia University economist and former official in the Treasury Department under President George W. Bush, has said, “is that the corporate income tax used to raise a fair amount of revenue.”

Over the last five years, on the other hand, Boeing paid a total tax rate of just 4.5 percent, according to Capital IQ. Southwest Airlines paid 6.3 percent. And the list goes on: Yahoo paid 7 percent; Prudential Financial, 7.6 percent; General Electric, 14.3 percent.

Economists have long pleaded for an overhaul of the corporate tax code, and both President Obama and Republicans now say they favor one, too. But it won’t be easy.

Indeed, it won’t be easy.  First, it’s difficult for even neutral academics to get a good look at the workings of loopholes because because tax filings are confidential.  Loopholes are everywhere and folks that support simplifying the tax code can’t even get a handle on how widespread or huge the problem.  Publicly held corporations provide for public stockholder reports but even these things are of limited use over time when studying corporate tax avoidance.  My field specializations for my doctorate is International Finance and Trade and Corporate Finance so I lot of my class work and research work is based in corporate finance as well as economics.  I know the literature, models, and theories well.

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