Just the Facts, Thank you Ma’am

A sports talk show host advised people to do their civic duty and watch the debate with hopefully
the Yankees comfortably in front, which they were. He said turn on MSNBC and then FOX and you
would see two different universes. I would add to then turn on Brian Williams to find out what really
happened. On Brian Williams we had the best set of fact checkers. Particularly Andrea Mitchell, who
went forward with her “truth squad” and maybe the biggest single debate was the President’s claim and Mitt Romney’s strong denial that he did not promise a $5 trillion tax cut.
He would make the Bush tax cuts permanent.
He would cut all rates an additional 20%.
He would repeal the Alternative Minimum Tax.
And permanently repeal the Estate Tax.
The tax policy department currently headed by two former Bush addvisors said it would cost $4.8 trillion over 10 years. Not $5 trillion, but pretty darn close. And obviously all the deductions in the world, and Romney still won’t say what they are, won’t cover $4 trillion dollars. Unfortunately, Mr. Romney's level of truth came nowhere near his level of rhetoric.

AIR MITT

Air Mitt or should we say err Mitt (as in e-r-r) has surfaced in one of the more interesting press conferences held by Willard Mitt Romney. In fact, this past Saturday he was talking about the electrical fire on the plane which Mrs. Romney was flying and thank heaven everyone was okay, and he went on to say the problem with such a thing is that you have no place to go on a plane.  Well we knew that at Real Fox News.  But then he went on to say that “because you can’t open the windows for ouside oxygen and why haven’t they figured out how to do that.  And our answer would be because an open window or windows at 400-500 miles per hour would have some other logistical difficulties. Okay, we did say that Republican compassion is to compassion as Republican science is to science.  But really Mitt, power windows on a flying jet aircraft?  Seriously?

Honestly, It’s Good That Linda McMahon Is Running For Senate.

It’s good that Linda McMahon is running for senate.  It’s good for the people who were out almost a million dollars from the banks in 1975.  Of course, I’d be curious to know just what that computes in today’s dollars, in lost opportunity, etc.  But it’s good for them because she’s planning on paying it back.  It’s good for all the printers who get her business.  Many printers have benefited over the years from her in New Hampshire.  More recently it appears some in CT because they would not if she wasn’t running for senate.  And it’s good for the state of CT because she is now caught up in our taxes in the “luxury mansion.”  Good for her.  And to repeat, it is honestly good she is running for senate.  But of course if she were all that honest she wouldn’t have had to run for senate to pay back all those debts of those people who trusted her that she burnt; to pay the taxes she had due.  And maybe she’ll even get around retroactively to giving her former employees health care and benefits they never had.  In fact if we could keep Linda McMahon running for office and losing, we think she could do a lot of good.

SHANA TOVA!!!

 Real Fox News wishes all its readers and fans a Shana Tova, a happy and healthy sweet new year!

FRIDAY FAUXLOSOPHY

CONVENTIONAL FACT CHECKING

The fact checkers have spoken after both political conventions and there seems no doubt that the Democrats ideology has been framed by the facts and the Republican facts were framed by the ideology.

WORDS OF A FEATHER

We must apologize again for plagiarizing in advance, as we did yesterday to the great Stephen Colbert. In the USA Today published September 6, I had the following submission;

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/letters/story/2012-09-05/are-you-better-off-4-years/57616604/1

 Clobert closed last night saying “Mitt, you just keep demanding that Americans answer the question are you better off than you were 4 years ago. But just don’t answer it yourself, because that would mean releasiung more than 2 years of ur tax returns.

Conservatives want to be John Wayne

Hey, because conservatives aren’t all that bad, when it comes to the defending in this country, they all want to be John Wayne. You know, play a soldier but never for a minute actually be one.

Are you better off than...

“Are you better off than you were 4 years ago” is a question that Mitt Romney has every right to ask, and the Democrats are going to have to answer. That said, my problem with Mr. Romney is not his query but  his approach, as he constantly uses  the word “you” in describing economic challenges, and he never, but never uses the word “we”. And I can’t help but wonder if that is because he personally is much better off than he was 4 years ago. But the American people can’t get that answer because unlike every presidential candidate in recent memory, including his own father, McCain, Obama, Kerry, Bush, Clinton et al, he has not released a representative number of his own tax returns. It’s as if someone had regularly shouted down Vietnam War protesters and then avoided the draft himself. Oh wait, Mitt Romney did that too. Really Mr. Romney, your lack of candor is taxing our patience, because regarding Republican presidential candidates we are certainly not more informed than we were 4 years ago.

LYIN RYAN

Here is a quote. “Ryan’s speech was an apparent attempt to set the world’s record for the greatest
number of blatant lies and misrepresentations slipped into a single political speech. That was by Sally
Kohn and she works for an organization called Fox news. OMG when someone on the right lies too
much for Fox we at real Faux News need to point it out. And we have a new knick-name, it’s Lyin’ Ryan.

YOU DIDNT BUILD THAT

When Mitt Romney got the endorsement of Jenna Jamison, the world’s leading porn star, whose
exploits are legendary, and who certainly got the interest of her on screen male partners and viewers.
Wasn’t it fair to contradict Obama when you see the reaction of these men, and say to Mr. Obama, “You didn’t build that?”

Compassionate Conservatism - Round 2

Who could forget candidate George W. Bush’s phrase that he was a “compassionate conservative”, directly implying that an entire political philosophy need such a qualifier. Well, given past and current Republican attitudes towards the poor, ill, disadvantaged and women who could say that Mr. Bush was not prescient? Now Congressman Todd Akin comes along as the latest case in point, running as a Republican for Senate in Missouri and said “if it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down”.

An amazing attitude to be sure, but what’s more amazing is his current role in this conservative Republican House of Representatives, namely that he serves on their science committee. Which leads any thinking person to the inescapable conclusion that conservative compassion is to compassion as conservative science is to science.

What’s In A Name?

John Stewart made that very point when commenting on the LIBOR scandal by noting that the two lead protagonists were named Rich and Diamond, when Stewart said, “Are you kidding?” 

Well, we at Real Faux News have another entry for the "What’s In A Name" sweepstakes from the breaking news on the banking scandal at SCB.  It seems that they are accused of having made illegal trades involving the government of Iran and pocketing commissions of hundreds of millions of dollars in the bargain.  So why do “What’s In a Name?”  Because a New York bank regulator who has taken it upon himself to initiate the investigation is named Ben Lawsky.  So the greedy guys at LIBOR are named Diamond and Rich and the banking enforcer is named Lawsky!

So stay tuned because we’re waiting to find out if the guy behind the Republican Super Pacs is named Hiddenbucksman

Friday fauxlosophy

A bigoted Jew must have alzheimers.

IN THE USA TODAY

In USA TODAY the following two letters appeared:

Norman Bender wrote (“Renew assault-weapons ban,” Letters, Monday)

“James Holmes bought his weapons, including his assault rifle, legally.

In 2000, while running for president, candidate George Bush supported the extension of the assault-weapons ban.  And, given the carnage in Aurora, Colo., who could argue against that?  Alas, as president, Bush didn’t press Congress that hard to extend the ban and allowed it to expire in 2004.  What followed is part of our uniquely tragic American gun narrative.

History will judge how great a president Bush was, but part of the body of evidence in an assessment must surely include the body count of innocent victims of this not-so-innocent weaponry.

Philosopher Edmund Burke famously said “All that’s necessary for the forces of evil to win in the world is for enough good men to do nothing.”  Well, it’s time to do something.”

Also printed in that USA Today was a letter by Randy Soos from Tennessee (“Founders understood need for guns used responsibly,” Letters, Monday) where he says;

“As people argue anti-gun and pro-gun points, put me down as pro-gun.  USA TODAY reader Aaron Spital wrote, “There is no place for assault weapons in civilized society…killing machines that the authors of the Constitution never imagined” (“Stand up to gun lobby,” Letters, Tuesday).

If the history I learned in school is of any value, I would think that the folks who took on the British, including our Founding Fathers, would have very much appreciated an automatic weapon.  You have only to look around the world and see what it means for oppressed civilians to be without weapons.  I believe that to be the gist of the Second Amendment.

Yes, there is a place for assault weapons: in the hands of law abiding civilians.”

We find a number of Mr. Soos’ comments quite interesting.  First, if our Founding Fathers, amateur soldiers, fighting on their own terrain had assault weapons, we’re just guessing the British and Hessians would have had them too, which could well have negated our home field advantage.  Second, it is generally accepted that when you wish something were different historically it is to achieve a better outcome, and while I have never read a history book printed in Tennessee, it’s my strong impression that we actually defeated the British, and we most definitely do not speak with an English accent.

Slightly Off Base

Baseball, a precision game, has a lot of imprecision in its language.  When a batter comes up and the team is down by a run in the bottom of the ninth they say he’s “the tying run.”  No, he’s the “potential” tying run.  He has to get on base or hit such that he scores.  There are a number of other rather silly baseball phrases and one of the most common is after 4.5 innings the announcer says we’re half way through.  No you’re not half way through, because one team has batted 5 times and the other team only 4. So you’re not half way through.  What you’ve done is play 4.5 innings.  Another involves scoring and the term “sacrifice” fly.  That’s where a person hits a fly ball deep enough so a runner from third can tag and score.  Sometimes a batter might be deliberately doing that, sacrificing himself; other times if it’s a big difference in score and he just happens to hit a fly ball where a runner happens to be on third with less than two outs.  It’s a scoring aberration that has become a custom.  But, for a number of years, believe it or not, a fly ball which scored a runner from third was an RBI, but it counted against your batting average,  The idea was that you were trying to get a hit, but failed.  This rule actually existed in 1941 when Ted Williams had 406 and he would have hit somewhere in the neighborhood of 415.  Again, baseball, a precision game in terms of stats and analysis has some remarkably imprecise language.