Rise and Shine

Newseum

Liberation: American Dream …. American Horror

Vive la France!

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Thank you for the caption Japa

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NYT: Mitt Romney appears to trim his social convictions to the party’s prevailing winds. There is no doubt, however, about where the party’s vice-presidential candidate stands. A long history of social extremism makes Paul Ryan an emblem of the Republican tack to the far right.

Mr. Romney’s choice of Mr. Ryan carried some risks, considering Mr. Ryan’s advocacy of overhauling Medicare, but it has sent the strongest signal of solidarity to those who have made the party unrecognizable to moderates. Strident conservatives had been uneasy with Mr. Romney, but it is the rest of the country that should be nervous about conservatives’ now-enthusiastic acceptance of the Republican ticket.

….. for years, he has been a reliable vote against workplace equity for women, opposing the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act …. he has co-sponsored more than three dozen anti-abortion bills…. his budget would end all government financing for Planned Parenthood while slashing spending on prenatal care and infant nutrition….

Mr. Ryan’s record on gay rights is no less egregious. He supports a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, and voted against the repeal of the military’s discriminatory don’t-ask, don’t-tell policy. In 2009, a decade after Matthew Shepard was murdered for being gay, Mr. Ryan voted against a bill named after Mr. Shepard that expands the federal hate crimes act to include brutality based on sexual orientation.

…. Mr. Ryan is one of the most anti-gun-control candidates on a presidential ticket in many years, holding a grade of “A” from the National Rifle Association and opposing a background check requirement for purchases at gun shows.

Full editorial here

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rise and shine

12:05: President Obama and Vice President Biden participate in a ceremony at Joint Base Andrews marking the return of the United States Forces-Iraq Colors and the end of the war in Iraq.

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Morning everyone, will catch up later 😉

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PS Headline of the day?

Gallup

lies, lies, lies (updated with nyt correction)

NYT

From today’s speech:

White House

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Update:

Good, a correction. But seriously, why was the ‘mistake’ made in the first place? Did they actually listen to the speech? 🙄

ah, gopolitico….

Steve Benen: …. it was another unpleasant day on Wall Street yesterday, with all of the major indexes falling. From a political perspective, consider how some news outlets covered the story – and connected the drop to President Obama …. Politico’s front-page headline told readers: “Markets plunge after Obama speech.”

In fairness, the Politico article was slightly better than its ridiculous headline, but the larger point is the same: these outlets tried to draw a connection between the president’s jobs speech and the one-day drop on Wall Street. After all, Obama spoke on Thursday night, and stocks slipped on Friday morning, ergo, one caused the other.

The problem, of course, is that this isn’t even close to being accurate. We know why the major indexes fell yesterday: “The stock market tumbled again Friday as doubts about the ability of European leaders to address a spiraling debt crisis on the continent overshadowed President Obama’s new proposal to spur U.S. job creation….”.

To suggest to U.S. news consumers that markets were reacting to the president’s jobs speech is absurd, even for conservative media outlets…..

More here

Zachary Karabell (Daily Beast): It’s easy to blame the president’s speech for the turmoil in economic markets at home and abroad – it’s also wrong.

… Most major news outlets ascribed the drop to a negative market referendum on President Obama’s jobs speech last night.

… The weakness of U.S. financial markets this week has almost nothing to do with what is going on in the United States economically or politically. It has everything to do with the endlessly unfolding drama in the European Union over the fate of Greek debt, peripheral countries, and the euro.

…  we have one easy but false narrative – the markets don’t like Obama’s plan – that trumps a more complicated but true story – the markets are roiling from the fear of what is happening in Europe ….

Most financial cognoscenti know that the current issue is Europe, as do many who write and speak about such things. But the American desire to be the center of all things makes the story of markets selling in reaction to Obama too tempting. The problem isn’t just that it’s the wrong twist….

More here

magnificent

The Onion

Thank you so much Fred 😉

funniest. headline. ever.

Oliverwillis.com

the all ‘new’ huffington post

Headline on the site today:

Here’s what Wanda Sykes had to say:

“Rips”? Really? She ripped Sheen & Gaddafi, she spoke sympathetically about the President.

As Tally pointed out, could this genius headine-writer possibly have meant “riffs”? Oh dear.

yahooooooooooo!

You know, when the media tries to set a narrative it’s comically stubborn in trying to back it up with evidence, even when the ‘evidence’ is a little shaky.

Take this report I saw today on Yahoo News.

The headline? “Obama Shows Alarming Loss of Ground with Independents, Poll Indicates.”

Okay, that didn’t sound good.

“A new Reuters/Ipsos Poll shows President Barack Obama’s job approval rating among independents (37%) dropped sharply when compared to last month’s rating. According to the poll, the president’s approval rating fell a precipitous 10 percent. Could it spell trouble for his re-election?”

Uh oh.

But wait. Buried right at the bottom of the article were the findings of two other polls, by Gallup and Rasmussen, which put the President’s approval rating among independents at, respectively, 43% and 47%. Yes, 47% – a whole 10% higher than the Reuters/Ipsos poll. That’s just 4% lower than he got in the 2008 election.

“The numbers might be more worrisome for the president … if other polls corroborated the fall in approval ratings … Gallup, which daily tracks the president’s approval rating, showed Obama at 43 percent approval among independents during the same time frame, down only 2 percent from a month ago (and still up by a point over January).”

But it was the Reuters/Ipsos Poll that Yahoo chose to highlight, and feature in their headline.

I dunno, if you had three polls showing wildly different findings, wouldn’t you focus on the middle one?

Or mention that two of the three polls were rather positive for the President?

Then again, “Independent support for Obama down only 2 percent from a month ago (and still up by a point over January)” doesn’t quite fit that narrative, eh?

plucked

Thank you cat48 🙂

oooooops

Oooops, these two headlines appear side by side on The Page (Time magazine) today:

Halperin probably hasn’t spotted the problem yet, he’s too busy writing yet another ‘PALIN 2012 – WHOOOOO HOOOO!’ story