Inspire Political Discourse

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer Lies About Her Father’s Military Service and Then Denys Lying About It

Brewer recently made a comment claiming that her father “died fighting the Nazi regime”, via The Arizona Guardian:

“Knowing that my father died fighting the Nazi regime in Germany, that I lose him when I was 11 because of that...and then to have them call me Hitler's daughter. It hurts. It's ugliness beyond anything I've ever experienced.

As pointed out by The Guardian, Brewer's father, Wilford Drinkwine, actually worked as a civilian at a naval munitions depot in Hawthorne, Nevade during WWII. He died in 1955 from lung cancer, leading one to conclude that Brewer is playing fast and loose with the truth.

Now, she is ludicrously claiming that she “didn’t mislead anyone”.

“There is no way I have ever misled anybody. You're trying to make a liar out of me.

Governor Brewer, you did most certainly lie. It really is that simple.

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UPDATE: Commentary from media outlets:

Vanity Fair:

Jan Brewer, imperial sun queen of Arizona's chromatocracy, told the Arizona Republic that her father died fighting Nazis during World War II. The saga is very sad, except its tragedy is somewhat mitigated by the fact that it is extremely untrue.

Daily Kos:

Ah yes, claiming her father died fighting Nazis in Germany should, in no way, be construed as implying that her father died fighting Nazis in Germany.

Arizona Republic:

But I'm wondering if you would feel the same if the embellishments had been made by former Gov. Janet Napolitano? Because these days we seem to make excuses for those with whom we agree and condemn those with whom we disagree no matter WHAT the facts.

SB1070 Palin Again Defending What Was Wrought "We’re all Arizonians"

On Saturday, Palin spoke at a news conference with Gov. Jan Brewer [R-AZ] in an effort to discourage the growing boycott of Arizona due to SB1070, the immigration law enacted in Arizona earlier this month.

Palin defended the law by declaring President Obama responsible for the lack of secure borders, said lack "forcing" Arizona to take action to defend itself and secure it's own borders.

We're all Arizonans now. And in clear unison we say, 'Mr. President: Do your job. Secure our border”.

Okay, so here are a few FACTS for Ms. Palin:

  The crime rate in border towns has not increased for a number of years.

This Week in Bizarro World With Sarah Palin May 10 - May 15

Monday, 10 MAY 2010

Palin started her week by boldly lying about supposed pay decreases for our armed forces.The implication was that Obama was decreasing the pay of armed forces personnel, when in reality, he had requested a pay raise for them to take effect in 2011. Via BroadwayCarl:

Sarah's Facebook ghostwriter wrote:
“ Soldier pay decreases in the midst of overspending elsewhere and government union pay raises. Seriously? What are our priorities? ”
going on to cite a Newsmax article. Newsmax!

On the Facebook post itself, Palin's fawning, and unpaid, lackeys deleted all comments which called her out or cited the truth. I know this because not only did it happen to Broadway Carl, it happened to me when I posted a comment citing the truth of the matter. She scrubbed my comment, and banned me from her page.

The View: Tea Party Director Claims Insult in Term "Teabagger" & Denies Racism of Tea Party Movement

On The View yesterday, the director of the Tea Party Express, Amy Kremer, claimed that using the term "teabagger" to refer to a member of the Tea Party, was just as bad as using the "N" word.

Really? Really, Ms. Teabagger?

First of all, the term "teabagger" is only really offensive when you consider it's sexual connotation, first used by the Tea Party to slur liberals.

The “N word” on the other hand, has the horror of hundreds of years of the oppression of black people behind it.

Not at ALL the same, lady, not even close.

Secondly, the term "teabagger" was first used by the teabaggers to refer to, themselves at the beginning of their non-grassroots movement.

Moreover, as Jay Nordlinger at National Review admits, the term "teabagger" was introduced to the political lexicon by Tea Party movement leaders:
The first big day for this movement was Tax Day, April 15. And organizers had a gimmick. They asked people to send a tea bag to the Oval Office. One of the exhortations was “Tea Bag the Fools in D.C.” A protester was spotted with a sign saying, “Tea Bag the Liberal Dems Before They Tea Bag You.” So, conservatives started it: started with this terminology.

Ms. Kremer also claimed that the Tea Party was not about racism or Obama’s race. No, not at all. While there are far too many examples pointing to the truth being the complete reverse of her statements, one of my favorites is from Taeggan Goddard [emphasis mine]:

“These people could be anybody. I wouldn't put it past the Democrats to plant somebody there. They're trying to label the tea party, but I've never seen any racial slurs."
-- Dale Robertson, self-proclaimed founder of the Tea Party, quoted by the Washington Times.

The only problem? The Washington Independent caught Robertson at a Tea Party rally last month holding a sign with a racial slur.

FYI, Robertson also runs the website teaparty.org.

The image is from The Washington Independent, and depicts Dale Robertson with a racist sign.

PS Ms. Kremer….your pearls are very obviously cheap imitations, rather like the ideology you espouse.

Palin and the Separation of Church and State

The silly twit never seems to get the history. Has she ever even read any American history? Or European? Is she even aware of that thing called The Enlightenment? You know, that period that the Founding Fathers were a part of, and that strongly influenced the founding of this country, as well as the principles contained in our Constitution. We are, in fact, blessed with a "Godless" constitution.

A certain former half-term governor appears to be drifting even further away from the American mainstream. Over the weekend, appearing at an evangelical Christian women's conference in Louisville, Sarah Palin rejected the very idea of separation of church and state, a bedrock principle of American democracy.

She asked for the women -- who greeted her with an enthusiastic standing ovation -- to provide a "prayer

Palin Lies About Obama's Nuke Comments

Palin, the biggest liar in the GOP, intentionally distorts Obama’s comments on nukes to paint him as someone who hates America. Really ugly.  Via The Plum Line:

In a new Facebook missive, Palin butchered Obama’s quotes at the nuke summit in a strikingly dishonest (even for her) way, tearing them out of context to suggest he’s uncomfortable wielding American power and is hostile towards American exceptionalism: 

“Mr. President, is a strong America a problem? Asked this week about his faltering efforts to advance the Middle East peace process, President Obama did something remarkable. In front of some 47 foreign leaders and hundreds of reporters from all over the world, President Obama said that “whether we like it or not, we remain a dominant military superpower.”
Whether we like it or not? Most Americans do like it.”

VIDEO: Maddow Exposes GOP Lies on the Financial Reform Bill

Maddow makes it clear. Republicans are liars, and are representing the interests of Wall Street rather than those of the American people.

Tea Party Protesting LOWER Taxes in Washington Today

From Pro-Obama protesters at a Tea Party Rally in Washington D.C. today. Via HuffPost.

"The American people need to be reminded that 98 percent of Americans got a tax cut last year," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Wednesday.

Reid was referring to the impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, otherwise known as the stimulus -- essentially, the only Obama policy to really impact people's 2009 tax returns. In fact, tax refunds reached an all-time high this year in part because of the stimulus, the president said in his weekly address on Saturday. Meanwhile, taxes are at their lowest levels in 60 years, according to William Gale, co-director of the Tax Policy Center and director of the Retirement Security Project at the Brookings Institution.

"The relation between what is said in the tax debate and what is true about tax policy is often quite tenuous," Gale told Hotsheet. "The rise of the Tea Party at at time when taxes are literally at their lowest in decades is really hard to understand." […..]

Not really hard to understand, Mr. Gale. The Tea Party is about race, Obama’s race, not taxes.

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VIDEO: Barney Frank on Hardball Calls Out the GOP on Their Blatant Lies Re the Financial Reform Bill

Earlier in the week, I talked about Mitch McConnell, and the GOP’s efforts to kill the financial reform bill now in the Senate.

As of yesterday, the lies from the GOP were coming ever faster and more furious. And all based on a memo by GOP pollster Frank Luntz, concerning tactics to be used by the Republicans to kill health care reform, which talking points have now been converted and used to attempt the murder of financial reform. Imagine that. Republicans lying. Republicans protecting Wall St. and the very financial services companies that drove us to the brink of economic collapse.

Barney Frank obliterated the nonsense last night on Hardball.

VIDEO: Jon Stewart Schools the Fox News Channel Nitwits on Nuclear Policy

Jon Stewart schools the nitwit liars, Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin, and Sean Hannity on America's new nuclear policy.

Do these people have NO conscience?

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DRUDGE BYTES, or CRAZY WINGNUTS RANT

Yeah, I recognize an oxymoron when I type it, but sometimes, only an oxymoron will do.

Today's Drudge bytes are just more of the same old attempt to delegitimize this President, and have no basis in reality.

GINGRICH: Obama 'most radical president ever'...

LIMBAUGH: Obama 'inflicting untold damage on this great country'...

PALIN: Obama's Nuke Stance Like Kid Who Says 'Punch Me in Face'...

LIZ CHENEY: Obama Putting America on 'Path to Decline'...

HANNITY: Obama 'Is a Socialist'...

SAVAGE: 'Obama The Destroyer'...

An excellent response to the seditious racists via Bob Cesca:

Okay, let's look at the numbers since radical, socialist, damaging President Obama was inaugurated.

---The Dow? Up from 7,000 to 11,000.

---Jobs? 700,000 losses a month to 160,000 jobs created.

---Recovery/Stimulus Act? Added 1.8 million jobs.

---GDP (economic growth)? -6 percent to +6 percent. (Technically, the recession is over.)

---Housing prices? Up 20%.

OH HOLY SHIT! What a nightmare! IEEEEEEEEEEEE! Impeach!

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Elected Republicans Fan the Flames of Hate

Nah. The GOP bears no responsibility for ginning up the hate in this country. Not at all.

And then there's Newt Gingrich:

I think the Democratic leadership has to take some moral responsibility for having behaved with such arrogance, in such a hostile way, that the American people are deeply upset. So let’s be honest with this. This is a game that they’re playing. People should not engage in personal threats. I’m happy to condemn any effort to engage in personal threats. But I think the Democratic leadership has to take some real responsibility for having run a machine that used corrupt tactics, that bought votes, that bullied people, and as a result has enraged much of the American people. And I think it’d be nice for President Obama, Speaker Pelosi, and Majority Leader Reid to take some responsibility over what their actions have done to this country.

Time to call these people what they are, and to that end, I am adding a new category; Domestic Terrorism.

Sarah Palin: We don't need no constitutional law professor

We all know that the Tea Baggers love to cite the Constitution to bolster their arguments. Whether or not they actually understand the legal ramifications of what they cite is another matter entirely.

Over the weekend, Palin launched a new line of attack on the President, telling the baggers [paraphrased]:

We don't need no constitutional law professor for a president.

Via Think Progress

Obama: Our Capitalist President

Obama is about to rake in the big money for U.S. taxpayers. [begin sarcasm] He's such a communist. [/sarcasm]  Via The Washington Post, bolding is mine.

The Obama administration is making final preparations to sell its stake in the New York bank¹, according to industry and federal sources. At today's prices, the sale would net more than $8 billion, by far the largest profit returned from any firm that accepted bailout funds, and the transaction would be the second-largest stock sale in history.

On paper, the government's 27 percent stake has grown in value to $33 billion. The size of the deal in the works has Wall Street buzzing. Only the stock offering by Japan's Nippon Telegraph and Telephone, which raised $36.8 billion in 1987, was larger, according to Thomson Reuters.

¹ One of the largest Citigroup shareholders is Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal².

² Prince Alwaleed is the second largest shareholder in News Corp.

Dancing With the Czars

Those silly Republicans are at it again. Making themselves look completely stupid, and wasting taxpayer dollars.

Jason Linkins:

Over the past few days, I've written about the wildly outsized claims of czars in the Obama administration undermining the government. Republican Senators are sending letters and GOP House members are holding up posters and attempting to pass thoroughly baffling bills to prevent the Obama White House from appointing advisers.

These elected officials seem to be unaware of some basic facts. Many of the people they insist need to be confirmed by the Senate already have been confirmed. Many of the people they consider to be holding unprecedented appointments are merely filling well-established positions. In some cases, these lawmakers seem to have forgotten that they themselves passed laws that mandated the appointments. And in a few cases, they just select some established functionary at random -- like a State Department envoy or the Deputy Secretary of the Interior -- and call that guy a "czar" just for fun!

All of these fears and complaints are indicative of either a powerful desire to mislead or an advanced mental disease that hopefully Dr. Charles Boustany will be able to treat, with some sort of Louisiana voodoo poultice.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/16/dancing-with-the-czars-de_n_289465.html

Teabagging Liars

In case you missed the gathering of the teabagging wingnuts yesterday, here's a pic from Crooks and Liars. Please note that the wingnuts greatly exaggerated the number of them in attendance at the Hate Fest in DC.

ABC News also called them out for claiming greater numbers than were actually there.

Sarah Palin: the Utterly Predictable LIAR

The woman never ceases to amaze. Her complete audacity, her attempts to manipulate the public with outright lies, is enough to make one want to gag. Or better still, send her to a gulag (only partly joking).

Horrid, unintelligent woman that she is, she is inciting public fear yet again, via her publication of the following statement on her Facebook account:

“The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's "death panel" so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their "level of productivity in society," whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.”

A complete fabrication by Palin, it is a quite horrific lie, it's intention being to fear monger in the short term, and defeat Obama in the long term, which to Palin, is 2012.

Rated "Pants on Fire" by Politifact.com, they had this to say:

“We agree with Palin that such a system would be evil. But it's definitely not what President Barack Obama or any other Democrat has proposed.

We have read all 1,000-plus pages of the Democratic bill and examined versions in various committees. There is no panel in any version of the health care bills in Congress that judges a person's "level of productivity in society" to determine whether they are "worthy" of health care.

Palin's claim sounds a little like another statement making the rounds, which says that health care reform would mandate counseling for seniors on how to end their lives sooner. We rated this claim Pants on Fire! The truth is that the health bill allows Medicare, for the first time, to pay for doctors' appointments for patients to discuss living wills and other end-of-life issues with their physicians. These types of appointments are completely optional, and AARP supports the measure.”

Sarah Palin is a fear-mongering, self-centered politician, and we really would benefit immensely if we could ban her lying derriere from the national political debate. For the truth about the healthcare related distortions currently making the rounds, check out Politifact's Guide.

Burris Lied, and Refuses to Resign!!

:: Damn that conniving Burris!! I think I almost hate a rotten Democrat more than I do the rotten Republicans, as I expect less from the Repubs.
Burris' case has now been referred to a prosecutor. RESIGN, Burris!! 
From the Chicago Tribune -bolding is mine:

U.S. Sen. Roland Burris has acknowledged he sought to raise campaign funds for then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich at the request of the governor’s brother at the same time he was making a pitch to be appointed to the Senate seat previously held by President Barack Obama.
Burris' latest comments in Peoria Monday night were the first time he has publicly said he was actively trying to raise money for Blagojevich. Previously Burris has left the impression that he always balked at the issue of raising money for the governor because of his interest in the Senate appointment.

Image source Jose M. Osorio/Chicago Tribune. 
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The House Republicans Celebrate Their Failure

For the Feb. 17 update on this story, click here.

:: Well, well, well........the house republicans are dissatisfied with the reaction of middle America to the clear win of the Democrats on the stimulus. A party that did not cast one vote for the stimulus bill that a majority of Americans wanted, including their very own constituents.A party that lied, repeatedly about pretty much every aspect of the stimulus. That same party, ignoring their own idiocy, indeed, celebrating it, posts a video on the site of house whip, Eric Cantor, head idiot. Read the story at HUFFPOST, watch Cantor's idiocy, set to "Aeorsmith", below.

Quote from unknown commenter: "This reminds me of the slackers in high school who would brag about flunking a test like it was something that made them cool."  SO true.

Image courtesy of Huffington Post.
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RECENT  POSTS:

» How the Republican Party Has Defined Itself, and What We Must Do About It

Palin Lies to GOP House Members and Gets Caught Out

Arguably, the woman who is the most noted liar in the GOP, is also a woman with an iq somewhere in the range of room temp. But then again, maybe she just can't help lying, or getting caught.
During the weekend of January 31-February 1, House Republicans met for their annual winter retreat.  Palin had been invited to attend in hopes that she would give a morale-building speech to the 130 GOP reps in attendance. She declined, claiming that her job duties as the Alaska gov had to take precedence that weekend.
Bwahahaha......she was actually kissing up to the pres at the Alfalfa Club in DC, and it took barely any time for the congressional GOP'rs to realize that she had
L I E D ! Oh, Sarah, thou name is "MORON"!
ps..........that prom corsage is just a reminder that she lost her stylist and is back to her usual bad taste in fashion.