http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uhpu2N4rQZM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0DA75eOltA
I never lie.
That's a lie.
Or is it?
Everybody lies.
But not as much as Republicans.
Spin, mislead, misinform, untruth, misstate, misspoke, these are just other words for "lie."
Members of the media are loath to use that word however. They must feel they would offend the liar if they actually called them a liar, and these powerful politicians may retaliate by limiting their access to them, which members of the George W. Bush administration were famous for doing.
Be that as it may, politicians lie. they do it all the time. They must not remember that there are technological innovations like video that easily record their images when they make statements, and when they lie about making those statements it is soooo easy to prove they are lying.
I've seen Dick Cheney disavow a statement that he had made while being video taped, he swore up and down he hadn't said it, he admonished the interviewer for misrepresenting him, when there was a clear video record of exactly what he said which proved him a complete, and might I say, not a very artful, liar.
I have to admit I've lied many times. As an alcoholic one gets into scrapes where it becomes necessary. It's hard to lie well. One has to have a very good memory, and one has to be a good actor to lie well.
I wasn't a very good liar. Those I were lying to believed me maybe 50% of the time.
However, I have never liked lying, and am not proud of the times I did lie.
I rarely lie anymore for I have little reason to lie.
Politicians lie a lot. Everyone knows that, and to a degree it is expected of them, expecially during election campaigns. I wonder why?
Why does the American populace tolerate lies from those who would assume office, those who seek high, and powerful positions in government, the presidency lets say, where they will weld a significant amount of power over our lives. I don't get it. It has been observed that if someone will lie to get into office, then they'll most likely continue to lie after taking office. I don't know about you, dear readers, but I don't want my president lying to me. I don't want my senator lying to me. I don't want my Congress lady lying to me. I don't want anyone lying to me! I won't vote for them if I think they are.
But lying continues to be prevalent in politics, even when it is so easy to prove that politicians are lying. Republicans especially are guilty of this. I'm not saying that Democrats don't lie, or that even President Obama doesn't lie, because they and he have been caught distorting the truth on occasion, whether by accident or design. Organizations like Fact Check call them out on their lies all of the time. That's all they do. That's their job.
But the disparity between the amount of lies that the Republicans make vs that of the Democrats, well there's just no comparison.
Because most Republicans are sociopaths, lying as a way of life for them seems to be easy. It doesn't bother them to lie... not at all. It certainly doesn't bother Mitt (Mitt) Romney. Check this clip from The Rachel Maddow Show, where Rachel doesn't mind calling a liar a liar, and good for her for doing so:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAxtFuB0eJ4
Do you want this guy to be president? Mitt Romney certainly displays sociopathic behavior (remember the dog on top of the car?). I don't want him to be president. Fortunately, even if he wins his party nomination, there is little chance he will win the White House come November.
There's another guy that doesn't mind calling Mitt out on his lies.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rB9Aa6qVauE
Our dear friend Norah O'Donnell seems clearly shocked by this breach of decorum. What this country needs actually are more breaches.
Newt's position is untenable, that it's better for the country to knowingly elect a person who will lie about everything and anything, than have Barack Obama remain in office, who as far as I know is not known for using misinformation as a constant tool to forward his agenda. That's the Republican mind set. That it's okay to lie.
Now Newt has a little problem telling the truth himself. First Barack Obama has been in office for about 3 1/2 years now and as far as I can see the country is still in one piece, in fact it is healing rapidly from the damage Newt's party and George W. Bush did to it before they left office in 2008. He's also said he was paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to be an historian for Freddie Mac when he was clearly lobbying for them. On and on. So Newt's a liar as well.
What can I say? Republicans disregard the truth. Check this out. It's classic:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/12/jon-stewart-rips-jon-kyl-planned-parenthood_n_847920.html
His remark was not intended to be a factual statement. In other words he lied to further his bogus argument that itself was not based in reality.
My, my.
I remember one interview with then Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in which it was suggested that she had been less than truthful when testifying before Congress, and she took offense. She wasn't exactly called a liar, but that's what was implied. She said something to the effect that "you can disagree with me on policy if you wish, but don't impinge my personal integrity," To which I would have replied if I had been there, Bulls__t, if you don't want to be called a liar... lady... then simply stop lying.
Politicians can lie by omission as well, like the health insurance mandate currently before the Supreme Court, that the Republicans are so vehemently against, crying "leave us one shred of freedom!" What they don't tell you is the mandate was invented by the Republicans themselves during the Clinton administration. They were all for the mandate before Obama used it in the Affordable Health Care Act, but after he used it they were suddenly against it. But they won't tell you that.
Not only Republican politicians lie. The Fox so called News network is dedicated to supporting the lying liars of the Republicans party, and the only way they can do that is to lie themselves. And they do it all of the time.
Just last Tuesday Fox Business reporter Tracy Byrnes was discussing climate change with economic journalist and habitual climate-change denier Stuart Varney. He cited an op-ed by Princeton Professor William Happer, who wrote: “CO2 is not a pollutant,” Happer wrote. “Life on earth flourished for hundreds of millions of years at much higher CO2 levels than we see today. Increasing CO2 levels will be a net benefit because cultivated plants grow better and are more resistant to drought at higher CO2 levels, and because warming and other supposedly harmful effects of CO2 have been greatly exaggerated. Nations with affordable energy from fossil fuels are more prosperous and healthy than those without.”
"The temperature basically hasn’t changed much since the Ice Age," Byrnes announced. "But this notion that we’re now getting to a point where carbon dioxide is bad, I mean, I think these guys have pretty much fallen over the cliff."
"Sun spots have much more to do with the temperature on the Earth than CO2," Fox Business host David Asman insisted. "That’s what scientists are beginning to understand."
These three geniuses are not climate scientists and therefore are merely voicing an opinion, and opinion that their employer happens to embrace, and they're either flat out lying and are aware of the truth, or are just too ignorant to be alive. More likely the lie has been embedded so deeply within them that they actually belive the dribble they spew, which of course, this spewed dribble is broadcast out to millions of Fox viewers who will take whatever they say at face value, which does this country, the viewers themselves... and the world, a tremendous disservice
1. According to "Paleoceanography," a peer-reviewed scientific journal published by the American Geophysical Union which covers the history of the ocean and its plant and animal life, temperatures in Antarctica were around 50°F cooler than in modern times when the most recent Ice Age peaked about 20,000 years ago. Not to mention this: "The first decade of the 21st century was the warmest ever on Earth according to data released by scientists at NASA. The U.S. space agency's data also revealed that 2009 was the second warmest year since temperature records began in 1880, and only narrowly cooler than 2005, the warmest year ever." There goes Byrnes ascertain, which is a lie.
2. Periodic sun spot activity does release more energy into the solar wind that affects the Earth's atmosphere, which means a warmer sun with increased solar wind cycles due to sunspot activity will tend to raise the temperture on the Earth. Well, duh!. Yet Recent research indicates that the combined effects of sunspot-induced changes in solar irradiance and increases in atmospheric greenhouse gases offer the best explanation yet for the observed rise in average global temperature over the last century, according to climate scientists B. Geerts and E. Linacre.
And 3. One of the tenets of Dr. Carl Sagan's Baloney Detection Kit is to alway question authority, even Professors from Princeton, like William Happer. Why? Because authorities can be wrong.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/print.php?n=774
The next thing they'll be saying is that smog is good for our health, and those of us who live in Los Angeles are lucky because there's so much of it here.
Don't get me started on political ads. I mean it, don't get me started. Okay, you got me started.
I don't see why anyone would take anything in a political ad seriously. You have to know that who ever produced and paid for the ad has a certain agenda to either build up their own candidate, or to tear apart their opposition. These ads are notorious for distorting the truth, lying, so I never pay any attention to them at all, whether they're from my own candidate, or the other guys. Nothing in them should be taken at face value. They are nothing but propaganda, and not the good kind. Unfortunately a lot of people are affected by them. These people are morons.
It is also unfortunate that members of the media don't seem to care if politicians lie to them. Some seem to think that if they just have representatives from each side of an issue debate each other, that that is a fair and balanced interview which represents an issue in a balanced manner. Like having someone who believes in the evolutionary process debate a creationist. This is just wrong. First it gives they creationist a certain amount of unearned validity, and second, they are letting one side present their position with a disregard for facts or the truth.
And some in the media don't seem to care if those they are interviewing are telling them the truth. David Gregory, the host of NBC's "Meet the Press," has made the ascertain that there's no need to fact check what his guests say on the air because viewers can do that "on their own terms," whatever that means. It's just not his job to insure his "guests," tell the truth. He gives that job to the viewers.
He is dead wrong. It is his job. There's no reason for him to have that job if he doesn't at least attempt to get the truth out of those he talks to.
Reporter Tracy Samilton, from Michigan Radio, an NPR station, followed up on a soundbite of one of Romney's stump speeches, characterizing the bailout of GM as a handout to the United Auto Workers, with this admonition:
MITT ROMNEY: "Instead of going through the normal managed bankruptcy process, he [President Obama] made sure the bankruptcy process ended up with the UAW taking the lion's share of the equity in the business."
SAMILTON: "Actually, the U.S. Treasury got most of GM's equity."
This marks a new policy undertaken by NPR, to prioritize the truth, making sure to actually inform listeners when one “side” of a story is upheld by the facts. "Among the central principles is that the new guidelines focus on standards of fairness and impartiality, as opposed to balance and objectivity," wrote NPR's ombudsman, Edward Schumacher-Matos.
I applaud NPR for their stance, as do many other news professionals. May other major media outlets learn from their fine example.
Unfortunately, most major media outlets are owned by major corporations which themselves tend to obfuscate the truth, the facts, if it doesn't suit them.
The public needs to be diligent in demanding the truth from the news networks they watch. The American people deserve the truth.
Except for Fox viewers of course. They're a lost cause.
One day if we can get the media to observe zero tolerance toward lying in the political process, hopefully one day we can get the general population of American's to rally against it as well.
That's a lie.
Or is it?
Everybody lies.
But not as much as Republicans.
Spin, mislead, misinform, untruth, misstate, misspoke, these are just other words for "lie."
Members of the media are loath to use that word however. They must feel they would offend the liar if they actually called them a liar, and these powerful politicians may retaliate by limiting their access to them, which members of the George W. Bush administration were famous for doing.
Be that as it may, politicians lie. they do it all the time. They must not remember that there are technological innovations like video that easily record their images when they make statements, and when they lie about making those statements it is soooo easy to prove they are lying.
I've seen Dick Cheney disavow a statement that he had made while being video taped, he swore up and down he hadn't said it, he admonished the interviewer for misrepresenting him, when there was a clear video record of exactly what he said which proved him a complete, and might I say, not a very artful, liar.
I have to admit I've lied many times. As an alcoholic one gets into scrapes where it becomes necessary. It's hard to lie well. One has to have a very good memory, and one has to be a good actor to lie well.
I wasn't a very good liar. Those I were lying to believed me maybe 50% of the time.
However, I have never liked lying, and am not proud of the times I did lie.
I rarely lie anymore for I have little reason to lie.
Politicians lie a lot. Everyone knows that, and to a degree it is expected of them, expecially during election campaigns. I wonder why?
Why does the American populace tolerate lies from those who would assume office, those who seek high, and powerful positions in government, the presidency lets say, where they will weld a significant amount of power over our lives. I don't get it. It has been observed that if someone will lie to get into office, then they'll most likely continue to lie after taking office. I don't know about you, dear readers, but I don't want my president lying to me. I don't want my senator lying to me. I don't want my Congress lady lying to me. I don't want anyone lying to me! I won't vote for them if I think they are.
But lying continues to be prevalent in politics, even when it is so easy to prove that politicians are lying. Republicans especially are guilty of this. I'm not saying that Democrats don't lie, or that even President Obama doesn't lie, because they and he have been caught distorting the truth on occasion, whether by accident or design. Organizations like Fact Check call them out on their lies all of the time. That's all they do. That's their job.
But the disparity between the amount of lies that the Republicans make vs that of the Democrats, well there's just no comparison.
Because most Republicans are sociopaths, lying as a way of life for them seems to be easy. It doesn't bother them to lie... not at all. It certainly doesn't bother Mitt (Mitt) Romney. Check this clip from The Rachel Maddow Show, where Rachel doesn't mind calling a liar a liar, and good for her for doing so:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAxtFuB0eJ4
Do you want this guy to be president? Mitt Romney certainly displays sociopathic behavior (remember the dog on top of the car?). I don't want him to be president. Fortunately, even if he wins his party nomination, there is little chance he will win the White House come November.
There's another guy that doesn't mind calling Mitt out on his lies.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rB9Aa6qVauE
Our dear friend Norah O'Donnell seems clearly shocked by this breach of decorum. What this country needs actually are more breaches.
Newt's position is untenable, that it's better for the country to knowingly elect a person who will lie about everything and anything, than have Barack Obama remain in office, who as far as I know is not known for using misinformation as a constant tool to forward his agenda. That's the Republican mind set. That it's okay to lie.
Now Newt has a little problem telling the truth himself. First Barack Obama has been in office for about 3 1/2 years now and as far as I can see the country is still in one piece, in fact it is healing rapidly from the damage Newt's party and George W. Bush did to it before they left office in 2008. He's also said he was paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to be an historian for Freddie Mac when he was clearly lobbying for them. On and on. So Newt's a liar as well.
What can I say? Republicans disregard the truth. Check this out. It's classic:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/12/jon-stewart-rips-jon-kyl-planned-parenthood_n_847920.html
His remark was not intended to be a factual statement. In other words he lied to further his bogus argument that itself was not based in reality.
My, my.
I remember one interview with then Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in which it was suggested that she had been less than truthful when testifying before Congress, and she took offense. She wasn't exactly called a liar, but that's what was implied. She said something to the effect that "you can disagree with me on policy if you wish, but don't impinge my personal integrity," To which I would have replied if I had been there, Bulls__t, if you don't want to be called a liar... lady... then simply stop lying.
Politicians can lie by omission as well, like the health insurance mandate currently before the Supreme Court, that the Republicans are so vehemently against, crying "leave us one shred of freedom!" What they don't tell you is the mandate was invented by the Republicans themselves during the Clinton administration. They were all for the mandate before Obama used it in the Affordable Health Care Act, but after he used it they were suddenly against it. But they won't tell you that.
Not only Republican politicians lie. The Fox so called News network is dedicated to supporting the lying liars of the Republicans party, and the only way they can do that is to lie themselves. And they do it all of the time.
Just last Tuesday Fox Business reporter Tracy Byrnes was discussing climate change with economic journalist and habitual climate-change denier Stuart Varney. He cited an op-ed by Princeton Professor William Happer, who wrote: “CO2 is not a pollutant,” Happer wrote. “Life on earth flourished for hundreds of millions of years at much higher CO2 levels than we see today. Increasing CO2 levels will be a net benefit because cultivated plants grow better and are more resistant to drought at higher CO2 levels, and because warming and other supposedly harmful effects of CO2 have been greatly exaggerated. Nations with affordable energy from fossil fuels are more prosperous and healthy than those without.”
"The temperature basically hasn’t changed much since the Ice Age," Byrnes announced. "But this notion that we’re now getting to a point where carbon dioxide is bad, I mean, I think these guys have pretty much fallen over the cliff."
"Sun spots have much more to do with the temperature on the Earth than CO2," Fox Business host David Asman insisted. "That’s what scientists are beginning to understand."
These three geniuses are not climate scientists and therefore are merely voicing an opinion, and opinion that their employer happens to embrace, and they're either flat out lying and are aware of the truth, or are just too ignorant to be alive. More likely the lie has been embedded so deeply within them that they actually belive the dribble they spew, which of course, this spewed dribble is broadcast out to millions of Fox viewers who will take whatever they say at face value, which does this country, the viewers themselves... and the world, a tremendous disservice
1. According to "Paleoceanography," a peer-reviewed scientific journal published by the American Geophysical Union which covers the history of the ocean and its plant and animal life, temperatures in Antarctica were around 50°F cooler than in modern times when the most recent Ice Age peaked about 20,000 years ago. Not to mention this: "The first decade of the 21st century was the warmest ever on Earth according to data released by scientists at NASA. The U.S. space agency's data also revealed that 2009 was the second warmest year since temperature records began in 1880, and only narrowly cooler than 2005, the warmest year ever." There goes Byrnes ascertain, which is a lie.
2. Periodic sun spot activity does release more energy into the solar wind that affects the Earth's atmosphere, which means a warmer sun with increased solar wind cycles due to sunspot activity will tend to raise the temperture on the Earth. Well, duh!. Yet Recent research indicates that the combined effects of sunspot-induced changes in solar irradiance and increases in atmospheric greenhouse gases offer the best explanation yet for the observed rise in average global temperature over the last century, according to climate scientists B. Geerts and E. Linacre.
And 3. One of the tenets of Dr. Carl Sagan's Baloney Detection Kit is to alway question authority, even Professors from Princeton, like William Happer. Why? Because authorities can be wrong.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/print.php?n=774
The next thing they'll be saying is that smog is good for our health, and those of us who live in Los Angeles are lucky because there's so much of it here.
Don't get me started on political ads. I mean it, don't get me started. Okay, you got me started.
I don't see why anyone would take anything in a political ad seriously. You have to know that who ever produced and paid for the ad has a certain agenda to either build up their own candidate, or to tear apart their opposition. These ads are notorious for distorting the truth, lying, so I never pay any attention to them at all, whether they're from my own candidate, or the other guys. Nothing in them should be taken at face value. They are nothing but propaganda, and not the good kind. Unfortunately a lot of people are affected by them. These people are morons.
It is also unfortunate that members of the media don't seem to care if politicians lie to them. Some seem to think that if they just have representatives from each side of an issue debate each other, that that is a fair and balanced interview which represents an issue in a balanced manner. Like having someone who believes in the evolutionary process debate a creationist. This is just wrong. First it gives they creationist a certain amount of unearned validity, and second, they are letting one side present their position with a disregard for facts or the truth.
And some in the media don't seem to care if those they are interviewing are telling them the truth. David Gregory, the host of NBC's "Meet the Press," has made the ascertain that there's no need to fact check what his guests say on the air because viewers can do that "on their own terms," whatever that means. It's just not his job to insure his "guests," tell the truth. He gives that job to the viewers.
He is dead wrong. It is his job. There's no reason for him to have that job if he doesn't at least attempt to get the truth out of those he talks to.
Reporter Tracy Samilton, from Michigan Radio, an NPR station, followed up on a soundbite of one of Romney's stump speeches, characterizing the bailout of GM as a handout to the United Auto Workers, with this admonition:
MITT ROMNEY: "Instead of going through the normal managed bankruptcy process, he [President Obama] made sure the bankruptcy process ended up with the UAW taking the lion's share of the equity in the business."
SAMILTON: "Actually, the U.S. Treasury got most of GM's equity."
This marks a new policy undertaken by NPR, to prioritize the truth, making sure to actually inform listeners when one “side” of a story is upheld by the facts. "Among the central principles is that the new guidelines focus on standards of fairness and impartiality, as opposed to balance and objectivity," wrote NPR's ombudsman, Edward Schumacher-Matos.
I applaud NPR for their stance, as do many other news professionals. May other major media outlets learn from their fine example.
Unfortunately, most major media outlets are owned by major corporations which themselves tend to obfuscate the truth, the facts, if it doesn't suit them.
The public needs to be diligent in demanding the truth from the news networks they watch. The American people deserve the truth.
Except for Fox viewers of course. They're a lost cause.
One day if we can get the media to observe zero tolerance toward lying in the political process, hopefully one day we can get the general population of American's to rally against it as well.
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