Yes, But...

A musicology professor once told a class I was in that every intelligent statement is a "Yes, but..." statement.  So let me start with this op-ed at the Tribune-Review and then proceed from there:

Colorado voters have recalled two heavily funded Democrat state legislators over stricter gun-control laws. Out are Senate President John Morse and Sen. Angela Giron. The good news is that you can mess with the Second Amendment only so much. The bad news is that Democrats still control the Centennial State's House and Senate. [Bolding in original.]

This is the story Scaife's braintrust finds so enthralling:

An epic national debate over gun rights in Colorado on Tuesday saw two Democratic state senators ousted for their support for stricter laws, a "ready, aim, fired" message intended to stop other politicians for pushing for firearms restrictions. Senate President John Morse and Sen. Angela Giron will be replaced in office with Republican candidates who petitioned onto the recall ballot.

But did you know that the recall effort itself was unpopular?  Take a look at this poll data from KWIN- uh-pe-ack University:

By wide margins, Colorado voters oppose efforts to recall two state legislators and say 2-1 that efforts to remove legislators when people don't agree with their vote should be when they face reelection, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.

Voters say 54 - 35 percent that State Senate President John Morse should not be removed from office because of his support for stricter gun control, the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN- uh-pe-ack) University poll finds. Voters also say 52 - 36 percent that State Sen. Angela Giron should not be recalled because of her support for stricter gun control.

Colorado voters say 60 - 31 percent that when people don't agree with a legislator, they should wait for reelection, rather than attempt a recall.

While Republicans support both recall efforts by margins of 2 - 1, only 47 percent support the overall concept of recall, while 42 percent say wait for reelection.

All voters oppose 54 - 40 percent the stricter new gun control laws which led to the recall effort. Democrats support the stricter laws 78 - 16 percent, while opposition is 89 - 7 percent among Republicans and 56 - 39 percent among independent voters. Women are divided on the stricter laws 48 - 45 percent, with men opposed 64 - 33 percent.

"With wide partisan and gender divisions, Colorado voters oppose the state's stricter new gun control laws, but they don't want to recall State Senate President John Morse or Sen. Angela Giron because they supported these laws," said Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. "Philosophically, voters don't want a recall election every time they disagree with a legislator. They'd rather deal with it every four years."

Mediamatters has two more things to ponder:

The Recall Turnout Was Extremely Low. A very small number of voters determined the recall election. In fact, voter turnout in Morse and Giron's districts were both substantially lower in the recall election compared to the 2010 state senate elections. Only 21 percent of 84,029 registered voters in Morse's district voted in the recall election. A mere 9,094 people voted in favor of recall; he lost his seat by a margin of 343 votes. Turnout was about 11,000 voters higher in Morse's 2010 senate election. Turnout in Giron's district was only 36 percent; 10,000 more people voted in her 2010 Senate election. Deriving national trends from low-turnout recall elections seems unwise.

Efforts To Recall Other Members Who Supported Stronger Gun Laws Failed. Opponents of stronger gun laws didn't intend to recall just Giron and Morse; they originally targeted two other lawmakers as well. But an effort to recall Sen. Evie Hudak was suspended by organizers three weeks before the deadline. And an effort to recall Rep. Mike McLachlan also failed when the Colorado Secretary of State reported that no signatures were turned in before a deadline. [Bolding in original.]

So yes, the two were recalled but I am not sure it all means what the braintrust wants you to think it means.

Just sayin'

An Election In Australia and Jerry Bowyer Makes A Silly

In contrasting the incumbent Kevin Rudd and the winner, Tony Abbot, Jerry Bowyer makes a number of points in this piece at Forbes.com.  Among them this one:

Social policy: Abbott, a practicing Roman Catholic (and former seminarian), opposed calls for same sex marriage, while Rudd argued for it, with awkward attempts to link the Bible’s opposition to homosexuality with its alleged support for slavery.

Alleged, Jerry?  We need to take a look at that.

But first let's take a step back.  What Jerry's referring to is this Q and A with Rudd a week or so ago:


From the Australian Broadcasting Corporation:

The pastor in the Brisbane audience asked the Prime Minister how he could support gay marriage "if you call yourself a Christian".

The Prime Minister responded by suggesting that line of thinking would also make slavery an acceptable proposition.

The pastor asked Mr Rudd: "Jesus said a man shall leave his father and mother and be married ... Kevin, if you call yourself a Christian, why don't you believe the words of Jesus in the Bible?"

"Well, mate if I was going to have that view, the Bible also says that slavery is a natural condition," Mr Rudd responded.

Mr Rudd's response received loud appaluse (sic) from the audience.

"Saint Paul said in the New Testament, 'slaves be obedient to your masters'," the Prime Minister continued.

I guess that's the part where Jerry Bowyer and Australia's ex-Prime Minister differ, hence the former's use of the adverb "allegedly."   But does Saint Paul actually say that?

Why, yes.  Yes, he does.  Ephesians 6:5-9:

5 Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ. 6 Obey them not only to win their favor when their eye is on you, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart. 7 Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not people, 8 because you know that the Lord will reward each one for whatever good they do, whether they are slave or free.

9 And masters, treat your slaves in the same way. Do not threaten them, since you know that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no favoritism with him.

He says almost exactly the same thing is said in Colossians 3:22-4:

22 Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and to curry their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord. 23 Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, 24 since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.

But he's also not alone in The Good Book in allowing slavery.  It's also OK'ed in the Old Testament. As in Leviticus 25:44-46:

44 “‘Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. 45 You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property. 46 You can bequeath them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life, but you must not rule over your fellow Israelites ruthlessly.

So, slaves obey your masters as you would obey The Lord, masters don't threaten your slaves as The Lord won't like it.  Israelites can own slaves, just as long as the other Israelites they own (temporarily) are not treated "ruthlessly."

I'm thinking we're way past "allegedly" on this one, aren't we Jerry?

I mean, correct me if I am wrong, please.  How do these texts say anything otherwise?  Show me the "allegedly."

Jack Kelly Sunday

I have assumed that the standard operating procedure for right wing pundits is to simply assert something as true and trust that few readers in the audience would bother to check the facts.

This assumption is not at all challenged by these paragraphs found in today's Jack Kelly column in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

We must intervene in the civil war in Syria because "if a thug and a murderer like Bashar al-Assad can gas thousands of his own people with impunity," it would set a bad example for others, Secretary of State John Kerry told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Tuesday.

Secretary Kerry's moral outrage would have been more moving if Sen. Kerry -- who met with the Syrian dictator six times and urged "engagement" with his regime -- hadn't said so many kind things about Mr. Assad in the recent past.

And Secretary Kerry's assertion that the use of chemical weapons justifies U.S. military intervention would be more persuasive if Sen. Kerry hadn't taken the opposite stance. Many more were killed when Saddam Hussein gassed the Kurdish village of Halabja than in the sarin gas attack in a Damascus suburb Aug. 21, but Sen. Kerry didn't think that justified U.S. intervention in Iraq.

By the way, I am leaning against any sort of intervention into Syria, but I am conflicted.  On the one hand something has to be done to punish a regime that uses chemical weapons, on the other I can't see anything good coming out of it.  By hurting the Assad regime, we'd end up helping the rather nasty folks he's fighting.  Given the "law" of unintended consequences, I'm sure lotsa bad stuff would follow - all with our name on it.  But doing nothing seems wrong as well.

So you see my issue.

But let's get back to Jack.  He's contrasting Secretary of State Kerry's response to Syria's use of gas with the then Senator Kerry's "opposite stance" regarding Saddam Hussein's use of gas in Halabja in 1988.  In doing so, he leaves out a few things:

• As Senator Kerry cosponsored SR 408 - a condemnation of Iraq's use of chemical weapons.
• Iraq was an ally of ours at that time during the Iran-Iraq war.

Hmm...military intervention with an ally.  That's what Jack thinks Senator Kerry should have been calling for back in 1988 in order for Secretary Kerry to sound credible now.

But let's take a deeper look at Halabja in 1988.  First some background from Foreign Policy:

In 1988, during the waning days of Iraq's war with Iran, the United States learned through satellite imagery that Iran was about to gain a major strategic advantage by exploiting a hole in Iraqi defenses. U.S. intelligence officials conveyed the location of the Iranian troops to Iraq, fully aware that Hussein's military would attack with chemical weapons, including sarin, a lethal nerve agent.

The intelligence included imagery and maps about Iranian troop movements, as well as the locations of Iranian logistics facilities and details about Iranian air defenses. The Iraqis used mustard gas and sarin prior to four major offensives in early 1988 that relied on U.S. satellite imagery, maps, and other intelligence. These attacks helped to tilt the war in Iraq's favor and bring Iran to the negotiating table, and they ensured that the Reagan administration's long-standing policy of securing an Iraqi victory would succeed. But they were also the last in a series of chemical strikes stretching back several years that the Reagan administration knew about and didn't disclose.

And:

By 1988, U.S. intelligence was flowing freely to Hussein's military. That March, Iraq launched a nerve gas attack on the Kurdish village of Halabja in northern Iraq.

And:

According to recently declassified CIA documents and interviews with former intelligence officials like [Air Force Col. Rick] Francona, the U.S. had firm evidence of Iraqi chemical attacks beginning in 1983.

And yet at the same time:

President Reagan yesterday condemned the use of outlawed chemical weapons in the Persian Gulf war, especially against the Kurdish minority in Iraq, and called for new global ban on such warfare.

"We condemn it," Reagan told the 43rd General Assembly in his final speech to the world body as president. "The use of chemical weapons in the Iran-Iraq war - beyond its tragic human toll - jeopardises the moral and legal strictures that have held these weapons in check since World War I."

Reagan indirectly criticized Iraq's use of poison gas against Iraqi Kurds and Iranians. He cited the Kurdish area of Halabja in Iraq and Maidan Shahr on the border as "terrible new names added to the roll call of human horror."

Something that's been known for more than a decade:

A covert American program during the Reagan administration provided Iraq with critical battle planning assistance at a time when American intelligence agencies knew that Iraqi commanders would employ chemical weapons in waging the decisive battles of the Iran-Iraq war, according to senior military officers with direct knowledge of the program.

So yea, Secretary of State Kerry's the one whose credibility should be questioned here.

By the way, Jack Kelly was an deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force during the Reagan Administration - starting in December 1983.  Considering that the Reagan Administration had firm evidence of Iraqi chemical attacks since, well, more or less exactly when Jack started working for it, did he know that the Reagan was lying through its teeth when his administration was both aiding Iraq's use of chemical weapons and yet condemning it all at the same time?

Really? Objective NEWS From The Trib?

I saw this commercial a few days ago:


The text (the best of what I could make of it):

"...reporting the truth.  We ask the tough questions and never give up until we've covered the complete story and then report it to you.  Accurately.  Sure we lean to the right on our editorial [...] but when it comes to hard news, right down the middle.  The Trib.  Conservative views, objective views.  Get it right.  Now.

Ok, fine.  So they're promising "objective" news reporting "the complete story" while admitting to "lean[ing] right" on the op-ed page.

So what should we make of this recent news coverage:

The head of a conservative think tank said Wednesday that withholding funding for President Obama's health care overhaul could halt some government services, but it's worth the political risk.

“The reason we're not wincing on that is because the alternative is really, really serious,” former South Carolina Republican Sen. Jim DeMint, president of the Washington-based Heritage Foundation, said during a meeting with Tribune-Review editors and reporters.

If Tom Fontaine (the reporter of this story) was giving us "the complete story" then why didn't he mention that his boss (ie the owner of the paper he works for, Richard Mellon Scaife)  is vice chairman of the Board of Trustees for the very foundation he's covering?

Or that foundations his boss controls have given tens of millions of dollars to the Heritage Foundation?

Or that the idea for the individual mandate actually came from the Heritage Foundation?

That's right.  That part might need some further explaining so here's Avik Roy (Romney advisor and senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute) writing at Forbes.com:

James Taranto, who writes the Wall Street Journal’s excellent “Best of the Web” column, put forth a lengthy and informative discussion yesterday on the conservative origins of the individual mandate, whose inclusion in Obamacare is today its most controversial feature on the Right.

And those "conservative origins" are described by Taranto at the above link at the Wall Street Journal:

Heritage did put forward the idea of an individual mandate, though it predated HillaryCare by several years. We know this because we were there: In 1988-90, we were employed at Heritage as a public relations associate (a junior writer and editor), and we wrote at least one press release for a publication touting Heritage’s plan for comprehensive legislation to provide universal “quality, affordable health care.”

So why wasn't any of this mentioned in a news report outlining the Heritage Foundation's resistance to Obamacare?  Especially a news report that included:

DeMint thinks it will drive up health care costs and insurance premiums.

He said the national tour is the largest effort of its kind by Heritage. Its political arm, Heritage Action for America, is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on ads targeting several Republican congressmen who have not gotten on board with plans to defund the health care law — including Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., who called defunding the plan the “dumbest idea I've ever heard.”

The effort is being tied to a government funding bill that expires Sept. 30. Congress needs to pass legislation, including money for the law, or risk letting parts of the federal government shut down.

“I don't care if the government shuts down. It's no good anyway. Obamacare has to go,” said Michele Zolnier, who drove from Hermitage in Mercer County, to attend the town hall meeting.

Complete story?

Sorry, Tom.  Not today.

Tracking Teh Crazie At WND

Teh Crazie's still at it.

Take a look at this opening paragraph from Bob Unruh over at World Net Daily:

Let’s see, under Barack Obama the IRS targeted conservatives and Christians with harassment, dozens of “czars” were appointed, Arizona was sued for trying to enforce federal immigration laws, the government refused to enforce the Defense of Marriage Act and the National Security Agency spied on Americans.

If ever you need to know what teh rightwing crazies are thinking, WND is the place to go to find out.  From his opening, Unruh goes on to more about the IRS "target[ing] conservatives" and the poll data showing growing support for impeachment because of it.

It's only when you take a look at the question asked in the poll do you see the fakery going on.  Here's the question:

Under President Obama, the Internal Revenue Service has targeted conservative nonprofit groups for special scrutiny, including audits, which hampered those groups from organizing to oppose him and other Democrats in the 2012 elections. Do you agree or disagree that President Obama should be impeached for his handling of this situation?

The only problem with this push poll question is its entire premise.

Take a look at this from Salon from August 20:

We already know that the IRS targeted progressive groups in addition to Tea Party ones, but new information released today adds further details, showing that the tax agency also targeted “ACORN successors” and left-leaning “Emerge” groups. Emerge Nevada, Emerge Maine and Emerge Massachusetts were the only groups to have their applications actually denied 501(c)4 tax-exempt status. Conservative groups had their applications delayed, in some cases for over a year, but not rejected outright.

Think of what that means for the poll question.  If the initial premise is incorrect (as it is here) then all of the data that follows is also incorrect.

And for this teh crazies want to impeach.

How The GOP Lies

Subtly, very subtly.

Take a look at this from Talkingpointsmemo:

Mitch McConnell’s re-election campaign is touting his support for the Violence Against Women Act — even though the Republican Senate minority leader has a consistent record of voting against the anti-domestic violence legislation.

Um, what?  How can they possibly do that honestly?

Here's how:

A press packet that McConnell’s spokeswoman distributed to reporters at a Friday event titled “Women For Team Mitch” features testimonials from Kentucky women. One of them caught the eye of Joe Sonka, a reporter for the Louisville-based LEO Weekly, who posted it on Twitter.

The quote, attributed to a woman named Angela Leet in Jefferson County, read, “Mitch was the co-sponsor of the original Violence Against Women Act- and continues to advocate for stronger policies to protect women. I am proud to call him my senator.”

You'll note the word "original" in the tweet.  That's how they get to say that the guy who's consistently voted against VAWA gets to look like he supports it.

A few more things to note about McConnell's support of the bill.  According to this page from Thomas, the principal sponsor of the bill was a certain Senator from Delaware: Joe Biden.

Yes, the same Joe Biden who's now President Obama's Vice-President.

Gee, that being the case, I wonder why didn't the McConnell campaign say he "co-sponsored Vice-President Joe Biden's original Violence Against Women Act"?

By the time the bill was reintroduced - in 1993 with a Democrat in the White House, (a coincidence, no doubt), McConnell voted against it.

This is how they get to lie.

The Brainstrust Dazzles Us With Its Command Of The Facts. Again.

We'll start with what they published today:

Speaking of guns, a new Harvard study concludes that more gun control does not necessarily lead to lower death rates (homicide and suicide) or violent crime. “(T)hose correlations are not observed when a large number of nations are compared around the world,” the study says. Translation: That dog won't hunt. [Bolding in original.]

Do you see the fifth word in that? It's the word "new" and its meaning should be obvious to everyone even remotely conversant in English.

Now let's go to the "study" they call "new"  Here it is.  It's volume 30 of the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy and according to the HJLPP's website, this article was published in the Spring of 2007.

How, exactly, is that "new"?

And is this really a Harvard study (new or otherwise)?  Depends on how you define "Harvard study" I guess.  As stated above, it's from the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy (www.harvard-jlpp.com) - but what is that, exactly?

First, you'll note that the URL ends with a ".com" rather than a ".edu" like say where the Harvard School of Public Health publishes its Firearms data (www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/firearms-research/). See the .edu?  That means it's from Harvard University.

On the other hand, the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy describes itself as:

[A]n organization of Harvard Law School students. The Journal is one of the most widely circulated student-edited law reviews and the nation’s leading forum for conservative and libertarian legal scholarship.

So we're not exactly talking peer-reviewed social science here, are we?  From there you can decide for yourself whether that constitutes or subverts the notion of this paper being a study from Harvard.

And so are there any actual studies published in the peer-reviewed Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy that look at whatever connection that may exist between the number of firearms and homicide?

I am so glad you asked.  Take a look at what's available on this page:

Our review of the academic literature found that a broad array of evidence indicates that gun availability is a risk factor for homicide, both in the United States and across high-income countries. Case-control studies, ecological time-series and cross-sectional studies indicate that in homes, cities, states and regions in the US, where there are more guns, both men and women are at higher risk for homicide, particularly firearm homicide.

Hepburn, Lisa; Hemenway, David. Firearm availability and homicide: A review of the literature. Aggression and Violent Behavior: A Review Journal. 2004; 9:417-40. [Bolding and italics in original.]

But let's look at some of the facts presented by the paper being touted by Scaife's braintrust.

On page 652, there's a table titled:

Table 1: European Gun Ownership and Murder Rates

And this table tells us that the tiny country of Luxembourg had, in 2002, a murder rate of about 9 per 100,000 people. That means that given a population of about 500,000 there were would have been about 45 homicides in 2002, right?  It's such a prominent "fact" that it's presented prominently in the text:

These countries, however, have murder rates as low or lower than many developed nations in which gun ownership is much rarer. For example, Luxembourg, where handguns are totally banned and ownership of any kind of gun is minimal, had a murder rate nine times higher than Germany in 2002.

This must've come as a surprise to the researchers who compiled the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.  Their Eighth Survey covered the years 2001-2002 and their data shows that Luxembourg had a total number of 4 homicides in 2002 or a rate of .9 per 100,000 inhabitants.

4 not 45.  0.9 not 9.01.  (It's on page 185 of this document if you want to check my work.)

Shabby work.  Old(ish) shabby work, too!

Now go back and look at what Scaife's braintrust wrote.  How valid do YOU think it is?