She's Not Teh Only Crazie Conspiricist

From New York Magazine:

Lynn Cheney has a theory about why Monica Lewinsky wrote a long Vanity Fair essay about her experience with Bill Clinton: It’s because the Clintons wanted it. Cheney explains her suspicions. “I really wonder if this isn’t an effort on the Clintons’ part to get that story out of the way,” Cheney, announced on an interview on Fox News. “Would Vanity Fair publish anything about Monica Lewinsky that Hillary Clinton didn’t want in Vanity Fair?”

She's not the only one with teh crazie conspiracy.

I was listening to KDKA's Mike Pintek today and a caller called in and asked about what The Cheney/Vanity Fair conspiracy and he said  that "there may be some truth" to it.

Way to go, Mike.

For the record, Vanity Fair responded:

This highly sane and well-substantiated allegation demanded a response from the highest levels of Vanity Fair. So the Erik Wemple Blog put the question to Beth Kseniak, the magazine’s executive director of public relations. Her response: “Seriously?”

Again, way to go, Mike. You do your profession proud.

A Man (or two) With A Plan!

(Recent mailers for Readshaw and Ravenstahl)

I have a plan to not vote for either of them...EVER.

Little girl, do your parents know what district you're in? (My guess would be PA-iStock.)

Inevitable. Just Inevitable

It's been said that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

So let me ask you, where's the evidence in this inevitable anti-science editorial from Scaife's Tribune-Review?

The Obama administration released the National Climate Assessment on Tuesday. And to sell its latest installment of pseudoscience in promotion of social re-engineering required to combat “man-made” climate change, it invited in select meteorologists to indoctrinate them in how to propagandize the report and bring climate-cluckerism into every home. Be afraid — be very afraid.

So wrong in so many of its alleged causes and effects — a natural consequence of being so injurious to the scientific process — the assessment must be considered for what it is: a political manifesto that seeks to reorder the world economy for “the greater good,” a “good” that serves not mankind nor even the planet but those in positions of government power.

You'll notice there are no actual facts here.  No references to evidence, experts or any scientific experts.  Their argument, such as it is, has no such things.  There's not even a good fake any more.

So where is the science?  The evidence?  The experts?

Here, in the Climate Assessment released this week.  Take a look:

Evidence from the top of the atmosphere to the depths of the oceans, collected by scientists and engineers from around the world, tells an unambiguous story: the planet is warming, and over the last half century, this warming has been driven primarily by human activity—predominantly the burning of fossil fuels.

What evidence?

How's this?

And here's the description:

Global annual average temperature (as measured over both land and oceans) has increased by more than 1.5°F (0.8°C) since 1880 (through 2012). Red bars show temperatures above the long-term average, and blue bars indicate temperatures below the long-term average. The black line shows atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration in parts per million (ppm). While there is a clear long-term global warming trend, some years do not show a temperature increase relative to the previous year, and some years show greater changes than others. These year-to-year fluctuations in temperature are due to natural processes, such as the effects of El Niños, La Niñas, and volcanic eruptions. (Figure source: updated from Karl et al. 2009)

Each one of those columns, red and blue, represent data.  Lots and lots of data - in this case global average temperatures.  The black like represents different data - CO2 in parts per million.  It all comes from vast reams of science journals - all tested and peer-reviewed.  It's something the science deniers don't have.

So unless you're going to make the extraordinary assertion that this is all a big fake, the evidence stands.  The science stands.  The world is warming up.

Where's the braintrust's extraordinary evidence to the contrary?

They don't tell you because they can't tell you.

And they can't tell you because it doesn't exist.

And Yet, No.

Last week, we read this on the pages of Scaife's Tribune-Review editorial page:

Now, fast on the heels of Mr. Eggleston's naming comes the smoking gun of the Obama administration's efforts to cover up its failure in the Benghazi mess that left four Americans dead, including the U.S. ambassador to Libya: An email, obtained by Judicial Watch, directly links the White House to authoring and pushing the false narrative that the attack was spontaneous, linked to an inflammatory Internet video, and not the organized terrorist attack that it was.

And I couldn't have said it any better than Jon Stewart:

The Daily Show
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,The Daily Show on Facebook,Daily Show Video Archive

Yea. What he said.

Benghazi OUTRAGE!
Iraqi WMD?  Not so much.

If it were 200+ white girls...

On Saturday, President Obama joked about CNN's obsessive coverage of missing plane MH370 and his trip to Malaysia, saying "The lengths we have to go to, to get CNN coverage these days. I think they're still searching for their table." The really sad joke is that if 200+ white girls had gone missing, we'd have wall-to-wall coverage on all stations and everyone would be clamoring for some type of action. US Secretary of State John Kerry did say on that same Saturday that 'Washington will do “everything possible” to help Nigeria deal with Boko Haram militants, following the kidnapping of scores of schoolgirls.'

If you think these girl's lives are as important as the typical single missing white woman/girl story that the media loves to obsess over, please attend today's rally:

Pittsburgh Women Rallying to #BringBackOURGirls 

When: Today (May, 5, 2014), 7:00 pm 

Where: Freedom Corner, Centre Ave. & Crawford Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15219 (map)

Facebook Event Page: Here

So How Misleading IS Governor Corbett's Ad? Lots.

First, here's the ad:


And here's the text:

Tom Wolf's record on jobs is a car wreck.

While Wolf served in Harrisburg as the state's top tax collector, our taxes went through the roof. (Text on screen: Wolf fought for a sales tax INCREASE Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 2/21/07)

And higher taxes led to 152,000 PA workers losing their jobs and unemployment going up almost 50%.

Fortunately Tom Corbett came along and cleaned up Wolf's mess.

Corbett lowered taxes, creating 150,000 new jobs, and PA's unemployment rate dramatically fell.

Tom Corbett: Driving Pennsylvania towards a brighter future. ”

So, how much of that is actually, you know, TRUE?

Oh, not so much, as it turns out.  Let's take a look at the second sentence.  There's a serious voice intoning a serious charge with a reference to news article (presumably) plastered on the screen as back-up.

Funny thing, though, when you track down the actual article being referenced, here's what you find:

The nominee to be Pennsylvania's top tax collector defended Gov. Ed Rendell's call to increase the state sales tax yesterday, despite criticism from Pittsburgh and Philadelphia legislators who said the regressive levy would have a negative impact on lower-income residents of their cities.

But wait, this part of Corbett's ad was supposed to be about how when Wolf was tax collector and the article's about his nomination for that job.  How can one be used in conjunction with the other?  Simple answer: it can't, unless your intent is to mislead.

And what happened to the sales tax increase that nominee Wolf was defending?

Abandoned by Governor Rendell a few months later:

Gov. Rendell announced this morning that he is abandoning his push to raise the state sales tax, crediting a "soaring" Pennsylvania economy for producing more than $500 million in unanticipated revenue.

Through mid-June – two weeks shy of a complete fiscal year – Harrisburg has taken in $502 million more in revenue than first projected, negating, for now, the need to increase Pennsylvania's 6 percent sales tax by 1 percentage point, Rendell said at a Capitol news conference.

Doesn't that complicate the next sentence of Corbett's ad?  That's the sentence about how Wolf's "higher taxes" led to so many job losses.  Funny, they never discuss how 152,000 Pennsylvanians lost their jobs due to the sales tax that nominee Wolf defended but Governor Rendell later abandoned due to a "soaring" economy.

Isn't that misleading as well?  I mean unless they were referring to other taxes.  But if they were why didn't they say so?  Sloppy at best, misleading at worst.  We deserve better.

And about those 152,000 jobs - factcheck.org took a look at the number and found it, well, misleading (my term, not theirs). Here's how it begins:

A new radio ad from Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett boasts that he “created 150,000 new private sector jobs,” a feat called “remarkable” in a Web ad on his campaign website. Not really. Pennsylvania ranks 46th out of 50 states in the rate of private sector job growth during the three years Corbett has been in office. In fact, the growth rate is less than half the national average.

Here's the funny about Corbett's "job growth":

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Pennsylvania has added a net 138,300 private sector jobs between January 2011, when Corbett took office, and December 2013, the latest figures available. The December figures are projected, and Corbett’s office said it looked at the numbers from January 2011 to November 2013, which show a net gain of 151,100 private sector jobs.

Corbett’s comments focus on private sector job growth. During his time in office, the number of government jobs has declined by a net 42,000 (most from local government jobs). When looking at all jobs, including government jobs, Pennsylvania has gained 96,300 total jobs under Corbett – a 1.7 percent job growth over three years, ranking the state 46th in total job growth among the states.

Corbett’s numbers on private sector job growth are accurate, or pretty close if using December figures. But a much different picture emerges when the job growth is put into a national context. [Emphases added.]

So there's not so much job growth, is there.  At least according to the folks at factcheck.org.

But let's get back to the ad.  Was Wolf responsible whatever rising unemployment and tax rates when he was tax collector.

Another fact checking organization, this time politifact, says no. First on those "job killing" taxes:

We did find a basis for the ad’s claim that 100,000 Pennsylvania jobs were lost during Wolf’s tenure. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of unemployed Pennsylvanians rose by 150,000 between April 2007 and November 2008.

However, the problem with this part of the claim is that it’s a stretch to blame taxes in general -- much less Wolf specifically -- for the loss of these jobs (especially their "killing," in the ad’s overheated rhetoric).

We asked Tara Sinclair, a George Washington University economist, how much straight-line causation we can draw between tax policy and those job losses.

"Basically none," Sinclair said, saying the much bigger factor during that period was the national economic downturn, which officially became a recession almost halfway through Wolf’s tenure.

While she acknowledged that tax policy can affect job growth, Sinclair added that "economists disagree wildly on the ‘job-killing’ effects of taxes. So, confidently drawing any line of causation is impossible. And throw in that the entire country lost about 2.3 million jobs over that period. I don't think it was the high taxes of Pennsylvania that caused the job losses."

And then whether he was responsible for the taxes in the first place:

Why does this matter? Because the ad said that "on Wolf’s watch, taxes were high." This suggests that Wolf is to blame for the state’s overall tax structure, rather than just for proposing marginal expansions. In reality, most of the state’s tax structure was already well-established before Wolf was even sworn in, so it’s a stretch to lay the blame for "high taxes" at his feet.

Second, the ad overhypes how much impact Wolf had on tax policy as revenue secretary. While Wolf certainly engaged in at least some advocacy, as the newspaper articles noted, his job duties were exclusively administrative, not policy-setting.

The secretary’s job, according to the department’s website, is to "administer the tax laws of the commonwealth in a fair and equitable manner." Raising taxes or creating new ones is up to the governor and the Legislature (which during his tenure had one chamber controlled by the Republicans).

So how much of Corbett's information in his "Toy Story" ad was accurate?

Very very little.  And that makes it very very misleading.

We deserve a better Governor and a better campaign than this.

Senator Pat Toomey Misleads On The Minimum Wage

In case you missed it:

The Senate voted on Wednesday against going ahead on a bill that would gradually increase the federal minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to $10.10 an hour, another rejection for legislation that has been a major focus of the Democrats' 2014 midterm campaign.

The final vote count was 54 to 42, with Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), who supports the legislation, taking the procedural step of voting against the bill so that he can reintroduce it at a later time.

Of course, our Republican Senator voted against:

"The last thing the American people need is a bill coming out of Washington that would wipe out hundreds of thousands of their jobs. Yet this is precisely what the Senate voted on today. According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, the Senate Democrats' minimum wage bill will eliminate 500,000 jobs nationwide. And according to other studies, as many as 118,000 Pennsylvanians could lose a paycheck under this measure.

"Even worse, this bill will hit people who have fewer skills and younger workers the hardest -- the very people who most need an opportunity to get into the workforce, get their first job, and start their way up the economic ladder.

"I do not support government policy that puts hundreds of thousands of people out of work.

Ah, but Senator. You left out some very important CBO information, didn't you?

From the CBO webpage called The Effects of a Minimum-Wage Increase on Employment and Family Income, we read:

Increasing the minimum wage would have two principal effects on low-wage workers. Most of them would receive higher pay that would increase their family’s income, and some of those families would see their income rise above the federal poverty threshold. But some jobs for low-wage workers would probably be eliminated, the income of most workers who became jobless would fall substantially, and the share of low-wage workers who were employed would probably fall slightly. [Emphases added.]

You left that out, didn't you?  You had to know it's there because you cited the CBO report but you decided not to tell us about how raising the minimum wage would boost the pay of most low wage workers.

Why?

So how many people are we talking here?  How many would see their incomes boosted?

Luckily the CBO report you only partially cited has an answer (it's on the same page, btw):

Many more low-wage workers would see an increase in their earnings. Of those workers who will earn up to $10.10 under current law, most—about 16.5 million, according to CBO’s estimates—would have higher earnings during an average week in the second half of 2016 if the $10.10 option was implemented. [Emphasis added.]

16.5 million??

Yea, ya left that part out, dincha?

I'd say that by withholding this rather important information, Senator, you're misleading your constituency.

Oh, and one last thing.  You say in your statement that:

We need to stop this bad legislation in its tracks and move ahead on proposals that would actually spur hiring and economic growth...

And yet that very same CBO report says:

Once the increases and decreases in income for all workers are taken into account, overall real income would rise by $2 billion.

Isn't that economic growth?