Donald Rumsfeld On What Network And Said What? "……Trained Ape?"

The emergence of a past seemingly long forgot!

How many years and months was the US spared the inane and ridiculous appearances of former Bush Administration officials spewing pure drivel for ratings hungry media. They also spew to a public that has proven it too soon forgets its past. A public that may not mind the damnation of repeating that past.

The Bush Administration left the nation so deep in the doldrums of an economic and international abyss, history has already started its legacy development. Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Powell, Tenet, Rove et al. have a place in our lives that should be quarantined into the recesses of our minds never to be allowed to across our brain Cortex. 

The GOP and RNC conducted national events over a six-year period without appearances from Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld. During the 2012 RNC Convention Rice was paraded out as a “trophy” to spew “lockstep” rhetoric. Why the 2014 visuals accompanied by utterance nonsense? His most recent comments will be considered racist by many people. 

The Bush Administration ghosts.

Bush starts to make appearances. Cheney is actually allowed to speak via Fox News and certain Sunday Morning (GOP leaning) news shows. Hosts actually sit across from Cheney and ask questions, then sit back while Cheney spews pure jingoist garbage from the corner of his crooked mouth. Rice has crawled into the public eye since the RNC Convention and with each statement makes a complete fool of herself.  

Imagine this as Rice contemplated Putin’s invasion of Crimea.

Condi Rice: The U.S. Can’t Step Back And Let Others Lead

If I may posit.  No one from the Bush Administration should be given a platform to criticize the very president who has worked tirelessly to clean-up the utter mess they left for us all.  As politics has sallied over time, we cannot expect republicans to follow the old adage taught to me at a very young age.

“A fool will never be discovered a fool if he keeps his mouth closed.” 

Since, politics forces the fools upon us, I cannot help but lay blame to ratings seeking media.  

Think for a moment. Have we grown to the point our memory is so short and shallow we forget the dark ages of the Bush years?  On what basis can media simply pluck the non-credible from the shadows of the shamed, to speak on camera and microphone? Rice spoke of “allowing others to lead.” How about the leadership from the Bush cabinet? Leadership that included outing an active CIA Agent.

Rumsfeld now ventures into criticism of President Obama and he does so with analogy that some will be label racist.

After The Raw Story embed and advertisement,  catch my close.

The Raw Story

Read more after the break below

Donald Rumsfeld: U.S. diplomacy would be better if Obama was a ‘trained ape’ (via Raw Story )

Former U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld on Monday blasted President Barack Obama’s diplomacy, saying a “trained ape” could do a better job. In an interview with Fox News host Greta Van Susteren, Rumsfeld complained that relations with…

_____________________________

Diplomacy; “trained ape” 

OK, so a “trained ape” could do a better job of International diplomacy! Seriously, he goes there? From a man who’s would send Bush Iraq War memos laced with quoted Scripture? He has the temerity to reference Obama’s diplomacy while some of us clearly remember this….

George Bush got memos from Rumsfeld that used Scripture to push Iraq war

 

We understand the shallowness of media that broadcast or write about comments from Rumsfeld. We can only hope the American public is far beyond Fox News propaganda from the Right and well beyond thinking media today is about delivery of news. Media, both Left and Right, has metastasized into communication wings for their respective ideology.

President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society, "black children born without a father in the home has risen from 7 percent in 1964 to 73 percent today?"

The Truth-O-Meter Says:

The percentage of black children born without a father in the home has risen from 7 percent in 1964 to 73 percent today, due to changes from President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society.

Facebook posts on Tuesday, March 25th, 2014 in a meme on the Internet

Facebook meme blames Great Society for large rise in African-American fatherlessness

A reader asked us to check this Facebook meme about rates of single motherhood, so we did.

A reader recently sent us a bare-knuckled Facebook meme about race and fatherhood.

The meme features a photograph of President Lyndon B. Johnson, whose “war on poverty” agenda in the mid 1960s was known as the Great Society.

Superimposed on Johnson’s image is the following text: “Black children born without a father in the home rate pre-LBJ’s ‘Great Society’ welfare system in 1964: 7 percent. Black children born without a father in the home rate post-LBJ’s ‘Great Society’ 2014 = 73 percent. Hey, liberals, how’s your ‘Great Society’ working out for the black family?”

We wanted to know if the meme’s numbers were right: Did the percentage of black children born without a father in the home rise from 7 percent before the Great Society to 73 percent today, and was it due to Johnson and the Great Society?

Read more after the break below

As we researched this claim, we noticed a problem: There is no federal data on “black children born without a father in the home.” Instead, we found two types of data that are similar — but not a perfect fit.

One is unmarried black births as a percentage of all black births. The other is the percentage of black children living without a father in the home.

The first option addresses births, a key focus of the Facebook claim. But this figure ignores cases in which a couple isn’t married, but where the father is living in the home.

The second option, by contrast, does address living arrangements, but it includes all children up to age 18, not those who were “born” that year.

So to be as complete as possible, we’ll analyze both statistics here.

Unmarried black births as a percentage of all black births

In 1964, according to federal health statistics, 24.6 percent of births to non-whites were considered “illegitimate,” the term used for out-of-wedlock births at the time.

In 2012, the percentage of black births that were made to unmarried black mothers was 72 percent.

This is a large increase, and the more recent figure is more or less on target. However, the starting point in 1964 is higher than the Facebook post suggests. So the overall increase is more limited than the meme says. (Note: The 1964 figure was based on the “non-white” population, a category that includes Hispanics and Asian-Americans, while the 2012 figure was for African Americans only.)

So if you use this measurement, the meme’s numbers are off.

The percentage of black children living without a father in the home

These figures offer even less support for the Facebook claim.

According to Census Bureau data, about 20 percent of black children in 1960 were living with just a mother. The comparable figure for 2013 is 50 percent of black children living with a mother only. (The only pre-Great Society year for which data is available is 1960.)

So this measurement, too, shows an increase. But the increase is two-and-a-half times bigger, not 10 times bigger, as the meme says, and it’s up by 25 to 30 percentage points, rather than the 66 points cited in the meme.

When we checked with experts, we found additional problems of context and logic with the claim. Here are a few of them:

Black families weren’t the only group to see an increase in single motherhood over the same time period

Rates of fatherlessness for whites have always been lower than for blacks, but fatherlessness among whites still rose between 1960 and 2012. Six percent of white children lived in a single-mother household in 1960, a figure that rose to 18 percent in 2013. That’s a tripling, which was proportionately an even bigger percentage increase than what was observed for black children.

We don’t really know how common black single parenthood was prior to the Great Society

Douglas J. Besharov, a public policy professor at the University of Maryland, said the official data on black marriage from the early- to mid-20th century is unreliable. It was not uncommon, he said, for black mothers to tell survey-takers that they were separated, when in fact they had never been married, he said. The data for white women is similarly misleading, since many young white women got married as teens and divorced a few years later — a “shotgun wedding” pattern that doesn’t suggest long-term stability for children.

This pattern would mean that the frequency of non-marital births among African-Americans may have been higher than what the early 1960s statistics officially indicated, and the white rate of non-marital births may have been artificially low.

“Welfare” — the implicit target of the meme — existed well before the Great Society

The welfare rules of the 1960s may have imposed a “marriage penalty” on recipients — benefits that could be earned as a single person would disappear once a recipient got married. But such a pattern should have become evident well before the Great Society.

” ‘Welfare’ was part of the New Deal in the 1930s,” said Timothy M. Smeeding, director of the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin. “It was designed for widows with kids who didn’t qualify for Social Security, but it soon became a single-parent program for divorcees and later unmarried mothers.”

Correlation does not equal causation

Just because rates of fatherlessness rose after Johnson and the Great Society doesn’t mean they caused the increase. Lots of other factors were at play.

Besharov said the focus on Johnson is off-base. He said that the broader social currents of 1960s “liberalization” — more permissive sexual mores, easier divorce laws and greater financial independence due to rising rates of female employment, for instance — did play a role in higher rates of single-motherhood for all races, but “if you define ‘the Great Society’ as the things Johnson did, then there was very little impact” on single motherhood rates.

Our ruling

A meme circulating on social media said the percentage of black children born without a father in the home has risen from 7 percent in 1964 to 73 percent today, due to changes from President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society.

There’s no federal data to back up the meme’s specific claim, but the most applicable statistics show an increase in black fatherlessness that is more limited, and the rise might have been even more modest still if the early-1960s data had been more reliable.

In addition, the focus on Johnson and the Great Society is likely a red herring, since broader, societal factors are believed to have played a major role in rising rates of single-parenthood — not just among blacks, but also among whites.

The exaggerated statistics, combined with an ignorance of important context, leads us to rate the claim False.

The Daily GOP Ignominious: Aid To Ukraine Could Depend on GOP "Scratch My Back?"

What is it about Republicans in Congress that leads to taking up causes, initiatives, or legislating only when inertia is to be applied from their financial supporters?

MNSBC

GOP ties US hands on Ukraine with odd demands

(The 6:34 mark of the video starts our point of interest)

MH370, CNN And Derangement via Jon Stewart

Yes, CNN has gone star raving mad in their ratings quest at the expense of the tragic Malaysian airlines disaster.

Comdey Central’s The Daily Show and Jon Stewart….

http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/…..

The Daily Show
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Indecision Political Humor,The Daily Show on Facebook

Fred Zucker has turned  CNN into a  farce and something akin to reality TV. Popular yes, but brainless and non-consequential.

"Hating ON" All Things Obama

Re-posted from a Facbook Progressive activist and very well done!

“Hating ON” All Things Obama

March 24, 2014 at 4:48pm

The Election season has begun!  It is time to dispell a numebr of Right-wing “playbook” talking points, mantra and general conservative B/S. 

1) Obama takes too many vacations

FACT: As of August 16th of 2013, Obama had taken 92 days of vacation vs 367 for George W. Bush.

2) Obama has divided the nation

FACT: Obama has done more to unite this nation than any president since Lincoln. But he’s up against a phalanx of 21st Century separatists, racists and neo-fascists, some of whom have openly proposed seceding. Here… let me hold that door for you. Besides; who’s dividing the Republican party into right wing and ultra-far right wings? Is Obama doing that too? Nope. 

3) Obama’s policies are bankrupting America

FACT: Reagan added $1.9 trillion to the debt. Bush Sr. added an additional $1.5. Clinton added $1.4. Dubbya added $6.1. Obama has added less than $3.0, the bulk of which was to offset the effects of the Bush recession. Who holds that debt? China; $1.2 trillion. Japan; $900 billion. The Fed; $1.6 trillion. The public; $3.6 trillion. Government trusts; $1.9 trillion. Social Security; $2.7 trillion. So nice try, but no Kewpie doll for you.

4) Obama’s a socialist

FACT: Hardly. Obama’s economic and social policies are to the right of Kennedy’s, Eisenhower’s, Nixon’s, and even some of Reagan’s. If Obama’s a socialist, then Eisenhower, who had a 91% top tax rate, was a Republican Marxist.

5) Obama lied about keeping your present healthcare insurance

FACT: Lying and being wrong are two different things. Obama turned out to be wrong, but he didn’t lie. He appeared before the cameras 28 times, repeating the exact same words — “If you like your present policy, you can keep it,” knowing full well he was being recorded each time. If you believe any president would deliberately set himself up like that, then Fox News is indeed the place for you.

6) Obama’s weak on foreign policy

FACT: Osama bin Laden, the man who murdered 3,000+ Americans on 9/11 is dead. Muammar Khaddafi, the man who blew 300+ Americans out of the sky is dead. More al Qaeda terrorists were taken out under just Obama’s first three years than during the entire 8 years of Bush’s “War on Terrorism,” where we somehow managed to wind up in Iraq; a country that offered asylum to zero terrorists. ‘Nuff said.

7) Obama has taken sides with the Arabs against Israel

FACT: “I think that from my point of view as defense minister they (American/Israeli relations) are extremely good, extremely deep and profound. I can see long years, um, administrations of both sides of political aisle deeply supporting the state of Israel and I believe that reflects a profound feeling among the American people. But I should tell you honestly that this administration under President Obama is doing in regard to our security more than anything that I can remember in the past. In terms of the support for our security, the cooperation of our intelligence, the sharing of sorts in a very open way even when there are differences which are not simple sometimes, I’ve found their support for our defense very stable.” ~ Ehud Barak, former Prime Minister of Israel

But what would he know?

8) America is less safe under Obama than ever before

FACT: 3,000 Americans killed by al Qaeda on 9/11. Zero successful al Qaeda attacks on America under Obama. Do the math.

9) Benghazi is Obama’s 9/11

FACT: There were 13 attacks on American embassies during the Bush years, resulting in some 100 deaths. But Fox News and their reich-wing cohorts has never mentioned them. Benghazi is something that happened to us, not something the administration did. I’m sorry you haven’t gotten the memo, but Benghazi is just another Fox non-story. Same with the IRS “scandal.”

10) ObamaCare is Obama’s 9/11

See #9.

11) Sandy Hook was Obama’s 9/11

See a shrink.

12) Solyndra!

FACT: Solyndra was a $500 million loan that didn’t pay off. How much is $500 million? That’s how much the Bush administration spent every 18 hours on the Iraq War for five years — an expense no Republican ever complains about. And what was our reward? 4,500 Americans killed, at least 100,000 Iraqis killed, another 2 million Iraqis driven from their homes, the emergence of the Shia awakening, and our reputation in a shambles. Thanks Republicans. And you’re upset about half a billion spent on Solyndra.

13) Iraq is falling to al Qaeda due to Obama’s policies

FACT: Had we not invaded Iraq in the first place, a war Obama opposed 12 years ago, we wouldn’t be seeing Falluja falling to al Qaeda. And who was it that wrote the timetable for our Iraq exit two years ago? Oh, yeah; the Bush administration. You might just as well blame Obama for Bush’s recession. Oh, wait — you do that too!

14) Obama’s policies are anti-business

FACT: The Dow Jones when Clinton entered office in January 1993 was at 3,300. When he left office in January 2001: 10,662. Dow Jones when Bush left office in January 2009: 9,034. Dow Jones today: 16,437. The Dow has more than doubled in just the first five years of the Obama administration. Yes…. Businessmen just hate that.

15) Obama’s policies have resulted in massive unemployment

FACT: When George W. Bush stumbled into office in January 2001, he inherited a 4.3% unemployment rate from Bill Clinton. When he left office 8 years later, the unemployment rate was 9.7% and rising fast. As of today, that number is 6.7%, no thanks to the Republicans in Congress who’ve done everything within their power to sabotage the recovery.

During the eight years under George W. Bush, his policies created just 1 million jobs (with another 2 million in the military). Since Barack Obama was sworn in five years ago, 7.6 million jobs have been created, and there are still three years left in his term. So, nice try.

16) Fast & Furious

FACT: Another poorly conceived program left over from the Bush administration that the GOP is trying to pin on Obama. Move along.

17) Liberals always try to deflect from Obama’s record by bringing up Bush

FACT: Wrong-o, Bozo. We just like to rub your noses in your hypocrisy. By intentionally ignoring, or even lying about Bush’s record and focusing instead on the above Fox News lies, you’ve liberated yourselves once again from those pesky facts. So it’s become incumbent upon us to set the record straight. To the contrary, conservatives are always trying to deflect from the failures of the Bush years by telling the aforementioned lies.

18) The deficit has skyrocketed under Obama

FACT: The budget was balanced when Clinton left office in 2001 (in fact, he left Dubbya with a $300,000,000,000 surplus). 

Eight years later, Bush left Obama with a $1,413,000,000,000 deficit and a 9.8% deficit/GDP ratio. Most of which was due to Bush’s deficit-spending on the Iraq War, Medicare Part D and the two tax cuts that largely went to the wealthy. 

“Remember what Reagan taught us. Deficits don’t matter.” ~ Dick Cheney 

Since Obama’s election:
2010 — $1,294,000,000,000 8.7% deficit/GDP
2011 — $1,300,000,000,000 8.4% deficit/GDP
2012 — $1,087,000,000,000 6.8% deficit/GDP
2013 — $680,000,000,000 4.1% deficit/GDP
2014 — $560,000,000,000 3.3% deficit/GDP 

See a pattern developing? Furthermore, the United States is now producing more oil than we import. Our overall trade deficit is at a four year low, as imported oil continues to decline. GM, Ford and Chrysler are all chugging along nicely, no thanks to a unified Republican/Teabigot party, who were eager to sacrifice 2 million American jobs on their altar of Obama Derangement Syndrome. 

The trade gap has fallen 12.9% to $34.3 billion as Obama’s policies have made American products and services more available abroad, while Americans are increasingly buying more domestic products. The trade imbalance is now lower than at any time since the beginning of the recession, and the offshoring of American jobs has (finally) slowed to a trickle. 

Our trade gap with China is down 6.7% (largely based on their taste for American cars — see above), our trade gap with Japan is down 8.4% and our trade gap with the European Union has dropped a whopping 29.4%.

Are things perfect? No. There’s still much to be done. But the rumors of Barack Obama’s “failures” have been greatly exaggerated, and it’s time to call these talking points what they are… lies. This president will go down in history as a man who achieved some amazing accomplishments, especially considering the unified opposition he’s had to endure since Day One.

So there you have it Fox News “patriots,” all your talking points shot to hell in one FACT-based document.

Christie Exonerates Himself From Any Culpability In "Bridegate"

Top-of-the-morning…… and we have a Christie report.
http://youtu.be/34ag4nkSh7Q

It looks like Chris Christie via a “very friendly and cozy” lawyer has exonerated himself for any wrong doing regarding “Bridgegate.” In fact, a strategic leak of (alleged) unreleased investigation results is as telling as Christie firing his key staffer, Kelly, without one question her about the George Washington Bridge lane closures.

Apparently, Rachel Maddow’s research team also “smells something fishy.”

http://on.msnbc.com/1iWzbXj

The more I read and hear about the Christie Administration the more I see and feel corruption, pandering to the wealthy and favored treatment for political advantage. We must never forget, we also see severe “bullying”. 

We will keep our eye on “Bridgegate”, Hurricane Sandy funds and Christie’s horrid inter-personal leadership.