The Voice of Reason: Debunking the Biggest Lie at the Democratic Convention

As a kid growing up in the country, I remember being told by another boy that if water in a stream runs over three rocks with moss on them, the water is safe to drink.  I didn't believe it at the time, and I don't believe it now.

The Democrats at the 2012 National Convention are using a similar method to try to purify their lies.  If they say something three or more times, they think it is the truth -- or at least the American people will believe it is the truth.  Just as three mossy rocks won't make water safe to drink, saying a statement three times doesn't make it a fact.

During this convention, you will hear a statistic repeated numerous times, like a mantra.  Democrat after Democrat will say that "this administration has created 4.5 million jobs."  Sometimes the speaker will quantify this statement by saying that 4.5 million "private sector" jobs were created, but typically speakers will leave out the clarification.

I don't know how to say it any other way.  This statement is a damn lie. It misleads the American people into thinking that the Obama Administration is doing a better job than it really is in turning around this economy.  Shame on them.

Compared to when Barack Obama took office, today there are slightly more private sector jobs (about 300,000) and significantly fewer public sector jobs.  As a result, there are about 400,000 fewer total jobs today than when President Obama took office.

Let me repeat that.  There are about 400,000 fewer American jobs today than when the President took office.  He certainly hasn't created 4.5 million jobs during his administration.

But in stating and restating their "fact" about job creation, Democrats don't count the private jobs lost at the beginning of the Obama Administration.  They conveniently compare the number of private sector jobs at the lowest point of the recession, which was in January 2010 (a year after President Obama took office), to the number of private sector jobs today in order to arrive at their 4.5 million figure. In other words, they cherrypick the best possible time points in order to show the greatest difference in jobs -- and they only look at the private sector jobs.

This is misleading, dishonest and unfair to the American people who will cast their votes in November.  It also shows that this administration is willing to mislead Americans in order to try to put lipstick on their pig of an economic recovery.  But no matter how much lipstick they put on this pig, it's still a pig. No matter how many times their "fact" is repeated, it is still a lie.

Even CNN and Yahoo News have called the Obama Administration out on this outright lie.  These liberal news organizations even report that the vast majority of the jobs created have been lower-wage jobs, not the types of "good-paying jobs" that First Lady Michelle Obama said were created by this administration in her speech last night.  Simply put, they are spreading lies on top of lies.
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/fact-check-4-5-million-jobs-created-under-175621036--election.html
http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/05/politics/fact-check-obama-jobs/index.html

But even comparing the number of jobs today to the number of jobs when the President took office doesn't tell the whole story. Why?  Our population grows, so in order to maintain the same percentage of people working, we must add jobs in addition to the jobs needed to offset job losses. If we don't, the unemployment percentage increases, which has occurred under this President.  Since President Obama took office, we not only have fewer jobs than we did when he took office, we haven't added enough jobs to keep pace with the population growth.  That's why when he took office our unemployment rate was 7.8%, but is now 8.3%, with millions more simply giving up looking for work and not counted in these statistics.  In reality, the real unemployment rate could be as high as 12%.  As one can see, job creation during the Obama Administration has been much worse than most people realize and the Democrats want us to believe.

So now you know the truth, not some watered down version of it, or the truth based on conveniently selected timelines. The Obama Campaign is hoping that Americans won't take the time to search out the truth.

Bloggers such as this one, and the people who take the time to read this blog won't let that happen.

Please share with your family members, neighbors and co-workers.

The Voice of Reason: Is NBC News on Obama's Payroll?

While at home about a week ago, I turned on NBC Nightly News to see how this once well-respected news organization is covering the upcoming Presidential election.

The newscast started out with a piece about Missouri Representative, Republican Todd Akin, who communicated some idiotic beliefs about women having difficulty becoming pregnant after being raped.  Next up was a short piece about President Barack Obama's news conference, with footage of him asking why presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney would not release more years of tax returns.  The third piece was about a trip to the Middle East in which a Republican member of Congress went skinny dipping.  Together, these three stories consumed about one third of the newscast. 

The remainder of the newscast consisted of non-campaign issues, including segments about former talk show host Rosie O'Donnell surviving a heart attack by taking an aspiran, the death of comedienne Phyllis Diller and the passing of Scott McKenzie, who performed the 1967 ballad, "San Francisco."

Three cold, hard facts stood out about this newscast:  1) A third of the newscast was consumed with pieces that put Republicans in a negative light; 2) there was no mention of major issues affecting America, including the skyrocketing debt, the unemployment and underemployment of 23 million Americans, or the impending insolvency of entitlement programs; and 3) the quality of NBC News has deteriorated significantly from the days of the well-respected and legendary Huntley-Brinkley Report.

After watching the newscast that evening, I wondered if NBC News is being paid by the Obama Campaign.  In reality, a public relations firm paid by the Obama Campaign couldn't have done a better job of spinning the news so that it is favorable to President Obama than NBC News did on that particular newscast.  It was that biased.

As a trained journalist, I am appalled and angry at how far journalism has fallen. I am also saddened that there are so few journalists who will report the story and actually take the time to check the facts and statistics spewed by campaigns.

Recent news coverage by the mainstream news media has focused on Akin's stupid remarks, the Obama Campaign continuing to ask for Romney to release more tax returns and other issues that won't help put Americans back to work or stop our country's sprint towards bankruptcy.

Ignoring major challenges facing the country is one issue, allowing outright lies to be broadcast without confronting them is another.

Earlier this week the President's deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter said that more jobs had been created in the past 27 months than following the recessions faced by Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush.  She implied that President Obama has done a better job at managing the economy following a recession than the two Republicans.

The facts are that the Bush recovery created 200,000 more jobs than the Obama recovery, using the same methodology cited by Cutter, and the Reagan recovery created about twice as many jobs.
http://news.investors.com/article/623290/201208231729/obama-created-half-as-many-jobs-as-reagan.htm

As President Obama said in a recent news conference, "You can't make this stuff up." Actually, Mr. President, your deputy campaign manager is doing just that. And she's done it more than once.

A few news organizations, including Investor's Business Daily and Fox News have challenged Cutter's outright lie with undisputable facts.  Most others, including NBC News, haven't taken the time to check to see if what Cutter said was actually true.

Earlier this week, the President was asked in his news conference about the tone of his campaign.  He was questioned specifically about his campaign insinuating that Romney may have committed a felony.  President Obama replied, "Well, first of all I am not sure that all of those characterizations that you laid out there were accurate. For example, nobody accused Mr. Romney of being a felon."
http://www.examiner.com/article/obama-denies-campaign-called-romney-a-felon-surprise-press-appearance

Again, this was an outright lie. Cutter said in a recent interview, “Either Mitt Romney, through his own words and his own signature, was misrepresenting his position at Bain to the SEC, which is a felony, or he was misrepresenting his position at Bain to the American people to avoid responsibility for some of the consequences of his investments." 

Maybe Cutter didn't come straight out and call Romney a felon, but the insinuation was strong enough to make some uninformed voters believe Romney is a felon.

Not one member of the media at that news conference had the intestinal fortitude to point out to the President that one of the highest ranking members of his campaign had indeed strongly hinted that Romney had committed a felony. And only a few, including Fox News, reported in later reports the discrepancy between what the President said and the truth.

In that same news conference earlier this week, the President had the audacity to say, "We point out sharp differences between the candidates, but we don’t go out of bounds.”

Out of bounds? Would you call broadcasting a Super PAC ad accusing Romney of contributing to the cancer death of a woman "out of bounds?"  Or would you consider insinuating that Romney is a tax cheat "out of bounds?"  What about the Senate Majority Leader saying that the "word's out" Romney hadn't paid any federal income taxes in 10 years?  Would you consider that accusation from unnamed sources on the floor of the Senate to be "out of bounds?"

Again, not one member of the media challenged the President.

Even the online news media versions of major news media have been piling on the Republicans.  Yesterday, CNN.com featured a front page article about how the Republican convention in Tampa will mean better business for area strip clubs. The fact of the matter is that almost any convention results in increased business for area strip clubs.
http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/23/politics/tampa-gop-strip-clubs/index.html

I wonder if this same website will do a feature about how the Democratic Convention in Charlotte will result in more business for  strip clubs?  I would venture a guess that we won't see similar negative coverage prior to that convention. I wouldn't be surprised, though, to see glowing features about the Democratic Convention on almost every website and news broadcast for the mainstream news media in the days before the Democrats head to Charlotte.


The lamestream news media is clearly in the tank for the Obama Campaign and might as well be on his campaign's payroll.  It's become that biased. 

We can only hope that the American people dig a little deeper than watching NBC Nightly News or reading CNN.com to learn about the major issues facing this country and to determine what is the truth and what is a bold-faced lie.

Obama's Actions Compared to His Words

Earlier this week, President Obama tried to blame the soaring deficits on his predecessor, George Bush. 

"It’s like somebody goes to a restaurant, orders a big steak dinner — martini, all that stuff — and then, just as you’re sitting down, they leave and accuse you of running up the tab."
-- President Obama, June 2012.

Really?

Actually, President Obama, it's like somebody goes to a restaurant, orders a big steak dinner -- martini, all that stuff -- and then you sit down, order two more huge steaks, a couple of lobsters and a round of martinis for everyone at the bar and then leave, leaving the bill to your children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. This is the more appropriate analogy, Mr. President.

President Obama's talking points about the steak dinner shows just how out of touch with the truth he really is.  The truth is that the debt has increased more in Obama's three-plus years than it did in Bush's eight years.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-57400369-503544/national-debt-has-increased-more-under-obama-than-under-bush/

But this isn't the only whopper our Campaigner in Chief has espoused in recent weeks about his spending habits.  

"My opponent won’t admit it, but it’s starting to appear in places, like real liberal outlets, like the Wall Street Journal: Since I’ve been president, federal spending has risen at the lowest pace in nearly 60 years."
-- President Obama, May 2012

Unbelieveable.

The truth is that even if you give President Obama every possible benefit of "Democrat fuzzy math" -- including moving all outlays in FY2009 made by the Obama Administration to the Bush Administration -- Obama increased spending by a whopping 24 percent.
 http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2012/05/even_with_nuttings_math_obama_1st_term_spending_up_24_vs_bushs_last_term.html

Obama has not been truthful with Americans about his spending habits and intentions, almost from the day he was elected.

“Today, I’m pledging to cut the deficit we inherited in half by the end of my first term in office. This will not be easy. It will require us to make difficult decisions and face challenges we’ve long neglected. But I refuse to leave our children with a debt that they cannot repay — and that means taking responsibility right now, in this administration, for getting our spending under control."
-- President Obama, February 2009

Three years and $6 trillion in additional debt later, President Obama continues to try to make uninformed voters believe he's not a big spender. 

Let's hope that the majority of voters take the time to search for the truth, instead of taking anything he says at face value.