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Mitt Romney says so many provably false statements in his stump speeches that it's hard to know where to begin to tear them down. Apparently, for Fareed Zakaria, when you use the title of his book out of context, that gets him in fact checking mode. What is obviously intended to be a red meat, "Obama hates America", jingoistic rallying cry for Romney's followers is a matter of great discussion on Fareed Zakaria GPS weekly. Set the record straight, Fareed:

In 1990, China represented 2% of global gross domestic product. It has quadrupled, to 8%, and it's rising. By most estimates, China's economy will become the world's largest between 2016 and 2018. And this is not simply an economic story. China's military capacity and reach are also expanding. Beijing's defense spending is likely to surpass America's by 2025.

It's not just China that's rising. Emerging powers on every continent have achieved political stability and economic growth and are becoming active on the global stage. Twenty years ago Turkey was a fragile democracy, dominated by its army, constantly in need of Western economic bailouts. Today, Turkey has a trillion-dollar economy that grew 6.6% last year. Since April 2009, Turkey has created 3.4 million jobs - that's more than the entire European Union, Russia and South Africa put together.

Look in this hemisphere: In 1990, Brazil was emerging from decades of dictatorship and was wracked by inflation rates that reached 3,000 percent. Today, Brazil is a stable democracy, steadily growing with foreign-exchange reserves of $350 billion.

I could go on, Mitt.

Barack Obama has succeeded in preserving and even enhancing U.S. influence in this world precisely because he has recognized these new forces at work. He has traveled to the emerging nations and spoken admiringly of their rise. He replaced the old Western club and made the Group of 20 the central decision-making forum for global economic affairs. By emphasizing multilateral organizations, alliance structures and international legitimacy, he got results.

That's all too much fact and critical thinking for your average Republican voter. They don't want to contemplate the reality that all those "We're #1!!" chants mask a country where we're actually ranked 37th in medical outcomes, 14th out of 34 OECD countries for reading skills, 17th for science and a below-average 25th for mathematics, and 28th in life expectancy. They cheer on someone whose personal income lands him in the top one-tenth of one percent, ignoring that almost half of Americans are at or near the poverty level.

I'm sure that even as I type this, Zakaria's comments are filling up with outraged notes from conservatives denouncing him as anti-American for even suggesting that Mitt might want to educate himself on the realities of the world. But frankly, I think it's high time the media start doing this for all Americans.

It's a whole new world out there.

Seriously, these people are nuts:

[Grover] Norquist is now mapping out how he can ensure further anti-tax victories by securing Republican majorities. In an interview with the National Journal, he mused that a GOP mandate would obviously enact an extension of the Bush tax cuts, work to maintain a repatriation holiday for corporate profits, and even pass House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) plan that jeopardizes Medicare. But when asked what Republicans should do if faced with a Democratic majority that won’t keep the tax cuts, Norquist had a simple answer: “impeach” Obama.

NJ: What if the Democrats still have control? What’s your scenario then?

NORQUIST: Obama can sit there and let all the tax [cuts] lapse, and then the Republicans will have enough votes in the Senate in 2014 to impeach. The last year, he’s gone into this huddle where he does everything by executive order. He’s made no effort to work with Congress.

The Republican Party is being ruled by clowns and idiots, to put it mildly. But even with the Joe Walshes and Dana Rohrabachers, there's no way that the Republicans will go down this route. Impeaching over letting tax holiday they voted for expire? Getouttahere, Grover. You may think you rule Washington, but that's just delusional.

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Credit: ThinkProgress

Two days before the deadline, President Obama signed a defense spending bill into law - while admitting he has "serious reservations with certain provisions" related to how suspected terrorists are held and questioned.

In a written statement, Mr. Obama makes clear he objects to sections in the National Defense Authorization Act that "regulate the detention, interrogation and prosecution of suspected terrorists."

Despite his objections, Mr. Obama says he signed the measure, known by its initials NDAA, because it authorizes needed funding to defend the nation, support the military and renew "vital national security programs."

Among the provisions to which the president objects is a grant of permission for the indefinite military detention of terror suspects by the military.

Mr. Obama said he didn't ask for such authority and doesn't want it.

Flat out, the provisions suck, no matter what kind of rationalizations put on them. They codify measures put in place by the Bush administration that run counter not only to our Constitution, but to the notion of the rule of law since the Magna Carta.

It's all well and good that Obama says he won't use it with his signing statement (copy of statement in full at ThinkProgress) and the pragmatic side of me acknowledges that it would be a huge political minefield to send back the larger NDAA two days before the deadline (Obama hates the troops!) because of some discrete provisions that can be dealt with separately later. So I'm not going to join the crowd outraged by this move, as heinous as I think it is. Simply put, those provisions shouldn't have been in the NDAA to start with but the larger budgetary requirements made a whole lot of Democrats who have expressed dismay about those provisions go ahead and vote for it. I heard Debbie Wasserman Schultz on The Randi Rhodes Show using that exact calculus with guest host Nicole Sandler, but assuring Nicole that she was already planning on working with other Dems to repeal those provisions as soon as Congress reconvenes.

However, that's some really difficult toothpaste to squeeze back into the tube. For a measured, sensible look at both sides of the NDAA debate, see this two part essay here and here. Quote:

The New York Times editorial on the NDAA is, unfortunately, representative of many of the false alarms being sounded about the legislation. The Times complains that the NDAA “ban[s] . . . spending any money for civilian trials for any accused terrorist,” “strip[s] the F.B.I., federal prosecutors and federal courts of all or most of their power to arrest and prosecute terrorists,” and “give[s] future presidents the authority to throw American citizens into prison for life without charges or a trial.”

If this were an accurate description of the final legislation, it would be even more extreme than the House-passed version, which the President’s senior advisers recommended that he veto. But the bill the President just signed does none of these things. (For a comprehensive run-down of what the bill includes, see this post from Bobby Chesney and Ben Wittes.) Yes, the House-passed bill would have comprehensively prohibited expenditures for criminal trials of terrorism suspects; but the Administration successfully insisted that the conferees strip that provision from the final bill. As for law enforcement authorities, the conferees added the provision quoted above, expressly confirming that “[n]othing in [section 1022] shall be construed to affect the existing criminal enforcement and national security authorities of the Federal Bureau of Investigation or any other domestic law enforcement agency with regard to a covered person.” Therefore the bill cannot possibly be read to “strip the F.B.I., federal prosecutors and federal courts of all or most of their power to arrest and prosecute terrorists.”

And, as to lifetime detention of U.S. persons, the bill by its very terms (thanks to an amendment introduced by Senator Feinstein) confirms what would have been the proper reading anyway—namely, that its detention authorization provision (section 1021) does not “affect existing law or authorities relating to the detention of United States citizens, lawful resident aliens of the United States, or any other persons who are captured or arrested in the United States.” For good measure, section 1022 also provides that its purported presumption of military detention “does not extend to citizens of the United States.” The NDAA therefore leaves open, and does not affect, the unresolved questions raised in the Padillaand al-Marri cases–i.e., whether the AUMF authorizes the long-term military detention of U.S. citizens and lawful resident aliens who are apprehended in the United States. Those questions will not be raised as long as President Obama is in office, since “it is the firm position of the Obama Administration that suspected terrorists arrested inside the United States will—in keeping with long-standing tradition—be processed through our Article III courts, as they should be,” and that “when it comes to U.S. citizens involved in terrorist-related activity, whether they are captured overseas or at home, we will prosecute them in our criminal justice system.”

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There are moments where I despair for the fate of this country, because it seems to me that we operate from completely different sets of realities based on the same set of facts. Unfortunately, Jim Cramer exemplifies this kind of "make-your-own-reality" within the media. You'd think he'd have learned after his humiliation on The Daily Show. But no, Jim Cramer unabashedly keeps blurring the lines between business reporting and market advocacy.

Cramer came on Hardball on Friday to insist that Wall Street just hates Obama's guts and they're just waiting for that cuddly Republican to get into office before they unleash all those jobs we all know they have. It's all that taxation and regulations that mean ol' Barack Obama insists on inflicting on Wall Street.

CRAMER: Okay, first, I’m going to agree with you, that the market has been fabulous, which is one of the reasons I’m always so astonished when people tell me that the problem is Obama. I mean, it’s clear Washington can be dysfunctional, but Democrats and Republicans not getting together. But when you get offline with CEOs, it’s not just Wall Street, but Industrial America, what they tend to say is, listen, we want to add, we want to hire, we want to grow in the United States, but everything is so up in the air and when it gets to the point where we’re thinking about what Washington’s going to do, we know we’re going to be the loser if President Obama is making the decision, because President Obama does not favor wealth creation and corporate profits. Not, the profits are huge. People have made a lot of money, but that is the rap that I hear.

MATTHEWS: What is it particularly when a banker or a rich guy, anybody who’s got to make thse big decisions—well, let’s look at some of these numbers first, because I think they’re really informative. When President Obama took office January 20th, 2009, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 7949. Today, it closed at 11, 509, up from yesterday. That’s a 31% increase since Obama’s been president. Well, that alone sould be, wow, this guy’s good. And then there’s corporate profits. The New York Times cites a study by Northeastern University, and economist reports, “since the recovery began in June of 2009, corporate profits captured 88% of the growth in real national income while aggregate wages and salaries accounted for only slightly more than 1% of that growth.” This is the stuff that causes revolutions, from the bottom, not from the top.
[..]
CRAMER: Look, I’m telling you that when you get off the desk with them, they really just feel like, look, if we got a Republican in there, we could really do a great thing in this country by hiring a lot of people.

My rage meter at Cramer's gleeful dishonesty is just redlining. CEOs are telling him privately that they're just waiting for a Republican in the White House to hire people while Americans suffer through massive unemployment? Well then NAME NAMES, Cramer, you dishonest jerk, and tell us just which CEOs are telling you this and who are acting so treasonously. Because Chris Matthews--to his credit, since you apparently don't believe in offering up these facts to these business owners--pointed out all the reasons that Obama could hardly be considered anti-business. These asses were bailed out by American taxpayers, posted record profits, pocketed nice little bonuses...but they need a Republican in the White House to pass that largesse back to the Americans? Well to put it bluntly, eff that.

And eff Cramer and his ridiculous advocacy for Republican lies.

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Perhaps it's a testimony to just how tenuous and potentially dangerous the situation is in Egypt, but even Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell--who has made ensuring President Obama only a single term his foremost priority--could not bring himself to wax partisan about the White House's approach to the Egyptian riots.

When lobbed a big, fat softball by David Gregory, perhaps hoping for a more political response, McConnell demurred and reiterated his support for the actions of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Obama.

SEN. McCONNELL: Yeah, I, I don't have any criticism of President Obama or Secretary Clinton at this point. I mean, they know full well that we can't give the Egyptians advice about who their leadership is. That's beyond the reach of the United States. And I think we ought to speak as one voice during this crisis, and so I'm not prepared...

MR. GREGORY: What about, what about U.S. military aid, over a billion dollars, $1.3 billion? Is that on the table? Should that be withheld if things don't go the way we'd like it to go?

SEN. McCONNELL: Yeah, look, answering those kind of hypotheticals is not a good idea. We need to wait and see what emerges in Egypt.

While I applaud McConnell's restraint and desire to speak with a unified voice, I wouldn't get too used to it.

Transcripts below the fold

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From Time for Change at Democratic Underground, part of a very long piece about the division among Democrats. I thought this nailed it: Yes, the administration and Congress have accomplished a lot -- but where are the programs and legislation that will help the people who are drowning out here?

This is the difference. The priorities are not the same, and the upcoming attack on Social Security and the austerity proposals to come will prove it:

Obama’s supporters note that many of us don’t even get excited about such victories as the repeal of DADT, and they ask “what has happened to DU?” What has happened is that we have a Democratic president whom many or most of us have come to believe is very bad for our country. More specifically, we believe that his actions have repeatedly supported the wrong side in the ongoing class war. We cannot get excited about small victories because they don’t seem to us to matter that much in the context of today’s overall picture.

What do I mean by small victories, and why would I describe the repeal of DADT as a small victory? Well, to be blunt about it, many of us believe that the class war is the defining issue of our time because so much else depends on it. The result of this class war will determine how the necessities of life are distributed in our society. It will determine the status or even the existence of long-standing social safety net programs such as Medicare and Social Security. It will determine whether the corporatocracy is allowed to maintain and extend their control over systems of communication in our country. It will determine how many people are able to find jobs and obtain adequate health care, shelter, and food for themselves and their families. And it will determine whether or not any restraints will be put on the ability of the corporatocracy to destroy our planet.

With all that at stake, we can’t get too excited about victories not related to the class war. DADT was repealed because the corporatocracy didn’t care to fight against repeal. That did not threaten their profits in the least. They were probably happy to let it be repealed because it gives the appearance to some degree that we are a progressive nation. If DADT repeal threatened their profits or their power they would have fought tooth and nail against it, and it would not have been repealed.

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Revisionist history is in full bloom on The Chris Matthews Show, all in the name of undermining Barack Obama. Now, Barack Obama is guilty of not-connecting with voters, unlike Bill Clinton.

There's been a lot of this revisionism in the remembered legacy of Bill Clinton amongst the Villagers. I have several theories as to why: 1) hindsight is always kinder as the rough edges smooth over in the intervening years; 2) some of the Villagers are too young and too intellectually incurious to know about the toxic culture of the Beltway during the Clinton years; and 3) in true bobblehead fashion, they don't really care that they said one thing during one news cycle and something diametrically opposite in another.

In the case of Chris Matthews, I have to believe that it's the third option in play. Keep in mind that the whole dubbing of the DC media as the Villagers came into play in their reaction to Bill Clinton and how they felt that he and Hillary did not properly show obsequiousness to the powers that be in the Beltway cocktail circuit. And Matthews was definitely part of that group. Even years after Clinton's term was over, Matthews could not let go of Clinton's infidelities and impeachment, even crediting that with Hillary Clinton's personal success as a politician.

But now, Tweety finds him the consummate politician, relating to the crowd in a way that Obama cannot, even editing the video of that CNBC Town Hall to not show Obama's response, and then bemoaning that he did not take the time to relate to her a time when he and Michelle suffered financially.

Um, what? Seriously, Villagers, with your own disregard for the the middle class that you still don't report that the Republicans are fighting desperately to keep "small business owners" like Bechtel and Koch Industries from paying higher taxes, we're supposed to feel that the President should bite his lip more and "feel our pain" for a higher approval rating? I'm not too young to remember how you and your fellow media mates mocked Clinton for doing that.

And ultimately, it's all more of the same push to make voters feel dissatisfied with Obama: he didn't get visibly angry enough during the BP Gulf oil spill, he's not empathetic enough to the struggling middle class now, his agenda is too left wing, his agenda is too centrist, he simultaneously hates big business and is a crony for it.

The question we have to ask ourselves is why there's such a big narrative push to instill dissatisfaction in some way--in any way--against Obama right now before the mid-term elections. I suggest to you that it's a combination of the elitism of the Villagers and the corporations that own them.

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Chris Matthews is at it again. The man who believes that "Life is a campaign" alternates hot and cold with Obama like no one else in the corporate media, but never with any kind of reasonable logic. One good speech and Tweety is effusively telling us about tingles running up his leg. Get a few Republicans to spin some lies about health care and then all of the sudden, he starts likening Obama to Nero.

Now, with all the obstacles and obstruction Obama has had to face in the last two years, Matthews looks at the economy and an approval rating in the low 40s (the lowest it's been), Matthews wonders if Obama isn't ready to just hang it up and refuse to run for re-election.

Mind you, no one on the panel things this is even close to a real possibility, but look how Tweety's face lights up when WaPo's Michael Gerson (also formerly GWB's speechwriter and a member of the WH Iraq Group) suggests that perhaps Hillary could step in for the departing Obama.

But ridiculous Matthews/Machiavellian fantasies aside, this is just part of a larger media meme to continually reinforce in consumers' minds the Obama presidency is a failure. Never mind the fact that his economic plan (as milquetoast-y as it admittedly was) pulled us back from financial collapse and has constantly had the plan lied about and derided by the Republicans. Never mind that the economy failing was the result of 30 YEARS of Republican economic practices and that we can hardly expect to bounce back in 20 months. Never mind that there has been no measure, no bill, no platform for which the Republicans won't try to obstruct. Never mind that job growth is slowly coming back. Never mind that the election is not for another two years. The corporate media wants you to associate "failure" with "Obama" before the mid-term elections too.

Funny how the GOP is in complete disarray, what with the tea baggers kicking out establishment candidates but who will struggle to gain traction in general elections, internecine fights to be the voice of the opposition (I'm looking at you, Boehner and Cantor) and the most popular GOP figure being a rogue, uncontrollable figure who has substituted tweets for press conferences. Yet the discussion on the Sunday shows doesn't reflect that, it instead throws up improbable hypotheticals like Obama declining to run for a second term.

Transcripts below the fold

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(h/t Liberal Democratic Party on Facebook)

'Nuff said.

Amato: Check out Video Cafe for a ton of other videos...

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WBAI’s Talk Back! interview with Michael Moore - Monday March 1, 2010 5:00pm

At 56:55: “There’s so many great websites now. I mean you could just go down the whole list of them: Crooks and Liars and — If I start going down that list they’re going to get mad at me for forgetting them so I better not do that.”

Michael Moore has an offer for President Obama:

Dear President Obama,

I understand you may be looking to replace Rahm Emanuel as your chief of staff.

I would like to humbly offer myself, yours truly, as his replacement.

I will come to D.C. and clean up the mess that's been created around you. I will work for $1 a year. I will help the Dems on Capitol Hill find their spines and I will teach them how to nonviolently beat the Republicans to a pulp.

And I will help you get done what the American people sent you there to do. I don't need much, just a cot in the White House basement will do.

Now, don't get too giddy with excitement over my offer, because you and I are going to be up at 5 in the morning, 7 days a week and I am going to get you pumped up for battle every single day (see photo). Each morning you and I will do 100 jumping jacks and you will repeat after me:

"THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ELECTED ME, NOT THE REPUBLICANS, TO RUN THE COUNTRY! I AM IN CHARGE! I WILL ORDER ALL OBSTRUCTIONISTS OUTTA MY WAY! IF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE DON'T LIKE WHAT I'M DOING THEY CAN THROW MY ASS OUT IN 2012. IN THE MEANTIME, I CALL THE SHOTS ON THEIR BEHALF! NOW, CONGRESS, DROP AND GIVE ME 50!!"

Then we will put on our jogging sweats and run up to Capitol Hill. We will take names, kick butts, and then take some more names. If we have to give a few noogies or half-nelson's, then so be it. In our pockets we will have a piece of paper to show the pansy Dems just how much they won by in 2008 -- and the poll results that show the majority of Americans oppose the Afghanistan and Iraq wars and want the bankers punished. Like drill sergeants, we will get right up in their faces and ask them, "WHAT PART OF THE PUBLIC MANDATE DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND, SOLDIER?!! DROP AND GIVE ME 50!"

I know this is the job Rahm Emanuel was supposed to be doing.

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