Troll Busters! Library of Troll-Busting Posts

Time line of Obama Administration response:

April 20

The claim that the banks give most money to Democrats is untrue, at least not in most cases.

Bank of America actually operates two PACs: one out of Washington, and one out of Delaware. In 2008, the D.C.-based PAC gave 55 percent of its congressional race donations to Democrats, but 54 percent of its Senate donations to Republicans; the Delaware-based PAC split its donations to candidates down the middle, but gave 58 percent of its PAC-to-PAC expenditures to Republican causes.

In the 2010 cycle so far, the D.C. PAC has given 53 percent of its Congressional contributions to Republicans and 91 percent of its Senate contributions to Republicans, and the Delaware PAC gave just over two-thirds of its contributions to Republicans

From HumeSkeptic (over there):

Facts you will never see in a Nasiripour article:

Dow:
End of Clinton’s term/Start of Bush term: about 12,000
End of Bush term/Start of Obama term: about 7,000
Dow today (13 months into Obama term): about 10,500
———————–
GDP
GDP growth rate during Q4 2008 was negative 6.3%.
GDP growth rate during Q4 2009 was positive 5.9%.
That is a 12.2% swing in 12 months.
———————–
Jobs
Job losses/month at the end of Bush term: 700, 000
Job loss/month now: Ha! It is a job gain of 162,000

The stimulus has created around 2 million jobs.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/17/business/economy/17leonhardt.html?ref=business

From the brink of The Second Great Depression to economic recovery in 12 months.
That is not just good performance, it is SPECTACULAR performance.

KQuark says:

“This is exactly why Democrats always lose the spin battle. Both the right and left are downplaying the jobs numbers this month even though more jobs have been created this month than in three years. Everyone has to put qualifiers on it like it’s only census jobs when it isn’t. The most important part is they all miss the big picture. The recovery I’ve always said is going to be a long slog but you can’t ignore the reality of this positive trend when you look at this graph.”

The four best lies about the new health care law.

http://www.slate.com/id/2249125/

CEI’s Horner enlists Fox News in manufacturing another climate email scandal

CRU emails did not show that scientists manipulated temperature data
Fox News, right-wing blogs falsely asserted CRU emails are evidence scientists manipulated data.

NASA did not say its data are “in worse shape” than CRU’s

http://mediamatters.org/research/201003310031

RECESS APPOINTMENTS

President Barack Obama has elected to bypass the Senate and unilaterally install 15 nominees, including the controversial Craig Becker to serve on the National Labor Relations Board, a move sure to infuriate Republicans.

U.S. take if it sells its Citi stake to settle cost of bailout: $8 billion

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2010/03/27/ST2010032705896.html?sid=ST2010032705896

The Obama administration is making final preparations to sell its stake in the New York bank, according to industry and federal sources. At today’s prices, the sale would net more than $8 billion, by far the largest profit returned from any firm that accepted bailout funds, and the transaction would be the second-largest stock sale in history. ..

The windfall expected from the stock sale would amount to a validation of the rescue plan adopted by government officials during the height of the financial panic, when the banking system neared the brink of collapse. A year ago, Citigroup’s stock hovered around a dollar a share, and the bank’s future seemed in doubt. On Friday, the stock closed at $4.31.

If the sale proceeds as planned, Citigroup would be able to cut nearly all of its ties to the $700 billion Troubled Assets Relief Program. Meanwhile, the administration could highlight the profit generated from the rescue of big banks.

RE:REPEAL OF THE ACT
http://www.slate.com/id/2248560/

What would it take to repeal health care reform?

Realistically, a Republican majority in the House and Senate, plus a Republican president. Even if the GOP won back a majority in the House and Senate in 2010, President Obama could still veto any legislation that would repeal any part of health care reform. Republicans would then need a two-thirds majority in both chambers to override his veto. That’s unlikely.
If the Republicans control the House, Senate, and presidency in 2012, they will still need 60 votes in the Senate to overhaul the bill in its entirety. They could, however, cut off funding for it through the budget reconciliation process, which only requires a 51-vote majority. But they wouldn’t be able to tamper with any part of the legislation that doesn’t affect the budget, such as the ban on discrimination against pre-existing conditions.

RE: STATE CHALLEGES
http://www.slate.com/id/2248560/
The Virginia attorney general has promised to file a lawsuit against the federal government claiming that it can’t compel Virginians to buy health insurance. His supporters say health care reform violates the 10th Amendment. Does it?
Probably not. The 10th Amendment states that “[t]he powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.” The federal government, however, can claim two Constitutional justifications for mandating health care. One is the right to regulate interstate commerce, which includes any business that operates across state lines. (Even if not all health insurance companies operate in more than one state, Congress can still regulate them as long as that regulation is part of a comprehensive interstate scheme, according to the Supreme Court.) Congress also has the Constitutional right to tax. Just as Congress taxes polluting companies for imposing a burden on other people, it could tax Americans who don’t buy health insurance for doing the same. As if to emphasize the point, the fine for not buying insurance is levied by the IRS.

RE: THE FINES FOR NO INS.
http://www.slate.com/id/2248560/

There’s a fine for not having insurance. How does the government know whether you have insurance or not?

Through the tax system. The legislation doesn’t explicitly say how the individual mandate for health insurance will be enforced, but taxpayers will probably be required to prove that they own insurance when filing their taxes each year. (If you get insurance through your employer, they’ll help take care of it. If you’re self-employed, your insurer will probably send you a document to submit with your other tax forms.) If a taxpayer doesn’t have insurance, the IRS will notify him of his nonenrollment and show him how to sign up through their state’s insurance exchange. If he still refuses to enroll, the IRS will levy a fine that shows up on his tax forms. The fee starts small in 2014

RE: HOW THE HCR BILL REDUCES THE DEFICIT

http://www.slate.com/id/2248560/

The bill costs nearly $1 trillion in the first 10 years. How exactly does it reduce the deficit?

First, it slows spending on Medicare and Medicaid by reducing the rates those programs pay for services such as hospital visits. (It also reduces the amounts paid out through the Medicare Advantage program.) Second, it introduces new taxes, including a 0.9 percent Medicare payroll tax hike for workers who make more than $200,000 a year (and couples who make more than $250,000 a year) and a 3.8 percent tax on unearned income for the same tax brackets. Both taxes will take effect in 2013. Lastly, the so-called “Cadillac” tax on relatively high-end employer-sponsored insurance plans will target individual plans that cost more than $10,200 every year and family plans that cost more than $27,500. (The “Cadillac” tax won’t roll out until 2018.) The Congressional Budget Office estimates that, together, these measures will decrease spending and increase revenue enough to reduce the deficit by $143 billion over the first 10 years and more than $1 trillion in the second decade.

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/a/m/americandad/2010/03/an-open-letter-to-conservative.php?ref=mp

An open letter to conservatives from a conservative who has documented every hypocrisy and then some. Very good for Troll Busting.

The impeccable bipartisan pedigree of “deem and pass”

Now Pelosi’s plan supposedly outrages Republicans, but they used the same tactic well over a hundred times.

http://www.salon.com/news/healthcare_reform/index.html?story=/news/feature/2010/03/17/democrats_healthcare