Dinesh D'Souza Is A BALD-FACED LIAR

From Ian Reifowitz at Daily Kos

You've likely heard of a new "documentary" film called "2016: Obama's America." The film is the brainchild of right-wing culture warrior Dinesh D'Souza. Last week it was the #9 movie in the country, and has taken in just about $20 million to date.

Before I go on to demonstrate how D'Souza flat-out lied, here is a brief discussion of the film from Richard Brody's article in the New Yorker.

The movie “2016: Obama’s America” is a work of propaganda that offers base innuendo in lieu of argument, but the parts of it that are authentically engaging and account for its slender cinematic appeal likely have as much to do with the film’s popularity as its anti-Obama message does. They’re also inseparable from the film’s most scurrilous insinuations. 

(snip) In the movie, D’Souza (adapting his book “The Roots of Obama’s Rage”) accuses the President of sharing the anticolonialist doctrine of his father, Barack Obama Sr., and of planning to weaken and impoverish the United States in furtherance of that doctrine. He suggests that Obama didn’t act more directly to these ends in his first term because of the need to get reëlected, but that, if he does, the mask will drop and Obama, having bamboozled many American voters, will put his nefarious plan into motion.

What D'Souza has done here is part and parcel of the right-wing's campaign to paint Obama as, in the words Mitt Romney used to describe the President's ideas, "extraordinarily foreign." The right seeks to "other" Obama in various ways, from the low-brow of birtherism to the high-brow of a supposedly serious film by a conservative intellectual.

D'Souza summarized the aforementioned The Roots of Obama's Rage in a Forbes article called "How Obama Thinks." In addition to making a series of simply absurd claims -- the best was the charge that, regarding NASA, Obama has sought to "convert a space agency into a Muslim and international outreach" -- D'Souza sought to explain Obama's overarching political worldview:

Clearly the anticolonial ideology of Barack Obama Sr. goes a long way to explain the actions and policies of his son in the Oval Office....In his own writings Obama stresses the centrality of his father not only to his beliefs and values but to his very identity.

D'Souza described how Obama told of weeping at his father's grave and feeling his father's pain. D'Souza then summarized:

In a sense, through the earth itself, he communes with his father and receives his father's spirit. Obama takes on his father's struggle, not by recovering his body but by embracing his cause. He decides that where Obama Sr. failed, he will succeed. Obama Sr.'s hatred of the colonial system becomes Obama Jr.'s hatred; his botched attempt to set the world right defines his son's objective. Through a kind of sacramental rite at the family tomb, the father's struggle becomes the son's birthright.

As evidence, D'Souza quotes straight from the metaphorical horse's mouth, Barack Obama himself:

"It was into my father's image, the black man, son of Africa, that I'd packed all the attributes I sought in myself." Even though his father was absent for virtually all his life, Obama writes, "My father's voice had nevertheless remained untainted, inspiring, rebuking, granting or withholding approval. You do not work hard enough, Barry. You must help in your people's struggle. Wake up, black man!"

"Wow," the reader must be thinking. This D'Souza has nailed Obama. There's no way that rascally Obama can get out of this one. He actually wrote those words.

And he did. But, having read Dreams From My Father  -- not to mention every other word President Obama has published or uttered in public -- in researching my own book, which I'll call the real Obama's America, I knew right away something was wrong with D'Souza's quote.

I went back to the source, and found the quotation, which begins on page 334 (in the 2nd edition) and goes on to the next page. That's when I knew D'Souza was a liar.

The thing is, D’Souza doesn’t include the very next sentences after "Wake up, black man!" In those sentences Obama tells of how he learned of his father’s failures and then says of his father's image -- the image D'Souza quoted as proof that the son was and is devoted to his father’s ideals: “that image had suddenly vanished….To think that all my life I’d been wrestling with nothing more than a ghost.…The King is overthrown….The emerald curtain is pulled aside.” The son then spoke of his “newfound liberation.”
But D’Souza tells nothing of that. The quotation taken in whole was about how Obama was now free of the need to try and emulate his father, or what little he had known of him growing up (this event took place in 1988, when Obama visited Kenya). D’Souza, by providing only the first part of the quote, gives the exact opposite impression. That’s called lying.

In fact, it’s the exact same thing Mitt Romney did last November. Romney ran an ad built around video of Obama saying, "If we keep talking about the economy, we’re going to lose." Of course, the full quotation was:

"Sen. McCain's campaign actually said, and I quote, ‘If we keep talking about the economy, we're going to lose.’"

What is it with conservatives and falsely editing other people's words, anyway?

So, the next time someone tries to tell you about how the "real" Barack Obama is revealed by Dinesh D'Souza in his book or in his new movie, I hope you'll remember to come back with this evidence.

It is crystal-clear, 100% incontrovertible evidence that Dinesh D'Souza is a liar.

Michelle Obama: "One of the Finest" Convention Speeches Ever Says CNN's Gordon Stewart

FROM IAN REIFOWITZ at Daily Kos

I strongly encourage you to read the whole article, which was just posted on CNN. I apologize for not being able to do much more than give you a few graphs, but it really does speak for itself.

(CNN) -- If Barack Obama is re-elected on November 6, he will owe more to his first lady than any president ever to win a second term. 

On Tuesday night in Charlotte, North Carolina, Michelle Obama gave one of the finest speeches ever delivered at a national political convention. More important, it could have more impact on the immediate future of the country than her husband's celebrated 2004 keynote address to the Democratic National Convention in Boston. Why?

Her speech tied the Obamas' personal stories directly to the lives of millions of voters struggling not to be the first generation of Americans unable to offer hope of greater opportunities to their children than they had, thus drawing a contrast with Mitt Romney as an unnamed but unmistakable caricature of privilege without shading her talk with negativity or animosity.

Whether or not you agree that Michelle's speech will be the difference between an Obama and a Romney victory in November, I don't think there's any question about the overall thrust of this article. Mrs. Obama delivered a beautiful, moving, and powerful speech. It was one of the finest I've ever seen. The piece was written by Gordon Stewart, the former deputy chief speechwriter to President Jimmy Carter.

In a night of great speeches Robert Wexler reaches out to Jewish Americans on Israel

Last night the Democratic National Convention of 2012 got off to a rousing start. Reminiscent of the All-Star game in Baseball, speaker after speaker hit rhetorical home run after home run. Honestly, as a Democratic partisan, I have to say that some of the great speeches (not in order) from Duval Patrick to Julian Castro to Ted Strickland, to Michelle Obama all struck a strong cord with me and gave me hope for this election season.

But even more than the speeches, I was so impressed with the diversity of the crowd. I was impressed with how ALL Americans were represented at this convention, not just White Christian Americans. Looking at the crowd I felt heartened by the fact that there people of all races and creeds participating and supporting the candidates and the party. More than that... as Howard Fineman observed on MSNBC with Chris Matthews, Democrats didn't have to try to show they were with the Middle Class, it was obvious that they WERE from the Middle Class. They didn't have to try to be something they weren't.

All in all it was a great night.

As part of that night I got a chance to hear former House Member and President of the S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace Robert Wexler speak in an outreach to Jewish voters with regards to President Obama's friendship and America's strong alliance to one of our greatest friends in the world, Israel. As many here who read my diaries are aware that American Jewish politics and our friendship with Israel are two of my strong issues. SO... I thought that addressing this issue on the first night of the convention was telling particularly as the Republican LIE Machine is working overtime in key states like Florida and Pennsylvania to sway Jewish voters away from the President.

Anyway, here are some of Wexlers words:

Over the past four years, the president has proven this commitment time and again, in both word and deed. And the Democratic platform reflects the president's unflinching commitment to Israel's security and future as a Jewish state.

To strengthen Israel's qualitative military advantage, the president has increased security assistance to Israel to record levels-- more than any other president.

When he visited Sderot in 2008—an Israeli town along the Gaza border besieged by constant rocket attacks, President Obama saw for himself the toll terrorism takes on Israelis. And that's why he secured the funds to deploy the iron dome anti-rocket defense system which has already saved countless Israeli lives.

And under President Obama, the U.S. and Israel are firmly committed to stopping one of the gravest threats to international security: Iran's quest for nuclear weapons. The president has explicitly stated that an Iranian nuclear weapon is "unacceptable" And that He will mobilize all instruments of U.S. power-- economic, diplomatic, Intelligence, And military-- to prevent, not contain, a nuclear Iran.

While the Republicans dither about whether or not the Democratic Platform should call Jerusalem Israel's capital, the President shows his true friendship to the Jewish people through concrete actions.He doesn't need to rely on distortion or deception to make his point, he simply shows his friendship through his actions. 

Moreover (and Wexler left this out), the President shows his friendship everyday whether it is creating a Kosher Kitchen for staffers during Pesach or actually hosting a Seder at the White House, or affirming Jewish History month, or actually having strong Jewish advisers (including his Chief of Staff), or showing his friendship at the many Jewish Political functions around the U.S.  

And how are Jewish Americans responding to the President? Well, as of the last Gallup poll, Jewish American voters were committed 64%-29 % for the President (which when matched up to the same time in 2008 represents a stronger margin). That margin is only increasing and as of late July, a survey of Jewish voters showed the President leading 68%-25%.

The Republicans are serious about trying for the "Jewish vote" this time around. Mitt Romney is specifically focused on it:

Next week, the Republican Jewish Coalition will conduct a voter outreach drive in South Florida, Cleveland and Philadelphia. The blitz, part of an overall $6.5 million RJC effort to sway Jewish voters, will be based on prior polling that will “micro-target” Jewish undecideds. 

So to have a guy like Wexler taking "a swing" at this issue on the first night of the convention shows just how important the President thinks this is. 

I too think it is important and it is important that as supporters of the President we are out there countering the Republican lies and distortions about the Presidents statements and actions. Moreover, we should demand from them (the Republicans) what they would do differently and how that would make a positive difference, because for all their bullshit... they can't (or won't) articulate their own plan.

Most important however is working within the community and spreading the word that President Obama really is a one of the best friends Israel and the Jewish people have had in the White House. We don't have to lie, distort, or deceive to do it. We simply have to tell the truth and as Wexler so aptly did, show the record. 

Report From Israel, Part 1

The sun has risen on day 3 of my first visit to Israel.  This trip was motivated in part by my increasing participation in pro-Israel (really anti-anti-Israel) blogging and other activities.  It was time to see it for myself.

So, for starters, Tel Aviv is amazing.   I am struck by how much of a typical world city it is - jumbled, chaotic, and crowded.  It is much more reminiscent of cities in Asia and Latin America than the US  It is very much a city of apartment blocks.  There is also a strange lack of a centrally concentrated office district - rather skyscrapers spring up at random intervals. Yesterday I rode a bike all around town and quite far out into Ramat Gan - the whole thing just keeps going.

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Now that I've seen it for myself, I am happy to report that I can quickly dispense with two of the most common criticisms of Israel that one encounters from partisans in the online world:

The first is the "Apartheid" smear.  Anyone who has propagated this notion has never been to Tel Aviv, does not know what Apartheid is, or is just a complete idiot - or most likely, all three.

All I've seen here in Israel is people of all colors and backgrounds - Jews from everywhere, Arabs, tons of random Asian and African migrants, religious and secular, gays and straights - using the same streets, eating in the same restaurants, and going about their lives in exactly the same space.  In fact, things here are the opposite of Apartheid - everyone lives on top of one another and Israel is the most post-racial place I have ever been to.  After just a little while here I've stopped being able to tell who's who, in the narrow raced-obsessed sense that we Americans have.  Is the guy with the brown skin and dreadlocks a Caucasian Jew with a deep tan, or an Ethiopian Jew, or an American tourist, or a Jamaican tourist, or a Korean tourist?  Is he gay or straight?  In Israel, it all blends together.  After a day here you wouldn't be able to tell either.

The second criticism I can dispense with is one that I think may have actually been valid at one time.  And that is that this country seems "temporary".  In its most severe manifestation, the idea is that Israel is just a temporary historical anomaly before demographics destroy it.  In a less severe manifestation, as expressed by for example Christopher Hitchens, it says that Israel seems like it isn't built to last, it's just an artificial army camp in the desert. 

The thing is, I can actually picture how someone might have gotten that impression 20, 30, or 40 years ago - when the buildings were new, the trees were freshly planted saplings, the population was small, and the institutions and culture of a new nation were being invented.  But now it all looks to me like this is a real place and a real homeland for its people.  Most of the people of Israel know no other home.  This is their country, and as I said above, it really looks like any other place in the world outside of North America or Europe.  Like anywhere else, it's got its problems - lack of adequate public transportation seems to be a big one - and it has its glories, such as a major city that is right on the beach!

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So today I'm heading over to the Weizmann institute for some non-touristy work stuff.  After that, I'll be back in Tel Aviv for a day and then it's on to the rest of Israel - Jerusalem for starters, then Beersheva, the Dead Sea, and beyond.  Stay tuned. 

Hey Republicans... Where are the details?

Hey Republicans... Where are the details? You are doing a lot of complaining SO... where are your plans to fix the country? What are they?

Everyone needs to be asking these question: You don't like what President Obama is doing? What is your proposal to fix it? This election needs to be about solutions. SO... Republicans just what are your solutions?

Say you are talking about Healthcare... Ask a Republican about Healthcare and they will say something like "Obamacare is all about taking decisions out of people's hands and it is about big government". Aside from the fact that this is simply not true (but is a product of mis/dis-information) ask them, well then "What is Mitt Romney proposing we do?" What would YOU like to see us do? I would bet "dollars to donuts" that a solution that most people would come up with would either be Single Payer or some form of Obamacare.

Let's look at the Economy and Jobs. Today, House Speaker Boehner was whining about Jobs. Ok, it is pretty crappy out here (though getting better), so where is the Republican Job proposals. Just telling people that you are going to get America back to work means absolutely NOTHING. President Obama has a Jobs Proposal - The American Jobs Act (blocked by Republicans - of course), so... where is their plan. What are it's specifics beyond tax cuts for "Job Creators"? Again... we need to ask people, what would YOU suggest we do? My bet is that people would suggest something similar to what is in the Presidents plan.

Take Foreign Policy, Mitt and the Republicans have plenty to say to about how the President is guiding America down a path of weakness and destruction. Fine... tell us Mitt Romney, how will you deal with specific issues? Ask people... What would you do differently than the President? Saying, America looks weak is NOT an answer. Hold people accountable for their rhetoric.

If you are going to support something then BACK. IT. UP.

We need to put the pressure on the Republicans NOW! We need to be asking these questions and not accepting "pablum" like this: (from the Romney plan called Believe in America Plan for Jobs and Economic Growth - heads up it's a link to mittromney.com)

Reform Financial Regulation 

As president, Mitt Romney will also seek to repeal Dodd-Frank and replace
it with a streamlined regulatory framework. The recent financial crisis exposed
serious weaknesses in a regulatory system that was poorly equipped to deal with
dynamic and evolving markets. The government’s response was to layer on new
regulations and invent new bureaucracies that do not address the underlying
causes of a crisis driven by the over-leveraging of our financial institutions and
our homeowners. Rather than dealing directly with those issues, the government
gave itself an open check book to write ambiguous regulations that have left our
businesses and households uncertain of their obligations and uncompetitive in a
global marketplace.

Some of the concepts in Dodd-Frank have a place. Greater transparency for
inter-bank relationships, enhanced capital requirements, and provisions to address
new forms of complex financial transactions are all necessary elements of effective
financial reform. But these concepts must be translated into law in a way that
creates a simple, predictable, and efficient regulatory system appropriate for our dynamic economy.

A few questions come to mind... such as what the specifics involved in this? How specifically are you going to try to achieve financial regulation that promotes business but also protects consumers? I mean this paragraph is an INTRODUCTORY paragraph it is NOT a plan.

When asked about this and other parts of his "plan" previously... Romney has said "Well... I will tell you after the election"... Who should accept that for an answer? Should any of us?

Be aggressive, when people on Facebook or in the street or in blogs parrot the Republican line... ASK THEM: Where/What are the details? Make them explain their ideas. My bet... most can't do it and still feel they sound like rational people.  I just did this to someone and they simply couldn't tell me what President Obama did in specifics that they hated but more than that they couldn't tell me what their guy would do better.

MItt Goes Birther - Holy Crap he even flip-flops on this...

So  now even Mitt is full on in the "Birther" Movement.

Despite the President showing his Certificate of Live Birth and Long Form Birth Certificate proving that he was born in Hawaii. Despite the Honolulu Advertiser having his birth notice in their paper in 1961... Well... "apparently none of that is good enough for our Kenyan-Muslim-Communist-Fascist-Socialist President (I am full on being Snarky here)" - Here is Mittens:

Now, I love being home in this place where Ann and I were raised, where both of us were born. Ann was born in Henry Ford Hospital, I was born in Harper Hospital. No one has ever asked to see my birth certificate. They know that this is the place that we were born and raised.

 That just gets a "WTF"????

I mean this is just so damn typical of Republicans. The whole unspoken - "I am not saying the President is not American, but, I am just telling people where I was born - you know in case they wondered". 

So... Mitt, they "know" where you were born as opposed to say.... that "other guy", you know the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, President Obama.

Of course this wouldn't be a true Mitt Romney moment without a typical Mitt "Flip Flop". Here is senior Romney spokesperson Eric Fehnstrom from a May Article in the Atlantic:

"I can't speak for Donald Trump, Gloria, but I can tell you that Mitt Romney accepts that President Obama was born in the United States," senior Romney adviser Eric Fehrnstrom said on Friday. 

 I mean for G-D's sake... the guy can't even keep this one straight???? 

Now the President's team had this to say:

"Throughout this campaign, Gov. Romney has embraced the most strident voices in his party instead of standing up to them," said Ben LaBolt, Obama's spokesman, in a release. "It's one thing to give the stage in Tampa to Donald Trump, Sheriff Arpaio, and Kris Kobach. But Gov. Romney's decision to directly enlist himself in the birther movement should give pause to any rational voter across America."

It's ridiculous. This is the guy that a major political party puts up for President and even worse has people that will actually vote for him. It is like someone said... "let's just he ridiculous we can be and see who will vote that way".

Unbelievable.

Krugman EVISCERATES (!) Ryan-Rand (and thus Romney)+

Diaried by Ian Reifowitz at Daily Kos

Isn't eviscerates a great word?

Paul Krugman today literally disembowels Paul Ryan's economic philosophy, demonstrating how it derives from absolutely nutty ideas contained in the novels of Ayn Rand that are either a) exceptionally radical, b) completely disproved by real economic events or c) both.

First, Krugman explains that Ryan's desire to shift wealth from the poor to the richest, by shredding the safety net and using the money to lower the taxes paid by the 1%, is due to his "contempt for moochers," and his adoration of those who earn great wealth. Of course he disguises his contempt by saying that these measures will help poor people, and that's what he wants. See, he's concerned that they don't get too lazy or anything like that while they live on the high life of food stamps. Ryan's ideas on this come straight from Rand.

Many of you all have heard that before, so let me move on to the next section, where Krugman brings up something a bit less well known, but far more bizarre in Ryan/Rand's economic fictional world. Apparently, Ryan's "thinking" on monetary policy derives not from any study of economic history and data, but from the novel he read as a teenager (insert the quote about orcs here), "Atlas Shrugged." I'll let Dr. Krugman speak for himself:

Well, it’s right there in [the aforementioned] 2005 speech to the Atlas Society, in which he declared that he always goes back to “Francisco d’Anconia’s speech on money” when thinking about monetary policy. Who? Never mind. That speech (which clocks in at a mere 23 paragraphs) is a case of hard-money obsession gone ballistic. Not only does the character in question, a Galt sidekick, call for a return to the gold standard, he denounces the notion of paper money and demands a return to gold coins.

Krugman then reminds us that we've been using paper money in the United States as our primary form of currency for a very, very long time. Two hundred years in fact. He makes the point that Ryan seems to want to bring us back to the good old days, in terms of economic thinking, of the eighteenth century. Then Krugman delivers the coup de grâce:

Does any of this matter? Well, if the Republican ticket wins, Mr. Ryan will surely be an influential force in the next administration — and bear in mind, too, that he would, as the cliché goes, be a heartbeat away from the presidency. So it should worry us that Mr. Ryan holds monetary views that would, if put into practice, go a long way toward recreating the Great Depression. 

And, beyond that, consider the fact that Mr. Ryan is considered the modern G.O.P.’s big thinker. What does it say about the party when its intellectual leader evidently gets his ideas largely from deeply unrealistic fantasy novels?

These are really good questions, no?