Muse in the Morning

post from Docudharma - Front Page on 17 July 2012 06:00:00 AM. © Docudharma - Front Page

Muse in the Morning[...]

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Fresh Off Fast And Furious, Issa Finds New Obama
Admin Target

post from TPMMuckraker on 17 July 2012 05:45:00 AM. © TPMMuckraker

Following an investigation that led the House of Representatives to find Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt, House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) has set his sights on other members of President Barack Obama's cabinet -- sending all of them a letter asking whether government resources were used when they spoke in front of pro-Obama "super PACs."

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Fox & Friends Echoes GOP Spin On Welfare Rule,
Leaves Out The Facts

post from Media Matters for America - Latest Items on 17 July 2012 05:34:38 AM. © Media Matters for America - Latest Items

Fox & Friends criticized changes to the federal welfare program with deceptive talking points that were identical to a Republican senator's press.

The Fox & Friends co-hosts' target was a recent rule change issued by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) regarding the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program. Conservative media last week decried the change and claimed it "guts" TANF's work requirement. Today, Fox & Friends went farther and claimed that the change will allow welfare recipients to get "paid to exercise and read -- even get a massage." Here's how co-host Steve Doocy introduced the segment:

DOOCY: Meanwhile, imagine getting paid to exercise and read -- even get a massage. Well, under new welfare reform waivers, you may be able to do just that. Last week, President Obama announced the White House will now issue waivers to federal work requirements laid out in the 1996 Temporary Assistance Program. The new waivers still will allow states to qualify such activities as work.

Co-host Gretchen Carlson later read aloud a list of activities that she claimed would "qualify as work" thanks to the rule change:

TANF1

TANF2

Watch:

Fox & Friends didn't name a source for these claims. However, a quick Google search reveals an identical list on a press release from GOP Sen. Orrin Hatch (UT):

Hatch pr

Hatch's press release specifies that these were activities that a few states defined as "federal work activity" in 2005. This is true, although it lacks context -- "bed rest" and "personal care activities," for example, had to be included as part of a welfare recipient's "recovery from a medical problem."

Hatch's press release then claims that even though those work requirements were tightened in 2005, the Obama administration's new rule change "opens the door to allowing states to count 'bed rest' as a work activity."

But in running with criticism identical to that levied by Hatch, Fox & Friends left out critical information.

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Echo Chamber: Fox And Romney Tag-Team False
Small-Business Attack On Obama

post from Media Matters for America - Latest Items on 17 July 2012 05:07:36 AM. © Media Matters for America - Latest Items

Last week in Virginia, President Obama made a fairly basic point about succeeding in business: you benefit not just from your own initiative, but also from the successes and contributions of others, including government. Since then, Fox News has led the way in tearing two sentences of Obama's argument out of context and distorting them to claim that the president said small business owners deserve no credit for their own success. Now the Romney campaign has picked up Fox News' distortion of Obama's comments, and Fox News is reporting on Romney's use of the false attack they helped create.

Yesterday morning's Fox & Friends aired a deceptively edited clip of Obama's remarks, which host Gretchen Carlson called "startling."

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Another error comMITTed

post from Firedoglake on 17 July 2012 04:30:33 AM. © Firedoglake

Right after June’s disappointing jobs report, Mitt Romney went right out and stepped on the rake of bringing up his business background — i.e. Bain just as it was going to become nearly toxic. And never one to pass up an opportunity for[...]

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Fox Follows Romney's Lead, Tries To Spin Away
From Bain

post from Media Matters for America - Latest Items on 17 July 2012 04:00:35 AM. © Media Matters for America - Latest Items

Taking its cues from the Romney campaign, Fox News used many of its shows on July 16 to deflect from the brewing controversy over Mitt Romney's tenure at Bain Capital to focus on the economy:

In an appearance on Fox & Friends, Romney responded to intense scrutiny into his years as CEO, chairman, and sole shareholder of Bain by downplaying the criticism and focusing attention onto President Obama and the weak economy.

Fox News apparently noticed Romney's dodge, and several of the channel's hosts dutifully repeated the "Bain doesn't matter, the economy does" mantra over much of the day:

Steve Doocy told the audience that at the weekend barbecues he attended, no one saw "what the whole deal was about."

Eric Bolling said, "Mr. Obama wants to point out that Mr. Romney may have outsourced jobs during his tenure or after his tenure at Bain Capital, but isn't it true that there really are -- there are somewhere around 500,000 fewer jobs in America under President Obama?"

Martha MacCallum called the Bain controversy "an effort to distract" from jobs and the economy.

Jon Scott recited a list of weak economic indicators and asked, "Do you really think that [Bain is] the issue that matters?"

Megyn Kelly noted the controversy over Bain before reading a litany of negative economic statistics and asking, "So, are we debating the right things right now in this country?"

Neil Cavuto lamented that "we're still dithering over whether Mitt Romney left Bain as late as 2002."

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Late Night Karaoke

post from Docudharma - Front Page on 17 July 2012 03:00:00 AM. © Docudharma - Front Page

[...]

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Does Truth Matter At Fox, Megyn

post from Media Matters for America - Latest Items on 17 July 2012 02:45:57 AM. © Media Matters for America - Latest Items

On yesterday's edition of Fox News' America Live, host Megyn Kelly lamented the lack of what she called "truth" in presidential campaign advertising, even asking the question, "Does truth matter anymore at all in the political process?"

Considering the network she broadcasts on -- which we referred to just last year as a "Post-Truth Network" -- it was a little hard for us to take her plaintive cries seriously.

So we took a look back, as we often do, at Fox News' combative relationship with facts. Kelly referenced recent political ads that had been criticized by independent fact-checkers for their supposed dishonesty, and we used that same standard. What did outfits like Factcheck.org and PolitiFact have to say about a small sampling of some of Fox News' favorite narratives of the past few years?

It turns out that if Megyn Kelly is as interested in the truth as she claims to be, she should start enforcing those standards a little closer to home before worrying about what anyone else is doing.

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Washington Times ' Global Warming Hypocrisy

post from Media Matters for America - Latest Items on 17 July 2012 02:37:46 AM. © Media Matters for America - Latest Items

As temperatures reach record highs across the United States, a Washington Times editorial cautions against "[r]elying on anecdotes of hot summer temperatures as evidence of global warming." But the Washington Times has repeatedly pointed to local winter weather to cast doubt on climate science, while scientists have established a strong body of evidence documenting a long-term warming trend.

The editorial warns readers to "[b]eware of warmists who point to localized summer heat as proof of climate change across the entire world." It points out that because the U.S. represents less that 2 percent of the Earth's surface, "sizzling thermometer readings here don't indicate temperature patterns elsewhere."

But the Washington Times was singing a different tune during the infamous "Snowmageddon" storm in Washington, DC. A February 2010 editorial proclaimed: "Record snowfall illustrates the obvious: The global warming fraud is without equal in modern science." Another editorial claimed that the snowstorm was "undermining the case for global warming one flake at a time." And earlier that winter, the Washington Times cited a blizzard in Minneapolis and cold temperatures in Europe as evidence of the "global-warming hoax."

Pointing to an isolated weather event to rebut long-term, global temperature trends is laughable. Climate change isn't going to eliminate winter. But unlike the Washington Times, climate scientists aren't "[r]elying on anecdotes" to make their case -- there is already substantial evidence supporting the

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USD/JPY Falls Ahead of Bernanke Testimony

Source: ForexYard USD/JPY Falls Ahead of Bernanke Testimony

The US dollar saw a bearish day yesterday vs. the Japanese yen, following worse than expected US Retail Sales and Core Retail Sales figures which . . . → Read More: USD/JPY Falls Ahead of Bernanke Testimony

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http://jutiagroup.com/20120717-usdjpy-falls-ahead-of-bernanke-testimony/

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