#NotIntendedToBeAFactualStatement

Colbert strikes again. Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) lied openly on the Senate floor about Planned Parenthood, claiming that 90% of Planned Parenthood's services are abortions. When his office was called with the FACT that the actual figure is 3%, they claimed that Sen. Kyl's remarks into the official Congressional record were, in fact, "not intended to be a factual statement." In other words, Sen. Jon Kyl is officially a liar.

For Colbert, of course, who coined the phrase "truthiness" as the lies that feel true due to fitting our steadfast preconceived ideology, hence repeated over and over by organs of the Right like Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, Michelle Bachman, Sarah Palin, etc. until George Orwell spins all the way out of his grave and straight into Newt Gingrich's skull. Birtherism is truthiness. I'd argue that 90% of Tea Party nonsense is as well. And some of you would tell me that's being generous.

The upshot is an hilarious Colbert bit that didn't stop here:

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Colbert by tweeting hilariously ridiculous lies about Sen. Kyl with the hashtag as his fig leaf:

Jon Kyl is an accomplished nude hula dancer. He is not welcome in Hawaii. #NotIntendedToBeAFactualStatement

For the past 10 years, Jon Kyl has been two children in a very convincing Jon Kyl suit. #NotIntendedToBeAFactualStatement

Jon Kyl cheated on Sandra Bullock. #NotIntendedToBeAFactualStatement

Once a year, Jon Kyl retreats to the Arizona desert and deposits 2 million egg sacs under the sand. #NotIntendedToBeAFactualStatement

Citing religious reasons, Jon Kyl refuses to utter the number 8. #NotIntendedToBeAFactualStatement

Jon Kyl once ate a badger he hit with his car. #NotIntendedToBeAFactualStatement

Carly Simon wrote that song about Jon Kyl. #NotIntendedToBeAFactualStatement

Legally, Jon Kyl cannot be within 100 yards of Helen Mirren. #NotIntendedToBeAFactualStatement

Jon Kyl has a shrine to Scooter from the Muppet Show. #NotIntendedToBeAFactualStatement

Jon Kyl developed his own line of hair care products just so he could test them on bunnies. #NotIntendedToBeAFactualStatement

Jon Kyl was sent from the future to kill Sarah Conner. #NotIntendedToBeAFactualStatement

Which was then picked up all over the Twittosphere by fans who invented their own, and now by Senate Democrats themselves. And on the Senate floor by new fan favorite, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand even got into the act:

“For my friends and colleagues, this is a factual statement,” Gillibrand said. “Current law already prevents federal money from paying for abortions. This has been the law of the land for over 30 years. Shutting down the government for a political argument is not only outrageous, it is irresponsible. The price for keeping the government open is this assault on women’s rights.”

And yes, I got into it as well:



What's about it is that today's GOP, for the most part, lies every day, big ones. Like the lying budget assumptions behind Rep. Paul Ryan's Republican budget -- the killing of Medicare, the lowering of taxes on the rich from 35% to 25%. Like Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who admitted he lied (by omission) in his campaign and lied bald-faced as Governor in his arguments for passing a ban on collective bargaining by public unions:

Asked if he had really campaigned on a plan to roll back collective bargaining rights, Walker repeatedly danced around the question, insisting he had campaigned on a “range” of promises to impose fiscal discipline. But Connolly kept pressing the point, and finally asked him point blank: Did you “explicitly” campaign on this proposal?

“No,” Walker conceded. He then went on to repeat his claim that he campaigned on a range of issues, and insistted that Wisconsinites should not have been surprised by his plan because his views on collective bargaining had long been known.

...

KUCINICH: Let me ask you about some of the specific provisions in your proposals to strip collective bargaining rights. First, your proposal would require unions to hold annual votes to continue representing their own members. Can you please explain to me and members of this committee how much money this provision saves for your state budget?

WALKER: That and a number of other provisions we put in because if you’re going to ask, if you’re going to put in place a change like that, we wanted to make sure we protected the workers of our state, so they got value out of that. [...]

KUCINICH: Would you answer the question? How much money does it save, Governor?

WALKER: It doesn’t save any.

Way to go, Scottie! You're no Tricky Dick, that's for sure.

A long but entertaining list of GOP #NotIntendedToBeAFactualStatements here, click for explanations:

• Tax Cuts Pay for Themselves."
• "The Estate Tax Destroys Family Farms and Small Businesses."
• "Death Panels."
• "A Government Takeover of Health Care."
• "No American is Denied Health Care."
• "The Health Care Law Adds to the Deficit."
• "Barack Obama Was Not Born in the United States."
• "Barack Obama is a Muslim."
• "Public Employees Are Overpaid."
• "We Went to War [with Iraq] Because We Were Attacked."
• "Abortion Causes Cancer and Psychological Trauma for Women."

The Not Intended to be Factual Party. Someone is finally calling them out.

Starting with Sen. Jon Kyl's staff calling him out themselves.

She Still Can't Help It

Who knows if Sen. Obama has a chance in hell with all the low-information voters already pre-disposed to vote in a primary for Sen. Clinton (or in the General for Sen. McCain), but she's having a rather bumpy weekend, luckily for her over a weekend.

First she releases the Clinton family taxes and while there's nothing particularly shameful about averaging $13,625,000/year for the past 8 years, there's questions arising about some of the income sources, particularly $15 million over 5 years from zillionaire investor Ron Burkle.

Second, her infamous Chief Campaign Strategist, Mark Penn, seems to have singlehandedly undermined her credibility on the labor front, after it was revealed that he was (until today) lobbying for a free trade deal in service of the nation of Columbia. When the news media got hold of him he called it a mistake, lost the account, but has yet to be fired by the woman in charge.

Will it affect her standing in Pennsylvania?

Would it have in Ohio?

But now today it turns out she's been telling lies again, whether she knew it, didn't know it...or just didn't vet it:



Jedreport raises the question of whether the campaign knew and had admitted it was a lie and still told it one last time:

Here's where my question comes: unless the NYT waited until after 9PM 9:45PM Eastern to contact the Clinton campaign -- just three a little over two hours before the story was published -- then even as Clinton was telling the the story again, her campaign had already admitted it was false.

This is something a reporter should follow up on -- was the Clinton campaign aware that Hillary Clinton's story was false before she told it? If so, why did she tell the story anyway?

The worst part of all this is that our health care system is in crisis. There's plenty of true health care horror stories out there -- and when a presidential candidate tells false ones, it makes it that much harder to achieve the progressive change we all seek.

At this point I think we assume she just lies so easily, you either accept the kabuki or you're revolted. If this is simply a case of weak vetting, i.e. merely cynicism on the part of her campaign, and you somehow excuse her, the head of it, you have to ask how they or Hillary herself had the gall to go so dramatic, so Oscar-baitish on the scripting and delivery:



The truth is:

Since Ms. Bachtel’s baby died at O’Bleness Memorial Hospital, the story implicitly and inaccurately accuses that hospital of turning her away, said Ms. Weiss, the spokeswoman for O’Bleness Memorial said. Instead, the O’Bleness health care system treated her, both at the hospital and at the affiliated River Rose Obstetrics and Gynecology practice, Ms. Weiss said.

The hospital would not provide details about the woman’s case, citing privacy concerns; she died two weeks after the stillbirth at a medical center in Columbus.

“We reviewed the medical and patient account records of this patient,” said Mr. Castrop, the health system’s chief executive. Any implication that the system was “involved in denying care is definitely not true.”

"Ready on day one?"

"Already vetted?"

How about this for a new campaign slogan:

Hillary Clinton:
You never know just what you're going to get.