Previously:

Bureau of Labor Statistics – June jobs report (July 3, 2014)

Rep. Vicky Hartzler (r): the talking points must have arrived late (July 10, 2014)

Rep. Vicky Hartzler (r): doubling down on the spin (July 12, 2014)

Representative Vicky Hartzler (r) posted another “bon mot” on the economy via Twitter today:

Rep. Vicky Hartzler ‏@RepHartzler

Not what you want to be reading with your morning coffee [….] 6:54 AM – 12 Jul 2014

It was accompanied by an illustration with a representation of a New York Times with a byline for Bunyamin [sic] Applebaum, a cup of coffee, a desk top computer (and assorted paraphernalia), and (maybe) some sort of tablet device on a table top off some sort.

Uh, if someone has a tablet, a desktop computer, and a cup of coffee at a desk do you think they’ll be reading an analog version of the newspaper at the same desk? Or would they probably access it on line? Just asking.

There was a response from a constituent a few hours later:

Bob Yates ‏@OldDrum

@RepHartzler Why post photos that are lies? There is no Bunyamin Applebaum at the NY Times. Binyamin A. wrote no story like this 7/11. 9:07 AM – 12 Jul 2014

Representative Hartzler (r) responded in turn:

Rep. Vicky Hartzler ‏@RepHartzler

@OldDrum [article link] 10:10 AM – 12 Jul 2014

Well, yes there is a Binyamin Appelbaum who is a reporter at the New York Times. And the article was actually dated June 11, 2014. Uh, that was a month ago. Maybe Representative Hartzler (r) still uses dial-up on a 1200 baud modem.

The punch line? Part of the caption for the Associated Press photo accompanying the New York Times article:

“…Some economists say the decline in government spending has hurt the recovery…”

Think about that for a second. Representative Hartzler (r) is utilizing a month old article in the New York Times to assist her in spinning criticism of the current state of the economy, while missing the photo caption in the same article which indicates that a probable contributor to that problem is the implementation of her party’s obstructionist ideology in Congress. Sweet.

Now that’s real chutzpah.  

Previously:

Bureau of Labor Statistics – June jobs report (July 3, 2014)

Rep. Vicky Hartzler (r): the talking points must have arrived late (July 10, 2014)

Yesterday Representative Vicky Hartzler (r) continued to offer talking points on the state of the economy via Twitter:

Rep. Vicky Hartzler @RepHartzler

My definition of “recovery” is way different then that of the President’s [….] 6:34 AM – 11 Jul 2014

As usual, she received prompt responses:

Leftslant ‏@Leftslant

@RepHartzler #gop definition of “work” is not passing anything or working with anyone ever. You have a credibility problem. 6:39 AM – 11 Jul 2014

tinyterror ‏@thetiny_terror

.@RepHartzler That he continued to work on it while GOP continues to block it? Yep, definitely different. 6:44 AM – 11 Jul 2014

Social media rules.

Previously:

Bureau of Labor Statistics – June jobs report (July 3, 2014)

[….]

Representative Vicky Hartzler (r) has yet to take to Twitter to highlight the positive news:

We’re not holding our breath.

[….]

Heh. We’ll, Representative Hartzler (r) finally did comment yesterday via Twitter:

Rep. Vicky Hartzler ‏@RepHartzler

June jobs report sadly showed 49 out of the past 50 months more people DROPPED OUT of job search than found a job. 12% unemployment really. 6:46 AM – 9 Jul 2014

That’s a reference to U-6, a U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics “alternative measure of labor utilization” which includes “Total unemployed, plus all marginally attached workers plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of all civilian labor force plus all marginally attached workers”. U-3, which is the “official unemployment rate”, is currently 6.1%.

Representative Hartzler’s (r) tweet prompted a response:

hungryprof ‏@hungryprof

@RepHartzler The U-6 rate was 17% in 2009, it’s 12% now. 6:58 AM – 9 Jul 2014

Uh, we already knew that. Representative Hartzler (r) probably does, too. The spin manufactured through the republican party hierarchy probably doesn’t allow for acknowledging facts like that.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics provides easy access to historical data sets. The following graph shows the U-6 rate from January 2001 (when George W. Bush took office as President) through June of 2014. The red line indicates January 2009, when Barack Obama took office as President.

U-6 from January 2001 to present. Historical data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

One might note that the long term trend of U-6 during the Obama Administration is down. One might also note that there was an uptick during the first term of the George W. Bush administration and then a catastrophic rise at the end of the second term as the economy collapsed. The spin manufactured through the republican party hierarchy probably doesn’t allow for acknowledging facts like that.

Representative Hartzler (r) continued, via Twitter:

Rep. Vicky Hartzler ‏@RepHartzler

7 bad numbers in the June #JobsReport [….] 2:31 PM – 9 Jul 2014

This also prompted a reply (from someone else):

Cody Welton ‏@acoupstick 16h

.@RepHartzler Forbes has a bit of a different take: http://www.forbes.com/sites/sa… … 2:54 PM – 9 Jul 2014

Sigh. Regurgitating republican spin isn’t as easy as it used to be.

You’ve just got to love social media.

A front page story in today’s Kansas City Star is all about the campaign consultant industrial complex. And that, of course, is tied into unlimited money.

There is this little gem within the bigger story:

….In the mid-1990s, consultants and strategists helped Republicans draft the Contract with America, a set of poll-tested policy positions that helped the GOP win control of the House….

Well, mostly no.

About that poll:

AAPOR Finds Frank Luntz in Violation of Ethics Code

Wednesday, April 23, 1997 — The Executive Council of the American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) announced Wednesday that a 14 month investigation found pollster Frank Luntz violated the Association’s Code of Professional Ethics and Practices.

AAPOR found Luntz, who heads the Luntz Research Companies in Arlington,Virginia, repeatedly refused to make public essential facts about his research on public attitudes about the Republicans’ “Contract with America.” In particular, the AAPOR inquiry focused on Luntz’s reporting, prior to the November elections in 1994, that his research showed at least 60 percent of the public favored each of the elements in the GOP “Contract.” When later asked to provide some basic facts about this research, Luntz refused.

AAPOR holds that researchers must disclose, or make available for public disclosure, the wording of questions and other basic methodological details when poll findings are made public. This disclosure is important so that claims made on the basis of opinion research findings can be independently evaluated. Section III of the AAPOR Code states: “Good professional practice imposes the obligation upon all public opinion researchers to include, in any report of research results, or to make available when that report is released, certain essential information about how the research was conducted.”

Richard A. Kulka, chair of AAPOR’s Standards Committee noted that AAPOR’s investigation of Luntz began in January 1996, after receiving a complaint from a member. According to Kulka, “AAPOR tried on several occasions to get Luntz to provide some basic information about his survey, for example, the wording of the questions he used. For about a year, he ignored these requests. Subsequently, he provided partial information, but still refused to let us make any of the information public, arguing that the results were proprietary, even though he had been discussing the conclusions of the survey in public for nearly two years.”

AAPOR’s President, Diane Colasanto, adds “When researchers make public arguments based on their research data, then refuse to say how their research was conducted, that harms the public debate on issues and reduces he credibility of all survey and public opinion research.”

AAPOR is an organization of over 1,400 research professionals from government agencies, colleges and universities, non-profit organizations, and commercial polling firms. It is the primary professional association representing public opinion researchers, and has a strong interest in protecting and strengthening the credibility of survey research. The organization was founded in 1947 by such pioneers of polling as George Gallup, Hadley Cantril, and Paul Lazarsfeld.

Luntz is not a member of the organization.

And media repeated the spin.

From Rolling Stone:

How Wily Newt Pulled the ‘Contract with America’ Scam

By Rick Perlstein

….The Contract With America was a hustle from start to finish. It never really was about conservatism at all – practically the opposite….

….Gingrich devised a document micro-tailored to turn at least 70 percent of Perot voters, however fleetingly, into Republicans in time for November of 1994. “Republicans knew,” Stone and Rapoport write, “that the traditional Republican congressional campaign” – which is to say, conservatism – “would be insufficient to get this support.” This realization was the genesis of the Contract for America….

….Gingrich and Co. were able to get away with it because the plain facts of what the Contract actually was (a strategic erasure of Republican conservatism) almost entirely escaped the political press – at the time, and ever since….

[emphasis added]

It was a game in 1994. And people with short attention spans repeat the same media narrative almost twenty years later.

Previously:

Rep. Vicky Hartzler (r): maybe if corporations were women… (February 28, 2013)

Rep. Ann Wagner (r): maybe if corporations were women… (February 28, 2013)

Rep. Vicky Hartzler (r): through the looking glass (March 2, 2013)

Rep. Vicky Hartzler (r): Доверяй, но проверяй? (March 4, 2013)

Rep. Vicky Hartzler (r): not too many people are buying it (March 5, 2013)

Piling on Vicky Hartzler (March 7, 2013)

Hartzler’s Deception (March 7, 2013)

Rep. Vicky Hartzler (r): a VAWA letter to the editor (March 8, 2013)

Rep. Vicky Hartzler (r): still another VAWA letter to the editor (March 8, 2013)

Representative Vicky Hartzler (r) had a (sort of) defender in a letter to the editor [subscription required] in yesterday’s Warrensburg Daily Star-Journal. We’re not quite sure. It could just be performance art:

4/2/2013 10:18:00 PM

Editor not fair to Hartzler

Letter to the Editor

This letter is in response to your March 11, 2013 editorial, again taking U. S. Rep. Vicky Hartzler to task for her votes on the Violence Against Women Act because you made a mistake in “reading the message” in a press release. I thought Peggy Nuckles’ cogent March 7 letter to the editor, in which she advised, “You owe her an apology,” would have straightened you out. Not so.

[….]

Leave Harry Truman out of it. He was a principled president. He would disagree with your baseless attacks against Vicky Hartzler.

[….]

[emphasis added]

Now those republicans sure love them some Harry Truman (D), don’t they?

Harry Truman, on republicans:

Address at the State Capitol in Denver  

September 20, 1948

….When I talk to you here today about Republicans, I am talking about the party that gets most of its campaign funds from the special interests in Wall Street. I am talking to you about the party that gave us the phony boom of the 1920’s, and the Hoover depression which followed it. I am talking to you about the party that gave us that Republican 80th Congress.

The Republican Party today is controlled by silent and cunning men who have a dangerous lust for power and privilege. The Republican Party is fundamentally the party of privilege. These men are now reaching out for control of the country and its resources….

Heh.

The salient point in the March 7, 2013 letter to the editor from Peggy Nuckles (in part)?:

….Rep. Hartzler set her priorities and voted according to her beliefs. And you made it sound like she thought protecting women from violence was more important than her hatred of gays. You owe her an apology….

[emphasis added]

That there is a “cogent” letter.

Sarcasm can oftentimes escape the irony impaired.

Previously:

Rep. Vicky Hartzler (r): maybe if corporations were women… (February 28, 2013)

Rep. Ann Wagner (r): maybe if corporations were women… (February 28, 2013)

“If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn’t. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn’t be. And what it wouldn’t be, it would. You see?” ― Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass

Representative Vicky Hartzler (r) [file photo]

A press release from Representative Vicky Hartzler (r):

Hartzler votes to protect women from acts of violence

Feb 28, 2013

Congresswoman Vicky Hartzler (MO-4) has voted to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) – legislation that provides vital protection for vulnerable women and children.

“I am pleased to support efforts to protect all women in this country from domestic abuse and other forms of violence,” said Hartzler. “The House version of VAWA supports assistance to adult and youth victims of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking.”

“Violence against women, in all its forms, is unacceptable,” added Hartzler. “I support efforts to prosecute to the full extent of the law all those who engage in these deplorable acts of abuse and violence. This legislation provides states with the resources needed to combat domestic violence and allocates funding to college campuses for safety programs – all while ensuring no one is discriminated against. The House version of the Violence Against Women Act protects women, provides funding for the Rural Grant Program, and reauthorizes the Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) program. As a former board member of CASA, I understand how important it is to provide support for abused children and ensure the perpetrators are brought to justice.”

Congresswoman Hartzler, who resides in Cass County, serves on the House Budget, Armed Services, and Agriculture Committees.

[emphasis added]

What?

Uh, no, Representative Hartzler (r) didn’t vote for the successfully passed legislation:

FINAL VOTE RESULTS FOR ROLL CALL 55

S 47      RECORDED VOTE      28-Feb-2013      11:56 AM

     QUESTION:  On Passage

     BILL TITLE: Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2013

—- AYES    286 —

Clay

Cleaver

—- NOES    138 —

Graves (MO)

Hartzler

Long

Luetkemeyer

Wagner

—- NOT VOTING    7 —

[emphasis added]

While Representative Hartzler (r) did vote for a failed (and watered down) substitute, voting against final passage of the successful version of the bill doesn’t constitute support for it in anyone’s book.

Both Representative Ann Wagner (r) and Representative Vicky Hartzler (r) issued press releases using the phrase “all women” after they voted against final passage of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA).

Spin.

Lewis Carroll would be proud.

…or is all republican spin intentionally plagiarized from rejected Monty Python scripts?

…State Republican Party Chairman Doyle Webb of Benton said he doesn’t comment on statements by candidates, “but Sen. Hendren certainly does not speak on the behalf of the Republican Party of Arkansas…”

Uh, isn’t that a comment? Just asking.

Via Angry Black Bitch.

George W. Bush spins for Charlie Gibson. He can’t help himself, it’s in his nature (December 1, 2008):

…GIBSON: What were you most unprepared for?

BUSH: Well, I think I was unprepared for war. In other words, I didn’t campaign and say, “Please vote for me, I’ll be able to handle an attack.” In other words, I didn’t anticipate war. Presidents — one of the things about the modern presidency is that the unexpected will happen….

….GIBSON: You’ve always said there’s no do-overs as President. If you had one?

BUSH: I don’t know — the biggest regret of all the presidency has to have been the intelligence failure in Iraq. A lot of people put their reputations on the line and said the weapons of mass destruction is a reason to remove Saddam Hussein. It wasn’t just people in my administration; a lot of members in Congress, prior to my arrival in Washington D.C., during the debate on Iraq, a lot of leaders of nations around the world were all looking at the same intelligence. And, you know, that’s not a do-over, but I wish the intelligence had been different, I guess.

GIBSON: If the intelligence had been right, would there have been an Iraq war?

BUSH: Yes, because Saddam Hussein was unwilling to let the inspectors go in to determine whether or not the U.N. resolutions were being upheld. In other words, if he had had weapons of mass destruction, would there have been a war? Absolutely.

GIBSON: No, if you had known he didn’t.

BUSH: Oh, I see what you’re saying. You know, that’s an interesting question. That is a do-over that I can’t do. It’s hard for me to speculate. ….

Oh no, dubya was never looking for a reason to go to war with Iraq (Richard Clarke, March 21, 2004):

“…I think they wanted to believe that there was a connection, but the CIA was sitting there, the FBI was sitting there, I was sitting there saying we’ve looked at this issue for years. For years we’ve looked and there’s just no connection.”

Clarke says he and CIA Director George Tenet told that to Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, and Attorney General John Ashcroft.

Clarke then tells Stahl of being pressured by Mr. Bush.

“The president dragged me into a room with a couple of other people, shut the door, and said, ‘I want you to find whether Iraq did this.’ Now he never said, ‘Make it up.’ But the entire conversation left me in absolutely no doubt that George Bush wanted me to come back with a report that said Iraq did this.

“I said, ‘Mr. President. We’ve done this before. We have been looking at this. We looked at it with an open mind. There’s no connection.’

“He came back at me and said, “Iraq! Saddam! Find out if there’s a connection.’ And in a very intimidating way. I mean that we should come back with that answer. We wrote a report.”

Clarke continued, “It was a serious look. We got together all the FBI experts, all the CIA experts. We wrote the report. We sent the report out to CIA and found FBI and said, ‘Will you sign this report?’ They all cleared the report. And we sent it up to the president and it got bounced by the National Security Advisor or Deputy. It got bounced and sent back saying, ‘Wrong answer. … Do it again.’

“I have no idea, to this day, if the president saw it, because after we did it again, it came to the same conclusion. And frankly, I don’t think the people around the president show him memos like that. I don’t think he sees memos that he doesn’t– wouldn’t like the answer….

I bet you Colin Powell (February 5, 2003) wished he had a “do over”:

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell Addresses the U.N. Security Council

….POWELL: My second purpose today is to provide you with additional information, to share with you what the United States knows about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction as well as Iraq’s involvement in terrorism, which is also the subject of Resolution 1441 and other earlier resolutions.

I might add at this point that we are providing all relevant information we can to the inspection teams for them to do their work.

The material I will present to you comes from a variety of sources. Some are U.S. sources. And some are those of other countries. Some of the sources are technical, such as intercepted telephone conversations and photos taken by satellites. Other sources are people who have risked their lives to let the world know what Saddam Hussein is really up to.

I cannot tell you everything that we know. But what I can share with you, when combined with what all of us have learned over the years, is deeply troubling.

POWELL: What you will see is an accumulation of facts and disturbing patterns of behavior. The facts on Iraqis’ behavior–Iraq’s behavior demonstrate that Saddam Hussein and his regime have made no effort–no effort–to disarm as required by the international community. Indeed, the facts and Iraq’s behavior show that Saddam Hussein and his regime are concealing their efforts to produce more weapons of mass destruction….

Colin Powell (April 3, 2004):

Powell admits Iraq evidence mistake

…It is the first time Mr Powell has acknowledged key evidence he used to make the case for war may have been wrong, says the BBC’s Jannat Jalil in Washington.

Previously, he has only said that he does not know if he would have backed the invasion had he believed Iraq did not possess banned weapons…

And others, too (August 23, 2005):

Former aide: Powell WMD speech ‘lowest point in my life’

…(CNN) — A former top aide to Colin Powell says his involvement in the former secretary of state’s presentation to the United Nations on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction was “the lowest point” in his life.

“I wish I had not been involved in it,” says Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, a longtime Powell adviser who served as his chief of staff from 2002 through 2005. “I look back on it, and I still say it was the lowest point in my life…”

Please tell us again that the “adults were in charge”.

Maybe dubya will come around in a few years. Nah. He’s delusional, it’s in his nature.