Fox News Inadvertantly Overestimates Number of Hannitys on Staff

The right-wing has had problems with the truth lately (maybe longer).

Caffeinated Politics has Jon Stewart busting Hannity’s use of footage from a 9/12 rally to embellish attendance at last weeks D.C. tea party. Also, Rep. Bachmann gave an estimate of 20,000-45,000 in attendance at the rally, whereas the Washington Post reported 10,000.

At Blogging Blue, Zach takes a conservative blogger to task for fuzzy math regarding Scott Walker’s primary opponent, Mark Neumann. The blogger seems to think he can declare Neumann a “career politician,” even though Walker has spent much more time in politics, based on Neumann’s voting record, not tenure of service.

The Week in Review on Wisconsin Public Radio had Chris Lato, a former communication director for the Republican Party of Wisconsin as the conservative guest Friday. While debating the health care bill passed by the House, Mr. Lato claimed the bill would cost America one trillion dollars. The CBO has produced plenty of evidence that HR 3962 will save the government money, but Lato outright refuses to accept that judgment (audio available here, program date Nov 13 2009, 8:00 am).

Rep. Paul Ryan is invoking the same “trillion dollar” price tag, conveniently ignoring the CBO estimates. I cannot condemn the behavior completely, Ryan and Lato have the right to question the government. However, this “trillion dollars” is an unfounded assertion. Neither presented any evidence to back up their claim.

Illusory Tenant has a take on Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Michael Gabelman’s constitutional right to lie in campaign ads. It reminds me of a case my current Assembly representative’s campaign lost right before the election last year. An appeals court found that while a radio ad indeed made false claims, a trial court order preventing the airing of said ad “represents a constitutionally impermissible prior restraint on political speech.”

Meanwhile, Rep. Stupak argues his amendment to the health care bill merely reaffirms the status quo on federal abortion funding. That’s not true, though Stupak refuses to admit it.

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Thanks to Tim for the shopjob. Anyone want to do some CSS for me? I need some more flexibility/bigger images.

Butler Nominated as Western District Judge, Sensenbrenner Complains

Jim Sensenbrenner (R) of Wisconsin’s fifth district is slamming the nomination of Louis Butler as Western District Judge. Sensenbrenner’s reasoning? Butler lost a Supreme Court election last year. To Michael Gableman, now facing ethics charges over an ad he ran which was a downright lie. Gableman used Butler’s profession as a public defender, a noble position and underpaid when compared to private practice law, to portray Butler as letting child molesters loose on the streets.

The real issue, from Sennsenbrenner’s mouth, is he didn’t get any input on the selection;

“Under the Bush administration, we showed great care and concern for these appointments and worked on them in a bipartisan way.”

Sorry Jim, but Bush isn’t the president anymore. Wisconsin has clear guidelines for the appointment of district judges, and with two Democratic Senators and a Democrat in the White House, you don’t get a say. Rep. Sensenbrenner politicized the issue further describing the nomination as;

“Another example of the mismanaged way Washington is working under President Obama.”

The nomination guidelines have been in place since 1979. Your party is out of power Sensenbrenner. Deal with it.

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Update:  Dave Westlake, running for the Republican nomination to the US Senate released a statement on Butler following the same reasoning as Sensenbrenner. The guy is also a 9/12er…I don’t expect much out of him.