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Liz Cheney Drums Up Dishonest Claim That Obama Ignored The Private Sector

On Fox News Sunday, Liz Cheney disingenuously claimed that President Obama didn't "say the words 'private sector'" in his recent press conferences about the debt ceiling, claiming this proved that Obama "does not fundamentally believe that the private sector creates jobs." In fact, Obama discussed private sector job growth during both briefings. Read More

Bachmann Preemptively Ditches Her Church To Avoid Association With Its Radical Views

THINK PROGRESS

GOP presidential contender Michele Bachmann (R-MN) and her husband Marcus preemptively left their church of more than ten years just weeks before she announced her candidacy to avoid association with its extremist views. Salem Lutheran Church in Stillwater, Minnesota, has faced criticism this week for its anti-Catholic views, including preaching that the Pope is the Antichrist.

Bachmann has long been a favorite of religious conservatives for her outspoken views on her faith, but her decision to sever ties with her church for the sake of her presidential campaign is surprising many:

According to CNN, the church that Michele Bachmann and her husband Marcus had attended for more than a decade, Salem Lutheran in Stillwater, Minn., granted the couple’s request to be released from their membership last month, a week after Bachmann told a national audience that she would run for the Republican presidential nomination.

The Bachmanns had approached their pastor and verbally made the request “a few weeks before the church council granted the request,” said Joel Hochmuth, a spokesman for the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod, the governing body for the church.

Bachmann had apparently been distancing herself from the church for some time. Hochmuth said the couple had not been worshiping with the congregation in more than two years.

“We identify the Antichrist as the Papacy,” the denomination’s website says. “This is an historical judgment based on Scripture.” Bachmann has been questioned about her church’s beliefs for years and denounced their anti-Catholicism when she was running for Congress in 2006.

“It’s abhorrent, it’s religious bigotry,” Bachmann said then. “I love Catholics, I’m a Christian, and my church does not believe that the pope is the antichrist, that’s absolutely false.” She remained a member of the church for years after, but as Bachmann’s political ambitions got bigger, she began to distance herself. When she decided to run for president, Bachmann seemed to realize she could no longer belong to an organization that formally endorses intolerance.

The highly convenient timing of the move clearly indicates this was a shrewd political calculation on Bachmann’s part. It remains to be seen how religious “values voters” will feel about the candidate choosing political opportunism over her church. On the campaign trail Bachmann frequently invokes her faith and proudly speaks about coming to Christ at the age of 16.

CNN notes that Salem Lutheran Church still maintains some ties with the Bachmann family. “It lists a Christian counseling center operated by Bachmann’s husband on its website under special member services for confidential counseling.”

Bachmann must still account for her ongoing connection with other radical preachers and churches, especially Bradlee Dean of the notoriously anti-gay You Can Run But You Can’t Hide ministry. Dean has been described as “Bachmann’s Jeremiah Wright,” and has repeatedly called for gays and lesbians to be put in prison and has said executing gays is “moral.”

Many journalists have observed the parallels between Bachmann leaving her church for political expediency and Barack Obama’s decision to do the same in 2008 after his church’s preacher, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, faced a barrage of criticism for his rhetoric. However, since Bachmann has left one church but still not denounced the teachings of Dean, the analogy has yet to come full circle.

Media Matters Daily Summary 07-15-11

Kuhner Latest Right-Wing Media Figure To Downplay Default Consequences
In a Washington Times column, Jeffrey Kuhner downplayed the economic consequences of not raising the debt ceiling, claiming that the "sky will not fall if an agreement is not reached by Aug. 2" and accusing President Obama of engaging in "shameless demagoguery." In fact, economists agree that failing to raise the debt ceiling could have significant negative effects on the economy. Read More

Right-Wing Media Revive GOP Talking Point That Deficit Is "A Spending Problem, Not A Revenue Problem"
With the debt limit deadline approaching and deficit-reduction talks underway, right-wing media are parroting the old GOP talking point that the nation's deficit is a "spending problem, not a revenue problem." But numerous economic experts have said that decreased revenue is a major cause of the deficit. Read More

PHONE HACKS: A Guide To Resignations, Arrests, And Convictions During The News Corp. Scandal
The News Corporation phone hacking and bribery story has brought down executives, reporters, and editors on both sides of the Atlantic. Here is a list of arrests, convictions, firings, suspensions, and resignations that have occured during the scandal. Read More

Boehner: No Debt Ceiling Solution Until After Symbolic Votes Next Week

TPM

Whatever the ultimate outcome of the debt limit fight, the theatrics will continue in the House of Representatives for another week or so.

Scores of House Republicans say they won't vote to raise the debt limit unless a Constitutional balanced budget amendment has been sent off to the states for ratification. And so whatever Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and other Congressional leaders decide about the real path ahead, he'll hold votes next week on a major spending cut and spending cap plan that includes a hike in the debt ceiling, and, separately, on a balanced budget amendment. The latter would require a two-thirds vote in both the House and Senate and, in its current form, stands little chance of passing either chamber.

The votes themselves will put some political pressure on Democrats to support the nominally popular balanced budget amendment, and will allow Republicans to claim they voted to raise the debt limit in the event that the government runs out of borrowing authority. But the so-called "cut, cap, and balance" approach is dead on arrival in the Senate.

At a Friday press conference after a meeting with the GOP caucus, Boehner let slip, subtly, that the plan will go nowhere...............

Media Matters Daily Summary 07-14-11

Hannity Cites Myth That The Stimulus Failed To Bash Obama Over Debt Negotiations
Criticizing President Obama over debt negotiations, Sean Hannity invoked the discredited myth that the stimulus failed and worsened the recession. In fact, independent experts agree that the stimulus bill significantly raised employment and increased GDP by several percentage points. Read More

REPORT: How CNN, MSNBC, And Fox Are Covering News Corp. Hacking Scandal
News Corp.'s long-simmering phone-hacking scandal has reignited, throwing its global media empire into turmoil. As allegations of hacking into private citizens' voicemail increase, media and tabloid practices have been called into question. With a large and influential presence in the United States, News Corp. and its subsidiaries (including Fox News) should be under intense scrutiny in the American press. A Media Matters analysis has found great disparity in the amount of coverage given to the scandal by CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News. Read More

Fox Cherry-Picks Poll To Bash Obama On Debt Ceiling
Fox recently attacked President Obama's response to a CBS poll that found 69 percent of the public thinks the debt ceiling should not be raised. However, Fox did not mention that the poll also found that 72 percent of the public believe it is "at least somewhat likely that the economy will take a severe downturn if the [debt] ceiling is not raised"; furthermore, economic experts agree that there could be severe consequences if the debt ceiling is not raised. Read More

Right-Wing Media Praised GOP For Walking Out On Default Crisis Talks, Now Attack Obama
Following reports that President Obama and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) had a "blow up" while negotiating solutions to the default crisis, in which Cantor accused Obama of "abruptly walking out" of the talks, right-wing media have attacked Obama as a "petulant child" for allegedly doing so. However, in June, right-wing media praised Cantor and Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) for walking out of default crisis negotiations led by Vice President Joe Biden. Read More

Poll: Americans blame Bush for bad economy by wide margin

RAW STORY

By a wide margin, more Americans blame former President George W. Bush for the national economic outlook than they do President Barack Obama, according to a new poll.

Numbers out of Quinnipiac University Thursday morning indicated that 54 percent of Americans say Bush is to blame for exploding the federal deficit and swelling unemployment, whereas just 27 percent believe it is President Obama's fault.

Those figures are bad news for Republicans, who are hoping to hang the nation's poor economic state around the president to defeat him in 2012.

By and large, Americans told Quinnipiac that they trust Obama on the economy more than congressional Republicans, despite a growing dissatisfaction. Fourty-five percent also said they trust the president to help the U.S. economy, versus 38 percent who believe Republicans could do a better job.

The poll also found that voters will largely blame Republicans, rather than Obama, if the debt limit is not raised. A further 67 percent of respondents said any debt deal out of Washington must include tax hikes for the wealthiest Americans...............