Tag: Lies

Corporations, Corruption, Elections, Lies, Lobbying, politics, Worker advocacy

ALEC Authored Michigan’s Wage-Depressing Law

by Anne Landman • December 14, 2012 • 0 Comments

Michigan's Right-To-Work Legislation Draws Large Protests At Capitol

Michigan workers, locked out of their state capitol, protest a so-called “right tow work” bill that cuts wages and depresses benefits

The wording of the union-killing bill Michigan Governor Rick Snyder signed this week was taken virtually word for word from “model” legislation crafted by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a stealth lobbying group for corporations. The Natural Resources Defense Council has calls ALEC “Corporate America’s Trojan Horse in the States.” ALEC is essentially an exclusive club for state-level legislators and corporate representatives that masquerades as a charitable, non-profit group. ALEC charges legislators just $50 a year to join, while corporations pay anywhere from $7,000 to $25,000 a year. In return corporations get ongoing opportunities to have their lobbyists hobnob closely with thousands of state legislators. ALEC puts on corporate-sponsored confabs at tony beach and golf resorts where lobbyists get plenty of face time with state legislators and influence them to introduce their favored legislation in state houses back home. Legislators never intentionally reveal that the bills came from ALEC when they introduce them. One of ALEC’s highest legislative priorities has been passing so-called “right to work” (RTW) bills across the country to slash the political power of unions.

Hostess Fleeced its Workers, Showered Execs with Extra Cash

by Anne Landman • December 13, 2012 • 0 Comments

The Hostess Corporation, not labor unions, killed Twinkies through corporate greed.

Hostess Brands publicly blamed its workers’ union for forcing it out of business, but now Hostess CEO Gregory Rayburn has admitted to the Wall Street Journal that the company had been quietly ripping off its own workers. Hostess took money out of workers’ paychecks that was supposed to go towards their pensions and put it towards company operations instead, Rayburn admitted. Rayburn said the company was not under his management when those diversions occurred. During its dispute with the union, Hostess pressured employees to take another pay cut ostensibly due to financial difficulties, but in November, 2012 — while the company was undergoing bankruptcy filing — Hostess asked a judge to allow it pay out $1.8 million in bonuses to 19 of its top executives. The judge approved the bonuses, but did not, however, include any bonus pay for Rayburn, who was already being paid $125,000 a month, nor did the company seek any bonuses for its factory or other non-executive-level workers. The story that the union was responsible for tanking the Twinkie maker, then, is a myth designed to cast labor unions in a bad light.

Main source: Huffington Post, December 10, 2012

Advertising, Consumer advocacy, Corporations, Corruption, Education, Ethics, Health, Human rights, Lies, Marketing, Media, Safety, Tobacco

Court Orders Tobacco Companies to Run Ads Saying They Lied

by Anne Landman • November 29, 2012 • 0 Comments

A U.S. District Court has ordered American tobacco companies to start running ads in which they must openly admit they lied to the American public about the health hazards of smoking and secondhand smoke. Judge Gladys Kessler, who presides over the case of United States v. Philip Morris, U.S.A., Inc., et al, specified the wording to be used in the corrective ads:

“A Federal Court has ruled that the Defendant tobacco companies deliberately deceived the American public about the addictiveness of smoking and nicotine, and has ordered those companies to make this statement. Here is the truth:”

The subsequent must contain truths about the dangers of tobacco use. Some examples:

* “Defendant tobacco companies intentionally designed cigarettes to make them more addictive.”

* “When you smoke, nicotine actually changes the brain – that’s why quitting is so hard.”

* “Smoking kills, on average, 1200 Americans. Every day.”

* “More people die every year from smoking than from murder, AIDS, suicide, drugs, car crashes, and alcohol, combined.”

Former GOP Officials Admit Use of “Voter ID” to Suppress Democratic Turnout

by Anne Landman • November 28, 2012 • 0 Comments

The Palm Beach Post ran a blockbuster story November 25 in which several former high-up GOP officials admitted that “Voter ID” laws and a law cutting back early voting were GOP tactics aimed at suppressing the Democratic vote in Florida. Former Florida Republican Governor Charlie Crist and Jim Greer, former chair of the Florida Republican Party, both admitted that the GOP’s push to enact “Voter ID” laws out of a purported concern for voter fraud was really a ruse to block Democratic voters from the polls. Greer told the Palm Beach Post, “The Republican Party, the strategists, the consultants, they firmly believe that early voting is bad for Republican Party candidates…It’s done for one reason and one reason only.” Greer said Republican staffers and consultants told him ,”We’ve got to cut down on early voting because early voting is not good for us.” Wayne Bertsch, who coordinated campaigns for GOP candidates for local offices, also admitted the reasons GOP officials gave for advancing voter ID laws were bogus. Crist said while he was in office as Florida’s governor, Republican Party leaders contacted him to discuss curtailing early voting hours as a way to suppress turnout among Democratic voters. Crist has since left the GOP and is now an Independent. Greer has been indicted for using a phony campaign fundraising operation to pocket $200,000. But the Post also found another GOP-affiliated consultant, who asked not to be named who confirmed that the true purpose behind enacting voter ID and a law to cut back on early voting in Florida were meant to suppress Democratic turnout in the general election.

Source: Palm Beach Post, November 25, 2012

Corruption, Ethics, Lies, Magical thinking, Propaganda, Religion, Secularism

Pentagon Hires Known Fraudster to Speak at Prayer Breakfast

by Anne Landman • November 26, 2012 • 1 Comment

Photo of Ray Giunta from Ambassador Speakers Bureau website, which says Guinta brings the “sustainable hope of Christ to people.”

The Pentagon has hired Las Vegas-based Ray Giunta, a known fraudster, to be the guest speaker at the “Pentagon Prayer Breakfast” on November 28th. Giunta, who advertises himself as the friendly “Pastor Ray,” a Christian motivational speaker, has also put himself out as “Doctor Ray,” a clinical psychologist and addictions counselor who practiced using a fake Ph.D. degree that he bought online for a few hundred dollars. A California state audit revealed that in a previous job as director of the California Cemetery Board in the mid-1990s, Giunta illegally diverted over $10,000 in cemetery trust funds meant for maintaining graveyards. He used the money to open a bank account, pay his dry cleaning bills and his creditors and to help support his nonprofit group, “We Care Ministries.” While not an ordained minister, more recently he has started putting himself out as a chaplain and pastoral counselor. Giunta and his wife purchased online degrees from a place called “Rochville University” which charged $769 for a “master’s and doctorate degree package.” He ordered a white lab coat with the word “Doc” embroidered on the lapel that he wore while “counseling” people on behalf of a church. The personal license plate on Giunta’s car said “CAREDOC” and he wore a stethoscope on a church-sponsored missionary trip to Africa. In June of 2008, the Las Vegas Sun published an extensive article describing Guinta’s string of frauds and the people he had deceived. Giunta says he and his wife believed their degrees were real and didn’t realize they were bogus. The Military Religious Freedom Foundation is protesting Guinta’s appearance at the Pentagon event and a has asked the Pentagon to rescind the invitation to Giunta. The bigger question remains, however, and that is why a taxpayer-funded institution is holding an event that endorses religion.

Source: Military Religious Freedom Foundation, November 26, 2012

Advertising, Lies, politics, Women

Remember This Ad?

by Anne Landman • November 13, 2012 • 0 Comments

September, 2007 full page MoveOn.org ad run in the New York Times

On September 10, 2007 MoveOn.org ran a full page ad in the New York Times charging General David Petraeus with “cooking the books for the White House.” The ad was in response to a report Petraeus issued to Congress about the situation in Iraq in which he concluded that the government’s surge strategy had worked and violence in Iraq was decreasing. MoveOn.org disputed Petraeus’ account of the situation in Iraq. Some members of Congress immediately jumped to Genral Petraeus’ defense. Republican John Cornyn of Texas introduced an amendment to “strongly condemn personal attacks on the honor and integrity of General Petraeus.” All 49 Republican senators and 22 Democratic senators voted for the amendment. Barack Obama, then a senator, refused to vote, calling the amendment “a stunt” and saying he abstained in order to register his “protest against these empty politics.” Multiple reports currently reveal that to reduce detection while communicating with each other, Petraeus and his mistress used a trick long used by terrorists to avoid detection when communicating through email: they established a shared GMail account, then composed messages to each other and stored them in the “Drafts” folder, where each could read them without having to transmit them. In having his affair, General Petraeus violated the trust of his wife of 38 years, Holly, who gained respect for battling against the financial sector’s abuses against military families, like illegal foreclosures and abusive lending practices.

Advertising, Elections, Ethics, Front groups, Lies, politics, Secrecy

Karl Rove Rendered Useless to Republicans

by Anne Landman • November 12, 2012 • 0 Comments

Karl Rove

Karl Rove, whom Vanity Fair called “one of the most powerful unelected officials in the United States,” is facing criticism and derision after his two well-funded super pacs, American Crossroads and the more secretive Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies (“Crossroads GPS”), proved surprisingly ineffective after Democrats largely emerged victorious in the 2012 general election. Rove, a Republican political strategist who famously once dreamed of creating a “permanent Republican majority” in U.S. government, helped create the two groups which together sucked in over $300 million in the last election cycle, mostly from billionaires hoping to influence the election’s outcome. Crossroads GPS, which refused to make public the names of it’s super-wealthy donors, blanketed the U.S. with attack ads against Democratic candidates in which the group made notably false and misleading claims against candidates. Despite spending vast amounts of money, however, Rove’s groups were ultimately unable to influence the outcomes of the November 6 elections. Rove has spent the last week defending his super PACs and scrambling to devise a new strategy for boosting Republicans’ fortunes in elections nationwide. Rove served as former president George W. Bush’s deputy chief of staff. Since leaving the government, he has worked as a political strategist, consultant and a paid speaker. Rove’s normal speaker’s fee in 2010 was $60,000, but he has had his appearances canceled on several occasions due to protests.

Elections, Ethics, Lies, politics, Religion, Women

Sour Grapes and Denial from Fox News

by Anne Landman • November 11, 2012 • 0 Comments

Mitt Romney was a deeply flawed, inadequate and unpopular candidate from the beginning, who went on to offend almost every demographic group in the country.

Op-ed

In a Nov. 7 article titled “Five ways the mainstream media tipped the scales in favor of Obama,” Rich Noyes of Fox News thrashes the major media as the sole cause Obama’s victory. Noyes faults the networks for reporting on the gaffes Romney made during his trip to Europe. He points to Mother Jones’ reporting of the sensational “47%” video in which Romney denigrated millions of Americans who don’t pay income taxes, saying the “networks hyped it as a sensational sex scandal.” Noyes whines that the major news networks failed to report on Obama’s “You didn’t build that” comment, when in reality the networks engaged in appropriate journalism by refusing to take that remark out of context like the Republicans insisted on doing. Noyes complains that Romney was “pounded with partisan fact-checking,” when the media was forced many times to correct errors and mis-statements Romney frequently made, including his bizarre repetition of an easily-verfiable geographical error he repeated no fewer than five times during the campaign that “Syria is Iran’s route to the sea.” Noyes also faults the debate moderators, the lack of clarity over what happened in Benghazi and reporting on the state of the economy for Romney’s defeat. He faults everyone but the GOP itself.

Romney Continues Attacking U.S. Automakers with Misleading Ads

by Anne Landman • October 30, 2012 • 0 Comments

Mitt Romney

General Motors publicly rebuked Mitt Romney over a misleading Ohio radio campaign ad that wrongly infers GM is planning to move U.S. auto manufacturing jobs to China. The ad’s narrator states, “Under President Obama, GM cut 15,000 American jobs, but they are planning to double the number of cars built in China, which means 15,000 more jobs for China. And now comes word that Chrysler plans to start making Jeeps in, you guessed it, China.” GM spokesman Greg Martin said “We’ve clearly entered some parallel universe during these last few days. No amount of campaign politics at its cynical worst will diminish our record of creating jobs in the U.S. and repatriating profits back to this country.” Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne, similarly tried to limit the damage Romney has done to his company’s reputation after Romney lied at a campaign event October 27 when he wrongly stated Jeep was moving all its manufacturing jobs to China. Marchionne sent an email out to employees reiterating that “Jeep production will not be moved from the United States to China. The numbers tell the story…Those include more than $1.7 billion to produce the successor of the Jeep Liberty and hire about 1,100 workers on a second shift by 2013.” Earlier this month, the Salt Lake City Tribune, the leading newspaper in the most Republican state in the U.S. and in the heart of Mormon country, endorsed Barack Obama for president, calling Romney “shameless” and suggesting the GOP presidential nominee will say whatever he thinks he must to win votes.

Main Sources: Business Insider, October 30, 2012 and the Detroit Free Press, October 30, 2012

Advertising, Corruption, Economics, Elections, Ethics, Lies, politics, Propaganda

Romney Doubles Down on Lie Told to Ohioans

by Anne Landman • October 28, 2012 • 0 Comments

Romney speaks to crowd in Defiance, Ohio (from YouTube)

GOP Presidential candidate Mitt Romney openly lied — again — at a campaign event in Defiance, Ohio Thursday, October 25, when he told a crowd of about 12,000 that Jeep is considering shifting all of its North American production to China. “I saw a story today that one of the great manufacturers in this state, Jeep, now owned by the Italians, is thinking of moving all production to China,” Romney said. The statement is verifiably false. Chrysler’s vice president of communications, Gualberto Ranieri, publicly corrected Romney in a blog post on the company’s website. “Let’s set the record straight,” Ranieri wrote, “Jeep has no intention of shifting production of its Jeep models out of North America to China.” Representatives from Romney’s campaign said candidate had misread the first two paragraphs of a Bloomberg news report that discussed the manufacture of Jeeps for the Chinese market. The article started out by saying Fiat, the company that now owns Chrysler, “plans to return Jeep output to China and may eventually make all of its models in the country.” It said that Chrysler and Fiat are evaluating additional production sites in China, not that they are shifting their output from North America to China. Despite being publicly called out on the purported error by Chrysler, neither Romney nor his campaign workers have corrected the erroneous statement. Quite the contrary — the Romney campaign has built on it. Romney has created a new campaign ad around his misleading statement. The ad says, “Obama took GM and Chrysler into bankruptcy and sold Chrysler to Italians who are going to build Jeeps in China. Mitt Romney will fight for every American job.” The Salt Lake City (Utah) Tribune, a conservative newspaper in the home of Mormonism, endorsed President Obama in an October 19th editorial titled “Too Many Mitts”, that called Romney the Republican Party’s “shape-shifting nominee.”

Ethics, Lies, politics

What’s Up With Romney’s Persistent, Huge Geographical Goof?

by Anne Landman • October 23, 2012 • 1 Comment

In the third presidential debate last Monday night, Republican candidate Mitt Romney displayed his lack of foreign policy acumen in many ways, not the least of which was when he said that Syria is “Iran’s route to the sea.” Syria isn’t even a neighbor of Iran and Iran has a coast of its own that gives it direct access to international waters, so Iran doesn’t need to rely on Syria to get to the sea at all. It was a factually false statement, but what is even more surprising is that Romney has made this same patently false statement repeatedly during the campaign and been called out on it as many times. He said it last February at a GOP debate in Arizona. He said it in a TV interview on December 21, 2011 on MSNBC. He’s said it at least three other times, too, and the error has been brought to his attention. Despite having made, and been corrected, on this same mistake at least five times before during his campaign, Romney stuck to this geographical misstatement in the important, final debate with President Obama on foreign affairs. Did Mr. Romney neglect to check a map of the middle east prior to his debate on foreign affairs with President Obama? Did he think he could make the same mistake again and people just wouldn’t notice? Doesn’t he care whether his statements are factually correct in a nationally-televised debate?

Advertising, Corruption, Ethics, Food, Health, Lies, Lobbying, Marketing, politics, Safety, Tobacco

Exposed: Sweet Lies from the Sugar Industry

by Anne Landman • October 23, 2012 • 0 Comments

Misleading May, 1971 ad in LIFE magazine ad encouraging sugar intake

The November/December issue of Mother Jones magazine has an explosive new analysis of more than 1,500 pages of internal documents from the archives of now-defunct sugar companies that reveals that for 40 years, the sugar industry engaged in a massive PR campaign to sow doubt about studies linking sugar consumption to disease. After a growing body of independent research started implicating sugar as a significant cause of heart disease, tooth decay, diabetes and other diseases, the sugar industry responded by developing a PR scheme that included secretly funding scientists to perform studies exonerating sugar as a source of disease. The sugar industry also secretly created a front group, the Food and Nutrition Advisory Council, that they stocked with physicians and dentists who were willing to defend sugar’s purported place in a healthy diet. Sugar companies also worked to shift the conversation about diabetes away from sugar and boost the notion that dietary fats, especially saturated fats, were a bigger culprit in causing heart disease than sugar.

Texas Church Marquee Urges “Vote for the Mormon, Not the Muslim!”

by Anne Landman • October 23, 2012 • 0 Comments

Church sign in Leakey, Texas violates IRS rule by urging people to vote for Romney.

Americans United for Separation of Church and State (AU) has asked the Internal Revenue Service (pdf) to investigate a Texas church after the pastor posted a message on the church’s marquee urging people to “VOTE FOR THE MORMON, NOT THE MUSLIM! The “Mormon” reference is to Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who belongs to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also known as the Mormon Church. ABC News reported that the sign is an obvious reference to President Barack Obama, whom many conservatives believe is a “secret Muslim” even though President Obama says he is a Christian and attends church with his family. According to ABC News, Ray Miller, the pastor of the Church of the Valley in Leakey, Texas, said he put the sign up because “he feels strongly about the election.” The church sign violates U.S. law, however, which prohibits tax-exempt organizations, including all churches, from endorsing political candidates.

Source: Americans United for Separation of Church and State press release, October 23, 2012

Corruption, Elections, Ethics, Lies, Media, politics, Secrecy

Behind Romney’s Remarkable Comfort with Lying

by Anne Landman • October 11, 2012 • 3 Comments

Op-Ed

For most people, it’s a given that politicians lie, but even with such universally low expectations for candidates, Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney stands out. The brazenness and persistence of Romney’s lying has drawn notice from all quarters. This isn’t just the perception of wild-eyed liberals, either. In October, 2011, Matt Welch of Reason.com, a right-leaning publication that supports free markets, wrote about Romney’s prodigious lying in an article titled “Mitt Romney’s Lying Problem”. An October 8, 2012 Forbes.com article noted Romney’s large number of lies and reversals in positions on policies. Even far right-wing Republican former House Speaker Newt Gingrich openly called Mitt Romney a liar on CBS News’ “The Early Show.”

Mitt Romney’s prodigious lying exceeds anything ever seen before in American politics, by all accounts. Given this, one overall question remains: How can Romney be so comfortable with such lying? Most average Americans would recoil at the idea of spewing as many lies as Romney has, let alone doing it in the white-hot spotlight of the national and global media. So what has given rise to a person like Romney, who so verifiably, consistently and freely lies the way he does? And how does this square with his Mormon religion, which, at least in print, preaches that complete honesty is necessary for salvation?

PA Legislator Outs Voter ID as Strategy to Benefit Mitt Romney

by Anne Landman • June 28, 2012 • 0 Comments

A Republican legislator from Pennsylvania inadvertently confirmed what liberals have long suspected: that so-called “voter I.D.” laws are a political strategy to help Republicans win more elections. While speaking at a meeting before the Republican State Committee in Hershey, Pennsylvania on June 23, Pennsylvania House Majority Leader Mike Turzai proudly listed the Republican Party’s accomplishments in the state while the party controlled both the governorship and the legislature. His list included enacting a “Castle Doctrine” act (a “shoot first” law like the one George Zimmerman claimed shielded him from prosecution after killing unarmed Florida teen Trayvon Martin earlier this year) and regulations that make it harder for women to obtain abortions. Then Turzia added, “Voter ID, which is going to allow Gov. Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania. Done.” Democrats pounced on Turzia’s statement as evidence showing that co-called “Voter ID” laws are really a strategy to suppress liberal votes and help put Republicans in office. Republicans have long argued that requiring citizens to show photo ID at the polls is necessary to maintain the integrity of elections, but opponents point out that voter fraud is an almost non-existent problem. In their practical implementation, voter ID laws have had the effect of wrongfully disenfranchising legitimate voters across the country, and making voting more difficult for members of discrete groups that tend to lean more Democratic, like city dwellers, students, minorities and the elderly.

Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, June 28, 2012

Corruption, Ethics, Lies, Media, politics, Religion

2nd-Tier Media Struggles to Highlight Romney’s Remarkable Stream of Lies

by Anne Landman • June 8, 2012 • 1 Comment

Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney has gained the distinction of putting forth the most bald-faced lies of any candidate ever while running for office. In March, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow devoted a entire 14 minute-long segment to Romney’s remarkable string of lies in which she acknowledged that expectations are low for politician’s honesty in general, but said that to win the presidency, “You have to not be a liar.” Maddow said, “The degree to which Mr. Romney lies all the time about all sorts of stuff and doesn’t care when he gets caught, is maybe the single most notable thing about his campaign.” Maddow documented a long list of statements Romney has made during his campaign that are contradicted by easily-verfiable facts, like his claims that the economy has gotten worse since Obama took over the presidency, or that he never called for a national health care law. Now a perennial politician, Romney has been a public figure for so many years, that there is a clear record of things he has said and positions he’s taken on issues, which makes it relatively easy to document whether what he says now about his past positions is true or not. Romney has dished out frank lies on a huge number of topics in this campaign alone: his record on gay rights, Obama’s trade and tax policies, the tax rate he himself pays, his job creation record, his record on abortion rights, his record as governor of Massachusetts, and many other issues. His string of lies is historic, even in the annals of particularly dirty U.S. politics.

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