As a follow-up to the ‘Maddow inflammatory rant’ to Senator Orrin Hatch, Mediaite posted an article continuing her tirade. See the Mediaite article for the video. Kudos to Mediaite. They seem to be the only organization that followed up on the Twitter feud. Maddow starts her rant by calling Senator Hatch a liar again, referencing her program from March 2, 2010. She slammed him regarding the same segment in which I cleared Senator Hatch in part 1 of this article. She references his tweeted response regarding that program:
@maddow (Rachel Maddow) ran me down on her show last night over my views on health care reform. Wonderful badge of honor. #utpol #utgop
I do definitely agree with Senator Hatch. Since Maddow’s deceptions usually have no basis in the truth (she lies…doesn’t seem to know any other way to put on a program), to be called a liar by her would actually be praise to the recipient for being honest. It would almost be akin to the wonderful honor of WPITW from Keith Olbermann. I would love to receive that award. It would also be a ‘wonderful badge of honor’. But alas, I am not worthy to receive such a glowing statement of achievement. Rachel Maddow. BUSTED!
On to her next ‘lie’. She attacks Senator Mitch McConnell for the following statement:
"Virtually every time reconciliation was used the results were bipartisan".
She then throws up pictures of 'Thomas Online', the Library of Congress site for legislative documents, as though she actually paid attention to or read the documents she was displaying. First, he said 'virtually' every time, not every time. She throws up three examples:
#1 - She states '51 to 50' party line vote. Not quite. 48 republicans for, 3 against. 2 democrats for, 46 against. Didn't the democrats determine that '1' vote from the other side makes legislation bipartisan?
#2 - She states '50-49' party line vote. I didn't look into that example. It wasn’t relevant since it was vetoed.
#3 - 52-47. She snickers that the vote for her third example wasn't bipartisan. You can't just look at the final totals and make that determination (although she expects to be believed unconditionally. Why would her followers ever doubt her by thinking and checking issues out for themselves?). Republicans: 43 in favor, 11 against. Democrats: 9 in favor, 35 against. I don't consider that a 'party line vote'.
Of her 3 examples, or at least two of the three...Maddow lies. She then states that “she does not take pleasure in this” as she calls Senator McConnell a liar. You could have fooled us. Sometimes I think Maddow is going to wet herself like an excited cocker spaniel when she calls people liars. Seems to be a common Democratic tactic to avoid the truth or true debate on the issues. She lies. L-I-E. Liiiees (spoken while giddily leaning toward the computer screen).
Then Maddow states that “if you look at the last two decades of using reconciliation…the majority of times it has been used for party line votes”. Really???
Let's look at the history of reconciliation. Out of 19 bills passed (21 total bills used the reconciliation process….omitting the 3 bills that were vetoed since most references by either side are to legislation ‘that has been passed’), 12 were passed with over 60 votes:
83-4; 80-14; 67-32; 67-26; 61-25; 61-28; 78-21; 85-15; 92-8; 79-12; and 2 passed by voice vote (such a noticeable majority that an actual vote-count was not required or requested).
That would definitely not be considered ‘non-bipartisan’, and using budget reconciliation as a tactic to shut out the other party. Only ONCE did a vote go through with only GOP votes (V.P. Cheney breaking the tie...51-50). ONCE the democrats got one through 51-50 (V.P. Gore breaking the tie).
The five that passed by under 60: Vote counts: R43, D9; R19, D35; R46, D12; R48, D2; R51, D3.
And if you only want to look at the ‘last two decades’ (i’m sure that is the ‘technicality’ she is trying to use to prove her point…complete stats be damned…try to find the sliver of information that proves her point…I would almost expect her to say something like “If you look at the last two decades, excluding 1996 and 1997”) out of the 10 reconciliation bills that were passed (1990-2010):
Four of those were over 60 votes (78-21; 85-15; 92-8; 79-12). One passed with only GOP votes. One passed with only Democratic votes. The others, R19, D35; R46, D12; R48, D2; R51, D3.
I wouldn't call that a 'majority of the time' it was used for party line votes. During it’s entire history, or during the ‘last two decades’. Mitch McConnell - Cleared. Maddow - YOU LIE!
She attacked another senator in the same rant. Senator Judd Gregg. She slams him for his recent statement on Fox News “...it’s bad policy and to do it this way is to railroad the American people and the congress”. What was the context? What was he referring to? Maddow viewers usually don’t care about such details. As long as they can get just as giddy as her and mindlessly agree, and shout off the rooftops “republicans are bad”, they are satisfied. He was referring to the health care bill being bad policy, and to ‘do it this way’ (use budget reconciliation for a non-budgetary purpose) is to railroad the American people. The American people who want health care reform, but want nothing to do with the current backdoor legislation from Pelosi, Reid, and friends.
In her second clip of Senator Gregg, she states that she is depicting “The ‘old’ Judd Gregg”, implying that he only wants to use reconciliation for his own purposes. What was he 'discussing' in that clip? What was the complete context? He was referring to a BUDGET issue (qualifies under reconciliation). He was arguing that the use in that situation did follow the rules of reconciliation. For some reason Maddow doesn’t want reconciliation tied to the use of the ‘budget’. Is that her reason for the careful edit of clip #2 from Senator Gregg. Here is the complete segment (highlighted text is text used by Maddow for her clip):
“The representation by the Senator from Massachusetts that somehow this is outside the rules to proceed within the rules is a very unique view of the rules. We are using the rules of the senate here. That’s what they are, Senator. Reconciliation is a rule of the senate set up under the budget act. It has been used before for purposes exactly like this on numerous occasions. The fact is that all this rule of the senate does is allow a majority of the senate to take a position and pass a piece of legislation. Support that position. Now is there something wrong with majority rules. I don’t think so. The reason the budget act was written this way is to allow certain unique issues to be passed with a majority vote, and that’s all that’s being asked for here.”
He wasn’t changing his position. He is for reconciliation, when it is used properly. Judd Gregg - Cleared. Maddow - YOU LIE!
She throws that word around so much, and with such gleeful joy. She needs to look in the mirror and shout it, not into a television camera.
So many lies by Rachel Maddow in so few days. How is it possible that people ever believe her?
