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Speaking from about the “horrible actions caused by our ‘friends’ on the other side of the aisle,” Democratic Congresswoman Maxine Waters angrily stated that the sequester would create a huge economic setback to our country and was “too much too fast” and would cost America “170,000,000 jobs.” Just to assure you that I am not misquoting the Congresswoman, here is the video:
While typical of the scare tactics used by the left unchecked by a biased mainstream media, this scare tactic is not only a lie it is so over the top that it shows that the Congresswoman just makes things up. It is literally impossible for the sequester to cause the loss of 170 million jobs because there are only approximately 130 million employed people currently in the United States. I guess the Congresswoman believes that not only will everyone in America be fired, but then the next forty million that might have been rehired would then immediately be fired. When is my last day?
Before you panic and worry that you will be fired tomorrow because every job will end when the sequestration ends I will let you in on a little secret, Congresswoman Waters made it up. Not the first time or the last time that this kind of ridiculous lie will be used to scare the American people, but rarely will these lies be so demonstrably false. When ridiculous statements like this are made, it shows what is really going on. Obviously Ms. Waters wanted to scare the public about the impact of the sequestration so she just made up an impressive number that would scare those that don’t think. Unfortunately for Ms. Waters she just pulled the wrong number out of the air. Do you think that this misstep will be anywhere in the press?
. “Let every man mind his own business.” by Miguel de Cervantes….
Geoff. I just posted the same source on my Facebook page. We only have 135 million in the US labor force. Another example of the “sky is falling” from the libs in Congress. Forgetting procurement costs, with labor, material and profit, if the cuts were purely labor and, based on $25,000 per year wages, $87.5 billion would result in the loss of 3.5 million jobs, less than 3% of the current work force. We see these cuts in the private sector and suck it up and move on as we cope with the ongoing
recession.
Larry, I think we may be seeing the first major mis-fire on the PR side for the coddled Obama Administration.
Please tell me you don’t seriously think she meant 170 million and you think this a “lie”. Please? Pretty please!? Especially since the ‘Satire’ tag is missing.
Snoopy. Maxine Waters and I were united in Burbank defending private property right s a few years ago. She also supported us on the same issue in DC. I am disappointed in her math. Was she referring to JOB YEARS or one year totals? Did you bother to watch the video? Sequestor is not a time for joking around.
To most it would be quite clear Ms. Waters simply made a “gaffe”. With discussion involving “millions”, “billions” and “trillions”, it is quite easy to make such a gaffe. I have heard so many numbers of potential jobs losses bantered about that anyone and everyone is an armchair economist these days.
Authoring an article such as this with accusations of “scare tactics” and “lies” over an obvious gaffe is far more than just a fringe right wing blogger stating an opinion. It speaks volumes to why the GOP brand is self-destructing, however, with little hope of revival until baseless accusations such as those here are moderated. This type of rhetoric serves no purpose other than to instigate or attract more of the fringe.
Unadulterated cynicism at best and borderline hate at worse. Even suggesting Ms. Waters “angrily” stated her views is disingenuous and meant to incite the reader with bombastic verbiage as intellectual honesty is lacking.
And of course I watched the video. Seems a foolish question but there’s your answer.
It is truly scary that more than one of my fellow citizens “think” like this post’s sentiments. If you think Ms. Waters was joking around and Mr. Willis is not…wow…just wow. It would be laughable if not so scary.
Citation supporting your contention that “to most it would be quite clear that Ms. Waters simply made a “gaffe?” No? Not surprising. Evidently all of the commenters who see it the same way as the post are just flat wrong and you are just absolutely right. Funny how the intentional “mistake” was made to the high side supporting her fear tactics and not to the low side. Funny how I have not seen any reliable numbers from anyone about short term job loss garnered from real data. I could see from your virtually steady state of rant how you could view her demeanor as other than “angry” but I think that says more about you. I did publish Ms. Waters full retraction admitting this as a mistake . . . oh wait, there wasn’t one.
Your blog is to express opinions, which I have. Proving a negative is impossible, as you well know.
Just because Ms. Waters’ (or her office) hasn’t caught up with the pettifogging, aggregating fringe blogosphere yet means nothing. You claim an intentional mistake and I claim a gaffe. Which claim is “right”, as in correct – we know which the right will always choose while ignoring even the remotest possibility of an alternative.
We know there is no swaying thoughts embedded in a lawyer mind once it enters. I wouldn’t even try to change your views despite my masochistic tendencies. I only express my opinions and each time I do, you accuse me of thinking them absolutes and take the persecution complex and passive aggressive stance. Now you’ve added “intentional” as a pejorative to negatively portray what TO ME, and surely many others, is but a gaffe.
You say “angrily” – I say “passionately”. Your distaste for anything left is what drives you to the pejorative. Your “leaders” would certainly be portrayed as “passionate” just as the thesaurus reliant vitriol from a Massie is “incredibly articulate”.
If having an opinion contrary to yours and others makes me absolutely right, then quilty as charged. You haven’t convinced me otherwise so until you do…….
And use of the ever present negative words such as “angrily” speaks volumes about you and your objectives, BTW.
Since just about everything out of Waters’s mouth is either a gaffe or a lie, I can understand how difficult it is to tell. Liberals never shy from harping on conservative gaffes, so I say ridicule away. (Waters’s office has said she meant to say 170,000 – I just like the way she so forcefully said MILLION).
Ridicule is welcome. Willful misrepresentation, not so much. But what more would one expect from the right but lies. Can’t fault them for consistency.
Ready to print that correction – or would you even venture a retraction (GASP!), Mr. Willis? Sorry it wasn’t soon enough for you…that is if Gre can be believed considering his propensity for bloviating.
What a shame you were “eaten” by one of your own. This is becoming a pattern on the right.
More pyrite.
Correction or retraction of what? The post as it stands is completely turthful and correct.
Gaffe ≠ scare tactic.
Gaffe ≠ “lie”.
Gaffe ≠ intentional.
Gaffe ≠ “making things up”.
Need more?
Unlike the left, I always trade in facts: http://www.examiner.com/article/maxine-waters-sequester-would-cost-170-million-jobs-more-than-all-jobs-u-s. Whether she meant to say 170,000 or 170 million is up for debate. I’m just saying her CYA man said it was a mistake.
“Unlike the left” is a lie. I expressed a well-founded opinion based on logic – sorely lacking from the right these days. Mr. Willis started with a false premise and expanded upon it. His opinion has now been proven to be erroneous, thanks to your cannibalizing his theory.
You wanted a correction and got it. Now the spin is “CYA”. As usual with the right, spin rules and intellectual honesty loses.
Strange filters you righties use, indeed.
She is one of Obama’s favorite, so she knows what she is saying, but she wants to scare folks so she uses those big numbers to get her point across. I think Obama gives classes on how to lie, and keep a serious face.
This woman needs to get real, I think some of the problem in Washington, is caused by unthinking people like this woman, geez
can’t this country do better.
Snoppy Dance,
It seems to me that you don’t understand the differance between facts and lies. Here are some lies that come to mind.
Bill Clinon told Amarica back in the late 90′s that “oral sex is not sex”. A lie. To this day I remember having to explain to my third grade daughter what oral sex was.
Again, late 90′s, Bill Clinton looked America straight in the eyes and said “I did not have sex with that woman, Miss Lewinsky”. A lie.
Hillary Clinton, when asked about how she became named Hillary, she said “I was named after Sir Hillary, who was the first man to climb Mt. Everest”. A lie. Sir Hillary didn’t climb the mountain until nearly 6 years after Clinton’s birth.
In 2008 Mrs Clinton, in a speech, claimed that in 1996, while visiting Bosnia, that “she and her daughter came under sniper fire upon their arrival at the airport”. A lie. Then she said “I mis-spoke” about the incident.
Obama, who as yet, has not performed one his campaign promises. I don’t know what he means about ‘transparency’, I have yet see that happen.
The legislative and the excutive branches have ‘ mis-spoke’ to the American people about this sequester fiscal doom. The U.S. will not lose all government workers, nor will the country have no local police/fire protection. That is paid for by local and state taxes.
Please, will some one explain to me the differance between a ‘lie’ and ‘mis-spoke’?
Here is what I can’t understand. If a demoncracomment. If a republican ‘mis-speaks’ it is lie.t tells a lie it is only a ‘mis-spoken’
lie: noun: a false statement made with deliberate intent to deceive; an intentional untruth.
gaffe: noun: An unintentional act or remark causing embarrassment to its originator.
Does that explain the differance [sic] to you?
Some more examples of outright lies: vaccines make you retarded; 78-81 communists in the House; “shut that whole thing down”; earth is only 6,000 years old; legitimate rape; (Science Committee members ring a bell?) aspirin prevents pregnancy; thinking right (more an oxymoron than a lie); pretty much anything out of Boehner/Cantor’s mouth; and the winner is….WMD! (Blue dresses, tarmacs and first names didn’t kill 4000 troops, did they?)
BTW, I’ll never vote for Bill Clinton or Barack Obama again.
P.S. Do you really think you are furthering civil discourse by referring to those you disagree with as “demon-crats”?
Folks. Stay on the post thread. Rep Waters misinformation on the sequestor is a major issue. You must not quote bogus numbers to scare those who are not following the total picture. Bringing in Clinton and Obama takes our eyes off the ball, which she dropped.
Larry, I do believe my post was on topic as well as a valid response to a comment directed to me specifically.
That said, if someone who would be watching Ms. Waters’ comments isn’t aware of the basic economics of the US, they have more problems that actually believing 170 million would lose their jobs and the figure was nothing more than a gaffe, an error, as I have tried to enlighten the obstinate “folks” here to (to no avail obviously).
However, if they are getting their “news” from the right wing, petty aggregators, I can see why they’d put faith in the 170 million number as opposed to the oft cited 750,000 range on the real news. The low information voters are the ones that jump on a gaffe and view it as lies, made up numbers and an intentionally wrong statement.
A gaffe/error/mistake is not misinformation. Talk in millions, billions and trillions all day and you too could make the same mistake also. The molehill is just that – a molehill (unless you’re so low in the weeds a grain of sand is a mountain to you).
Snoopy. Geoff’s post is about Maxine period. There was no reason to introduce Bill Clinton or presidert Obama in to the discussion. As you have done so let me also say that I personally thanked the Congresswoman for supporting us in defending private property rights in America. As such there will be times when we are on the same page.
Larry, Mr. Willis’ article is about false accusations of lies, making up numbers and scare tactics, all intentional, that didn’t exist. He used Ms. Waterss’ gaffe to correlate Democrats with these negative attributes while feigning her statements were intentional and therefore ‘turthful’.
If you’ll scroll back up you’ll see I did not introduce either of the Clintons nor Obama into the discussion. You’ll see the name on the post is “It Seems To Me and was addressed to ‘Snoppy’ Surely the grammar and spelling alone would have told you the post was not mine.
Now if you think as Mr. Willis does, it will be rare that we are on the same page.
Snoopy, just because you keep saying that it was a “mere” gaffe doesn’t make it so. She intentionally and willfully made up a number to scare folks and only when she was caught used another made up number sa “what she really meant to say.”
Mr. Willis, your repeating the same untruth time and time again does not make it true, although that is the conservative modus operandi. You just stick with that cute little “story” of yours. The rest of us know better.
Sad, indeed. Try a positive post once in a while instead of all this negativity you portray. One would think you a miserable person…if they didn’t know better.
It was a gaffe…period. Live with it. Or be obstinate and remain disingenuous.
OK. I’m getting off this thread. There are more pressing issues to address. Have a great weekend.
Snoopy, Obama thinks transparency means a clean windshield on his golf cart. Not a single thing he has done has been transparent, except his trying to destroy this great country.
Snoopy Dance….please excuse my errors from my first post. I’m new to the computer world, and I’m told I have spell check but have not found it yet.
I’m not a Phd. nor do I have a Masters Degree. I’m just a middle aged person trying to figure out what is going on in this country, and what is thing called ‘sequester’.
I was taught at an early age not to lie or make up stories. If I did not know the answer to a question I was told to say ‘I don’t know’. If I had little information I was to say ‘I’ll get back to you once I have all the information’.
I used the Clinton/Obama lies as a point of how lies are turned to be “I mis-spoke”. Ms Waters infront of a large group of people stated facts that were not ‘true’ facts. I guess I’m confused on what is ‘fact’ and what is ‘gaffe’. According to my Merriam Webster Dictionary ‘gaffe’ is: “a social blunder”. So I can only assume that Ms Waters is a ‘social blunder’ to ‘gaffe’ information that is not true.
But I must say thank you for adding a new word to my vocabulary, ‘gaffe’. Which i must admitt is a must needed word to the left to hide their lies. Gaffe equals mis-spoke. And I can now understand the difference between ‘lies’, ‘mis-spoke’ and ‘gaffe’.
Here are a good example where Boehner is given a pass on his lies and allows it as gaffes instead of lie:
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/speaker-boehner-commits-huge-gaffe-cant-do-simple-arithmetic
Using the same loose “logic” as Mr. Willis’ article, this would be an outright lie, whose intent was to deceive, not a gaffe. (Actually, it is a lie since Boehner knew the numbers and the reality of projections vs guaranteed outcomes.)
Gaffes can also be social blunders, such as the one Obama made with his “Jedi mind meld” comment at his news conference yesterday, combining nerdy Star Wars and Star Trek nerd references (social). It is not a lie, but a social blunder…and completely harmless, except perhaps to those who wish to attack the President on the most trivial and mundane of things. Gerald Ford was known for his social blunders of tripping over his own two feet. Tripping is not a lie or a verbal gaffe, but ‘social’ in nature.
Hope this gives you a better understanding of the harmlessness of gaffes, social and verbal, and that mistakes are not intentional lies for the sole purpose to deceive, as the author of this blog is desperately attempting to do with Ms. Waters’ remarks.
Welcome to the computer world and the world of right-wing conspiratorial spin.
Snoopy, Obama tells so many lies how do you tell the difference his lies and what you call Gaffes? The main st. media thinks everything Obama says is the truth, but they
wouldn’t know the truth if it hit them in the face, but they don’t seem to care what happens to this country.
Keep this going please, great job!
My family always say that I am killing my time here at net, except I know
I am getting familiarity daily by reading thes nice posts.