Debunk #2

My new “public debunk” policy has been quickly put to the test. The current email claims that H.R. 1388 provides funding to bring Hamas terrorists to the United States as refugees “behind our backs” and “in secret.”

Whether you are an Obama fan, or not, EVERYONE IN THE U. S. needs to know….

Something happened… H.R. 1388 was passed yesterday, behind our backs. You may want to read about it. It wasn’t mentioned on the news… just went by on the ticker tape at the bottom of the CNN screen.

The facts on this one come from UrbanLegends.com and were found in less than ten seconds of Google searching. This was the top reply.

H.R. 1388 did not use $20 million in taxpayer funds to resettle Hamas refugees in the United States. However, the bill (The Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act) did increase the funding and scope of a variety of public service programs (UrbanLegends pointed out that another set of chain mails claimed the bill made public service mandatory, but that didn’t happen, either.)  The act had considerably publicity and support of both major parties.

In January 2009, President Obama signed a memorandum to the State Department authorizing $20.3 million in humanitarian aid to Palestinian refugees in Gaza. Read it. Resettlement was not even mentioned.

And why would we give money to people known to be sympathetic to terrorists? Largely to reduce their sympathy for terrorists. Hamas was once the major provider of schools, hospitals, and welfare. The idea (which originated long before Obama came to office) is that the United States can reduce Hamas’ power by providing an alternative source of sustenance.

In essence, this e-mail was just another vicious lie. Again, I call on people who disagree with Obama, if you must do so via e-mail, to fight with reason and to argue with the President on things he has done, not things which someone in a dark room somewhere has just made up and sent out so it could be passed on by e-mail and hate-filled blog.

Addendum:

This one was sent to me recently by Shirley.

This could be a scandal of epic proportions and one that makes Nixon’s Watergate or Clinton ’s Monica Lewinsky affair pale by comparison. Why was there neither rhyme nor reason as to which dealerships of the Chrysler Corporation were to be closed? Roll the clock back to the weeks just before Chrysler declared bankruptcy. …

Initially, the national media reported that Chrysler had made this list of dealerships. That is not true. The Washington Examiner, Newsmax, FoxNews and a host of other news agencies discovered that the list of dealerships was put together by the “Automotive Task Force” headed by no one other then Mr. Steve Rattner. Now the plot thickens.

As you might have guessed, none of these news agencies have “discovered” anything of the sort. Yes, some hardcore zealots whose factual record is highly flawed have claimed this to be the case. Do any have evidence? No. They say the dealers dropped by Chrysler were highly likely to be Republican contributors. That’s true. So are the dealers kept by Chrysler.

Obama also rescued two companies that historically have given heavily to Republican candidates and have opposed Democrats – GM and Chrysler.

Here is the factcheck.org analysis. There is really no excuse for  hitting Send on this piece of loathesome hate mail in any case, but if it’s on Factcheck and takes me less than ten seconds to find it, there’s really no excuse.

The “Dealergate” piece ran in June 2009. Apparently auto dealers gave McCain $599,400 as a group in 2008, and they gave Obama $133,300. The closed dealers gave $120,000 to Republicans and $34,350 to Democrats; and $7,150 to McCain, nothing to Obama. (Obama would have to be really petty to care about the latter.) Note that according to these ratios, the closed dealers were more likely than average to contribute to Democrats!

There are a few parts to the argument, like there being no rhyme or reason to the closings; but Chrysler has already released statistics which show that most of the closings are of dealers with practically no new car sales, or which have massive import-car sales and very few Chrysler sales. Some dealers had horrible service records. Some were probably – and I have no real evidence here other than hearsay – dropped because they offended people within Chrysler.

There is absolutely no evidence presented by anyone that national politics had any influence. Let me repeat that. There is no evidence for any of the claims in this email. None. It is very specific in naming “a babe named Maureen White,” after naming Steve Rattner. Is there evidence? No.

The email claims “65% of Chrysler is now owned by the Federal government and the United Auto Workers union – Fiat owns 20%. The other 15% is still privately owned… Obama smiles and says he doesn’t want to run the auto industry.” Well, Allpar owners know that 20% is owned by Fiat, and that it’ll go up to 35% when they finish paying for the development of new cars for Chrysler in the U.S. that were not funded by Daimler. Around 9% is government (Canada owns a share too) and the rest is the UAW VEBA – not the UAW itself, but a retirement fund. Why? Because retirement benefits are often treated as a moderately protected class in bankruptcy, because Daimler seems to have underfunded the pension funds, and because the government would probably pay more in welfare and pension guarantee funds otherwise.

The email refers you to various right-wing blogs with mainstream-sounding names, as well as Fox News, whose pundits have been known to cross the line at times (including the famous quote, “Obama hates all white people.” Which was followed a few minutes later by, “Obama doesn’t hate white people. He hates what they stand for.” It’s interesting to see all white people lumped together. I, for one, hate what Stalin and Hitler stood for; both were white. So am I, for that matter. Should we generalize some more? Come to think of it, what’s the skin color of almost every Obama advisor and appointee?)

No reputable or mainstream news organization is mentioned, and for good reason. An identically worded blog entry appeared across dozens of right-wing blogs, but that doesn’t make the story right either. (What’s interesting is that some of the blogs updated the story as time went on and others did not; but the “evidence” was found to be highly misleading by some conservative blogs which had higher standards, or which copied from one blog with higher standards.)

What’s more, Obama has been surprisingly non-partisan for the most part, refusing to investigate crimes allegedly committed by the past administration, trying to appoint Republicans to key posts, and generally not taking revenge on Democrats who sided with Hillary Clinton (which is one factor talked about in one version of this hoax).

The letter continues: “This is Nazi Germany stuff, and it’s happening right here, right now, in your back yard.”

That really crosses the line.

Am I impressed with Obama’s handling of the banks and auto industry? Well… not really. Do I need to invent things and assume that our differences reach the level of killing 8-12 million people? No, I usually argue rationally, or try to.