Wapo Fact Checker Gives Obama Three Pinocchios For Speech And 'Phony Accounting'

The Washington Post Fact Checker does not take a position one way or another on whether they believe the bailouts to the auto manufacturers was a good or bad policy but they fact check Barack Obamas public assertions and headline calling them a "phony accounting" and later referring to them as "one of the most misleading collections of assertions we have seen in a short presidential speech."

The continue by saying "Virtually every claim by the president regarding the auto industry needs an asterisk, just like the fine print in that too-good-to-be-true car loan."

Ouch

After running through the statements made by Obama, they provide the actual data in comparison to Obama's false claims and end up giving Obama Three Pinocchios, which is what they use as their liar meter.

Significant factual error and/or obvious contradictions.

Fact Checker concludes after going through point by point and showing where Obama deliberately tried to mislead:

The president is straining too hard. If the auto industry bailout is really a success, there should be no need to resort to trumped-up rhetoric and phony accounting to make your case. Let the facts speak for themselves.

Perhaps the reason Obama thinks he can lie through his teeth and not get called on it is because most of the mainstream media avoids calling him out for his lies time and time again.

Eventually the lies catch up though, just ask Anthony Weiner.

More on Obama's phony accounting at Washington Examiner.

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Bailouts Only Postponed The Inevitable Failure For 98 Banks

Bad business practices will lead to failure. Infusing money into a failing business without said business changing the original cause that created failure, is simply postponing that failure.

Capitalism, via Merriam Webster dictionary:

An economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market.

WSJ reports the third-quarter financial results shows that 98 of the smaller banks who received bailout funds are in jeopardy of failing. That number has risen from 86 since the second quarter.

Nearly 100 U.S. banks that got bailout funds from the federal government show signs they are in jeopardy of failing.

The total, based on an analysis of third-quarter financial results by The Wall Street Journal, is up from 86 in the second quarter, reflecting eroding capital levels, a pileup of bad loans and warnings from regulators. The 98 banks in shaky condition got more than $4.2 billion in infusions from the Treasury Department under the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

More:

A Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. spokesman declined to comment on the Journal's analysis, which also calculated that 814 of the nation's 7,760 banks and savings institutions are troubled according to these standards, up from 729 at the end of the second quarter. The FDIC's official list of problem banks, which uses different criteria from the Journal's analysis, includes 860 financial institutions. The banks aren't publicly identified.

One example of a TARP recipient in deep trouble: closely held Legacy Bank of Milwaukee. José Mantilla, Legacy's president and chief executive, said the bank lends to an underserved, lower-income customer base.

Lending money to those one knows cannot pay it bank is a recipe for disaster and failure. Borrowing money one knows they have no financial means to pay back, is irresponsibility.

Handing tax payer money and TARP funds to businesses that are failing because of bad business practices... is incompetent.

TARP was created by George Bush administration in 2008, one decision I and many other conservatives disagreed vehemently with.

It has largely been administered by the Obama administration.

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Independents Believe Politicians That Voted For Obamacare, Bailouts And Stimulus Should Not Be Reelected

Rasmussen sampled likely voters and in each case of major legislation the Democrats call accomplishments, bailouts, stimulus and health care aka Obamacare, the majority or plurality believe a politician that voters for those laws should not be reelected.

50 percent of all likely voters are opposed to the reelection of a politician that voted for Obamacare with 43 percent saying they deserve to be reelected.

53 percent of likely voters are opposed to the reelection of a politician that voted for the auto industry bailout with 36 percent saying they should be returned to Congress.

50 percent of all likely voters are opposed to the reelection of a politician that voted for the $787 stimulus package with 41 percent saying they should be reelected.

More telling than those numbers though is the Independents because naturally with Democrats being the driving force behind those pieces of legislation, Democrats favor those politicians and Republicans are more likely to say they are oppoed to reelection of politicians that voted for the legislation.

But, tellingly, voters not affiliated with either party also feel strongly that supporters of the health care law, the auto bailouts and the stimulus should not be returned to Congress.

More:

Since Democrats in Congress passed the health care law in late March, support for its repeal has ranged from a low of 53% to a high of 63%.

Fifty-three percent (53%) of Americans still think the federal government bailout of General Motors and Chrysler was a bad idea.

Voters continue to give the stimulus plan mixed reviews. Thirty-four percent (34%) say it has helped the economy, but 39% think it has hurt the economy. Twenty-two percent (22%) say it has had no impact.

With results like these the final days of the campaigning before the November 2, 2010 midterms will most likely see campaign ads focusing on how current politicians voted for these issues, connecting the names of those who voted for Obamacare, bailouts and the stimulus package to each piece of legislation.

[Update] According to a new Gallup poll, 58 percent of Independents also view Nancy Pelosi unfavorably with 86 percent of Republicans and 22 percent of Democrats also holding an unfavorable view of Nancy Pelosi.

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