And now some fresh pickings from the Political Grapevine
To Tell the Truth
The website Politifact says President Obama was wrong when he told Bill O'Reilly during their Super Bowl interview -- quote -- "I didn't raise taxes once."
Politifact, and many other sources now, say that is false. They cite a tobacco tax hike as well as new taxes included in the health care law.
President Obama also said -- quote -- "I lowered taxes over the last two years." Americans for Tax Reform claims Obama "signed into law seven dollars in permanent tax hikes for every one dollar in permanent tax cuts."
However, Politifact gave the president a mostly true rating, reasoning the majority of taxpayers ended up with a tax cut.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs insists statistics show Americans are paying less in taxes than during the previous administration.
Minority Report
If you think the mainstream media is full of liberals, check out the field of social psychology.
The New York Times reports the University of Virginia's Jonathan Haidt took a survey at a recent conference and found that out of 1,000 of his peers, self-identified liberals made up 80 percent. Centrists and libertarians, fewer than three dozen. Three out of 1,000 identified themselves at conservatives.
Haidt concluded -- quote -- "Anywhere in the world that social psychologists see women or minorities under-represented by a factor of two or three, our minds jump to discrimination as the explanation. But when we find out that conservatives are under-represented among us by a factor of more than 100, suddenly everyone finds it quite easy to generate alternate explanations."
Extreme Makeover
The NATO alliance plans to spend $1.3 billion on its new headquarters in Brussels.
Critics say that amount of money is unnecessary, especially during a time of international belt-tightening.
But NATO officials claim the temporary quarters they have used since 1966 are in such disrepair they would be condemned under civilian guidelines.
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