Last night on Rachel Maddow, Rick Berman claimed

[WonderGrunion]

the average minimum wage worker makes $50,000 a year. Is he fucking serious? That would require approximately 135 hours a week of labor to reach that figure. Even considering he said "family income", that requires two wage earners to work almost 70 hours a week both at minimum wage.

This is the enemy folks. Stop the circular firing squad of "Kucinich can't pass anything" and "Obama is a corporatist". They will flat out distribute lies about both sides and let us happily pick off each other to take control again.

[havocmom]

1. Is he serious? No, he is either out of touch, lying, bad at math,

or all of the above

[WonderGrunion]

2. He's lying or horribly stretching the truth

Into some silly putty distortion of a comic strip print. (Old school reference). A single person making minimum wage could never achieve that level on their own. That would drastically drop the average already. It could only work with families that work multiple minimum wage jobs AND include value of benefits (if any) AND include families that have a primary wage earner and a person working a second minimum wage job to even possibly make that average.

His statement is patently ignorant.

I re-watched the segment 3 times and even turned on closed caption to see if I was mistaken in what he said, but he did say it with a straight face.

[Javaman]

21. No, he's serious. He just enjoys talking out of his ass. nt

[WonderGrunion]

23. Agreed, he strikes me as the type that takes pride

in his ability to lie convincingly.

[hedgehog]

3. Even if it were true, the minimum wage earners would most likely

still be on the hook for purchasing private health insurance rather than group coverage. Even a t that, the group coverage that is occasionally offered minimum wage workers is a crumb compared to what other people get.

[WonderGrunion]

6. Keep in mind, Berman is a PR flack

that happens to keep starting non-profits that happen to mimic the stances of his corporate clients, but their non-profit status keeps him from having to disclose funding.

He's responsible for SunlightScam.com , FishScam.com , RottenACORN.com and more.

See www.bermanexposed.org/ for a complete list of his corporate shill-hood.

[Lance_Boyle]

4. Are there any state minimum wages high enough to make his numbers work?

AFAIK the highest is California at $8/hr. Still no $50K there.

[WonderGrunion]

8. His only caveat he used was "Family average"

So he's figuring two wage-earner households. Even still, $25K a year at minimum wage anywhere is hard to get to.

[quiller4]

30. WA min wage is $8.55; OR min is $8.40 and Vermont $8.06

all higher than CA but none reach $50k

[WonderGrunion]

36. Yeah, his math is just crap

Of course, no more so than everything else he says and does.

[Bozita]

5. Hard to believe Rachel didn't challenge him on that mind-blowing number.

She's got to say something about this tonight.

[WonderGrunion]

7. He changed the subject so quickly

And started making false claims about ACORN, she really didn't have an opportunity to call him on it.

[izquierdista]

14. She was still putting on her shoes

"A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." -- Mark Twain

Liars have a distinct advantage in almost any verbal format, because their weapon is to keep spouting more lies. Before radio and TV, people had to read, and to read you have to think about what you are reading, so lies tend to get noticed and filtered out.

[WonderGrunion]

16. Well, his minimum wage claim

Was a bright shining turd in the punchbowl. No way it was going unnoticed.

[izquierdista]

22. After he got done

There was very little punch in the turdbowl.

[Bluzmann57]

9. Minimum wage worker makes HOW MUCH?

Good grief, if that's the case, I want a raise to minimum wage now. That is a guy who apparently is totally out of touch with reality.

[WonderGrunion]

10. He thinks the middle class is people making

Half a million a year. They need to make a full Million a year to be wealthy, ya know.

[KharmaTrain]

11. Slick Rick Is One Of Many...

Watching him ooze last night is just the tip of the Iceburg. He's just one of a large cadre of lobbyists and political operatives that are paid to distort, lie, rinse and repeat. And he's unabashed about it...he lives a very nice life and never has to pay any real price for his actions.

What was most telling was how he avoided his own financial backing while gladly trying to go after ACORN or CREW...a double standard he's been able to get away with and profits from. Of course he won't disclose where his money comes from as he doesn't have to and tried to use his appearance to promote his astroturfing...one backed up with other paid-for reports and pundits...an echo chamber that knows how to get their word out and play the media game.

Kudos to Rachel for exposing the dark underside of the political establishment...and may it be a true learning experience for those who watched. The way to counter the Bermans is by exposing them to as many people as possible and force them to address facts not spin. On that score, Rachel did very, very well.

[WonderGrunion]

12. I agree, Rachel was fantastic

The Repuke talkers always try to shout down guests they don't agree with. I think Rachel knew that letting him talk on his own would reveal what a scummy person he is. The minimum wage comment was just offered out there by him. Rachel didn't ask him about it.

[newspeak]

13. wasn't he part of the swift boat liars?

Yeah, and hydrogenated oil is good for you and so is fish, especially with mercury, and corn syrup in all of your foods isn't bad either. And, toxic sludge is good for you--that's the name of a book, if you get a chance read it, very interesting.

[WonderGrunion]

18. I can't find a direct tie between them

But his advocacy non-profits had to be behind them somewhere.

[KharmaTrain]

33. You're Thinking About Bob Perry

Another GOOP slime merchant...

http://info.tpj.org/page_view.jsp?pageid=667

There are several big money families behind a lot of these false flag operations...most notably the Koch (Rachel has done some good stuff about them), Mellon-Scaiffe, DeVos and other fatcat families. It's an elaborate and expansive operation that flaunt as many laws as they can to appear legal.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

15. The median family income in the US is about 50K

That's from the census. That means that half the families earn less, half the families earn more

$7.25 per hr. x 40 hours = 290 x 52 = 15,080. So even if you had 2 wage earners at minimum it would be 30K at best. So he obviously doesn't know what he's talking about.

[WonderGrunion]

17. I think he knows what he's talking about

I also think that he knows if he lies with a straight face, enough people will buy it to perpetuate the lie.

The math just doesn't add up to what he claims.

[mulsh]

19. he is very good at moving the subject slightly, for instance

When Rachel challenged his medical research lackey ( I don't remember the guy's name) Berman insisted the lackey "went to Dartmoth" as though that were credential enough. It is not that he knows what he's talking about rather that he is adept at refocusing the subject. Nearly every time Rachel challenged him, his info or one of his web site he deftly moved the subject a micron away. never answering anything. the guy struck me as a typical well dressed slime ball. It says more about our alleged fourth estate that any one regards this shill as anything more prestigious than a 3 card monte shark. I

[WonderGrunion]

20. And Bush went to Yale and Harvard

That hardly makes him qualified to be anything, regardless of credentials. I get what you're saying. He's excellent at non-answers.

[Raineyb]

35. Oh he knows what he's talking about.

He's just doing what liars do...Lie.

[Orsino]

24. Let's investigate him. Find out how many people he makes work 135 hrs/wk n/t.

[WonderGrunion]

25. Rachel has been investigating him pretty thoroughly

And the only people I think he hires are web designers.

[Ignis]

26. It's great to see that Berman is no longer a darling of DU.

We see links to his bullshit "petakillsanimals" site posted far too often here, without the slightest clue by the posters that they know who Berman or the CCF are.

[WonderGrunion]

32. Agreed, although I'll cut them some slack for ignorance.

Anyone knowing who Berman is should be ashamed for posting his crap around here.

[Autonomy]

27. K&R

edit to add: look at it this way, even though he is obviously lying, at least he is tacitly admitting the value of having a minimum wage.

[bridgit]

28. Yup, everything he said was a wall of voodoo, his aspersions upon CREW's Melanie Sloan...

were predictably interesting, and easily refuted: Sloan doesn't have to disclose anything and so neither will he as though some 'left/right' political matter over trans-fat, sugar, tobacco (the list goes on) having great long term health benefits why, they'll even *clean* your arteries and how can that be bad? When the matter is nearer to raw, wanton, unadulterated capitalism. Berman is the worst kind of carpetbagging snake oil salesman: his moral civic center is vacated

Being so slick & slimy it's hard to think he didn't know it; but we can thank him for breaking it down into left/right politics cause now the world has heard it from his lips: 'sickness, separation, intellectual dishonesty, and death by slimy republican snake oil salesmen & women = right-wing while health, happiness, balance, and accountability = left-wing' and to that extent that works for me

In the middle ages, however, some ground red bricks into dust for food coloring...I bet this Berman dude would have been right on that one too

[WonderGrunion]

39. It was nice having Sloan on next

Gleefully reminding us that some of his clients (like William Morris) have been disclosed in court documents. Check out the wikipedia entry on him to discover some of his other corporate clients that have been exposed.

[yesphan]

29. How can this guy

justify what he does ? Does he have no conscience ?
He reminded me of the slimy lawyer guy that Martin Short used to play on SNL.

[WonderGrunion]

34. I'm guessing he thinks that money can buy a conscience.

Or he's just a sociopath.

[backscatter712]

31. He comes straight out of Thank You For Smoking.

I'm surprised he doesn't look like Aaron Eckhart...

[unc70]

37. Possible explanation for Berman's min wage claim

I think that Berman's claim is that those making the minimum wage are in families where the total household incomes average over $50,000 (more or less). A family where any member is paid the minimum wage for a single hour of work is part of this group. This might include a family with high-ncome parents whose teenage child works four hours/week at minimum wage. It might also include those whose incomes come primarily from tips (waiters, bellmen, bartenders, etc.) and who are paid a very low "minimum" wage. I am almost certain that Berman has (misleading) set of data that keeps this from being a complete lie, only a deliberate effort to mislead and deceive in support of attempted defraud.

Lies, damn lies, and statistics. One of my specialties.

[WonderGrunion]

38. I figured it would be some kind of Gordian Knot he was threading

with his explanation. But he uses that twisted logic to imply we need no increase in the minimum wage. That is total crap.