Showing posts with label MSM. Show all posts
Showing posts with label MSM. Show all posts

Friday, February 18, 2011

Breaking: Inside The CBS NewsRoom

The invaluable Irony Curtain offers a candid look at legacy media.



Thursday, February 17, 2011

Remember when George Stephanopolous and David Gregory grilled Nancy Pelosi about the Left's 9/11 Truther Movement?

Neither do I.

NBC’s David Gregory hit John Boehner with it over the weekend, and now grilling conservatives about their beliefs concerning President Obama’s birthplace and faith seems to be an all-out media fad. I wouldn’t really mind that necessarily if it didn’t come at the expense of trumping other important topics — but maybe that’s the objective of the questioner(s).

In this example featuring George Stephanopoulos and Michele Bachmann, the subject change abruptly occurs as Bachmann is talking about the tax policy. Then when Bachmann is talking about the stimulus fail, Stephanopoulos changes the subject to Lady Gaga.

Ed Morrissey calls it Non-Sequitur Central.

Since when do random GOP legislators take responsibility for a fringe group, members of whom may be plants?

For the best example I can remember, rewind to 2006, when Brian Gibson lobbed underhand softballs at the least experienced presidential candidate in history, one Barack H. Obama. Compare and contrast:

Obama interview:

How does it feel to break a glass ceiling?
How does it feel to “win”?
How does your family feel about your “winning” breaking a glass ceiling?
Who will be your VP?
Should you choose Hillary Clinton as VP?
Will you accept public finance?
What issues is your campaign about?
Will you visit Iraq?
Will you debate McCain at a town hall?
What did you think of your competitor’s [Clinton] speech?


Palin interview:

Do you have enough qualifications for the job you’re seeking? Specifically have you visited foreign countries and met foreign leaders?
Aren’t you conceited to be seeking this high level job?
Questions about foreign policy
-territorial integrity of Georgia
-allowing Georgia and Ukraine to be members of NATO
-NATO treaty
-Iranian nuclear threat
-what to do if Israel attacks Iran
-Al Qaeda motivations
-the Bush Doctrine
-attacking terrorists harbored by Pakistan
Is America fighting a holy war? [misquoted Palin]


The Anchoress summarizes the difference in a sentence: "So there, you have it - another utterly insane day in American politics, where 'big time professional journalists' ask Presidential candidates how they feel about being so great while drilling vice presidential candidates on Russia."

Come to think of it, Jon Stewart has been far, far more credible than any network news personality for several years now.

By the way: Michelle Bachmann for President 2012.


Hat tip: Memeorandum.

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Most Transparent Administration Ever Described as 'Communist Russian state media' By... ABC

Methinks legacy media has grown a bit tired with the tactics of the Chavez administration.

...Over the past few months, as White House cameras have been granted free reign behind the scenes, officials have blocked broadcast news outlets from events traditionally open to coverage and limited opportunities to publicly question the president himself...

"The administration has narrowed access by the mainstream media to an unprecedented extent," said ABC News White House correspondent Ann Compton, who has covered seven administrations. "Access here has shriveled."

...Members of the press have always had quibbles with White House media strategies, calling cut-backs in access an affront to transparency, even as administration officials insist they're simply taking advantage of new technologies.

But some say the current dynamic is different, and dangerous.

"They're opening the door to kicking the press out of historic events, and opening the door to having a very filtered format for which they give the American public information that doesn't have any criticism allowed," said University of Minnesota journalism professor and political communication analyst Heather LaMarre.

..."If Nixon had announced he was going to start the 'Nixon channel' and said they were only going to put up stuff he approved of, people would have said, 'Oh my God, this is like Communist Russian state media,'" said David Perlmutter, director of the University of Iowa School of Journalism and Mass Communication...

Oh, I'm sure TNC (The Nixon Channel) would have gotten rave reviews from the big three networks during Watergate, don't you?


Sunday, February 13, 2011

Bob Herbert Sets New Standard for Idiocy at The New York Times

Ever wonder how Bob Herbert got hired at the Times? I'll bet editor Bill Keller is wondering that today after reading the columnist's latest world-class nutbaggery, which was layered paragraph upon paragraph like some sort of delusion cake. I'll spare you all of the details: just consider a few "highlights":

• "More and more Americans are being left behind in an economy that is being divided ever more starkly between the haves and the have nots."

• "As poverty increases and reliable employment becomes less and less the norm, the dwindling number of workers with any sort of job security or guaranteed pensions (think teachers and other modestly compensated public employees) are being viewed with increasing contempt."

• "...there are not enough tax revenues being generated to pay for the basic public services that one would expect in an advanced country like the U.S. The rich are not shouldering their fair share of the tax burden."

• "The U.S. cannot cut its way out of this crisis."

• "Long-term joblessness is a recipe for societal destabilization. It should not be tolerated in a country with as much wealth as the United States. It's destructive, and it's wrong."

Hey, everyone: the genius Bob Herbert thinks anyone who pays taxes isn't paying enough. Don't be fooled about his rhetoric concerning "the rich": you could confiscate every penny from the rich and it wouldn't be enough.

Hell, former Obama budget director Peter Orszag admitted as much last September, noting that a "middle-class tax increase is unavoidable, but it will probably take a bond crisis to push politicians to act."

No, folks: apparently Bob Herbert believes you're not paying enough. After all, you're only paying federal, state and local income taxes. FICA and Medicare taxes. Property taxes. Excise taxes. Gas taxes. Sales taxes. Fees for registering your car, your dog, adding on to your house. Taxes on your phone calls, your cable TV, your Internet connections. Can you think of anything that isn't taxed?

And don't say breathing because the EPA is working on carbon dioxide regulations as we speak.

In short, Bob Herbert believes that government isn't big enough! Despite massive borrowing, crippling levels of debt at every level of government, imminent bankruptcy for states and municipalities, and pension plans that are collapsing as we speak, Herbert wants more government control!

Bob Herbert is going to cure unemployment by taking more money from the employers.

Yes, folks, this is what passes for informed commentary among the Leftists. They are all economic illiterates who view government as some sort of heroic enterprise and private business as the enemy. And yet they complain about unemployment while pillorying the engines of job creation.

Herbert's intellectual peers have created endless bureaucracies, endless agencies, endless central planning experiments, and Politburo-style control of every aspect of our lives. They control health care, how cars are built, the kind of mileage cars must achieve, where we can drill for oil and gas, how much water can flow into a toilet, light bulb design, carbon dioxide emission, how much dust a farmer can kick into the air, "light pollution", and tens of thousands of other areas.

Herbert and his ilk have created hundreds of thousands of pages of regulations, laws and dictates. They have authored so many different rules that no one on the planet has a full grasp of their scope.

And still they are not enough for the Times and its preeminent dimwit, Bob Herbert.

The progressives' greed has no limits. Because they never learn: no matter how many times their Statist agenda fails, they insist it was because it wasn't big enough.

Bob Herbert is a thought leader for progressives, which proves once and for all that liberalism is the philosophy of the stupid. There can no longer be any argument over that issue.


Friday, February 11, 2011

Legacy Media desperately attempts to spin Mubarak's departure as a victory for the "Obama doctrine" and secular democrats like the Muslim Brotherhood

The boobs in legacy media are desperately spinning President Mubarak's resignation as a victory for some sort of social democracy movement in Egypt and an amorphous "Obama doctrine":

Credit Obama, Not the Bush Administration, for Seeds of the Egyptian Revolution - "...the pro-democracy movement in Tahrir Square has much more in common with the grassroots, bottom-up spirit of the Obama campaign than the messianic, barrel-of-a-gun foreign policy pushed by George W. Bush."

The Messy Failure Of [Bush's] Freedom Agenda - "That's what we are seeing in Cairo — the chaotic push and pull of millions of Egyptians deciding to clean up their own country's mess... barging in, Bush-style, to someone else's house, no matter how good the intention, is rarely the right thing to do."

Mubarak's exit and the Egyptian democracy movement [are] of crucial importance to the Arab world - "...while the Muslim Brotherhood was part of the protests, the democracy movement there was primarily nationalistic and ecumenical rather than Islamist in its genesis..."

It doesn't take an expert in Middle East affairs to predict that a secular democracy doesn't stand a chance.

• Muhammad ElBaradei is a puppet of Iran, a non-entity in the region and -- if he assumes power -- nothing more than a temporary figurehead.

• The best organized political movement in Egypt is the radical Muslim Brotherhood, said to command the loyalty of at least a third of the population.

• There are no serious secular democracy movements in Egypt.

The Tehran Times reports on the Mullahs' opinion of the situation unfolding in Cairo.

In Iran, millions of people from all walks of life held rallies across the country to commemorate the 32nd anniversary of the Islamic Revolution... The people chanted “God Is Great,” “Down with the United States,” “Death to Israel,” and other slogans.

...Chants of “Egyptians, Tunisians, your uprisings are just and we are with you,” “Death to Mubarak,” “Hosni Mubarak, ‘mubarak’ (congratulations) on the uprising of your people,” were heard in the streets. Some people also set an effigy of Mubarak on fire... They also reaffirmed their allegiance to the concept of velayat-e faqih (rule of the supreme jurisprudent).

...In his speech, the Iranian president said that a new Middle East will take shape in which the United States and Israel will have no place... 'Despite all the (West’s) complicated and satanic plots... a new Middle East will take shape soon without the Zionist regime and the United States. And there will be no room for the arrogant in that Middle East,' Ahmadinejad stated... The world will soon savor the sweet taste of a world free of Zionism, arrogance, and bullying, he added.

“You have reached a dead-end,” the president stated, addressing the global hegemons... Take away the Zionist regime, which is the source of all corruption, and liberate the region, Ahmadinejad said, addressing the United States.

Iran's leadership is, of course, posturing to prevent a repeat of last year's bloody "Green Movement" demonstrations. If there's a best hope for a real democracy movement in the Middle East, it lies with Iran's Green Party.

After all, they're the people who have actually lived for decades under the barbaric primitivism of Islamist rule.


Images: Los Angeles Times, Washington Post and Time Magazine.

Politico and Robert Gibbs argue publicly over who gets credit for Mubarak's departure; as a result, both parties look like idiots

Politico does its best and most original reporting of the year in relaying a Democrat operative's email.

Great news for the administration/president. People will remember , despite some fumbles yesterday, that the President played an excellent hand, walked the right line and that his statement last night was potentially decisive in bringing this issue to a close. The situation remains complicated and delicate going forward, but this is a huge affirmation of the President’s leadership on the international stage.

Yes, the President definitely looks "decisive"; and his behavior will certainly comfort the most restive of our allies.

However, according to CNN Obama had absolutely no involvement with Mubarak's decision to relinquish power.

Obama did not talk to Mubarak or Egyptian Vice President Omar Suleiman before the announcement of Mubarak's resignation, according to White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs...

...Now comes "an unpredictable next chapter," a U.S. official[, said. It was] "a sign the (Egyptian) military chose society" over the country's longtime ruler.

Well, when the "secular" Islamists known as the Muslim Brotherhood take over Egypt (a process, in my view, taking no longer than a year), rest assured that the media and the White House will flush all records related to these epic fails down the porcelain memory hole.


Hat tip: Larwyn.

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Rick Santorum Responds to the 'Palin-in-the-Kitchen' Kerfuffle

Before he was booted out of CPAC, Cub Reporter Biff Spackle filed this interview with former Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA). First the backdrop: if you've hadn't been tracking the faux controversy, Sisu reports:

...as TIME explains:

Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, who is exploring a bid for the Republican nomination, told S.E. Cupp, who hosts an online radio show on Glenn Beck's website, that Sarah Palin is skipping CPAC because of her "business opportunities" and "other responsibilities" such as raising her five children.

"I don't live in Alaska and I'm not the mother to all these kids and I don't have other responsibilities that she has,” said Santorum.

Sarah reloaded and came roaring back with vintage Palin on Hannity last night:

Sarah Palin made clear Wednesday night that she took offense at Rick Santorum’s suggestion she’s not attending CPAC because she’s out making money and taking care of her kids, calling his claims “uniformed” and saying she will leave it to his wife to label him a “knuckle-dragging Neanderthal.”

We loved twitter buddy Ruth Anne Adams's 140-or-fewer-character retort: 

WTF is Santorum talking about? Last I knew, he had 4 [correction: 7] kids to raise, too. That sexism ain't so subtle, Rick.

And in response to our own diaper-changing tweet above:

I thought so, too, when I heard it. Santorum? Prig.


Santorum responded, "I've discussed this with Sarah through an intermediary. She's fine. I'm fine. This is another instance of liberal media [Politico] spinning a comment by implying something that just wasn't there."

"This was a controversy invented -- soup-to-nuts -- by Politico."

Gee, that seems so out-of-character for a bunch of washed-up has-beens that couldn't make it at the Washington Post.


Behind the Scenes at CPAC #cpac11

Biff Spackle emailed us this exclusive photo from blogger's row at CPAC.

Clockwise from top right: Javier from SharkTank, Obi's Sister, Fausta and the inestimable Gateway Pundit. Bad news, however: this may be the last photo we get from CPAC because Spackle's home-made ID didn't exactly pass muster.



CPAC to TIME: 'Thanks for that lovely introduction' #cpac11

Dan from New York:

"The Conservative Political Action Conference, a three-day carnival of Republican ladder-climbers and red meat throwers, convenes Thursday in Washington."

That's the lede in a TIME magazine story about the start of the CPAC Conference today.

Is it possible for them to sink any lower? (rhetorical question)

Rhetorical, but still worth an answer: of course.

Pravda had nothing on these left-wing nuts.


Wednesday, February 09, 2011

Politico's Ben Smith Inciting Violence

Or so it would appear, based upon the ever-morphing standards of the professional left.

Reflecting the bomb-throwing Florida conservative freshman's rock star status in the movement, Allen West tweets:

I've been asked today to have the honor of giving the closing keynote address at CPAC Sat. I'm humbled.


Awesome.

This is one man I would support as a presidential candidate right now.

As for Smith, we could emulate liberals and toss around terms like "incivility" and "racism" in response to his idiotic missive. But we're not like liberals. So we'll call it what it is: idiocy.


Monday, February 07, 2011

It would appear that the NAACP is cool with blacks getting lynched, so long as the blacks getting lynched are conservatives

The horrifying, racist and violent threats repeated ad nauseum at a progressive rally in Palm Springs, California have laid bare the rank hypocrisy of legacy media.

Participants in the [Common Cause] rally were captured on video advocating the assassination of Scalia, Thomas, Thomas's wife and Chief Justice John Roberts. Two of them explicitly called for Justice Thomas, the court's only black member, to be lynched. One man also asserted that Fox News president Roger Ailes "should be strung up," adding: "Kill the bastard."

A statement from Common Cause made clear that what it called these "hateful, narrow-minded sentiments"--rather a delicate way of describing lurid calls for murder--were contrary to the corporate position of the self-styled "grassroots organization." But the [New York] Times editorial [board] expresses no disapproval of the Common Cause supporters' racist and eliminationist statements.

Of course not. While the Tea Party can be tarred as racist, violent extremists with absolutely no evidence, similarly the truly racist, violent extremists on the Left are absolved of any sins because... well, just because.

Furthermore, once proud groups like the NAACP have sacrificed their mission to advance the Democrats' agenda of racial divisiveness and class warfare. For though the progressive Left has threatened to string up Thomas, the NAACP has uttered nary a word of criticism in response. They are silent.

How far the NAACP has fallen...

In one of the greatest speeches in American history -- many historians believe it is second only to The Gettysburg Address -- King dreamed of a day when skin color was as meaningless as eye color. He said, "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."

King supported the NAACP of his era. The group's proud tradition included fighting against the diabolical practice of lynching, supporting the civil rights struggle, and driving legislation that advanced the cause of equal rights and individual liberties.

Fast forward a few decades and we find that the NAACP has become the antithesis of King's vision. It has, in the words of the National Black Republican Association, a "racist agenda."

Today's NAACP unapologetically welcomes Louis Farrakhan, a virulent racist who preaches hatred of whites, Jews and Catholics.

Today's NAACP Chairman, Julian Bond, is a spiteful, bitter racist who despises anyone that opposes his radical Statist agenda. If you believe in the Constitution, if you believe in individual liberty and private property, then Bond's bizarre ideology brands you a racist.

At an NAACP gathering, FDA executive Shirley Sherrod "twice decried present-day racism, as if it was 400 years ago. That suggests a person whose views on race have not truly changed at all. But she doesn't stop there. [Referring to Tea Party activists,] Sherrod says, 'I haven't seen such mean-spirited people as I have seen lately over this issue, healthcare. Some of the racism we thought was buried, didn't it surface.' ...In Sherrod's world, no one is allowed to object to a significant Obama-supported policy change impacting the healthcare of all Americans without being labeled a racist."

Today, when it comes to the violent rhetoric of the progressive left -- Common Cause and similar groups -- the NAACP is silent. It is so partisan, so far afield from its original mission, that it can't bring itself to criticize threats to lynch black conservatives.

Martin Luther King wouldn't even recognize today's NAACP. It's a disgrace -- and its leaders aren't fit to be mentioned in the same breath as King.


Related: When did the NAACP join the Klan?

Linked by: Michelle Malkin. Thanks!

AOL's Death Spiral--Confirmed

Arianna Huffington signed a deal earlier today that hands ownership of The Huffington Post to AOL in exchange for $315 million in cash and stock. Arianna's a smart businesswoman: she demanded most of the deal in cash, eschewing the stock of a company that almost certainly overpaid for the progressive news portal.

The sale is said to give Ms. Huffington significant editorial control of AOL's news content, which means that it will lurch hard left.

I can therefore draw only one conclusion: AOL is circling the drain.

AOL is collecting $250 million a year from people who don't know it's free -- "For five years, AOL has been cashing in on users who don’t know they can cancel the paid service and still get all the benefits." -- Not exactly a sustainable business model.

HuffPo's huge cadre of bloggers who work for free are unlikely to continue doing so now that Arianna's had her massive payday -- "It always amazed me that HuffPo bloggers (not the handful of well paid staffers, but the great unwashed) thought they were so special by being allowed to blog at HuffPo, when in fact they were being treated as unindentured servants.  They were able leave, but they were working for free to help Arianna build a business." -- Methinks many of the site's bloggers will resent the fact that they were paid nary a cent.

Moving to the left as the country moves right is a recipe for disaster -- the U.S. as a whole is far more conservative than liberal and Gallup's polling indicates the trend is accelerating. AOL could very well be in the process of transforming itself into Air America.

Now that AOL is in overpayment mode in a bid to stay relevant, may I suggest some other strategic acquisitions?

• Daily Kos for $95 million
• Democrat Underground for $25 million
• Rosie O'Donnell's blog for $7.5 million
• Media Matters for a bottle of A-1 Steak Sauce and two snow tires


Hat tip: Memeorandum.

Sunday, February 06, 2011

Top 10 Democrats Who Have No Business Calling Sarah Palin 'Dumb'

For those pundits who claim that Sarah Palin is 'dumb', Dan from New York presents the following list for your consideration:

There’s a real glut, but these were first 10 that came to mind:

1. Harry Reid
2. Barney Frank/Andrew Sullivan (tie)
3. Joe Biden
4. Al Franken
5. John Conyers
6. Nancy Pelosi
7. Sheriff Dupnik
8. Jimmy Carter
9. Patty Murray
10. Howard Dean

I was pretty sure Maxine Brown-Reed and Matthew Yglesias would crack this elite list, but like he says there's a real glut.


ThinkProgress Celebrates Ronald Reagan's Birthday By Marketing Its Top Ten Lies Intended to Smear the 20th Century's Greatest President

That was quick--ThinkProgress attacks Ronald Reagan with their usual slate of laughably fraudulent fabrications

It didn't take long for the loons at ThinkRegress to begin attacking the memory of the 20th century's greatest president. The culmination of their effort -- '10 Things Conservatives Don’t Want You To Know About Ronald Reagan' -- is a list of Reagan's policies that conservatives supposedly want to hide from the general public.

Reagan was not the man conservatives claim he was. This image of Reagan as a conservative superhero is myth, created to untie the various factions of the right behind a common leader. In reality, Reagan was no conservative ideologue or flawless commander-in-chief. Reagan regularly strayed from conservative dogma — he raised taxes eleven times as president while tripling the deficit — and he often ended up on the wrong side of history, like when he vetoed an Anti-Apartheid bill.

ThinkProgress' "top 10 things conservatives rarely mention when talking about President Reagan" are as follows:

" 1. Reagan was a serial tax raiser" - Reagan suffered from overwhelming Democrat majorities in Congress when he took office. While he desperately wanted to strip away huge swaths of government (including eliminating the then newly created Department of Education), he had no choice but to compromise with the Democrats who controlled the budgetary purse-strings. When Reagan left office, the top marginal tax rate was 28% (today's it's 35% and under Bill Clinton it was nearly 40%).

"2. Reagan nearly tripled the federal budget deficit by enacting a major tax cut his first year in office and government revenue dropped off precipitously" - Another flat-out lie. Before his 25 percent across-the-board cut in individual income-tax rates went into effect, government receipts from individual income taxes trickled in at $244.1 billion. The year Reagan left office, they totaled $445.7 billion -- an 82 percent jump. As for the deficits, Democrats outspent every one of the nine budgets Reagan proposed but one. Further, Democrats refused to make corresponding cuts in wasteful domestic programs to offset the defense appropriations Reagan needed to combat the Soviet Union after the Carter administration's foreign policy disasters (e.g., Iran, Afghanistan, et. al.).

"3. Unemployment soared after Reagan’s 1981 tax cuts" - Before the full tax-relief package was passed -- against the wishes of many Democrats, by the way -- the jobless rate hit 9.6 percent. But as the cuts rippled through the economy, unemployment dropped every year after 1983, reaching a low of 5.3 percent in 1989. And tax cuts benefited minorities, too. The jobless rate among blacks plunged from 19.5 percent in 1983 to 11.4 percent in 1989.

"4. Reagan grew the size of the federal government tremendously" - this again omits the role of Congressional Democrats who controlled the purse-strings and refused to axe the programs and agencies that Reagan requested. In fact, the media portrayed Reagan as "heartless" and depicted him as "laughable and malevolent" for his attempts to strip away the federal bureaucracy. But the only way the Democrat Congress would accept a defense buildup and tax cuts was for Reagan to agree to their domestic spending agenda. In fact, the budget deficits of the 1980s made the surpluses in the 1990s possible; the balanced budget was aided by surging tax revenues from a healthy, low-tax economy and immense defense savings made possible by the fall of the Soviet Union.

"5. Reagan did little to fight a woman’s right to chose [sic]" - Reagan was adamant about ending the practice of 'abortion on demand' and proposed that legislation be drafted to do so (you can hear Reagan's 1983 address on this subject); but he "had little success in gaining its acceptance by Congress."

" 6. Reagan was a “bellicose peacenik.”" - this is sheer revisionist idiocy; Reagan believed, first and foremost, in peace through strength. He gave dozens of speeches on this topic, rebuilt the U.S. military after Carter had stripped it bare, and created the impetus for the oft-derided SDI ("Star Wars") program that has since become an essential part of U.S. national security strategy. His famous slogans on this topic were "peace through strength" and "trust but verify".

" 7. Reagan gave amnesty to 3 million undocumented immigrants" - The Democrat leadership in Congress promised to enact strict enforcement measures as a trade for a one-time amnesty deal. In an effort to control the border, Reagan went along with the deal. At the time (1986), the measures were marketed by Democrats as as being able to stop illegal immigration. Ted Kennedy himself sold the enforcement clauses of the law as strong enough to ensure that only a one-time amnesty would be needed. But, as is their standard practice, Democrats lied about sealing the border.

Reagan himself said, "This country has lost control of its borders. And no country can sustain that kind of position."

" 8. Reagan illegally funneled weapons to Iran" -Democrats launched a six-year, $40 million investigation of Reagan in a politically inspired witch-hunt. Reagan was, in fact, found guilty of absolutely nothing. Furthermore, indictments were intentionally handed down mere days before the 1992 election that pitted George H. W. Bush against Bill Clinton -- presumably to levy the maximum amount of political damage on the GOP candidate. Near the end of the investigations, The Baltimore Sun reported that a "federal trial judge in Washington dismissed Oliver North's conviction" and that "[c]riticism of Mr. Walsh's prosecution and of the law that authorized it will become more intense [because the] public has gotten precious little from his [at the time] $30 million, four-year effort".

"9. Reagan vetoed a comprehensive anti-Apartheid act" - Reagan vehemently opposed apartheid ("Apartheid is morally wrong and politically unacceptable [... the] United States cannot maintain cordial relations with [such] a government") but he did not support the approach advocated by Congress. He issued an executive order restricting trade with the Pretoria government and virtually ended inter-bank dealings. But he believed that Congress' unilateral sanctions would harm blacks most of all and eradicate all of the leverage he wanted to bring to bear on South Africa. He wanted a timetable for the elimination of apartheid laws, the release of all political prisoners (especially Nelson Mandela) and a removal of the ban on black political movements. He felt he could not negotiate with the South African government if he had nothing to trade. His 1986 speech -- "Ending Apartheid in South Africa" -- comprehensively described his plans and approach.

" 10. Reagan helped create the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden" - Gee, next they'll be complaining that we had to side with the Soviets to defeat the Nazis. This sort of leftist lunacy simply rewrites history. We needed to sabotage the Soviets' efforts in Afghanistan to prevent a dramatic power-shift in the Middle East. Blaming Reagan for the Taliban and Bin Laden is like blaming Henry Ford for the problem of too many scrap tires.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Happy Birthday, Mr. President. Rest assured that the Left is just as stupid, dishonest and disingenuous as they were when you were in office.


Saturday, February 05, 2011

Barack Obama: As American as Apple Pie and Ronald Reagan

Or so he and legacy media would have you believe.

Liberal pundits have recently found a new epithet for President Obama: "Reaganesque." But for that to fit, our current president would have to do a dramatic about-face, especially when it comes to policy... As America celebrates the 40th president's 100th birthday, the current White House occupant should think about his predecessor's bedrock philosophy and actual accomplishments that led to his success.

...our president would be wise to delve a bit deeper into his subject. He would find Reagan was successful not because of his personality — his well-known optimism, his ability to communicate — but because he had powerful conservative beliefs that resonated with Americans' own deeply held ideas of right and wrong...

Reagan emanated optimism. He did so because he believed — indeed, he knew — that his principles were the right ones. He believed in individual rights and responsibility, small but effective government, a strong defense and the rule of law.

Comparing how Reagan brought the economy roaring back with Obama's lack of success is instructive...

As they say, read the whole thing.


The letter to Boehner and Reid you never heard about in legacy media

David Freddoso does his usual fine work, highlighting this letter to the titular heads of both chambers of Congress (note to Chuck Schumer: chambers, not branches). The authors urge Congress to pass legislation halting implementation until such time as the constitutionality of Obamacare can be resolved.

Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Reid,

On Monday Florida judge Robert Vinson issued a ruling on the 26-state lawsuit against the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and found the law and its individual mandate to buy health insurance unconstitutional. Following after Virginia Judge Henry Hudson’s decision, the Florida ruling becomes the second significant case to deem the law unconstitutional, throwing into serious question whether it will survive judicial scrutiny. While we wait for the Supreme Court’s final ruling, expected to come down in late 2012 to 2013, taxpayers are presently being forced to pay for billions of dollars to implement a law that may soon be void.

At a time when our country faces an unsustainable $14 trillion debt, we hope there can be bi-partisan agreement that it would be fiscally imprudent to unnecessarily waste taxpayer dollars. Therefore, today we are writing to respectfully urge you to pass legislation halting implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act until the Supreme Court issues a final verdict.

Sincerely,

Alex Cortes
Chairman
DeFundIt.org

Jim Martin
President
60 Plus Association

Duane Parde
President
National Taxpayers Union

Heather Higgins
President
Independent Women’s Voice

Dean Clancy
Vice President of Health Care Policy
FreedomWorks

Meanwhile the administration says the unconstitutional law will continue to be implemented -- directly contravening the federal court.

Congress must drag Kathleen Sebelius and Eric Holder into a hearing and demand answers as to whether they are complying with the court. And the state attorneys general must petition the judge to hold the administration in contempt.

And that's just for starters.


Thursday, February 03, 2011

What Barack Obama Hid From His Readers

During his campaign, Barack Obama liked to talk about something he called "economic justice."

And "restoring fairness to the economy" by, as he admitted to Joe the Plumber, "spreading the wealth around". *

Why does Obama continually promote divisiveness and class warfare? Why does he insist on defining devils as various classes of people, "the rich", "the insurance companies", "the doctors", "big oil", etc.?

In his book "Dreams From My Father", Obama reveals his childhood mentor was a man he cryptically refers to only as "Frank."

"Frank" was infamous communist Frank Marshall Davis, who fled Chicago after the FBI and Congress began investigating him.

Obama followed in Davis' footsteps, becoming a "community organizer" in Chicago... with disastrous results.

His boss was a man named Gerald Kellman, whose identity Obama also tries to disguise in his book. Kellman and Saul "The Red" Alinsky were infamous Chicago socialists; Alinsky authored "Rules for Radicals" and advocated the overthrow of the U.S. government.

And though his own book is dedicated to his memory, Obama also omits his father's feverish communist leanings.

Barack Hussein Obama Sr. challenged Kenya's pro-Western government for being insufficiently socialist. "Theoretically, there is nothing that can stop the government from taxing 100% of income so long as the people get benefits from the government commensurate with their income which is taxed," Obama Sr. wrote.

Among Obama's first campaign sponsors were William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn; both are unrepentant terrorists and self-admitted communists who believe that the U.S. government must be toppled.

Though he's written two books about his life, Obama hid his father's background and his own career-long affiliations with radical socialists and communists. All were striving together for "economic justice" and class warfare as unreconstructed Communists.

And legacy media knew all of this -- it was common knowledge -- but refused to report it.

Are current events starting to make sense now?


* Perhaps Obama learned these falsehoods from Jeremiah Wright, his racist spiritual adviser who also believes the economy is a "zero sum" proposition.

Sunday, January 30, 2011

This Week With Christiane Amanpour in 90 Seconds [Biff Spackle]

Biff Spackle transcribed the digest version of ABC's rollicking Sunday talk show after waxing the lobby floors this morning at our world headquarters building.

AMANPOUR: This morning, a special "This Week." Egypt, a possible home to the Lost Ark of the Covenant and land of the pyramids, is now swept up in a political uprising with uncertain consequences. Uncertain that is, to everyone except Barack Obama, whose intellectual capacity is unparalleled, as we all know.

OBAMA: The United States will continue to talk about the rights of the Egyptian people while doing nothing. Let's sort it out after the dust settles.

AMANPOUR: We get the very latest from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who is following events closely from her den in Chappaqua. But first, a television appearance by Egypt's President Mubarak.

MUBARAK (through translator): The journey will be difficult. But someday we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal...

AMANPOUR: Perhaps the only one watching this situation as closely as ABC is Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who joins us from her bunker in Chappaqua New York. Hillary, what steps you have taken to either assist President Mubarak or to promote Democrat freedoms in Egypt?

CLINTON: Absolutely nothing. We're carefully monitoring what's going on -- by the way, could your news broadcasts lighten up on the the E.D. commercials? And why are the people in these ads always in bathtubs outside --

AMANPOUR: Madam Secretary, do you believe that what Mubarak has done constitutes sufficient reform? Naming a VP, firing his cabinet?

CLINTON: We don't know. We just want to convey a very clear message of weakness. That we will do nothing either way. We'll talk out of both sides of our mouth and really won't encourage anyone, because we could take the wrong side.

AMANPOUR: A lot of the people here on the streets are telling us that they're angry, they think the U.S. is hedging its bets.

CLINTON: Damn straight. When President Obama visited Cairo early in his presidency, he alluded to the fact that he is going to vote 'present' on any issue of substance. We really don't want to be a superpower anymore. That's China's job now.

So, no -- we won't stand up to Iran, or Hezbollah's takeover of Lebanon, or the Muslim Brotherhood in Tunisia and Egypt, Hamas in Gaza, the terror-supporting nuts in Syria, or anyone else for that matter. Except Israel. They're easy to push around.

AMANPOUR: Thank you, Madame Secretary. And I'll email our producer about the E.D. ads.

Now -- you all know him. He used to be head of the feckless U.N. nuclear watchdog agency and an ally of the Muslim Brotherhood. His combination of skills got us a nuclearized Iran, so please put your hands together for... Mohamed ElBaradei!

[Applause]

AMANPOUR: Mr. ElBaradei, are the latest moves by President Mubarak sufficient, appointing a vice president, a prime minister?

ELBARADEI: Christiane, it doesn't even begin to address people's concerns. We need a new Constitution so we can move toward what I like to call an Islamic democracy. So we can get the hard-line Islamic government that all Democrat societies need and demand.

AMANPOUR: How do you assess the reaction of the U.S. administration?

ELBARADEI: What reaction?

AMANPOUR: But President Obama is saying that the rights of the people need to be protected and reforms need to happen.

ELBARADEI: But he's also saying that the government should remain in control. C'mon Christiane, here's a dollar -- buy a freaking clue. The guy wouldn't take a stand in the Illinois Senate over dollar slots at the racetrack. You think he's going to make a call on [BEEP]ing Egypt?

AMANPOUR: As you know, the world is concerned that if Mubarak falls that the Muslim Brotherhood, an organization that once sided with the Nazis in World War II, would take control.

ELBARADEI: That's bogus, dude! The Brotherhood is religious, but very, very peaceful. It's true that they've spawned and funded terror groups all over the world and been linked to Al Qaeda, but I can assure you that all they would like is a worldwide Caliphate and peace. But mostly a worldwide Caliphate.

AMANPOUR: Are the Islamists behind this uprising?

ELBARADEI: Uhm, no. No. Why not at all. Of course not. Why would you ask?

AMANPOUR: How do you think this is going to end?

ELBARADEI: Geez, Christiane. It's not exactly difficult to puzzle it out. We've got a revolution like Iran's, a Carter-like President who won't lift a finger to help a Shah-like figure, and lots of Islamic patriots flowing in from all over the world to help out. What do you think is going to happen?

AMANPOUR: Mr. ElBaradei, I wish I knew. Thank you for joining us.

ELBARADEI: Thank you very much, Christiane, for having me. Allah Akbar!

AMANPOUR: Well that's all the time we have. Please join us next week when we lob more softballs at incompetents and dupes both in the Democrat Party and abroad.


Saturday, January 29, 2011

It's Not Just Egypt: Japan Is Headed for the Brink

The headline sounds relatively innocuous: "Japan Credit Rating Cut by S&P on Absence of Strategy to Curb Debt Levels". However, the ramifications are anything but.

Japan’s credit rating was cut for the first time in nine years by Standard & Poor’s as persistent deflation and political gridlock undermine efforts to reduce a 943 trillion yen ($11 trillion) debt burden.

Azusa Kota, a Tokyo economist, hopes the flailing Japanese government gets the message, going on record with a dire warning: "...they have absolutely no sense of crisis. Once bond yields spike and the fire is lit, the amount needed to finance Japan’s borrowing needs is going to jump and it’s going to be too late."

Mike Shedlock describes the complications arising noiselessly, yet urgently, for the Japanese government.

The key to understanding the urgency now is the warning from Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda that Japan's debt burden has risen to a point where Japan can’t rely on bond sales to cover revenue shortfalls...

Japan has reached the point where its [retiring] savers need to draw down their savings in retirement, and thus need to sell Japanese government bonds, not buy them...

...However, the Japanese government has squandered those savings (and 100% more of GDP as well) building bridges to nowhere [while] fighting deflation.

Nations often default on foreign debt, but this is debt the government owes the Japanese people...

...Should [their] interest rates rise to a mere 3% or so, interest on Japan's national debt will consume most of its revenue.

This mess shows the foolishness of using Keynesian and Monetarist stimulus to defeat deflation. [Ed: Yes, this means you, Paul Krugman, you liberal nutcase.] Neither worked...

...Now Japan is left with an enormous debt problem and no way to solve it.

So what's the concern for us? Why do I mention this troubling little incident in some far off corner of the world? I mention it because Japan is one of the United States' biggest bankers -- holding a huge chunk of our debt.

As our government attempts to "roll" its own debt (refinance our gargantuan loan obligations), it should become clear that some of our major, current holders of Treasuries -- Japan, Egypt, Ireland to name just a few -- will probably lack the necessary wherewithal or the appetite for risk to re-up.

Which, for those of you uninterested in economics, translates roughly to, "Oh, s***."