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

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Pressure Builds on Boehner Over Benghazi

Guest post by Cliff Kincaid

Informed speculation mounted at Monday’s Accuracy in Media conference, which officially launched the Citizens’ Commission on Benghazi, that House Speaker John Boehner’s opposition to a Watergate-style congressional committee to investigate Benghazi stems from his knowledge of arms shipments to al-Qaeda terrorists in Libya and Syria.

The al-Qaeda terrorist attack on the American diplomatic mission at Benghazi, in Libya, on September 11, 2012, resulted in the deaths of four Americans, who were left to die, rather than be rescued, and has been called by some the “Benghazi Betrayal.”

The dead were U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens, American diplomat Sean Smith, and State Department security officers Glen Doherty and Tyrone S. Woods.

Coming just eight weeks before the 2012 presidential election, the Obama administration falsely blamed the attack on a spontaneous reaction to a video critical of Islam, rather than blaming it on al Qaeda.

Charles Woods spoke with emotion at the AIM conference about the loss of his son and asked for people not only to press for answers as to what really happened at Benghazi, but to pray for the country.

Christopher Farrell, Director of Investigations and Research for Judicial Watch, said at the conference that Obama’s lies and distortions about the attack are designed to obscure the central truth that the administration was arming al Qaeda.

“That’s what they don’t want broadcast or printed anywhere,” he said.

As incredible as it sounds, former CIA officer Clare Lopez said support for al Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood, and other Islamists groups has become the official foreign policy of the United States under Obama. She said the policy has been on display in Libya, Egypt, Syria, and the United Nations, through the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.

ABC'S JON KARL: It's the White House that's threatening default, not House Republicans

Kudos to ABC's Jonathan Karl for pointing out the utter hypocrisy of the White House position on the debt ceiling, i.e., we refuse to negotiate, so it's you who's being unreasonable.

ABC's Jon Karl: The president's position is: he will not negotiate over the debt ceiling --

Jay Carney: Correct.

ABC's Jon Karl: How is that tenable? The White House is willing to risk default?

Jay Carney: The White House is not -- here's the thing -- Jon --

ABC's Jon Karl: You're saying you won't even negotiate with Republicans on this issue! How is that tenable?

And this exchange simply reinforces the idiocy of the nincompoop class of political commentators: yes, I'm looking at you, David Brooks and you, Colin Powell.

Brooks, of course, is the faux conservative employed by the failing periodical known as the New York Times. Brooks makes a living slamming principled conservatives like Ted Cruz:

[Cruz is] a media-protest person. And a lot of the House Republicans are in the same mode. They’re not normal members of Congress. They’re not legislators. They want to stop things. And so they’re just being — they just want to obstruct.

They just want to obstruct?

Hey, schmuck: we have a president who refuses to negotiate any aspect of the federal budget, even as his own Government Accountability Office, Office of Management and Budget, Congressional Research Service, and the trustees of Medicare and Social Security all warn that the system is collapsing.

That the debts are unsustainable.

That we risk economic collapse.

This is his own government, yet he refuses to negotiate cutting a single penny from the massive waste and fraud in the federal government.

And you dare to attack Ted Cruz?

David Brooks, you're a freaking disgrace. Take a page from men like Jon Karl, who has demonstrated more intellectual honesty in a single sentence than you've shown us in decades.

You are truly a pathetic, disgusting little man.


Hat tip: BadBlue News Service.

OH, MY: Washington Post Approvingly Describes the Possible Impeachment of the President

Same crimes, different era:

Judiciary Committee Approves Article to Impeach President Nixon


By Richard Lyons and William Chapman
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, July 28, 1974; Page A01

The House Judiciary Committee took the momentous step last night of recommending that the president of the United States be impeached and removed from office... The first such impeachment recommendation in more than a century, it charges President Nixon with unlawful activities that formed a "course of conduct or plan" to obstruct the investigation of the Watergate break-in and to cover up other unlawful activities...

...[Some] are most concerned about allegations that Mr. Nixon misused such sensitive agencies as the Internal Revenue Service and the Central Intelligence Agency for political purposes.

Others are most concerned about Mr. Nixon's defiance of committee subpoenas, which is now included in Article II as a contempt of Congress count, but may be broken out into a separate article...

Substitute Benghazi for Watergate break-in and NSA for CIA and the story could have been written yesterday.

As for abuse of the Internal Revenue Service for political ends, it is now exceedingly clear that the White House had its hand in targeting Tea Party and conservative groups:

Newly uncovered IRS documents show the agency flagged political groups based on the content of their literature, raising concerns specifically about ”anti-Obama rhetoric,” inflammatory language and “emotional” statements made by non-profits seeking tax-exempt status.

The 2011 date has one interesting parallel. Two years ago (almost to the day), the White House rolled out its own version of a lèse-majesté intimidation mechanism — “Attack Watch.” That didn’t last long in the sunlight, after widespread criticism and derision forced the White House to shelve it, although the Obama campaign tried to bring it back in February 2012 as the “Truth Team.”

So, did the IRS just feel inspired by Attack Watch, or did the White House just transfer the effort? The date on the IRS document is November 16, 2011, well after Attack Watch became more or less moribund in the public eye.


As Ed Morrissey concludes his analysis:

When the IRS starts targeting political dissent for scrutiny, they have stopped being a revenue collector and have become instead a political enforcer. That’s dangerous for all Americans, and Congress needs to demand and enforce immediate reform in the IRS. They also need to find out who ordered the targeting, regardless of how high up it goes.

This is yet another reason to defund Obamacare. We need answers. We need reform. And need an accountable IRS that can be trusted to handle Americans' health care data without using it for political purposes.

Furthermore, it is now painfully clear that IRS officials -- including Lois Lerner and Steven Miller -- lied to Congress, blatantly and repeatedly, when questioned about these partisan activities.

So what are you going to do about it, Chairman Issa? Are you going to bray and delay? Or are you going to act?


Hat tip: BadBlue News Service

Monday, September 16, 2013

41 Percent of Small Businesses Have Frozen Hiring Thanks to Obamacare, Taegan Goddard Hardest Hit

Obamacare hasn't even kicked in yet and the fear, uncertainty and doubt it is sowing among small businesses is truly something to behold.

The carnage from the worst legislation in modern history keeps piling up. The latest damage assessment comes from a Gallup poll that shows “Forty-one percent of small businesses surveyed have frozen hiring” because of ObamaCare, while an equally astonishing 19 percent have actually reduced the number of employees in their business specifically as a result of the President’s health care reform. 38 percent said they have pulled back on expansion plans...


...But wait, it gets worse: 24 percent of poll respondents are thinking about dropping insurance coverage for their employees (“If you like your health care plan, you will be able keep your heath care plan. Period. No matter what.” – Barack Obama, July 2009.) And 18 percent report transforming full-time jobs into part-time positions

Say, I've got an idea! Let's pass Amnesty and flood the non-existent job market with zillions of mostly low-skilled, illiterate workers who've never had background checks!

Roll Call's Taegan Goddard -- or "The modern-day Leni Reifenstahl of the Democrat Party", which is the descriptive phrase he prefers, I hear -- could not be reached for comment at press time.


Hat tip: BadBlue News Service.

Friday, September 13, 2013

TIME MAGAZINE: Sanitized For Your Protection

You learn something every day.

Hey, you know Time puts out four covers for four different areas of the word?

I didn't know that.

But they do. They have a US cover, a Europe/Middle East/Africa cover, an Asia cover, and a South Pacific cover.

Yeah I don't get how they divided the world up myself.

But anyway.

So they have four covers.

Based on the covers, one person is dominating the world's interest... but not in the whole world.

Here's a suggestion for Time: how about different covers for red states and blue states? You could have Obama or Michelle's guns on every cover in the blues and the latest diversion (e.g., Miley Cyrus) in the reds.


Hat tip: BadBlue News.

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Hey, Old Media Clowns: If We're Really In a "Recovery", Why Is One-Sixth of the U.S. on Food Stamps?

You can't browse a vintage media newspaper or website without seeing the assertion that the U.S. is in "a recovery".

Really? How so?

The Labor Force Participation Rate just hit a 34-year low.

And food stamp usage continues to explode, the product of rampant fraud, Obamacare's destruction of full-time employment, and the fact that welfare pays better than work.

Food-stamp use grew 2.3% in June from a year earlier, with nearly one-sixth of the U.S. population receiving benefits.

Illinois showed the largest enrollment increase from last year with a 14.7% gain, according to Agriculture Department data released Friday. Wyoming was in second place, with rolls up 11.1% since the same time last year. Utah experienced the largest annual decline in food-stamp use, dropping 11.2%, among a dozen states to post a decrease. (Enrollment also decreased in Arizona, Idaho, Maine, Michigan, Missouri, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oregon, South Carolina, Pennsylvania and Washington.)

One of the largest social safety net programs in the United States, food stamps – formally known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP – expanded substantially during and after the recession, with enrollment rising about 70% from 2007 to 2011. At the same time, the government also temporarily increased benefits and allowed users in the hardest-hit areas to receive aid for longer-than-usual periods of time. The average monthly benefit was $133 last year.

Critics clamor against what they see as a disturbing rise in government dependency. But new economic research suggests the program’s expansion isn’t alarming and can, in fact, be explained by business cycles.


Yo, antique media clowns: it's called The Cloward-Piven Strategy. Look it up. That is, if you want to stop retyping press releases from the White House and doing actual reporting for a change.

I know, I'm a dreamer.


Hat tip: BadBlue News.

Sunday, September 08, 2013

'This Week' Transcript: Benghazi Whistleblower Gregory Hicks

On ABC's This Week earlier today, former Clinton apparatchik-turned-journalist George Stephanopoulos interviewed Benghazi whistleblower Gregory Hicks -- the Deputy Chief of Mission in Libya -- as the anniversary of the deadly attack nears.

And we still can't find out what the President what was doing for nine hours as Americans fought, bled and died.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN KERRY, SECRETARY OF STATE: We're talking about people being killed by gas and you want to go talk about Benghazi.

REPRESENTATIVE JEFF DAVIS: Absolutely want to talk about Benghazi. Four Americans lost their lives.

SECRETARY KERRY: We don't deserve to drag this into yet another Benghazi discussion when the real issue here is whether or not the Congress is going to stand up for international norms.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHANOPOULOS: One year later as you can see, the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi is still a political football. But for the Americans there on the ground it was a story of heartbreak and the struggle to survive. Greg Hicks was the Diplomat in Charge that night. The only officer who has spoken out about that harrowing night. This dramatic account is an ABC News exclusive.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GREGORY HICKS, FORMER DEPUTY CHIEF OF MISSION IN LIBYA: I've been perplexed and frustrated with the way this has all played out. Because to me this is a simple story. Ambassador Stevens went to Benghazi to do his job. To what he knew Secretary Clinton wanted him to do. And he was attacked while he was there.

And the American staff in Benghazi and in Tripoli responded as we've been trained to do, in an amazing way, to save the lives of our people who were in Benghazi. Unfortunately we lost four people in the line of duty.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Let's take a look back at the events of that night. You're home in Tripoli--

HICKS: Right.

STEPHANOPOULOS: That evening at around what, 9:45?

HICKS: It's at 9:45 Tripoli time, right, 3:45 Washington time. Our regional security officer comes running into the house where I was and yells, Greg! Greg! The consulate's under attack! And I immediately look at my telephone and I see a missed call. I call back on that number, I get the Ambassador.

And the Ambassador says Greg we're under attack.

PATIENTLY AWAITING THE APOLOGY FROM THE MEDIA: Syria's WMDs Came From Saddam Hussein's Iraq

Guest post by Investors Business Daily


War On Terror: As the regime of Bashar Assad disintegrates, the security of his chemical arsenal is in jeopardy. The No. 2 general in Saddam Hussein's air force says they were the WMDs we didn't find in Iraq.

King Abdullah of neighboring Jordan warned that a disintegrating Syria on the verge of civil war puts Syria's stockpile of chemical weapons at risk of falling into the hands of al-Qaida.

"One of the worst-case scenarios as we are obviously trying to look for a political solution would be if some of those chemical stockpiles were to fall into unfriendly hands," he said.

The irony here is that the chemical weapons stockpile of Syrian thug Assad may in large part be the legacy of weapons moved from Hussein's Iraq into Syria before Operation Iraqi Freedom.

If so, this may be the reason not much was found in the way of WMD by victorious U.S. forces in 2003.

In 2006, former Iraqi general Georges Sada, second in command of the Iraqi Air Force who served under Saddam Hussein before he defected, wrote a comprehensive book, "Saddam's Secrets."

It details how the Iraqi Revolutionary Guard moved weapons of mass destruction into Syria in advance of the U.S.-led action to eliminate Hussein's WMD threat.

Friday, September 06, 2013

Anti-War Leftist Michael Tomasky Makes Startling and Courageous Transformation to Pro-War Chickenhawk

Ed Driscoll calls this "speaking truth to Journolist", referring to a single comment that fillets the ludicrous excuse for a journalist named "Michael Tomasky" (if that is his real name):

Do you think the vast majority of American’s that do not want to get involved with Syria. Do you think it can be a lack of confidence in this Administration?

It is not like this administration has not lied before. Look at the job report today. We have been lied to and spind around on the economy for 5 years. (yes I know Bush’s fault). We have been lied to about Fast & furious (I know Bush’s fault). We have been lied to about Benghazi (I know Bush’s fault). We have been lied to about the IRS (I know it was Bush’s fault). We have been lied to about Obamacare (I know it is Bush’s fault). We have been lied to about the NSA (I know Bush’s fault). We have been lied to about Immigration (I know Bush’s fault). We have seen the level of incompetence on the Gulf Oil Spill, Boston (terror)…Bush’s fault. We have seen the level of incompetence when it comes to Egypt ( Muslim Brotherhood) Lybia (Extremists / Anarchy), hell the whole middle east….not to mention Iran is that much closer to being nuclear.

I know it is all Bush’s fault.

But with this track record, why should we trust them this time? Obviously Bush will screw this one up also, no?


Fail-clown Ezra Klein hardest hit.


Roll Call Embarrassment Taegan Goddard Still Shilling for Obamacare While Unions, Congress and Special Interests Freak Out

There are at least two people in America who still believe Obamacare is a sound idea. One is the intellectually bankrupt, former Enron adviser named Paul Krugman. The other is Roll Call's Taegan Goddard, the leftist sycophant, who continues to market Obamacare as successful when facts, logic, and reason all say otherwise.

Consider his utterly bizarre story entitled "Obamacare Fixed the Health Care Market". In a sense, that may be true, but only if the word "fixed" is used as it is in the sentence "we had the dog fixed".

Paul Krugman explains why it is no surprise that President Obama’s health care reform law is pushing down health insurance premiums.

“Until now there has been sort of a market — but one that…is riddled with problems. It was very hard for individuals to figure out what they were buying… Price and quality comparisons were near-impossible. Under these conditions the magic of the marketplace couldn’t work — there really wasn’t a proper market.”

“With the ACA, however, insurers operate under clear ground rules, with clearly defined grades of plan and discrimination banned. The result, suddenly, is that we have real market competition.”

Now, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to completely debunk Krugman's corrupt nonsense. In fact, even a trained chimpanzee can be taught to use a search engine and arrive at some conclusions concerning the impact of Obamacare on health insurance, premiums and employment. But, then again, a trained chimpanzee isn't a propagandist and Taegan Goddard is; therefore he must ignore the tidal wave of news stories that decimate his DNC-approved detritus.

9/5: List of 258 Firms Cutting Workers and Hours Due to Obamacare (Investors)

9/5: Obama rewrites health care law to exempt employers from mandate (Reuters)

9/5: New Mexico will see 130 percent premium hikes due to Obamacare: (Manhattan Institute)

9/4: AFL-CIO President Trumka Slams Obamacare's Restructuring of Workforces (Al Jazeera)

9/4: Obama Grants Congress an Exemption From His Health Care Overhaul (WSJ)

9/4: In 13 States Plus D.C., Obamacare Will Increase Health Premiums By 24% (Forbes)

9/4: ObamaCare Is Turning Us Into A Part-Time Nation (Forbes)

9/4: Low-cost 'bronze' plans under health law could leave some consumers with big medical bills (Minneapolis)

9/3: Health insurance in Madison area will up to 125 percent higher (WXOW-19)

9/3: Kroger Cuts Health Benefits For Spouses (BizJournals)

9/3: Union dumps AFL-CIO for its positions on ObamaCare, immigration reform (Fox)

9/3: Obamacare Could Cost Hawaii Millions for 'Cadillac' Healthcare Plans (Honolulu)

These are just a few of the choice headlines related to Obamacare's unfolding devastation. Worse still, the tens of thousands of pages of laws, regulations and diktats have yet to be finalized; in truth, the law really hasn't even kicked in yet.

Medicare is going bankrupt. Medicaid is going bankrupt. Social Security is going bankrupt. The Trustees of these systems, along with the GAO and the OMB keep sounding the alarms in increasingly dire terms.

And as these programs run dry, as interest rates spike, as Obamacare collapses, as the federal leviathan -- which borrows 40 cents of every dollar to operate -- implodes, cheerleaders for collectivism like Taegan Goddard are this era's useful idiots.

We are headed rapidly for an economic whirlpool, a hydraulic that will -- like chaotic events that have occurred throughout history -- catch most off-guard and send the country rapidly into desperately dangerous, uncharted waters.

And which segments of the population will be hardest hit by such an economic catastrophe? Will it be the super-rich, the Beltway elites, or former Presidents of the U.S.? Or will it be the poor, seniors living on fixed incomes, and young people trying to get their careers started?

Taegan Goddard is a disgrace. He is a marketer of central planning, of Soviet-style industrial policy that can't work, won't work and has never worked in all of human history. And yet he brays on as the system disintegrates, leaving future generations on the hook for his egregious failures.

History will not look kindly on this disgraceful excuse for a journalist. He should hang his head in shame.


Hat tip: BadBlue News Service.

Thursday, September 05, 2013

KRAUTHAMMER: Left Mocked Bush For Going Into Iraq With 50 Allies But "Obama Can't Even Get One And A Half"

Consistency? From progressives? Surely you jest, Charles.

Syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer blasts the liberal establishment for mocking the Bush administration at the time that the United States intervened in Iraq. He compared actions in that conflict to the Obama administration's inability to unite America's allies in the present Syria situation:

"I don't think it is a sudden embrace of the separation of powers or a renewed interest in constitutional action in which he brings in the Congress.

On domestic issues, he hasn't shown any interest in that, and all of a sudden he develops religion on the eve of the supposed strike. The reason is, he was alone and naked in the world.

He didn't have Russia, he didn't have the U.N., didn't have the Security Council, he didn't have the Arabs who, yes, very much oppose but won't lift a finger and didn't even approve in the resolution of the Arab League support for unilateral or any kind of action against them, military action against Syria, and he lost our closest ally in Britain.

He had nobody. Here are Obama and the Democrats who mocked the Bush administration for unilateral intervention In Iraq where we had a coalition of almost 50 countries and he can't get one and a half. So he had to have the Congress, that's the reason he did that switch in the end. He knew how alone he was and how he needed cover."

Anti-war progressives Nancy Pelosi, Howard Dean, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and Harry Reid -- to name but a few -- all now support war in Syria. This gang of chickenhawks (always a favorite term during the Bush era) are banging the drums of war even though we have no idea whether anyone actually used chemical weapons and, if they were used, who used them; or who we're fighting for; or what the goal is; or whether a regional or global conflict will result; or how blowing up some camels helps U.S. national security interests.

All of those factors don't matter. This is about saving face for Barack Obama and keeping the attention off the litany of scandals -- Benghazi, IRS, NSA, James Rosen and AP wiretaps, Fast and Furious, and dozens more -- engulfing the administration.

These Democrat hacks are the worst of the worst. In fact, if the field of politics didn't exist, I find it difficult to imagine how they would earn honest livings.

Which reminds me of Mark Twain's famous missive: "Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself."


Hat tip: BadBlue News Service.

In a single paragraph, a commenter destroys the National Journal's Matthew Cooper and his 'no voting fraud' fantasies

Writing at the hard left National Journal, someone named "Matthew Cooper" (if that is his real name), proffers the insane notion that vote fraud really isn't a concern in the U.S.

...voter-ID laws generally represent an answer in search of a problem. There just isn't much evidence of voter fraud...


...Civil-rights groups have been apoplectic about these laws, saying that they are discriminatory. And they would seem to have a pretty good case, as there's no fraud epidemic and those who would have the hardest time complying with the law are poor and minorities. That's because minorities and the poor are much less likely to have the kind of government-issued photo IDs that some states require...

Commenter Raphael Semmes shreds Cooper's nonsense:

This article makes me lose respect for your publication. Most democracies in the world require a photo voter ID, and it is part and parcel of democracy. I have personally been an accredited international election observers in six foreign elections where the country had long required photo ID to vote. There was no suggestion at any time from ANY side that this produced any ''vote suppression'' whatsoever. What it produced was an honest vote. Republicans are quite right to protect our election process, and Democrats are scoundrels to demagogue this issue. I have also worked in an election campaign, in the 4th district of North Carolina in 1972, where the election was stolen by voter fraud, so I get the fact that this is a problem that needs to be corrected.

It would seem Cooper missed the story about the "Mississippi NAACP leader sent to prison for 10 counts of voter fraud."

And the fact that more than 50 people employed by or linked with ACORN have been convicted of voter fraud.

During the 2008 election cycle alone, ACORN was linked to as many as 600,000 bogus voter registrations. Combined with their tactics of encouraging early voting and use of absentee ballots, it is an indisputable fact that ACORN was and is responsible for widespread election fraud.

17 seconds using Google would have allowed an honest journalist to investigate vote fraud (the elections of JFK and LBJ being archetypes of Democrat vote fraud).

But because this is National Journal -- and some hack named "Matthew Cooper" -- we're talking about, any connection to the truth is purely coincidental.


Related: If you read the list of things you need an ID to do, you would -- if you had an ounce of intellectual honesty -- admit that the entire bogus voter ID controversy is about one thing: the Democrats' insatiable desire to destroy the integrity of the ballot box.


Tuesday, September 03, 2013

You know how Alaskans have dozens of words for "snow"? We conservatives need a similar variety for "hypocrite"

I've heard that Alaskans have dozens of words that mean snow, from light frost to full-bore blizzard.

We need a similar level of variety for the word hypocrite, ranging from Holden Caulfield to Nancy Pelosi:


In tabular form:


Instapundit's Glenn Reynolds reports that at Buzzfeed, memes were running 10-to-1 against Obama's rush to war. And notes one meme that Buzzfeed missed.


These Democrat and Republican establishment types are the lowest of the low.


Hat tip: BadBlue News Service.

Sunday, September 01, 2013

Politico and Colin Powell: A Match Made in Intellectual Dishonesty Heaven                                                      

The outplacement service for The Washington Post is a website called Politico. It is, in short, the official newsletter of the Democrat National Committee and for certain leakers inside the RINO establishment.

Nothing illustrates the feckless nature of Politico and its Statist agenda better than a story this week headlined "Colin Powell slams North Carolina voting law."

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell bashed North Carolina’s recent voting law at a forum in the state Thursday, with the governor that signed the bill in the audience... Powell said the law harms the Republican Party...

The bill requires voters to show government-issued ID, shortens early voting and ends early pre-registration for teens, among other changes. Civil rights groups have already challenged the law in federal courts.

Thursday, Powell said the bill sends a bad message to minorities.

“What it really says to the minority voters is … ‘We really are sort-of punishing you,’” Powell said.

Powell also took aim at defenders of the law, including McCrory, who say such restrictions are necessary to stop voter fraud, which is hard to detect.

You can say what you like, but there is no voter fraud,” Powell said. “How can it be widespread and undetected?”

I will not denigrate Colin Powell's service to this country, for which I offer my sincere thanks, but when it comes to matters of law and politics, he is a buffoon.

And, for someone who is so fixated on skin pigmentation rather than character, it's difficult to believe Powell missed the story about the "Mississippi NAACP leader sent to prison for 10 counts of voter fraud."

And the fact that more than 50 people employed by or linked with ACORN have been convicted of voter fraud.

During the 2008 election cycle alone, ACORN was linked to as many as 600,000 bogus voter registrations. Combined with their tactics of encouraging early voting and use of absentee ballots, ACORN is responsible for widespread election fraud.

17 seconds using Google would have allowed an honest journalist to quickly debunk Powell's nonsense. But since this is Politico -- and some hack named "Tal Kopan" (if that is his real name) -- we're talking about, any connection to the truth is purely coincidental.


Related: If you read the list of things you need an ID to do, you would -- if you had an ounce of intellectual honesty -- admit that the entire bogus voter ID controversy is about one thing: the Democrats' insatiable desire to destroy the integrity of the ballot box.


Wednesday, August 28, 2013

The Shameless Hypocrisy of the Left on Syria, in Tweets

This:



Tuesday, August 27, 2013

JUST PEACHY: Facebook shared personal data of users a mere 26 thousand times in the first six months of 2013

Guest post by Eric Boehm

On Facebook, you can share posts and pictures with friends.

But at Facebook, they can (and do) share your posts and pictures and personal information with government agents all around the world.

Facebook released a report Tuesday detailing their level of involvement with government requests for data. Since users willingly share so much about themselves on Facebook and other social media tools, it seems government agencies are looking to take advantage of the information – and Facebook is more than happy to comply.

“As we have said many times, we believe that while governments have an important responsibility to keep people safe, it is possible to do so while also being transparent,” said Colin Stretch, an attorney for the social networking mega-site. “Government transparency and public safety are not mutually exclusive ideals.”

Stretch assured users that Facebook scrutinizes each request and maintains a “very high legal bar” that governments must clear before users’ private information is passed along.

Even so, the numbers are startling.

In total, Facebook received more than 26,000 separate requests for information about nearly 39,000 different accounts from 72 different national governments during the first six months of 2013.

And guess which country’s government made the most requests for information from Facebook – so many, in fact, that it is more than all other requests from all other national governments in the entire world, combined.

Go ahead, guess.

Here’s the chart of the top 10:

It does raise some questions – like, if government surveillance is meant to stop terrorist attacks, are terrorists really posting “about to build a bomb” on their status updates?

Or, perhaps the government is collecting Facebook information for other reasons – particularly since we already know the Drug Enforcement Agency frequently gets “tips” from the National Security Agency and others (then lies about where those tips come from).

And Facebook’s willingness to share personal data with the governments of the world seems even stranger one week after Joe Sullivan, the company’s chief security officer, said “it is never acceptable to compromise the security or privacy of other people.

Of course in that instance he was talking about one user compromising another user’s privacy. If Facebook is going to compromise everyone’s privacy at once, that must be better – somehow.

Now we really need that “dislike” button.

 

Boehm is a reporter for Watchdog.org and can be reached at Eric@PAIndependent.com. Follow him on Twitter at @EricBoehm87. Please visit Watchdog.org for more information.

Friday, August 23, 2013

Failed GOP "Strategist" and Professional Shrew Nicolle Wallace Calls Brilliant Constitutionalist Ted Cruz a Liar

I've got a question for you: when do you see Democrat apparatchiks attack their own?

I can't think of a single instance since Joe Lieberman. Say what you will about the radical Left, but they do stay in lockstep.

Not so for the Rockefeller-Scranton-Nixon-Bush Wing of the Republican Party. The Beltway Elite are more interested in attacking the Reaganites -- the conservative, Tea Party, Constitutionalists -- than they are in beating Democrats.

Exhibit #4,035: Someone named "Nicolle Wallace", if that is her real name, who asserts that one of the smartest and most accomplished men in Congress is a liar.

Former John McCain campaign aide Nicolle Wallace told Morning Joe guest host Donny Deutsch that Ted Cruz was being “intellectually dishonest” in his mission to shut down the government in order to defund Obamacare, a strategy she felt was tantamount to lying to his supporters at the cost of the GOP’s national ambitions.

“I watch Ted Cruz up there and I say, ‘Is he not getting the memo from Christie as far as what’s getting you elected going forward?’” Deutsch said. “This ‘party of no,’ this anger, ‘I’m strong, you’re a chicken, I’m strong, you’re a chicken’—who is that talking to? It’s so tone deaf. Party of no, let’s kill Obamacare—versus, you watch what [Chris] Christie’s doing: time after time, decision after decision, moderate, moderate, moderate. Nicolle, am I missing something?”

“The problem with what Cruz is doing is it’s intellectually dishonest,” Wallace said. “[Cruz] was also asked at that event, ‘Why don’t we impeach President Obama?’ And he said, ‘Because we don’t have the votes.’ The true answer, the intellectually honest answer: ‘Because he’s not committed an impeachable offense.’ Ted Cruz is doing a whole lot of fearmongering and lying to the voters. He’s presenting an untruthful case.”

“The reason we’re going to lose this debate about defunding Obamacare is because we don’t occupy the White House,” Wallace said. “We don’t have the ability to pass laws and then sign them. The best way to win this fight is to elect a Republican president.”

Obama "hasn't committed an impeachable offense"? Really, Nicolle? Tell you what, yenta: peruse the Complete List of Barack Obama's Historic Firsts and tell me which items wouldn't make it into the articles of impeachment.

As for de-funding Obamacare, genius: if the House passed a bill that funded all of the government except for O'BoehnerCare and sent it to the Senate, who would be on the hook for a government shutdown? Would there be a tidal wave of support for the Unaffordable Care Act? Some kind of groundswell for more part-time jobs and economic misery?

Nicolle Wallace: your track record of failure makes you suitable only for comic relief. You dare to tell us who to listen to and who to believe? You, who can't get a gig appearing on anything but a failed network like MSNBC, that has lower Nielsens than airport radar and sonograms?

We're supposed to believe you over Ted Cruz, a cum laude graduate of Princeton, a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard Law, and a man who has argued and won multiple cases in front of the Supreme Court?

You're a tool of the left and an utter disgrace.

Ted Cruz is the real deal. And that's why the Beltway Elites are running scared.

I'm telling you folks for real: I ain't takin' this crap any more. I'm calling out every single one of these "Ruling Class Elites" who suckle on the teat of government and media -- but I repeat myself -- while attacking patriots who believe in the nation's highest law.

They're the freaks, the miscreants, and the extremists. They're the useful idiots.

For we stand on the shoulders of the Framers. And they stand on the shoulders of Marx and Lenin.

And we know who will win that battle when the chips are all on the table.


Hat tip: Mark Levin and BadBlue News.

Thursday, August 22, 2013

Al Jazeera, "voice of the Muslim Brotherhood", now setting its sights on the United States

Guest post by Cliff Kincaid

Anti-Al Jazeera posters have recently appeared in Egypt saying, “A bullet kills a man, a lying camera kills a nation.” This attitude led to the new government closing the channel, after 22 staffers quit in disgust over its pro-Muslim Brotherhood bias.

Al Jazeera is the voice of the Muslim Brotherhood, the group now laying siege to Egypt and burning Christian churches there.

On Sunday, CNN’s media criticism show “Reliable Sources” featured a discussion of the launch of Al Jazeera America. While Egyptian Christian churches burn because of what the channel has done there, Al Jazeera America was given a warm welcome not only by the American media, but also by the Congress of the United States. This show was no exception.

A good guest would have been Raymond Ibrahim, author of Crucified Again: Exposing Islam’s New War on Christians (2013) and The Al Qaeda Reader (2007). He told AIM, “One thing I can tell: concerning events in Egypt, Al Jazeera has willfully been manipulating truth to the favor of the Brotherhood—even sometimes portraying the very large masses of anti-Morsi protesters as pro-Morsi protesters, and lots of other distortions that violate any code of journalistic [ethics].”

Instead, CNN’s “Reliable Sources” guest host Joanne Lipman invited Michael Calderone of The Huffington Post and Edward Felsenthal of Time.com to discuss the channel. They never once mentioned the words “Muslim Brotherhood.”

Another taboo topic: Al Jazeera’s lobbyists have worked their will on Capitol Hill, pressuring Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, not to open hearings into the channel. The emir of Qatar is throwing millions of oil dollars around on Capitol Hill and in the Washington, D.C. area on behalf of his new toy. This is a non-story for most of the U.S. media.

We have come to expect politicians selling out, but the media should tell the truth about the payoffs that have greased the skids for Al Jazeera America.

John Siegenthaler, David Shuster, Soledad O’Brien, Antonio Mora, Joie Chen, Michael Viqueira and Ali Velshi are among the media personalities accepting money from the channel once known as the voice of Osama bin Laden. They are being touted by publications such as Politico as media trailblazers bringing much-needed news and information to a hungry American audience.

One of the most blatant examples of media manipulation, in order to mask the channel’s terrorist roots, is adding “America” to its name in order to confuse viewers. It is still funded by the Jihadist-supporting dictatorial regime of Qatar, which sheltered bin Laden lieutenant and 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed before he went to Pakistan and cut journalist Daniel Pearl’s head off.

MARK LEVIN TRANSCRIPT: Just How Desperate is the New Obamacare Sales Pitch?

Via Hannity


JOINING ME NOW, THE AUTHOR OF, NUMBER ONE ON AMAZON FOR OVER A WEEK, "THE LIBERTY AMENDMENTS," MARK LEVIN FROM HIS BUNKER.

SIR, HOW ARE YOU?

>> I'M GOOD, HOW ARE YOU, SEAN?

>> I GUESS NEXT THEY'LL BE SINGING SONGS TO CASTRO AFTER THIS, MARK.

>> YEAH, WHY NOT? I MEAN, WE'RE ADOPTING THE CASTRO AGENDA, AREN'T WE? OBAMA CARE IS A -- NOT ONLY IS IT A COMPLETE DISASTER, BUT I'M AFRAID, SEAN, WE'RE NEVER GOING TO GET RID OF IT.

BECAUSE THE REPUBLICANS DON'T WANT TO GET RID OF IT.

AND INSTEAD OF TAKING ON OBAMA AND TAKING ON THE LEFT, THEY'RE TAKING ON THE CONSERVATIVES AND THE CONSTITUTIONALISTS AND ATTACKING THEM, TELLING US TO WAIT UNTIL TOMORROW AND THE NEXT DAY.

THESE FRENCH REPUBLICANS, THEY ARE ALWAYS SURRENDERING.

AND THE FACT OF THE MATTER IS, IF THEY'RE NOT GOING TO ALEAST ATTACK THE DISCRETIONARY FUNDING OR USE THE POWER OF THE PURSE IN THE HOUSE TO PASS A CONTINUING RESOLUTION THAT FUNDS PART OF THE GOVERNMENT, BUT NOT THIS PART OF THE GOVERNMENT, WHAT'S LEFT? ONCE THIS THING IS INSTITUTED, IT'S NOT GOING TO IMPLODE.

I HEAR THIS, OH, THE LAW IS GOING TO IMPLODE.

HAVE YOU EVER HEARD OF AN IMPLODING LAW?

>> NO, NEVER.

>> YOU HAVE TO REPEAL A LAW.

YOU HAVE TO DEFUND A LAW.

LAWS DON'T IMPLODE.