Monday, May 14, 2007

Economic News, the BizzyBlog way

 
BizzyBlog has been on a real tear of late, providing genuine clarity into economic news and trends that the mainstream media is too --er-- busy to cover. Some recent highlights:

May 13, 2007 - How to Downplay Good Federal Budget News:

Perhaps you read this week that in April, the US Treasury reported all-time-record tax collections of $383.6 billion.


If you did, you didn’t read it in the dead-trees version of the New York Times. The Old Grey Lady did not deem Thursday afternoon’s news “fit to print” on Friday (requires free registration), even choosing not to carry the related Associated Press report that is the main topic of this post (even though the Time posted it online Thursday evening). A Times search on “April treasury” (not in quotes) shows no evidence of any other coverage since then, nor does Sunday’s Business home page...


Readers would want to know what the old record for receipts was; it’s nowhere to be found. The old record was $331.8 billion in April 2001. If it ever happened, can you imagine a sports reporter covering the end of a mythical baseball player’s a 66-game hitting streak neglecting to tell readers that the old record was Joe Dimaggio’s 56?

May 12, 2007 - This IBD Recitation Should Be Required Reading:

No question: The year 2001 marked a major break for the economy, with one of the largest hits ever to the wealth of Americans.

It could have been an epic disaster. But it wasn’t. Bush did exactly the right thing — though he’s still criticized for it today. To get the economy moving again, he pushed through tax cuts in 2001, 2002 and 2003.

Some 113 million people got an average tax cut of $2,216. Families with children got even more — $2,864 on average.


Since the last round of cuts in 2003, we’ve had the quietest, and most significant, boom in wealth, income and profits in our history. This explains why the economy, to the surprise of economists and the chagrin of liberal pundits, keeps humming. We’ve gone over the numbers before, but they bear repeating. Since 2002:

• Real gross domestic product has soared $1.64 trillion, or 16.5%, during a five-year stretch that has yet to see a downturn and that has witnessed average annual growth of 3%.
• Disposable personal income — what’s left after taxes — has jumped $2.16 trillion, or 29%, to $9.68 trillion.
• Productivity, the fuel for future standards of living, has improved 14.3%.
• Overall employee compensation has expanded 4% a year.
• Net wealth, the amount people would have after paying off their debts, has swelled $15.2 trillion, or 38%, to $55.6 trillion. That gain in just five years is more than the total wealth amassed in the first 210 years of America’s existence — an unprecedented surge.
• About 69% of Americans now own their homes, an all-time high.
• The jobless rate, now at 4.4%, remains below its 40-year average. Since August 2003, 7.8 million new jobs have been created.
• Tax receipts have surged 43%, or $757.6 billion, again thanks to economic growth.

Be sure and visit BizzyBlog. That is, if you can handle the stories that the New York Times doesn't have the energy to cover.

The Tragic Story the Mainstream Media Buried

 
Flopping Aces has a tragic story of criminal violence run amok: a brutal rape, mutilation and murder of almost unimaginable depravity. While the death of Anna Nicole Smith and the Don Imus story occupied hundreds of hours of prime-time coverage, this savage and incomprehensible crime received no significant attention.


Caution: the story contains graphic descriptions of violence as well as maddening neglect by the mainstream media establishment. And, as usual, The New York Times is AWOL.

Update: Sister Toldjah has a must-read take on this case and the media's double standard.

Sunday, May 13, 2007

The Obama-mobile: hypocrisy in shades of green

 
Democratic presidential candidate B. Hussein Obama recently pilloried U.S. automakers for their resistance to increased fuel efficiency requirements. Speaking in Detroit, Obama proclaimed that the auto companies had not met the challenge:

[he] delivered a stern message to Detroit auto companies on Monday, saying they had done little to lessen the nation’s dependence on foreign oil and needed to improve the fuel efficiency of their vehicles... While the American standard for cars has not increased in the last 20 years, both China and Japan have higher standards, Mr. Obama said. He maintained that cars in Japan typically achieved the equivalent of 45 miles per gallon. [Ed: debunked here]... In fact, the average fuel economy in 2006 for cars sold by all manufacturers in the United States was slightly more than 30 miles per gallon, higher than the federal standard requires...

Obama also failed to mention that his own vehicle is a 340-horsepower behemoth and not exactly a model for fuel efficiency.


This is not a picture of Obama's 300C; his car may, in fact, have a green exterior

The Detroit Free Press reports that Obama's vehicle says a lot about the candidate:

...his choice to drive a V8 Hemi-powered Chrysler 300C emits a whiff of hypocrisy along with its exhaust fumes. Obama's choice proves once again that fuel economy is seldom the No. 1 factor when Americans buy cars. The 340-horsepower 300C has plenty of room for the lanky senator, his wife, Michelle, and their two daughters...

Obama's mindset is standard fare for the hypocritical "semi-green" Democrats. Never mind that the Democratic candidates rely upon a vast fleet of private jets, which are used as taxis. Just ignore the fact that the electric bill for Al Gore's mansion is $2,400 a month (including $500 a month for the pool house).

It's the typical Democratric mantra: "one set of rules for us, another set of rules for all of the little people."

More and more Americans are wising up to their ridiculous double-standards. Their pratfalls would almost be humorous were they not so utterly two-faced.

Hat tips: Blue Crab Boulevard and Larwyn

Saturday, May 12, 2007

The Real Story behind the "Clinton Economy"

 
Two unique events influenced the United States economy during Bill Clinton's tenure. Many have forgotten these events and the result is a general misunderstanding of the real drivers behind the "Clinton Economy."

1) Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web.


The web was released as a free service by the CERN research facility in 1993. A massive and unprecedented spending boom accompanied the popularization of the web.

2) Another anomalous, technology-related event was the "Year 2000" computer remediation effort (or "Y2K"). An immense repair investment -- estimated at $300 billion -- occurred in the late 1990's as governments and companies rushed to make their legacy computer systems "Y2K-compliant."

* * *

The massive surge in technology spending and productivity associated with these events were coincident with the Clinton Presidency. In fact, they had absolutely nothing to do with any program, initiative or legislation associated with the Clinton administration.


Put simply, Bobo the Chimpanzee could have been President during the late 90's tech boom. Come to think of it, even a philandering, disbarred former attorney who sold missile secrets to the Chinese for campaign donations while allowing terrorists to relentlessly attack U.S. interests could have been President.


And the tech boom -- the so-called "Clinton economy" -- would have happened regardless.

So when Hillary tells us that she'll duplicate Bill's economic track record, be afraid. Be very afraid.

Update: the Anchoress has a must-read take on the 'Clinton Legacy'.

Friday, May 11, 2007

MSNBC: "The Middle Class is Living on the Edge"

 
News flash: the economy is in a shambles! All over the country, middle class families are preparing to hit the streets to start panhandling. They're dialing up Google Maps to find the nearest soup kitchen. Put simply, they're in turmoil.


Well, at least that's how a Democratic think tank and its media arm -- MSNBC -- are positioning the economy. Yesterday, MSNBC breathlessly reported the results of a "study" funded by the Democratic Party. Put simply, the "middle class is in turmoil."

The middle class today is less prepared for an economic emergency, such as losing a job or visiting an emergency room, than at any time since the late 1970s, concludes a new study from a political think tank in Washington, D.C., that's funded by Democrats. [Ed: emphasis added]

"Middle Class in Turmoil," produced by the Center for American Progress and the Service Employees International Union, mines data from the Federal Reserve, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, census records and other sources to paint a picture of increasing peril for those in the middle 60% of income distribution...

Meanwhile, back in the real world:
  • the stock market is at an all-time high
  • unemployment at a record low
  • 401K, 403B, IRA, and Keough Retirement account balances are at an all-time high
  • the budget deficit was sliced in half ahead of Bush's prediction
None of those developments, it would seem, are newsworthy.


MSNBC's theme is consistent with many of the Democratic Party talking points that have circulated since President Bush took office. The MSM game-plan: never mind 9/11 sucking half a trillion dollars out of the economy. Never mind the greatest natural disaster to hit the continental United States.

In a Sept. 2, 2003 speech in South Carolina, John Kerry claimed the U.S. is suffering "the greatest job loss since the Great Depression." And throughout the 2004 presidential campaign, Kerry asserted that President Bush had "the worst economic record since the Hoover administration." In fact, throughout multiple election cycles, leading Democrats have employed the term "jobless recovery" to describe the economy.


Jobless, eh? Well, there's only one question that you -- my dear and valued reader -- need to contemplate.

When was the last time MSNBC featured a study funded by the GOP?

Line o' the Day: Winning

 
"Most people have the will to win, few have the will to prepare to win."

                  -- Coach Bob Knight

Thursday, May 10, 2007

Frivolous vs. Magnanimous: Intelligence

 
Frivolous: The 2008 Intelligence Authorization Bill is headed to a House vote within the next week or two. If it is signed into law, it will direct our intelligence agencies to turn away from fighting terrorism, rooting out spies, and gathering national security intelligence. Instead, it will require agencies to engage in a 30-year projection of the effects of... climate change.

Willfully ignoring 9/11, the plot to destroy UK airliners over American cities with liquid bombs, and the recent Fort Dix conspiracy, Democrats intead call for the study of climate change. The Junior Party is willing to divert our most valuable intelligence resources from their anti-terrorism efforts for reasons that are unserious -- at best.


What could be the true motivation for wasting our intelligence resources in such an egregious fashion? Your guess is as good as mine. Perhaps George Soros knows the answer.

Magnanimous: Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-MI) offered his perspective of the fatally flawed Intelligence bill in today's Wall Street Journal (subscription required). Put simply, the Democrats under the Clinton administration have gone down this road before.

Clinton's first Secretary of State, Warren Christopher, directed intelligence agencies to devote equal efforts to "environmental concerns and national security." The result was an outrageous waste of resources as intelligence analysts reported upon schools of fish and volcano activity. In the mean time, the Jihadi terrorist threat grew, inexorably and remorselessly, under the Clinton administration's watch.


In August of 1996, Osama Bin Laden issued his Declaration of War against the Americans while Al Gore was presumably examining Excel spreadsheets detailing air pollution data. Last week, Ayman al-Zawahiri reiterated his intent to use Iraq as a base of operations for further attacks against the West. Some things never change.

Reportedly, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid were too busy measuring the tidal surge to respond.

And they say Conservatism doesn't pay!

 
On May 2, 2007, Fox News' O'Reilly Factor came within a whisker of beating CNN, MSNBC, and Headline News -- combined. That night's Nielsen ratings demonstrate that O'Reilly is beating the mainstream cable media like a rented mule. And that's just a euphemism, so don't sic PETA on me.

 5p:6p:7p:8p:9p:10p:11p:
FNCGibson:Hume:Shep:O'Reilly:H&C:Greta:O'Reilly:
 211250271602357360360
CNNBlitzer:Dobbs:Blitzer:Zahn:King:Cooper:Cooper:
 164260223225282287143
MSNBCHardball:Tucker:Hardball:Countdo.:Scarbo.:Special:Special:
 10182113201121188139
HLNHLN:Prime:Beck:Grace:Beck:Grace:Showbiz:
 90/489996200147130152

Memo to the New York Times' shareholders: finally getting the hint?

Data by Nielsen Media Research. Live and same day (DVR) data. Hat tip: Mediabistro

Wednesday, May 09, 2007

The David Broder Thought Experiment

 
Pulitzer-prize winning Washington Post columnnist David Broder recently called Harry Reid an "embarrassment" after the Senate Majority Leader declared the ongoing Iraq war "lost". In response, all 50 Democratic Senators published a joint letter roundly criticizing Broder for his comments.


Imagine if, every time a WaPo or New York Times columnist ripped a Republican leader, that all of the GOP Senators banded together to write a response. It would be a full-time job for each Senator and result in letters sent every day of the week, 365 days a year. And 366 days in 2008.


If there's anything that highlights the differences between the parties, it's frivolous behavior like the Democratic response to Broder's phrase. We can't get that many Democrats to band together to complain about terrorism.

Governor Sebelius needs Ray Nagin to kick around

 
The American Thinker points us to the story of a self-proclaimed "Kansas farmboy" named Tim Schieferecke:

...Apparently my current leftist Governor Kathleen Sebelius doesn't [understand Kansans], nor does she comprehend the availability of heavy equipment assets. It was hard for me to hold my lunch down when I heard her craft an anti-Bush spin on the disaster that befell the good people of Greensburg. Slow recovery? This statement is disingenuous at best but in local lingo better understood as a downright lie.

We need trucks? It seems the good Governor doesn't get out of Topeka much. Western Kansas is wheat country, and where there's wheat there's wheat trucks. Incidentally, they fill in quite nicely for hauling away debris when they aren't filled with grain. Why do they really need Hum-vees in the mix? What can they accomplish that a regular old four wheel drive pick-up can't? Other equipment? You can't spit without hitting a tractor, spit a little harder and you'll hit one that has a handy scoop.

As far as the people go, they are salt of the earth good people, regardless of race, class or creed in the country. Unlike certain areas affected by disaster, the people of Greensburg will take care of their current problems themselves. They will not wait for the government to do this or that, because in the country people still know what it means to be a good neighbor...

Also, I'd like the Governor to explain just how many National Guard troops it takes to seal off a little town of 1500 from looters? The good Governor points out plainly opportunistically that 40% of all troops overseas are National Guard. Now, assuming that 40% of Kansas troops are engaged elsewhere (that's 3,200 of approximately 8,000 total, there are an estimated 4,800 troops available). To guard a town of 1,500? Do they have that many down on the border? That sounds like overkill to me!

It is beyond me how these libs spin everything towards making our good President guilty of this or that. How is it that President Bush has anything at all to do with a slow response to the catastrophe? How could ANYTHING have been done differently. Oh yeah, I forgot, Bush created global warming by colluding with big oil, that created the perfect F-5 tornado, and if only he had signed Kyoto this tragedy never would have happened...

Governor Blanco -- er, I mean Governor Sebelius -- is a little late to the "blame Bush" game. Since the Feds haven't reacted quickly enough, maybe she can call up New Orleans and get some of those buses driven in. I'm sure they've dried out by now.

And where's Ray Nagin when you need him?

Hat tip: Larwyn

Tuesday, May 08, 2007

Puppet-master: George Soros & Barrack Hussein Obama

 
You know, Soros has refined his act to the point where it's a science. You can barely even see the wires he's using to control Obama. And you can hardly see his lips move when Obama talks!


More from The O'Reilly Factor:


Click to play the video-clip

Hat tips: Pamela at Atlas Shrugs and Larwyn

Monday, May 07, 2007

Frivolous vs. Magnanimous: Energy Policy

 
Frivolous: Democrats claim they want energy independence, but their policies are at odds with their claimed intent.


The accompanying map depicts "The No Zone." This is the region surrounding the United States in which Democrats have forbidden oil exploration. Take, for example, ANWR. The Alaskan wildlife refuge is an immense property. To put it into its proper scale, if ANWR was the size of a football field, the requested oil exploration area is the size of a postage stamp.

Democrats oppose drilling in deepwater, even though Hurricanes Katrina and Rita proved that modern offshore drilling platforms pose little or no pollution risk. As for new refineries, well, the Democrats oppose those, too.

The net impact of Democratic behavior is that America will become ever more dependent on foreign oil.

While alternative energy sources remain an admirable goal, they are decades away from becoming serious alternatives to oil, which is the lifeblood of our economy. Several months ago, Ben Stein described the reliance of our society on oil:

...If we lost all oil and gas products tomorrow, ...the world would simply collapse. There would be an immense depression beyond anything we saw in the 1930s -- the economy would go back to a primitive state. There would simply not be a functioning society. It would be as if there had been nuclear war, minus the casualties from blast and radiation.

In a word, we cannot as a modern society or even a modestly industrial society live without oil and gas. That is, [it is not] a luxury or a narcotic. [It is] a basic necessity of life, as basic as almost any commodity there is.

The Democrats simply pretend that this isn't the case by preventing exploration in sensible locations.

In the mean time, Cuba is permitting foreign countries to drain the Gulf of Mexico of its oil. For example, Cuba granted China drilling rights in the Gulf. And, in fact, China will be drilling within 50 miles of Florida.


And while countries such as China will be sucking oil out of the Gulf, Democrats are continuing to stonewall against sensible energy policies.

Many Democrats call themselves "progressives", but when it comes to energy policy, the term "regressive" comes to mind.

Magnanimous: Republicans, if nothing else, are pragmatists. They recognize the landscape of energy dependence and have created realistic gameplans for dealing with the situation.


United States Senator Larry Craig (R-ID) has assembled a powerful set of graphs that illustrate the real problem... and a potential solution.


The bottom line is that in order to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, we must open up new avenues of exploration and refinement. To do anything less is to court disaster, but that seems to be standard fare for the modern Democratic party.

Hat tips: Gateway Pundit and Larwyn. Frivolous vs. Magnanimous is a recurring series. Email us with suggestions!

Prediction o' the Day: the MSM and Mitt Romney

 
Feel free to call me Nostradumas, but my prediction of the day is as obvious as the average price at the Dollar Store:

If Mitt Romney is the Republican nominee, watch for a concerted attack on the Mormon religion by the mainstream media. I'll predict here and now a 20-20 "exposé" of the Church by Brian Ross; a series of anti-Mormon op-eds by Maureen Dowd and Frank Rich; a bizarre series of rants by Joy Behar on The View; and a movie by Michael Moore ("Joseph Smith and me").

Years after the general election, it will turn out that Hillary Clinton's attack machine orchestrated the entire onslaught of negative media coverage.


Go figure.

Sunday, May 06, 2007

Frivolous vs. Magnanimous: Immigration

 
Frivolous: While I don't always read the newspaper, I'm pretty certain there isn't a new country on our southern border. Though, to view literature passed out by Democratic solicitors at a 2006 pro-illegal immigration rally in Dallas, you'd never know it.

What I glean from this brochure is that Democrats believe in a country called "Texico", which encompasses the former state of Texas and country of Mexico. Kim Priestap at Wizbang summarized this approach with panache:

The Democrats classify people based upon race and then work to corner the racial voting collectives... [and] they are trying very hard to collectivize the Hispanic community by turning the immigration issue into another civil rights issue.

...Power Line points out, one of the organizers of these rallies is A.N.S.W.E.R., a communist organization.

But don't question their patriotism!

Magnanimous: Republican positions on immigration are characterized by a wide range of opinion. On one end of the spectrum: the hard-line stance of Tom Tancredo -- "whose political obsession is to limit both legal and illegal immigration into this country [and] had warned the Bush administration to treat border control more seriously" (source: New Republic). On the other end, President Bush's advocacy for a "guest worker program", which would provide a prescriptive route to citizenship for the current crop of illegal aliens (source: White House).

But, as far as I can tell, Republicans aren't soliciting the new citizens of Texico in a blatant attempt to subvert the voting process.

Frivolous vs. Magnanimous is a recurring series. Email us with suggestions!

Associated Press Parade of Stupidity, Chapter 6,603

 
Under the byline of the AP, a national "news" story in today's morning papers opens with a catchy lede:

Today's foreign terrorists could become tomorrow's U.S. refugees if the Bush administration gets its way...

Of course, by the seventh paragraph of the "news" story, the AP reveals the crux of the proposed amendments to the Immigration and Naturalization Act:

Under current law, virtually all armed nongovernmental groups are classified as terrorist organizations and the United States is prohibited from accepting their members and combatants as refugees...

...In addition, about 5, 000 people already in the United States as refugees have been blocked from seeking U.S. citizenship because of the rules. About 600 people asking for political asylum have had their cases put on hold.

Amendments to the Immigration and Naturalization Act would permit the government to waive the rules for active members and fighters of terrorist groups on a case-by-case basis...

In other words, the State Department seeks greater flexibility in granting asylum.

But leave it to the AP to position this as a shocking revelation: "Bush wants to let Al Qaeda members into the United States!"

The AP's agenda, though, is transparent enough that no author seems to have been willing to place his or her byline on the article.

If the AP's news stories get any more spin, they could be sold as gyroscopes.

Line o' the Day: The Democrats' War on Hume

 
"Democrats all claim they'll get rough with the terrorists, but they can't even face Brit Hume."
      -- Ann Coulter

Friday, May 04, 2007

Frivolous vs. Magnanimous: the Political Game

 
Let's play a game. I call it Frivolous vs. Magnanimous. It's a great way to highlight the differences between the two political parties.


Debate


Frivolous: The Democrats cancelled their debate on Fox News, apparently afraid of partisan "spin".

Magnanimous: The Republican debate appeared on noted pro-Democratic outlet MSNBC and was hosted by liberal pundit Chris Matthews... with color commentary offered by Keith Olbermann. Olbermann, of course, is an unhinged leftist who recently named the GOP the "leading terrorist group" in America. The Republicans were unafraid of political spin and were happy to appear on MSNBC.


War


Frivolous: only months after the Iraq war had begun, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi pilloried the Bush administration, stating that "The situation in Iraq and the reckless economic policies in the United States speak to one issue for me... and that is the competence of our leader." (source: CNN).

Magnanimous: After President Clinton's 1998 decision to order military strikes against terrorists in Afghanistan and Sudan:

House Speaker Newt Gingrich quickly sided with the adminstration, saying the president "did the right thing" by ordering the simultaneous attacks against facilities believed linked to terrorists suspected in the Aug. 7 bombings of U.S. embassies in east Africa. (source: CNN)


Supreme Court Justices


Frivolous: Democrats split over the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice John Roberts in a harsh, and nearly unprecedented, divide:

On September 22 the Senate Judiciary Committee approved Roberts' nomination by a vote of 13-5, with Senators Ted Kennedy, Richard Durbin, Charles Schumer, Joe Biden and Dianne Feinstein the dissenting votes. Roberts was confirmed by the full Senate on September 29, passing by a margin of 78-22. All Republicans and the lone Independent voted for Roberts; the Democrats split evenly, 22 for and 22 against. Roberts was confirmed by what was, historically, a narrow margin for a Supreme Court justice...

And Judge Samuel Alito was confirmed by an even narrower margin:

[Alito's] nomination was voted out of the Senate Judiciary Committee on a 10-8 party line vote. Democratic Senators characterized Alito as a hard right conservative in the mold of a Clarence Thomas or Robert Bork... The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) formally opposed Alito's nomination... After a failed filibuster attempt by Senator John Kerry, ...the Senate confirmed Alito to the Supreme Court by a vote of 58-42... Such a close vote along party lines is rare for Supreme Court nominations, making Alito's confirmation one of the most controversial in American history.


Magnanimous: Despite her ultra-liberal background -- including serving as a chief litigator for the ACLU -- Ginsburg was confirmed by the Senate by a near unanimous vote of 96-3. During Ginsburg's confirmation hearings:

...she did not answer some questions involving matters such as abortion, gay rights, separation of church and state, rights of the disabled, and so on. Only one witness was allowed to testify "against" Ginsburg at her confirmation hearings, and the hearings lasted only four days. They also pointed out that then-Judiciary Committee Chairman Joe Biden told her not to answer questions that she did not feel comfortable answering...


Voting and Vandalism


Frivolous: Democratic supporters have a long history of vandalism and destruction in their pursuit of political victory. A partial list of violent incidents during the 2004 campaign include:

- Seattle, WA campaign Bush's campaign office was seriously vandalized
- Spokane, Washington - Bush's campaign office was burglarized, vandalized
- West Allis, Wisconsin - Dem. demonstrators stormed a Republican campaign office
- Knoxville, Tennessee - Gunshots fired into Bush-Cheney headquarters>
- Orlando, Florida - Mob attacks Bush-Cheney office
- Madison, Wisconsin - Swastika Burned Into Grass On Bush Supporter's Lawn
- Vail, Colorado - Vandals chainsaw Bush-Cheney sign
- Columbus, Ohio - Purple Heart Iraqi vet attacked
- Gainesville, Florida - Democrat slugs area GOP chief
- In flight, over Canada - Drunken Kerry supporter assaults seatmate in flight
- Dallas, Texas - Family of dead soldier harassed at candlelight vigil
- Huntington, WV - Gunshot fired at Republican headquarters
- Bozeman, Mont. - Bush campaign office vandalized, paint sprayed and rocks thrown

Magnanimous: I found no instances of Democratic campaign offices being vandalized, shot into, set aflame, burglarized, or otherwise damaged.


Fair Voting Practices


Frivolous: Democratic voting rights front group ACORN (the "Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now") has been tied to a wide variety of illegal behavior, including forged voter registrations, payment for votes, voting fraud, and paying for votes with crack cocaine:

...four persons working for [ACORN were indicted], accusing them of submitting more than 15,000 voter registration forms with fictitious names, phony signatures and bogus addresses... The Wall Street Journal reported that an Ohio ACORN worker was given crack cocaine in exchange for fraudulent voter registration cards. Many of the newly registered voters were deceased, underage or were named Mary Poppins, Dick Tracy or Jive Turkey... In Minnesota, authorities founds hundreds of voter registration cards in the trunk of a car owned by a former ACORN worker suspected of registering voters twice so he could double his fees...

Magnanimous: Most complaints against Republican voting activities don't center around fraud and criminality. Instead, most of the outcry relates to requiring a valid ID before voting, preventing felons from voting, and accusations of "gerrymandering." Though there have been sporadic reports of voter registration cards being thrown away if the prospective voter was a Democrat, I can find no record of arrests, indictments, and paying for votes with drugs and cash.


Free Speech


Frivolous: Insight reports that Rep. Maurice Hinchey and Sen. Bernie Sanders are spearheading Democratic efforts to stifle the only media channels espousing conservative opinion by reinstituting the "fairness doctrine". Sanders stated, "now is the time to begin asking that if networks provide their listeners with 99 percent of talk shows being with right-wing extremists, whether that really is what public trust is about." Bottom line: Democrats seeks to eradicate conservative talk radio, because it has dominated its competition (consider the bankrupt Air America network).

Magnanimous: I can find no serious effort by Republican leaders to suppress free speech. To the contrary, I've found only examples of Republicans defending the right to dissent.


Media Criticism


Frivolous: Pulitzer-prize winning Washington Post columnnist David Broder recently called Harry Reid an "embarrassment" after the Senate Majority Leader declared the ongoing Iraq war "lost". In response, all 50 Democratic Senators published a joint letter roundly criticizing Broder for his comments.

Magnanimous: on September 8, 2004, Dan Rather led off his CBS Evening News broadcast with a major scoop: CBS had in its possessions documents that proved George W. Bush had skirted his duties in the Texas Air National Guard. The story subsequently exploded: The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, USA Today, ABC, CNN, and NBC breathlessly covered the story. But within two days, the documents had been proven forgeries of the lowest quality. By September 20, when CBS finally admitted the story was a "mistake", the only response from the White House was exceedingly mild. White House spokesman Scott McClellan simply questioned the source of the memos and noted, "[the witness, Bill Burkett] in fact, is not an unimpeachable source, as was previously claimed."


Climate Change


Frivolous: With the introduction of a new "Intelligence Authorization bill", Democrats intend to divert funds from national security intelligence efforts in order to consider "the effects that climate change has on national security." In other words, Democrats view global warming as a threat that justifies stripping funds away from fighting terrorism.

Democrats view any criticism of global warming as intolerable. Al Gore notes a "scientific consensus" though some scientists point out that such a phrase is nonsensical, at best:

Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.

Magnanimous: Republicans have generally raised valid questions about the man-made causes of climate change. In 2003, Senator James Inoufe asked, "an obvious question: If the Earth was warmer during the Middle Ages than the age of coal-fired power plants and SUVs, what role do man-made emissions play in influencing climate? I think any person with a modicum of common sense would say, 'Not much.'" Pop quiz: how did Greenland get its name?

Further, Republicans have noted complaints about a conflict-of-interest inherent within the UN's panel on climate change. Put simply, a wide range of respected scientists, environmentalists, researchers, agriculturalists, and activists -- on the left, mind you -- believe that the IPCC's carbon-offseting schemes are a "scam", "fantasy", "fiction", "nonsense", "fraudulent" and worse.


Conclusions


I call this study Frivolous vs. Magnanimous, but the term 'frivolous' is inadequate. The current Democratic leadership is a petty, partisan bunch more interested in reading polls than defending the country. And they've changed positions on Iraq so many times they could illustrate a political Kama Sutra.

Unable to compete in the marketplace of ideas, Democrats* instead suppress free speech, use violence and drugs to win elections, and treat national security and the Constitution like partisan punching-bags. It's just something to consider the next time you prepare to cast a vote.

*Today's Democratic Party is brought to you by George Soros™.

Author's Note: this post has been updated; hat tips: the incomparable Anchoress and the irreplaceable Larwyn.

Twenty video rental shops mysteriously disappear

 
South African newspaper IOL reports that twenty video shops have mysteriously disappeared in Pakistan. Well, to be clear, they spontaneously combusted. Actually, they were bombed by extremists:

Radical Islamists have blown up 20 video shops in two cities of Pakistan's North Western Frontier Province (NWFP), while a bomb exploded outside a girls' school in the same region, local media reported on Friday...


The explosions occurred days after the owners of the businesses received warnings from Taliban-styled radical Islamists to cease trading, calling the sale and renting of movies and music videos un-Islamic.

If only the Palestinians could occupy Jerusalem, all of this madness would end!

Hat tip: LGF.

Thursday, May 03, 2007

Exclusive: Democratic Party's Journal of Foreign Affairs

 
It's the perfect time to rehash an old post made new. Surrender Magazine is offered free-of-charge, compliments of today's Democratic Party brought to you by George Soros™.


I'm pretty sure Surrender is published by the Sulzberger family, though that's just a hunch. It may not be available on newsstands, but look for it everywhere you see Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi.

Murtha's Inconvenient Fiction

 
Gateway Pundit notes more egregious behavior by the so-called "leadership" of today's Democratic Party, brought to you by George Soros™.

HotAir has the video:

On “Hardball” last night, John “Okinawa” Murtha bashed Gen. Petraeus, claiming he only came to Washington to “make political statements” and “only talks to the news media.”

Politically expedient sound-bites, to be sure, but not exactly aligned with the truth. Back in the "Riehl world", Dan Riehl relays the facts.

...All lawmakers were invited to the general's briefing, but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi did not attend nor did Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., chairman of the committee responsible for defense appropriations... Pelosi's staff cited a scheduling conflict for her absence. However, she and Murtha spoke by phone with Petraeus for 30 minutes on Tuesday, which she said was sufficient...

Outrageous? Assuredly. Surprising? Not from this pathetic crew.