Doug Ross @ Journal: October 2011

Monday, October 31, 2011

Smoking Gun: Document Found That Touched Off the Mortgage Meltdown

The entire Democrat Party hardest hit:

[In 1994] the federal government declared war on an enemy — the racist lender — who officials claimed was to blame for differences in homeownership rate, and launched what would prove the costliest social crusade in U.S. history.

At President Clinton's direction, no fewer than 10 federal agencies issued a chilling ultimatum to banks and mortgage lenders to ease credit for lower-income minorities or face investigations for lending discrimination and suffer the related adverse publicity. They also were threatened with denial of access to the all-important secondary mortgage market and stiff fines, along with other penalties.

The threat was codified in a 20-page "Policy Statement on Discrimination in Lending" and entered into the Federal Register on April 15, 1994, by the Interagency Task Force on Fair Lending. Clinton set up the little-known body to coordinate an unprecedented crackdown on alleged bank redlining.

The edict — completely overlooked by the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission and the mainstream media — was signed by then-HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros, Attorney General Janet Reno, Comptroller of the Currency Eugene Ludwig and Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, along with the heads of six other financial regulatory agencies...

...The unusual full-court press was predicated on a Boston Fed study showing mortgage lenders rejecting blacks and Hispanics in greater proportion than whites. The author of the 1992 study, hired by the Clinton White House, claimed it was racial "discrimination." But it was simply good underwriting.

It took private analysts, as well as at least one FDIC economist, little time to determine the Boston Fed study was terminally flawed. In addition to finding embarrassing mistakes in the data, they concluded that more relevant measures of a borrower's credit history — such as past delinquencies and whether the borrower met lenders credit standards — explained the gap in lending between whites and blacks, who on average had poorer credit and higher defaults...

Lenders -- faced with ten federal regulatory bodies, the Attorney General, the President and the HUD Secretary -- quickly fell into line.

[They] threw such a scare into the industry that the American Bankers Association issued a "fair-lending tool kit" to every member. The Mortgage Bankers Association of America signed a "fair-lending" contract with HUD. So did Countrywide.

HUD also pushed Fannie and Freddie, which in effect set industry underwriting standards, to buy subprime mortgages, freeing lenders to originate even more high-risk loans.

And the rest, as they say, is history.

Barack Obama can blame George W. Bush, Herman Cain, Rick Perry, and Carmen Electra for the housing crisis. But the real culprits were the social engineers, criminals and cronies in the Clinton administration.

Please read the rest -- and pass it on.

Security: Humans are always the weakest link

Good article in today's Wall Street Journal describing the weakest link in the information security chain. The summary? You can have your firewalls, your intrusion prevention systems, your endpoint security systems, your anti-virus, your spam filters, your zero-day detection appliances, your application-aware firewalls, and the rest.

But then there's this:

Chris Patten called a large investment-management firm to report that he was going through a divorce and was worried that his wife had set up an account under a false name.

And with that story—entirely plausible but in this case a lie—a customer-service representative turned over customer account numbers and other details with a readiness that makes banks and other companies cringe.

Mr. Patten, a 35-year-old cybersecurity expert who was with the U.S. Air Force before he started working for a consulting firm in Kansas City, Mo., didn't actually use or sell the data, which he gathered in running a test for the investment firm of its security arrangements. But the ease with which the employee was persuaded to divulge the information points to a troubling trend, security experts and law enforcement officials say.

As banks and other large companies spend large amounts of money on building firewalls and using complex technology to fortify their systems, it is often their own employees who are letting identity thieves in the door...

User education and awareness are good starting points. And solid browsers that can help point out phishing attempts certainly help.

But the fact remains: social engineering is just too damn easy and there's no silver bullet. What's that old quote? "Make it idiot-proof, and someone will make a better idiot."

My favorite T-shirt for pissing off liberals

Heading to the gym this evening wearing my guaranteed-to-piss-off-liberals T.

By the way, the band I'm wearing on my right hand is from DefendMichael.com, the site set up to support Michael Behenna's defense. Michael was 101st Airborne serving in Iraq. While questioning Ali Mansur, a known Al Qaeda operative, the terrorist suddenly attacked Behenna. In the course of defending himself, Mansur was killed.

Benenna was subsequently tried and sentenced to 25 years in Leavenworth. His sentence has since been reduced twice after reviews by the commanding general of 101st Airborne and by the Army Clemency Board.

If you have a couple of spare bucks, you can PayPal Michael's defense fund at DefendMichael.com.

Top 15 Comments from Jonathan Alter's whitewash of Obama's scandal-plagued presidency, the most corrupt since Teapot Dome

Just in case you actually have a life and missed the weekend's latest journolistic implosion, please consider the delightful Bloomberg article by none other than failed Newsweek columnist Jonathan Alter. Entitled "The Obama Miracle, a White House Free of Scandal, it is as fine a piece of propaganda as I've seen since the days of Der Stürmer. Here's just a taste:

President Barack Obama goes into the 2012 with a weak economy that may doom his reelection. But he has one asset that hasn’t received much attention: He’s honest.

Okay, that's it. That's all I can take. Suffice it to say that Alter's pablum is suitable only for drones and miscreants -- but I repeat myself. As of this instant, the article has generated nearly 1,600 comments. My favorites?

15. Obama's miracle is that the media barely covers the scandals. (JohnQPublius)

14. Jonathan Alter is the poster boy for media lap dog bias and Journol-list corruption. An article like this deserves the Josef Goebbles Award for journalistic integrity, or at the very least a Pulitzer. There is a reason why the MSM has become so hated, mistrusted, and ignored. Newsweek was sold for a dollar, AirAmerica bankrupt and defunct, the NY Times dying a death of a thousand cuts, MSNBC in ratings purgatory, and now this anencephalic miscreant brings his own brand of Obama apologism and misinformation to Bloomberg's tarnished brand. (PeterLocke)

13. NO media outlet with any sense of professionalism, objectivity, ethics of FACTS would have run this article. This, however, goes beyond error and omission. THIS is pure propaganda.

I'm done with Bloomberg. (Liz)

12. Makes you wonder if it's media bias or is the press just this stupid? (Good Luck)

11. This writer is a mindless liberal robot or just hallucinatory. Scandal free? That makes me FAST to respond and FURIOUS to boot. (Ghs2050)

LOL. They say the Left has the best drugs and this article leads me to believe it's true! Scandal free administration! Now that takes bulls balls to say! (Kevin Jackson)

10. That's it. I'm reporting all of you to ATTACKWAAAAATCH!!! (Dalai Grimm)

9. How about assasinating American citizens without due process?
How about engaging in an undeclared war?
How about authorizing the DOJ to lie in response to FOIA requests?
How about protecting his campaign donors (rather than the taxpayer) in the Solyndra bankruptcy?
How about protecting union members rather than shareholders in the Chrysler/GM bankruptcy?
How about "if you like your current health plan, you can keep it"?
How about "I never heard any of those sermons by Jeremiah Wright"?
... the list goes on, and on, and on, and... (dsmith3000)

8. Alter is ludicrously ridiculous in his myopic, shallow "analysis" of Obama being scandal-free. The fawning press that passes for journalists nowadays don't bother "reporting" on the real state of affairs in the USA. We Americans must read UK news outlets to find out what's truly happening in the U.S., since our own "journalists" don't bother reporting real news. While the press continues wearing their sideblinders and tunnel-vision, rose-colored glasses, the rest of America is increasingly moving beyond Obama's empty promise of "hope and change". It's time to move on and get a president who will run our country, rather than continually run for office. (lifeisgood)

7. Pretty funny, Mr. Alter. You should pitch it to Saturday Night Live. (Charlie Gutierrez)

6. The failure to mention operation "Fast and Serious" should be telling in and of itself. A government agency violated US law, Mexican law, and International law and no one involved has been fired yet, in fact some have been promoted. And if it is true that Obama is quick to fire those who step out of line, it is even more likely that he knew of and approved the operation and tactics used. (Micah Robert)

5. Is this The Onion? Pravda? Yeah, he's scandal free if you don't count any of his many scandals, and he's honest if you don't notice that every other word of his mouth is a lie. (Cara C)

4. Alter's miracle is being brain dead and still being able to get things published. (G)

3. Perhaps Mr. Alter-nate Reality could just go to http://obamascandalslist.blogspot.com. They are on scandal #296. And each reported in great detail. (GracieZG)

2. Seriously, this guy is paid for his insight? My dog is more insightful. I'm serious, #$% stinks, but not if you bury it, like my dog does. The reason Obama has no scandals is that the media refuses to report any. Fast and Furious? Solyndra? Jeremiah Wright? His domestic terrorist mentor? His wife's sweetheart job deal at the Chicago hospital, his sweetheart house purchase...the list goes on.
Jonathan Alter, keep those dirty pictures of the Bloomberg editor well hidden. Otherwise, to answer your question, yes I would like fries with that. (jeffaguthrie)

1. The scandal is the deficit and the debt. The scandal is unemployment rate. The scandal is not addressing the back-breaking cost of all the high-salaried public employees at all levels of Govt that get pensions, health care, and early retirement. The scandal is accepting the Nobel Peace Prize without having accomplished one thing. The scandal is having your Sec of State say "How do you deal toughly with your banker?" when asked about growing Chinese aggression with regard to its neighbors, their natural resources, and their manipulated currency.

The scandal is the growing black-on-white flash mob crime and the lack of its mention by the White House or the national media. The scandal is giving away billions in green loans to big campaign contributors. The scandal is playing golf +90 times, plus expensive vacations, plus lavish travel and parties for family and friends while we are hurting economically. The scandal is obvious campaigning on the taxpayer dime while also collecting huge donations. The scandal is Fast and Furious gun running and the resulting deaths.

The scandal is promising to close Guantanamo on the campaign trail but then discovering that maybe (when reality is actually considered) its a good idea to keep it open. The scandal is squandering our victory in Iraq by failing to negotiate a proper SOF (Status of Forces) Agreement so we could maintain at least 1 real base as a reminder to Iran that we are watching them. The scandal is a failed Iranian policy that will result in their acquisition of nuclear weapons.

The scandal is the expanding role of Govt in monitoring our every movement and financial interaction. The scandal is the radical environmental regulations that ignore private property rights and have de-industrialized this country. The scandal is enacting new complex laws and then offering waivers to those companies that have the biggest potential political donation checkbook.

The scandal is the public education system that cannot educate black or Hispanic kids regardless of the billions spent. The scandal is dramatically expanding food stamps, but then looking the other way at the obvious fraud. The scandal is a set of labor laws and regs that punish companies that move from a Blue State to a Red State.

The scandal is the hollowed out City of Detroit as a prime example of what happens when Big Labor and Big Democratic Govt seize total control. The scandal is the crushing poverty and crime in Washington DC and almost any center of Govt in this country. It seems like the closer you live to Govt, you are either a very well paid Govt worker or are at the bottom of the barrel as a victim of all the learned helplessness that Govt "help" inspires.

The scandal is that there just isnt enough room to list everything. Maybe we can hope that all of this wasn't intentional, but simply a result of ineptitude and inexperience. The scandal is that this is our best-case scenario. (JOCB)

* * * * * * * * *
Well said, my friend. Well said.

As for you, Alter, your sycophantic drivel will go down in history with that of Goebbels, Pravda, Tass and Kim Jong-Il's pronouncements. You're a pencil-necked joke of a partisan hack who has ruined several media outlets already and is well on the way to crushing Bloomberg's valuation. Enjoy your momentary haven in liberal-land while it lasts: with work like this, your pink-slip should be arriving momentarily.

Larwyn's Linx: Politico and Cain: Return of the High-Tech Lynching

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QOTD: "[Author Donna Laframboise] introduces us to numerous well-credentialled skeptics, including Jason Johnston, an expert in environmental law, who set out to verify whether the IPCC reports in fact “conformed with the peer-reviewed climate science literature.” His conclusion: “on virtually every major issue in climate change science,” IPCC reports “systematically conceal or minimize what appear to be fundamental scientific uncertainties.”

The Delinquent Teenager reveals how inconvenient science has been buried and sums up: “The IPCC ignores the consensus among hurricane experts that there is no discernable link to global warning. It ignores the consensus among those who study natural disasters that there is no relationship between human greenhouse gas emissions and the rising cost of these disasters. It ignores the consensus among bona fide malaria experts that global warming has not caused malaria to spread. In each case the IPCC substitutes its own version of reality. In each case that version of reality makes global warming appear more frightening than genuine experts believe the available evidence indicates." --Peter Foster

Sunday, October 30, 2011

WaPo columnist Jennifer Rubin in trouble for... a retweet

Somehow unable to find any hint of left-wing bias, the Washington Post ombudsman has mysteriously discovered a controversy. Of course, it involves one of the paper's few conservative op-ed columnists. Specifically, he finds fault in Jennifer Rubin's choice of... re-tweets.

...a tweet that The Post’s conservative opinion blogger, Jennifer Rubin, put out on Twitter on Oct. 18. Actually it was a retweet of a tweet from Rachel Abrams, a hard-line pro-Israel blogger who used the tweet to link to her blog post on the release by Hamas of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, held for five years in captivity in Gaza.

The original blog post by Abrams (not by Rubin) was offensive to many readers in its anti-Palestinian language. The fact that a Post blogger — even an opinion blogger like Rubin not subject to the same ethical guidelines as Post news editors and reporters — retweeted it, outraged many. I didn’t like it either, and I’ll elaborate on that in my Post Roast on Monday.

The Washington Post has a legendary track-record of partisanship and left-wing spin. Some would even call it 'historic'.

The same ombudsman found nothing untoward with the paper's hit-piece on Marco Rubio's heritage, though critics from across the political spectrum pilloried the Post's coverage.

Consider the irony: Rubin appears to be in trouble for re-tweeting a link to a hard-line Israeli blogger. Meanwhile, its liberal columnists and reporters (like Bob Woodward, Steven Mufson, Leila Fadel, Mary Beth Sheridan, Karen Tumulty, food critic Tim Carman and many more) can literally say and write anything so long as they echo the left-wing, Statist talking points.

ClimateGate Redux: Co-Author of Seminal Climate Change Paper Refutes Its Conclusion: There's No Damn Warming

The scamtabulous theory of warmal colding hardest hit:

It was hailed as the scientific study that ended the global warming debate once and for all – the research that, in the words of its director, ‘proved you should not be a sceptic, at least not any longer’.

Professor Richard Muller, of Berkeley University in California, and his colleagues from the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperatures project team (BEST) claimed to have shown that the planet has warmed by almost a degree centigrade since 1950 and is warming continually... [their] work was cited around the world as irrefutable evidence that only the most stringent measures to reduce carbon dioxide emissions can save civilisation as we know it...

...But today ... a leading member of Prof Muller’s team has accused him of trying to mislead the public by hiding the fact that BEST’s research shows global warming has stopped.

Prof Judith Curry, who chairs the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at America’s prestigious Georgia Institute of Technology, said that Prof Muller’s claim that he has proven global warming sceptics wrong was also a ‘huge mistake’, with no scientific basis... Curry is a distinguished climate researcher with more than 30 years experience and the second named co-author of the BEST project’s four research papers.

...She said this affair had to be compared to the notorious ‘Climategate’ scandal two years ago...

...In fact, Prof Curry said, the project’s research data show there has been no increase in world temperatures since the end of the Nineties – a fact confirmed by a new analysis that The Mail on Sunday has obtained...

...a report to be published today by the Global Warming Policy Foundation ... drawn from the BEST project’s data and revealed on its website ... shows that the trend of the last decade is absolutely flat, with no increase at all – though the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have carried on rising relentlessly...

...In fact, she added, in the wake of the unexpected global warming standstill, many climate scientists who had previously rejected sceptics’ arguments were now taking them much more seriously... They were finally addressing questions such as the influence of clouds, natural temperature cycles and solar radiation – as they should have done, she said, a long time ago.

Rumor has it that Dr. James Hansen, the infamous, taxpayer-funded climate kook, is on suicide watch.

Salacious background details: Inside the U.N.'s Global Warming Scam. Hat tip: Memeorandum.

How many 22-year old cars still look modern and up-to-date in 2012?

Go back in time 22 years, say to 1989. Which car -- make and model -- could still be sold today without any cosmetic changes whatsoever?* Before you scroll down, take a guess: I think only one vehicle passes muster.

To stir your memory a bit, consider the following vehicles from the 1990 model year.

*Ignoring the massive books of new regulations, of course, which multiply like weeds and govern every aspect of our lives -- from shower-heads to bumper designs, to the size of toilet tanks to the kinds of light bulbs you are allowed to buy.

Well, this is a sweet unit. If you ever wondered how GM melted down, consider the following three words: Fake. Wood. Paneling.

This high-end Audi looks a little more modern than the wagon, but it still doesn't come close to today's sleek designs.

This Cadillac was another victim of a slow-moving company that punched out angular cars that looked boxes, only not as sexy.

The design of this subcompact hatchback was a bit ahead of its time, but certainly couldn't compete against its modern competition: the Toyota Yaris, the Nissan Versa, the Mini Cooper, etc.

People who owned these vehicles hated them. Slightly less reliable than the Hindenberg, these Jettas were mechanical disasters and looked like someone slapped wheels on a refrigerator. Rumor has it the body was made entirely of compressed rust.

So what's the answer? Try this bad boy:

I believe this vehicle -- the 1990 Nissan 300ZX -- would still sell well today.

Which is a real testament to its designers.

Images: Edmunds.com.

Photo: Speaker of the House and Senate Majority Leader Greet One Another, December 2012

Wouldn't this pair blow a few minds?

With Senator John Kyl vacating his post in 2012 and the Palin family moving to Scottsdale, wouldn't the former governor make an outstanding replacement? I mean, not only for Kyl, but for the anti-charismatic Mitch McConnell as well?

And it goes without saying: Rep. Allen West should be the House Speaker. No one else, save Paul Ryan perhaps, carries the conservative leadership mantle as well.

Sheriff Paul Babeu interviewed on Operation Fast and Furious: U.S. officials are "accessories to murder"; Jonathan Alter hardest hit

This morning the Arizona Daily Star published an exclusive interview with Sheriff Paul Babeu of Pinal County. Babeu's department has been on the front lines of the carnage wrought by open borders, the civil war raging in Mexico and the ATF's bizarre "Gunwalker" program that sent military-style weapons to the drug cartels.

Q: When you says that those officials who carried out Fast & Furious should be considered accomplices or accessories to murder, are you serious, or is that a rhetorical point, that they could be charged? If serious, who in the ATF/DOJ chain of command should be investigated as possible accomplices or accessories to murder and other crimes? The line agents? Their supervisors? The U.S. Attorney's Office or Justice Department officials involved?

A: The American people deserve a thorough, impartial, and independent review of what happened here. Nothing short of that will ever be acceptable. The Justice Department has a serious conflict of interest in policing itself... This is why the Sheriffs of Arizona both Republicans and Democrats are demanding a Special Counsel to investigate Attorney General Eric Holder and the Department of Justice for their roles in Operation Fast and Furious...

...those responsible should be held criminally accountable for allowing 2,000 guns including assault weapons and 50 caliber rifles to be purchased on U.S. Soil and then turned over to the drug cartels of Mexico. As a result of their reckless facilitation and distribution of these weapons, our deputies and American citizens may now face the barrel of a gun that was placed in the hands of criminals by [ATF] and Attorney General Eric Holder. Citizens of the United States and Mexico have already been murdered by cartel members who now posses these weapons. There is no doubt more bloodshed will occur on both sides of the border, since over 1,500 weapons still remain unaccounted for...

Q: You have said repeatedly that you think Operation Fast and Furious was designed to lead to gun-control measures. What evidence of this have you seen? How can I find it?

A: This administration has repeatedly stated in the media that “90% of the weapons used to commit crimes in Mexico come from the United States.” They have used this argument in their support of tougher gun control measures. If you google search the quoted information, you will see numerous stories about it. Here is one such story link regarding the quote.

At the same time they are stating this, our own Federal government was using taxpayer money from the stimulus to purchase automatic weapons and sell them directly to the most dangerous criminals in North America... The firearm dealers in these cases flagged the purchases and reported them to the Federal government, who then ordered them to make the sale anyway.

Q: You have repeatedly said Operation Fast and Furious is worse than Watergate. In what ways are Fast and Furious and Watergate similar?

A: If you knew that a foreign power had caused over 2,000 guns to arrive in the hands of America's most dangerous criminals, what would you say? What if those weapons had been used to commit more than 200 murders?

Now consider that the Federal government did just that--and to an ally. Nobody died because of Watergate and no treaties were violated. People on both sides of the border will be dealing with the deadly fallout for years to come. But before this is over, we'll know exactly what Barack Obama knew--and when he knew it.

...Fast and Furious quickly proved to be a catastrophe, but the public didn't learn about it until Agent Brian Terry was murdered on American soil. Since then, whistleblowers have been punished, those responsible have been promoted, scapegoats have been offered, and inconsistent testimony provided to Congress. This is a textbook attempt at obstruction by the Federal government.

The family of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry reached out to me after his murder. I have promised them, that I will continue to demand justice...

...On September 20th, 2011 the Chairman of the House Oversight Committee Darrell Issa, reported to media that the Attorney General in Mexico has said at least 200 murders south of the border happened as a result of Operation Fast and Furious. Eleven crimes in the United States have been linked to [it] up to this point.

...Project Gunrunner received "directly allocated" stimulus funds. It is our understanding that Operation Fast and Furious was tucked under Project Gunrunner, essentially using the same funding...

Issa has also done several interviews where he has stated, “U.S. dollars were used in at least some part to buy weapons.” Below is a link to a Fox News Story on the topic as well. As you will read, ATF Agent John Dodson was ordered to buy weapons and later sell them to known illegal buyers.

Please don't concern yourself with the hundreds of murders and the 1,500 weapons that remain unaccounted for; this is not a scandal according to America's finest journalist, Jonathan Alter.

Larwyn's Linx: How Can Holder Keep Holding On?

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Nation

How Can Holder Keep Holding On?: AT
Liberal Indulgences: Hanson
Pelosi's pitch to donors: turning point in 2012: Hill

Everything old is old again: ProWis
It took too long to get a Herman Cain: RWN
Obama Uses OWS Language, Rails Against “Top 1%”: WZ

Economy

“If I Lose Custody, I Lose My Check”: Virtuous
The Answer Is a Balanced Budget Amendment: AmSpec
Communist-progressive team fights cuts to budget: AmPower

Adult Babies: Steyn
How Harrisburg Borrowed Itself Into Bankruptcy: WSJ
The mayor's millionaire club-Rahm's inner sanctum: ChiReader

Gunrunner & Solyndra

Did major Gunwalker figure hand over documents?: Examiner
Hillary: DOJ Did Not Seek License to Send Guns to Mexico: CNS
Napolitano queried on lack of ‘Fast and Furious’ probe: Times

Occupy

Occupy Denver Turns Violent: JWF
#OccupyWallStreet: The Rap Sheet, So Far: BigJ
Never Ending Supply - Howard Stern Exposes More Idiots at Occupy Wall Street. #OWS: Sharp Elbows

Climate & Energy

Gore Effect Hits Occupiers: Sunday Is Climate Justice Day: RWN
Best Confirms Global Temperature Standstill : GWPF
Central Park in NYC Sets October Record for Snow: CNS

Media

Levin: Boehner Has ‘Poisoned’ Two-Thirds Of Tea Party-Elected Congressmen: CNS
Inevitable: Jersey Shore for politicos coming soon: Hot Air
Des Moines Register Iowa Poll- Cain And Romney Basically Tied: Ace

The Best Summary Of The Politics I've Seen Thus Far: Denninger
Video: Steven Crowder on Occupy Wall Street Racism: MB
George Will column on Mitt Romney: 'Has conservatism come so far ... for THIS?': Politico

NBC and ABC Tout Injured Protester as 'Rallying Cry' for Occupy Wall Street: NB
Compare and Contrast: WZ
Texas Gun Store Bans Socialists, Obama Supporters in Radio Ad: GWP

World

Islam or Islamist?: McCarthy
Just moments after Hillary urges talks with Taliban, they kill more than a dozen U.S. soldiers: TAB
Herman Cain Channels John Bolton: Odysseus

Portugal Is Next: Improverished PIIG Demands US Assistance, Debt "Haircut" To Come Next: ZH
The Euro Bailout is Illegal: NRO
Why the latest eurozone bail-out is destined to fail within weeks: Telegraph

Palestinian Islamic Jihad Bombards Southern Israel With Grad Rockets, One Dead, Four Injured: WZ
British MP Forced to Hide After Muslim Extremists Storm Mosque During His Visit in North London: GWP
Libya: Al-Qaeda Flag Planted On Benghazi Courthouse: WZ

Sci-Tech

Escaping the Zombie Apocalypse By Air: Al Fin
16-foot python found in Florida had eaten a deer: MSNBC
Blue Coat confirms Syria used its Web filtering devices: CNet

Cornucopia

Study Shows That Spending Time as a Hippie Leads to Heart Attacks in Later Life: AmDig
Book 'em, Mondo!: MOTUS
Ohio University’s Creepy ‘Anti-Racism’ Halloween Campaign Goes Horribly Wrong: SHN

Image: iOwnTheWorld
Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: Adam Hasner for U.S. Senate

QOTD: "Long time government and political workers are blind to opportunities outside government. Being immersed in the process of the bureaucracy and extremely inexperienced in the real world, they fail to understand when change is needed or a dangerous line has been crossed. With well intentioned ignorance they slavishly follow the established process – sometimes to horrible results." --A.J. Strata

Saturday, October 29, 2011

James O'Keefe Strips The New York Times Bare Naked, and It Ain't a Pretty Site

Even a casual news consumer knows the long and ugly history of The New York Times. Its wanton dismissal of the Holocaust, for instance, was among the most despicable actions of a free press in American history.

...at the end of [World War II] and for decades afterward, Americans claimed they did not know about the Holocaust as it was happening. How was it possible for so much information to be available in the mass media and yet simultaneously for the public to be ignorant?

The reason is that the American media in general and the New York Times in particular never treated the Holocaust as an important news story. From the start of the war in Europe to its end nearly six years later, the story of the Holocaust made the Times front page only 26 times out of 24,000 front-page stories, and most of those stories referred to the victims as “refugees” or “persecuted minorities.” In only six of those stories were Jews identified on page one as the primary victims.

One of the more vexing questions of recent vintage relates to the treatment of Barack Obama by journalists during the run-up to the 2008 election. How did an unknown community organizer -- with minimal experience and documented connections to Marxists, virulent racists, domestic terrorists and antisemites -- rise to the presidency?

Investigative journalist James O'Keefe -- who helped take down ACORN with a stunning expose of its support of criminal activity -- decided to find out. He secretly recorded a class led by NYU Journalism professors and New York Times consultants Jay Rosen and Clay Shirky.

What he discovered was a complete disregard for journalistic ethics and a primer on how to disguise a political agenda as news coverage.

How, for example, could the Times help market the viability of an unknown like Barack Obama as a presidential canddiate?

...even if the Times says, OK, secretly we’re liberals and now publicly, we’re liberals, and there it is, they still have the dilemma of not wanting to create the news they cover. And it’s a difficult problem...

...They got around it in a really interesting way with Obama, their obvious second favorite candidate after Clinton. Clinton, the liberal consensus candidate, would have been their, I think probably was their candidate on the inside for a while. But the Obama story was the huge dilemma for horse race political coverage because no one would have given you even hundred-to-one odds in 2006, no one would have given you hundred-to-one odds on an African-American president...

...But they ended up covering Obama because of the newsworthy things that were happening around the Obama campaign. So you could not say, “Oh my goodness, for the first time there’s a viable African American candidate.” Because by the act of saying that, you would be creating the story you were nominally covering. So they, they hung up on it. But they could say: “Oh my goodness, Obama Girl, isn’t this funny? This funny video that this young woman did about now our future president, or about now our current president. Or Will.I.Am did a video, a huge breakout video on YouTube. And so they covered it, they covered Obama from the Internet culture angle. And, a bit at a time, it became acceptable to consider that he might be president. But they needed someone else to make the first move.

Rosen and Shirky also discuss how the Times helped the Occupy Wall Street movement and how the media could help defeat Perry and Bachmann, who they specifically tarred as "crazy".

Having been stripped bare by O'Keefe, the defenders of legacy media have circled the wagons, claiming Shirky was not a consultant to the Times (Rosen is a regular contributor).

Whether Shirky is a paid consultant or not, he is clearly influential by dint of the heavy references and links to his work in the Times. According to Google's search engine, he has been referenced by the Times more than 5,300 times with a copious numbers of links to his work.

On his blog, Rosen offers a rambling set of explanations for his obvious and dishonest bias masquerading as "journalism".

And how did Rosen publicly react to this particular instance of classic investigative journalism? As you might have expected: he called O'Keefe a terrorist.

Which is about how you'd figure someone who writes for the Times to spin being caught red-handed. And I do mean red.

Whatever these pencil-necked twits are teaching, it ain't journalism.

BREAKING: Pitched Battle Raging Between Hamas and Israel

Dan from New York

We interrupt this Arab Spring to bring you an important message:

Rocket fire rocks south; injuries reported

Ynet , 10.29.11,

South under fire again in wake of IAF attack in Gaza: Alarm sounds in various southern communities. Man hit by shrapnel in Gan Yavne; rocket hits school courtyard in Ashdod. Second barrage targets residential building, one injured. Islamic Jihad claims responsibility

Read the rest here.

And mark this well. An unprovoked terror attack from Gaza was the triggering event.

Occupy Wall Street's useful idiots could not be reached for comment at press time.

Depressed

DC sent this one in.

I was so depressed last night so I called Lifeline.

Got a freakin' call center in Pakistan.

I told them I was suicidal.

They got all excited and asked if I could drive a truck.

Change I can support

From John S. Wright's Twitter feed:

Your Handy Dandy EnergyGate Cheat Sheet #solyndra [Updated]

Trying to keep track of all of the government-authorized theft of taxpayer dollars in the name of "green energy"? I know: it's difficult, given that new disclosures seem to occur daily.

For that reason, I've assembled a running cheat sheet to help keep all of the Democrat politicians, the crony capitalists, the conflicts-of-interest, and the outright criminality straight. I know, I know -- it's a difficult job, but someone's got to do it.

• James Johnson, erstwhile Fannie Mae chairman during the height of its subprime lending, was a bundler for Obama in 2008 and is listed as raising as much as $500,000 for the 2012 race
• Johnson also heads Washington-based Perseus Group
• Johnson's Perseus investments include the Vehicle Production Group, which received $50 million in "clean energy" loans

• Patrick Murphy, a confidant of Harry Reid, was paid at least $290,000 by "clean energy" company SunPower
• Murphy wasn't the only beneficiary; SunPower's political action committee also gave more than $16K to Democrat Congressional candidates in 2010
• The son of Rep. George Miller (D-CA) is SunPower's top lobbyist and Miller visited SunPower last October with Interior Secretary Ken Salazar
• Miller and Murphy appear to have helped SunPower get $1.2 billion in loan guarantees from the DOE

• Harry Reid, according to The New York Times, "was instrumental in securing" DOE financing for "clean energy projects on government-owned land"
• Reid, in particular, helped secure $145 million for a company called "Nevada Geothermal Power"
• Reid has not publicly commented on a recent audit by Deloitte & Touche that expressed doubt that the company would survive
• Reid also hasn't called for investigations of where the taxpayers' money went; he's apparently too busy

• Anthony Podesta raised over $350,000 for Democratic campaign committees this year
• Podesta's lobbying company has received roughly $670,000 in the last two years lobbying on behalf of a "green energy company" called SolarReserve
• Podesta's lobbying apparently helped get SolarReserve a $737 million DOE loan last week

• Ronald Pelosi is the brother-in-law of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
• Pelosi is an executive with Pacific Corporate Group, a private equity group
• Pelosi's firm invested in SolarReserve
• Pelosi's firm benefited directly when the DOE approved a $737 million loan last week

• Billionaire George Kaiser raised at least $50,000 for Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign.
• Kaiser's company, Solyndra, received a $535 million loan guarantee from DOE.
• Kaiser's company received the loan before DOE received final copies of outside reviews of the deal.
• Kaiser is also listed as a board adviser with SolarReserve, the Pelosi-linked firm that received a a $737 million DOE loan last week

• Steven Spinner raised $500,000 for Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign.
• Spinner then became one of Energy Secretary Steven Chu's key loan advisers.
• Spinner later wrote that he "helped oversee the more than $100 billion" in loans and guarantees.
• Spinner executed 29 stock trades in energy companeis while serving as a DOE adviser
• Spinner held shares in at least four companies that received DOE loans
• Spinner's wife's law firm collected around $2.5 million while representing Solyndra
• Spinner's wife's law firm also represented two other companies that received $34 million from DOE

• Steve Westly raised $500,000 for Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign.
• Westly then became one of Energy Secretary Steven Chu's key advisers.
• Westly was an investor in five firms that received half a billion dollars in energy grants and loans from DOE.

• John V. Roos raised $500,000 for Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign.
• Roos' law firm (the same firm Spinner's wife worked for) collected "millions" from DOE-funded companies.

Call it "Crony Marxism", call it outright theft, call it an egregious breach of trust. It's the inevitable result of government tampering in areas forbidden to it by the Constitution.

And please consider: if the Climatards are willing to waste billions enriching themselves in the name of green energy, they really can't take the global warming scam seriously.

In other words, the green tech movement no more believes in global warming than you or I.

And, once again, where's the special prosecutor?

Related:
• The Bush administration rejected Solyndra's requests for loans for two years citing incomplete documentation
• Solyndra employee: from day one, everyone knew that our solar panels were uncompetitive... including President Obama
• Bruce Krasting Blows Obama's Solyndra Scandal Sky High
• Oh, my: Emails show White House knew Solyndra was a disaster before it issued $535M crony loan

Hat tip: Laughing Conservative.