PIC: How to get vintage media to cover the Benghazi scandal @SpeakerBoehner @EricCantor @DarrellIssa #SelectCommittee pic.twitter.com/h03rogPKwE
— Biff Spackle (@BiffSpackle) March 7, 2014Hat tip: BadBlue Real-Time News
PIC: How to get vintage media to cover the Benghazi scandal @SpeakerBoehner @EricCantor @DarrellIssa #SelectCommittee pic.twitter.com/h03rogPKwE
— Biff Spackle (@BiffSpackle) March 7, 2014PIC: How to get old media to focus on the IRS scandal and Lois Lerner: @SooperMexican @BigFurHat @seanhannity pic.twitter.com/bZu5GsEVY2
— Biff Spackle (@BiffSpackle) March 7, 2014Deadly Terror Attack in Southwestern China Blamed on Separatist Muslim Uighurs
By Hannah Beech
A mass terror spree in a southwestern Chinese city that killed at least 29 people was carried out by assailants from the northwestern region of Xinjiang, which is home to the Uighur ethnic minority, according to China’s official news service, Xinhua. Knife-wielding attackers, dressed in black clothes, stormed the railway station of provincial capital Kunming shortly after 9 pm on March 1, slaughtering those who could not flee fast enough. More than 130 were also wounded, said Xinhua. Photos circulating on social media showed images of smears of blood and scattered luggage from terrified railway passengers. Xinhua described the assault as an “organized, premeditated, violent terrorist attack.” The state news service said that five of the at least 10 attackers had been shot dead by security forces.
The horrific event is now being dubbed China’s 3-01, as in March 1, in an echo of what other terror attacks in the U.S. and Britain were called. Chinese have flocked to social media platforms to express shock at the carnage, in which children and elderly were targeted by the assailants. In an article headlined “Nothing justified civilian slaughter in China’s ’9-11,’” the Global Times, a Beijing daily, wrote: “A nationwide outrage has been stirred. Justice needs to be done and terrorists should be punished with iron fists.”
If Uighurs did carry out the attack, the Kunming bloodshed marks a chilling escalation in a struggle for autonomy and even separation from the Chinese state. Members of a Turkic ethnic minority who look very different from China’s Han majority, Uighurs are concentrated in the arid region of Xinjiang, which borders Central Asia.... Over the past year, violent clashes between Uighurs and Chinese security forces have proliferated, with at least 100 people killed...
Read this important Remnick piece to understand how dangerous and disastrous the Russian invasion of Crimea is: http://t.co/Ysy0BClRef
— Atul Gawande (@Atul_Gawande) March 1, 2014Laugh or cry: do you remember this OFA poster from 2012? pic.twitter.com/ZF1Nq7Crle
— Ken Gardner (@kesgardner) March 1, 2014Now consider the following events, all of which were either widely reported, publicly released by officeholders or revealed later in testimony to Congress. These are the dots the media refuse to connect:
• Jan. 27, 2010: President Obama criticizes Citizens United in his State of the Union address and asks Congress to "correct" the decision.
• Feb. 11, 2010: Sen. Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) says he will introduce legislation known as the Disclose Act to place new restrictions on some political activity by corporations and force more public disclosure of contributions to 501(c)(4) organizations. Mr. Schumer says the bill is intended to "embarrass companies" out of exercising the rights recognized in Citizens United. "The deterrent effect should not be underestimated," he said.
• Soon after, in March 2010, Mr. Obama publicly criticizes conservative 501(c)(4) organizations engaging in politics. In his Aug. 21 radio address, he warns Americans about "shadowy groups with harmless sounding names" and a "corporate takeover of our democracy."
• Sept. 28, 2010: Mr. Obama publicly accuses conservative 501(c)(4) organizations of "posing as not-for-profit, social welfare and trade groups." Max Baucus, then chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, asks the IRS to investigate 501(c)(4)s, specifically citing Americans for Job Security, an advocacy group that says its role is to "put forth a pro-growth, pro-jobs message to the American people."
Carol, in your recent CNN opinion piece, the headline was “Why are we still debating climate change?”. The very first statement in the article that followed was “There is no debate”.
The answer to your question is actually right in your own article. I’ll get to that in a bit, please bear with me. I wanted to touch on your claim that there is no debate first. I’d like you to consider the following statement, which I provide with no intent of malice whatsoever, only as a means of making a point.Carol Costello is stupid. There is no debate.
Now what would you think if you saw this in print, followed by a long explanation as to what is wrong with people who don’t agree, and a refusal to examine any facts related to the accusation? I imagine you’d be miffed. I imagine also that any examination of the facts would prove me wrong, I seriously doubt that such a statement would stand up to any fair debate of the matter. Which brings me to a question Carol:
If the facts supporting Climate Change are so obvious, should not debating the facts of the matter strengthen those facts? Just as you would be eager to prove that you are not, in fact, stupid, should you not be equally as eager to prove your opinion by engaging in factual debate?
While you ponder that, and keeping in mind that I did say the answer to your question is in your article and I would get to that, let’s examine the only fact upon which your argument rests, which is that there is a consensus among 97% of scientists. Well Carol, I read that study. Did you? I’m guessing not.
Because the wealth of the super-rich is just so damn far away, without any rungs in the ladder between, no assistance for that leap of faith that allows those who struggle to hope their struggles can cease.
In Australia, each citizen's share of the [national] debt is $12,000; in New Zealand, it's $15,000 per person; in Canada, $18,000; in the United Kingdom, $28,000. And in the United States it's $54,000 per person — twice as much as Britain, thrice as much as Canada, closing in on five times as much as Australia. And that's before you toss in all the other junk which leaves a total debt burden in the US of close to three-quarters of a million dollars per family. America is on course to be the first nation of negative millionaires.So, while Canada's got a balanced budget and New Zealand's paying down its national debt and Australia's government debt is about 11 per cent of GDP (versus 100 per cent of GDP in the United States), Americans are supposed to be encouraged because, in a spirit of comity, the bipartisan kleptocracy in Washington has nodded through a plan to make things worse. Former Congressman turned Club for Growth honcho Chris Chocola:You can read more regarding that last point in Mark's international bestseller After America, personally autographed copies of which are available in hardback, paperback and audio editions exclusively at the SteynOnline bookstore, and whose proceeds will go to fund Steyn's end of the upcoming Mann vs. Steyn trial.Which brings us to the Ryan–Murray budget, a partial repeal of the sequester. The agreement was a function of the fact that many Republicans in the House simply never wanted to cut spending or limit the size of government.
I served with and respect Paul Ryan. I know the Ryan–Murray budget is not his ideal budget. But that doesn't make the deal any less of a joke. An analysis by the Senate Budget Committee Republicans noted that 56 percent of the offsets for the reversal of the sequester come in FY 2022 and FY 2023 — a decade from now.
Speaker Boehner called that "deficit reduction." I call that a fraud and everyone with any common sense would agree with me. What kind of message does it send to voters when Republican leadership is claiming that you can offset increases in spending today with cuts in spending a decade from now?
It sends the message that the GOP is a joke. Canada, Australia and New Zealand are doing it now, not legislating fairyland cuts that kick in eight years after the legislators' terms of office end. Granted, all those countries have conservative governments, which the US is in no danger of getting any time soon. But here's why the Republican Party really isn't good enough: it's not just that the GOP is less fiscally conservative - by which I mean fiscally responsible - than other conservative parties, it's less fiscally conservative than many left-wing governments. The Liberal Party of Canada spent the "fat" years of the Nineties paying off the national debt, prompting my old comrade Kate O'Beirne to joke, "If only we could get American conservatives to be as fiscally responsible as Canadian liberals" - a jest one could also extend to the Australian Labor Party, which, while certainly profligate in Aussie terms, was a paragon of rectitude compared to Boehner and the gang.
Kate's is a cute joke. Except, of course, that the joke's on us. As Chris Chocola concludes:
So the Republican leadership says the Club for Growth has been "misleading their followers" and has "lost credibility"? That's a bit ironic, coming from a big-spending, debt-increasing, farm-subsidy enabling, entitlement-expanding party leadership that has abandoned its principles . . . all in the name of retaining their own power. And to what end?
When a Congressman talks about reducing spending in 2024, 2027, 2030, laugh in his face, and tell him that, when Representatives are elected for 20-year terms, then we'll listen to his plans for 2034. The bipartisan consensus to ramp up those debt per capita figures is not just an abstraction, but a massive gamble on the future - the future of the dollar as the global currency, the future of your children, and the future of America as a First World nation.
The Obama Administration’s Federal Communication Commission (FCC) is poised to place government monitors in newsrooms across the country in an absurdly draconian attempt to intimidate and control the media.
Before you dismiss this assertion as utterly preposterous (we all know how that turned out when the Tea Party complained that it was being targeted by the IRS), this bombshell of an accusation comes from an actual FCC Commissioner.
FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai reveals a brand new Obama Administration program that he fears could be used in “pressuring media organizations into covering certain stories.”
As Commissioner Pai explains in the Wall Street Journal:Last May the FCC proposed an initiative to thrust the federal government into newsrooms across the country. With its “Multi-Market Study of Critical Information Needs,” or CIN, the agency plans to send researchers to grill reporters, editors and station owners about how they decide which stories to run. A field test in Columbia, S.C., is scheduled to begin this spring.
The purpose of the CIN, according to the FCC, is to ferret out information from television and radio broadcasters about “the process by which stories are selected” and how often stations cover “critical information needs,” along with “perceived station bias” and “perceived responsiveness to underserved populations.”
In fact, the FCC is now expanding the bounds of regulatory powers to include newspapers, which it has absolutely no authority over, in its new government monitoring program.
The FCC has apparently already selected eight categories of “critical information” “that it believes local newscasters should cover.”
That’s right, the Obama Administration has developed a formula of what it believes the free press should cover, and it is going to send government monitors into newsrooms across America to stand over the shoulders of the press as they make editorial decisions.
This poses a monumental danger to constitutionally protected free speech and freedom of the press.
If you're not following blogger supreme @directorblue, then you might have a latent hatred for the USA Olympic hockey team. #AndAmerica #FF
— Razor (@hale_razor) February 15, 2014Follow @directorblue on @Twitter or Barack Obama will shoot this puppy. #tcot #tlot #p2 #twisters #ocra #rkba #2a pic.twitter.com/21DiOwyENn
— Biff Spackle (@BiffSpackle) February 15, 2014Count Polly Lower among those who quit their jobs because of the health-care law... It happened in September, when her boss abruptly changed her job description. She went from doing payroll, which she liked, to working on her boss’s schedule, which she loathed...
At another time, she might have had to grit her teeth and accept the new position because she needed the health benefits... But with the health-care law soon to take effect, she simply resigned — and hasn’t looked back.
“It was wonderful. It was very freeing,” said Lower, 56, of Bourbon, Ind...
...[Lower] is now babysitting her 5-year-old granddaughter full time. With the help of federal subsidies that kicked in Jan. 1, she is paying less than $500 a month for health coverage for herself and her husband.
The Washington Post found ... Lower through Families USA, a health advocacy group that supports the health-care law and maintains a database of people who have benefited from it.
And just who is Families USA? They're an SEIU front group that has been pushing for socialized medicine for years.Our goal as socialists is to abolish private ownership of the means of production. Our immediate task is to limit the capitalist class’s prerogatives in the workplace…In the short run we must at least minimize the degree of exploitation of workers by capitalists. We can accomplish this by promoting full employment policies, passing local living wage laws, but most of all by increasing the union movement’s power…
...the real CBO story should be: “That awkward moment when everyone realizes Obamacare was a huge mistake.” The same CBO report projects that by 2024 the number of non-elderly uninsured will be — drum roll, please — 31 million Americans.
And that’s why all of this talk of Democrats as the Job-Lock Liberators is pathetic and hilarious at the same time. Virtually every promise has been broken, every prediction falsified. And now, at a time when millions want work that doesn’t exist, Democrats are claiming victory by trimming the amount of work actually being done.
Hopefully voters will look for ways to liberate these Democrats from the curse of job-lock come November.
Not accustomed to being asked difficult questions about his failures in office, President Obama attacked Fox News host Bill O'Reilly during a pre-Super Bowl interview on Sunday for daring to demand answers about the Benghazi terrorist attack and the IRS targeting conservative groups.
O'Reilly said, "Your detractors believe that you did not tell the world it was a terror attack because your campaign didn't want that out. That's what they believe." Obama ranted in reply: "And they believe it because folks like you are telling them that." O'Reilly responded: "No, I'm not telling them that, I'm asking you whether you were told it was a terror attack."
Minutes later, while O'Reilly was asking about the IRS scandal, Obama tried to dismiss the topic: "Folks have, again, had multiple hearings on this. I mean, these kinds of things keep on surfacing in part because you and your TV station will promote them.
Obama did in this interview what Obama has always done: Shift the blame to someone else. If something goes wrong in his presidency, it’s the fault of Republicans, racism, Fox News, or anything else that seems like a good scapegoat.
On Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2014 President Barack Obama delivered his second State of the Union address of his second term in office. The address was carried live from 9:00 p.m. to 10:15 p.m. on 13 networks and tape-delayed on Univision. The sum of the average audience for those networks was 33,299,172 viewers with a combined household rating of 20.7. The networks carrying the address live were CBS, ABC, NBC, FOX, Azteca, Fox Business, Fox News Channel, CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, Al Jazeera America, Galavision and Mun2.
| Networks | Combined Household Ratings | No. of Households | No. of Viewers (P2+) |
|---|---|---|---|
| CBS, ABC, NBC, FOX, Azteca, Fox Business, Fox News Channel, CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, Al Jazeera America, Galavision, Mun2, UNI* | 23,949,843 | 33,299,172 | |
| Source: Nielsen *Tape delay. | |||
Below is a historical look at past State of the Union addresses.
| Date | Networks | Combined Household Rating | Combined No. of Households | Combined No. of Viewers | President |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2/12/2013 | FOX, ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, Azteca, UNI, MFX, CNBC, CNN, Fox Business, Fox News Channel, MSNBC, Current, Centric, GALA | 21.8 | 24,767,047 | 33,497,607 | Obama |
| 1/24/2012 | ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, TEL, TF, UNI, CNBC, CNN, FBN, FOXNC, GALA, MSNBC and MUN2 | 24 | 27,569,423 | 37,752,613 | Obama |
| 1/25/2011 | ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, TEL, UNI, CNN, Centric, CNBC, FOXNC, and MSNBC | 26.6 | 30,871,688 | 42,789,947 | Obama |
| 1/27/2010 | ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, TEL, UNI, CNN, BET, CNBC, FOXNC, MSNBC | 29.8 | 34,182,725 | 48,009,595 | Obama |
| 2/24/2009* | ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, CNBC, CNN, FOXNC, MSNBC, TELEMUNDO, UNIVISION | 32.5 | 37,185,000 | 52,373,000 | Obama |
| 1/28/2008 | ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, CNN, FOXNC, MSNBC, TELEMUNDO^, UNIVISION | 24.7 | 27,702,000 | 37,515,000 | G.W Bush |
| 1/23/2007 | ABC, CBS, FOX**, NBC, CNN, FOXNC, MSNBC, TELEMUNDO**, UNIVISION ** | 29.6 | 32,968,000 | 45,486,000 | G.W. Bush |
| 1/31/2006 | ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, CNN, FOXNC, MSNBC | 26.9 | 29,578,000 | 41,699,000 | G.W. Bush |
| TELEMUNDO, AZTECA AMERICA, TELFUTURA, TELEMUNDO | 8.4 | 950,000 | 1,480,000 | ||
| 2/2/2005 | ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, CNN, FOXNC, MSNBC | 25.2 | 27,699,000 | 38,382,000 | G. W. Bush |
| TELEMUNDO, TELEFUTURA | 6 | 660,000 | 1,050,000 | ||
| 1/20/2004 | ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, CNN, CNBC, FOXNC, MSNBC | 28 | 30,286,000 | 43,411,000 | G. W. Bush |
| 1/28/2003 | ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, CNN, CNBC, FOXNC, MSNBC | 38.8 | 41,447,000 | 62,061,000 | G. W. Bush |
| 1/29/2002 | ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, CNN, CNBC, FOXNC, MSNBC | 33.6 | 35,547,000 | 51,773,000 | G.W. Bush |
| 2/27/2001* | ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, CNN, FOXNC, MSNBC | 27.6 | 28,201,000 | 39,793,000 | G.W. Bush |
| 1/27/2000 | ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, CNN, FOXNC, MSNBC | 22.4 | 22,536,000 | 31,478,000 | Clinton |
| 1/19/1999 | ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, CNN, FOXNC, MSNBC | 31 | 30,700,000 | 43,500,000 | Clinton |
| 1/27/1998 | ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, CNN, CNBC, FOXNC, MSNBC | 37.2 | 36,513,000 | 53,077,000 | Clinton |
| 2/4/1997 | ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, CNN | 28.4 | 27,600,000 | 41,100,000 | Clinton |
| 1/23/1996 | ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, CNN | 29.6 | 28,400,000 | 40,900,000 | Clinton |
| 1/24/1995 | ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN | 29.5 | 28,100,000 | 42,200,000 | Clinton |
| 1/25/1994 | ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN | 32.9 | 31,000,000 | 45,800,000 | Clinton |
| 2/17/1993* | ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN | 44.3 | 41,200,000 | 66,900,000 | Clinton |
| Source: Nielsen | |||||