Wisconsin Unions vs. The Tea Party: A Classic Double Standard
By RICH NOYES AND SCOTT WHITLOCK
From the Media Research Center
Loud protests by Wisconsin public employee unions against a budget reform proposal from new Governor Scott Walker have drawn considerable national network news attention since Thursday, the day Democratic state senators fled the state in a last-ditch gambit to prevent the bill from becoming law. A story-by-story analysis by the Media Research Center shows the Wisconsin protests are a perfect case study in the media's longstanding double standard favoring left-wing causes while demonstrating much more hostility to the Tea Party and conservative protests.
Last March, as thousands protested on Capitol Hill in the days before the passage of ObamaCare, CBS's Nancy Cordes slammed it as "a weekend filled with incivility," while World News anchor Diane Sawyer painted the Tea Party as a violent gang, with "protesters roaming Washington, some of them increasingly emotional, yelling slurs and epithets." In August 2009, ABC anchor Charles Gibson complained how "protesters brought pictures of President Obama with a Hitler-style mustache to a town hall meeting," failing to mention that the signs were produced by Lyndon LaRouche's wacky fringe movement, not the Tea Party or conservatives.
Over the past several days, the liberal demonstrations in Wisconsin (bolstered by the national Democratic Party and President Obama's Organizing for America group) have included signs just as inflammatory as the ones that bothered the networks during the health care debate, including several showing Governor Scott Walker as Adolph Hitler. Others have likened Walker to Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin ("Scott Stalin") and recently deposed Egyptian autocrat Hosni Mubarak ("Walker = Mubarak").
Another protest sign drew a cross-hairs over a picture of Governor Walker's head, with the caption "Don't Retreat, Reload; Repeal Walker" — an obvious parallel to a Facebook map posted by Sarah Palin last year, although that much-criticized graphic placed the target sights on maps of congressional districts, not any politician's face.
Yet none of these signs in the hands of liberal protesters have drawn the slightest complaint from network journalists. MRC analysts examined all 53 ABC, CBS and NBC morning and evening news stories, segments and anchor briefs on the Wisconsin protests from Thursday, February 17 (when they first drew major national coverage) through Monday, February 21. While eight of the 53 stories (15%) visually displayed one or more of the signs described above, none elicited a single remark from the network correspondents.
Instead, network journalists actually suggested the "Walker = Mubarak" theme of some of the more inflammatory signs. On Sunday's This Week, for example, ABC's Christiane Amanpour linked Wisconsin to the uprisings against oppressive dictatorships: "Populist frustration is boiling over this week, as we've said, not just in the Middle East, but in the middle of this country as well." So did NBC's Brian Williams on Friday's Nightly News: "From the Mideast to the American Midwest tonight, people are rising up. Citizens' uprisings are changing the world." NBC's on-screen caption: "The Uprising at Home."
ABC's Diane Sawyer opened Thursday's World News by empathizing with the protesters:
Today, we saw America's money trouble meet a reality, a human reality, as teachers, nurses, tens of thousands of state workers took to the streets in this country, protesting cuts by the governors, saying to these governors, a promise is a promise. One lawmaker looked out at the crowds gathered in the Wisconsin capital today said it's like Cairo moved to Madison.
The only time network journalists fretted about the Wisconsin protests getting out of hand was when their favorite bogeyman, the Tea Party, became involved — as ABC's Barbara Pinto did on Saturday's Good Morning America: "Today, those demonstrations are expected to get more intense and more polarizing — we're watching police officers arrive here this morning. And that is because the Tea Party is staging a counter-demonstration of its own today."
As of Monday night, none of the networks had shown the sign placing Walker's face in the crosshairs. But last March, when the graphic first appeared on Palin's Facebook page, those same networks howled almost instantly. CBS's Nancy Cordes, on the March 24, 2010 Evening News, was typical: "Democrats complain Sarah Palin is also using violent words and imagery. On Twitter, she urges conservatives: 'Don't retreat. Instead, reload.' And the Web site of her political action committee posts bull's-eyes on districts of vulnerable Democrats."
After Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was shot and severely wounded in January by a psychotic man unconnected to the Tea Party or any other political cause, the networks highlighted Palin's map in 24 stories in just the first six days. "That map Sarah Palin put up on Facebook last year, targeting Congresswoman Gifford's seat, made Gifford nervous, even then," NBC's Lee Cowan scolded on Today back on January 10.
Even the most timeworn chants seemed to outrage journalists when it came to the Tea Party. Back in March, CBS's Bob Schieffer was appalled by, among other things, anti-ObamaCare protesters chanting "kill the bill." He lectured on the March 21, 2010 Face the Nation: "A year-long debate that's been rancorous and mean from the start turned even nastier yesterday. Demonstrators protesting the bill poured into the halls of Congress shouting 'kill the bill' and 'made in the USSR.'"
This weekend in Wisconsin, protesters also chanted "kill the bill" (CBS's The Early Show ran a clip on Friday) but on this Sunday's Face the Nation, Schieffer had no negative words for these protesters as he set up a discussion of the issue: "Thousands of demonstrators took to the streets again in Madison, Wisconsin as they marched to protest major cuts in state spending. The question is, will the protests spread to other states where similar proposals to cut spending are also being contemplated?"
When it comes to the Tea Party, network correspondents seem to enjoy playing "civility cop," emphasizing a few radical and inflammatory signs in ways that imply that the entire cause is extreme. Radical and inflammatory signs were easily found at the Wisconsin protests, but the networks uttered not one peep of disapproval — overwhelming evidence of a double standard that should embarrass any network journalist who still purports to be fair and balanced.
Mr. Noyes is the MRC's Research Director. Mr. Whitlock is a news analyst at the Media Research Center.
3/02/2011
Barack Obama repeating Jimmy Carter's mistakes
Great article, explains things very well.
Obama repeating Carter's mistakes
By: Steve Forbes
You need to watch only a few minutes of cable news analysis to realize just how ludicrous our national energy policies have become. As escalating tensions and chaos unfold in Egypt, Libya and other Middle Eastern nations, one energy analyst suggested that if Libyan oil supplies were to fail, the United States would rely on Saudi Arabia for its oil needs. If that statement alone doesn’t put U.S. leaders on red alert, the looming national energy crisis may soon become reality.
The Obama administration is repeating the mistakes of President Jimmy Carter’s failed energy policies, which marred his term and stigmatized the 1970s. They are leading us straight into another national energy disaster.
Key members of the Obama administration believe this friction abroad underscores the need to move away from oil and gas entirely and shift to boutique forms of alternative energy. Their lack of political will to drill for oil and gas compromises our national security and jeopardizes economic recovery.
It skirts the colossal elephant in the room: Oil and natural gas produced here in the United States are likely to still account for at least 57 percent of domestic energy consumption by 2035. Not to mention that energy production here can relieve the U.S. from the dangerous grip of foreign petro dictators.
Unfortunately, this administration’s Department of the Interior, with the most anti-oil-and-gas record in U.S. history, is sabotaging any real chance of avoiding the pending energy crisis because of its continued hold on deepwater drilling permits in the Gulf of Mexico.
When Interior Secretary Ken Salazar heads before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on Wednesday, Americans — particularly the 9.2 million directly or indirectly working in the oil and gas industry — would be ill served if the question isn’t asked: Are the thousands, and counting, of out-of-work Americans in the Gulf region and beyond a worthwhile consequence of your department’s freeze?
The Interior Department’s six-month moratorium on offshore oil production has cost 8,169 jobs, according to a study by one Louisiana State University professor, along with more than $487 million in wages and nearly $98 million in forfeited state tax revenues in the Gulf states alone.
This doesn’t include the impact felt nationwide by truckers who transport goods, farmers who use oil to raise and harvest crops and working families paying more at the pump.
After the moratorium was nominally lifted last fall, the blow dealt by Interior’s subsequent permit freeze has been devastating. Not a single deepwater drilling permit has been issued since last year’s tragic oil spill. Unfortunately, there’s no relief in sight, given Salazar’s recent admission that he has no intention of issuing any drilling leases this year.
By freezing U.S. energy assets in the Gulf and keeping 97 percent of our offshore oil and gas off limits, our government, willing or not, is fueling an energy crisis that could bring this nation to its knees. Continued inaction in the Gulf threatens to force us to import an extra 88 million barrels of oil per year by 2016, at a cost of $8 billion.
One-third of the oil used in the U.S. is from the Gulf of Mexico. As oil spirals past $100 per barrel, handcuffing these domestic energy reserves only deepens our dependence on hostile oil-rich nations abroad.
The Energy Department estimates that U.S. energy needs are 17 times greater than they were 50 years ago. Yet U.S. output of domestic energy has fallen 40 percent over the same period.
The Department of the Interior can and must steer us clear of the impending energy crisis by issuing the deepwater drilling permits our nation needs to get running again. As much as the White House and its allies in Congress convince themselves otherwise, politically palatable forms of alternative energy will not keep our cars running and our population fed, now or in the near future.
While they may become more viable down the line, wind, solar and other forms of clean energy are barely a blip on the radar, contributing a mere 7 percent to U.S. energy supply. These forms of energy are unreliable and expensive at best and rely on taxpayer subsidies.
The BP well explosion was a tragic accident that would have been prevented with safer drilling systems in place. No one understands this better than oil and gas producers, who last week announced a cutting-edge oil spill containment system, ready for immediate deployment and meeting the requirements set by Interior.
It’s time for the government to allow the markets to function freely and let the energy industry get back to work in the Gulf. Our economic and national security depends on it.
Obama repeating Carter's mistakes
By: Steve Forbes
You need to watch only a few minutes of cable news analysis to realize just how ludicrous our national energy policies have become. As escalating tensions and chaos unfold in Egypt, Libya and other Middle Eastern nations, one energy analyst suggested that if Libyan oil supplies were to fail, the United States would rely on Saudi Arabia for its oil needs. If that statement alone doesn’t put U.S. leaders on red alert, the looming national energy crisis may soon become reality.
The Obama administration is repeating the mistakes of President Jimmy Carter’s failed energy policies, which marred his term and stigmatized the 1970s. They are leading us straight into another national energy disaster.
Key members of the Obama administration believe this friction abroad underscores the need to move away from oil and gas entirely and shift to boutique forms of alternative energy. Their lack of political will to drill for oil and gas compromises our national security and jeopardizes economic recovery.
It skirts the colossal elephant in the room: Oil and natural gas produced here in the United States are likely to still account for at least 57 percent of domestic energy consumption by 2035. Not to mention that energy production here can relieve the U.S. from the dangerous grip of foreign petro dictators.
Unfortunately, this administration’s Department of the Interior, with the most anti-oil-and-gas record in U.S. history, is sabotaging any real chance of avoiding the pending energy crisis because of its continued hold on deepwater drilling permits in the Gulf of Mexico.
When Interior Secretary Ken Salazar heads before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on Wednesday, Americans — particularly the 9.2 million directly or indirectly working in the oil and gas industry — would be ill served if the question isn’t asked: Are the thousands, and counting, of out-of-work Americans in the Gulf region and beyond a worthwhile consequence of your department’s freeze?
The Interior Department’s six-month moratorium on offshore oil production has cost 8,169 jobs, according to a study by one Louisiana State University professor, along with more than $487 million in wages and nearly $98 million in forfeited state tax revenues in the Gulf states alone.
This doesn’t include the impact felt nationwide by truckers who transport goods, farmers who use oil to raise and harvest crops and working families paying more at the pump.
After the moratorium was nominally lifted last fall, the blow dealt by Interior’s subsequent permit freeze has been devastating. Not a single deepwater drilling permit has been issued since last year’s tragic oil spill. Unfortunately, there’s no relief in sight, given Salazar’s recent admission that he has no intention of issuing any drilling leases this year.
By freezing U.S. energy assets in the Gulf and keeping 97 percent of our offshore oil and gas off limits, our government, willing or not, is fueling an energy crisis that could bring this nation to its knees. Continued inaction in the Gulf threatens to force us to import an extra 88 million barrels of oil per year by 2016, at a cost of $8 billion.
One-third of the oil used in the U.S. is from the Gulf of Mexico. As oil spirals past $100 per barrel, handcuffing these domestic energy reserves only deepens our dependence on hostile oil-rich nations abroad.
The Energy Department estimates that U.S. energy needs are 17 times greater than they were 50 years ago. Yet U.S. output of domestic energy has fallen 40 percent over the same period.
The Department of the Interior can and must steer us clear of the impending energy crisis by issuing the deepwater drilling permits our nation needs to get running again. As much as the White House and its allies in Congress convince themselves otherwise, politically palatable forms of alternative energy will not keep our cars running and our population fed, now or in the near future.
While they may become more viable down the line, wind, solar and other forms of clean energy are barely a blip on the radar, contributing a mere 7 percent to U.S. energy supply. These forms of energy are unreliable and expensive at best and rely on taxpayer subsidies.
The BP well explosion was a tragic accident that would have been prevented with safer drilling systems in place. No one understands this better than oil and gas producers, who last week announced a cutting-edge oil spill containment system, ready for immediate deployment and meeting the requirements set by Interior.
It’s time for the government to allow the markets to function freely and let the energy industry get back to work in the Gulf. Our economic and national security depends on it.
3/01/2011
Phenominal work from the Justice Department...
They're playing games, literally, in the Justice Department
An open letter to Rep. Frank Wolf, chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce-Justice-Science:
You're looking for unnecessary spending to cut from the federal budget. Well, one piece of low-hanging fruit ripe for picking is the bloated budget of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division. It's something to discuss with Attorney General Eric Holder when he testifies before your Committee today.
Holder and President Obama are asking for $145.4 million for the division in FY 2012. That includes funding for 815 staff positions. Compared to FY2009 (the last Bush budget), they want a 14 percent increase in manpower and an 18 percent boost in spending.
If taxpayers were getting their money's worth, it might be worth considering. But the Civil Rights Division under the Obama administration has become a prime example of government waste.
You are aware of the division's extreme politicization under Holder, including the outrageous dismissal of the New Black Panther lawsuit after the case had already been won and the money wasted in stonewalling information and witness requests from Congress and the U.S. Civil Rights Commission.
Then there's the shameful objection to a proposal by Kinston, N.C., to introduce non-partisan city council elections, the pronouncement that the division will not enforce federal law to ensure the integrity of state voter rolls, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Julie Fernandes' out-spoken opposition to race-neutral enforcement of the Voting Rights Act (VRA), and politically motivated, selective responses to open record requests.
This is also the same Justice Department division where, during a Voting Section staff meeting called to address chronic tardiness, numerous attorneys demanded permission to arrive at work up to 30 minutes late without penalty. Others wanted to work from home.
At that 2009 meeting, then-Section Chief Christopher Coates refused to tolerate this brazen disregard of job rules. The new chief has reversed course and even allows litigation managers to work from home.
Working from home is supposed to improve productivity. But that certainly hasn't happened in the Voting Section. In the 26 months since Holder took over, it has filed only one lawsuit under Section 2 of the VRA, and that was a case developed during the Bush administration, filed by J. Christian Adams.
The section has also filed only four cases under the VRA's language minority provisions, all of which were also started during the Bush years. And the National Voter Registration Act? No action at all, other than to drop a lawsuit started under Bush.
To put this in context, the Bush administration - which Holder and his Civil Rights Division chief, Tom Perez, miss no opportunity to criticize - averaged two Section 2 cases every year, brought more cases under the language minority provisions than in all other years combined since 1965, and filed 10 cases under the National Voter Registration Act. All of this is easily verifiable at the division's own website.
Meanwhile, Holder and Perez preposterously claim that the division is "once again open for business."
That certainly doesn't jibe with reports from lawyers inside DOJ, who tell of Voting Section attorneys so bored that many spend the day playing computer Solitaire, watching videos, and venting at the lack of activity.
Attorneys beg for work and are told there is none. If Holder denies this, you should require that the DOJ Inspector General provide the evidence that I am told they have already collected on this point. Similar problems plague the division's Employment and Special Litigation Sections.
Perhaps we should be thankful that the ideologues inhabiting both the political leadership and career supervisor positions in the division aren't wreaking more havoc. But this is no way to run a government. American taxpayers should not have to fund such nonsense.
A former counsel to the assistant attorney general for civil rights, Hans von Spakovsky is a senior legal fellow in The Heritage Foundation's Center for Legal and Judicial Studies.
An open letter to Rep. Frank Wolf, chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce-Justice-Science:
You're looking for unnecessary spending to cut from the federal budget. Well, one piece of low-hanging fruit ripe for picking is the bloated budget of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division. It's something to discuss with Attorney General Eric Holder when he testifies before your Committee today.
Holder and President Obama are asking for $145.4 million for the division in FY 2012. That includes funding for 815 staff positions. Compared to FY2009 (the last Bush budget), they want a 14 percent increase in manpower and an 18 percent boost in spending.
If taxpayers were getting their money's worth, it might be worth considering. But the Civil Rights Division under the Obama administration has become a prime example of government waste.
You are aware of the division's extreme politicization under Holder, including the outrageous dismissal of the New Black Panther lawsuit after the case had already been won and the money wasted in stonewalling information and witness requests from Congress and the U.S. Civil Rights Commission.
Then there's the shameful objection to a proposal by Kinston, N.C., to introduce non-partisan city council elections, the pronouncement that the division will not enforce federal law to ensure the integrity of state voter rolls, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Julie Fernandes' out-spoken opposition to race-neutral enforcement of the Voting Rights Act (VRA), and politically motivated, selective responses to open record requests.
This is also the same Justice Department division where, during a Voting Section staff meeting called to address chronic tardiness, numerous attorneys demanded permission to arrive at work up to 30 minutes late without penalty. Others wanted to work from home.
At that 2009 meeting, then-Section Chief Christopher Coates refused to tolerate this brazen disregard of job rules. The new chief has reversed course and even allows litigation managers to work from home.
Working from home is supposed to improve productivity. But that certainly hasn't happened in the Voting Section. In the 26 months since Holder took over, it has filed only one lawsuit under Section 2 of the VRA, and that was a case developed during the Bush administration, filed by J. Christian Adams.
The section has also filed only four cases under the VRA's language minority provisions, all of which were also started during the Bush years. And the National Voter Registration Act? No action at all, other than to drop a lawsuit started under Bush.
To put this in context, the Bush administration - which Holder and his Civil Rights Division chief, Tom Perez, miss no opportunity to criticize - averaged two Section 2 cases every year, brought more cases under the language minority provisions than in all other years combined since 1965, and filed 10 cases under the National Voter Registration Act. All of this is easily verifiable at the division's own website.
Meanwhile, Holder and Perez preposterously claim that the division is "once again open for business."
That certainly doesn't jibe with reports from lawyers inside DOJ, who tell of Voting Section attorneys so bored that many spend the day playing computer Solitaire, watching videos, and venting at the lack of activity.
Attorneys beg for work and are told there is none. If Holder denies this, you should require that the DOJ Inspector General provide the evidence that I am told they have already collected on this point. Similar problems plague the division's Employment and Special Litigation Sections.
Perhaps we should be thankful that the ideologues inhabiting both the political leadership and career supervisor positions in the division aren't wreaking more havoc. But this is no way to run a government. American taxpayers should not have to fund such nonsense.
A former counsel to the assistant attorney general for civil rights, Hans von Spakovsky is a senior legal fellow in The Heritage Foundation's Center for Legal and Judicial Studies.
Rather sad write up about our appeaser in chief...
Do tyrants fear America anymore? President Obama’s timid foreign policy is an embarrassment for a global superpower
The débacle of Washington’s handling of the Libya issue is symbolic of a wider problem at the heart of the Obama administration’s foreign policy. The fact that it took ten days and at least a thousand dead on the streets of Libya’s cities before President Obama finally mustered the courage to call for Muammar “mad dog” Gaddafi to step down is highly embarrassing for the world’s only superpower, and emblematic of a deer-in-the-headlights approach to world leadership. Washington seems incapable of decisive decision-making on foreign policy at the moment, a far cry from the days when it swept entire regimes from power, and defeated America’s enemies with deep-seated conviction and an unshakeable drive for victory.
Just a few years ago the United States was genuinely feared on the world stage, and dictatorial regimes, strategic adversaries and state sponsors of terror trod carefully in the face of the world’s most powerful nation. Now Washington appears weak, rudderless and frequently confused in its approach. From Tehran to Tripoli, the Obama administration has been pathetically slow to lead, and afraid to condemn acts of state-sponsored repression and violence. When protesters took to the streets to demonstrate against the Islamist dictatorship in Iran in 2009, the brutal repression that greeted them was hardly a blip on Barack Obama’s teleprompter screen, barely meriting a response from a largely silent presidency.
In contrast to Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, President Obama fails to see the United States as an exceptional nation, with a unique role in leading the free world and standing up to tyranny. In his speeches abroad he has frequently found fault with his own country, rather than projecting confidence in American greatness. From Cairo to Strasbourg he has adopted an apologetic tone rather than demonstrating faith in America as a shining city upon a hill, a beacon of freedom and liberty. A leader who lacks pride in his own nation’s historic role as a great liberator simply cannot project strength abroad.
It has also become abundantly clear that the Obama team attaches little importance to human rights issues, and in contrast to the previous administration has not pursued a freedom agenda in the Middle East and elsewhere. It places far greater value upon engagement with hostile regimes, even if they are carrying out gross human rights abuses, in the mistaken belief that appeasement enhances security. This has been the case with Iran, Russia and North Korea for example. This administration has also been all too willing to sacrifice US leadership in deference to supranational institutions such as the United Nations, whose track record in standing up to dictatorships has been virtually non-existent.
The White House’s painful navel-gazing on Libya last week, with even the French adopting a far tougher stance, is cause for grave concern. The Obama administration’s timid approach to foreign policy is the last thing the world needs at a time of mounting turmoil in the Middle East, including the growing threat of a nuclear-armed Iran, and Islamist militancy on the rise from Egypt to Yemen. US leadership is now needed more than ever, but has embarrassingly gone AWOL on the world stage.
The débacle of Washington’s handling of the Libya issue is symbolic of a wider problem at the heart of the Obama administration’s foreign policy. The fact that it took ten days and at least a thousand dead on the streets of Libya’s cities before President Obama finally mustered the courage to call for Muammar “mad dog” Gaddafi to step down is highly embarrassing for the world’s only superpower, and emblematic of a deer-in-the-headlights approach to world leadership. Washington seems incapable of decisive decision-making on foreign policy at the moment, a far cry from the days when it swept entire regimes from power, and defeated America’s enemies with deep-seated conviction and an unshakeable drive for victory.
Just a few years ago the United States was genuinely feared on the world stage, and dictatorial regimes, strategic adversaries and state sponsors of terror trod carefully in the face of the world’s most powerful nation. Now Washington appears weak, rudderless and frequently confused in its approach. From Tehran to Tripoli, the Obama administration has been pathetically slow to lead, and afraid to condemn acts of state-sponsored repression and violence. When protesters took to the streets to demonstrate against the Islamist dictatorship in Iran in 2009, the brutal repression that greeted them was hardly a blip on Barack Obama’s teleprompter screen, barely meriting a response from a largely silent presidency.
In contrast to Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, President Obama fails to see the United States as an exceptional nation, with a unique role in leading the free world and standing up to tyranny. In his speeches abroad he has frequently found fault with his own country, rather than projecting confidence in American greatness. From Cairo to Strasbourg he has adopted an apologetic tone rather than demonstrating faith in America as a shining city upon a hill, a beacon of freedom and liberty. A leader who lacks pride in his own nation’s historic role as a great liberator simply cannot project strength abroad.
It has also become abundantly clear that the Obama team attaches little importance to human rights issues, and in contrast to the previous administration has not pursued a freedom agenda in the Middle East and elsewhere. It places far greater value upon engagement with hostile regimes, even if they are carrying out gross human rights abuses, in the mistaken belief that appeasement enhances security. This has been the case with Iran, Russia and North Korea for example. This administration has also been all too willing to sacrifice US leadership in deference to supranational institutions such as the United Nations, whose track record in standing up to dictatorships has been virtually non-existent.
The White House’s painful navel-gazing on Libya last week, with even the French adopting a far tougher stance, is cause for grave concern. The Obama administration’s timid approach to foreign policy is the last thing the world needs at a time of mounting turmoil in the Middle East, including the growing threat of a nuclear-armed Iran, and Islamist militancy on the rise from Egypt to Yemen. US leadership is now needed more than ever, but has embarrassingly gone AWOL on the world stage.
Ride train, papers please...
Why Did TSA Pat Down Kids, Adults Getting Off Train?
A Florida firefighter says he couldn't believe it when Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents gave "intrusive" pat-downs to passengers including kids getting off an Amtrak train in Savannah, Georgia earlier this month.
Lt. Brian Gamble, 38, of Leesburg, Florida, posted video of the incident on YouTube. And the TSA is now apologizing.
Gamble, who also works part-time as a travel agent, tells AOL Travel News he was bringing a small group that included other firefighters and policemen to Savannah for a Valentine's Day getaway. They were among 30 or 40 people getting off the train when he says TSA officers ordered everyone into the terminal.
"They sent us all into a roped-off holding area and said 'Y'all are going to be searched,'" Gamble says. "We were getting off the train. This didn't make sense."
Once in the area, the group was guarded while TSA officers began doing what Gamble says were "intrusive" pat-downs.
When he saw a family with young kids in the lineup, he took out his camera and started filming. He does not know the identity of the family.
"They were in front of us. They (the TSA agents) started lifting their shirts and wanding them."
Gamble's wife, Traci, 38, and a female friend were also searched and he says female TSA officers made them lift their shirts up to their midriffs and patted their bras.
"One guy went through (Traci's) hand luggage and smelled her perfume and made comments about it smelling good. It was just not professional. It was just weird," Gamble says.
"My wife was livid," he adds. "We thought this is silly, we are being harassed by the TSA."
Nearing the front of the line for his own search, Gamble complained to a TSA supervisor but says he was told to calm down. "They wouldn't give us an explanation for the search."
Meanwhile, the passengers' luggage was sitting on the train platform. So the fireman waved over an officer from the Georgia State Patrol to point that out.
"I explained what was going on, he left for a few minutes and then came back and took six of us in our group and said 'Sorry about that, go get your luggage, you're good to go.'"
Gamble says he would have had no problem with such a search happening on a train, "But getting off the train, that was kind of backwards."
With Gamble's video gaining steam on the Internet, the TSA took to its blog over the weekend to explain what happened.
The TSA's Blogger Bob writes that what the Savannah train passengers encountered is known as a VIPR operation, a randomized search "where anyone entering an impacted area has to be screened."
Such searches – involving federal, state and local law enforcement – were stepped up in 2004 in the wake of the Madrid train bombings in which 181 people were killed, and happen around the country on a regular basis, the TSA says.
"In this case, the Amtrak station was the subject of the VIPR operation so people entering the station were being screened for items on the Amtrak prohibited items list as seen in the video," Blogger Bob writes.
But Bob adds the TSA learned the VIPR operation in Savannah "should have ended by the time these folks were coming through the station since no more trains were leaving the station. We apologize for any inconvenience we may have caused for those passengers."
The TSA says the passengers did not have to go into the terminal to leave the station. But Gamble says the TSA agents didn't give them a choice.
"Their apology is kind of lame," he says. "I thought this whole thing was very unprofessional and very shady."
2/16/2011
2/15/2011
2/08/2011
You Can't Believe Everything You Read from the White House
Here is an interesting read from the White House communication director, which was posted on their website:
You Can't Believe Everything You Read
Posted by Dan Pfeiffer on February 04, 2011 at 04:55 PM EST
As valuable as the internet can be in helping to spread information, most people know that you can’t believe everything you read, and they should check the source before relaying every alarming story they read. One such story is going around the internet over the past two days claiming that the Obama Administration is somehow responsible for the rolling blackouts in Texas that have caused terrible hardship for so many Texans. The source is questionable and the story is unquestionably false.
According to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, these blackouts were actually the result of extreme cold temperatures and high winds, which led to a variety of mechanical failures at more than 50 power plants around the state.
Anytime communities experience major outages, it is a cause for concern, and major utilities and regulators are investigating steps that can be taken to decrease any weather related vulnerability of power generating plants in the state that, unlike their northern counterparts which experience extreme cold every winter, are often not designed to withstand such rare weather conditions.
Some are trying to blame these blackouts – which the industry has already provided explanation for – on Clean Air Act standards under consideration to curb dangerous pollution, including carbon pollution. While these claims gained traction on the internet, there is a major problem with this theory – no power plant in Texas has yet been required to do anything to control carbon pollution.
In December the EPA announced its intent to update important Clean Air Act standards that for decades have decreased harmful pollution and protected public health. In the coming months the EPA will work closely with key stakeholders, including industry, to develop a commonsense standard for currently unchecked, dangerous carbon pollution. Any standard, which will leverage existing technologies and only apply to the largest polluters, will not be proposed until later this year, allowing an extensive public comment period, and following that additional input no final rule is scheduled to be in place until late 2012.
Despite these modest steps, many continue to mischaracterize this process – making unsubstantiated claims about the impact this will have on everything from industry to energy prices. This most recent effort simply underscores a willingness to ignore the facts to further an agenda that seeks to stop the EPA from sensible updates to the Clean Air Act.
I think that Dan Pfeiffer is upset that he doesn't completely control the message, and nefarious internet rumors abound are contradicting policy and official communication channels. Things aren't so clean and neat as Dan Pfeiffer would see them be. What wasn't really mentioned was the policies in place that would indeed "impact...everything from industry to energy prices." Those policies are standards and practices for any NEW energy production facilities.
For example, "The EPA also now requires greenhouse gas permitting for any new facilities permitted after January 1, 2011" is a fact. In addition, concerns for future plans are pretty clear in "January 12, 2011 - EPA announces its plan to defer, for three years, greenhouse gas (GHG) permitting requirements for carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from biomass-fired and other biogenic sources." It's not what they have done, but the concern for what they could do in the future will inevitably increase the costs of "industry to energy prices."
Here is a story on what Obama's current Health and Human Services Secretary. Kansas Governor Vetoes Bill to Revive 2 Coal-Fired Plants.
One thing that is related is no new power plants have been built that support clean-coal technology. This can be correlated with Obama policy with clean-coal technology.
Words from the man himself...
Watching the above video, you can ask what Dan Pfeiffers meant when he stated, "the source is questionable and the story is unquestionably false."
You Can't Believe Everything You Read
Posted by Dan Pfeiffer on February 04, 2011 at 04:55 PM EST
As valuable as the internet can be in helping to spread information, most people know that you can’t believe everything you read, and they should check the source before relaying every alarming story they read. One such story is going around the internet over the past two days claiming that the Obama Administration is somehow responsible for the rolling blackouts in Texas that have caused terrible hardship for so many Texans. The source is questionable and the story is unquestionably false.
According to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, these blackouts were actually the result of extreme cold temperatures and high winds, which led to a variety of mechanical failures at more than 50 power plants around the state.
Anytime communities experience major outages, it is a cause for concern, and major utilities and regulators are investigating steps that can be taken to decrease any weather related vulnerability of power generating plants in the state that, unlike their northern counterparts which experience extreme cold every winter, are often not designed to withstand such rare weather conditions.
Some are trying to blame these blackouts – which the industry has already provided explanation for – on Clean Air Act standards under consideration to curb dangerous pollution, including carbon pollution. While these claims gained traction on the internet, there is a major problem with this theory – no power plant in Texas has yet been required to do anything to control carbon pollution.
In December the EPA announced its intent to update important Clean Air Act standards that for decades have decreased harmful pollution and protected public health. In the coming months the EPA will work closely with key stakeholders, including industry, to develop a commonsense standard for currently unchecked, dangerous carbon pollution. Any standard, which will leverage existing technologies and only apply to the largest polluters, will not be proposed until later this year, allowing an extensive public comment period, and following that additional input no final rule is scheduled to be in place until late 2012.
Despite these modest steps, many continue to mischaracterize this process – making unsubstantiated claims about the impact this will have on everything from industry to energy prices. This most recent effort simply underscores a willingness to ignore the facts to further an agenda that seeks to stop the EPA from sensible updates to the Clean Air Act.
I think that Dan Pfeiffer is upset that he doesn't completely control the message, and nefarious internet rumors abound are contradicting policy and official communication channels. Things aren't so clean and neat as Dan Pfeiffer would see them be. What wasn't really mentioned was the policies in place that would indeed "impact...everything from industry to energy prices." Those policies are standards and practices for any NEW energy production facilities.
For example, "The EPA also now requires greenhouse gas permitting for any new facilities permitted after January 1, 2011" is a fact. In addition, concerns for future plans are pretty clear in "January 12, 2011 - EPA announces its plan to defer, for three years, greenhouse gas (GHG) permitting requirements for carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from biomass-fired and other biogenic sources." It's not what they have done, but the concern for what they could do in the future will inevitably increase the costs of "industry to energy prices."
Here is a story on what Obama's current Health and Human Services Secretary. Kansas Governor Vetoes Bill to Revive 2 Coal-Fired Plants.
One thing that is related is no new power plants have been built that support clean-coal technology. This can be correlated with Obama policy with clean-coal technology.
Words from the man himself...
Watching the above video, you can ask what Dan Pfeiffers meant when he stated, "the source is questionable and the story is unquestionably false."
2/03/2011
Anti-Capitalists in Palm Springs, CA
Here is a lovely representative of the age of aquarius...
Andrew Breitbart talks to a protestor...
This one is pretty disgusting, represents the left well...about 2 min in is a nice man who missed Woodstock.
Leftist Protesters make death threats 'Hang' Clarence Thomas, 'Duel' With Beck
Andrew Breitbart talks to a protestor...
This one is pretty disgusting, represents the left well...about 2 min in is a nice man who missed Woodstock.
Leftist Protesters make death threats 'Hang' Clarence Thomas, 'Duel' With Beck
1/25/2011
Jesse Ventura Sues TSA in Pat-Down Smackdown
Odd guy, but I LOVE this!
Jesse Ventura Sues TSA in Pat-Down Smackdown
Former governor Jesse Ventura never shied away from a battle during his one term as Minnesota's chief executive.
Now, as a "television performer," as he describes himself in a new lawsuit, the former pro-wrestler is trying to launch a legal smackdown against the agencies that are supposed to protect the flying public.
In a complaint filed Monday morning in the U.S. District Court for Minnesota, Ventura is suing the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its secretary, Janet Napolitano, as well as the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), and its administrator, John Pistole.
Ventura accuses the agencies of violating his "basic rights to privacy and dignity, and his right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures," after he received a pat-down by a TSA agent at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport in November 2010.
Ventura, who said he has a titanium implant after hip replacement surgery in 2008, alleges the pat-down included "warrantless, non-suspicion-based offensive touching, gripping and rubbing of the genital and other sensitive areas of his body," which, the lawsuit contends, met "the definition for an unlawful sexual assault."
Ventura's Minneapolis-based attorney, David Olsen, told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS this afternoon, "The security procedures are going too far. There's a line somewhere and he believes that line has been crossed."
Olsen said Ventura no longer flies on commercial aviation because he is unwilling to submit to either a pat-down or a full-body scan, putting his job as host of cable television's Conspiracy Theory show, in jeopardy.
"He's made a decision that someone needs to make a stand and he's not one to back down from a fight," said Olsen. "He sees the erosion of civil liberties here and he's willing to stand up not only for himself, but for others."
A T.S.A. spokesperson said the agency "does not comment on pending litigation."
On its website, the T.S.A. says "Pat-downs are one important tool to help T.S.A. detect hidden and dangerous items such as explosives."
A message left at the D.H.S. in Washington, D.C. was not immediately returned.
In 2001, in the days after the September 11th terrorist attacks, then-Governor Ventura said increased scrutiny would be acceptable.
"We're at war and we're at war inside our own country," Ventura said on Sept. 27, 2001, "something we've never seen or heard of before inside the United States of America. I don't think you can be too careful and people are just going to have to accept a little bit of inconvenience."
http://kstp.com/news/stories/s1940324.shtml
Jesse Ventura Sues TSA in Pat-Down Smackdown
Former governor Jesse Ventura never shied away from a battle during his one term as Minnesota's chief executive.
Now, as a "television performer," as he describes himself in a new lawsuit, the former pro-wrestler is trying to launch a legal smackdown against the agencies that are supposed to protect the flying public.
In a complaint filed Monday morning in the U.S. District Court for Minnesota, Ventura is suing the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its secretary, Janet Napolitano, as well as the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), and its administrator, John Pistole.
Ventura accuses the agencies of violating his "basic rights to privacy and dignity, and his right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures," after he received a pat-down by a TSA agent at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport in November 2010.
Ventura, who said he has a titanium implant after hip replacement surgery in 2008, alleges the pat-down included "warrantless, non-suspicion-based offensive touching, gripping and rubbing of the genital and other sensitive areas of his body," which, the lawsuit contends, met "the definition for an unlawful sexual assault."
Ventura's Minneapolis-based attorney, David Olsen, told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS this afternoon, "The security procedures are going too far. There's a line somewhere and he believes that line has been crossed."
Olsen said Ventura no longer flies on commercial aviation because he is unwilling to submit to either a pat-down or a full-body scan, putting his job as host of cable television's Conspiracy Theory show, in jeopardy.
"He's made a decision that someone needs to make a stand and he's not one to back down from a fight," said Olsen. "He sees the erosion of civil liberties here and he's willing to stand up not only for himself, but for others."
A T.S.A. spokesperson said the agency "does not comment on pending litigation."
On its website, the T.S.A. says "Pat-downs are one important tool to help T.S.A. detect hidden and dangerous items such as explosives."
A message left at the D.H.S. in Washington, D.C. was not immediately returned.
In 2001, in the days after the September 11th terrorist attacks, then-Governor Ventura said increased scrutiny would be acceptable.
"We're at war and we're at war inside our own country," Ventura said on Sept. 27, 2001, "something we've never seen or heard of before inside the United States of America. I don't think you can be too careful and people are just going to have to accept a little bit of inconvenience."
http://kstp.com/news/stories/s1940324.shtml
1/20/2011
1/19/2011
And in la-la land...
Berkeley set to offer sex-change employee benefit
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/01/18/BA1P1HA3JL.DTL
But here is Berkley's track record in support of organizations that fight to protect the freedoms for wacky things like sex-changes...
THE FIGHT AGAINST COMPULSORY R.O.T.C.
http://www.fsm-a.org/stacks/AP_files/APCompulsROTC.html
Berkeley to Marines: You're 'not welcome in our city'
http://articles.cnn.com/2008-02-07/us/berkeley.protests_1_marine-recruiters-iraq-war-protesters?_s=PM:US
Berkeley Marine Corps Recruiting Center protests
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_Marine_Corps_Recruiting_Center_protests
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/01/18/BA1P1HA3JL.DTL
But here is Berkley's track record in support of organizations that fight to protect the freedoms for wacky things like sex-changes...
THE FIGHT AGAINST COMPULSORY R.O.T.C.
http://www.fsm-a.org/stacks/AP_files/APCompulsROTC.html
Berkeley to Marines: You're 'not welcome in our city'
http://articles.cnn.com/2008-02-07/us/berkeley.protests_1_marine-recruiters-iraq-war-protesters?_s=PM:US
Berkeley Marine Corps Recruiting Center protests
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_Marine_Corps_Recruiting_Center_protests
1/14/2011
1/12/2011
Ah, the liberal tollerance!
I thought it was just the right who was all hateful and violent?!
Death Threats Against Sarah Palin at 'Unprecedented Level,' Aides Say
Anti-Palin Posters Appear in SF
Death Threats Against Sarah Palin at 'Unprecedented Level,' Aides Say
Anti-Palin Posters Appear in SF
Obama fluffer is jealous!
Chris Matthews Cites Mark Levin Being Complicit In AZ Shooting
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2011/01/11/chris_matthews_cites_mark_levin_as_reason_for_az_shooting.html
I think Obama Fluffer mentions Levin and Savage because they have big ratings, and he is clearly jealous of that. With his lousy ratings, the only thing he can do is cry.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2011/01/11/chris_matthews_cites_mark_levin_as_reason_for_az_shooting.html
I think Obama Fluffer mentions Levin and Savage because they have big ratings, and he is clearly jealous of that. With his lousy ratings, the only thing he can do is cry.
1/10/2011
This weird fascination with Palin
In light of the Gifford tragic shooting, it would seem the left is going out of their way to demonize Palin as much as they can. Even though reports show the shooter's ideology not in line with tea party movement, or conservatism in general, the morons on the left are doing their best to associate Palin with things.
Here is an example...
Did Sarah Palin's Target Map Play Role in Giffords Shooting?
Questions about Sarah Palin’s ‘target’ map dominate Facebook
Maps with targets? Here is a write up regarding the Democrats use of such imagery...
http://michellemalkin.com/2011/01/08/horror-arizona-rep-gabrielle-giffords-6-others-murdered-at-tuscon-event/
These images are from Malkin's site. The first one is the one libs are yammering about with Palin.
This is am image from 2004 DNC targeting strategy.
The imagery looks the same to me. Lefties are hypocritical idiots.
Here is an example...
Did Sarah Palin's Target Map Play Role in Giffords Shooting?
Questions about Sarah Palin’s ‘target’ map dominate Facebook
Maps with targets? Here is a write up regarding the Democrats use of such imagery...
http://michellemalkin.com/2011/01/08/horror-arizona-rep-gabrielle-giffords-6-others-murdered-at-tuscon-event/
These images are from Malkin's site. The first one is the one libs are yammering about with Palin.
This is am image from 2004 DNC targeting strategy.
The imagery looks the same to me. Lefties are hypocritical idiots.
Megan Kelly owns idiot
In an attempt to politicize the tragic shooting by the Ari. Pima Co. Sheriff, Megan Kelly completely smacks him down at the end.
1/07/2011
Oh no! Liberals talking tough!
Boxer promises to use 'every single tool' to thwart GOP's climate rollback
This is the same moron...
Arrogant Barbara Boxer Tells Decorated Military Officer "Call Me Senator"
This is the same moron...
Arrogant Barbara Boxer Tells Decorated Military Officer "Call Me Senator"
'Illegal Immigrant' Term not Constitutional
A national group of journalists says the U.S. media should stop using the terms "illegal immigrant" and "illegal alien" because only a court of law - not reporters - can determine who is in the country illegally.
The Diversity Committee of the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) says its goal is to "inform and sensitize" members of the American media about how "offensive" the commonly-used terms are to Latinos.
Claiming the language likely "originated with fiery, anti-immigrant groups along the U.S.-Mexico border, such as the Minutemen", the group has embarked on a nationwide campaign to suggest the preferred phrasing of "undocumented worker".
http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2010/12/29/journalists-illegal-immigrant-term-not-constitutional/
The Diversity Committee of the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) says its goal is to "inform and sensitize" members of the American media about how "offensive" the commonly-used terms are to Latinos.
Claiming the language likely "originated with fiery, anti-immigrant groups along the U.S.-Mexico border, such as the Minutemen", the group has embarked on a nationwide campaign to suggest the preferred phrasing of "undocumented worker".
http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2010/12/29/journalists-illegal-immigrant-term-not-constitutional/
11/27/2010
11/25/2010
11/17/2010
Sarah Palin's happiness is what really irks liberals
Sarah Palin's happiness is what really irks liberals
Not that I wish to see the TLC show, I found the following dead on:
"But for her detractors, nothing raises the ire of cynical liberals more than a happy-go-lucky, totally unburdened, freethinking and self-assured conservative woman who has everything she wants and then some. And without anyone's help...Liberalism, after all, needs to imagine an unhappy populace. Passing sweeping entitlement programs and convincing voters that big government is the answer only works if people are frustrated with their stations in life...It isn't the angry, antiquated feminism of a Barbara Boxer. Or the pushy defiance of a Nancy Pelosi, who refuses to go quietly into that dark night. Or even the brash "I can make you regret being born" argumentativeness of an Ann Coulter."
That is so true!
Update:
I am sure this will get their panties in a bind!
Sarah Palin Says She Could Beat Obama
In Interview With Barbara Walters, Palin Says She Is Seriously Considering Entering Race in 2012
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/sarah-palin-thinking-running-president-tells-barbara-walters/story?id=12170631
Not that I wish to see the TLC show, I found the following dead on:
"But for her detractors, nothing raises the ire of cynical liberals more than a happy-go-lucky, totally unburdened, freethinking and self-assured conservative woman who has everything she wants and then some. And without anyone's help...Liberalism, after all, needs to imagine an unhappy populace. Passing sweeping entitlement programs and convincing voters that big government is the answer only works if people are frustrated with their stations in life...It isn't the angry, antiquated feminism of a Barbara Boxer. Or the pushy defiance of a Nancy Pelosi, who refuses to go quietly into that dark night. Or even the brash "I can make you regret being born" argumentativeness of an Ann Coulter."
That is so true!
Update:
I am sure this will get their panties in a bind!
Sarah Palin Says She Could Beat Obama
In Interview With Barbara Walters, Palin Says She Is Seriously Considering Entering Race in 2012
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/sarah-palin-thinking-running-president-tells-barbara-walters/story?id=12170631
Flying while American
You have the right to be felt up, and the right to have your junk exposed! In the United States of Paranoia the TSA has new guidelines for what they call "enhanced security" these days. Because you are guilty of being an American, the TSA will be more than happy to sexually assault your child and stare at a picture of your privates. Remember, this is all in the name of your own safety! The government's new job is to be even more repressive to travelers because they are guilty of flying while American!
Here is a compilation of violators and what was done to deal with the trouble makers.
A man with a tattoo of "atom bomb" on his hands is pulled aside by the TSA for questioning.
L.A. food stylist pulled from flight for 'Atom Bomb' tattoo
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/dailydish/2010/11/la-food-stylist-pulled-from-flight-for-atom-bomb-tattoo.html
This is the dirty, rotten Al Qaeda criminal...
EDITORIAL: Big Sister's police state TSA's tyrannical tactics threaten American freedoms
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/nov/16/big-sisters-police-state/
What Happens if You Decline a Full Body Scan?
http://news.travel.aol.com/2010/11/15/what-happens-if-you-decline-a-full-body-scan/
DA promises to prosecute overly touchy pat downs
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local/peninsula&id=7793386
Napolitano: The Ball's In My Court Now
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=40058
Sanford Airport to opt out of TSA screening
http://wdbo.com/localnews/2010/11/sanford-airport-to-opt-out-of.html
TSA pats down a screaming toddler
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfmoms/detail?entry_id=77140&tsp=1
This one is particularly interesting because it includes a video a good took of the event and it is responsible for the recent exposure of TSA practices. The pathetic thing is Napolitano mentions images are not retained or transmitted. I do not know about the transmission, but retention is a flat out LIE.
Napolitano 'open' to fliers' gripes over screening
http://www.usatoday.com/travel/flights/2010-11-16-airportpatdowns16_ST_N.htm
To expand upon abuses of the images and point out Napolitano is full of crap, here are a few stories.
US Marshals admit to keeping 30K naked images
http://www.suite101.com/content/feds-lied-to-us-feds-keep-naked-images-of-us-body-scans-a270039
Airport staff 'exposed woman's breasts, laughed'
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/travel/news/airport-staff-exposed-womans-breasts-laughed/story-e6frg8ro-1225955345734
Man detained, threatened and abused by TSA for flying with $4700 in cash
http://boingboing.net/2009/04/05/man-detained-threate.html
Something I put together awhile back
http://poliranting.blogspot.com/2010/02/bodu-scanner-machines-in-uk-airports.html
The sad thing about all of this, with the enhanced security which involves humiliating sexual assault and taking pictures of your junk, is it effective? That fancy new imaging machine would not have caught that underwear bomber. It won't stop some kind of foreign object stuff into some body cavity. All of the unnecessary groping won't stop that. Instead we have people getting their breasts and genital areas felt up. Think about the humiliating procedure given to someone disabled, or if there are religious considerations?
What gives the TSA officer the authority to give you a happy ending in the airport? The federal government is asserting the power way too much. Ironically, illegal aliens come into this country all of the time...but they are not guilty of flying while American.
Solutions?
I found this interesting article comparing Israeli security vs American.
"But here it is done completely, absolutely 180 degrees differently than it is done in North America."
http://www.thestar.com/iphone/news/world/article/744199---israelification-high-security-little-bother
One of the main differences was the use of passenger profiling. The disgusting thing about that is if profiling is practiced, it is considered "unconstitutional" by liberals and other politically correct losers. As if what they are doing now isn't unconstitutional, demeaning, and disgusting.
One of my biggest concerns is this:
1) The radiation from those machines is said to be harmless, but airline employees are exposed to it more frequently. What are the long term effects? Didn't the government deny agent orange and gulf war syndrome as harmful?
2) Those pictures are clearly not deleted immediately. What if those images are obtained by some sick-o pedophile?
Here is a compilation of violators and what was done to deal with the trouble makers.
A man with a tattoo of "atom bomb" on his hands is pulled aside by the TSA for questioning.
L.A. food stylist pulled from flight for 'Atom Bomb' tattoo
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/dailydish/2010/11/la-food-stylist-pulled-from-flight-for-atom-bomb-tattoo.html
This is the dirty, rotten Al Qaeda criminal...
EDITORIAL: Big Sister's police state TSA's tyrannical tactics threaten American freedoms
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/nov/16/big-sisters-police-state/
What Happens if You Decline a Full Body Scan?
http://news.travel.aol.com/2010/11/15/what-happens-if-you-decline-a-full-body-scan/
DA promises to prosecute overly touchy pat downs
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local/peninsula&id=7793386
Napolitano: The Ball's In My Court Now
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=40058
Sanford Airport to opt out of TSA screening
http://wdbo.com/localnews/2010/11/sanford-airport-to-opt-out-of.html
TSA pats down a screaming toddler
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfmoms/detail?entry_id=77140&tsp=1
This one is particularly interesting because it includes a video a good took of the event and it is responsible for the recent exposure of TSA practices. The pathetic thing is Napolitano mentions images are not retained or transmitted. I do not know about the transmission, but retention is a flat out LIE.
Napolitano 'open' to fliers' gripes over screening
http://www.usatoday.com/travel/flights/2010-11-16-airportpatdowns16_ST_N.htm
To expand upon abuses of the images and point out Napolitano is full of crap, here are a few stories.
US Marshals admit to keeping 30K naked images
http://www.suite101.com/content/feds-lied-to-us-feds-keep-naked-images-of-us-body-scans-a270039
Airport staff 'exposed woman's breasts, laughed'
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/travel/news/airport-staff-exposed-womans-breasts-laughed/story-e6frg8ro-1225955345734
Man detained, threatened and abused by TSA for flying with $4700 in cash
http://boingboing.net/2009/04/05/man-detained-threate.html
Something I put together awhile back
http://poliranting.blogspot.com/2010/02/bodu-scanner-machines-in-uk-airports.html
The sad thing about all of this, with the enhanced security which involves humiliating sexual assault and taking pictures of your junk, is it effective? That fancy new imaging machine would not have caught that underwear bomber. It won't stop some kind of foreign object stuff into some body cavity. All of the unnecessary groping won't stop that. Instead we have people getting their breasts and genital areas felt up. Think about the humiliating procedure given to someone disabled, or if there are religious considerations?
What gives the TSA officer the authority to give you a happy ending in the airport? The federal government is asserting the power way too much. Ironically, illegal aliens come into this country all of the time...but they are not guilty of flying while American.
Solutions?
I found this interesting article comparing Israeli security vs American.
"But here it is done completely, absolutely 180 degrees differently than it is done in North America."
http://www.thestar.com/iphone/news/world/article/744199---israelification-high-security-little-bother
One of the main differences was the use of passenger profiling. The disgusting thing about that is if profiling is practiced, it is considered "unconstitutional" by liberals and other politically correct losers. As if what they are doing now isn't unconstitutional, demeaning, and disgusting.
One of my biggest concerns is this:
1) The radiation from those machines is said to be harmless, but airline employees are exposed to it more frequently. What are the long term effects? Didn't the government deny agent orange and gulf war syndrome as harmful?
2) Those pictures are clearly not deleted immediately. What if those images are obtained by some sick-o pedophile?
11/09/2010
11/08/2010
Defeated Democrats Pen Letter to Implore Pelosi to step aside
FOX Exclusive: Defeated Democrats Pen Letter to Implore Pelosi to step aside
This is too funny! First, they are eating their own in light of the elections. Second, In the draft of the letter, the members say that they were "victimized by a national wave of resentment toward Democrats, a wave that ensnared you along with us." Their draft of the letter included liberals crying out "I am a victim! Woe is me!"
This is too funny! First, they are eating their own in light of the elections. Second, In the draft of the letter, the members say that they were "victimized by a national wave of resentment toward Democrats, a wave that ensnared you along with us." Their draft of the letter included liberals crying out "I am a victim! Woe is me!"
11/05/2010
Olbermann suspended for Dem contributions
MSNBC talentless hack Olberman busted! Now he's a hypocritical talentless hack!
UPDATE: Olbermann suspended for Dem contributions
Here is Olberman yipping about Fox News doing the same thing:
VIDEO: Olbermann Blasted Fox News...for Making Political Donations!
UPDATE: Olbermann suspended for Dem contributions
Here is Olberman yipping about Fox News doing the same thing:
VIDEO: Olbermann Blasted Fox News...for Making Political Donations!
11/03/2010
2010 GOP to Obama=Eat Crow!
Obama stated the debate is over because "I won" (0:12 in the video)...Pelosi, 'Yes, we wrote the bill. Yes, we won the election" (0:19 in the video).
Now the wealth re-distributor in Chief can eat crow. Now it's time to hold the GOP to their campaign promises. No compromises to a Marxist.
Now the wealth re-distributor in Chief can eat crow. Now it's time to hold the GOP to their campaign promises. No compromises to a Marxist.
That Thrill Isn't Tingly Anymore
Poor Obama fluffer is flustered about the icky GOP wins. This video has the best sign I have seen in awhile.
I don't think Michele Bachmann is hypnotized at all. I think she recognizes what a utter joke that MSNBC panel is and finds their stupid questions not deserving of taking seriously. Why would one want to treat a laughing stock of a news organization in any serious fashion?
Once fluffer and his panel of losers are done crying about the election they can go on over analyzing what makes them suck in great detail.
I don't think Michele Bachmann is hypnotized at all. I think she recognizes what a utter joke that MSNBC panel is and finds their stupid questions not deserving of taking seriously. Why would one want to treat a laughing stock of a news organization in any serious fashion?
Once fluffer and his panel of losers are done crying about the election they can go on over analyzing what makes them suck in great detail.
10/30/2010
Funny Chris Matthews video
If Obama fluffer was doing his job as fluffer, he would look less of an ass like he does in the video!
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/nazi-nazi-nazi-chris-matthews-amazing-hypocrisy-called-tea-party-nazis-all-week/
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/nazi-nazi-nazi-chris-matthews-amazing-hypocrisy-called-tea-party-nazis-all-week/
Obama urges 'steps' after election, calls GOP stance 'troubling'
Funny, I don't remember too much concern when Obama's opponents might have called the TARP, UAW, and bank bailouts troubling. I don't recall too much concern when polls showed people against health care, cap and trade, and his additions to the deficit troubling.
Obama urges 'steps' after election, calls GOP stance 'troubling'
By Vicki Needham - 10/30/10 06:00 AM ET
President Obama urged Republicans and Democrats to work together to solve the nation's economic issues regardless of the outcome of Tuesday's midterm elections.
In his weekly address Saturday, Obama called recent comments made by two Republican leaders “troubling.”
Obama urges 'steps' after election, calls GOP stance 'troubling'
By Vicki Needham - 10/30/10 06:00 AM ET
President Obama urged Republicans and Democrats to work together to solve the nation's economic issues regardless of the outcome of Tuesday's midterm elections.
In his weekly address Saturday, Obama called recent comments made by two Republican leaders “troubling.”
ABC upholds it's jouranlistic integrity!
Source: ABC's newsroom upset with decision to tap Andrew Breitbart
(The PlumLine) — It looks like lefty bloggers aren’t the only ones irked by ABC News’s decision to tap Andrew Breitbart for election-night analysis: People in ABC’s newsroom were also caught completely off guard by the news, a newsroom source tells me.
“This blindsided a good portion of the team here,” the source emails. “And not in a good way.”
ABC News has confirmed Breitbart’s announcement that he will be bringing analysis live from Arizona on election eve, along with Dana Loesch, the editor of Breitbart’s Web site Big Journalism.
The news kicked off a round of criticism from liberal bloggers who pointed out that Breitbart is an unabashed right-wing activist with a known history of trafficking in distortions and falsehoods, most recently the heavily edited and subsequently debunked video supposedly showing racially-charged comments by Shirley Sherrod.
ABC’s David Ford has now justified the decision this way:
“He will be one of many voices on our air, including Bill Adair of Politifact. If Andrew Breitbart says something that is incorrect, we have other voices to call him on it.”
The problem with this, of course, is that it suggests that ABC thinks it’s very possible Breitbart may try to mislead viewers — but that this won’t be a problem because someone else will be there to correct him. You can see why the network’s professional journalists might be unhappy about this.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/plum-line/2010/10/source_abcs_newsroom_upset_wit.html
While ABC touts is BS concern about Andrew Breitbart distorting the news, let us remember that is was ABC's fantastic journalistic integrity that put Dan Rather out of a job in 2004. Dan Rather stood by the assertions made in the discredited story of forged memos regarding President Bush's National Guard record.
On September 8, 2004, Dan Rather cited “exclusive information, including documents” to justify major CBS Evening News and 60 Minutes stories alleging that George W. Bush shirked his duties when he was in the Texas Air National Guard in the 1960s and 1970s. Within a few hours of those documents being posted on CBS News’ Web site, however, typography experts voiced skepticism that the documents had actually originated with their alleged author and Bush’s former commanding officer, the late Lt. Colonel Jerry Killian.
As the evidence mounted, Rather stubbornly clung to the idea that his story was bulletproof, and he derided critics as partisans and Internet rumormongers. When he “apologized” on September 20, Rather would not concede that the documents were forgeries, only that he and CBS could “no longer vouch for their authenticity.” On November 23, 2004, CBS announced that Rather would soon be leaving his job as anchor of the CBS Evening News. An investigative report released on January 10, 2005 faulted CBS’s rush to put the flawed story on the air and their “stubborn” defense in the days that followed, but oddly decided that they could not blame partisan bias.
http://www.mediaresearch.org/profiles/rather/crisis.asp
Fast forward to 2010, and ABC worries about integrity in the news?! It's utterly laughable. There is a reason their ratings are in the tank. True 24 hour news channels have taken a hit, but another reason is the liberal bias that is all too obvious.
I won't call Breitbart a man without a slant, but the truth is he represents the antithesis to traditional "liberal" media. They know that, and are threatened by him.
(The PlumLine) — It looks like lefty bloggers aren’t the only ones irked by ABC News’s decision to tap Andrew Breitbart for election-night analysis: People in ABC’s newsroom were also caught completely off guard by the news, a newsroom source tells me.
“This blindsided a good portion of the team here,” the source emails. “And not in a good way.”
ABC News has confirmed Breitbart’s announcement that he will be bringing analysis live from Arizona on election eve, along with Dana Loesch, the editor of Breitbart’s Web site Big Journalism.
The news kicked off a round of criticism from liberal bloggers who pointed out that Breitbart is an unabashed right-wing activist with a known history of trafficking in distortions and falsehoods, most recently the heavily edited and subsequently debunked video supposedly showing racially-charged comments by Shirley Sherrod.
ABC’s David Ford has now justified the decision this way:
“He will be one of many voices on our air, including Bill Adair of Politifact. If Andrew Breitbart says something that is incorrect, we have other voices to call him on it.”
The problem with this, of course, is that it suggests that ABC thinks it’s very possible Breitbart may try to mislead viewers — but that this won’t be a problem because someone else will be there to correct him. You can see why the network’s professional journalists might be unhappy about this.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/plum-line/2010/10/source_abcs_newsroom_upset_wit.html
While ABC touts is BS concern about Andrew Breitbart distorting the news, let us remember that is was ABC's fantastic journalistic integrity that put Dan Rather out of a job in 2004. Dan Rather stood by the assertions made in the discredited story of forged memos regarding President Bush's National Guard record.
On September 8, 2004, Dan Rather cited “exclusive information, including documents” to justify major CBS Evening News and 60 Minutes stories alleging that George W. Bush shirked his duties when he was in the Texas Air National Guard in the 1960s and 1970s. Within a few hours of those documents being posted on CBS News’ Web site, however, typography experts voiced skepticism that the documents had actually originated with their alleged author and Bush’s former commanding officer, the late Lt. Colonel Jerry Killian.
As the evidence mounted, Rather stubbornly clung to the idea that his story was bulletproof, and he derided critics as partisans and Internet rumormongers. When he “apologized” on September 20, Rather would not concede that the documents were forgeries, only that he and CBS could “no longer vouch for their authenticity.” On November 23, 2004, CBS announced that Rather would soon be leaving his job as anchor of the CBS Evening News. An investigative report released on January 10, 2005 faulted CBS’s rush to put the flawed story on the air and their “stubborn” defense in the days that followed, but oddly decided that they could not blame partisan bias.
http://www.mediaresearch.org/profiles/rather/crisis.asp
Fast forward to 2010, and ABC worries about integrity in the news?! It's utterly laughable. There is a reason their ratings are in the tank. True 24 hour news channels have taken a hit, but another reason is the liberal bias that is all too obvious.
I won't call Breitbart a man without a slant, but the truth is he represents the antithesis to traditional "liberal" media. They know that, and are threatened by him.
10/19/2010
10/15/2010
Media bias: Washington Compost
Headline: Few signs at tea party rally expressed racially charged anti-Obama themes
Where the article states, "Only 5 percent of the total mentioned the president's race or religion, and slightly more than 1 percent questioned his American citizenship" you'd think this would be a more appropriate headline:
95% of signs at tea party rally expressed no charged anti-Obama themes
Then again, we are talking about the Washington Compost here.
Where the article states, "Only 5 percent of the total mentioned the president's race or religion, and slightly more than 1 percent questioned his American citizenship" you'd think this would be a more appropriate headline:
95% of signs at tea party rally expressed no charged anti-Obama themes
Then again, we are talking about the Washington Compost here.
10/12/2010
SEIU member speaks out
This interview explains the problem with labor unions in the US, in which he differentiates between the members expectations and what their leadership is doing (or not doing).
Aww...poor George Soros
Soros: I Can’t Stop a Republican ‘Avalanche’
By SEWELL CHAN
George Soros, the billionaire financier who was an energetic Democratic donor in the last several election cycles but is sitting this one out, is not feeling optimistic about Democratic prospects.
“I made an exception getting involved in 2004,” Mr. Soros, 80, said in a brief interview Friday at a forum sponsored by the Bretton Woods Committee, which promotes understanding of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
“And since I didn’t succeed in 2004, I remained engaged in 2006 and 2008. But I’m basically not a party man. I’d just been forced into that situation by what I considered the excesses of the Bush administration.”
Mr. Soros, a champion of liberal causes, has been directing his money to groups that work on health care and the environment, rather than electoral politics. Asked if the prospect of Republican control of one or both houses of Congress concerned him, he said: “It does, because I think they are pushing the wrong policies, but I’m not in a position to stop it. I don’t believe in standing in the way of an avalanche.”
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/11/soros-i-cant-stop-a-republican-avalanche/?pagemode=print
By SEWELL CHAN
George Soros, the billionaire financier who was an energetic Democratic donor in the last several election cycles but is sitting this one out, is not feeling optimistic about Democratic prospects.
“I made an exception getting involved in 2004,” Mr. Soros, 80, said in a brief interview Friday at a forum sponsored by the Bretton Woods Committee, which promotes understanding of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
“And since I didn’t succeed in 2004, I remained engaged in 2006 and 2008. But I’m basically not a party man. I’d just been forced into that situation by what I considered the excesses of the Bush administration.”
Mr. Soros, a champion of liberal causes, has been directing his money to groups that work on health care and the environment, rather than electoral politics. Asked if the prospect of Republican control of one or both houses of Congress concerned him, he said: “It does, because I think they are pushing the wrong policies, but I’m not in a position to stop it. I don’t believe in standing in the way of an avalanche.”
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/11/soros-i-cant-stop-a-republican-avalanche/?pagemode=print
10/11/2010
Racist Republicans?
“In this election, Republicans are running more blacks in white majority districts than Democrats are”
Yet Obama, the one who promise of a "post-racial America," states "Republicans Are Counting On Black Folks Staying Home"
I am confused.
Yet Obama, the one who promise of a "post-racial America," states "Republicans Are Counting On Black Folks Staying Home"
I am confused.
10/06/2010
NY Post to dirty masses: Don't read, liberal elites know what's best for you
The NY Post has been nice enough to point out the old, irrelevant ideas that the tea party folks read about is silly. How dare the rabble read such documents! The unwashed need not read such things. They have no grasp of it's meaning, and it's up to legal scholars to interpret these things for you!
These ideas are obscure because they do not promote Government redistribution of wealth. How dare they embrace the 10th Amendment! That puts a cap on federal power and leaves undefined rights to the states. That contradicts the big Government that we need!
I believe the NY Times would rather have us ignore these stodgy old texts, and we should be reading more contemporary works like Vladimir Lenin, Mao Zedong, or Karl Marx (yes, I know Marx is 1848 or so :p).
Movement of the Moment Looks to Long-Ago Texts
By KATE ZERNIKE
The Tea Party is a thoroughly modern movement, organizing on Twitter and Facebook to become the most dynamic force of the midterm elections.
But when it comes to ideology, it has reached back to dusty bookshelves for long-dormant ideas.
It has resurrected once-obscure texts by dead writers — in some cases elevating them to best-seller status — to form a kind of Tea Party canon. Recommended by Tea Party icons like Ron Paul and Glenn Beck, the texts are being quoted everywhere from protest signs to Republican Party platforms.
Pamphlets in the Tea Party bid for a Second American Revolution, the works include Frédéric Bastiat’s “The Law,” published in 1850, which proclaimed that taxing people to pay for schools or roads was government-sanctioned theft, and Friedrich Hayek’s “Road to Serfdom” (1944), which argued that a government that intervened in the economy would inevitably intervene in every aspect of its citizens’ lives.
The relative newcomer is “The 5000 Year Leap,” self-published in 1981 by an anti-communist crusader shunned by his fellow Mormons for his more controversial positions, including a hearty defense of the John Birch Society. It asserts that the Founding Fathers had not intended separation of church and state, and would have considered taxes to provide for the welfare of others “a sin.”
If their arguments can be out there (like getting rid of the 17th Amendment, which established the direct election of senators by popular vote) or out of date (Bastiat warned that if government taxed wine and tobacco, “beggars and vagabonds will demand the right to vote”), the works have provided intellectual ballast for a segment of the electorate angry or frustrated about the economy and the growing reach of government.
They have convinced their readers that economists, the Founding Fathers, and indeed, God, are on their side when they accuse President Obama and the Democrats of being “socialists.” And they have established a counternarrative to what Tea Party supporters denounce as the “progressive” interpretation of economics and history in mainstream texts.
All told, the canon argues for a vision of the country where government’s role is to protect private property — against taxes as much as against thieves. Where religion plays a bigger role in public life. Where any public safety net is unconstitutional. And where the way back to prosperity is for markets to be left free from regulation.
As the Tea Party has exerted increasing force over American politics, the influence of the books has shown up in many ways.
Representative Paul D. Ryan, Republican of Wisconsin, alluded to “The Road to Serfdom” in introducing his economic “Roadmap for America’s Future,” which many other Republicans have embraced. Ron Johnson, who entered politics through a Tea Party meeting and is now the Republican nominee for Senate in Wisconsin, asserted that the $20 billion escrow fund that the Obama administration forced BP to set up to pay damages from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill circumvented “the rule of law,” Hayek’s term for the unwritten code that prohibits the government from interfering with the pursuit of “personal ends and desires.”
Justin Amash, the 30-year-old Republican state legislator running for the House seat once held by Gerald Ford in Michigan, frequently posts links to essays by Hayek and Bastiat on his Facebook page, his chief vehicle for communicating with voters. “There is no single economist or philosopher I admire more than F. A. Hayek,” he wrote in May. “I have his portrait on the wall of my legislative office and the Justin Amash for Congress office.”
In Maine, Tea Party activists jammed the state Republican convention last spring to reject the party platform, replacing it with one that urged “a return to the principles of Austrian economics,” as espoused by Hayek, and the belief that “freedom of religion does not mean freedom from religion.” The new platform also embraced the idea that “it is immoral to steal the property earned by one individual and give it to another who has no claim or right to its benefits” — a line ripped from Bastiat’s jeremiad against taxation and welfare.
The Tea Party canon includes other works, some of them unlikely. Organizers have promoted “Rules for Radicals,” by Saul D. Alinsky, as a primer on community organizing tactics, and “The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations,” by Ori Brafman and Rod A. Beckstrom, an argument for the strength of movements built around ideas rather than leaders.
But the ideological works tend to draw heavily on the classics of Austrian economics (Hayek, Bastiat and Ludwig von Mises) and on works arguing for a new perspective on the Constitution and the Founding Fathers. (“The 5000 Year Leap,” “The Real George Washington” and “The Real Thomas Jefferson.”)
Doug Bramley, a postal worker and Tea Party activist in Maine, picked up “The Road to Serfdom” after Mr. Beck mentioned it on air in June. (Next up for Mr. Bramley, another classic of libertarian thought: “I’ve got to read ‘Atlas Shrugged,’ ” he said.) He found Hayek “dense reading,” but he loved “The 5000 Year Leap.”
“You don’t read it,” Mr. Bramley said, “you study it.”
Across the country, many Tea Party groups are doing just that, often taking a chapter to discuss at each meeting.
The book was published in 1981 by W. Cleon Skousen, a former Salt Lake City police chief who had a best seller in “The Naked Communist” in the 1960s, and died in 2006 at the age of 92. “The 5000 Year Leap” hit the top of the Amazon rankings in 2009 after Mr. Beck put it on his list for the 9/12 groups, his brand of Tea Party.
It spins the Constitution in a way most legal scholars would not recognize — even those who embrace an “originalist” interpretation.
It argues that the Founding Fathers were guided by 28 “principles of liberty,” above all, a belief that government should be based on “Natural Law,” or “a code of right reason from the Creator himself.” The founders, Skousen wrote, believed in the equal protection of rights, but not the equal distribution of things — an argument that many Tea Party activists now make against the health care overhaul passed in March.
“One of the worst sins of government, according to the Founders, was the exercise of coercive taxing powers to take property from one group and give it to another,” he wrote.
“Leap” argues that when Jefferson spoke of a “wall of separation between church and state,” he was referring only to the federal government, and was in fact “anxious” for the state governments to promote religion. In Skousen’s interpretation, public schools should be used for religious study, and should encourage Bible reading.
It is from this book that many Tea Party supporters and candidates have argued for repeal of the 17th Amendment. Prior to the amendment, state legislators elected United States senators. “Since that time,” Skousen wrote, “there has been no veto power which the states could exercise against the Congress in those cases where a federal statute was deemed in violation of states’ rights.”
Neither Hayek nor Bastiat were writing with the United States in mind. But their arguments, too, have become fodder for a movement that believes that government intervention is the wrong solution to the country’s economic woes — and is, in fact, the problem, resulting in runaway national debt.
Hayek, who won the Nobel Prize in economic sciences in 1974, argued that when a government begins any kind of central economic planning, it must decide which needs are more and less important, and therefore ends up controlling every aspect of its citizens lives.
Bastiat called taxation “legal plunder,” allowing the government to take something from one person and use it for the benefit of someone else, “doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime.” In his view, protective tariffs, subsidies, progressive taxation, public schools, a minimum wage, and public assistance programs were of a piece. “All of these plans as a whole,” he wrote, “constitute socialism.”
The works are more suited to protest than to policy making, as Bastiat himself recognized. “If you wish to be strong, begin by rooting out every particle of socialism that may have crept into your legislation,” he urged. “This will be no light task.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/02/us/politics/02teaparty.html?_r=4&pagewanted=print
These ideas are obscure because they do not promote Government redistribution of wealth. How dare they embrace the 10th Amendment! That puts a cap on federal power and leaves undefined rights to the states. That contradicts the big Government that we need!
I believe the NY Times would rather have us ignore these stodgy old texts, and we should be reading more contemporary works like Vladimir Lenin, Mao Zedong, or Karl Marx (yes, I know Marx is 1848 or so :p).
Movement of the Moment Looks to Long-Ago Texts
By KATE ZERNIKE
The Tea Party is a thoroughly modern movement, organizing on Twitter and Facebook to become the most dynamic force of the midterm elections.
But when it comes to ideology, it has reached back to dusty bookshelves for long-dormant ideas.
It has resurrected once-obscure texts by dead writers — in some cases elevating them to best-seller status — to form a kind of Tea Party canon. Recommended by Tea Party icons like Ron Paul and Glenn Beck, the texts are being quoted everywhere from protest signs to Republican Party platforms.
Pamphlets in the Tea Party bid for a Second American Revolution, the works include Frédéric Bastiat’s “The Law,” published in 1850, which proclaimed that taxing people to pay for schools or roads was government-sanctioned theft, and Friedrich Hayek’s “Road to Serfdom” (1944), which argued that a government that intervened in the economy would inevitably intervene in every aspect of its citizens’ lives.
The relative newcomer is “The 5000 Year Leap,” self-published in 1981 by an anti-communist crusader shunned by his fellow Mormons for his more controversial positions, including a hearty defense of the John Birch Society. It asserts that the Founding Fathers had not intended separation of church and state, and would have considered taxes to provide for the welfare of others “a sin.”
If their arguments can be out there (like getting rid of the 17th Amendment, which established the direct election of senators by popular vote) or out of date (Bastiat warned that if government taxed wine and tobacco, “beggars and vagabonds will demand the right to vote”), the works have provided intellectual ballast for a segment of the electorate angry or frustrated about the economy and the growing reach of government.
They have convinced their readers that economists, the Founding Fathers, and indeed, God, are on their side when they accuse President Obama and the Democrats of being “socialists.” And they have established a counternarrative to what Tea Party supporters denounce as the “progressive” interpretation of economics and history in mainstream texts.
All told, the canon argues for a vision of the country where government’s role is to protect private property — against taxes as much as against thieves. Where religion plays a bigger role in public life. Where any public safety net is unconstitutional. And where the way back to prosperity is for markets to be left free from regulation.
As the Tea Party has exerted increasing force over American politics, the influence of the books has shown up in many ways.
Representative Paul D. Ryan, Republican of Wisconsin, alluded to “The Road to Serfdom” in introducing his economic “Roadmap for America’s Future,” which many other Republicans have embraced. Ron Johnson, who entered politics through a Tea Party meeting and is now the Republican nominee for Senate in Wisconsin, asserted that the $20 billion escrow fund that the Obama administration forced BP to set up to pay damages from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill circumvented “the rule of law,” Hayek’s term for the unwritten code that prohibits the government from interfering with the pursuit of “personal ends and desires.”
Justin Amash, the 30-year-old Republican state legislator running for the House seat once held by Gerald Ford in Michigan, frequently posts links to essays by Hayek and Bastiat on his Facebook page, his chief vehicle for communicating with voters. “There is no single economist or philosopher I admire more than F. A. Hayek,” he wrote in May. “I have his portrait on the wall of my legislative office and the Justin Amash for Congress office.”
In Maine, Tea Party activists jammed the state Republican convention last spring to reject the party platform, replacing it with one that urged “a return to the principles of Austrian economics,” as espoused by Hayek, and the belief that “freedom of religion does not mean freedom from religion.” The new platform also embraced the idea that “it is immoral to steal the property earned by one individual and give it to another who has no claim or right to its benefits” — a line ripped from Bastiat’s jeremiad against taxation and welfare.
The Tea Party canon includes other works, some of them unlikely. Organizers have promoted “Rules for Radicals,” by Saul D. Alinsky, as a primer on community organizing tactics, and “The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations,” by Ori Brafman and Rod A. Beckstrom, an argument for the strength of movements built around ideas rather than leaders.
But the ideological works tend to draw heavily on the classics of Austrian economics (Hayek, Bastiat and Ludwig von Mises) and on works arguing for a new perspective on the Constitution and the Founding Fathers. (“The 5000 Year Leap,” “The Real George Washington” and “The Real Thomas Jefferson.”)
Doug Bramley, a postal worker and Tea Party activist in Maine, picked up “The Road to Serfdom” after Mr. Beck mentioned it on air in June. (Next up for Mr. Bramley, another classic of libertarian thought: “I’ve got to read ‘Atlas Shrugged,’ ” he said.) He found Hayek “dense reading,” but he loved “The 5000 Year Leap.”
“You don’t read it,” Mr. Bramley said, “you study it.”
Across the country, many Tea Party groups are doing just that, often taking a chapter to discuss at each meeting.
The book was published in 1981 by W. Cleon Skousen, a former Salt Lake City police chief who had a best seller in “The Naked Communist” in the 1960s, and died in 2006 at the age of 92. “The 5000 Year Leap” hit the top of the Amazon rankings in 2009 after Mr. Beck put it on his list for the 9/12 groups, his brand of Tea Party.
It spins the Constitution in a way most legal scholars would not recognize — even those who embrace an “originalist” interpretation.
It argues that the Founding Fathers were guided by 28 “principles of liberty,” above all, a belief that government should be based on “Natural Law,” or “a code of right reason from the Creator himself.” The founders, Skousen wrote, believed in the equal protection of rights, but not the equal distribution of things — an argument that many Tea Party activists now make against the health care overhaul passed in March.
“One of the worst sins of government, according to the Founders, was the exercise of coercive taxing powers to take property from one group and give it to another,” he wrote.
“Leap” argues that when Jefferson spoke of a “wall of separation between church and state,” he was referring only to the federal government, and was in fact “anxious” for the state governments to promote religion. In Skousen’s interpretation, public schools should be used for religious study, and should encourage Bible reading.
It is from this book that many Tea Party supporters and candidates have argued for repeal of the 17th Amendment. Prior to the amendment, state legislators elected United States senators. “Since that time,” Skousen wrote, “there has been no veto power which the states could exercise against the Congress in those cases where a federal statute was deemed in violation of states’ rights.”
Neither Hayek nor Bastiat were writing with the United States in mind. But their arguments, too, have become fodder for a movement that believes that government intervention is the wrong solution to the country’s economic woes — and is, in fact, the problem, resulting in runaway national debt.
Hayek, who won the Nobel Prize in economic sciences in 1974, argued that when a government begins any kind of central economic planning, it must decide which needs are more and less important, and therefore ends up controlling every aspect of its citizens lives.
Bastiat called taxation “legal plunder,” allowing the government to take something from one person and use it for the benefit of someone else, “doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime.” In his view, protective tariffs, subsidies, progressive taxation, public schools, a minimum wage, and public assistance programs were of a piece. “All of these plans as a whole,” he wrote, “constitute socialism.”
The works are more suited to protest than to policy making, as Bastiat himself recognized. “If you wish to be strong, begin by rooting out every particle of socialism that may have crept into your legislation,” he urged. “This will be no light task.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/02/us/politics/02teaparty.html?_r=4&pagewanted=print
10/04/2010
10/03/2010
10/2 "One Nation Working Together" Commie Rally
Liberal ‘One Nation Working Together’ rally leaves Lincoln Memorial ridden with trash, much dirtier than Glenn Beck’s ‘Restoring Honor’ rally
Disgusting pieces of human excrement left their trash at the WWII memorial...
Here is more of their "legacy"...
Here are some more amusing videos...
Obama Ain't No Socialist -- We Are, We Are!
Disgusting pieces of human excrement left their trash at the WWII memorial...
Here is more of their "legacy"...
Here are some more amusing videos...
Obama Ain't No Socialist -- We Are, We Are!
9/30/2010
Security officials gather and giggle at naked travelers in body scanner
Now showing at MMIA: Nude images of passengers
Security officials gather and giggle at naked travelers in body scanner
By Chinedu Eze , 09.20.2010
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
The 3D full-body scanners procured for thorough body check of passengers at the nation's major airports for security reasons are now being abused by security officials from the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), THISDAY can confirm.
They use the machines, installed in the wake of the Farouk AbdulMutallab affair, to watch the naked images of female passengers for fun.
The controversial body scanners have been dubbed "e-stripping" in advanced countries because of the way they expose the nakedness of those being screened.
THISDAY discovered that during off-peak periods, the aviation security officials, who are trained on the use of the scanners, usually stroll from the cubicle located in a hidden corner on the right side of the screening area where the 3D full-body scanner monitors are located.
They do so to catch a glimpse of some of the passengers entering the machine and immediately go back to view the naked images, in order to match the faces with the images since the faces are blurred on the monitors while passengers are inside the machine.
The face that appears on the scanner's monitor is usually blurred so that the operator viewing the full body will not recognise who passes through the machine.
But by coming out to see the passenger in person and then going back to see his or her image, the objective of protecting the privacy of the passenger has been defeated.
THISDAY observed this development first-hand when it visited the screening area, passed through the conventional screening machine at 3pm last Saturday and observed that passengers were reluctant to use the new 3D full-body scanner.
To compel them to use it, one of the conventional scanners was put out of service, leaving the ones at the left end and another very close to the new scanner.
A FAAN senior official expressed shock in an interview with THISDAY, saying: "It is a breach of privacy. I will deal with it immediately I return to Lagos."
The official informed THISDAY that the actual passengers the scanner was meant for were US-bound passengers, who travel with Arik Air and Delta Air Lines.
But when THISDAY visited the airport last Saturday, these airlines were not checking in passengers.
In fact, it was only Emirates that had opened its check-in desk and passengers were just trickling in and passing through the screening machines.
"In Lagos, we ensure that passengers going to US through Arik Air and Delta pass through the full-body scanner. It is not compulsory for all passengers, but in Abuja all passengers meant for international flights pass through the full-body scanner," said the FAAN official.
THISDAY also learnt that two out of the four scanners at the Lagos airport are working, while the other two are not working because of non-functional monitors.
So far, only one 3D full-body scanner is working at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja.
FAAN recently ordered and procured 10 of the machines, which would be deployed in the four major airports in the country.
Since the failed underwear bomb attempt of US airliner by AbdulMutallab, in Detroit, Michigan, major airports in the world have deployed the 3D full body scanners for total body screening of passengers and crew to ensure safety in air travel.
However, there is anxiety over passengers' complete cooperation with the new screening method as some of them express fear that the radiation from the screening equipment is capable of causing health disorders like skin cancer.
Also, another class of passengers are resisting going through the screening machines for religious reasons, insisting that it is against their religion to expose their nakedness.
An aviation security expert told THISDAY in Lagos: "The scanner is capable of detecting and revealing substances that could pose security threats concealed on a person's body that other screening devices, such as metal detectors, cannot detect. The scanner can even reveal very small quantities of liquid explosives, non-metallic weapons, and plastic explosives that could be inimical to aviation safety."
The new device is expected to boost security operations at the nation's airports, as it helps to eliminate the threats posed by terrorists, drug carriers, and it will help to improve the image of the country on security.
http://odili.net/news/source/2010/sep/21/232.html
Security officials gather and giggle at naked travelers in body scanner
By Chinedu Eze , 09.20.2010
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
The 3D full-body scanners procured for thorough body check of passengers at the nation's major airports for security reasons are now being abused by security officials from the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), THISDAY can confirm.
They use the machines, installed in the wake of the Farouk AbdulMutallab affair, to watch the naked images of female passengers for fun.
The controversial body scanners have been dubbed "e-stripping" in advanced countries because of the way they expose the nakedness of those being screened.
THISDAY discovered that during off-peak periods, the aviation security officials, who are trained on the use of the scanners, usually stroll from the cubicle located in a hidden corner on the right side of the screening area where the 3D full-body scanner monitors are located.
They do so to catch a glimpse of some of the passengers entering the machine and immediately go back to view the naked images, in order to match the faces with the images since the faces are blurred on the monitors while passengers are inside the machine.
The face that appears on the scanner's monitor is usually blurred so that the operator viewing the full body will not recognise who passes through the machine.
But by coming out to see the passenger in person and then going back to see his or her image, the objective of protecting the privacy of the passenger has been defeated.
THISDAY observed this development first-hand when it visited the screening area, passed through the conventional screening machine at 3pm last Saturday and observed that passengers were reluctant to use the new 3D full-body scanner.
To compel them to use it, one of the conventional scanners was put out of service, leaving the ones at the left end and another very close to the new scanner.
A FAAN senior official expressed shock in an interview with THISDAY, saying: "It is a breach of privacy. I will deal with it immediately I return to Lagos."
The official informed THISDAY that the actual passengers the scanner was meant for were US-bound passengers, who travel with Arik Air and Delta Air Lines.
But when THISDAY visited the airport last Saturday, these airlines were not checking in passengers.
In fact, it was only Emirates that had opened its check-in desk and passengers were just trickling in and passing through the screening machines.
"In Lagos, we ensure that passengers going to US through Arik Air and Delta pass through the full-body scanner. It is not compulsory for all passengers, but in Abuja all passengers meant for international flights pass through the full-body scanner," said the FAAN official.
THISDAY also learnt that two out of the four scanners at the Lagos airport are working, while the other two are not working because of non-functional monitors.
So far, only one 3D full-body scanner is working at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja.
FAAN recently ordered and procured 10 of the machines, which would be deployed in the four major airports in the country.
Since the failed underwear bomb attempt of US airliner by AbdulMutallab, in Detroit, Michigan, major airports in the world have deployed the 3D full body scanners for total body screening of passengers and crew to ensure safety in air travel.
However, there is anxiety over passengers' complete cooperation with the new screening method as some of them express fear that the radiation from the screening equipment is capable of causing health disorders like skin cancer.
Also, another class of passengers are resisting going through the screening machines for religious reasons, insisting that it is against their religion to expose their nakedness.
An aviation security expert told THISDAY in Lagos: "The scanner is capable of detecting and revealing substances that could pose security threats concealed on a person's body that other screening devices, such as metal detectors, cannot detect. The scanner can even reveal very small quantities of liquid explosives, non-metallic weapons, and plastic explosives that could be inimical to aviation safety."
The new device is expected to boost security operations at the nation's airports, as it helps to eliminate the threats posed by terrorists, drug carriers, and it will help to improve the image of the country on security.
http://odili.net/news/source/2010/sep/21/232.html
9/29/2010
Pelosi's negatives hit all-time high; as unpopular as BP
When will the house fall on this wicked witch from the west?
Pelosi's negatives hit all-time high; as unpopular as BP
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Pelosis-negatives-hit-all-time-high-as-unpopular-as-BP-103977024.html#ixzz10vTmqWp0
Pelosi's negatives hit all-time high; as unpopular as BP
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Pelosis-negatives-hit-all-time-high-as-unpopular-as-BP-103977024.html#ixzz10vTmqWp0
9/28/2010
10/2 Commie March in Washington, DC
On 10.2.10 We Will March For Our Nation's Future
Per the SEIU:
On Oct. 2nd, 2010, hundreds of thousands of people from all over the country will participate in an historic march in Washington D.C. to ensure a future of hope and unity for our nation. We will be marching to support the change we voted for:
* Funding for healthcare and schools.
* Unity not division.
* Renewable energy and green jobs.
* Jobs for all & an economy that works for everyone.
As healthcare workers, we need to bring our co-workers, our families, and our friends and stand up for our country’s future!
http://www.1199seiu.org/10210/
In addition, here are some other attendees of this Marxist loser march...
Young Communist League USA!
The YCL Organizing for the One Nation Working Together Rally in DC!
When Glenn Beck turned out an estimated 87,000 (white) people to his "I have a nightmare" hate-a-palooza on the anniversary of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King's historic "I have a dream" speech he should have known that the masses would not allow it to go unanswered. That same day the One Nation Working Together rally was announced.
One Nation Working Together is a coalition of hundreds of progressive organizations including labor unions and peace and justice organizations from around the country most notably including the AFL-CIO and the NAACP who have put millions of dollars into providing transportation and assistance to get the word out.
The One Nation website states it's goals for the event "We march for a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. We march for jobs, justice, and education. We march for an economy that works for all. We march for a nation in which each person who wants to work can find a job that pays enough to support a family.
We march to create a million new jobs right away, because the national values that got us out of the Great Depression will get us out of the Great Recession.
We march to build a world-class public education system, from pre-school to community college and beyond - because our nation must start unleashing the greatness of every child today.
We march to end racial profiling and re-segregation– from Arizona to Atlanta. We march to defend the Voting Rights Act and the 14th Amendment. We march to advance human rights, civil rights, equal protection, and dignity for all.
We march to fix the broken immigration system – because no child should live in fear that her parents will be deported.
We march to ensure every worker has a voice at work. We march for green jobs and safe workplaces, so no worker will have to choose between her livelihood and her life.
We march for a clean environment, so no child is ever forced to decide between drinking the water or breathing the air and staying healthy.
We march to move our nation beyond this moment when a handful of Senators can block urgently needed progress – skewing our national budget towards tax cuts for the wealthy, unjustified military spending and prisons.
We march for peace abroad and job creation at home. We march for energy independence, public safety, and public transportation because the nation we want to build most is our own."
The Young Communist League will also be in full force with comrades traveling from the four corners of our country in solidarity.
For more info on the event and how you can participate...
http://www.yclusa.org/article/articleview/1903/1/6/
So now you know where your trash goes when you put it out on the curb.
Per the SEIU:
On Oct. 2nd, 2010, hundreds of thousands of people from all over the country will participate in an historic march in Washington D.C. to ensure a future of hope and unity for our nation. We will be marching to support the change we voted for:
* Funding for healthcare and schools.
* Unity not division.
* Renewable energy and green jobs.
* Jobs for all & an economy that works for everyone.
As healthcare workers, we need to bring our co-workers, our families, and our friends and stand up for our country’s future!
http://www.1199seiu.org/10210/
In addition, here are some other attendees of this Marxist loser march...
Young Communist League USA!
The YCL Organizing for the One Nation Working Together Rally in DC!
When Glenn Beck turned out an estimated 87,000 (white) people to his "I have a nightmare" hate-a-palooza on the anniversary of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King's historic "I have a dream" speech he should have known that the masses would not allow it to go unanswered. That same day the One Nation Working Together rally was announced.
One Nation Working Together is a coalition of hundreds of progressive organizations including labor unions and peace and justice organizations from around the country most notably including the AFL-CIO and the NAACP who have put millions of dollars into providing transportation and assistance to get the word out.
The One Nation website states it's goals for the event "We march for a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. We march for jobs, justice, and education. We march for an economy that works for all. We march for a nation in which each person who wants to work can find a job that pays enough to support a family.
We march to create a million new jobs right away, because the national values that got us out of the Great Depression will get us out of the Great Recession.
We march to build a world-class public education system, from pre-school to community college and beyond - because our nation must start unleashing the greatness of every child today.
We march to end racial profiling and re-segregation– from Arizona to Atlanta. We march to defend the Voting Rights Act and the 14th Amendment. We march to advance human rights, civil rights, equal protection, and dignity for all.
We march to fix the broken immigration system – because no child should live in fear that her parents will be deported.
We march to ensure every worker has a voice at work. We march for green jobs and safe workplaces, so no worker will have to choose between her livelihood and her life.
We march for a clean environment, so no child is ever forced to decide between drinking the water or breathing the air and staying healthy.
We march to move our nation beyond this moment when a handful of Senators can block urgently needed progress – skewing our national budget towards tax cuts for the wealthy, unjustified military spending and prisons.
We march for peace abroad and job creation at home. We march for energy independence, public safety, and public transportation because the nation we want to build most is our own."
The Young Communist League will also be in full force with comrades traveling from the four corners of our country in solidarity.
For more info on the event and how you can participate...
http://www.yclusa.org/article/articleview/1903/1/6/
So now you know where your trash goes when you put it out on the curb.
Labor union true intentions
Trumka: Working-Class Anger Fueled by Right’s ‘Deeply Dishonest’ Message
The disturbing part about this AFL-CIO discussion is the Marxist tone of their views, and anti-capitalist stance. There is nothing wrong with labor unions, when they stick to the context of doing their job of handling disputes and ensuring safe and fair working conditions. The problem is most of that was already been solved and enacted. Apparently the people who run these labor unions now apply the resources of union dues to support leadership who clearly want to implement a Marxist agenda. The problem is they see fairness when everyone is equally miserable under a repressive government and labor union structure. In their push to seize power, the only one who benefits from such schemes are those in charge of the labor unions and the corrupt big government they work with.
"we need to fundamentally restructure our economy and re-establish popular control over the private corporations which have distorted our economy and hijacked our government. That’s a long-term job, but one we should start now."
The disturbing part about this AFL-CIO discussion is the Marxist tone of their views, and anti-capitalist stance. There is nothing wrong with labor unions, when they stick to the context of doing their job of handling disputes and ensuring safe and fair working conditions. The problem is most of that was already been solved and enacted. Apparently the people who run these labor unions now apply the resources of union dues to support leadership who clearly want to implement a Marxist agenda. The problem is they see fairness when everyone is equally miserable under a repressive government and labor union structure. In their push to seize power, the only one who benefits from such schemes are those in charge of the labor unions and the corrupt big government they work with.
"we need to fundamentally restructure our economy and re-establish popular control over the private corporations which have distorted our economy and hijacked our government. That’s a long-term job, but one we should start now."
9/27/2010
9/22/2010
Carter 2.0!
I hope to hear the words "I will not be seeking the office of President for 2012" from the epic failure that is the Obama administration. It's time to let someone with competence run. The President is not the same thing as being a community organizer.
The Carter-Obama Comparisons Grow
Walter Mondale himself sees a parallel.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704129204575505822147816104.html
By JOHN FUND
Comparisons between the Obama White House and the failed presidency of Jimmy Carter are increasingly being made—and by Democrats.
Walter Mondale, Mr. Carter's vice president, told The New Yorker this week that anxious and angry voters in the late 1970s "just turned against us—same as with Obama." As the polls turned against his administration, Mr. Mondale recalled that Mr. Carter "began to lose confidence in his ability to move the public." Democrats on Capitol Hill are now saying this is happening to Mr. Obama.
Mr. Mondale says it's time for the president "to get rid of those teleprompters and connect" with voters. Another of Mr. Obama's clear errors has been to turn over the drafting of key legislation to the Democratic Congress: "That doesn't work even when you own Congress," he said. "You have to ride 'em."
Mr. Carter himself is heightening comparisons with his own presidency by publishing his White House diaries this week. "I overburdened Congress with an array of controversial and politically costly requests," he said on Monday. The parallels to Mr. Obama's experience are clear.
Comparisons between the two men were made frequently during the 2008 campaign, but in a favorable way. Princeton University historian Sean Wilentz, for instance, told Fox News in August 2008 that Mr. Obama's "rhetoric is more like Jimmy Carter's than any other Democratic president in recent memory." Syndicated columnist Jonah Goldberg noted more recently that Mr. Obama, like Mr. Carter in his 1976 campaign, "promised a transformational presidency, a new accommodation with religion, a new centrism, a changed tone."
But within a few months, liberals were already finding fault with his rhetoric. "He's the great earnest bore at the dinner party," wrote Michael Wolff, a contributor to Vanity Fair. "He's cold; he's prickly; he's uncomfortable; he's not funny; and he's getting awfully tedious. He thinks it's all about him." That sounds like a critique of Mr. Carter.
Foreign policy experts are also picking up on similarities. Walter Russell Mead, then a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, told the Economist magazine earlier this year that Mr. Obama is "avoiding the worst mistakes that plagued Carter." But he warns that presidents like Mr. Obama who emphasize "human rights" can fall prey to the temptation of picking on weak countries while ignoring more dire human rights issues in powerful countries (Russia, China, Iran). Over time that can "hollow out an administration's credibility and make a president look weak." Mr. Mead warned that Mr. Obama's foreign policy "to some degree makes him dependent on people who wish neither him nor America well. This doesn't have to end badly and I hope that it doesn't—but it's not an ideal position after one's first year in power."
Liberals increasingly can't avoid making connections between Mr. Carter's political troubles and those of Mr. Obama. In July, MSNBC's Chris Matthews asked his guests if Democrats up for re-election will "run away from President O'Carter." After much laughter, John Heileman of New York Magazine quipped "Calling Dr. Freud." To which Mr. Matthews, a former Carter speechwriter, sighed "I know."
Pat Caddell, who was Mr. Carter's pollster while he was in the White House, thinks some comparisons between the two men are overblown. But he notes that any White House that is sinking in the polls takes on a "bunker mentality" that leads the president to become isolated and consult with fewer and fewer people from the outside. Mr. Caddell told me that his Democratic friends think that's happening to Mr. Obama—and that the president's ability to pull himself out of a political tailspin is hampered by his resistance to seek out fresh thinking.
The Obama White House is clearly cognizant of the comparisons being made between the two presidents. This month, environmental activist Bill McKibben met with White House aides to convince them to reinstall a set of solar panels that Mr. Carter had placed on the White House roof. They were taken down in 1986 following roof repairs. Mr. McKibben said it was time to bring them back to demonstrate Mr. Obama's support for alternative energy.
But Mr. McKibben told reporters that the White House "refused to take the Carter-era panel that we brought with us" and only said that they would continue to ponder "what is appropriate" for the White House's energy needs. Britain's Guardian newspaper reported that the Obama aides were "twitchy perhaps about inviting any comparison (to Mr. Carter) in the run-up to the very difficult mid-term elections." Democrats need no reminding that Mr. Carter wound up costing them dearly in 1978 and 1980 as Republicans made major gains in Congress.
Mr. Fund is a columnist for WSJ.com.
The Carter-Obama Comparisons Grow
Walter Mondale himself sees a parallel.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704129204575505822147816104.html
By JOHN FUND
Comparisons between the Obama White House and the failed presidency of Jimmy Carter are increasingly being made—and by Democrats.
Walter Mondale, Mr. Carter's vice president, told The New Yorker this week that anxious and angry voters in the late 1970s "just turned against us—same as with Obama." As the polls turned against his administration, Mr. Mondale recalled that Mr. Carter "began to lose confidence in his ability to move the public." Democrats on Capitol Hill are now saying this is happening to Mr. Obama.
Mr. Mondale says it's time for the president "to get rid of those teleprompters and connect" with voters. Another of Mr. Obama's clear errors has been to turn over the drafting of key legislation to the Democratic Congress: "That doesn't work even when you own Congress," he said. "You have to ride 'em."
Mr. Carter himself is heightening comparisons with his own presidency by publishing his White House diaries this week. "I overburdened Congress with an array of controversial and politically costly requests," he said on Monday. The parallels to Mr. Obama's experience are clear.
Comparisons between the two men were made frequently during the 2008 campaign, but in a favorable way. Princeton University historian Sean Wilentz, for instance, told Fox News in August 2008 that Mr. Obama's "rhetoric is more like Jimmy Carter's than any other Democratic president in recent memory." Syndicated columnist Jonah Goldberg noted more recently that Mr. Obama, like Mr. Carter in his 1976 campaign, "promised a transformational presidency, a new accommodation with religion, a new centrism, a changed tone."
But within a few months, liberals were already finding fault with his rhetoric. "He's the great earnest bore at the dinner party," wrote Michael Wolff, a contributor to Vanity Fair. "He's cold; he's prickly; he's uncomfortable; he's not funny; and he's getting awfully tedious. He thinks it's all about him." That sounds like a critique of Mr. Carter.
Foreign policy experts are also picking up on similarities. Walter Russell Mead, then a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, told the Economist magazine earlier this year that Mr. Obama is "avoiding the worst mistakes that plagued Carter." But he warns that presidents like Mr. Obama who emphasize "human rights" can fall prey to the temptation of picking on weak countries while ignoring more dire human rights issues in powerful countries (Russia, China, Iran). Over time that can "hollow out an administration's credibility and make a president look weak." Mr. Mead warned that Mr. Obama's foreign policy "to some degree makes him dependent on people who wish neither him nor America well. This doesn't have to end badly and I hope that it doesn't—but it's not an ideal position after one's first year in power."
Liberals increasingly can't avoid making connections between Mr. Carter's political troubles and those of Mr. Obama. In July, MSNBC's Chris Matthews asked his guests if Democrats up for re-election will "run away from President O'Carter." After much laughter, John Heileman of New York Magazine quipped "Calling Dr. Freud." To which Mr. Matthews, a former Carter speechwriter, sighed "I know."
Pat Caddell, who was Mr. Carter's pollster while he was in the White House, thinks some comparisons between the two men are overblown. But he notes that any White House that is sinking in the polls takes on a "bunker mentality" that leads the president to become isolated and consult with fewer and fewer people from the outside. Mr. Caddell told me that his Democratic friends think that's happening to Mr. Obama—and that the president's ability to pull himself out of a political tailspin is hampered by his resistance to seek out fresh thinking.
The Obama White House is clearly cognizant of the comparisons being made between the two presidents. This month, environmental activist Bill McKibben met with White House aides to convince them to reinstall a set of solar panels that Mr. Carter had placed on the White House roof. They were taken down in 1986 following roof repairs. Mr. McKibben said it was time to bring them back to demonstrate Mr. Obama's support for alternative energy.
But Mr. McKibben told reporters that the White House "refused to take the Carter-era panel that we brought with us" and only said that they would continue to ponder "what is appropriate" for the White House's energy needs. Britain's Guardian newspaper reported that the Obama aides were "twitchy perhaps about inviting any comparison (to Mr. Carter) in the run-up to the very difficult mid-term elections." Democrats need no reminding that Mr. Carter wound up costing them dearly in 1978 and 1980 as Republicans made major gains in Congress.
Mr. Fund is a columnist for WSJ.com.
9/17/2010
In panic, eating their own
6th District candidate Carter asks Pelosi to step aside
"Democratic District 6 Congressional candidate Brett Carter is asking U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi to step aside for the good of Democratic candidates..."
This is just too funny, but of course they will continue to blame Republicans...while this whole time the Democrats have had majorities in every branch of government the past 2 years.
"Democratic District 6 Congressional candidate Brett Carter is asking U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi to step aside for the good of Democratic candidates..."
This is just too funny, but of course they will continue to blame Republicans...while this whole time the Democrats have had majorities in every branch of government the past 2 years.
9/16/2010
Irony
Democrats spend on anti-health-reform advertisements
Seems that Democrats are scrambling to distance themselves as much as they can from the health care monstrosity that Obama put into place. Since its passing, it has become very unpopular and the cost savings rhetoric was just smoke are mirrors to get the bill passed.
During that time frame, Nancy Pelosi called you un-American for not supporting the health care legislation.
Now that election season is upon us, that health care monstrosity albatross is a liability for their re-election efforts.
While I am thankful some Democrats have wised up and starting listening to their constiuents, but I do need to ask...
WHY THE HELL DID YOU VOTE FOR THE HEALTH CARE BILL IN THE FIRST PLACE?
Seems that Democrats are scrambling to distance themselves as much as they can from the health care monstrosity that Obama put into place. Since its passing, it has become very unpopular and the cost savings rhetoric was just smoke are mirrors to get the bill passed.
During that time frame, Nancy Pelosi called you un-American for not supporting the health care legislation.
Now that election season is upon us, that health care monstrosity albatross is a liability for their re-election efforts.
While I am thankful some Democrats have wised up and starting listening to their constiuents, but I do need to ask...
WHY THE HELL DID YOU VOTE FOR THE HEALTH CARE BILL IN THE FIRST PLACE?
9/15/2010
Barney Frank vs. The Dining Room Table
Here is the background...this is Barney Frank being the marble-mouthed arrogant politician that he is.
That woman is Rachel Brown. While this video is 1-2 years old, now Rachel Brown is running for Congress. She is running for Barney Frank's job representing Massachusetts' 4th Congressional district. I love this country!
That woman is Rachel Brown. While this video is 1-2 years old, now Rachel Brown is running for Congress. She is running for Barney Frank's job representing Massachusetts' 4th Congressional district. I love this country!
9/14/2010
Fun in Somalia
Militants Kill Somalia Church Leader
Monday, September 13, 2010 (7:52 pm)
By BosNewsLife Africa Service with Joseph DeCaro, BosNewsLife International Correspondent
NAIROBI, KENYA (BosNewsLife)-- A leader of an underground Christian church movement in Somalia has been killed by Islamic militants and his four children taken from their mother as part of what locals say is a deadly campaign against Christians, BosNewsLife established Monday, September 13.
Al Shabaab fighters, who have pledged to turn Somalia into a strict Islamic state, broke into the house of Osman Abdullah Fataho in Afgoi on July 21 and shot him dead in front of his wife and four children, Christians said. The assailants reportedly abducted the survivors, later releasing the wife on the condition that she allow her children to become soldiers.
"We know they have taken the children to brain-wash them, to change their way of life from Christian to Muslim and to teach them the Quran," Christians said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Those kidnapped were identified as Ali Daud Fataho, 5, Fatuma Safia Fataho, 7, Sharif Ahmed Fataho, 10, and 15 year-old Nur Said Fataho.
News of the attack only recently emerged, as Fataho's murder has added to fear among the faithful in the lawless lands of central Somalia that are controlled by Islamic insurgents intent on punishing any person professing Christianity, Christians said. Other leaders of the Christian underground movement have left their homes for undisclosed locations.
DEADLY ATTACKS
His killing was the latest in a series of deadly attacks against Christians. In 2009, Islamic militants in Somalia killed at least 15 Christians, including women and children, according to local Christians and rights activists.
Al Shabaab, which has links with al Qaeda, has also banned radio stations from playing music and outlawed any "secular bell ringing" since it sounded too much as church bells.
The transitional government in Mogadishu is led by President Sheikh Sharif Sheik Ahmed who critics claim has embraced a version of Sharia, or Muslim law, that mandates the death penalty for anyone converting from Islam.
His administration only controls some areas of the capital, backed by African peacekeepers.
http://www.bosnewslife.com/13804-militants-kill-somalia-church-leader
Monday, September 13, 2010 (7:52 pm)
By BosNewsLife Africa Service with Joseph DeCaro, BosNewsLife International Correspondent
NAIROBI, KENYA (BosNewsLife)-- A leader of an underground Christian church movement in Somalia has been killed by Islamic militants and his four children taken from their mother as part of what locals say is a deadly campaign against Christians, BosNewsLife established Monday, September 13.
Al Shabaab fighters, who have pledged to turn Somalia into a strict Islamic state, broke into the house of Osman Abdullah Fataho in Afgoi on July 21 and shot him dead in front of his wife and four children, Christians said. The assailants reportedly abducted the survivors, later releasing the wife on the condition that she allow her children to become soldiers.
"We know they have taken the children to brain-wash them, to change their way of life from Christian to Muslim and to teach them the Quran," Christians said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Those kidnapped were identified as Ali Daud Fataho, 5, Fatuma Safia Fataho, 7, Sharif Ahmed Fataho, 10, and 15 year-old Nur Said Fataho.
News of the attack only recently emerged, as Fataho's murder has added to fear among the faithful in the lawless lands of central Somalia that are controlled by Islamic insurgents intent on punishing any person professing Christianity, Christians said. Other leaders of the Christian underground movement have left their homes for undisclosed locations.
DEADLY ATTACKS
His killing was the latest in a series of deadly attacks against Christians. In 2009, Islamic militants in Somalia killed at least 15 Christians, including women and children, according to local Christians and rights activists.
Al Shabaab, which has links with al Qaeda, has also banned radio stations from playing music and outlawed any "secular bell ringing" since it sounded too much as church bells.
The transitional government in Mogadishu is led by President Sheikh Sharif Sheik Ahmed who critics claim has embraced a version of Sharia, or Muslim law, that mandates the death penalty for anyone converting from Islam.
His administration only controls some areas of the capital, backed by African peacekeepers.
http://www.bosnewslife.com/13804-militants-kill-somalia-church-leader
9/02/2010
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