More Bush blaming...
Obama says he inherited economic problems
8/11/2011
8/06/2011
Tim Geithner: “No risk”
Now tax cheat Geithner can be called lying tax cheat Geithner.
Flashback: “Is there a risk the US could lose its AAA rating?” Tim Geithner: “No risk”
Let's see, here is today's headlines...
S&P downgrades U.S. credit rating
U.S. triple-A debt rating cut by Standard & Poor’s
Flashback: “Is there a risk the US could lose its AAA rating?” Tim Geithner: “No risk”
Let's see, here is today's headlines...
S&P downgrades U.S. credit rating
U.S. triple-A debt rating cut by Standard & Poor’s
8/04/2011
Bias anyone?
US borrowing tops 100% of GDP: Treasury...that's a pretty serious headline. It appears that it's not important to the liberal media because it will make their idol look bad.
Here are the front pages of web sites, showing what they deem important. I'll first show Fox News, at least they are reporting it.
Here are the front pages of the websites of media sources that are liberal friendly. I see no mention of the debt to GDP announcement.
To quote the original Yahoo News story.
"The last time US debt topped the size of its annual economy was in 1947 just after World War II. By 1981 it had fallen to 32.5 percent.
Ratings agencies have warned the country to reduce its debt-to-GDP ratio quickly or facing losing its coveted AAA debt rating.
Moody's said Tuesday that the government needed to stabilize the ratio at 73 percent by 2015 "to ensure that the long-run fiscal trajectory remains compatible with a AAA rating."
I would consider this pretty serious, but it would also blemish the Obama administration. The bias of choosing to not report something like this is pretty serious cause for concern. It makes me appreciate the internet even more.
Here are the front pages of web sites, showing what they deem important. I'll first show Fox News, at least they are reporting it.
Here are the front pages of the websites of media sources that are liberal friendly. I see no mention of the debt to GDP announcement.
To quote the original Yahoo News story.
"The last time US debt topped the size of its annual economy was in 1947 just after World War II. By 1981 it had fallen to 32.5 percent.
Ratings agencies have warned the country to reduce its debt-to-GDP ratio quickly or facing losing its coveted AAA debt rating.
Moody's said Tuesday that the government needed to stabilize the ratio at 73 percent by 2015 "to ensure that the long-run fiscal trajectory remains compatible with a AAA rating."
I would consider this pretty serious, but it would also blemish the Obama administration. The bias of choosing to not report something like this is pretty serious cause for concern. It makes me appreciate the internet even more.
8/02/2011
The spending-cut myth
An excellent write up on the whole "debt crisis"...
The spending-cut myth
Posted By Robert Ringer On August 2, 2011 @ 12:01 am In Conservative Politics,Government,Personal Liberty Articles | 192 Comments
As we move toward a business-as-usual finish to the phony debt-ceiling drama playing out in Washington, history will record that no one — not even the Tea Party members of Congress — ever got around to talking about specific, major spending cuts (other than defense spending). Isn’t that weird?
Everyone involved claims to be in agreement that the U.S. has to cut spending, but not one Congressperson has been willing to name a specific program or bureaucracy that should be completely eliminated. Even if Republicans had gotten their Cut, Cap and Balance proposal accepted, it wouldn’t have mattered, because “cut, cap, and balance” are nothing more than hollow words.
Cut and cap what? Which programs and agencies are you going to cut and cap, and by how much? In any event, the purported major cuts are always years down the road, while increasing the debt ceiling is immediate — meaning that out-of-control government spending continues on.
And, of course, balance simply guarantees American taxpayers that if Congress doesn’t make the necessary cuts — which it never does, and never will — their taxes will be raised in order to “balance the budget.” In fact, a cynic might say that balancing the budget is just a euphemism for raising taxes.
Again, back to my original point: No one in Congress wants to talk about making specific cuts. After all, when you cut a program or agency, you’re going to make the beneficiaries of that program or agency very angry. And since the main objective of the vast majority of Congresspersons is to get reelected, mad is bad. Thus, the reality is that cutting any program or government agency is unthinkable.
For example, as the debt ceiling circus has worn on, I’ve repeatedly heard media pundits say things like, “What happens to the guy who’s planned a camping trip to Yellowstone National Park with his son, only to find that the park has been closed because Congress failed to raise the debt ceiling?” The answer you never hear is: He takes his son somewhere else!
I don’t know how much you and I pay to keep Yellowstone National Park operating, but I do know that neither I nor any of my family or immediate circle of friends has ever visited Yellowstone National Park, nor do any of us have any plans to do so.
That being the case, why are we required to pay for the guy who wants to take his son camping? Is he willing to pay for my family’s outing to an Orioles or Redskins game? These are private corporations that charge customers enough to cover their overhead and, hopefully, make a profit. Government doesn’t have to worry about such mundane matters.
Just like all the other land it lays claim to, the United States government should sell Yellowstone National Park to a company like Disney or Universal Studios and use the proceeds to pay down the national debt. I’m talking about principle, not interest. Ditto all of the other national parks, which would cut billions from our bread-and-circus budget.
Speaking of Yellowstone National Park, what about the Department of the Interior? Do we really need it? On its website, it proudly states:
Our Mission: Protecting America’s Great Outdoors and Powering Our Future
Question: Why does a bankrupt nation need a bunch of bureaucrats to protect its “great outdoors?” The government is supposed to protect people and private property, not the “outdoors.” I won’t even comment on “powering our future,” since it has no discernable meaning.
Beneath the Department of the Interior’s mission statement are the words:
The U.S. Department of the Interior protects America’s natural resources and heritage, honors our cultures and tribal communities, and supplies the energy to power our future.
Again I ask, why does a bankrupt nation need a bunch of bureaucrats to protect its “natural resources and heritage?” How in the world does the government protect our heritage? Again, no discernable meaning.
“Honors our cultures and tribal communities?” Why does a bankrupt nation need to honor American cultures and tribal communities? Sounds like an interesting thing to do if you’re rich. But we aren’t. Psst… we’re broke!
Finally, “supplies the energy to power our future?” Government doesn’t know beans about supplying energy. In fact, it does everything within its power to prevent the U.S. from using its energy resources.
A bankrupt nation that fails at everything it attempts to do should get out of the way so private industry can exploit our natural resources, beginning with oil, natural gas and coal deposits. The government has never produced a drop of oil, a cubic foot of natural gas or a single chunk of coal — and never will.
Trees, of course, are a natural resource that present no problem whatsoever, because, thanks to capitalistic forestry corporations, we have more trees today than we had 50 years ago.
You can go right down the list of government agencies and draw the same conclusion: They should be shut down!
Do we really need a National Labor Relations Board to prevent Boeing from creating 1,000 jobs in South Carolina?
Do we really need a Securities and Exchange Commission to give a guy like Bernie Madoff a stamp of approval for 25 years while he bilks gullible investors out of billions of dollars?
Do we really need an Environmental Protection Agency to stifle economic growth in America and create ever-increasing unemployment? Closing down the EPA not only would save billions of dollars a year in operating costs, but would explode the economy and send the Dow Jones industrial average soaring. Who knows, we might even be able to compete with China someday.
The Department of Labor, the Commerce Department, Amtrak, the Department of Education, the Department of Energy, the Department of Health and Human Services (which runs 400 separate subsidy programs!)… the list is endless.
Message to the government: Stop protecting our resources, stop redistributing our hard-earned income and start focusing on protecting, not stealing from, the people you work for.
The truth is that no one — whether Democrat or Republican — will propose legislation to reduce, let alone close down, any of these government agencies. They will keep growing until their employees are paid in worthless dollars — or not paid at all. And there is a 100 percent certainty that when government employees don’t get paid, it will lead to protests… followed by “civil unrest”… followed by violence… followed by a government crackdown on civil liberties.
As everyone now knows, the government has plenty of money coming in each month to pay interest on the national debt, Social Security, Medicare and our current military obligations (all of which total about 70 percent of current revenues). It’s the other 30 percent or so of “scheduled expenditures” that need to be “prioritized” — meaning that some of them have to be cut.
But when you ask a politician which ones he would cut, he unfailingly skirts the question. That’s why the debt ceiling will continue to be raised — again and again and again (75 times since 1962!) — and the U.S. debt will continue to spin out of control until the only thing left of the U.S. economy is a (hopefully) thriving black market.
Russian historians can tell you all about the phenomenon of the black market when the government shuts down the free market. It’s the only thing that kept even more people from starving to death in the Soviet Union during the heyday of communism.
Of course, if you’re the adventuresome type, you’ve got to be excited thinking about what living in a runaway-inflation society might be like. Hint: Sieg Heil!
–Robert Ringer
The spending-cut myth
Posted By Robert Ringer On August 2, 2011 @ 12:01 am In Conservative Politics,Government,Personal Liberty Articles | 192 Comments
As we move toward a business-as-usual finish to the phony debt-ceiling drama playing out in Washington, history will record that no one — not even the Tea Party members of Congress — ever got around to talking about specific, major spending cuts (other than defense spending). Isn’t that weird?
Everyone involved claims to be in agreement that the U.S. has to cut spending, but not one Congressperson has been willing to name a specific program or bureaucracy that should be completely eliminated. Even if Republicans had gotten their Cut, Cap and Balance proposal accepted, it wouldn’t have mattered, because “cut, cap, and balance” are nothing more than hollow words.
Cut and cap what? Which programs and agencies are you going to cut and cap, and by how much? In any event, the purported major cuts are always years down the road, while increasing the debt ceiling is immediate — meaning that out-of-control government spending continues on.
And, of course, balance simply guarantees American taxpayers that if Congress doesn’t make the necessary cuts — which it never does, and never will — their taxes will be raised in order to “balance the budget.” In fact, a cynic might say that balancing the budget is just a euphemism for raising taxes.
Again, back to my original point: No one in Congress wants to talk about making specific cuts. After all, when you cut a program or agency, you’re going to make the beneficiaries of that program or agency very angry. And since the main objective of the vast majority of Congresspersons is to get reelected, mad is bad. Thus, the reality is that cutting any program or government agency is unthinkable.
For example, as the debt ceiling circus has worn on, I’ve repeatedly heard media pundits say things like, “What happens to the guy who’s planned a camping trip to Yellowstone National Park with his son, only to find that the park has been closed because Congress failed to raise the debt ceiling?” The answer you never hear is: He takes his son somewhere else!
I don’t know how much you and I pay to keep Yellowstone National Park operating, but I do know that neither I nor any of my family or immediate circle of friends has ever visited Yellowstone National Park, nor do any of us have any plans to do so.
That being the case, why are we required to pay for the guy who wants to take his son camping? Is he willing to pay for my family’s outing to an Orioles or Redskins game? These are private corporations that charge customers enough to cover their overhead and, hopefully, make a profit. Government doesn’t have to worry about such mundane matters.
Just like all the other land it lays claim to, the United States government should sell Yellowstone National Park to a company like Disney or Universal Studios and use the proceeds to pay down the national debt. I’m talking about principle, not interest. Ditto all of the other national parks, which would cut billions from our bread-and-circus budget.
Speaking of Yellowstone National Park, what about the Department of the Interior? Do we really need it? On its website, it proudly states:
Our Mission: Protecting America’s Great Outdoors and Powering Our Future
Question: Why does a bankrupt nation need a bunch of bureaucrats to protect its “great outdoors?” The government is supposed to protect people and private property, not the “outdoors.” I won’t even comment on “powering our future,” since it has no discernable meaning.
Beneath the Department of the Interior’s mission statement are the words:
The U.S. Department of the Interior protects America’s natural resources and heritage, honors our cultures and tribal communities, and supplies the energy to power our future.
Again I ask, why does a bankrupt nation need a bunch of bureaucrats to protect its “natural resources and heritage?” How in the world does the government protect our heritage? Again, no discernable meaning.
“Honors our cultures and tribal communities?” Why does a bankrupt nation need to honor American cultures and tribal communities? Sounds like an interesting thing to do if you’re rich. But we aren’t. Psst… we’re broke!
Finally, “supplies the energy to power our future?” Government doesn’t know beans about supplying energy. In fact, it does everything within its power to prevent the U.S. from using its energy resources.
A bankrupt nation that fails at everything it attempts to do should get out of the way so private industry can exploit our natural resources, beginning with oil, natural gas and coal deposits. The government has never produced a drop of oil, a cubic foot of natural gas or a single chunk of coal — and never will.
Trees, of course, are a natural resource that present no problem whatsoever, because, thanks to capitalistic forestry corporations, we have more trees today than we had 50 years ago.
You can go right down the list of government agencies and draw the same conclusion: They should be shut down!
Do we really need a National Labor Relations Board to prevent Boeing from creating 1,000 jobs in South Carolina?
Do we really need a Securities and Exchange Commission to give a guy like Bernie Madoff a stamp of approval for 25 years while he bilks gullible investors out of billions of dollars?
Do we really need an Environmental Protection Agency to stifle economic growth in America and create ever-increasing unemployment? Closing down the EPA not only would save billions of dollars a year in operating costs, but would explode the economy and send the Dow Jones industrial average soaring. Who knows, we might even be able to compete with China someday.
The Department of Labor, the Commerce Department, Amtrak, the Department of Education, the Department of Energy, the Department of Health and Human Services (which runs 400 separate subsidy programs!)… the list is endless.
Message to the government: Stop protecting our resources, stop redistributing our hard-earned income and start focusing on protecting, not stealing from, the people you work for.
The truth is that no one — whether Democrat or Republican — will propose legislation to reduce, let alone close down, any of these government agencies. They will keep growing until their employees are paid in worthless dollars — or not paid at all. And there is a 100 percent certainty that when government employees don’t get paid, it will lead to protests… followed by “civil unrest”… followed by violence… followed by a government crackdown on civil liberties.
As everyone now knows, the government has plenty of money coming in each month to pay interest on the national debt, Social Security, Medicare and our current military obligations (all of which total about 70 percent of current revenues). It’s the other 30 percent or so of “scheduled expenditures” that need to be “prioritized” — meaning that some of them have to be cut.
But when you ask a politician which ones he would cut, he unfailingly skirts the question. That’s why the debt ceiling will continue to be raised — again and again and again (75 times since 1962!) — and the U.S. debt will continue to spin out of control until the only thing left of the U.S. economy is a (hopefully) thriving black market.
Russian historians can tell you all about the phenomenon of the black market when the government shuts down the free market. It’s the only thing that kept even more people from starving to death in the Soviet Union during the heyday of communism.
Of course, if you’re the adventuresome type, you’ve got to be excited thinking about what living in a runaway-inflation society might be like. Hint: Sieg Heil!
–Robert Ringer
7/29/2011
Democrats say Obama should invoke 14th Amendment
First, read this story...
Democrats say Obama should invoke 14th Amendment
http://news.yahoo.com/house-democrats-obama-invoke-14th-amendment-152323569.html
WASHINGTON (AP) — House Democrats said Wednesday that President Barack Obama should invoke a little-known constitutional provision to prevent the nation from going into default if Congress fails to come up with a plan to raise the debt ceiling.
Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina, a member of the Democratic leadership, said he told fellow Democrats that Obama should both veto any House GOP plan for a short-term extension of the debt ceiling and invoke the 14th amendment, which says that the validity of the nation's public debt "shall not be questioned."
The White House has rejected resorting to this tactic to keep the nation from defaulting, questioning its legality, but Rep. John Larson of Connecticut, who chairs the Democratic caucus, said "we're getting down to decision time" and "we have to have a failsafe mechanism and we believe that failsafe mechanism is the 14th Amendment and the president of the United States."
Larson said Clyburn's proposal on the 14th Amendment was met with applause by other Democrats at their meeting.
White House spokesman Jay Carney, asked about Clyburn's proposal, said only Congress has the authority to extend the government's borrowing authority. "The president does not have authority to raise the debt ceiling. It's not a plausible way to address this problem and we do not think it is an option," he said.
The Democratic leaders said the vast majority in their party still support a plan for raising the debt ceiling and cutting spending put forth by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. But they said the inability of the government to pay its debts could drive up interest rates and affect millions of Americans forced to pay higher mortgages and higher interest on student loans.
Rep. Xavier Becerra of California, the assistant caucus chair, said Democrats are telling Obama, "Mr. President, Republicans through their failure have given you license to do whatever it takes to not let the American family go down into that abyss with House Republicans."
The post-Civil War 14th Amendment guaranteeing citizenship to all people born or naturalized in the United States contains a provision that "the validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned."
Some legal scholars have said the president can invoke that clause to keep the nation from defaulting on the debt, although there is no legal precedent for such an action.
Now here is the full text of Section 4, then Section 5...
Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.
Section 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
Because Section 5 is SO OBVIOUS in covering section 4, it shows that Rep. James Clyburn, Rep. John Larson, Rep. Xavier Becerra, and "Some legal scholars" are complete idiots. The problem with liberal democrats is that they interpret the constitution for what it CAN SAY, where a conservative interprets the constitution for what it SAYS.
I don't think it can be stated any more clearly that the 14th Amendment gives Congress this power, not the President.
If the President did what was in the article, he would be in violation of the constitution, and there is justification to seek impeachment because he violated his oath of office.
Democrats say Obama should invoke 14th Amendment
http://news.yahoo.com/house-democrats-obama-invoke-14th-amendment-152323569.html
WASHINGTON (AP) — House Democrats said Wednesday that President Barack Obama should invoke a little-known constitutional provision to prevent the nation from going into default if Congress fails to come up with a plan to raise the debt ceiling.
Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina, a member of the Democratic leadership, said he told fellow Democrats that Obama should both veto any House GOP plan for a short-term extension of the debt ceiling and invoke the 14th amendment, which says that the validity of the nation's public debt "shall not be questioned."
The White House has rejected resorting to this tactic to keep the nation from defaulting, questioning its legality, but Rep. John Larson of Connecticut, who chairs the Democratic caucus, said "we're getting down to decision time" and "we have to have a failsafe mechanism and we believe that failsafe mechanism is the 14th Amendment and the president of the United States."
Larson said Clyburn's proposal on the 14th Amendment was met with applause by other Democrats at their meeting.
White House spokesman Jay Carney, asked about Clyburn's proposal, said only Congress has the authority to extend the government's borrowing authority. "The president does not have authority to raise the debt ceiling. It's not a plausible way to address this problem and we do not think it is an option," he said.
The Democratic leaders said the vast majority in their party still support a plan for raising the debt ceiling and cutting spending put forth by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. But they said the inability of the government to pay its debts could drive up interest rates and affect millions of Americans forced to pay higher mortgages and higher interest on student loans.
Rep. Xavier Becerra of California, the assistant caucus chair, said Democrats are telling Obama, "Mr. President, Republicans through their failure have given you license to do whatever it takes to not let the American family go down into that abyss with House Republicans."
The post-Civil War 14th Amendment guaranteeing citizenship to all people born or naturalized in the United States contains a provision that "the validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned."
Some legal scholars have said the president can invoke that clause to keep the nation from defaulting on the debt, although there is no legal precedent for such an action.
Now here is the full text of Section 4, then Section 5...
Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.
Section 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
Because Section 5 is SO OBVIOUS in covering section 4, it shows that Rep. James Clyburn, Rep. John Larson, Rep. Xavier Becerra, and "Some legal scholars" are complete idiots. The problem with liberal democrats is that they interpret the constitution for what it CAN SAY, where a conservative interprets the constitution for what it SAYS.
I don't think it can be stated any more clearly that the 14th Amendment gives Congress this power, not the President.
If the President did what was in the article, he would be in violation of the constitution, and there is justification to seek impeachment because he violated his oath of office.
7/28/2011
MSNBC idiot reporter
Notice that at 44 seconds into the video Contessa Brewer, calling Congressman Mo Brooks remarks simplification on the subject matter. Seeing how huffy she is, she falls back on her bias that is well defined in "The Wilkow Guide to Media Perception."
If you went to college:
Conservative…your academic pedigree is scrutinized.
Liberal…your degree speaks for itself.
A 30 second check on wikipedia reveals "He graduated from Duke University in three years with a double major in political science and economics (highest honors in economics)."
Overall, this shows the quality of journalist MSNBC hires. Contessa Brewer could not be bothered to do a quick search on Congressman Mo Brooks. Instead, she chose to be the partisan liberal media hack that she is.
7/20/2011
Chris Matthews’s interview with GOP Rep. Joe Walsh
Chris Matthew's gets bitch slapped, it's awesome!
7/03/2011
Harvard: July 4th Parades Are Right-Wing
By Paul Bedard
Posted: June 30, 2011
Democratic political candidates can skip this weekend's July 4th parades. A new Harvard University study finds that July 4th parades energize only Republicans, turn kids into Republicans, and help to boost the GOP turnout of adults on Election Day.
"Fourth of July celebrations in the United States shape the nation's political landscape by forming beliefs and increasing participation, primarily in favor of the Republican Party," said the report from Harvard. [See political cartoons about the 2012 GOP field.]
"The political right has been more successful in appropriating American patriotism and its symbols during the 20th century. Survey evidence also confirms that Republicans consider themselves more patriotic than Democrats. According to this interpretation, there is a political congruence between the patriotism promoted on Fourth of July and the values associated with the Republican party. Fourth of July celebrations in Republican dominated counties may thus be more politically biased events that socialize children into Republicans," write Harvard Kennedy School Assistant Professor David Yanagizawa-Drott and Bocconi University Assistant Professor Andreas Madestam. [Enjoy political cartoons about President Obama.]
Their findings also suggest that Democrats gain nothing from July 4th parades, likely a shocking result for all the Democratic politicians who march in them. [Check out editorial cartoons about the Democrats.]
"There is no evidence of an increased likelihood of identifying as a Democrat, indicating that Fourth of July shifts preferences to the right rather than increasing political polarization," the two wrote.
The three key findings of those attending July 4th celebrations:
When done before the age of 18, it increases the likelihood of a youth identifying as a Republican by at least 2 percent.
It raises the likelihood that parade watchers will vote for a Republican candidate by 4 percent.
It boosts the likelihood a reveler will vote by about 1 percent and increases the chances they'll make a political contribution by 3 percent.
What's more, the impact isn't fleeting. "Surprisingly, the estimates show that the impact on political preferences is permanent, with no evidence of the effects depreciating as individuals become older,"said the Harvard report.
Finally, the report suggests that if people are looking for a super-patriotic July 4th, though should head to Republican towns. "Republican adults celebrate Fourth of July more intensively in the first place."
http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/washington-whispers/2011/06/30/harvard-july-4th-parades-are-right-wing_print.html
Posted: June 30, 2011
Democratic political candidates can skip this weekend's July 4th parades. A new Harvard University study finds that July 4th parades energize only Republicans, turn kids into Republicans, and help to boost the GOP turnout of adults on Election Day.
"Fourth of July celebrations in the United States shape the nation's political landscape by forming beliefs and increasing participation, primarily in favor of the Republican Party," said the report from Harvard. [See political cartoons about the 2012 GOP field.]
"The political right has been more successful in appropriating American patriotism and its symbols during the 20th century. Survey evidence also confirms that Republicans consider themselves more patriotic than Democrats. According to this interpretation, there is a political congruence between the patriotism promoted on Fourth of July and the values associated with the Republican party. Fourth of July celebrations in Republican dominated counties may thus be more politically biased events that socialize children into Republicans," write Harvard Kennedy School Assistant Professor David Yanagizawa-Drott and Bocconi University Assistant Professor Andreas Madestam. [Enjoy political cartoons about President Obama.]
Their findings also suggest that Democrats gain nothing from July 4th parades, likely a shocking result for all the Democratic politicians who march in them. [Check out editorial cartoons about the Democrats.]
"There is no evidence of an increased likelihood of identifying as a Democrat, indicating that Fourth of July shifts preferences to the right rather than increasing political polarization," the two wrote.
The three key findings of those attending July 4th celebrations:
When done before the age of 18, it increases the likelihood of a youth identifying as a Republican by at least 2 percent.
It raises the likelihood that parade watchers will vote for a Republican candidate by 4 percent.
It boosts the likelihood a reveler will vote by about 1 percent and increases the chances they'll make a political contribution by 3 percent.
What's more, the impact isn't fleeting. "Surprisingly, the estimates show that the impact on political preferences is permanent, with no evidence of the effects depreciating as individuals become older,"said the Harvard report.
Finally, the report suggests that if people are looking for a super-patriotic July 4th, though should head to Republican towns. "Republican adults celebrate Fourth of July more intensively in the first place."
http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/washington-whispers/2011/06/30/harvard-july-4th-parades-are-right-wing_print.html
6/22/2011
Is Newspaper Coverage of Economic Events Politically Biased?
Who would have figured?
John R. Lott Jr.
University of Maryland Foundation, University of Maryland
Kevin A. Hassett
American Enterprise Institute (AEI)
October 19, 2004
Abstract:
Accusations of political bias in the media are often made by members of both political parties, yet there have been few systematic studies of such bias to date. This paper develops an econometric technique to test for political bias in news reports that controls for the underlying character of the news reported. Our results suggest that American newspapers tend to give more positive news coverage to the same economic news when Democrats are in the Presidency than for Republicans. When all types of news are pooled into a single analysis, our results are highly significant. However, the results vary greatly depending upon which economic numbers are being reported. When GDP growth is reported, Republicans received between 16 and 24 percentage point fewer positive stories for the same economic numbers than Democrats. For durable goods for all newspapers, Republicans received between 15 and 25 percentage points fewer positive news stories than Democrats. For unemployment, the difference was between zero and 21 percentage points. Retail sales showed no difference. Among the Associated Press and the top 10 papers, the Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Associated Press, and New York Times tend to be the least likely to report positive news during Republican administrations, while the Houston Chronicle slightly favors Republicans. Only one newspaper treated one Republican administration significantly more positively than the Clinton administration: the Los Angeles Times' headlines were most favorable to the Reagan administration, but it still favored Clinton over either Bush administration. We also find that the media coverage affects people's perceptions of the economy. Contrary to the typical impression that bad news sells, we find that good economic news generates more news coverage and that it is usually covered more prominently. We also present some evidence that media treats parties differently when they control both the presidency and the congress.
John R. Lott Jr.
University of Maryland Foundation, University of Maryland
Kevin A. Hassett
American Enterprise Institute (AEI)
October 19, 2004
Abstract:
Accusations of political bias in the media are often made by members of both political parties, yet there have been few systematic studies of such bias to date. This paper develops an econometric technique to test for political bias in news reports that controls for the underlying character of the news reported. Our results suggest that American newspapers tend to give more positive news coverage to the same economic news when Democrats are in the Presidency than for Republicans. When all types of news are pooled into a single analysis, our results are highly significant. However, the results vary greatly depending upon which economic numbers are being reported. When GDP growth is reported, Republicans received between 16 and 24 percentage point fewer positive stories for the same economic numbers than Democrats. For durable goods for all newspapers, Republicans received between 15 and 25 percentage points fewer positive news stories than Democrats. For unemployment, the difference was between zero and 21 percentage points. Retail sales showed no difference. Among the Associated Press and the top 10 papers, the Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Associated Press, and New York Times tend to be the least likely to report positive news during Republican administrations, while the Houston Chronicle slightly favors Republicans. Only one newspaper treated one Republican administration significantly more positively than the Clinton administration: the Los Angeles Times' headlines were most favorable to the Reagan administration, but it still favored Clinton over either Bush administration. We also find that the media coverage affects people's perceptions of the economy. Contrary to the typical impression that bad news sells, we find that good economic news generates more news coverage and that it is usually covered more prominently. We also present some evidence that media treats parties differently when they control both the presidency and the congress.
6/17/2011
The author of this opinion piece is a "union activist and political consultant." One thing the author should include is "delusional idiot."
Why Democrats need Weiner
By: Victor Kamber
June 15, 2011 06:30 AM EDT
http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
Americans counting on this Congress to stabilize our reeling economy should ask Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) not to resign his House seat.
Weiner may have deplorable personal flaws — but he’s awfully good at what his constituents elected him for: to serve their and the country’s interests as a skilled legislator.
This makes him a rare bird indeed. Even as national problems demand laser-like professional expertise from our elected leaders, this looks like the most unfocused, dysfunctional Congress ever.
Actually the unfocused and dysfunctional congress was booted out in 2010. The Democratic majority headed up by Pelosi was replaced. Even with a majority in all branches, they failed to pass any kind of balanced budget during their tenure. They chose to just kick the can down the road.
Politics may be the only profession where it is more important to be likable than competent. An electable politician is one we’d like to have a beer with. As for the tea party members in Congress: If you’re angry enough and have simplistic answers to tough problems, you can get elected.
It's comments above that have caused me to give up on liberals, and just treat them like spoiled infants.
The United States now faces the huge problem of reducing a horrendous deficit while battling high unemployment. This requires cutting spending and increasing revenues. Unfortunately, 98 percent of Republicans in the House are wearing blinders and can only see half of the solution. The blinders are a pledge not to raise taxes — a pledge made not to the American people, but to Grover Norquist.
Again, the US has faced this issue for years. It's not "now," to imply this is new. This horrendous deficit is a result of failed Democratic policy of not focusing on the budget in the past, worsened by Obama's deficit spending during his tenure, and no confidence from the market. If taxes are raised, how does that free up capital for business to invest in new jobs?
Now, Weiner may not be wearing pants on Twitter, but in his day job he isn’t wearing blinders either.
Weiner’s tweets are embarrassing. But they didn’t cost taxpayers a dime.
Maybe, maybe not...that is still being looked into.
It is because Weiner has been such an effective opponent of GOP attacks on Social Security and Medicare that Republicans, and even some Democrats, want him to resign. Republicans can’t respond to his withering rebuttals that leave their “talking points” in ashes.
I can’t help but feel that some Democrats now urging Weiner to go feel a bit guilty they aren’t standing up for their party’s ideals the way he does.
I love how the author states that they are losing some great orator, leader, and winner of all arguments.
Some pundits liken Weiner’s scandal to former New York Republican Rep. Chris Lee, who posed shirtless for an ad on Craigslist and quickly resigned.
Lee who? Comparing Lee and his legislative “career” to Weiner is like comparing a Hagerstown utility infielder to Albert Pujols.
Actually they were both politicians caught in a scandal. Just because one is more popular than another, it doesn't give Weiner any merit over Lee. In addition, Lee immediately resigned. Weiner tried to keep his job, lie to everyone to cover up his mess, and denied it was him initially. Remember his "hacked account" statements?
The census and redistricting may make the whole matter moot. New York loses two congressional districts, and that could include Weiner’s seat.
Some suggest that Weiner’s fate should be left up to his constituents. I’m for that. Though I don’t live in his district, I would contribute to that campaign.
Liberals deserve representation too — even if it’s from other states.
Victor Kamber is a union activist and political consultant.
Liberals don't deserve representation as a tea party activist does not deserve representation. People do not get elected into office because they "deserve" it. It's the choice of the voters if that person is deserves the job, which is done by an individual casting a vote. No politician is deserving of a job just because that politician has a certain view, be it popular or unpopular.
Victor Kamber would probably afford some time to commit to a more thoughtful article, but apparently he spends way too much time in Weiner's automobile with his head bobbing up and down.
Why Democrats need Weiner
By: Victor Kamber
June 15, 2011 06:30 AM EDT
http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
Americans counting on this Congress to stabilize our reeling economy should ask Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) not to resign his House seat.
Weiner may have deplorable personal flaws — but he’s awfully good at what his constituents elected him for: to serve their and the country’s interests as a skilled legislator.
This makes him a rare bird indeed. Even as national problems demand laser-like professional expertise from our elected leaders, this looks like the most unfocused, dysfunctional Congress ever.
Actually the unfocused and dysfunctional congress was booted out in 2010. The Democratic majority headed up by Pelosi was replaced. Even with a majority in all branches, they failed to pass any kind of balanced budget during their tenure. They chose to just kick the can down the road.
Politics may be the only profession where it is more important to be likable than competent. An electable politician is one we’d like to have a beer with. As for the tea party members in Congress: If you’re angry enough and have simplistic answers to tough problems, you can get elected.
It's comments above that have caused me to give up on liberals, and just treat them like spoiled infants.
The United States now faces the huge problem of reducing a horrendous deficit while battling high unemployment. This requires cutting spending and increasing revenues. Unfortunately, 98 percent of Republicans in the House are wearing blinders and can only see half of the solution. The blinders are a pledge not to raise taxes — a pledge made not to the American people, but to Grover Norquist.
Again, the US has faced this issue for years. It's not "now," to imply this is new. This horrendous deficit is a result of failed Democratic policy of not focusing on the budget in the past, worsened by Obama's deficit spending during his tenure, and no confidence from the market. If taxes are raised, how does that free up capital for business to invest in new jobs?
Now, Weiner may not be wearing pants on Twitter, but in his day job he isn’t wearing blinders either.
Weiner’s tweets are embarrassing. But they didn’t cost taxpayers a dime.
Maybe, maybe not...that is still being looked into.
It is because Weiner has been such an effective opponent of GOP attacks on Social Security and Medicare that Republicans, and even some Democrats, want him to resign. Republicans can’t respond to his withering rebuttals that leave their “talking points” in ashes.
I can’t help but feel that some Democrats now urging Weiner to go feel a bit guilty they aren’t standing up for their party’s ideals the way he does.
I love how the author states that they are losing some great orator, leader, and winner of all arguments.
Some pundits liken Weiner’s scandal to former New York Republican Rep. Chris Lee, who posed shirtless for an ad on Craigslist and quickly resigned.
Lee who? Comparing Lee and his legislative “career” to Weiner is like comparing a Hagerstown utility infielder to Albert Pujols.
Actually they were both politicians caught in a scandal. Just because one is more popular than another, it doesn't give Weiner any merit over Lee. In addition, Lee immediately resigned. Weiner tried to keep his job, lie to everyone to cover up his mess, and denied it was him initially. Remember his "hacked account" statements?
The census and redistricting may make the whole matter moot. New York loses two congressional districts, and that could include Weiner’s seat.
Some suggest that Weiner’s fate should be left up to his constituents. I’m for that. Though I don’t live in his district, I would contribute to that campaign.
Liberals deserve representation too — even if it’s from other states.
Victor Kamber is a union activist and political consultant.
Liberals don't deserve representation as a tea party activist does not deserve representation. People do not get elected into office because they "deserve" it. It's the choice of the voters if that person is deserves the job, which is done by an individual casting a vote. No politician is deserving of a job just because that politician has a certain view, be it popular or unpopular.
Victor Kamber would probably afford some time to commit to a more thoughtful article, but apparently he spends way too much time in Weiner's automobile with his head bobbing up and down.
6/02/2011
TV Executives Admit in Taped Interviews That Hollywood Pushes a Liberal Agenda (Exclusive Video)
Go figure, interesting videos are at the bottom of the story.
TV Executives Admit in Taped Interviews That Hollywood Pushes a Liberal Agenda (Exclusive Video)http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
TV Executives Admit in Taped Interviews That Hollywood Pushes a Liberal Agenda (Exclusive Video)http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
5/23/2011
5/17/2011
Eating their own...
RISE OF THE OBAMABOTS
By Ted Rall Mon May 16, 5:03 pm ET
Stifling Liberal Dissent Under Obama
NEW YORK--After they called the presidency for Obama, emails poured in. "You must be relieved now that the Democrats are taking over," an old college buddy told me. "There will be less pressure on you."
That would have been nice.
In the late 1990s my cartoons ran in Time, Fortune and Bloomberg Personal magazines and over 100 daily and alternative weekly newspapers. I was a staff writer for two major magazines.
Then Bush came in. And 9/11 happened.
The media gorged on an orgy of psychotic right-wing rhetoric. Flags everywhere. Torture suddenly OK. In a nation where mainstream political discourse was redefined between Dick Cheney on the right and libertarian Bill Maher on the not-as-right, there wasn't any room in the paper for a left-of-center cartoonist. My business was savaged. Income plunged.
My editor at Time called me on September 13, 2001. "We're discontinuing all cartoons," she told me. I was one of four cartoonists at the newsweekly. "Humor is dead." I snorted. They never brought back cartoons.
McCarthyism--blackballing--made a big comeback. I had been drawing a monthly comic strip, "The Testosterone Diaries," for Men's Health. No politics. It was about guy stuff: dating, job insecurity, prostate tests, that sort of thing. They fired me. Not because of anything I drew for them. It was because of my syndicated editorial cartoons, which attacked Bush and his policies. The publisher worried about pissing off right-wingers during a period of nationalism on steroids.
Desperate and going broke, I called an editor who'd given me lots of work at the magazines he ran during the 1990s. "Sorry, dude, I can't help," he replied. "You're radioactive."
It was tempting, when Obama's Democrats swept into office in 2008, to think that the bad old days were coming to an end. I wasn't looking for any favors, just a swing of the political pendulum back to the Clinton years when it was still OK to be a liberal.
This, you have no doubt correctly guessed, is the part where I tell you I was wrong.
I didn't count on the cult of personality around Barack Obama.
In the 1990s it was OK to attack Clinton from the left. I went after the Man From Hope and his centrist, "triangulation"-obsessed Democratic Leadership Council for selling out progressive principles. Along with like-minded political cartoonists including Tom Tomorrow and Lloyd Dangle, my cartoons and columns took Clinton's militant moderates to the woodshed for NAFTA, the WTO and welfare reform. A pal who worked in the White House informed me that the President, known for his short temper, stormed into his office and slammed a copy of that morning's Washington Post down on the desk with my cartoon showing. "How dare your friend compare me to Bush?" he shouted. (The first Bush.)
It was better than winning a Pulitzer.
It feels a little weird to write this, like I'm telling tales out of school and ratting out the Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy. But it's true: there's less room for a leftie during the Age of Obama than there was under Bush.
I didn't realize how besotted progressives were by Mr. Hopey Changey.
Obama lost me before Inauguration Day, when he announced cabinet appointments that didn't include a single liberal.
It got worse after that: Obama extended and expanded Bush's TARP giveaway to the banks; continued Bush's spying on our phone calls; ignored the foreclosure crisis; refused to investigate, much less prosecute, Bush's torturers; his healthcare plan was a sellout to Big Pharma; he kept Gitmo open; expanded the war against Afghanistan; dispatched more drone bombers; used weasel words to redefine the troops in Iraq as "non-combat"; extended the Bush tax cuts for the rich; claiming the right to assassinate U.S. citizens; most recently, there was the forced nudity torture of PFC Bradley Manning and expanding oil drilling offshore and on national lands.
I was merciless to Obama. I was cruel in my criticisms of Obama's sellouts to the right. In my writings and drawings I tried to tell it as it was, or anyway, as I saw it. I thought--still think--that's my job. I'm a critic, not a suck-up. The Obama Administration doesn't need journalists or pundits to carry its water. That's what press secretaries and PR flacks are for.
Does Obama ever do anything right? Not often, but sure. And when he does, I shut up about it. Cartoonists and columnists who promote government policy are an embarrassment.
But that's what "liberal" media outlets want in the age of Obama.
I can't prove it in every case. (That's how blackballing works.) The Nation and Mother Jones and Harper's, liberal magazines that gave me freelance work under Clinton and Bush, now ignore my queries. Even when I offered them first-person, unembedded war reporting from Afghanistan. Hey, maybe they're too busy to answer email or voicemail. You never know.
Other censors are brazen.
There's been a push among political cartoonists to get our work into the big editorial blogs and online magazines that seem poised to displace traditional print political magazines like The Progressive. In the past, editorial rejections had numerous causes: low budgets, lack of space, an editor who simply preferred another creator's work over yours.
Now there' s a new cause for refusal: Too tough on the president.
I've heard that from enough "liberal" websites and print publications to consider it a significant trend.
A sample of recent rejections, each from editors at different left-of-center media outlets:
· "I am familiar with and enjoy your cartoons. However the readers of our site would not be comfortable with your (admittedly on point) criticism of Obama."
· "Don't be such a hater on O and we could use your stuff. Can't you focus more on the GOP?"
· "Our first African-American president deserves a chance to clean up Bush's mess without being attacked by us."
I have many more like that.
What's weird is that these cultish attitudes come from editors and publishers whose politics line up neatly with mine. They oppose the bailouts. They want us out of Afghanistan and Iraq. They disapprove of Obama's new war against Libya. They want Obama to renounce torture and Guantánamo.
Obama is the one they ought to be blackballing. He has been a terrible disappointment to the American left. He has forsaken liberals at every turn. Yet they continue to stand by him. Which means that, in effect, they are not liberals at all. They are militant Democrats. They are Obamabots.
As long as Democrats win elections, they are happy. Nevermind that their policies are the same as, or to the right of, the Republicans.
"So what should I think about [the war in Libya]?," asks Kevin Drum in Mother Jones. "If it had been my call, I wouldn't have gone into Libya. But the reason I voted for Obama in 2008 is because I trust his judgment. And not in any merely abstract way, either: I mean that if he and I were in a room and disagreed about some issue on which I had any doubt at all, I'd literally trust his judgment over my own. I think he's smarter than me, better informed, better able to understand the consequences of his actions, and more farsighted."
Mr. Drum, call your office. Someone found your brain in the break room.
Barack Obama and the Democrats have made it perfectly clear that they don't care about the issues and concerns that I care about. Unlike Kevin Drum, I think--I know--I'm smarter than Barack Obama. I wouldn't have made half the mistakes he has.
So I don't care about Obama. Or the Democrats. I care about America and the world and the people who live in them.
Hey, Obamabots: when the man you support betrays your principles, he has to go--not your principles.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ucru/20110516/cm_ucru/riseoftheobamabots/print
By Ted Rall Mon May 16, 5:03 pm ET
Stifling Liberal Dissent Under Obama
NEW YORK--After they called the presidency for Obama, emails poured in. "You must be relieved now that the Democrats are taking over," an old college buddy told me. "There will be less pressure on you."
That would have been nice.
In the late 1990s my cartoons ran in Time, Fortune and Bloomberg Personal magazines and over 100 daily and alternative weekly newspapers. I was a staff writer for two major magazines.
Then Bush came in. And 9/11 happened.
The media gorged on an orgy of psychotic right-wing rhetoric. Flags everywhere. Torture suddenly OK. In a nation where mainstream political discourse was redefined between Dick Cheney on the right and libertarian Bill Maher on the not-as-right, there wasn't any room in the paper for a left-of-center cartoonist. My business was savaged. Income plunged.
My editor at Time called me on September 13, 2001. "We're discontinuing all cartoons," she told me. I was one of four cartoonists at the newsweekly. "Humor is dead." I snorted. They never brought back cartoons.
McCarthyism--blackballing--made a big comeback. I had been drawing a monthly comic strip, "The Testosterone Diaries," for Men's Health. No politics. It was about guy stuff: dating, job insecurity, prostate tests, that sort of thing. They fired me. Not because of anything I drew for them. It was because of my syndicated editorial cartoons, which attacked Bush and his policies. The publisher worried about pissing off right-wingers during a period of nationalism on steroids.
Desperate and going broke, I called an editor who'd given me lots of work at the magazines he ran during the 1990s. "Sorry, dude, I can't help," he replied. "You're radioactive."
It was tempting, when Obama's Democrats swept into office in 2008, to think that the bad old days were coming to an end. I wasn't looking for any favors, just a swing of the political pendulum back to the Clinton years when it was still OK to be a liberal.
This, you have no doubt correctly guessed, is the part where I tell you I was wrong.
I didn't count on the cult of personality around Barack Obama.
In the 1990s it was OK to attack Clinton from the left. I went after the Man From Hope and his centrist, "triangulation"-obsessed Democratic Leadership Council for selling out progressive principles. Along with like-minded political cartoonists including Tom Tomorrow and Lloyd Dangle, my cartoons and columns took Clinton's militant moderates to the woodshed for NAFTA, the WTO and welfare reform. A pal who worked in the White House informed me that the President, known for his short temper, stormed into his office and slammed a copy of that morning's Washington Post down on the desk with my cartoon showing. "How dare your friend compare me to Bush?" he shouted. (The first Bush.)
It was better than winning a Pulitzer.
It feels a little weird to write this, like I'm telling tales out of school and ratting out the Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy. But it's true: there's less room for a leftie during the Age of Obama than there was under Bush.
I didn't realize how besotted progressives were by Mr. Hopey Changey.
Obama lost me before Inauguration Day, when he announced cabinet appointments that didn't include a single liberal.
It got worse after that: Obama extended and expanded Bush's TARP giveaway to the banks; continued Bush's spying on our phone calls; ignored the foreclosure crisis; refused to investigate, much less prosecute, Bush's torturers; his healthcare plan was a sellout to Big Pharma; he kept Gitmo open; expanded the war against Afghanistan; dispatched more drone bombers; used weasel words to redefine the troops in Iraq as "non-combat"; extended the Bush tax cuts for the rich; claiming the right to assassinate U.S. citizens; most recently, there was the forced nudity torture of PFC Bradley Manning and expanding oil drilling offshore and on national lands.
I was merciless to Obama. I was cruel in my criticisms of Obama's sellouts to the right. In my writings and drawings I tried to tell it as it was, or anyway, as I saw it. I thought--still think--that's my job. I'm a critic, not a suck-up. The Obama Administration doesn't need journalists or pundits to carry its water. That's what press secretaries and PR flacks are for.
Does Obama ever do anything right? Not often, but sure. And when he does, I shut up about it. Cartoonists and columnists who promote government policy are an embarrassment.
But that's what "liberal" media outlets want in the age of Obama.
I can't prove it in every case. (That's how blackballing works.) The Nation and Mother Jones and Harper's, liberal magazines that gave me freelance work under Clinton and Bush, now ignore my queries. Even when I offered them first-person, unembedded war reporting from Afghanistan. Hey, maybe they're too busy to answer email or voicemail. You never know.
Other censors are brazen.
There's been a push among political cartoonists to get our work into the big editorial blogs and online magazines that seem poised to displace traditional print political magazines like The Progressive. In the past, editorial rejections had numerous causes: low budgets, lack of space, an editor who simply preferred another creator's work over yours.
Now there' s a new cause for refusal: Too tough on the president.
I've heard that from enough "liberal" websites and print publications to consider it a significant trend.
A sample of recent rejections, each from editors at different left-of-center media outlets:
· "I am familiar with and enjoy your cartoons. However the readers of our site would not be comfortable with your (admittedly on point) criticism of Obama."
· "Don't be such a hater on O and we could use your stuff. Can't you focus more on the GOP?"
· "Our first African-American president deserves a chance to clean up Bush's mess without being attacked by us."
I have many more like that.
What's weird is that these cultish attitudes come from editors and publishers whose politics line up neatly with mine. They oppose the bailouts. They want us out of Afghanistan and Iraq. They disapprove of Obama's new war against Libya. They want Obama to renounce torture and Guantánamo.
Obama is the one they ought to be blackballing. He has been a terrible disappointment to the American left. He has forsaken liberals at every turn. Yet they continue to stand by him. Which means that, in effect, they are not liberals at all. They are militant Democrats. They are Obamabots.
As long as Democrats win elections, they are happy. Nevermind that their policies are the same as, or to the right of, the Republicans.
"So what should I think about [the war in Libya]?," asks Kevin Drum in Mother Jones. "If it had been my call, I wouldn't have gone into Libya. But the reason I voted for Obama in 2008 is because I trust his judgment. And not in any merely abstract way, either: I mean that if he and I were in a room and disagreed about some issue on which I had any doubt at all, I'd literally trust his judgment over my own. I think he's smarter than me, better informed, better able to understand the consequences of his actions, and more farsighted."
Mr. Drum, call your office. Someone found your brain in the break room.
Barack Obama and the Democrats have made it perfectly clear that they don't care about the issues and concerns that I care about. Unlike Kevin Drum, I think--I know--I'm smarter than Barack Obama. I wouldn't have made half the mistakes he has.
So I don't care about Obama. Or the Democrats. I care about America and the world and the people who live in them.
Hey, Obamabots: when the man you support betrays your principles, he has to go--not your principles.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ucru/20110516/cm_ucru/riseoftheobamabots/print
4/21/2011
Then and now
“The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. Government can’t pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government’s reckless fiscal policies…
Increasing America’s debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that “the buck stops here.” Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better.”
- Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL), March 20, 2006
Highlights of Obama's interview with AP 4/16/2011:
Expressed confidence that Congress will vote to raise the limit on the nation's debt but acknowledged that he'll have to agree to additional spending cuts. Said that to "play chicken with this thing" and not raise the ceiling before the U.S. hits its $14.3 trillion limit on borrowing in mid-May could have dire consequences, including another global recession.
Increasing America’s debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that “the buck stops here.” Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better.”
- Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL), March 20, 2006
Highlights of Obama's interview with AP 4/16/2011:
Expressed confidence that Congress will vote to raise the limit on the nation's debt but acknowledged that he'll have to agree to additional spending cuts. Said that to "play chicken with this thing" and not raise the ceiling before the U.S. hits its $14.3 trillion limit on borrowing in mid-May could have dire consequences, including another global recession.
4/01/2011
Wisconsin Labor Protests and International Socialism
Right around 3 minutes in, hilarity commences. These people are so stupid.
3/29/2011
Obama’s Close Personal Friends Ayers and Dohrn Say Any Country With a US Military Base Should Be Able to Vote in American Presidential Elections…
Just listen to what these idiots are saying...
Is Being Pro-States Rights Racist? Al Sharpton Says the Tea Party Is Anti-Civil Rights by Default
The professional race-baiters are trying soooo damn hard to stay relevant in the age of Obama.
3/14/2011
Charles Krauthammer: If NPR Is Superior, Why Must It ‘Live On The Tit Of The State?’
Charles Krauthammer: If NPR Is Superior, Why Must It ‘Live On The Tit Of The State?’
Krauthammer really points out the issue very well.
Krauthammer really points out the issue very well.
3/08/2011
3/05/2011
Wisconsin Unions vs. The Tea Party: A Classic Double Standard
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.
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.
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