Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Devolution: AP Waters Down Obama-Gates-Crowley
Watching Associated Press reports evolve, or as is all too often the case, devolve, can be a revealing exercise.
Example: What happened between 8 p.m. Friday and 8 a.m. Saturday that would have caused the Associated Press and writer Nancy Benac to water down the headline and opening paragraphs of their story about the Obama-Gates-Crowley situation from this ....
.... to this?
Why, 12 hours later, when there are no known developments in the story, is the situation no longer one that Obama "helped fire" or "stoke"?
While the AP headline writers and Benac eased up on Obama, Benac didn't lighten up on Obama critics, as the following paragraphs from each report demonstrate... [snip]
The current AP dynamic link is here, so readers can see if and/or how Benac's story further devolves.
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Did the CIA 'Cook the Books' on Iran?
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Thanks to a brilliant piece of journalism by German investigative reporter Bruno Schirra published in the July 20 edition of The Wall Street Journal Europe, we have evidence to suggest that the 2007 NIE's conclusion about Iran's nuclear bomb program [having been halted] wasn't merely wrong, but corrupt.
Simply put, while our country's intelligence service believed that Iran had abandoned its nuclear bomb program in 2003, Germany's intelligence service was amassing evidence that the Iranian bomb program was ongoing. This raises three obvious and crucially important questions:
- Was our country's intelligence service aware of the BND's evidence and conclusions when its analysts wrote that 2007 NIE about Iran?
- If not, why not?
- If our intelligence service was aware of the BND's evidence and conclusions, then how and why did the authors of that 2007 NIE reach the opposite conclusion about Iran's nuclear bomb program?
Did they just ignore the BND's evidence because they didn't like it and because our intelligence officials wanted to throw a banana peel under President Bush's feet?
A nuclear-armed Iran threatens our national survival, and that to meet this threat President Obama and his advisers need the best possible intelligence. Only the House and Senate intelligence oversight committees can get to the bottom of all this. But right now leading members of these committees, and the Speaker of the House, are blathering on -- and on -- about the phony issue of whether former Vice President Dick Cheney ordered the CIA to not testify about some program to wipe out the leaders of al Qaeda that never actually got off the ground.
This isn't politics; this is suicide. God help us if our enemies conclude that the United States is no longer capable of being serious about intelligence.
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Horrific “Honor”
It was as cold-blooded and vicious an honor crime as any the West has seen, but with one difference. This time, the victim was male.
A 24-year-old Asian man is clinging to life in a British hospital after seven men attacked him last week in London for having a friendship with a married Muslim woman.
The unidentified man, who is Muslim himself and has Danish citizenship, was stabbed twice in the back and beaten so severely with bricks that authorities report he is now blind in one eye and will probably lose sight in the other. Acid was also poured down the victim’s throat, damaging his tongue and throat so severely he will probably never speak again.
“The poor man got up and ran straight into a tree, then staggered back to his house, tugging at his burning clothes and banging on doors, shouting for water,” said one woman who witnessed the attack.
The victim’s body was also doused with acid, burning more than 50 per cent and leaving him in critical condition. News reports state he is not expected to survive. His assailants, police say, were all wearing gloves and masks for protection against the sulphuric acid, ... [ snip]
The motive for the attack, British newspapers report, is that the woman’s family, which is from Pakistan, considered the man’s friendship with her “insulting” to the family’s honor.
Incredibly, London police now expect the Pakistani family to attempt to further wash away more of that “foulness.” The woman, police fear, may be killed next and are trying to figure out how to protect her...
["Trying to figure it out" ? We take children from their parents for far less - why not here where there's no doubt?
Oops, forgot: don't' want to offend anyone.]
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It wouldn't happen to the Koran
The Pope has condemned a ' disgusting' taxpayer-funded exhibition in which visitors are urged to deface the Bible.
Visitors were offered pens by gallery bosses so they could scrawl comments on the text - leading to a host of puerile and obscene remarks.
Pope Benedict XVI believes the stunt would not have been contemplated with a copy of the Koran.
Artist Anthony Schrag. He wanted gays and transsexuals who felt left out of religion
[Isn't that 'tolerant'.]
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China has pointed questions for US in private
Washington - The United States and China are striking a conciliatory tone in their public comments during economic talks, although that hasn't stopped China from posing some pointed questions behind closed doors about such issues as America's soaring budget deficit to try to reassure China that the U.S. will not let deficits or inflation jeopardize the value of Chinese investments...
[Guess the days of the US asking China 'pointed questons' about its human rights violations are long gone. The consequences of becoming the world's super-debtor.
'Free' health care anyone?]
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Zelaya's Gone, but Democracy Now! Keeps Trying to Bring Him Back
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... Let's take a moment to review some of the events that led to the Zelayas now finding themselves in their new role as perpetual guests of fellow Marxist President Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua:
- 1. Officials are investigating allegations that Zelaya stole millions from the Central Bank of Honduras. A security video from the Central Bank of Honduras (now in the possession of the The Washington Times) shows Honduran officials entering the bank and withdrawing millions, which was taken directly to Mr. Zelaya’s chief of staff, Enrique Flores Lanza.
- 2. Zelaya was planning an illegal referendum that, if successful, would have permitted him to serve a second term as president. This is blatantly illegal under the Honduran Constitution. Honduras’ Supreme Court, the military, its Congress, and the majority of the people were all united in their vigorous opposition to the referendum.
- 3. The Zelaya administration was coming more and more under the influence of Marxist Hugo Chavez, the soon to be president-for-life of Venezuela. Honduras is a conservative country, and the growing influence of the leftist ideology of Chavez over Zelaya prompted Honduran Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga to declare that Zelaya no longer has:
“…any authority, moral or legal. The legal authority he lost because he broke laws and the moral authority he lost with a discourse full of lies. The most patriotic thing he could do is stay away. Anything else is just trying to impose Hugo Chavez’s project [Socialism] at all costs.”
The Hondurans don’t want Chavez-style authoritarianism, and running Zelaya out on a rail was their way of making that fact known to the world.
Goodman and the folks at Democracy Now! should begin to reconcile themselves to that fact.
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FLASHBACKs >
Tossing Free Honduras under the Bus
Obama 'meddles' in Honduras -- and chooses the wrong side
Hondurans unhappy with Obama
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Obama, Chavez Are Both Nationalizing Private Companies
Washington - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is taking over private companies in order to deal with the economic crisis that has affected both his country and the United States, and the Obama administration is trying to do roughly the same thing, Venezuelan political analyst Dr. Luis Vicente León told CNSNews.com Monday.
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THE CENTER CANNOT HOLD
The illusion that Barack Obama will lead from the economic center has quickly come to an end. His policies are designed to radically re-engineer the market-based U.S. economy, not mitigate the recession.
The President's $3.6 trillion budget blueprint, by his own admission, redefines the role of government in our economy and society:
- Almost triple the deficit.
- Add $6.5 trillion to the national debt.
- Leave future U.S. taxpayers (I.e., our children) with the tab.
- There will have been several years of economic recovery.
- The funds will be returned from the financial bailouts.
- U.S. forces will have withdrawn from Iraq.
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POLL: 62% Oppose Federal Bailouts for State Budget Problems
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 20% of adults favor bailing out financially troubled states. Nineteen percent (19%) are not sure which course is best.
These findings are largely unchanged from mid-May when California’s financial problems became national news.
Eighty-two percent (82%) of Republicans and 61% of adults not affiliated with either major political party oppose federal bailout help for states with budget problems.
A plurality (42%) of Democrats agree, but 31% think bailing out the states is a good idea.
Seventy-seven percent (77%) of voters nationwide say the unwillingness of politicians to cut government spending is a bigger problem than the public’s unwillingness to pay higher taxes.
Roughly seven-out-of-10 California voters oppose raising income and sales taxes to meet the state’s massive and growing budget deficit.
Forty-four percent (44%) of American adults say, generally speaking, the government tries to do too much, but 31% believe it doesn’t try to do enough...
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A Chemical Scare Campaign Is Good Business for Some
Last month, the Statistical Assessment Service (STATS), a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization affiliated with George Mason University, released "Science Suppressed: How America became obsessed with BPA,
" a report which accuses the media of ignoring the extensive research of respected scientists and major health agencies in the United States and around the world, which found BPA was not only safe but played an important role in ensuring food safety." [snip]
If you're unfamiliar with Bisphenol A (BPA), it is a chemical used to make lightweight, versatile, durable, high-performance plastics. [like water bottles]
Until recently, this appeared to be nothing more than a typical attempt by liberals to go after business and manufacturing. But as several bloggers have recently pointed out, there appears to be a more sinister motive. You see, the radical environmental groups who fundraise off of this issue, the trial lawyers who line their pockets with class action lawsuits against BPA manufacturers, and the Democratic politicians who score political points by attacking BPA all have one thing in common: They all share the same PR huckster -- David Fenton.
If the name David Fenton of Fenton Communications sounds familiar, it may be because he's the guy who invented the 'General Betray Us' ad campaign that MoveOn.org used to attack General Petreaus... [snip]
Sadly, it appears that these attacks were not mistakes made with the best of intentions, but rather, a racket designed to put money in the pockets of liberal special interests...
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What Green Jobs?
President Obama devoted nearly $60 billion of his stimulus package to building a new green-based economy rich in renewable energy and strategies to cut carbon.
But despite the price tag, not one green job yet exists.
It comes down to a problem of etymology. No one can yet agree on what a green job actually is...
[Guess it's now called the 'sixty billion dollar question'. Too bad no one had time to read the thing before they passed it.]
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72% Don’t Want Feds Changing Their Light Bulbs
Just 18% of adults think it’s the government’s job to tell Americans what kind of light bulb they use, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. Seventy-two percent (72%) say it’s none of the government’s business, and 10% are not sure.
The federal government under an energy bill passed in 2007 is requiring consumers to dump incandescent bulbs, the ones we’ve used for well over a century, for more expensive fluorescent ones. The plan is scheduled to go into effect over the next 10 years in the name of great energy efficiency.
Eighty-three percent (83%) of Republicans and 78% of adults not affiliated with either major political party say it’s not the government’s role to make Americans change their light bulbs. Among Democrats, 58% share that view, but 29% say it is the government’s job.
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Democrats search for villains on health care
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With their health care plans in a holding pattern — and no George W. Bush to kick around anymore — Democrats are casting about for somebody to blame.
House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn says that Republicans have “perfected ‘just say no.’”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said insurance companies are chalking up “immoral profits.”
But even if they won’t acknowledge it publicly, most Democrats in Congress know the truth: It’s their own colleagues who are slowing down progress in both the House and the Senate...
[Again and again: they don't debate the merits of their ideas but attack anyone who questions...]
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White House using class warfare to sell health reform plan
In explaining why it was OK to sock a new 5.4% tax on the highest earners in this country — to pay for health care reform — President Obama’s press secretary, Robert Gibbs, said this:
“The president believes that the richest 1% of this country has had a pretty good run of it for many years.”
Ah. So that’s it. The old “You’ve had it good enough for long enough” policy...
[What has our country come to that a politician at any level can say such a thing and not be thrown out of office?]
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Plastic Surgery Tax Eyed As Revenue Raiser
Face-lifts, tummy tucks and hair transplants could be hit with a new tax to help finance the trillion-dollar healthcare overhaul plan, according to sources familiar with the Senate talks.
The Senate Finance Committee has discussed imposing a 10 percent excise tax on cosmetic surgery deemed 'unnecessary' [by whom?] for medical purposes.
[Translation: how dare you pay for for just your own surgery - if you can afford that you should be made to pay for someone else's.
'Home of the free.']
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Rare, Truthful Treat: AP's 'Fact Check' On Obama Presser Hits Surprisingly Hard
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Associated Press's Calvin Woodward does the primary honors in an AP Fact Check that takes aim at the President's 'accuracy' in his descriptions of his health care bill... [snip]
OBAMA: "It will keep government out of health care decisions, giving you the option to keep your insurance if you're happy with it."
THE FACTS: A commission appointed by the government would determine what is and isn't covered by insurance plans offered in a new purchasing pool, including a plan sponsored by the government. The bill also holds out the possibility that, over time, those standards could be imposed on all private insurance plans, not just the ones in the pool.
OBAMA: "I have also pledged that health insurance reform will not add to our deficit over the next decade, and I mean it."
THE FACTS: White House Budget Director Peter Orszag told reporters this week that the promise 'does not apply' to proposed spending of about $245 billion over the next decade to increase fees for doctors serving Medicare patients.
OBAMA: "You haven't seen me out there blaming the Republicans."
THE FACTS: Obama did so in his opening statement, saying, "I've heard that one Republican strategist told his party that even though they may want to compromise, it's better politics to 'go for the kill."
OBAMA: "If we had done nothing ... you'd have a $9.3 trillion deficit over the next 10 years. Because of the changes we've made, it's going to be $7.1 trillion."
THE FACTS: Obama's numbers are based on figures compiled by his own 'budget office'. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, in its own analysis of the president's budget numbers, concluded that the cumulative deficit over the next decade would be $9.1 trillion.
Woodward et al could have done a bit better. Their "deficit-neutral" fact check point ignored Congressional Budget Office predictions that the legislation will add to the deficit, and to spending.
The AP team could have further pointed to the history of federal programs in general, which rarely if ever stay within their anticipated spending constraints, or to Massachusetts's government-run Commonwealth Care, supposedly a model for much of what is in ObamaCare, where costs are spiraling out of control.
Nonetheless, Woodward and ABC's Jake Tapper remain virtually alone in the White House press corps in their willingness to report negative news about Obama or to even question him on identified analysis items.
Will that ever change?
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WaPo Shocker: President Is Hiding Cost of Obamacare
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What was a terrible week for Barack Obama likely worsened Sunday when the Washington Post editorial board accused the President of withholding from the public the true costs of the healthcare reform he so eagerly seeks.
With as much as Obama has on the line with this agenda item, these words from the Post have to hurt ...
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Hawaii officials confirm Obama's original birth certificate still exists
Hawai'i's Health Department confirmed yesterday that it has President Obama's original Aug. 4, 1961, birth certificate in storage, but the announcement is unlikely to satisfy conspiracy theorists who insist Obama was born in Kenya.
'We don't destroy vital records,; Health Department spokeswoman Janice Okubo said. ;'That's our whole job, to maintain and retain vital records.'
[Terrific, produce it, and put the whole topic to rest.]
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Traffic to Obama's White House Web Site Has Plummeted
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The traffic at President Obama's official White House Web site--whitehouse.gov--has fallen from a post-Inauguration peak to nearly the same level it was during the waning days of the Bush administration
The dramatic drop in traffic has happened despite the Obama Administration's complete redesign of the site. Traffic to the site has fallen 51.6 percent in the last three months.
People are also spending less time on the site than they did before.
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Obamas' dog Bo celebrates his 'first 100 days'
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Los Angeles Times
[Our professional media - and no, you're not getting a link]
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Sarah of Liberty
Sarah Palin may become the great champion of liberty in an era when it is under threat as never before. Two pictures contained herein in this express this hope.
Sarah Palin has already demonstrated a capacity to connect with ordinary Americans. This charisma frightens and angers many and the left, and not a few Republicans as well.
The phony intellectual elitists, who have little or no understanding, much less grounding, in the fundamental ideas undergirding the American republic, as well as the shallow conservative intellectuals, jealous of her connection to the taproot of the American spirit, will no doubt be bewildered by her reappearence on the national stage.
But the American people, who don't think you must be stupid if you didn't go to an Ivy League university, and who understand that America is a special nation, a unique experiment in liberty, will respond. American exceptionalism is as much an anathema to the pointy heads as shopping at Wal-Mart. But not to mainstream America.
I have a strong suspicion that Sarah Palin will emerge as a strong champion of liberty.
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Peggy Noonan: Sarah Palin Jealous
You're Peggy Noonan and you're jealous. But it's not the normal kind of jealous, the kind reserved for girlfriends who can squeeze into size 2 jeans. No, it's the kind of jealous that hurts, that grabs your gut and twists, that has you howling with rage into your pillow in the middle of the night, screaming "It's not fair" like a two-year-old denied another piece of cake. It is Sarah Palin jealous...and it is consuming you... [snip]
They talk about the Palin family fishing business-big deal. Anyone can get a couple of fish -- just call Leonards' on Third Avenue and they will deliver. But Palin is not the only savvy executive type. You got together with your closest friends, all the kind of women who, unlike Sarah Palin, live in the real world where women wear "Channel jackets" and "long, flowing pants with heels," and understand life, as Reuters noted, "on a level that goes beyond the mundane."
You're Peggy Noonan and you're jealous. Your "beyond the mundane" co-founders -- "buds" as the Sarah Palin types so crassly put it-for your new venture are the essence of your kind of middle America: they include "60 Minutes" reporter Lesley Stahl; actresses Candice Bergen, Whoopi Goldberg and Marlo Thomas, your type of conservatives, which puts them a bit to the right of Hugo Chavez... [snip]
But after a year your audience is less than 20 percent of what is defined as success, your investors are worried, and the same women who pack Sarah Palin rallies are ignoring your venture, which features such pieces as "Michelle Obama's Scintillating Style" and "French Fashion Designers Churn Out Stylish Burqhas."
What is wrong with this country? Why don't people listen to you? Can't they read without moving their lips?
You're Peggy Noonan and you're jealous. And, worst of all, Sarah Palin is not...
[More, Recommended > ]
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Great polling data for Sarah Palin
So where does Sarah Palin stand right now? Well according to the recent Public Policy Poll (PPP) she is doing quite well, in fact she is in the lead of all potential GOP 2012 contenders.
Sarah Palin favorability rating among conservative Republicans is 73%, Huckabee is at 65%, and Romney is at 53%. Sarah Palin also has a 45% approval rating among registered independents, which is just under half of their support. Sarah Palin also scored huge among Hispanic voters with a 51% approval rating, with not even a close second among GOP 2012 hopefuls. Sarah Palin also leads among GOP 2012 contenders with the 18-29 age range with 51% having a favorability rating in what is traditionally considered a Democratic stronghold.
In every region in the country Sarah Palin is in the lead against all the other GOP 2012 hopefuls; with 43% in the Northeast, 47% in the South, 50% in the Midwest, and 51% in the West.
How about among GOP “moderates” surely Sarah Palin is not doing well with this demographic, right? Wrong the PPP Poll finds that,“For the second month in a row we found Sarah Palin as the most popular of the leading 2012 GOP hopefuls among moderate Republicans. 64% have a positive opinion of her compared to 57% for Newt Gingrich, 53% for Mike Huckabee, and 45% for Mitt Romney.”
So for Sarah Palin the sky is the limit, and she has yet to really start taking the fight to the Democrats and Obama.
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An Incoherent Truth
NY Times, by Paul Krugman
"Right now the fate of health care reform seems to rest in the hands of relatively conservative Democrats — mainly members of the Blue Dog Coalition, created in 1995. And you might be tempted to say that President Obama needs to give those Democrats what they want.
But he can’t — because the Blue Dogs aren’t making sense..."
[Krugman saying someone else isn't making sense - now that's comical.
{points for the title though}]
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What if Palin Were President?
Can you believe the gall of these Sarah Palin cultists? Presidential aspirations? This is a woman who named one of her kids "Track," for God's sake. (Well, if it really is her kid.)
William Buckley once wrote that he rather would
"entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University."
But running government is no longer a suitable vocation for the bumbling proletariat. It's for folks with schoolin' and such. It's a job for herculean thinkers with degrees from Ivy League schools. In other words, no one from Alaska need apply.
Former sports reporters certainly won't do. We need former constitutional scholars. Who else, after all, has a better understanding of how to undermine the document?
Really, where would we be if a bumpkin like Palin were president? With her brainpower, we probably would be stuck with a Cabinet full of tax cheats, retreads and moralizing social engineers.
If Palin were president, chances are we'd have a gaffe-generating motormouth for a vice president. That's the kind of decision-making one expects from Miss Congeniality.
The job of building generational debt is not for the unsophisticated. Enriching political donors with taxpayer dollars takes intellectual prowess, not the skills of a moose-hunting point guard.
The talent to print money we don't have to pay for programs we can't afford is the work of a finely tuned imagination, soaring gravitas and endless policy know-how.
Palin is so clueless she probably would have rushed through some colossal stimulus plan that ended up stimulating nothing.
If Palin were president, no one doubts this nation would have continued the Bush-era policy of indefinite detention of enemy combatants and the CIA's program of transferring prisoners to other countries without legal rights. Be thankful you have a president who makes you think this nation doesn't.
If Palin were commander in chief -- and, again, can anyone imagine anything so preposterous? -- the United States still would be fighting endless and expensive wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
It's true that Palin's first veto as Alaska governor was of a bill that would have blocked state employee benefits and health insurance for same-sex couples, but does anyone doubt her true intentions?
If she were president, brave American soldiers still would be living under the dark specter of "don't ask, don't tell." Palin even might have instructed her Justice Department to file a brief in defense of the Defense of Marriage Act. Such is the depth of her depravity.
Does anyone believe that Palin possesses the competence to nationalize entire industries without the consent of the people? A housewife from Wasilla isn't equipped with political brawn to shake down banks and bondholders.
Palin never would be able to convince Americans that a trillion-dollar government-run health care plan would save taxpayers money or have the rhetorical ability to convince even a single person that a European-style cap-and-trade scheme has any benefit at all.
Palin is such a goofball that she probably believes oil will continue to be a vital American energy source.
And how is anyone as simplistic as Palin going to help change the habits of all these fatsos in America? We need a mommy ... but, you know, not a real mommy.
For Palin, though, there is hope.
Just because you're the target of a revolting elitist hit job doesn't mean you're ready to be president. I don't believe Palin has thought deeply enough about serious issues. She certainly has proved to be unable to defend herself adequately on intellectual grounds.
To this point, at least, Palin hasn't offered much more than populist sloganeering. Her popularity often seems fueled by charisma alone.
So, judging from Barack Obama's 'success', she has all the makings of a future president.
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