Thursday, August 6, 2009
DNC Suggests Town Hall Protestors are 'Fringe Birther Mob'
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The Democratic National Committee has released a new video to push back against protests happening at town hall meetings across the country, and according to ABC's Jake Tapper, these demonstrators are being depicted as
"irrational birthers who want to 'destroy' President Obama."
For those unfamiliar with the term, "birthers" are folks that question whether Barack Obama is a U.S. citizen.
Tapper also reported that the ad claims these protests are being staged by
"desperate Republicans and their well funded allies [who are] organizing angry mobs -- just like they did during the election."
[it would seem the Dems' zeal for 'organizing' is dependent on who's doing it]
This all raises an important question: as the August Congressional recess continues, and more town hall meetings are attended by angry protestors, will media just repeat Democrat talking points concerning who the attendees are, or will they report how such demonstrations are indeed an outpouring of emotion from regular citizens worried about the direction of the nation?
Are we seriously being asked to believe that everyone in this country that is angry about higher taxes, higher government spending, as well as the pending healthcare and cap and tax bills is somehow tied to a conservative organization pulling the strings?
And do media elites REALLY believe that, or is this just good copy to assist a president they helped get elected and who's polls and agenda seem suddenly in question?
[A fellow 'rhetorical writer' I see...]
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'White House Rebuts Drudge Report Link' But Neglects to Show Disputed Videos
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In another display of adapting campaign tactics to governing, the White House posted a video on its official website Tuesday to rebut accusations that President Obama's healthcare proposals would do away with private health insurance.
The video shows White House spokeswoman Linda Douglass sitting in front of a computer monitor displaying the Drudge Report website.
Douglass says that because the president has talked so much about healthcare, he is at risk of having his words distorted by people with
"a computer and a lot of free time" who "take a phrase here and there, they simply cherry pick and put it together and make it sound like he's saying something that he didn't really say."
You mean Obama never said what he said in this video? Here is what he supposedly never said:
"I don't think we're going to be able to eliminate employer coverage immediately. There's going to be potentially some transition process..."
And here is what Obama said with greater specificity about his support for single payer in a 2003 speech to the AFL-CIO in another uncut, not cherry-picked, video which was left on both the Linda Douglass and Peter Nicholas cutting room floor:
"I happen to be a proponent of a single payer universal health care program. A single payer health care plan, a universal health care plan. And that’s what I’d like to see. But as all of you know, we may not get there immediately. Because first we have to take back the White House, we have to take back the Senate, and we have to take back the House."
Somehow Nicholas couldn't be bothered to report on what was actually said in these two videos in question.
Beam me up, Scotty. How do you answer charges when you simply ignore the facts presented in them? Only by pretending that what your lyin' eyes saw didn't happen. And both Douglass and Nicholas conveniently dropped those videos linked from the Drudge Report down the memory hole.
[So watch them {video}{video} yourself and ask; out of context? 'cherry-picked'?]
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Supreme Court rejects challenge to 'don't ask, don't tell' policy on gays in the military
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The Supreme Court on Monday turned down a challenge to the Pentagon policy forbidding gays and lesbians from serving openly in the military, granting a request by the Obama administration.
The court said it will not hear an appeal from former Army Capt. James Pietrangelo II, who was dismissed under the military's ''don't ask, don't tell'' policy. The appeals court in Boston earlier threw out the lawsuit
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The Place for Propaganda
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It's been a long time since MSNBC could pretend to be anything but a shill for liberal politicians, policies and causes. Any remaining doubts about that can be dispelled by surveying the network's recent coverage of the controversy over gays in the military.
Cable news' self-described "place for politics" covered the U.S. military's "don't ask, don't tell" administrative policy six different times between July 27 and July 29. Opponents of the current policy were able to state their case unchallenged, while network anchors made it clear that they were themselves in favor of allowing openly homosexual men and women to serve in the armed forces.
Not one defender of the current policy appeared in any of the pieces.
There are plenty of valid arguments to support retaining the current 'compromise' policy. MSNBC audiences just won't hear any of them.
For example, a July 30 Washington Times article reported that a survey conducted by the Military Officers Association of America, an organization made up of active-duty officers, reservists, military retirees and veterans, found that 68 percent said changing the law would have a negative effect on troop morale and military readiness.
Unsurprisingly, MSNBC failed to report that study, or other any other evidence of military officers' support for the current law. In March 2009 more than 1,000 retired flag and general officers signed a statement of support for the 1993 law.
The only play the letter received on MSNBC was a brief mention in 1 of the 6 airings.
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Jordan rejects American call to improve ties with Jewish state
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Washington - Jordan on Monday joined Saudi Arabia in publicly rejecting US appeals to improve relations with Israel to help restart Middle East peace talks, throwing a damper on President Barack Obama's administration's push for Arab support behind new negotiations....
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Mideast Peace Achieved
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Is it time for those who clamor for a Middle East peace to "declare victory and go home"? Two recent events in the region signal the answer.... [snip]
On July 5, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a warning to Lebanon:
"that Israel will hold the Lebanese government responsible for any attack launched from within the country's territory, including Hizbullah operations."
Israel-bashers who waited for the usual Hezb'allah bluster and threats were disappointed for none has been forthcoming. To the contrary;
[a] week after a group of 15 people carrying Lebanese and Hizbullah flags crossed into the Shaba Farms, the terror organization called on its followers... not to demonstrate in the area under Israeli control."
Also,
top Hizbullah and Amal officials made a commitment to the UN envoy in Lebanon not to organize rallies along the border with Israel and to block any attempt to demonstrate there.
And at the same time, in the West Bank, according to Ethan Bronner of the New York Times:
Seven months after Israel started a fierce three-week military campaign here to stop rockets from being fired on its southern communities, Hamas has suspended its use of rockets and shifted focus to winning support at home and abroad through cultural initiatives and public relations.
Of course, if Israel attacks Iran, all bets are off regarding Hezb'allah. But for now, all is quiet on the northern front. And the eastern front. And the southern front.
Today, amid all the "international community's" caterwauling about a supposed need for Israel to make substantial unilateral, self-endangering concessions "in the interest of Middle East peace, the chances of Israel being attacked by any of her neighbors right now is virtually nil. Which, in most people's definition, means, there is peace.
Unnoticed, unheralded, not even reported, under their very upturned noses, the international community's professed goal of a peaceful Middle East, at least relative to Israel, has been achieved.
Peace, finally, has come to the Middle East, and it came not through Barack Obama's and the international community's (and Neville Chamberlain's) prescription of "negotiation" and appeasement, but through Ronald Reagan's -- and Franklin Roosevelt's; and Harry Truman's and, yes, Tony Blair's -- prescription of peace through strength and the resolve to stand forthright against one's enemies.
That's the peace part. As for the prosperity...
[I.e., "do you know...?" the good news re: 'Palestine' due to the cessation of their hostilities toward Israel? Rhetorical given the above implied news blackout {being off the left-line message} - hence > Highly Recommended > ]
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U.N. Global Food Shortage Survey
[HT:DT]
Last month a world-wide survey was conducted by the UN. The only question asked was:-
"Would you please give your honest opinion about solutions to the food shortage in the rest of the world?"
The survey was a huge failure because of the following:
In Eastern Europe they didn't know what "honest" meant.
In Western Europe they didn't know what "shortage" meant.
In Africa they didn't know what "food" meant.
In China they didn't know what "opinion" meant.
In the Middle East they didn't know what "solution" meant.
In South America they didn't know what "please" meant.
In the US they didn't know what "the rest of the world" meant.
And Finally: In Australia they hung up because they can't understand an Indian accent.
[I just post 'em folks]
The Secretive Villain Of Our Economic Decline
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We currently find ourselves in the worst economic crisis since the "Great Depression". If you have an inquiring mind, you have to ask "how did we get into such a mess?" We can point our fingers at many that are indeed guilty, such as Wall Street, the mortgage industry, cowardly politicians, and plain old fashioned "greed and dishonesty" and there is some truth to be found there. However, there is one entity that is not well understood by most of us, that lurks in the shadows and in reality has the greatest accountability here.
That entity is the Federal Reserve.
It is guilty for dereliction of duty in its entrusted job of maintaining a stable dollar and as a protector of economic stability
The Federal Reserve began in 1913. Its job was to be a protector of our monetary system. Since then, we have had many recessions, the Great Depression of the 1930s and our current debacle. Each and every single one of them can be traced to the Federal Reserve manipulating interest rates, to either higher or lower than what the free market has determined what that rate should be. The results are either inflationary artificial booms, (such as we saw with the housing boom these past few years with artificially low rates) or cycles of tight money and recession/depression.
The Federal Reserve's interference throws markets and interest rates out of balance. Although short term this may all seem to be "fine and dandy" there is always a longer term price to pay, and inevitably the "chickens come home to roost". The Federal Reserve has the tremendous ability to create money out of thin air, but with a cost, for all money creation, in the current system, is only created through the mechanism of DEBT. Money supply growth is thru the vehicle of loans. Like the personal abuse of credit cards, the compounding of interest on this debt lives long after the enjoyment of the purchase.
It may come as a surprise, but the Federal Reserve, in spite of its name, is actually a privately owned cartel and is only a "quasi governmental agency". It is actually owned by its member banks, which hold its stock. The primary dealers are the well known entities such as UBS, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Credit Suisse etc. These business entities harvest the benefits of interest debt and inflation, and are "insiders" to the mechanisms and directions of this process. Realize that much of the "bailout" that was given to banks by the Federal Reserve was actually authorized by these very same banks themselves as members of the Federal Reserve! Talk about a conflict of interest!
The Founding Fathers knew that unbacked paper money would ruin our beloved and hard fought for country, and they put into the Constitution the way that would ensure a sound, commodity-backed currency. Unfortunately, the Constitution was dismissed and ignored a long time ago. We find ourselves now suffering under an unconstitutional regime of bogus paper money.
Until we abolish the Federal Reserve, and its severe conflicts of interest, and return to a true stable currency that will not create boom and bust cycles, we will continue down the path of economic manipulation, bubble markets, and our debt slavery to the banking system.
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"PELOSI JOBS TAX" PAIRS UP WITH OBAMACARE
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Last week, the Wall Street Journal noted that the House health care bill places an 8 percent payroll tax on small businesses with payrolls of $400,000 or more that do not provide health insurance for their employees.
In addition, individual workers would have to pay a 2.5-percent tax on gross income if they do not buy the health insurance the government mandates.
What people do not realize is that whether an employer offers health benefits is generally a function of how badly the employees want those benefits and if they are willing to forego wages in return.
Labor and health economists both have documented that health benefits are essentially part of an employee's compensation -- employers do not pay for that, workers do.
That is why minimum-wage workers in small businesses will be hit the hardest -- they will either be laid off, or in many cases not get the job because their skills are too marginal to afford the cost of a Cadillac health plan.
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POLL: 54% Favor Middle Class Tax Cuts Over New Health Care Spending
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Fifty-four percent (54%) of U.S. voters say tax cuts for the middle class are more important than new spending for health care reform -- even as President Obama’s top economic advisers signal that tax hikes on the middle class may be necessary to pay for their plan.
Thirty-four percent (34%) disagree and say new spending for health care reform is more important. Twelve percent (12%) are not sure.
The partisan and ideological divide on the question is sizable. Fifty-eight percent (58%) of Democrats say new spending for health care reform is the priority. But 80% of Republicans and 62% of voters not affiliated with either party favor tax cuts for the middle class...
[Baloney; they're all right-wing-extremists who have been paid to answer that way.]
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Obama Officials Don't Dismiss Possibility of New Taxes
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President Obama may have to break his campaign pledge and raise taxes on middle-class Americans to pay for public health care and the growing deficit, an eventuality that administration officials touched lightly on Sunday as they attempted to describe the economy emerging from recession...
[The news is the 'attempted to describe' per a major news outlet. Methinks even the media is catching on...]
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The Myth of the Expert
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It's time to explode the Myth of the Expert and the disinterested scientist, because scientists are part of the problem in climate science
Last week Steve McIntyre of the Climate Audit website cracked the walls of the fortress at Britain's Climatic Research Unit. A "mole" sent him a sample of global temperature data that CRU Director Dr. Phil Jones had refused to share with the climate audit community. By Sunday Christopher Booker had reported the news in the Daily Telegraph.
For some reason government scientists like Dr. Jones that get millions in government research grants are considered to be disinterested experts. Yet anyone who has ever taken a dime from an oil company is bought and paid for.
Of course that is nonsense. To politicians, scientists are just another interest group competing for favors. It's pay to play. To get their grant money scientists need to deliver science that helps argue for bigger government. And they do, especially in the climate sciences.
Climate scientists like Michael Mann of Penn State University and the "Hockey Stick," James Hansen of NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Studies and Phil Jones of CRU are not disinterested experts. It's perfectly obvious when you watch Steve McIntyre audit their work.
The climate scientists don't respond to McIntyre like disinterested experts. They act like politicians looking for a fight... [snip]
But there is hope...
[Recommended > ]
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Government study finds climate bill would cost jobs
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Despite President Obama's prediction that it will create new jobs, the global warming bill passed by the House of Representatives will mean fewer jobs by 2030 than if Congress did not act at all, according to the first comprehensive study of the measure by the federal government.
The Energy Information Administration report, requested by the two Democrats who wrote the House bill, says the short-term economic consequences are considerable, especially as rapid increase in energy prices causes the economy to contract.
The House passed its bill June 26 on a 219-212 vote, and a week later Mr. Obama said the legislation
"holds the promise of millions of new jobs -- jobs, by the way, that can't be outsourced"
But the EIA report, in a chart examining employment, reports that if the bill were implemented, employment in the manufacturing sector would suffer a 2.5 percent drop in jobs... [snip]
According to the worst-case scenario [assuming you didn't work in one of the above destroyed manufacturing jobs] -- if technology doesn't 'materialize' [!] and other countries refuse to cooperate on offsets -- consumer prices could be 14 percent higher than they would otherwise be without the 'global warming' bill...
[And on and on - it's economic suicide -- prepare for a 24/7 MSM blizzard of coverage on this report...]
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State prepares for climate change
CALIFORNIA
Along with California's efforts to crack down on its own greenhouse gas emissions, state officials have begun preparing for the worst: heat waves, a rising sea level, flooding, wildlife die-offs and other expected consequences from what scientists predict will be a dramatic temperature increase by the end of this century.
California's Natural Resources Agency on Monday issued the nation's first statewide plan to "adapt" to climate change...
[They plan to adapt to future changes. Now there's a plan. Don't laugh, you're actually paying for this idiocy.]
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A Success In Mexico
[July 27]
Border: Last week, a U.S. agent was murdered in cold blood by Mexican traffickers. But something different occurred in the aftermath: Mexican cops swiftly arrested the thugs. It shows the value of the Merida drug pact
The barbaric criminals who murdered Border Patrol officer Robert Rosas last Thursday showed absolutely no regard for human life or the sovereignty of the United States.
What's worse, they thought it was easy to shoot an American agent investigating their drug and alien smuggling operations, slither back across the border, and get away with it.
After all, that's pretty much how border crimes have worked in the last few decades. Banditos have always known where to run.
But this time, the thugs were in for a surprise...
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Obama's war on Sherrif Joe Arpaio
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You may have heard of Maricopa County, AZ Sheriff Joe Arpaio who has been a one man border enforcement machine - doing the job the feds refuse to do.
Well, Joe got himself in a spot of trouble with Obama administration immigration enforcement officials at Homeland Security by rounding up 13 illegal immigrants and trying to deliver them to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency.
One would think that ICE would be grateful to Sheriff Joe for doing their work for them. Not according to this editorial in the Washington Times. It seems that in the end, Joe was forced to let the illegals go - and ICE lied about the reason why:
Sheriff Arpaio blamed ICE. However, Matthew Chandler, Washington-based spokesman for the federal Department of Homeland Security (ICE's parent agency), issued a statement saying that "the determination to release these individuals lies solely within the [sheriff's office].... [On July 23], ICE gave the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office permission to interview the three individuals in question, arrest, and initiate removal proceedings -- instead Sheriff Arpaio released them."
Homeland Security's story doesn't pan out. The sheriff's deputies taped the calls to ICE. The recordings show that ICE repeatedly refused permission to take custody of the illegals.
"Right now we cannot authorize you to take her into custody," an ICE official said to one deputy about a woman who had admitted to being illegal. On another call, ICE said: "The only way we can [authorize detainment] is if he has a criminal record." A frustrated deputy replied, "We're just gonna kick him loose then." ICE said: "OK."
The obvious misinformation from the administration might be dismissed ordinarily as a spokesman's one-time goof except that it follows a pattern of misbehavior by Obama appointees that seems intended to undercut the controversial sheriff.
On May 29, Arpaio attorney Robert N. Driscoll, former chief of staff at the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department, sent a complaint letter to both Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.
His letter, amply documented, accuses the two federal departments of "a serious violation of ethical standards of conduct" with regard to three federal "investigations" into Sheriff Arpaio's practices...
Within weeks of Obama taking office, three separate federal investigations were begun by the feds looking into Sheriff Joe's administration. And now we have Homeland Security lying through its teeth and trying to blame him for them not doing their job?
No politicizing going on in law enforcement here - move along...
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FLASHBACKS:
Al Sharpton vs. Sheriff Joe: The Hypocrite vs. The Patriot
Ideology versus Competence
- Harassing A Lawman
LESSONS FROM MASSACHUSETTS
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The Massachusetts experiment in health care reform offers many lessons that are applicable to the current debate in Congress. The goals of the Massachusetts plan are similar to proposals supported by Democratic congressional leaders and the Obama administration: universal health insurance coverage through greater access to health insurance.
The Obama proposals would use similar means to achieve these goals: requiring individuals to purchase insurance and creating an "insurance exchange" where they can buy heavily regulated, heavily subsidized health insurance.
The Massachusetts reform, however, has raised costs, not lowered them.
The state has indeed lowered the number of uninsured dramatically -- down to 2.6 percent of the population by some estimates. But it has done so in a very expensive way that does nothing to control costs.
The state was able to get the federal government to pay for much of these new costs, but even with that help, state government spending has increased 42 percent since 2006.
The Massachusetts program has cost about one-third more than projected when the law was passed.
In just two years under the Massachusetts reforms, from 2005 to 2007, health care spending per capita rose an additional 23 percent.
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'They May Not Know What's Good For Them'
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The poor, benighted little people. They just don't understand what a wonderful hopey-changey world Pres. Obama is offering them . . .
Andrea Mitchell has suggested that the problem Pres. Obama is facing in selling his health care plan to Americans who already have coverage is that people "may not know what's good for them."
Mitchell made her condescending comment on today's Morning Joe. [snip]
Condescension seems to be in the MSNBC air. Yesterday, we noted Chris Matthews, surprised that Sgt. James Crowley could handle a press conference, calling him "our Susan Boyle." Now this.
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SPIN METER: 'Help Wanted' counting stimulus jobs
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PORTLAND, Ore. – How much are politicians straining to convince people that the government is stimulating the economy? In Oregon, where lawmakers are spending $176 million to supplement the federal stimulus, Democrats are taking credit for a remarkable feat: creating 3,236 new jobs in the program's first three months.
But those jobs lasted on average only 35 hours, or about one work week. After that, those workers were effectively back unemployed, according to an Associated Press analysis of state spending and hiring data. By the state's accounting, a job is a job, whether it lasts three hours, three days, three months, or a lifetime.
With the economy in tatters and unemployment rising, Oregon's inventive math underscores the urgency for politicians across the country to show that spending programs designed to stimulate the economy are working — even if that means stretching the facts...
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Labour's Lies Have Brought the UK to Ruin
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Labour's rhetoric on immigration is a colossal exercise in deceit. Ministers are fond of talking tough, endlessly boasting of “crackdowns” and “robust new rules” on entry. But in reality they have presided over the wilful collapse of our borders and the destruction of our British identity.
Over the past 12 years, the Government has been engaged in a vicious cultural war against the concept of British patriotism...
[Are we paying attention?]
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Current House Committee Chairs are More to the Left Than Any Time In History
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In a Democratic caucus that is to the left of America, the most powerful committee chairmen in the House - just like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) - are to the left of the majority of Democrats.
This study by RealClearPolitics shows that the current House committee chairmen are more liberal than the Democratic rank and file than at any time in history.
Time and partisan drawing of districts have elevated a group of liberal congressmen, who were first elected over 30 years ago in response to Watergate and the Vietnam War, to the most powerful positions in the House.
- Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, was elected to Congress in 1975.
- Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.), the chairman of the all-powerful House Ways and Means Committee, entered Congress in 1971.
- Rep. Pete Stark (D-Calif.), chairman of the health subcommittee of Ways and Means, was elected in 1971.
- And Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), chairman of the Financial Services Committee, has been in Congress since 1981.
That's why they attacked the fiscally conservative Blue Dog Democrats for objecting to the high taxing, big government provisions of the House health care bill.
And it's why they are pressuring President Obama not to compromise now.
They have power and they have clout. And if America is telling President Obama to slow down and reconsider his health reform plans, these powerful House committee chairmen are telling him to go full speed ahead, never mind what the people think.
President Obama faces a choice.
At American Solutions we stand ready to help develop a bipartisan, pro-small business economic growth plan that could be passed when Congress returns in September.
At the Center for Health Transformation we stand ready to develop a bipartisan, market-based health reform plan that delivers more choices of high quality health care at a lower cost - without raising taxes.
Will President Obama hear the message of the American people and work with centrists -- even though it will cause his leftwing to attack him?
Or will he listen to Senator Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and ram through the programs that have the support of the Left but are opposed by the country?
It's his choice.
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Seven Time Mag Covers Since Election for Obama
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Time magazine's August 10 edition with President Barack Obama on the cover (“Paging Dr. Obama”) brings to seven the number of issues the magazine's cover has featured Obama just since November's election -- make that eight for the First Family if you add in June 1's genuflecting “The Meaning of Michelle.”
The frequent cover appearances led even Jon Stewart, a Bush-hater who was thrilled by Obama's election, to quip Thursday night on his Comedy Central show:
“Time magazine is like O magazine, like Obama has to be on the cover -- it is like Oprah magazine. I think he's been on like thirty times this year.”
Well, not thirty, at least not yet, though at about once per month Time will hit thirty Obama covers well before the 2012 vote...
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Stunt Goes Boldly Where No Green Vandals Have Gone Before
.Greenpeace and Canadian-born actor William Shatner joined forces against Hewlett-Packard (NYSE:HPQ) and accused the company of "breaking green promises" for not producing products completely free of PVC plastic and brominated flame retardants. Activists from the radical environmental group painted a giant message on the roof of Hewlett-Packard's headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif. that read "Hazardous Products."
And in addition to the rooftop graffiti, Greenpeace set up an automated message to dial HP employee's numbers and then play them a recorded message from Shatner.
A representative from HP told the Business and Media Institute
"The unconstructive antics at HP's headquarters did nothing to advance the goals that all who care about the environment share, ... HP has recycled one billion pounds of electronic products from 1987-2007..."
Go green[er] or have your private business robocalled and vandalized.
HP declined to comment on the possibility of pressing charges against Greenpeace.
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[A case of children (not yet) raised on two Spocks; Mr. Spock & Dr. Spock.
Seriously, we know why Shatner's out of work
but can't any of these Greenpeaceniks find constructive employment?]
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