Thursday, October 22, 2009
Senate Rejects ‘Doc Fix’ Spending Bill, Democrats Side With Republicans
Subject: txt 1st hcare -
In a vote that was a highly symbolic proxy for the larger partisan fight over health care policy, the Senate on Wednesday rejected a bill that would have averted steep cuts in Medicare payments to doctors.
[Finally, real bipartisanship]
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FedsBotch Swine Flu Vaccine Distribution
Subject: txt 1st hcare -
The federal government is slow to distribute the N1H1 vaccine. And these people want to run our entire healthcare system? Today, a Senate hearing is underway concerning the Swine Flu and the slow distribution of the N1H1 vaccine.
The CDC, and not private contractors, is executing vaccine distribution. Now that the illness is building momentum, the media should be asking - What's the holdup? Who's responsible?
[Health 'care' anyone?]
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HHS Web Site May Be ‘Propaganda’
[HT:HL]Subject: txt 1st hcare - Grassley Warns
Senate Finance ranking member Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) is raising concerns that a Department of Health and Human Services Web site that urges visitors to send an e-mail to President Barack Obama praising his health care reform plan may violate rules against government-funded propaganda...
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Cheney: Obama's Afghan War Strategy 'Bears Striking Resemblance' to Bush's
Subject: txt gwot nsec -
Former Vice President Dick Cheney returned fire on the Obama administration Wednesday over an allegation that the Bush White House did not ask any key questions about the war in Afghanistan, forcing Obama officials to form a strategy from scratch and leaving the war "adrift."
Former Vice President Dick Cheney said Wednesday that the Bush administration had developed a new strategy on the war in Afghanistan before leaving office -- a strategy that he said "bears a striking resemblance" to the one announced by President Obama in March.
In a speech to the Center for Security Policy, Cheney said the Bush administration handed Obama's transition team a policy review of the Afghan war conducted last fall to meet the new challenges posed by the Taliban.
"They asked us not to announce our findings publicly, and we agreed, giving them the benefit of our work and the benefit of the doubt,"
Cheney says Obama should listen to his military commander.
"They made a decision -- a good one, I think -- and sent a commander into the field to implement it," ... "Now they seem to be pulling back and blaming others for their failure to implement the strategy they embraced," ... "It's time for President Obama to do what it takes to win a war he has repeatedly and rightly called a war of necessity."
"Make no mistake, signals of indecision out of Washington hurt our allies and embolden our adversaries," ... "Waffling, while our troops on the ground face an emboldened enemy, endangers them and hurts our cause..."
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Child Bombers - Afghan War's Latest Weapon
Subject: txt gwot -
Boys as young as 7 years old have to be held by an adult to withstand the recoil of an AK-47 as they are trained by the Taliban and al Qaeda.
Other children aren't trained but tricked into carrying bombs
"I lost my leg," 11-year-old Eidullah says, "I'm angry because we were not guilty of anything."
Eidullah was asked by the Taliban to deliver a fruit basket to a local commander who was cooperating with U.S. forces. Hidden in the basket was a bomb. However, the commander wasn't hurt because the bomb exploded prematurely -- maiming Eidullah and injuring his eight friends.
Some of their lives were saved by American surgeons at a nearby military hospital. Doctors say they are seeing more children involved in bombings.
The children recruited by the Taliban and al Qaeda are often willingly sent to the terror camps by their parents.
[Our enemy.]
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Of All People: Lara Logan Supports McChrystal, Warns of Grave Dangers in Afghanistan, Ridicules Appeasers
Subject: txt gwot msm -
I don't know what has happened in past couple of years (or is it months?) to knock some sense into Logan ("good war" Afghanistan vs. "bad war" Iraq?
But her clear-headed, passionate, alarming interview with CBS News's Bob Orr about the situation in Afghanistan is a must-see (HT Hot Air).
In the process, she leaves a number of leftist myths and fantasies, including the rubbish about how pursuing war aggressively only helps the enemy in their recruiting, in shreds on the floor...
[Again, even the Left sees limits to the lunacy...]
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Obama's UN lesson
Subject: txt owg israel -
Six months ago, President Obama re versed his predecessor's boycott and accepted a seat for the United States on the vile UN Human Rights Council.
As UN Ambassador Susan Rice explained: "We do not see any inherent benefit . . . in being outside the tent and simply being critical without having significant influence."
So what exactly has Obama's "significant influence" managed to accomplish?
On Friday, the council formally endorsed the noxious Goldstone Report -- which accuses America's ally, Israel, of war crimes for defending itself against an ongoing barrage of Hamas rocket and mortar attacks launched from Gaza.
By a 25-6 vote -- only Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Slovakia and Ukraine joined Washington in voting no -- the panel referred the report to the Security Council.
Next stop, in the hopes of Israel's critics: the International Criminal Court... [snip]
The Obama administration has now made itself part and parcel of a process that not only endangers its own anti-terrorist efforts but that could result in Israel's being hauled before the international court for the "crime" of self-defense.
Washington's participation on this council will only give it credibility -- and denigrate America in the process.
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UK Commander Challenges Goldstone Report
Subject: txt israel owg -
Thank you, Mr. President.
I am the former commander of the British forces in Afghanistan. I served with NATO and the United Nations; commanded troops in Northern Ireland, Bosnia and Macedonia; and participated in the Gulf War. I spent considerable time in Iraq since the 2003 invasion, and worked on international terrorism for the UK Government’s Joint Intelligence Committee.
Mr. President, based on my knowledge and experience, I can say this: During Operation Cast Lead, the Israeli Defence Forces did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare.
Israel did so while facing an enemy that deliberately positioned its military capability behind the human shield of the civilian population.
Hamas, like Hizballah, are expert at driving the media agenda. Both will always have people ready to give interviews condemning Israeli forces for war crimes. They are adept at staging and distorting incidents.
The IDF faces a challenge that we British do not have to face to the same extent. It is the automatic, Pavlovian presumption by many in the international media, and international human rights groups, that the IDF are in the wrong, that they are abusing human rights.
The truth is that the IDF took extraordinary measures to give Gaza civilians notice of targeted areas, dropping over 2 million leaflets, and making over 100,000 phone calls. Many missions that could have taken out Hamas military capability were aborted to prevent civilian casualties. During the conflict, the IDF allowed huge amounts of humanitarian aid into Gaza. To deliver aid virtually into your enemy's hands is, to the military tactician, normally quite unthinkable. But the IDF took on those risks.
Despite all of this, of course innocent civilians were killed. War is chaos and full of mistakes. There have been mistakes by the British, American and other forces in Afghanistan and in Iraq, many of which can be put down to human error. But mistakes are not war crimes.
More than anything, the civilian casualties were a consequence of Hamas’ way of fighting. Hamas deliberately tried to sacrifice their own civilians.
Mr. President, Israel had no choice apart from defending its people, to stop Hamas from attacking them with rockets.
And I say this again: the IDF did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare.
Thank you, Mr. President.
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Go East, Young Man
Subject: txt israel -
One million Africans sitting on the Israeli-Egyptian border, waiting for their chance to enter Israel illegally. They come not to suicide bomb, nor to kidnap. They simply want to work. They come seeking not vengeance, but jobs.
Of course, to get from Africa to Israel, one must go through Egypt. And once in Israel, as the article makes clear, the Israelis would be happy to let, indeed help, the Africans continue on, to Lebanon, Syria, Judea, Samaria, Jordan, or Gaza. But these African workers and their families apparently have no desire to remain in Egypt or to settle down in any other "Third World" country that the Left loves to praise with one breath while condemning the "Apartheid state" of Israel with the next.
Apparently, they much prefer the "Apartheid state"...
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US students call Olmert war criminal
Subject: txt israel edu -
Former prime minister Ehud Olmert was greeted with cries of 'war criminal' and ''murderer'' when he spoke at the University of Chicago on October 15th.
Several dozen pro-Palestinian protesters stood outside the lecture hall waving Palestinian flags and shouting out slogans against the former Israeli leader.
Olmert was also interrupted inside the hall.
Olmert himself maintained his composure despite the interruptions and responded to them calmly and politely...
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FLASHBACKs >
What I Learned at Duke University's 'Gaza Teach-In'
As I entered the lecture hall, I saw a stack of blank Amnesty International petitions, asking Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to support a U.N. investigation into the commission of war crimes by the Israel during the recent Gaza conflict. [snip]
Oregon University Hosts Talk by Notorious Holocaust Denier
Columbia University MidEast Studies professor blames West for gays in Muslim lands
University 'an agent of extreme Islam'
.
image toon - islm israel gwot - Liberal Fashion = blame Israel for terror
Americans reject European model
Subject: txt owg intl gdd sclm -
Barack Obama's European tendencies aren't not in doubt. His policies on government spending, taxation, health care and carbon emissions would all tend to bring America in line with European norms, to a far greater degree than any other president of the last 40 years and probably any president ever.
And what of America's special place in the world? "I believe in American exceptionalism," Obama said on one of his trips to Europe, "just as I suspect that Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism."
In other words, not at all. One cannot imagine Presidents Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy, Eisenhower or Reagan uttering such sentiments.
Obama told European Union parliamentarians in Strasbourg that he hailed "your dynamic union," but most Americans seem to have some vestigial knowledge that over the last 60 years, America has been more dynamic -- economically, culturally, politically, militarily -- than our friends across the Atlantic. And when presented with public policies that would make us more like Europe, Americans have tended to recoil. Examples abound... [snip]
A 58 to 35 percent majority say keep the budget deficit down even if it takes longer for the economy to recover (NBC/WSJ June). A 53 to 33 percent majority oppose more government regulation of the finance sector (Rasmussen October).
European elites support gun control and curbs on carbon emissions almost unanimously. Americans don't -- and are moving in the other direction. Support for a handgun ban has fallen from 60 percent in 1960 to 29 percent in May 2009 (Gallup) [because the criminals kept theirs]. By a 48 to 34 percent margin, Americans believe global warming is caused by long-term planetary trends rather than human activity (Rasmussen April); in 2008 it was almost exactly the other way around. [hence the extremely ratcheted up rhetoric: they must get laws on the books to take credit for when nothing happens, or they'll all be exposed as the frauds they are]
European leaders agree with Obama's decision to close the Guantanamo detention facility. Americans disagree by a 52 to 39 percent margin (NBC/WSJ June). Europeans accept a large role for unions. American approval for labor unions fell from 59 percent in 2008 to 48 percent in spring 2009, by far the lowest figure since Gallup began asking the question in 1936.
Gallup reports that 39 percent of Americans this year say their views have grown more conservative, while only 18 percent say they have become more liberal. In fact, as Europeanizing policies receive become better underston they consistently become less popular... [snip]
Americans are more individualistic and less collectivist than Western Europeans (or Canadians). The election of a president who in many ways seeks to push America in a European direction seems to have increased rather than decreased those differences.
Why? My explanation is that until November 2008, Americans did not have any reason to contemplate what a more European approach would mean in real-life terms. Now, with Obama in the White House and a heavily Democratic Congress, they do.
And they mostly don't like it.
[Now if we only lived in a country where the majority ruled we'd be in good shape.]
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The Myth of the World Community
[HT:GG]
From the fluttering blue flag of the U.N. with its stylized symbol of the map of the world enclosed by olive tree branches, to the whole collection of global organizations and imagery right down to posters featuring children from every country holding hands, and the rest of the globalist propaganda—Americans have been imprinted as never before from a very early age with the idea that they are part of a global community, rather than merely one nation. But behind the olive branches and the posters of smiling children, lies a very different truth entirely.
The entire notion that there is a world community is itself mostly a myth. The United Nations does represent most of the nations of the world, except for the really unpopular ones. But it does not represent the peoples of the world, only the heads of their regimes. And since most of the UN consists of nations that are not democracies and that do not have truly free and open elections—the UN’s much ballyhooed global community is nothing more than the well paid lackeys of tyrants, dictators, sheiks and assorted Third World leaders, along with their First World enablers.
The United Nations is not a world community, it is a community of tyrants. There is no world community, because most of the people of the world are not free to have any say in their own lives. To talk about the UN as if it has any moral standing, is as ridiculous as getting the guards and inmates of a prison to vote together on what conditions inside the prison should be like. The UN is not a force for peace, it is a force for maintaining the political status quo for its louder voices, and for grinding under those free countries they consider their enemies.
One day when all men are free, when the citizens of Muslim nations may believe what they choose, when the Chinese and Russian secret police forces have gone the way of the Gestapo, when the people of every nation can vote in free and open elections for the candidates of their choice—then we may talk of a world community. But for now the rights of the citizens of free countries can only be vested in the autonomy of their own political systems. Any international agreements that compromise the independence of their political systems, also compromise the freedom of their citizens and the accountability of their representatives.
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If Obama were a Marxist, what would he believe?
Subject: txt sclm -
This article offers the basic teachings of Karl Marx, so readers may judge themselves whether these might be at work influencing current Administration decisions. In the present chaotic political atmosphere, the phrase "Marxist" is tossed around without explanation. But what exactly does Marxism represent? Marx's universe was simplistic. It presents a godless, sinister world where the powerful prey upon the weak, which can only be healed through revolution. In the resulting apocalypse, wealth is confiscated by revolutionaries so all may benefit. Private property is outlawed as enlightened leaders build a paradise of communism.
But before utopia arrives, a principled assault must destroy capitalism.
Besides the above classic theory, a new approach, called Neo-Marxism, has arisen. It focuses upon cultural conversions for communism, and produces explosive fruit, such as Political Correctness, the Sexual Revolution, Global Warming, Hate Speech laws, Feminism, Multiculturalism, and Universal Health Care, etc. Critics warn reborn Marxism is exceedingly dangerous since it is delivered below the radar, and represents a devious bloodless communist assault, a polar-opposite of the violently murderous Bolshevik and Mao uprisings.
The following is a basic overview of some essential aspects of Marxism
...
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Government made the mess.
Subject: txt mny crpt libs - Now clean it up
When Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., declared last year that "the private sector got us into this mess," he offered a solution: "The government has to get us out of it." Neither claim was true, of course, but that's the point. In order to maintain the illusion that the Obama administration can deliver an economic recovery, the role of government in causing the crisis in the first place must be obscured...
[Yet we're told these same folks are the ones who are going to 'fix' things?]
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More 'Help' Coming To Clean Up Crisis
Subject: txt mny -
The Obama administration is close to rolling out two initiatives aimed at addressing lingering problems from the financial crisis: A long-delayed effort to cleanse financial firms of their toxic assets, and a $35 billion plan to prop up state programs that help lower-income borrowers get affordable mortgages.
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None Dare Call It Fraud
Subject: txt grn -
Imagine the reaction if investment companies provided only rosy stock and economic data to prospective investors; manufacturers withheld chemical spill statistics from government regulators; or medical device and pharmaceutical companies doctored data on patients injured by their products.
Media frenzies, congressional hearings, regulatory investigations, fines and jail sentences would come faster than you can say Henry Waxman. If those same standards were applied to global warming alarmists, many of them would be fined, dismissed and imprisoned; sanity might prevail, and the House-Senate cap-and-tax freight train would come to a screeching halt.
The supposedly “final” text of the IPCC’s 1995 Second Assessment Report emphasized that no studies had found clear evidence that observed climate changes could be attributed to greenhouse gases or other manmade causes. However, without the authors’ and reviewers’ knowledge or approval, lead author Dr. Ben Santer and alarmist colleagues revised the text and inserted the infamous assertion that there is “a discernable human influence” on Earth’s climate...
Fortunately for alarmists, corporate standards do not apply – even though sloppiness, ineptitude, cherry-picking, exaggeration, deception, falsification, concealed or lost data, flawed studies and virtual fraud have become systemic and epidemic. Instead of being investigated and incarcerated, the perpetrators are revered and rewarded, receiving billions in research grants, mandates, subsidies and other profit-making opportunities.
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Time to Recall Al Gore’s Oscar
Subject: txt grn - Time to Recall Al Gore’s Oscar
Al Gore, Jr. has a history of trying to juke stats to get results he wants. In the 2000 election, he wanted the Florida recount to only look at ballots in three counties with large Democrat populations and he wanted to block military votes from soldiers overseas. The reason for this was simple. He wanted the results that would make him a winner, he did not want to risk that by including all the votes in the state, especially from conservative areas like the Panhandle.
After a court in England decreed that there were 11 “inaccuracies” in “An Inconvenient Truth”, many of which could be classified as outright lies and false claims, Gore did not recut the film. So when film director Phelim McAleer asked him if he would fix the problem, Gore refused to answer and McAleer’s mic was cut.
It’s not surprising that Gore is being evasive. When a “peer reviewed” study of tree rings used in the UN’s IPCC reports referenced by people like Gore, was revisited by scientists, guess what they discovered?
At least eight papers purporting to reconstruct the historical temperature record times may need to be revisited, with significant implications for contemporary climate studies, the basis of the IPCC’s assessments. A number of these involve senior climatologists at the British climate research centre CRU at the University East Anglia. In every case, peer review failed to pick up the errors.
Yes, these peer reviewed scientists cherry picked the data to arrive at a conclusion they liked. Sound familiar? It gets worse, They mysteriously lost the climate studies they did over the years that were supposed to prove the climate was warming.
British news sources that once told us Global Warming was real are now changing their tune. In fact, 2009 may become the year that the Global Warming scam met its “tipping point.”... [snip]
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The Incredible Chutzpeh Of A Gigantean Jackass
Subject: txt mny engry -
Take a look at the action of the Department of Energy. They just recently loaned $529 million dollars to a Finnish company that is producing a $90,000 dollar hybrid sports car (that is $90,000 per car Clyde).
These funds are supposed to be used to create , or save American jobs, not sent overseas to create Finnish jobs building cars that none of us can afford in the first place.
Now comes the really interesting part, guess who is now receiving profits from this little venture by way of ownership of a fair amount of stock in this company?
You guessed it, the charlatan that invented the global warming scam in the first place, “Al Gore”.
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Zogby poll of Mexicans raises concerns over Mexican immigration
Subject: txt immig -
Why do many Mexican immigrants -- legal and illegal -- have trouble assimilating into American culture? Most of the 10 to 12 million Hispanics estimated to be here illegally are from Mexico. How would granting them amnesty affect future illegal immigration -- especially from Mexico?
Recently, polling firm Zogby International surveyed more than 1,000 Mexican adults across Mexico. The idea was to get the opinions of the average man and woman on the street - all to better understand America's immigration debate from a Mexican point of view, according to the Center for Immigration Studies of Washington, D.C.
According to CIS, the survey was the first of its kind to get the opinions of Mexicans, including those entertaining the possibility of immigrating to America illegally.
Many Americans may find the views that Mexicans have on immigration and America unsettling -- and even disturbing.
Critics of an amnesty for illegal immigrants contend it would only encourage more illegal immigration. Well, surprise, surprise: That's just what the average Mexican on the street thinks, too.
According to CIS: "A clear majority of people in Mexico, 56 percent, thought giving legal status to illegal immigrants in the United States would make it more likely that people they know would go to the United States illegally."
In addition, the think tank stated that: "Of Mexicans with a member of their immediate household in the United States, 65 percent said a legalization program would make people they know more likely to go to America illegally."
And that raises another question: Just how many more Mexicans would like to immigrate to America? According to CIS: "Interest in going to the United States remains strong even in the current recession, with 36 percent of Mexicans (39 million people) saying they would move to the United States if they could. At present, 12 to 13 million Mexico-born people live in the United States."
Most Americans would be shocked by how the majority of Mexicans felt about America. According to CIS:
* "An overwhelming majority (69 percent) of people in Mexico thought that the primary loyalty of Mexican-Americans (Mexico- and U.S.-born) should be to Mexico. Just 20 percent said it should be to the United States. The rest were unsure."
* "Also, 69 percent of people in Mexico felt that the Mexican government should represent the interests of Mexican-Americans (Mexico- and U.S.-born) in the United States."
CIS noted that "the perspective of people in Mexico is important because Mexico is the top sending country for both legal and illegal immigrants.
"In 2008, one of six new legal immigrants was from Mexico and, according to the Department of Homeland Security, six out of 10 illegal immigrants come from that country."
CIS noted there are now "10 to 20 million illegal immigrants in the country, twelve million of whom are estimated to have come from Mexico. But this poll suggests that many people who might like to come have not done so. This could be seen as an indication that enforcement efforts are effective."
The results of the survey are sure to add to concerns raised by Harvard political scientist Samuel P. Huntington in his 2005 book "Who are We? The Challenges to America's National Identity."
He wrote:
"The persistent inflow of Hispanic immigrants threatens to divide the United States into two peoples, two cultures, and two languages. Unlike past immigrant groups, Mexicans and other Latinos have not assimilated into mainstream U.S. culture, forming instead their own political and linguistic enclaves-from Los Angeles to Miami-and rejecting the Anglo-Protestant values that built the American dream. The United States ignores this challenge at its peril."
He also published a related essay, "The Hispanic Challenge," in Foreign Policy magazine. It promoted liberals to all but accuse him of being a racist and xenophobe.
The Zogby survey had a margin of error of +/- 3.1 percent, "for a 95 percent confidence level," CIS noted.
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Welcome to the Social Engineering
Subject: txt bdd vals lbrty reps edu -
In the wake of the dismissal of Green Jobs Czar Van Jones, another of the President's men has been attracting negative attention.
The President has chosen teacher and GLBT activist Kevin Jennings for advice and guidance on how best to foster a safe and drug-free environment for America's school children. Much has already been written about Jennings's controversial background, his troubling associations, his questionable ethics, and his obvious lack of qualification and suitability for the job of Safe Schools Czar.
With each passing day, it's becoming increasingly clear that the change the American people voted for is not the "change" President Obama envisions for our country. It remains to be seen, however, whether the American people are prepared to compromise their children's education in service of Mr. Obama's vision of the future....
[Appointments are policy. Another extreme one.]
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California Court Strikes Down Race-Based Scholarships
Subject: txt edu cali bbro =
Thirteen years after California amended the state constitution to bar the government from discriminating against or preferring individuals or groups in admissions, contracting, and hiring, on the basis of race and sex, courts still are eradicating discriminatory provisions from the code. Proposition 209 passed with 54 percent of the vote. Earlier this week, Sacramento Superior Court ruled part of the state health professional scholarship program unconstitutional.
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The Grating Communicator
The Grating Communicator
The Obama administration has attacked Fox News in order to prevent government corruption stories broken on Fox from bleeding into the other media, which are all-consumed with daily updates on Levi Johnston's Playgirl spread and Carrie Prejean's breast implants.
That's understandable. But I think the administration should have picked someone other than David Axelrod to deliver the claim that Fox News is "not really news," inasmuch as Axelrod was behind the leak of scurrilous allegations in Jack Ryan's sealed divorce papers when he was running for a Senate seat against Obama. Talk about vicious personal gossip.
The strangest thing about all the invective against Fox is that it is happening in a world that contains MSNBC...
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