Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Look Who Cares About Civility Now
California
Here’s a very effective video montage of Rep. Maxine Waters decrying incivility today – and helping to contribute to it during the Bush years.
Now, I’ll admit that Rep. Waters is hard to take very seriously because she is so far on the fringe of American politics. But in this instance, she is emblematic of the hypocrisy among many liberals and Democrats these days, who have suddenly discovered they have very delicate sensibilities when it comes to public discourse.
For many of them, the issue has never really been about civility in political debate in the first place; it has been how to advance the cause of liberalism. In this case – not for every liberal, but for more than a few – civility is a pawn in a larger ideological struggle. And if they want their concerns to be taken seriously now, it would have helped if they had spoken up in the past.
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Black conservative tea party backers take heat
Subject: txt 1st bdd vals msm - 2010 -
ALBANY, N.Y. - They've been called Oreos, traitors and Uncle Toms, and are used to having to defend their values. Now black conservatives are really taking heat for their involvement in the mostly white tea party movement—and for having the audacity to oppose the policies of the nation's first black president.
"I've been told I hate myself. I've been called an Uncle Tom. I've been told I'm a spook at the door,"
said Timothy F. Johnson, chairman of the Frederick Douglass Foundation, a group of black conservatives who support free market principles and limited government.
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40% of Tea Partiers are Dems and Independents, How Will Media Report the News?
[HT:ST]Subject: txt 2010 msm - lbrty -
For almost a year, the mainstream media have depicted members of the Tea Party movement as racist, right-wing extremists.
On Sunday, a survey was released finding 40 percent of Tea Partiers are Democrats and Independents.
Given the media's hatred for everyone involved in this growing movement, how will they react to and report this 'startling revelation' released hours ago by The Hill:
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Time Mag Chief Stengel: Obama a Mandela for the 21st Century, Mandela’s ‘True Successor’
[Meanwhile, in our professional media...]
Time magazine Managing Editor Richard Stengel, who will be part of the roundtable on Sunday's Meet the Press, wrote in a new book released on Tuesday:
“It is impossible to write about Nelson Mandela these days and not compare him to another potentially transformational black leader, Barack Obama. The parallels are many.
"While it took twenty-seven years in prison to mold the Nelson Mandela we know, the forty-eight-year-old American President seems to have achieved a Mandela-like temperament...
“Whatever Mandela may or may not think of the new American President, Obama is in many ways his true successor on the world stage...”
[It's Time.]
[Ad nauseam]
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Meet Your Lords and Masters: Seven Democrats Who Run Your World
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'I'd rather 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.''
-- William F. Buckley
At this point, I would go Buckley one better: I'd rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 254 people we could pull out of a minimum security prison rather than the Democrats who are currently in Congress...
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FCC dealt significant blow in net neutrality ruling favoring Comcast
Subject: txt lbrty othr cali -
A federal appeals court on Tuesday dealt a significant blow to the Obama administration and net neutrality advocates, ruling that the Federal Communications Commission has no authority to regulate how Web providers manage their network traffic.
The decision overturns the FCC's order in 2008 that Comcast cease blocking subscribers' peer-to-peer file sharing applications, including BitTorrent, which the company said had over-burdened its strapped broadband network and slowed users' connections.
The ruling is a setback for lawmakers -- including Sens. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) as well as Reps. Rick Boucher (D-Va.), Henry Waxman (D-Calif.)
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Obama-Backed Financial Reform Bill Would Create New Bureaucracy with Power to Subpoena ‘Any Data’ from ‘Any Financial Company’
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The financial regulatory bill, which passed the Senate Banking Committee on March 22 with President Barack Obama’s backing and is now a top priority for congressional Democrats, would create a new Treasury Department bureaucracy authorized to collect any and all information from “any financial company” to analyze whether financial firms and their business practices might threaten financial stability.
The new bureaucracy would have subpoena power...
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Big Brother Becomes Big Bully
Subject: txt lbrty hcare bbro -
The government in the Age of Obama has gone beyond the big brother that watches out and cares for us. Instead, it has becomes the big brother that torments and bullies us and then takes what is rightfully ours: our savings, our freedom, and our futures. Liberals are often labeled as wanting to bring out the nanny state (the feminine version of a big brother). This is wrong. A nanny cares for her wards so they can mature into responsible adults able to take care of themselves.
But a bully has other desires...
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American capitalism gone with a whimper
Subject: txt sclm -
Pravda RU,
It must be said, that like the breaking of a great dam, the American decent into Marxism is happening with breath taking speed, against the back drop of a passive, hapless sheeple, excuse me dear reader, I meant people.
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CBS Promotes Bashing 'Dastardly' Banks
Subject: txt mny msm sclm bbro = 
In a segment on the banking industry on CBS's Sunday Morning, fill-in anchor Anthony Mason cited the movie "It's A Wonderful Life" and wondered:
"Who would you say is today's equivalent of the movie's villain, the dastardly Mister Potter?"
Footage rolled of big bank CEOs....
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Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn: Don't Be "Biased By Fox News"
Subject: txt msm 2010 fnn -
The Fox News playbook calls for the promotion and evisceration of its critics. (Snip) “What we have to have is make sure we have a debate in this country so that you can see what's going on and make a determination yourself,” Coburn added and then again warned the crowd against the myths perpetrated on FOX News.“So don't catch yourself being biased by FOX News that somebody is no good. The people in Washington are good. They just don't know what they don't know,”* Coburn said.
Besides, Coburn said that Nancy Pelosi is a "nice person."
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Who Cares How "Nice" You Think Pelosi May Be, Senator Coburn?
Subject: txt 2010 msm -
At a town hall meeting, Coburn suggested that a woman who said 'they can put us in prison' for not obtaining health insurance under the health care reform bill is misinformed.
'The intention is not to put anybody in jail,' he said. 'That makes for good TV news on Fox but that isn't the intention.'
He also defended House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the architect of the House version of the health care legislation that he fiercely opposed. 'I'm 180 degrees in opposition to the speaker -- she's a nice lady,' he said.
Well, who cares if she's nice?
Pelosi was asked, "Do you think it's fair to send people to jail for not buying health insurance?"
Her reply?
"Everybody is paying the price for uncompensated care. I don't need to tell you that in a hospital. And so what this is is to say we all have to do our part, and that is the point of the bill."
So somebody tell Tom Coburn she was specifically asked about possible jail time, and she said "the legislation is very fair in this respect", and bill says you can go to jail.
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A Noble, Bad Idea
Subject: txt nsec -
President Obama has announced a new American policy concerning the use of nuclear weapons (the “Nuclear Posture Review”). According to the New York Times, “For the first time, the United States is explicitly committing not to use nuclear weapons against nonnuclear states that are in compliance with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, even if they attacked the United States with biological or chemical weapons or launched a crippling cyberattack.”
The president putting forth this comprehensive agenda is not an old hawk like Reagan or the Bushes, but rather one who has apologized, bowed, and backpedaled abroad in courting enemies like Syria and Iran while snubbing old friends such as Britain and Israel. Context matters. Fairly or not, the world will see these latest pronouncements as more in line with the abstract idealism of a Nobel Peace Prize laureate than with the leader of the world’s sole superpower, on whom billions in the real world rely to keep the peace through deterrence.
Obama is currently engaged in an ongoing war against radical Islam, whose adherents seek to gain weapons of mass destruction. He operates in a landscape in which nuclear proliferation is on the rise from Iran to North Korea, and when a host of other anti-American autocracies such as Syria and Venezuela either boast about their desire to obtain nuclear weapons or have already stealthily built reactors. The timing, in other words, could not be worse.
Third, ambiguity is essential in nuclear poker. All nuclear states must at some point play the game. A potentially aggressive state never quite knows how bad the reaction might be should it gamble and initiate an attack—and this is what keeps the peace. Predictability and limiting options on the part of responsible states only invite unpredictability and the expansion of choices for known bad actors.
So these well-meant gestures are both ill-timed and ill-conceived—all the more so in coming from someone who, in just 14 months in office, is attempting to overturn numerous bipartisan American foreign policies of a half-century, largely on the premise that the United States in some fashion has been in the wrong and needs to make amends to an array of belligerents.
[Recommended > ]
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Putin's Gambit
Subject: txt nsec intl russia hugo -
Security: If anything should raise alarm bells in Washington, it's Vladimir Putin's visit to Caracas to make oil deals and sell weapons. This signals not only the failure of the U.S. "reset" policy, but a new threat.
Friday, Russia's prime minister made his first trip to Caracas, jetting in with little fanfare to sign deals. The urgency baffled many, but Putin got right down to business, announcing that Russia had gotten the right to develop Venezuela's Hunin-6 field, the world's largest oil deposit.
He also announced that Russian companies would build refineries and handed Chavez a $1 billion "entry fee." Meanwhile, he said Russia would sell more than $5 billion in arms to Venezuela and build a Bolivian aircraft refueling stop, effectively a Russian military base near the center of South America.
Why the sudden visit? Putin sees a perfect storm of opportunity...
[Highly Recommended > ]
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Iran's Green Movement: Our Only Hope
Subject: txt gwot intl iran -
The only hope for avoiding a war in the middle east is the loss of legitimacy and the isolation of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. As Sazegara explained, loyalty to Khamenei has replaced ideology or constitutional authority as the essence of the regime, casting as “soldiers of the cultural invasion every influential human being” who is not entirely loyal to the supreme leader. As a result, Khamenei is increasingly isolated.
Sazegara notes that “every move was wrong” since the June 12 election — fueling opposition and solidarity against a regime increasingly viewed as corrupt and brutal.
That the Obama administration has so obviously turned its back on the Green Movement and instead has gone out of its way to confer legitimacy on the brutal regime is a great moral and geopolitical failing. What the panel made clear is that the Obama adminstration is also missing a critical opportunity to assist and accelerate a movement that is steadily undermining the Islamic dictatorship...
[The only scenario that doesn't end with war in the middle east, and we've made no effort to pursue it, in the belief it would offend those who have publicly sworn to kill us.]
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Somali Islamist group bans music on radio stations
Subject: txt islm -
MOGADISHU, Somalia -A Somali extremist group is ordering radio stations to stop broadcasting music and has invited foreign fighters to the Horn of Africa nation.
Hizbul Islam’s Moalim Hashi Mohamed Farah says the group will file an Islamic lawsuit against radio stations that do not comply within 10 days. (Snip) The group believes the airing of music is religiously forbidden. He also offered to issue a Somali visa to al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and described Ugandan peacekeepers as "infidels." Islamic insurgents
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US special forces use heavy metal music to fight Taliban
[HT:RG]
When insurgents open fire in Marjah, an armoured vehicle wired up to powerful speakers blasts out country, heavy metal and rock music so loudly it can be heard up to a mile away.
The playlist has been hand-selected to "---- off the Taliban", according to one US special forces officer.
"Taliban hate that music,"
said the sergeant involved in covert psychological operations, or "psy ops", in the area in Helmand province.
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IRS Launches New Global Program to Target ‘High Wealth Individuals'
Subject: txt bbro lbrty intl bdd -
The Internal Revenue Service has launched a new global program to target what it calls “high wealth individuals,” IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman said Monday.
“Through our new global high wealth operating unit we are taking a unified look at the entire web of business and economic entities controlled by high wealth individuals so we can better assess the risk such arrangements pose to tax compliance,”
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Barack Obama pressed on China showdown
Subject: txt trade -
A populist backlash against China’s trade policies is spreading from the industrial heartland to Capitol Hill, with politicians in both parties pressuring President Barack Obama to jettison caution and crack down on Beijing.
Last week, the Obama administration delayed its decision planned for April 15 on whether to brand China a currency manipulator ...
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STILL OUT OF CONTROL - MEASURING 11 YEARS OF E.U. REGULATION
Subject: txt intl bbro - mny -
How much does regulation, including legislation that originates with the European Union cost the economy of the United Kingdom? Consider:
- Since 1998, regulation introduced in the United Kingdom has cost its economy £176 billion (about $265 billion) and 12.6 percent of the country's gross domestic product (GDP).
- Of this, £124 billion (about $187 billion), or 71 percent, had its origin in the European Union.
- This means that E.U. regulation in the past 11 years has cost every U.K. household an average of £4,912 (about $7,402).
The United Kingdom has taken positive steps to increase the transparency and accountability surrounding regulation. However, the government's initiatives are not striking deep enough to have a lasting impact on the overall regulatory environment. In fact, 30 percent of businesses state that it has become more difficult to comply with regulation in the last 12 months.
In no small part, this is down to the failure to stem the flow of new E.U. regulations, says Open Europe...
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Former Clinton Aide Stephanopoulos to Former Clinton Official Reich: What More Can Government Do for Economy?
[Meanwhile, on TV...]
Former Clinton operative turned journalist George Stephanopoulos interviewed former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich on Friday's Good Morning America and wondered what more the government can do to bring down unemployment.
Talking to his former colleague, Reich, the anchor wondered,
"So, the big question is, what more, if anything, does the government need to do about unemployment?"
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IRS will just take ObamaCare penalties out of your tax refund
Subject: txt hcare -
That interest-free loan you gave the government all year long will now be used against you, the IRS Commissioner says.
From Reuters:
The Internal Revenue Service could tap individual tax returns to collect fines against people who fail to buy health insurance as required under recently enacted healthcare legislation, the U.S. tax commissioner said on Monday….People who do not comply would be levied penalties, and if they don’t pay them the penalties could be taken out of their tax refunds.
“There has been some insinuation about h0w we are going to approach our job,” IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman said after speaking at the National Press Club. Under the new law, the IRS cannot seize assets or levy fines, so Shulman said refunds were the most obvious option to collect penalties.
Perhaps you want to consider increasing the number of withholding exemptions you take at work.
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Why can't we find a Climategate summary like this in US Media
Subject: txt grn msm -
Spiegel Online has an exhaustive, 8-page review of events and discoveries since the Climategate emails were revealed. It shows a climate science community in near chaos and dispirited over the fact that so much data was fabricated or deliberately ignored.
[snip > Spiegel Online ]
This is a big departure for German media who have been one of the strongest advocates over the years for action by governments to head off climate change. The idea that a leading publication would devote so much space to explaining why Climategate is so important is a good sign that skepticism is making some headway - at least overseas.
Meanwhile, mainstream media and general audience science publications in the US continue to treat climategate as a blip on the radar, not worth covering...
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Global warming is back
Subject: txt grn -
After two years of raucous meetings at great hotels and resorts around the world, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) failed to deliver a treaty in Copenhagen in December. The flawed process should have ended, but UNFCCC is pressing on.
Talks will open again in Bonn on Friday, to be followed by several more negotiating junkets before a grand sequel to Copenhagen is held next December in Mexico...
[You think they'll give up on hundreds of trillions of dollars without a fight?]
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Americans Prioritize Energy Over Environment for First Time
PRINCETON, NJ -- Americans are more likely to say the U.S. should prioritize development of energy supplies than to say it should prioritize protecting the environment, the first time more have favored energy production over environmental protection in this question's 10-year history.
The March 4-7 Gallup poll was conducted a few weeks before President Obama came out in favor of oil exploration off some sections of the U.S. coast, and shortly after he advocated the expanded use of nuclear power in the United States...
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Subject: txt engry - Empty rhetoric, empty gas tanks
After President Obama's Andrews Air Force Base "energy policy" statement Wednesday, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said that last year he received more than a half-million citizen comments on lease sales.
What he didn't say is that while hundreds of thousands of those comments urged support for more domestic energy production, last week's policy announcement offers less...
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[HT: GC or MH, I forget - apologies]
A Russian arrives in New York City.
As a new immigrant to the United States . He stops the first person he sees walking down the street and says, "Thank you Mr. American for letting me into this country, giving me housing, food stamps, free medical care, and a free education!"
The passerby says, "You are mistaken, I am a Mexican."
The man goes on and encounters another passerby. "Thank you for having such a beautiful country here in America ."
The person says, "I not American, I Vietnamese."
The new arrival walks farther, and the next person he sees he stops, shakes his hand, and says, "Thank you for wonderful America !"
That person puts up his hand and says, "I am from Middle East .. I am not American."
He finally sees a nice lady and asks, "Are you an American?"
She says, "No, I am from Europe ."
Puzzled, he asks her, "Where are all the Americans?"
The Europian lady checks her watch and says, "Probably at work".
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