By CAROLINE GLICK"Could there be something to all the talk of an Obama effect, after all? A stealth effect, perhaps?"
So asked Helene Cooper, the New York Times' diplomatic correspondent in a news analysis of the massive anti-regime protests in Iran published in Sunday's Times.
As Cooper sees it, the protesters owe their ability to oppose the regime that just stole their votes and has trampled their basic human rights for 30 years to Obama and the so-called "Obama effect."
Offering no evidence for her thesis, and ignoring a public record filled with evidence to the contrary, Cooper claims that it is due to Obama's willingness to accept the legitimacy of Iran's clerical tyranny that the protesters feel emboldened to oppose their regime. If it hadn't been for Obama, and his embrace of appeasement as his central guiding principle for contending with the likes of Khamenei and Ahmadinejad, the people on the streets would never have come out to protest.
By this thinking, America is so despised by the Iranians that the only way they will make a move against their regime is if they believe that America is allied with their regime. So by this line of reasoning, the only way the US can lead is by negative example - which the world in its wisdom will reject... [snip]
While Cooper's analysis gives no evidence that Obama's policies toward the ayatollahs had any impact on the tumultuous events now sweeping through Iran, it does make clear that the so-called Obama effect is a real phenomenon. It just isn't the phenomenon she claims it is.
THE REAL OBAMA effect on world affairs relates to the US media's unprecedented willingness to abandon the basic responsibilities of a free press in favor of acting as propagandists for the president. From Cooper - who pretends that Obama's unreciprocated open hand to the mullahs is what empowered the protesters - to Newsweek editor Evan Thomas who referred to Obama earlier this month as a "sort of God," without a hint of irony, the US media have mobilized to serve the needs of the president.
It is hard to think of an example in US history in which the media organs of the world's most important democracy so openly sacrificed the most basic responsibilities of news gatherers to act as shills for the chief executive.
Earlier this month NBC's nightly news anchorman Brian Williams bowed to Obama when he bade him good night at the White House...
[Lots of specific examples, Highly Recommended > ]
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Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Our World: The Obama effect
No-drama Obama may invite more Iranian repression
San Francisco Examiner Editorial
President Barack Obama’s noted cool and nonchalance may reassure some, but his clear aversion to unexpected drama is a hindrance to confronting a dangerous crisis effectively.
In fact, his overly passive response to events in Iran reveals a regrettable unwillingness to speak up that could easily be mistaken by foreign leaders for weakness...
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No party favors for Iran
House Minority Whip Eric Cantor — who thinks President Obama needs to get tougher on Tehran — is steamed that the repressive regime's diplos are still being invited to U.S.-sponsored July 4 parties.
On Monday, a State Department flack was quizzed on the party topic and replied, ''No, there’s no thought to rescinding the invitations to Iranian diplomats..."
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Congress stuffs war-funding bill with cash for other items
The emergency war funding bill that President Barack Obama is expected to sign soon has mushroomed into a catch-all for many lawmakers' favorite projects.
Obama originally sought $83.5 billion in April to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. By the time Congress rewrote the bill and passed it last week, the price had jumped to $105.9 billion...
[Is this also 'last year's business' that doesn't apply to his no pork promise?]
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A Clunker of an Idea
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"CASH FOR CLUNKERS" is a bad idea whose time seems to have come. Congress has added trade-in incentives for old gas guzzlers to a $106 billion supplemental appropriations bill whose purpose was to fund military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
President Obama is likely to sign the measure this week.
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POLL: 54% Oppose “Cash for Clunkers” Plan
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 54% oppose the “Cash for Clunkers” proposal. Thirty-five percent (35%) favor the plan, and 12% are undecided.
Most Americans oppose the plan to encourage people to trade in old cars for new, more fuel-efficient models, and few adults plan to take advantage of the program.
Regardless, Congress has passed the plan and sent its to President Obama who intends to sign it into law.
['Representative' government?]
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'Netanyahu's Jewish state condition ruining peace chances'
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak blasted Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's speech on Sunday saying"Netanyahu's demand that Palestinians recognize Israel as the Jewish state is ruining the chance for peace,"
[Why's that? Last I checked, Israel had a bunch of Jews in it.]
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POLL: 81% Say Palestinians Must Recognize Israel
Eighty-one percent (81%) of U.S. voters agree with Israeli President Benjamin Netanhyahu that Palestinian leaders must recognize Israel’s right to exist as part of a Middle Eastern peace agreement. just seven percent (7%) disagree and say this should not be a requirement for a peace agreement. Twelve percent (12%) are not sure. [?]
U.S. voters continue to be pessimistic about the chances for peace in the region. Seventy-four percent (74%) say it is unlikely there will be lasting peace between the Palestinians and Israel within the 10 years.
Forty-nine percent (49%) of Americans say that if Israel attacks Iran because of the latter’s continuing development of nuclear weapons, the United States should help Israel.
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Hamas Spurns Calls to Recognize Israel
Dismissing pleas from former President Jimmy Carter, Hamas leaders last week refused to comply with international demands that the terrorist group recognize Israel's right to exist, the Associated Press reported."The visit has not led to a significant change. Hamas finds the conditions unacceptable,"... "Recognizing Israel is completely unacceptable."
Ahmed Youssef, Hamas' deputy foreign minister said. The other two international conditions—renouncing violence and accepting previous Israeli-Palestinian agreements—he called 'irrelevant'.
[Yet to hear our president is to be left with the impression that it's Israel that's somehow the road block to 'peace'.]
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The TARP Brain Drain
Many top traders and bankers have left the financial giants for rivals. The trend may continue as long as Citi and BofA remain under the government's thumb.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The so-called brain drain that big banks have worried about ever since the government stepped in to bail out the financial sector appears to be well underway.
And nowhere is that pain being felt more acutely than at Citigroup (C, Fortune 500) and Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500), the two banks that have received the most aid from the government and are subject to the most onerous restrictions on executive compensation
Exact figures about the number of departures from Citi and BofA are tough to come by. But Citi chairman Dick Parsons conceded at an economic forum last week that management has had to use terms like "patriotic duty" and the potential of doing "fascinating" work to convince people to work for the embattled firm.
"It is normal but it is exacerbated by the fact that those who are stuck in TARP can't compensate their people as well those who aren't,"
For months, financial firms have railed against proposed compensation caps, warning it would prompt an exodus of workers at firms that remain under the government's thumb to smaller rivals, foreign banks and the lightly-regulated worlds of private equity and hedge funds.
But last week, the White House proposed to limit bonuses at Citigroup and Bank of America for their top 100 salaried employees, who's compensation will now be set and scrutinized by the newly appointed "pay czar"...
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POLL = 53% Say More Government Spending Hurts the Economy
Most voters (53%) believe increases in government spending hurt the economy, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. Just 27% now say increased government spending helps the economy, and 10% say it has no impact.
Most Republicans (73%) and unaffiliated voters (57%) say more government spending is bad for the economy. But a plurality of Democrats (45%) thinks increased government spending is beneficial.
Voters are much more supportive of cuts in government spending as opposed to increases. Almost half of voters (46%) think decreases in government spending help the economy, while 27% say they hurt it.
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Dems ignore Obama cuts
Congressional Democrats are largely ignoring President Obama’s $19.8 billion in budget cuts.
The president proposed axing dozens of programs that he said were inefficient or ineffective, but members of the House Appropriations Committee are again including the money for them...
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Lawmakers may slap sales tax on services
North Carolina lawmakers are considering taxing a broad variety of everyday services. You could pay more for a haircut, a pedicure, a clutch replacement or getting your yard mowed...
[All based on the assumption that it's their money, and anything they allow us to keep we should be grateful for.
It matters who you vote for.]
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'Evening News' Blames State Budget Woes on Economy, Ignores Growth of Government
[Meanwhile, in our professional media...]
It's basic economics - when the economy contracts and the flow of money slows, so do tax receipts to local governments, barring maneuvering by the government to impose higher taxes. And that has been a focus of news stories, most notably the state budget woes that have recently hit California.
A June 22 "CBS Evening News" segment showed how, during this sluggish economy, the demand for state government social programs, like welfare, have increased across the county, even as cash-strapped states are in fiscal crisis. But the report didn't point to one of the biggest reasons for state deficits: irresponsible government growth.
But what Bowers didn't explain is the $12-billion gap in Illinois has been caused by the rapid expansion of the size of state government. Illinois state government general funds expenditures increased eight of the nine years between 1999 and 2007, and in six of those nine years expenditures grew by 5 percent or more.
One of the other states in Bowers' report, California, has been a well-documented fiscal train wreck, for which the media have blamed voters who rejected an increase in taxes...
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PARASITE TIED TO GLOBAL BEE DEATHS
[Another man-is-the-problem disinformation campaign bites the dust.]
The sudden collapse of honeybee colonies around the world, a condition identified in 2004, is most likely caused by the parasite Nosema ceranae, not the human causes alleged by environmental activist groups.
Spanish researchers have reported in Environmental Microbiology Reports, a journal of the Society for Applied Microbiology, finding Nosema ceranae as the only common thread among them:
- Since 2004, honeybee populations around the world have been succumbing to Colony Collapse Disorder, characterized by worker bees leaving their hives and dying off without returning.
- Loss rates have varied from 30 percent to 90 percent of regional colonies.
- With no known cause to account for the die-offs, environmental activists blamed everything from pesticides [man] to cell phones [man] to global warming [man].
Once that was discovered, the Spanish science team introduced fumagillin -- an antibiotic -- into the affected bee colonies. It cleared the parasite and halted colony collapse. Many colonies began to rebuild their numbers shortly thereafter.
This is the same thing that happened with frogs when amphibians were declining, says H. Sterling Burnett, a senior fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis. The environmental activists were quick to point their finger at global warming, pesticides and other human activities, when it turned out entirely natural factors were the cause.
Of course, after the activists' media allies sounded the alarm that pesticides and global warming are killing frogs and bees, they became strangely silent about reporting the exculpatory evidence that natural factors are to blame,.
"The general public has no idea that humans in fact were not to blame, unless they subscribe to and read academic journals."
[Or this amateur blog.]
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WHAT WASHINGTON'S "GREEN" SCHOOLS TELL US
In an effort to promote "green" jobs and to encourage energy savings in schools, universities and public buildings, the Washington legislature is considering HB 2334, which would send a $3 billion bond proposal to voters this fall.
Washington state already has experience with similar efforts to spend taxpayer money to improve the energy efficiency of schools. In 2005, the legislature passed the "High Performance Buildings" law requiring schools to purchase energy efficient equipment. That experience is instructive in the difficulty of spending taxpayer money wisely and achieving the predicted energy savings. Three things stand out from that experience:
- "Green" schools that incorporate many of the elements called for in this proposal have fallen far short of the projected energy savings.
- Recent studies and statements by those who work with the "green" schools in Washington state concur with previous findings: those buildings do not achieve the projected energy savings.
- Some advocates cite studies claiming to show that buildings that meet "green" building standards like Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) save energy when compared to other new buildings; these studies, however, make no such claims and are being misused.
Experience indicates the expected savings will fall short of projections.
[But saving energy isn't the real objective.]
DUMBEST GENERATION GETTING DUMBER
Any long-term solution to our education problems requires the decentralization that can only come from competition...
According to a McKinsey & Company report on the economic impact of the achievement gap in American schools, the longer American children are in school, the worse they perform compared to their international peers. That's a sobering thought: The longer kids are in school and the more money we spend on them, the further behind they get, says Walter Williams, a John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics at George Mason University.
In recent cross-country comparisons of fourth grade reading, math, and science, U.S. students scored in the top quarter or top half of advanced nations. By age 15 these rankings drop to the bottom half. In other words, American students are farthest behind just as they are about to enter higher education or the workforce.
As a result, the teaching establishment and politicians have convinced taxpayers that more money is needed to improve education:
- The Washington, D.C., school budget is about the nation's costliest, spending about $15,000 per pupil; its student/teacher ratio, at 15.2 to 1, is lower than the nation's average.
- Yet, student achievement is just about the lowest in the nation.
- However, 1,700 children in kindergarten through 12th grade receive the $7,500 annual scholarships in order to escape D.C. public schools, and four times as many apply for the scholarships, yet Congress, beholden to the education unions, will end funding the school voucher program.
[With the predictable consequences...
We must have universal-unencumbered {not 'managed' by public schools systems} vouchers that put parents back in charge of the education of their children.]
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THE CYBER WAY TO KNOWLEDGE
How can we reform U.S. K-12 education so that U.S. students will be competitive with Finnish teenagers? Technology -- particularly online education, say Terry M. Moe and John E. Chubb, authors of "Liberating Learning: Technology, Politics, and the Future of American Education."
Technology holds two potentially dramatic benefits, say the authors:
- One is simply a general improvement in education as students from "anywhere -- poor inner cities, remote rural areas, even at home" gain access to high-caliber instruction.
- More important, is technology's ability to destroy the political barriers that prevent education reform.
- In 1995, Midland, Pa., a declining steel town on the Ohio border, launched the Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School.
- Today the online school serves 8,000 students throughout the state; and the classes aren't just digital correspondence courses -- there are textbooks and live educators, including "synchronous teachers," who work with students through instant messaging, voice and interactive whiteboards while the kids are engaged with their lessons online.
- Advisers are required to communicate with students' families at least once a week by email and once every two weeks by phone.
- As for results, even though the school's demographics are average or even below average, Cyber was rated as having made Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) in No Child Left Behind, hitting all 21 educational targets.
- By contrast, barely half of Pennsylvania's bricks-and-mortar schools received the AYP rating; on SAT tests, Cyber students scored 97 points higher than the state average.
Teachers unions, of course, are appalled...
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Dems move to shield ACORN
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A Republican lawmaker accused House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and congressional Democrats of "shutting down the process" in the House of Representatives to block his effort to investigate the national community organizing group ACORN.
Rep. Steve King, Iowa Republican, said in an interview on The Washington Times' morning radio show "America's Morning News" that Mrs. Pelosi and the Democratic majority had recently authorized an unprecedented change in House rules to curb the right of the minority to offer amendments to appropriations spending bills
The amendments, which were blocked from a House floor vote, would have prevented ACORN from being eligible for its workers and chapters helping organize or participate in the 2010 Census..."Nancy Pelosi has shut down the process and it's disgraceful,"
Audio clip
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Bachmann Urges Taxpayers to Sign The ACORN Petition
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ACORN is celebrating its birthday and as a gift from its friends in the House leadership an amendment that Congressman Steve King (R-IA) and I offered to keep ACORN from getting federal funds through the Census and other federal programs has been denied debate.
They won't even let it come to the House floor for discussion. They don't want to have to go on the record in support of this corrupt organization.
No wonder: The American people have said loud and clear that they don't want Congress funneling their hard-earned tax dollars to ACORN.
In less than 2 weeks, nearly 32,000 Americans signed my petition to stop Congress from spending millions on ACORN's voter registration fraud.
If you haven't signed yet: SIGN NOW!
50% Say Hate Is Growing in America
Fifty percent (50%) of Americans believe hate is growing in America in the wake of the murders of a doctor who performed late-term abortions and a military recruiter and a shooting incident at the U.S. Holocaust Museum in which a guard was killed.
Thirty-five percent (35%) of adults disagree, saying these were isolated incidents, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.
[This is the damage our corupt media causes. Of course these were isolated incidences, only the MSM's unrelenting spin could convince any adult otherwise.]
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STUDY: CHUBBY PEOPLE LIVE LONGEST
People who are overweight at the age of 40 live longer on average than people with other physiques, according to a study by the Japanese Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry. The study showed that thin people had the shortest life expectancy, on average dying six or seven years earlier than overweight people.
Researchers studied the health of about 50,000 people aged 40 or older over a 12-year period. They looked at the past physiques of the participants and how long they lived past the age of 40, and grouped them according to their body mass index (BMI), an indicator of how fat a person is.
However, the link between physique and life expectancy is not clearly understood.
The study also found that the fatter a person is, the greater their medical expenses. For example: The average lifetime medical expenses for overweight mena and women from the age of 40 is about $195,000 - 30 per cent higher than for thin people.
[Because they're living longer and, contrary to the smokers-costing-more myth, it's the prolongation of life that's expensive.]
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ObamaCare: Kiss Your Access Goodbye
President Obama and the Democratic Congress repeat a mantra so often that it has become a truism: America's health care system is a scandalous failure, and it is absolutely urgent that we fix it now. The mainstream media nod their agreement, and yet, the polls tell us something else:
Eighty percent of Americans say they are satisfied with the quality of their health care.
[Oh come on, we little people aren't qualified to reach that conclusion.]
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PBS Wages War on Pro-Lifers
The Public Broadcasting Service recently announced it will no longer allow religious programming on their taxpayer-subsidized airwaves. The handful of stations that have shown a Catholic Mass or Mormon devotions will be allowed to continue, but the other 300-plus stations have been instructed to avoid any kind of evangelism.
Welcome to Barack Obama’s new world order.
To everyone who’s watched two minutes of "Bill Moyers Journal," with its panels unanimously screaming for Bush’s impeachment, or more recently, for a single-payer socialist health-care system, the idea of PBS being devoted to a "non-evangelism" stance is several miles removed from ridiculous.
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Joe Scarborough Conservative Bashing Book Tour Flops Bigtime
Your humble correspondent feels obligated to warn you about the article you are about to see. It is a harsh but brutally honest review written by Brian Maloney of The Radio Equalizer about Joe Scarborough's new book, The Last Best Hope: Restoring Conservatism and America's Promise.
Over the past several weeks, this site has been tracking the attempt by MSNBC's Joe Scarborough to make money bashing his former friends in any and every available public venue. Each time, he was quick to bash Rush Limbaugh, Karl Rove, Newt Gingrich, and other key conservative figures.
In recent years, Scarborough has found that turning against fellow Republicans could be good for the pocketbook, securing him the morning gig at MSNBC and a syndicated talk show airing on WABC / New York and elsewhere.
But in new data released late this week, Scarborough has struck out in every category: TV, radio and publishing. His widely-touted The Last Best Hope: Restoring Conservatism and America's Promise has bombed. The most recent check at Amazon shows that Scarborough's book has now plunged to #295 in book sales despite seemingly endless promotion for it on MSNBC and the rest of the tube.
These numbers don't lie and the lesson for any budding Morning Joe-types out there is clear: the [reading] audience isn't stupid. They can sniff out a backstabbing weasel with remarkable speed, putting an early end to Scarborough's transparent get-rich-quick scheme.
By contrast, conservative author Mark Levin remained in first place after three full months, according to Bookscan, selling rapidly approaching the one million sales mark, and that was with relatively little promotion.
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WaPo: Obama's Cairo Speech Encouraged Iranian Revolt
The recent protests in Iran, as well as Hezbollah's political defeat in Lebanon days earlier, are the result of Barack Obama's speech in Cairo on June 4.
Such nonsense was actually reported by the Washington Post Tuesday.
[More accurate to say the protests occurred despite Obama's 'efforts'.]
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Tuesday, June 23, 2009
U.S. Navy Hangs Back in Persian Gulf as Questions Mount About Defecting Iranian Revolutionary Guard
The U.S. Department of Defense is ''on edge'' over the turmoil in Iran, and has directed U.S. naval assets in the Persian Gulf to be, in layman's terms, in ''non-incident mode,'' military officials told FOX News Monday.
Meanwhile, the former crown prince of Iran contended that members of Iran's Revolutionary Guard are showing ''discontent'' and some are ''contemplating the contingency'' of defying the regime...
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Iran Neda speech raises domestic political stakes for Obama
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Here's a new video involving the violent events in Iran and the politics they are now forcing within the United States.
The video is from C-SPAN of Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain, who over the weekend said he'd like to see the president speak out stronger. Then, on the Senate floor today speaking in stronger terms than Democrat President Barack Obama about the Tehran government's violent reaction to protests of the recent election that allegedly reinstated the existing regime.
McCain's outspoken criticism of Iran's government for its violence mirrors his strong denunciations last summer when Russia invaded the democratic country of Georgia.
Obama, who was vacationing in Hawaii at the time, was more measured initially, calling on both sides to stop fighting. He later changed tone more in favor of the invaded democracy... [snip]
The new president is trying to walk a thin line between satisfying homegrown outcries to support democratic outbursts around the world and his promise in a recent Cairo speech not to interfere in other countries and to attempt talking with such regimes.
In recent interviews Obama has pointed to some success with that line, as Iran has instead accused Britain of interference; the UK began evacuating its embassy personnel's families from Iran today...
[That's his sign of 'success'?? Hiding behind another country? The "leader of the free world"]
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Don’t leave us alone
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Contrary to the claims of many MSM 'pundents', at least some of Iran's anti-government protesters are anxious for Barack Obama to lend American support to their cause. An Iranian student interviewed on CNN’s American Morning on Monday pleaded for the world, and President Obama by name, to become more active in assisting the protests against the Islamic regime in Tehran:“International community....especially, I ask President Barack Obama directly...this government is a huge threat to global peace....We need your help international community. Don’t leave us alone.”
Without any sort of prompting, Mohammed first addressed some of the major controversies involving the Iranian regime:“For about three decades, our nation has been humiliated and insulted by this regime....We are peaceful nation. We don’t hate anybody. We want to be an active member of international community. We don’t want to be isolated....We don’t deny Holocaust. We...do accept Israel’s rights. And actually...we want severe reform on this structure. This structure is not going to be tolerated by the majority of Iranians. We need severe reform, as much as possible.”
[Audio from the segment available here.]
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CBS Displays Obamacized Neda Poster
[Meanwhile, on TV...]
Obama and Neda: same struggle!
Who says Pres. Obama isn't backing the Iranian uprising strongly enough? Why, supporters of the struggle have chosen to immortalize Neda, the young student reportedly slain by the current regime, by creating a poster of her in the style of the iconic Obama poster made famous during his presidential campaign.
Of all the possible posters of the fallen girl who has become the symbol of the Iranian uprising, the Early Show chose the one displayed here in the unmistakeable style Shepard Fairey used to create his Obama poster.
Might that have been CBS's subliminal message this morning?
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NYT Will Name CIA Interrogators But Not Captured Journalists
In their watchdog role of keeping the public informed, the New York Times has over the years disclosed government secrets regarding anti-terrorism tactics, overseas prisons, interrogation tactics, and military tactics, that critics contend have harmed the effectiveness of the programs and put America and our military at greater risk.
In fact, in 2008, the Times even published the name of an interrogator who got Khalid Shaikh Mohammed to talk, against the wishes of the interrogator’s lawyer and the CIA. The interrogator and his family fear for their lives, but that’s okay, because the public has a right to know.
So when Times journalist David Rohde was captured by the Taliban and held for seven months, the Times was going to report that, right? After all, doesn’t the public have a right to know about the threats they may face while traveling in Afghanistan?
As it turns out, the New York Times doesn’t think we do...
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FLASHBACK > NY Times Can Keep A Secret After All
The Times withheld this information along with at least 40 other news outlets.
No, the media never conspires together in the dark...
Islamic burka 'not welcome' in France
The Islamic burka is "not welcome" in France because it "is not a symbol of religion but a sign of subservience for women", President Nicolas Sarkozy said on Monday.
[Liberty's champion is now France. Better the islamic world be mad at them than us, right? Marvelous.]
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Iran's Web Spying Aided By Western Technology
The Iranian regime has developed, with the assistance of European telecommunications companies, one of the world's most sophisticated mechanisms for controlling and censoring the Internet, allowing it to examine the content of individual online communications on a massive scale. Interviews with technology experts in Iran and outside the country say Iranian efforts at monitoring Internet information go well beyond blocking access to Web sites or severing Internet connections.
[Just as American companies {you know all their names} have done for China's government.
Business doesn't excuse morality, it heightens the responsibility for it.]
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Inspector General Fired by Obama Wants Congressional Hearing on His Case
The ousted inspector general who reported that his office found misuse of AmeriCorps funds granted to a charity run by a political ally of President Barack Obama sees an assault on the institution of government watchdogs, noting that besides himself, the inspectors general in both the Treasury Department and the International Trade Commission (ITC) have faced reported hurdles in doing their jobs.
He says he wants Congress to hold a hearing on his firing...
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FLASHBACKs >
A witness to Walpin-gateThe fact remains that an inspector general does not serve at the president's pleasure and can be removed only for a specified just cause.
Walloping WalpinBut Obama then fired Walpin immediately saying only that he no longer enjoyed his 'full confidence', despite a law that he cosponsored requiring that Congress be given a 30-day notice of his intent and a detailed justification for the removal...
Key Obama Ally Says President Obama Did Not Follow the Law in IG FiringSen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., said the president did not abide by the same law that he co-sponsored – and she wrote – about firing Inspectors General...
Gangster government's grip on the AmeriCorpsThe key issue now is whether Congress will permit this latest illustration of what The Examiner’s Michael Barone calls Obama’s “gangster government”...
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OBAMA'S PLAN FOR A DEBT-RIDDEN FUTURE
American families over the last year have lost eight percent of their net worth, and if the president has his way, they will soon be hit with more than a 100 percent increase in public debt.
- In theory, the U.S. government can always pay its debts by increasing taxes, but the problem with taxes is that increases harm the economy disproportionately and quickly reduce the economy's taxpaying capacity.
- Paying off Obama's 10-year string of deficits that add up to $9.3 trillion with income tax increases of $9.3 trillion over 10 years would cost the private sector $23 trillion to $37 trillion.
- In effect, American families would over time lose an amount greater than an entire year of gross domestic product (GDP) -- a blow far more severe than the damage being done to them by the current recession.
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GET READY FOR INFLATION AND HIGHER INTEREST RATES
As bad as the fiscal picture is, panic-driven monetary policies portend to have even more dire consequences.
The Fed controls the monetary base 100 percent and does so by purchasing and selling assets in the open market. About eight months ago, the Fed [Bernanke] signaled a 180-degree shift in its focus from an anti-inflation position to an anti-deflation position:
- The percentage increase in the monetary base is the largest increase in the past 50 years by a factor of 10; it is so far outside the realm of our prior experiential base that historical comparisons are rendered difficult if not meaningless.
- The currency-in-circulation component of the monetary base -- which prior to the expansion had comprised 95 percent of the monetary base -- has risen by a little less than 10 percent, while bank reserves have increased almost 20-fold.
- Now the currency-in-circulation component of the monetary base is a smidgen less than 50 percent of the monetary base.
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Voters Now Trust Republicans More than Democrats on Economic Issues
The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 45% now trust the GOP more to handle economic issues, while 39% trust Democrats more. Voters not affiliated with either party now trust the GOP more to handle economic issues by a two-to-one margin.
Republicans also now hold a six-point lead on the issue of government ethics and corruption, the second most important issue to all voters and the top issue among unaffiliated voters. That shows a large shift from May, when Democrats held an 11-point lead on the issue.
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EMISSIONS CONTROL, MYTHS AND REALITIES
The United States is having better luck at controlling its emissions than most other countries, without the multi-billion-dollar mandates of the Kyoto anti-global warming treaty, says Drew Thornley, author of a new report, "Energy & the Environment: Myths & Facts," published by the Manhattan Institute.
According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA):
- Carbon-dioxide emissions from the combustion of fossil fuels increased 0.7 percent in the United States from 2000 to 2006, far below the worldwide increase of 21.6 percent.
- During the same period, emissions grew 4.9 percent in Europe, 37.6 percent in the Middle East, and 52.3 percent in Asia.
- Major developing nations saw big increases; for instance, India, Malaysia and China's emissions increased 27.7 percent, 45.8 percent and 103 percent, respectively.
- The EIA projects that China's energy-related emissions of carbon dioxide will exceed American emissions by almost 15 percent in 2010 and by 75 percent in 2030.
- In 1990, China and India together accounted for 13 percent of the world's emissions; in 2005, their contribution was 23 percent; and in 2030, they are expected to account for 34 percent of the world's emissions.
- America's Climate Security Act, also known as the Lieberman-Warner bill, called for emission reductions of 63 percent below the 2005 level by 2050 (President Obama's much more ambitious plan is to cut emissions 83 percent below 2005 levels by 2050.).
- The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) projected that Lieberman-Warner could, by 2050, lower gross domestic product (GDP) by up to 6.9 percent, increase average gasoline prices by $1.40 per gallon, and raise electricity prices by 26 percent; many private economic estimates were considerably higher. [gas & electricity - used to make and then transport everything we use - so it ALL goes up...]
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A SHOCK AT THE PUMP
Washington is working on a bill that would raise gas costs further, says policy analyst Ben Lieberman...
The proposed American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (the Waxman-Markey proposal) essentially would limit how much gasoline and other fossil fuels Americans can use. The aim is to cut emissions of carbon dioxide from energy use; yet, prices would have to rise high enough so the public would be forced to drive less and meet the ever-tightening energy rationing targets.
How high? Estimates are that gasoline costs will rise $118 annually for a typical four-person household once the bill's provisions take effect in 2012, Electricity is also hit hard; in fact, the main target of the bill is coal, which affordably provides 50 percent of America's electricity.
Overall, this is a regressive tax that would harm the working poor the most. At the same time, it would leave a million or more people without a paycheck to deal with the higher costs...
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ALL GOVERNMENT PLANS LEAD TO SOCIALIZED HEALTH CARE
If President Obama signs into law a "public option" government-run health 'insurance' program, American could be on its way to becoming a European-style welfare state. To prevent this from happening, there are five realities all Americans must never forget:
- A public option is unnecessary; advocates say a government-run insurance program is needed to provide competition for private health insurance, but 1,300 companies already sell health insurance plans and that's competition enough.
- A public option will undercut private insurers and pass the tab to taxpayers and health providers just as it does in existing government-run programs; for example, Medicare pays hospitals 71 percent and doctors 81 percent of what private insurers pay.
- Government-run health insurance would crater the private insurance market, forcing most Americans onto the government plan.*
- The public option is far too expensive; the cost of Medicare -- the purest form of a government-run "public choice" for seniors -- will start exceeding its payroll-tax "trust fund" in 2017.
- The public option puts government firmly in the middle of the relationship between patients and their doctors.
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Union Members Exempt from New Health Benefits Tax
Union members and their families who receive healthcare benefits paid for by their employers would be exempted from a new tax on healthcare under an option being proposed by Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mt). [snip]
As shown on page 3 of the Baucus outline published by Fox News, healthcare benefits provided under collective bargaining agreements dated on or before January 1, 2013 would be exempt from the tax.
Union agreements dated before January 2013 could be extended indefinitely even if other benefits and terms change. All that’s apparently necessary to perpetuate the pre-2013 date would be to have both parties agree to modifications rather than a new agreement.
This proposal is entirely consistent with the Obama administration’s handling of the GM and Chrysler bailouts which inure to the benefit of the United Autoworkers Union and not to the companies’ shareholders.
It would penalize every non-union recipient of employer-provided healthcare benefits. ..
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NYT/CBS Stock Pro-Obamacare Poll With Obama Voters
[Tricks of the trade]
Realizing that Barack Obama's healthcare initiative has hit some roadblocks in Congress, the good folks at CBS News and the New York Times figured they'd help it along by creating a new poll on the subject that WAY oversampled people who voted for Obama.
Although the then junior senator from Illinois received 53 percent of the votes last November, NYT/CBS surveyed almost twice as many Obama voters as McCain voters:
[A]ccording to the actual poll data, of the 73% of respondents who said they voted in 2008 only 34% voted for McCain and 66% for Obama.
And you wonder why the survey found so much support for Obamacare?
Honestly, stuff like this should be illegal and any news organization found doing it should be significantly fined. In any industry you could name, such deception of the public would meet with very serious consequences.
Why are so-called news outlets allowed to get away with such obvious deceit with total impunity?
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Supreme Court ends Plame's suit against Cheney
The Supreme Court on Monday declined to take up Valerie Plame Wilson's lawsuit against I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, effectively killing the civil suit that accused key Bush administration figures of outing Wilson as a CIA operative.
Plame and her husband, former Ambassador Joe Wilson, had sued Libby, the longtime chief of staff to former Vice President Dick Cheney, for his role in leaking Plame's name...
[Yet another frivolous lawsuit bites the dust - brace yourselves for 24/7 coverage in the MSM...]
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[Speaking of frivolous lawsuits...]
Palin's legal defense fund
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Gov. Sarah Palin reportedly now has more than $600,000 in legal bills as a result of a string of frivolous ethics complaints - 14 of which have been dismissed so far with no finding she violated the state ethics act. [but they continue to be filed, one after another despite their demonstrated lack of legitimate standing - it's litigation as financial weapon]
Other complaints have not been settled, and Kristan Cole, the trustee for the legal defense fund, said the bills continue to climb and "my sense is they are over $600,000." Palin in March had pegged the debt at that time as more than $500,000.
Palin's friends and supporters created the legal defense fund, called the Alaska Fund Trust, in April and is raise roughly $100,000 so far."Our trust is one of the most, if not the most, restrictive and transparent legal expense funds in history,"
asserted Cole, a longtime friend of Palin's. Cole says there is no legal limit on how much people can donate to the fund, but it has a self-imposed maximum contribution of $150."You just cannot believe how many people really believe in this governor like I do and others do and are sending in checks for 5 and 10 dollars, saying this is all I have at this time but I'll send you another 5 dollars in two months,"
Cole said."It's really incredible."
[Let's get incredibler - please join me {standard credit card stuff, if you've a PayPal accn. you're good to go}...]
and as always, the goal is to get viral: please, pass it on... [select little white envelope lower-left to forward this 'brief']
tx.
Why I dumped Obama's party
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is portrayed as grown too big to fail, and he's convinced everyone who's anyone in my home city of Las Vegas to join him on the Obama freight train to socialism.
Next stop: Rationed health care, union card check and $10-a-gallon gasoline. All aboard!
Democrats own Washington, D.C., as well as the Nevada Legislature.
Meanwhile, Nevada's Republican "Luv Guv," Jim Gibbons, couldn't be on a more prolonged hard-luck streak. He's in the divorce from hell with the first lady, who for a time holed herself up in the Governor's Mansion; his staff regularly jumps ship; and rumor has it that the governor's dog has obtained a restraining order.
And, lest we forget, Nevada's most popular Republican, Sen. John Ensign, shook the party faithful by admitting to a nine-month roll in the hay with the wife of his good friend.
Nope, I don't think I could have picked a worse time to go Republican. However, because KXNT-AM radio's Alan Stock revealed my party switch last week, I feel the need to explain.
First, I'm not trying to time anything. Enough was enough. Could stand no more. So, when it came time to renew my driver's license on June 9, I also gave the Democratic Party the pink slip.
I pushed the DMV clerk the paperwork. She shoved it back and said I didn't have to fill out that form if my address remained the same.
"No, I want to change party affiliation."
"Oh," she said. "Had enough of the president, have we?"
"Up to here. I quit."
[as long as we tolerate the 'party' system] Republicans offer our only hope in slowing the Obama "change" juggernaut before the America of unbridled optimism and opportunity goes the way of the buffalo. I don't want my great-grandchildren growing up in cradle-to-grave government care, where only the privileged few may afford a car, or own a home, or get non-rationed health care.
The only institution positioned to stop the progression of the Obama welfare state is the Republican Party, coupled with independent-minded Americans like me.
Second, the popular myth that the Democratic Party is the party of tolerance and big-tent ideas is spectacularly false.
A fiscal conservative such as myself is treated by Obamaniacs like a ringing cell phone in church. "Shhhh!" they say. The only debate among Democrats is how fast and how deeply to run up the national debt. Any Democrat who questions deficit spending or a limit to federal power is simply not invited to the party.
For that reason and many more, I switched. Democrats are probably happy as hell to see me go. And for all I know, Republicans may be equally unhappy to see me coming.
But at least as a Republican, I'm respectfully part of the discussion.
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Monday, June 22, 2009
Dialogue with Iran's Monstrous Rulers?
Everything is on the line in Iran, at present -- not only the future of the Iranian regime, but also of the Middle East, and by extension, the most tangible western interests.
Consider: if the Iranian regime were to fall, by far the largest organized threat to peace in the region would be removed. This includes not only a fairly proximate nuclear threat to Israel (for all we know North Korea's second nuclear test was actually Iran's first), but sponsorship of the most efficient part of the world's Islamist terror apparatus.
Hezbollah and Hamas are both, today, for all practical purposes, Iranian proxies. Through them, and through other channels, the regime of the ayatollahs makes money, materiel, and expertise available to terror cells as far away as Argentina, Sweden, the Philippines.
But more significantly, Hezbollah and Hamas together represent an Iranian veto on any Palestinian settlement, or any attempt to ameliorate that conflict, with all that that implies.
The Syrian regime, most dangerous of Israel's neighbours, would, in the absence of Iranian support, have to make accommodations, indeed find new allies.
North Korea's chief conduit into the illicit Middle Eastern arms trade would be lost.
The principal external threat to Iraq would be removed, along with sponsorship of Iraq's own domestic insurgencies. Afghanistan would also be more secure.
In economic terms, the threat of a world crisis provoked by the interdiction of oil shipments from the Persian Gulf would disappear.
Both Russia and China would lose a very important lever of influence on world affairs.
If the ayatollahs come down, the whole world situation is changed, and in every conceivable way for the better. It is impossible to overestimate the stakes of the insurrection in Iran.
As I wrote Wednesday, I expect the regime to win, in a bloodbath. Guns trump warm bodies. But it may well be a close-run thing.
If the regime does win, it will emerge from the carnage as an even deadlier enemy to the West. The only leverage the West will have is appeasement, and that has never worked, anytime or anywhere in history.
President Obama bet, with his Cairo speech, that it will work this time. He disavowed his predecessor's bellicose rhetoric, and committed the U.S. to dialogue with Iran's monstrous rulers.
President Reagan, who extracted more concessions from Soviet tyrants than all previous presidents combined, did not do so by making nice to them...
[Lessons are repeated until learned.]
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Hungary 1956, Iran 2009
What perfect timing. (snip) Now the world watches and waits for another revolution to be crushed. The president of the United States offers little but lip service to freedom's cause, and even that is tardy, hesitant, fearful, as if another people's thirst for liberty were some sort of embarrassment, an obstacle to his plans for a Grand Bargain with a dictatorial regime...
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62% Say Obama Should Not Meet With Iran Until It Stops Nuclear Weapons Program
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This finding is up six points - from 56% - in late January just after President Obama signaled a willingness to talk to his Iranian counterpart without preconditions. A year ago, 59% agreed with the Bush administration position that Iran must stop its nuclear weapons program before direct talks were possible.
Just 23% of voters now say a meeting between the two presidents should go ahead without any preconditions, and 15% are not sure.
Eighty percent (80%) of Republicans and 60% of voters not affiliated with either major party believe Iran must first halt its nuclear weapons production. Democrats are more closely divided, with 49% favoring this precondition but 31% saying it’s not necessary.
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NY Times Can Keep A Secret After All
By now, you may have actually believed the typical NY Times line that they have to disclose everything, secret prisons, NSA tactics, interrogation tactics, because the public has the right to know everything and information has to be free, despite the risks it puts on our military or citizens.
What you probably didn't know is that David Rohde, a NY Times reporter, had been held by kidnappers in Kabul for the last seven months.
Fortunately he was able to escape. Bill Keller wrote in a memo today "the consensus of experts we consulted -- and the judgment of the family -- was that a storm of publicity would at best prolong David's captivity by increasing his apparent value, and could well put him in imminent danger."
Somehow I think that's a lesson that will be forgotten as soon as someone in a uniform faces the same fate.
The Times withheld this information along with at least 40 other news outlets. No, the media never conspires together in the dark...
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French Headscarf Ban Not Discrimination, Says European Court
Europe’s top courts have ruled in favor of a French school that expelled two Muslim girls for refusing to remove their headscarves for physical education classes. The ruling fuels the debate over secularism in France. The European Court of Human Rights has dismissed a complaint by two French Muslim girls that their school violated their freedom of religion and their right to an education.
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WORSE THAN FICTION
The report prepared by Kofi Annan's Global Humanitarian Forum is a case study in bad science and global warming alarmism...
Global warming alarmists are fond of invoking the authority of experts against the skepticism of supposedly amateur detractors. The latest pits former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, now president of the Geneva-based Global Humanitarian Forum, against Roger Pielke, Jr., an expert in disaster trends at the University of Colorado, says the Wall Street Journal.
According to Annan and the Global Humanitarian Forum:
- Climate change-induced disasters, such as droughts and floods, kill 315,000 each year and cost $125 billion, numbers that will rise to 500,000 dead and $340 billion by 2030.
- They assume a four-step chain of causation, beginning with increased emissions, moving to climate-change effects and finally arriving at human effects like malnutrition and "risk of instability and armed conflicts."
- The numbers are a lot less scary when put into context: malaria kills an estimated one million people a year, while AIDS claims an estimated two million; as for the economic costs, $125 billion is slightly less than the gross domestic product (GDP) of New Zealand.
- Moreover, unlike starvation, climate change does not usually kill anyone directly.
"It's generally difficult to obtain valid quantitative findings about the role of socioeconomics and climate change in loss increases, because the random nature of weather extremes, a shortage of quality data, and the role of various other potential factors that act in parallel and interact. Yet, the Annan report engages in a very strange comparison of earthquake and weather disasters; why? They are comparing phenomena with many moving parts over a short time frame, and attributing 100 percent of the resulting difference to human-caused climate change; it doesn't make sense,"
Source: Editorial, "'Worse Than Fiction'," Wall Street Journal, June 7, 2009.
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VALUE-ADDED TAXES MEAN BIG GOVERNMENT
The evidence from Europe shows that consumption taxes go hand-in-hand with rising income taxes...
There is growing interest in Washington in a new national consumption tax, otherwise known as a value-added tax or VAT, says Daniel J. Mitchell, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute.
The classical argument in favor of a VAT says that it's desirable because it has a single rate and is based on consumption. It is true that single-rate systems (assuming a reasonable rate) are less harmful than discriminatory regimes with "progressive" rates. It's also true that a consumption-based tax would not inflict as much damage as our internal revenue code, with its multiple layers of tax on income that is saved and invested. But these arguments only apply if a VAT replaces the current tax system -- which is not the case here. And the evidence from Europe suggests it's not a good idea to add a somewhat-bad tax like the VAT on top of a really bad tax system.
VATs are associated with both higher overall tax burdens and more government spending, says Mitchell:
- In 1965, before the VAT swept across Europe, the average tax burden for advanced European economies (the EU-15) was 27.7 percent of economic output, roughly comparable to the United States, where taxes were 24.7 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), according to data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
- European nations began to impose VATs in the late 1960s, and now the European Union requires all members to have a VAT of at least 15 percent.
- By 2006, the OECD reports that the average tax burden for EU-15 nations had climbed to 39.8 percent of GDP.
- The tax burden also has increased in the United States, but at a much slower rate, rising to 28 percent for that year.
- In 1965, according to European Commission figures, government spending in EU-15 nations averaged 30.1 percent of GDP, not much higher than the 28.3 percent of economic output consumed by U.S. government spending.
- According to 2007 data, government spending now consumes 47.1 percent of GDP in the EU-15, significantly higher than the 35.3 percent burden of government in the United States.
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