[am I the only one utterly disgusted by this? {rhetorical} ]
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Face of Defense: Real Estate Agent Chooses to Serve
“As a little girl, I always wanted to join the Army, because my father and grandfather spent several years in the military and served their country proudly,”
Even though her leaders said they already were impressed by her work ethic and determination in keeping track of more than $3.5 million worth of unit equipment, Rizzo’s most attention-grabbing performance was yet to come.
“When we were in (Hohenfels, Germany) going through ‘Iron Warrior’ training, she went up to the Iraqi role players and started talking to them in their own language,” said Army Command Sgt. Maj. Chad Cuomo, “Nobody knew that she spoke Arabic, and it especially shocked the role players; she was definitely the hero of the battle out there.”
Rizzo was promoted to specialist shortly after arriving in Iraq and went to the sergeant’s promotion board four months later.
“I just try to give 100 percent in everything I do,” Rizzo said, “and I always try to do above what is expected of me.”The soon-to-be sergeant is taking online classes toward a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice. She said she hopes to one day be an Army career counselor or an Arabic linguist.
[just another no-other-option recruit]
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Baghdad Fair Helps Residents Plan for Economic Future
"This area is on the edge of an agricultural production area and an urban area," Dose said. "We're here to provide new technology in areas such as food processing and packaging." ... "This whole area has become permissive for us to work with the local leaders," Dose said. "Six months ago, we wouldn't have come here."
In addition to enabling USAID and representatives of other groups to work with the neighborhood business leaders, the market action committees also act as advocates from the business community to local governments.
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The Director of National Intelligence Speaks
Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell gave his annual national security threat assessment to the Senate Intelligence Committee last week.
Al Qaeda is improving the last key aspect of its ability to attack the U.S.: the identification, training, and positioning of operatives for an attack in the Homeland. While increased security measures at home and abroad have caused al Qaeda to view the West, especially the U.S., as a harder target, we have seen an influx of new Western recruits into the tribal areas since mid-2006. We assess that al Qaeda's Homeland plotting is likely to continue to focus on prominent political, economic, and infrastructure targets designed to produce mass casualties, visually dramatic destruction, significant economic aftershocks, and/or fear among the population.
[snip]
... al Qaeda and other terrorist groups are attempting to acquire chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear weapons and materials (CBRN). We assess al Qaeda will continue to try to acquire and employ these weapons and materials -- some chemical and radiological materials and crude weapons designs are easily accessible, in our judgment.
[and that's the kicker, so 'distasteful' nobody wants to talk about it: the bad guys are right now working on acquiring WMD, and they'll use them when they get them, and as suicide bombers can't be deterred - they'll need to be be interdicted. To do that, our intelligence communities must be doing anything and everything to that end. I.e., progressive attempts to ham string their efforts technically or in the courts is literally placing many American lives at risk.]
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Take Me To Your Leader!
The job description is as follows: Wanted: A strong charismatic nationalist figure to guide the Arabic-speaking world toward modernization along with stability, an acceptable peace with Israel, good relations with the West, and solidarity against threats from both non-Arab Iran and radical Islamists.
Of course, there is a mirror-image role that could also be filled: A strong charismatic nationalist figure to mobilize the Arabic-speaking world for battle with Israel , confrontation with the West, and solidarity against threats from both non-Arab Iran and radical Islamists.
There are no serious applicants for the first position and only a single almost laughable one for the second...
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[and what is 'the West' doing to influence which kind of leader emerges? ... ]
[twofer:]
Russia tests ballistic missiles
Russia has successfully tested two intercontinental ballistic missiles that are to replace ageing rockets from the Soviet era. A strategic missile known as the RS-24 flew 7,000 km (4350 miles) to hit targets on the Kamchatka peninsula. Later, a Russian submarine in the Barents Sea launched another new missile, hitting the same test site. It comes as Russia has again accused the US of ignoring its concerns over a planned US missile defence system.
[don't their actions increase the need for a missile defense system?]
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[at the same time...]
Iran to Get Russian Missile Defense
Russia is preparing to equip Iran with a powerful new air defense system that would dramatically increase its ability to repel an attack, Iran's defense minister said Wednesday. The S-300 anti-aircraft missile defense system is capable of shooting down aircraft, cruise missiles and ballistic missile warheads at ranges of over 90 miles and at altitudes of about 90,000 feet. Russian military officials boast that its capabilities outstrip the U.S. Patriot missile system.
[evidently their definition of 'defense' is creditable and ours isn't? despite Iran's repeated statements of intended aggression? Why isn't the media ridiculing this Putin guy's inane statements re: our defense-only systems somehow justifying an obviously-false excuse to reignite an arms race?]
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Court Freezes $12 billion in Venezuela assets
Hugo Chavez's seizure last year of a huge oil project in the name of the state has not come without costs. US oil giant Exxon has sued Venezuela to recover costs from the project and a judge has agreed to freeze Venezuelan national assets.
Making Chavez pay for his stealing is the only way to discourage this sort of thieving worldwide. If a country wants to switch to a socialist state where all the assets are owned by the government, that's fine - as long as they pay companies for what they built.
Meanwhile, Venezuela oil production continues to decline. But as long as prices stay high, Chavez should have plenty of cash to make his mischief in South America.
[the inevitable fate of socialist systems, where there're no consequences for failure - and why all such systems are unsustainable - just watch over the coming years...]
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TELEMEDICINE HOLDS PROMISE FOR HEALTH CARE
Telemedicine can remedy several of the problems currently plaguing the health care industry, according to a new report by Devon Herrick, a senior fellow with the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA). For example:
> For many ailments, the patient doesn't need to be in front of the doctor, but his or her information does."The only thing stopping us from using telemedicine to our advantage is a reluctance to control our own health care dollars," [?] ..."If we control the dollars, as I do with my Health Savings Account, the consumer can decide the value."
> A tech-savvy doctor can respond to a phone call or e-mail with a diagnosis, thereby saving some patients any visit at all.
> With more complete information accessible in electronic medical records, doctors could make faster and more accurate diagnoses.
> That would expedite the diagnosing process for both doctor and patient, by avoiding costly trips to doctors' offices and wasted time in waiting rooms.
[applying available technology as private industry would - now that would be real 'change']
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Power play
Utilities face a serious problem. Electricity demand is projected to increase 40 percent by 2030, according to government estimates. Meanwhile, overzealous regulators make it difficult to expand energy capacity. Unfortunately, instead of loosening regulations to induce capacity expansion, state and federal governments are moving toward rationing electricity.
Proponents make it sound so simple. Just buy a new dishwasher, build a couple of windmills, put some solar cells on the roof and — voila — energy problem solved. Not really. Maryland would have to reduce its electricity consumption by about a fifth of today's use — or the equivalent of a half a million households — to meet Mr. O'Malley's objective. Still, some may say, all this sounds fair enough. What's wrong with some aggressive conservation?
Well, there's a lot wrong when it's unjustifiably forced upon consumers. Think about it. The legitimacy of these draconian efforts is rooted in the notion there is an energy shortage. Conservation, after all, makes sense when there is a shortage of something. But energy is not in short supply. There are fossil fuels, and lots of them, right here in America. Yet America is one of the few nations that chooses to leaves much of its own reserves untapped...
[a component of our insane energy policies is that government bureaucrats are always looking for ways to increase their power - and this energy-is-bad idea plays right into their hands of taxing (and so controlling) all activity]
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OKLAHOMA'S CRACKDOWN ON ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION DRAWS TEXAS LAWMAKERS' INTEREST
According to the Pew Hispanic Center, there were between 50,000 and 75,000 illegal immigrants in Oklahoma nearly two years ago, with 20 times more -- as many as 1.6 million -- in Texas.
Last year, Oklahoma's Legislature passed, by huge margins, the nation's toughest law on illegal immigrants that:
> Restricts illegal immigrants' access to driver's licenses and ID cards.
> Cuts off several forms of public assistance for illegal immigrants. Emergency medical care, disaster aid and certain immunizations are exempted.
> Makes it harder for illegal immigrants to pay in-state college tuition.
> Encourages state and local law enforcement to enforce federal immigration law.
> Makes it a felony to harbor, transport, conceal or shelter illegal immigrants.
> Starting this summer, requires private and government employers to use a federal database to verify employment eligibility of all new hires.
> Make public schools report how many illegal-immigrant children are enrolled.
Meanwhile, some Texas lawmakers are already promising bills that mirror Oklahoma's House Bill 1804, [saying] even as Congress deadlocks on immigration, a state can protect itself against what he calls threats to public health and safety posed by a porous border.
['restricts' not bans, 'several' not all, 'harder' not prevents, 'encourages' not requires, 'federal database' means we've had a way to verify employment eligibility for years - and not used it, 'public' means tax payer funded - but previously not disclosing how many illegal-immigrants we're paying for? And these mushy 'restrictions' and 'encouragements' represent "the nations toughest law on illegal immigrants"?]
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This is certainly not a tax rebate
..According to published accounts, the rebate will add $168 billion to the nation’s deficit – to be repaid with future taxes – in order to provide varying handouts of up to $1,200 per couple plus $300 per child. But before you write that thank you letter to the local congressman, take out a calculator and do the math. There are 303.4 million Americans out there, meaning the average rebate should come to $553 per person, or $2,212 for a family of four. But the maximum grant that family of four can possibly receive is $1,800. So for that family, it means $2,212 in taxes out of one pocket to put $1,800 into the other.
Supply-side economics, says the father of supply-side economics, only works by cutting the marginal rate of taxation. Reducing a family’s marginal tax burden by $1,800 would not only cost the treasury less, but would reward that family for earning more income or sheltering less – resulting in higher productivity. That, of course, is the one thing that Congress won’t even consider. It brings to mind Mark Twain’s famous observation,
“Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.”READ MORE
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Heroes: Airman Drives 120 Convoys in Afghanistan
When she’s outside the wire, Velez is somewhat of a celebrity with the Afghan children. “They get excited because they see a female airman. They want to touch my hair and earrings,” she said. “The Afghans want to learn and have a lot of questions. They want to work and take care of their families like people in the United States do.”
This is Velez’s third deployment in three years, but she said she has no regrets.
“My job satisfaction comes from constantly thinking about all the people’s lives I have in my hands”
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Active-Duty Recruiting Marks Eighth Straight Successful Month
All four services met or exceeded their active-duty recruiting goals for January, defense officials announced today. The January recruiting numbers represented the eighth consecutive month of across-the-board active-duty recruiting successes among the services.
The Army recruited 8,693 active-duty soldiers, 101 percent of its goal, in January.
The Army National Guard bested its January recruiting goal by 3 percent, signing on 5,688 soldiers,
The Marine Corps topped its January active-duty recruitment goal by 11 percent,
The Navy met its January goals for both active-duty and Navy Reserve recruits.
The Air Force exceeded its active-duty recruiting goal for January by 3 percent,
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Deputy Secretary Urges Prompt Funding for Current, Future Challenges
Noting the “complex security environment we are in today,” [Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon] England cited the “variety of very prominent challenges” facing the country. He pointed to the threats posed by terrorism, extremism, jihadism and ethnic, tribal and sectarian conflict. But other challenges and potential challenges loom, as well: proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, failed and failing states, and emerging powers with yet-unclear intentions. [that would be China and Russia - the 'unclear' part is pure diplomacy]“Each of these threats … poses unique challenges and demands on the Department of Defense,” ... “Even while we are committed in Iraq and Afghanistan, we do have to be concerned about the other security challenges to our nation, so we look at this in a much broader context.”
England urged the senators to approve the defense and wartime supplemental funding requests quickly to avoid a repeat of the situation that occurred this year. The fiscal 2008 defense budget did not pass into law until late January, though the fiscal year began Oct. 1.
“It will be extraordinarily difficult to manage the department and to maintain our security both for our people in combat and for our citizens if we are also, at that time, in a budget turmoil like we were last year,”he said.
“We have these magnificent men and women who come forward to protect and defend our nation, and therefore it is incumbent on us, frankly, to provide them the funding they need,”['urge the senators'... sounds like a good idea to me]
senator@feinstein.senate.govsenator@boxer.senate.gov
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FBI raids house in Chinese spy case
A Defense Department analyst and a former engineer for Boeing Co. were charged Monday in separate spy cases for allegedly handing over military secrets to the Chinese government, the Justice Department said. (Snip) The arrests mark China's latest attempts to gain top secret information about U.S. military systems and sales, said Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Wainstein. He described China as "particularly adept, and particularly determined and methodical in their espionage efforts."
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Venezuela Suspends Oil Sales to Exxon Mobil
Caracas, Venezuela — Venezuela's state oil company said Tuesday that it has stopped selling crude to Exxon Mobil Corp. and has suspended commercial relations with the U.S.-based oil company. State-run Petroleos de Venezuela SA, or PDVSA, said in a statement that it ''has paralyzed sales of crude to Exxon Mobil.'' It said the decision was made ''as an act of reciprocity'' for the company's ''judicial-economic harassment.''
[how dare they take us to court for having stolen their property. Unfriendly nations are lining up to blackmail us with their oil - we need to develop our own reserves, now.]
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HOW TO PAY FOR HEALTH CARE
The health care industry looks like a big plate of spaghetti. Many insurance carriers and medical service providers have internal back-office technology systems, but few connect with anyone else. Much communication between parties is cumbersome and manual. Creating a Health Care Clearing Corp. (HCCC) modeled on the successful experience of the financial services industry could be a significant step in cutting health care costs, says Stuart Z. Goldstein, a financial services executive in New York with a background in health care issues. How would the HCCC work?
> It would operate more like the hub of a wheel with spokes electronically linking medical service providers and insurance companies to a central point where data can be processed and exchanged.Health care insurance carriers incur huge costs today by distributing millions of individual checks to cover their obligations to hospitals and physician groups. In contrast, firms in the securities industry pay for all their stock trading once a day, using the Federal Reserve's Fed wire system for electronic funds transfers.
> It would eliminate the need for medical service providers and insurance companies to manage separate procedures and processes to submit claims.
> Standardizing data exchange and recordkeeping would speed payment of claims.
In the coming presidential campaign, health care will be among the three issues (next to the economy and global leadership) deciding the election. Regardless of political party or persuasion, the answer to the rising tide of health-care costs lies not within the stars, but in forcing greater efficiency out of the current system.
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GREENHOUSE AFFECT
Trendy climate-change policies like ethanol and other biofuels are actually worse for the environment than fossil fuels, according to two studies published in Science, a peer-reviewed journal. The first study, by ecologists at Princeton University and the Woods Hole Research Center, break new ground by exposing a kind of mega-accounting error:
> About 2.7 times more carbon is stored in terrestrial soils and plant material than in the atmosphere, and this carbon is released when these areas are cleared. Compounding problems is the loss of "carbon sinks" that absorb atmospheric CO2 in the bargain.[167 years - I believe we're all supposed to be drowned by then]
> When the hidden costs of conversion are included, greenhouse-gas emissions from corn ethanol over the next 30 years will be twice as high as from regular gasoline.
> In the long term, it will take 167 years before the reduction in carbon emissions from using ethanol "pays back" the carbon released by land-use change.
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THE $3 TRILLION COP-OUT
The $3.1 trillion budget ... reminds us of the huge gap between uplifting political rhetoric and the grim realities of governing. Budgets are not just numbers. They express political choices. What should government do and who should pay? The reigning philosophy, practiced by both parties and largely approved by the public, is to evade choices /snip/
> Since 1961, the federal government has run deficits in all but five years; only the surplus of 1969 stemmed from deliberate policy: a 10 percent income surtax reluctantly passed by Congress in 1968.
> The others (1998-2001) mostly reflected good fortune: the end of the Cold War, resulting in a 40 percent drop in defense spending as a share of the economy, and an unexpected surge in taxes from the economic boom.
> Neither was a policy act of the Clinton administration or the then-Republican Congress.The most telling figures in his budget involve his proposal to eliminate or dramatically reduce 151 programs, for a savings of $18 billion. That's six-tenths of 1 percent of federal spending. What's telling, though, is that Congress will probably reject even many of these proposal...
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Obama Defends Driver's Licenses for Illegals
Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., told ABC's David Muir Saturday that his support for driver's licenses for illegal immigrants will not block his path to the White House because he and G.O.P. frontrunner John McCain share substantial overlap on immigration. "I think they will pounce on any issue that has to do with immigration," said Obama, referring to Republicans, "but my position has been very similar to John McCain's,
[too true. literally]
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DON'T WRITE VOUCHERS OFF
Vouchers are more successful than ever. A recent referendum loss in Utah should be weighed against the many victories vouchers have achieved across the nation. Consider:
> Since 2000, vouchers have had their greatest period of legislative success; of the 21 school choice programs that exist, 12 were enacted in the past eight years, and the fastest growth has been in the past three years.As to the quality argument, most high quality research finds that private schools produce better academic achievement. Ten studies of voucher programs found that students using vouchers to attend private schools outperformed their public school peers on standardized tests. The results in eight of the studies reached a high degree of statistical certainty, says Enlow.
> Moreover, 10 existing programs have been expanded in the same three years; vouchers have never been more successful in state legislatures than right now.
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Joy Behar: McCain 'Very Conservative in All His Policies'
[alright screw the rule re: campaigns - enough is enough]
Is ABC "View" co-host Joy Behar so far out of the political mainstream that she has a skewed sense of what entails a "liberal" and a "conservative?" The same woman who called Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama "very moderate" on the February 7 show, John McCain has "been very conservative in all his policies." Apparently anyone who does not march lockstep with NARAL is an arch-conservative, as Behar explained that McCain is "so conservative because he’s against choice."
[yeah, that and wanting to close Gitmo]
[oh, and favoring affirmative action and voting against every paycheck protection bill he's ever seen (union dues toward political campaigns)]
[oops, almost forgot voting against the Bush tax cuts twice - and forget the 'no reduction in spending' reason explanation he gives now, then he played the class warfare card, saying it was a tax cut 'for the wealthy' {if you're reading this on a computer, that would be you}]
[oh yeah, on the personal liberties front he's a rabid smoker-persecutionist {yes I made that up} and supported the clipper chip and {encryption} key-escrow bills as well as internet filtering]
[now that I think of it, on taxes he's supported raising social security taxes while repeatedly opposing attempts to abolish the death tax, and on business he's perpetually depicted big pharma as evil while supporting government spending on embryonic stem cell research big pharma's evidently to dumb to see the value in investing in itself]
[and all this before considering 'McCain-Feingold', the biggest attack on free speech in the nation's history, 'McCain-Kennedy', the insulting amnesty immigration bill he continues to say wasn't wrong, and his co-sponsorship of a bill (name escapes right now) that would dramatically raise taxes on 'all forms of carbon based energy' (oil., gas, coal - i.e., all our energy) in the name of 'combating global warming' because "Alaska is melting" {those are quote marks}]
[other than that I'm sure he's a real conservative guy - but what do I know, I'm just a non-declared independent]
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Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Winning in Afghanistan
Another top NATO general is going on the record about our success in Afghanistan, though you are unlikely to hear about such things from the mainstream media that prefer a narrative of failure.
Last week I reported that comments from Army Gen. Dan McNeill, the U.S. commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan went nearly unreported in the US media. The General claimed that the rise in violence in Afghanistan was not an indication of Taliban resurgence but of increasing NATO aggressiveness.
This week, Gen. Michel Gauthier, who is commander of all Canadian forces overseas, spoke out, saying that where his forces are concentrated, in the populated areas in and around Kandahar, there is no question that they are winning.
--
Such biased media reporting is not only hurting US national security, it is hurting the innocents in Afghanistan. It is time for President Bush to come out of hiding and take the case directly to the American people. The President must lead by letting his senior military officials speak to the people directly to dispel this "losing in Afghanistan" media myth.
General Petraeus did a phenomenal job of convincing Americans that the real situation in Iraq was not being told by the media. We need another Petraeus moment to build lagging support for Afghanistan.
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Senate Passes Bill to Expand U.S. Spying Powers
[actually, it allows the continuation of international surveillance {it's a NYT piece...}]
WASHINGTON — After more than a year of heated political wrangling, the Senate handed the White House a major victory Tuesday by voting to broaden the government’s spy powers after giving legal protection to phone companies that cooperated in President Bush’s warrantless eavesdropping program.
The Senate rejected a series of amendments that would have restricted the government’s surveillance powers and eliminated immunity for the phone carriers, and it voted in convincing fashion — 69 to 29 — to end debate and bring the issue to a final vote. That vote on the overall billwas an almost identical 68 to 29.
[the House passed it without protection for the telecoms - it now has until this Friday to accept the Senate's version or the surveillance ends. BTW: which presidential candidate was among the 29 who voted against the bill? {hint: at least he didn't vote 'present' this time}]
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German court OKs surveillance on Church of Scientology
Berlin - A German administrative court has upheld a lower court ruling allowing the country’s intelligence services to monitor activities of the Church of Scientology. The North Rhine-Westphalia Higher Administrative Court in Muenster says there is sufficient information to permit intelligence agencies to keep the organization under observation. The court ruled there are concrete indications that the church and its members maintain ambitions against Germany’s democratic order.
[and mosques? any anti-democracy ambitions there?]
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RAF surveillance planes hear Taliban fighters talking in Brummie and Yorkshire accents
The Taliban are thought to be recruiting an increasing number of fighters from Britain after RAF experts overheard secret transmissions from the Afghan frontline spoken in broad Midlands and Yorkshire accents. Specialists in top secret surveillance planes listened in on radio traffic broadcast by the Taliban in Helmand province and heard fighters talking in thick regional accents. The discovery indicates that a growing number of British-born Muslim are turning their backs on the West and moving to Afghanistan to be trained as fighters...
[almost seems as if everyone is 'surveilling' everyone]
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Islamization of Europe and The European Union
Hugh Fitzgerald of Jihad Watch recently suggested a number of things Europeans can do to halt Islamization. The proposals were good, but I think we should focus on the most important obstacle: the European Union. I've suggested in the past that the EU is the principal motor behind the Islamization of Europe, and that the entire organization needs to be dismantled as soon as possible, otherwise nothing substantial can ever be done about the Muslim invasion.
The EU's Justice and Security Commissioner Franco Frattini states that Europe must relax its immigration controls and open the door to an extra 20 million "Africans and Asians" during the next two decades. Most of these "Africans and Asians" come from the predominantly Muslim countries of North Africa and the Greater Middle East. The EU thus decided to flood Europe with tens of millions of Muslims at the same time as peaceful Europeans demonstrating against the Islamization of Europe were brutally harassed by the police in the EU capital of Brussels. Frattini has also banned the use of the phrase Islamic terrorism...
[part and parcle of why Mark Steyn wrote the book "American Alone"]
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Venezuela moves accounts over Exxon
Caracas - Venezuela has moved oil revenue into Swiss banks to avoid a possible seizure of funds by Exxon Mobil in a legal battle that pits leftist anti-U.S. President Hugo Chavez against America's biggest company. The Texas energy giant won court rulings that froze assets belonging to Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA in a hardball maneuver meant to ensure the OPEC nation pays compensation for stealing a multibillion-dollar oil project last year.
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MANDATE UPDATE
Since the early 1990s, CAHI has tracked state health-insurance mandate legislation in all 50 states and estimated the impact of those mandated benefits on the cost of a policy. A health-insurance "mandate" is a legislative requirement that an insurance company or health plan cover (or offer coverage for) common -- but sometimes not so common -- health- care providers, benefits and patient populations.
Although there were only a handful of state mandates in the 1960s, CAHI's just released "Health Insurance Mandates in the States, 2008" has identified 1,961 nationwide -- up from 1,901 a year ago. For almost every health-care product or service, there are at least two groups that want insurance to cover it: those who sell the products and services so they can get more business, and those who use the products and services to lower their out-of-pocket costs.
Both of these highly motivated groups push state legislators -- and increasingly members of Congress -- to require insurance to cover the care. As a result, government interference in and control of the health-care system is steadily increasing -- and so is the cost of health insurance...
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OUR ENERGY DEFICIT
The renewed jump in the price of oil underscores the corner we've painted ourselves into. By refusing to drill in either the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) or offshore, the United States can expect less energy, higher prices, growing vulnerability and a shrunken economy, says Investor's Business Daily (IBD).
> As recently as 1973, imports made up 36 percent of our total oil use; today, imports are two-thirds of our 21-million-barrel-a-day oil habit, and climbing fast.This has made us uniquely vulnerable, to say the least, to the inherent political instability of the Mideast, Russia, Africa and Latin America -- and to the OPEC oil cartel's anti-Western schemes. But what can we do? Plenty. Start with getting more energy:
> As Mitt Romney noted last week, we're sending nearly $400 billion overseas each year to buy oil.
However:
> We have at least 40 billion barrels of crude and 250 trillion cubic feet of gas offshore, in ANWR and on federal lands -- enough to replace nearly a quarter of our imports for several decades.
> Another 1.2 trillion barrels of oil lie in shale deposits across the Midwest.
> Congress has put more than 50 percent of the oil and 27 percent of the gas in the United States out of bounds.
> Just 19 percent of the Outer Continental Shelf can be developed.
> The National Petroleum Council estimates that we'll need $4 trillion in investments over the next 25 years just to keep pace with a forecast 30 percent jump in energy demand.
"Onshore and offshore public lands could hold enough oil to produce gasoline for 60 million cars and fuel oil for 25 million homes for 60 years -- and enough natural gas to heat 60 million homes for 160 years."
And apart from demonizing oil companies, Congress does nothing. This is madness.
[and they won't unless we insist they do]
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THE NEXT FED CHALLENGE
Back in the 1970s, Washington policymakers were obsessed with increasing aggregate demand, but they forgot about aggregate supply. Today's short-term-stimulus rebate package is a throwback to that era. Keynesian central planning has damaged the Federal Reserve Bank's credibility. It has weakened the dollar. Entrepreneurs and investors can't possibly plan ahead when interest rates bob up and down like yo-yos. We should say goodbye to Fed tinkering hello to permanent enhancements to the economy's incentive structure, such as:
> Lowering tax rates on corporationsAt some point, the entire corporate tax structure should be thrown out, along with all the murky K-Street tax-earmark loopholes that litter the Internal Revenue Code. Without strong tax-reform measures to expand the production of goods and services, further Fed money injections are only demand-side "solutions" that will surely inflate prices and depreciate the currency.
> Lowering the corporate capital-gains tax rate.
> Abolishing the individual capital-gains tax, dividend tax and the estate tax.
> Eliminating the multiple-taxation of savings and investment.
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Bush Pushes Senate to OK 180 Nominees
WASHINGTON -- President Bush vented frustration anew Saturday over the Senate's failure to vote on more than 180 of his nominations, including more than two dozen to the federal bench.
"Some have been waiting for more than a year," said Bush, who invited many of the nominees to the White House for an event on Thursday. "As a result, careers have been put on hold, families have been placed in limbo and our government has been deprived of the service of these fine nominees."Bush cited Senate delays in voting on 28 of his federal judicial nominees.
"Three of my nominees for the Court of Appeals have waited nearly 600 days," he said. "These delays are irresponsible, they undermine the cause of justice, and I call on the United States Senate to give these nominees the up-or-down vote they deserve."[i.e., it's not a matter of the Senate finding fault with Bush's nominations - if that were true they'd vote against them. They're not allowing a vote - just stonewalling, to the detriment of the country given our horrendous legal backlog]
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BMI’s Gainor Criticizes Media for Coverage of ‘Flash, Not Substance’
In an appearance on the Fox Business Network February 8, Business & Media Institute Vice President Dan Gainor criticized the media's refusal to fully report the costs associated with campaign promises being made by presidential candidates.
"You would actually think the media had talked about how much it's going to cost," Gainor said of the hundreds of billions of dollars in new spending promised by the candidates. "And in fact it's quite the opposite."Aside from some coverage of Sen. Hillary Clinton's massive universal health care coverage proposal, much of her $217 billion in promises has gone unreported. The same goes for Sen. Barack Obama, who leads all candidates with $287 billion in new proposals, according to estimates from the National Taxpayers Union Foundation.
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The Ghosts of 2004...
California
The Sacramento Bee reports today that Prop. 58, the measure sponsored by Gov. Schwarzenegger in 2004 as the so-called “California Balanced Budget Act” isn’t all it was cracked up to be. Schwarzenegger made a dizzying array of promises to skeptical voters in order to win passage of the measure. He said,
“California faces unprecedented budget deficits. Overspending has led to serious shortfalls which threatens the state’s ability to pay its bills and access financial markets. This proposition is a safeguard against this EVER HAPPENING AGAIN. Proposition 58 will prevent the Legislature from ENACTING BUDGETS THAT SPEND MORE MONEY THAN WE HAVE.”As I told the Senate when it placed Prop. 58 on the ballot in December of 2003, the so-called “safeguards” were nothing more than an artful window-dressing of existing law – with one critical exception:
“Since statehood, the constitution has prevented one generation from passing on its day-to-day expenses to the next. This measure temporarily removes that provision so that you can do what no generation before you has ever dared to do: steal from the future.”Four years later those warnings have borne out. While Proposition 58 is now being proven in practice to be a toothless watchdog, the Governor has just ordered another $3.3 billion of borrowing to finance his deficit spending – borrowing that Prop. 58 made possible with the promise it would only be used to retire Davis’ deficit and prevent it from “ever happening again.”
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Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Face of Defense: Soldier Returns to Service After Two-Decade Break
In a room lit only by sunlight streaming in, a soldier bites through the plastic wrapper of a package of pencils. With children waiting excitedly in the adjoining rooms, there is not time to waste pulling out a knife. ...
After separating from the Army in 1986, Wilkerson, a Las Vegas native, said he missed being in the military, and that during his break in service he carried on the values of discipline and upholding standards that he had learned during his first enlistment. Wilkerson decided to re-enlist after the Army raised its maximum enlistment age to 42 [he's 43].
“I’ve got a 21-year-old son, and there are kids (serving) who are younger than him,” he said. “I’m still in shape and capable of doing a good job. Maybe my service will mean that another young guy his age will be able to return to his family.”
In the long run, Wilkerson said, he plans to serve his country until retirement. Meanwhile, back in the Bayrk schoolhouse, smiling children swarm around Wilkerson and his fellow soldiers as they pass out school supplies and stuffed animals. The “Old Man” returns the children’s smiles with one of his own.
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US Forces Capture Militia Leader in Iraq
Via Ed Morrissey, we get the good news that a key militia leader has been captured by US forces in Muqtada al-Sadr's stronghold of Sadr City:
The main suspect detained Monday is believed to be in charge of criminal operations for "special groups" in the Iraqi provinces of Wasit, Babil and Najaf, the U.S. military said in a statement. He was allegedly involved in coordinating weapons shipments and planning attacks on U.S. and Iraqi forces, it said. It did not characterize the second suspect.
In fact, recent discoveries of weapons caches point to the fact that the Iranians may be once again arming their Shia allies after a pause of several months. Why, is not clear. But the capture of the militia commander will likely lead to some valuable intelligence on both the militia and their paymasters and suppliers in Iran.
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Poll: Pakistanis Turn Against Bin Laden
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Sympathy for al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden and the Taliban has dropped sharply in Pakistan amid a wave of deadly violence, according to the results of a recent opinion poll.
According to the poll results only 24 percent of Pakistanis approved of bin Laden when the survey was conducted last month, compared with 46 percent during a similar survey in August.
Backing for al-Qaida, whose senior leaders are believed to be hiding along the Pakistani-Afghan border, fell to 18 percent from 33 percent.
Support for the Taliban, whose Pakistani offshoots have seized control of much of the lawless border area and have been engaged in a growing war against security forces, dropped by half to 19 percent from 38 percent, the results said.
[wow]
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Two Myths About Afghanistan
As Western leaders and Congress debate NATO's responsibilities in Afghanistan, it's time to dissolve two great American illusions about Afghanistan. The first is that Hamid Karzai is a good president who looks after American interests. The second is that the situation in Afghanistan is going from bad to worse. Both of these unchallenged "facts" are dangerous errors.
--
Karzai manages by panic, with massive corruption and an absence of vision. It's a tribute to the Afghan people's energy and U.S.-implemented economic regulations and reforms that Afghanistan's gross domestic product has more than doubled since the invasion. But Karzai has sought to derail grass-roots efforts at building democracy and to stifle Afghanistan's nascent civil society, repeatedly siding with fundamentalists against progressives.
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Today, most Afghans are living in the best conditions they have ever known, slowly growing their country out of poverty. Most of the north and west is peaceful. Much of the east is, too, except some areas that are very undeveloped and very remote or directly border Pakistan's lawless tribal belt. American estimates for the 14 provinces and 158 districts of Regional Command East show that 58 percent of the kinetic activity there last year (direct fire, indirect fire and detonations of improvised explosive devices) occurred in three provinces (Konar, Paktika and Ghazni). Fifty-two percent occurred in 12 of the 158 districts, and about 75 percent took place in 30 of the districts.
--
Considering where it started, Afghanistan isn't doing too badly. It would be doing much better with a courageous, inspired president committed to honest and transparent government.
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Pentagon Chief Says NATO's Very Survival is at Stake in Afghanistan Mission
Survival of the NATO alliance, a cornerstone of American security policy for six decades, is at stake in the debate over how the United States and Europe should share the burden of fighting Islamic extremism in Afghanistan, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Sunday.
"We must not -- we cannot -- become a two-tiered alliance of those willing to fight and those who are not. Such a development, with all its implications for collective security, would effectively destroy the alliance,"A central theme of Gates' speech was his assertion that al-Qaida extremists, either in Afghanistan or elsewhere, pose a greater threat to Europe than many Europeans realize.
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Can Germany muster the courage to commit to fighting in southern Afghanistan?
Munich - When someone asks Hans-Ulrich Klose if he is the only member among the Bundestag's 614 parliamentarians willing to openly call for a move by German troops into the fighting and dying of Afghanistan's south, he provides this gracious sidestep: ''We are six who believe things must change.'' But the others remain in the closet, right? Right, Klose answers. (Snip) the idea persists that Germany can go on providing materiel and a kind of uniformed alternative service at a noncombatant's distance from the battlefield.
[translation: 'no']
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Russia threatens gas cutoff
Moscow - Russia's state-controlled gas supplier Gazprom on Monday gave neighbouring Ukraine a reprieve of a few hours in a debt dispute, but still said it would stop sending gas to the country of 47 million people if an agreement isn't reached. The conflict is being watched nervously in European Union countries that get Russian gas through pipelines crossing Ukraine, fearing a repeat of the supply disruptions that hit during January 2006 when Russia halted gas to Ukraine for several days amid a fierce argument over price hikes.
[this is why Reagan fought (successfully) against any pipeline from Russia to Europe throughout his presidency - Europe will be little more than a Russian satellite once addicted to its energy.]
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WELFARE REFORM IN INDIANA
[government in acton]
Like many other states, Indiana's social services have been bureaucratic and fragmented. As a result, they are not convenient for the state's welfare recipients and are costly to operate. Under the state's system:
> Clients must apply for each social service in person at a state office during business hours, and each visit requires an average wait of two to three hours.
> In almost three out of four cases (72 percent), eligibility is not determined during the initial interview -- requiring additional verification and often additional office visits.
> Almost every action in the eligibility process requires a different form and/or notice, and each of the state's 94 counties has had its own set of procedures.
These conditions provide the following results:Thirty-five percent of eligibility determinations for Medicaid long-term care in 2003 contained errors, costing taxpayers an estimated $10 million to $50 million per year -- and the federal government up to $100 million annually.
Twenty-six percent of TANF benefit determinations contained errors.
Twelve percent of food stamp benefit determinations were in error -- and Indiana ranks 48th among the states in recouping food stamp overpayments.
[Such abysmal performance can only evolve in the protected environment of government monopolies where there are no consequences for failure(can any of us image keeping our jobs {or a company surviving} with a 30% error rate?) - worse; it's not just possible but virtually inevitable in such circumstance. And this is the path some what to place our healthcare system upon?]
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Oops, Biofuels Actually Make Global Warming Worse …
Reporting what global warming skeptics have been saying for years, several media outlets on Friday acknowledged that biofuel production could do more harm than good when it comes to 'fighting' "global warming."
Two new scientific studies suggest clearing land to produce biofuel ingredients will contribute more to warming than sticking with fossil fuels because of the removal of carbon-consuming trees for farmland. The findings "could force policymakers in the United States and Europe to reevaluate incentives they have adopted to spur production of ethanol-based fuels," The Washington Post's Juliet Eilperin reported February 8.
That's not a shock to anyone who's been paying attention. Biofuel has been criticized as an inefficient pollutant that negatively affects even grocery prices. The shocker is that some few in the American media are actually paying attention to it.
[forget it - there's too much money involved to let science interfere - if policy changes it will be because voters forced the issue. Et tu?...]
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Coldest Afghan winter in years claiming life and limb
Herat, Afghanistan – Several men lay side by side in hospital beds, the stubs of their amputated arms and legs wrapped in fresh bandages. They are not victims of war or land mines, but of frostbite. It's the coldest this impoverished, war-ravaged nation has been in at least a decade – that's as far back as Afghanistan's weather records go – and so far, the harsh weather has been blamed for more than 650 deaths.
[this isn't climate; it's weather - remember that when we've a warm year and the nets go nuts]
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YOUR $455,000 LOAN TO UNCLE SAM
The unfunded liabilities Uncle Sam has incurred on our behalf through already promised entitlements in programs such as Social Security, Medicare and the veterans benefits now exceed by $53 trillion, says Comptroller General David Walker, who heads the Government Accountability Office.
"I know it is hard to make sense of what 'trillions' means, one way to think about it is this: Imagine we decided to put aside and invest today enough to cover these promises tomorrow. It would take about $455,000 per American household -- or $175,000 for every man, woman and child in the United States."Of course, every man, woman and child does not work ... when you divide the unfunded costs of promised entitlement benefits by the number of Americans who work full time, says Walker, it equals $410,000 per worker. A married couple making $80,000 per year would have to set aside all their income for more than five years to cover their share.
Of course, elected officials in Washington, D.C., have no intention of making Americans working today pay for the entitlement benefits these elected officials are promising to deliver, that would destroy one of the primary incentives politicians have for making these promises, which is to make the voters think that, on net, the politicians are giving them things rather than taking things away.
Some day Americans will look back across the wreckage of our coming fiscal catastrophe and ask: Why didn't our leaders see it coming? The answer will be: They did.
[if we don't demand, through communication and elections that our politicians address this issue, they won't - until after the disaster. Instead, we've presidential candidates promising yet more government entitlement programs being taken seriously...]
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MSNBC Says 'Conservative' 10 Times as Much as 'Liberal' on Tuesday
Imagine campaign events happening in 22 states at the same time, and that at such contests, two liberals, two conservatives, and one moderate candidate are vying for the public's votes.
You would expect the words "liberal" and "conservative" to be equally interspersed in media coverage of these events if indeed press outlets were impartial, right?
Well, count MSNBC out of this logical calculus, for on Tuesday evening, the unabashedly left-leaning cable news network actually used the word "conservative" tens times as much as "liberal."
In fact, the actual tally for these descriptives during MSNBC's Super Tuesday primary coverage was (h/t NBer Gary Hall):
Liberal -- fifteenNow, for the cynical that might think anchors Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann used the code word "progressive" to disguise the real political leaning of those they clearly esteem, this word only showed up once in the entire transcript.
Conservative -- 155
[Taken alone; border line trivial. Taken in the context of the frequency with which labels are disproportionally (if not misleadingly) applied, it's pervasive, and part of the liberal media's subtle {and sometimes not} manipulation of language to political ends]
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[PS: Bernard Goldberg asked an interesting question last night: if Michael Savage, an ultra consecrative (i.e., wing-nut from the right) is too extreme and politicized to anchor a national newscasts, how is it that Keith Olberman, an equally extreme wing-nut from the left, is permitted to do so? rhetorical...]
Monday, February 11, 2008
HEROES: Sergeant’s Art Funds Surgeries for Needy Children
On any given day, the squadron’s noncommissioned officer in charge of operations management can be found sorting through leftover wood scraps and paints in his shop to create paintings and donate the proceeds to help pay for heart surgeries for children whose parents are unable to pay for the surgeries themselves.
“Possibilities are endless; everybody has a talent and can use it to help others who are less fortunate,” Sommers said. “This is what I am trying to do.”Two local doctors perform these surgeries free of charge. But an oxygenator -- a disposable piece of equipment that serves as the lung during cardiac surgery and is designed to expose the blood to oxygen and remove carbon dioxide -- is needed for each operation, and each costs $560.
During his five-month tour, Sommers’ donated proceeds have paid for three oxygenators.
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U.S. Commander in Iraq Cites Progress Made in Narhwan
Much progress in the security, local governance and economic realms has been achieved in the Iraqi city of Narhwan over the past four months, a senior U.S. commander posted there said today.
“We’ve seen significant gains at the local level in governance" ... “The local population has embraced our presence, and we believe the extremists have been severely disrupted as a result,”Thirty-nine economic projects for Narhwan and its vicinity hev been identified, for which about $1.5 million in coalition-provided funding has been spent. The Iraqi government, he added, has provided about $2.9 million for Narhwan projects.
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Japan Deploys Fighter Jets After Russian Bomber Violates Airspace
Tokyo - A Russian air force bomber briefly violated Japanese airspace over an uninhabited island just south of Tokyo on Saturday, the Foreign Ministry said. The three-minute flyby over Sofugan in the Izu island chain by a Tupolev 95 ended following warnings by Japanese air force fighter jets, said Foreign Ministry official Kotaro Otsuki. (Snip) Japan's navy scrambled 22 fighter jets, including F-15s, and two airborne warning and control aircraft known as AWACs...
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Not Even Pretending to be Fair: NYT On Gaza
...Consider, for example, the January 28 article, "Israel Vows Not to Block Supplies to Gaza." By presenting this decision as a negative rather than a positive (Israel will let supplies flow; Israel wants to avoid any humanitarian crisis in Gaza, etc) it seems as if the newspaper is grudgingly admitting that Israel is doing something good but trying to minimize it. Then comes a spin slanted against Israel:
"Israel would no longer disrupt the supply of food, medicine and necessary energy into the Gaza Strip and intended to prevent a 'humanitarian disaster' there."The obvious and intended implication here is that Israel has been blocking three things, thus threatening to unleash a humanitarian disaster. In fact, Israel has never blocked food and medicine, and while it has reduced energy supplies slightly--to a level reducing the Gaza electricity by no more than 20 percent--it has not blocked "necessary" energy but only made a marginal reduction.
Thus, in a masterfully crafted but factually inaccurate sentence, both newspapers accuse Israel of something it has never done and imply that it has committed inhuman crimes. (Or to put it another way, Congratulations, you have stopped beating your wife.)
Oh, we're just getting started as Mr. Erlanger is a master of bias. Dig this sentence...
[and on and on... some paper of 'record']
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Reality Check on the Costs of Unhealthy Living
Dutch researchers simulated lifetime costs, starting at age 20, for smokers, the obese, and a "healthy living" cohort that maintained a healthy weight and didn't smoke:
> Healthy living 20 year olds could expect to live to about age 84, compared with age 77 for the smokers and 80 for the obese.Perversely, reducing obesity and the burden of disease it causes may wind up costing the nation more, not less - and in American scale. Hillary Clinton, for example, notes that "had the prevalence of obesity remained the same today as it was in 1987, we would spend 10 percent less per person -- approximately $200 billion -- on health care today."
> Those additional years can be expensive: For healthy 20 year olds, the remaining lifetime health care costs over $400,000 [in the Dutch system], nearly a third more than their 'unhealthy' brethren.
Change that equation to 30% more, and we're talking 600 billion dollars. Living healthier is a noble goal - but when conducting our cost-benefit analysis, let's start by using fact-based math.
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THE WAGES OF HILLARYCARE
Hillary Clinton's "individual mandate" for health care, is being exposed for its inevitable government coercion. Under HillaryCare II, everyone would be required to buy health insurance, along with more insurance regulation, a government insurance option for everyone and tax hikes. HillaryCare II isn't about "choice,
"but would require financial penalties for people to comply, including garnishing wages. To put it more accurately, the individual mandate is really a government mandate that requires brute force plus huge subsidies to get anywhere near its goal of universal coverage."Consider: Mitt Romney's mandate program in Massachusetts is already expected to reach $1.35 billion in annual costs by 2011, up from $158 million today. And that's with only half of the previously uninsured currently enrolled.
Most experts calculate that a national mandate with subsidies like Clinton's would enroll about half to two-thirds of the uninsured - but such guesswork is pointless without the basic enforcement assumptions, which Clinton refuses to provide.
The political lesson that Clinton learned in 1994 wasn't about compromise or market forces. It was that a government health-care takeover can only be achieved gradually and by stealth. Her individual mandate is an attempt to force everyone to buy into a highly regulated and price-controlled system where government redistributes income and dictates coverage.
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Canadian Scientists Fear Global Cooling
Kenneth Tapping, a researcher at Canada's National Research Council, wants to look for evidence of increased sunspot activity:
"The lack of increased activity could signal the beginning of what is known as a Maunder Minimum, an event which occurs every couple of centuries and can last as long as a century."A "solar hibernation" in the 17th Century "corresponded with a period of bitter cold that began around 1650 and lasted, with intermittent spikes of warming, until 1715.
"Frigid winters and cold summers during that period led to massive crop failures, famine and death in Northern Europe."READ MORE
Illegal Immigration and Low Wage Labor
In recent years, ripening crops regularly are accompanied by stories suggesting we need illegal immigrant labor to bring in the harvest. [snip] Visions of crops rotting in the fields make for vivid journalism. But in September, 2007 a Congressional Research Service (CRS) Report for Congress entitled "Farm Labor Shortages and Immigration Policy," found little cause to worry about crops ripening and spoiling, stating that,"Trends in the agricultural labor market do not suggest the existence of a nationwide shortage of domestically available farm workers..."
A 2007 study written by Philip Martin, a professor of agricultural and resource economics at the University of California, Davis, for the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) entitled "Farm Labor shortages: How Real? What Response" further substantiated the conclusions of the CRS Report.
A March 2006 CIS study of the top 22 occupations in 2005 indicated that in no occupational category did immigrant employees outnumber native employees. In other words, native-born U.S. workers are already doing all jobs - and in majority numbers - where high concentrations of illegal immigrant are also employed.
Here's one example of that wage-leveraging impact from the Federation of American Immigration Reform (FAIR):
"In Los Angeles, unionized black janitors had been earning $12 an hour, with benefits. But with the advent of subcontractors who compose roaming crews of Mexican and El Salvadoran laborers, the pay dropped to $3.35 per hour. "The myth only approaches truth if amended to read: Illegal immigrants accept jobs that American workers won't do for poverty level wages and no benefits (including healthcare).
[remember: whenever we're told about jobs Americans won't do it's a lie; Americans hold the majority of all jobs - and that despite the above referenced wage-suppression. What say we exclude illegals {as you'd think the name would require} with prohibitive consequences employers who knowingly hire them, and let market forces re-level to natural levels?]
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ABC Highlights Absence of Gun Control Discussion
"Well, there are 230 million guns in America. There are more guns than there are adults. In the past incidents, like the one in Kirkwood, would rekindle debate over gun control. But as ABC's Pierre Thomas reports, gun control advocates are now mostly silent."(Transcript follows)
For ABC, this was only the latest example of such reports favoring more gun laws. In April 2007, after the Virginia Tech shootings, reports on Good Morning America and World News similarly lamented the absence of new gun control initiatives, and on World News, also anchored by Gibson, correspondent Brian Ross portrayed Virginia's "lax" gun laws as being at fault. In July 2007, World News Sunday suggested that opposition to gun control by rural areas in Pennsylvania was to blame for Philadephia's murder rate. Also in July, World News with Gibson incorrectly implied that a murder suspect in New York City bought his gun from a gun store in Virginia, ignoring the fact that the gun's original owner had purchased it legally, and contended that criminals often go to shops for their weapons.
[Polling shows three-quarters of Americans believe the Constitution guarantees the right to own guns.]
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CREATIVE CAPITALISM
Bill Gates seems to believe that the solution to poverty is to persuade for-profit companies to meet the poor's needs by boosting the "recognition" of corporate philanthropy. But the dossier of historical evidence to suggest this would work is quite thin, says William R. Easterly, a professor of economics at New York University and visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution.
Consider:
The recognition motive has proven to be awfully weak compared to the profit motive, otherwise we would have had a lot more than the $5.1 billion of annual American corporate philanthropy to the Third World (as of 2005, which has the most recent reliable figures). That was four one-hundredths of 1 percent of the $12.4 trillion of U.S. production for the free market.On the other hand profit-motivated capitalism has done wonders for poor workers:
The globalization of capitalism from 1950 to the present has increased annual average income in the world to $7,000 from $2,000. Contrary to popular legend, poor countries grew at about the same rate as the rich ones; this growth gave us the greatest mass exit from poverty in world history.The parts of the world that are still poor are suffering from too little capitalism, says Easterly:
Foreign direct investment in Africa today, although rising, amounts to only 1 percent of global flows. That's because the environment for private business in Africa is still hostile; there are some industry and country success stories in Africa, but not enough.READ MORE
Bill Clinton Gets More Coverage Than Any Republican Candidate
HT:ML
That's the finding of the The Project for Excellence in Journalism [PEJ], a part of the Pew Research Center, which has never been accused of right-wing tendencies.
The PEJ systematically studies coverage of a variety of issues, including candidates, and issues a weekly report. For the most recent week studied, January 21 through 27, Bill Clinton was the third-most prominent newsmaker in the race for President, beating out all Republicans. Finishing fourth, after Bill, Hillary and Obama, John McCain was, predictably, the most-covered GOP candidate.
See the full story here. Details on the media outlets studied here.
[so please do explain to me the seemingly gross disparity in the below graph between Obama/H.Clinton coverage vs. everyone else...]
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