Coal plant to put power of CO2 to test

MOBILE —- Alabama Power Co.’s Barry Electric Generating Plant north of Mobile will be the site of the nation’s first large-scale attempt to capture carbon dioxide emitted from a coal-fired power plant and to inject the gas deep underground.

Tens of thousands of tons of the potent [?*] greenhouse gas will be piped 9,000 feet underground around the Citronelle oil fields, about 10 miles from the Barry plant.

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[Again and again.

From the Global Warming Petition Project, at http://www.petitionproject.org/, where "31,478 American scientists have signed this petition, including 9,029 with PhDs" in climate related fields:

The global warming hypothesis with respect to CO2 is not based upon the radiative properties of CO2 itself, which is a very weak greenhouse gas. It is based upon a small initial increase in temperature caused by CO2 and a large theoretical amplification of that temperature increase, primarily through increased evaporation of H2O, a strong greenhouse gas. Any comparable temperature increase from another cause would produce the same calculated outcome.

[That's right, water vapor, which represents roughly 95% of all greenhouse 'gas' in our atmosphere, has a much stronger effect than does CO2. But cars don't put out water, hence the focus on CO2 so alarmists can somehow make industrial man responsible for their claimed problem - for which they must pay...

BTW: this is a great primer site, especially THIS PAGE, which is very good at conveying the broad scope and depth of varied data available to anyone looking beyond TV to see.

But reading is optional, just scroling down the page for the graphs is instructive, like this one:

and

and

and more.... Highly Recommended > ]

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OBAMA'S HEALTH PLAN IS NO BARGAIN

The so-called public option is now included in both the Senate and House health care reform bills, and is strongly endorsed by President Obama. Under the public option, the government would offer a plan resembling Medicare for more than 100 million working Americans. Today, most of them are covered by their employers' plans. But the Democrats' proposals contain a "pay or play" provision that would allow companies, in effect, to drop their coverage and substitute a payroll tax.

Because their health care costs are growing so rapidly, it's likely that most companies would dump their plans. "That's what will happen," says John Goodman of the National Center for Policy Analysis, which champions free-market solutions to health care. "Employees could then go to the exchanges and get subsidized insurance."

The problem here is that the public option would compete directly with the private plans, says CNNMoney.com:

• Both would be heavily subsidized, with Americans making up to $110,000 eligible for assistance under the Senate proposal.
• It's likely that the Medicare-like option will drive out private insurers, since the government plan has several advantages.
• The plans impose public-utility-like restrictions on the insurers, capping their profits and transferring premiums from the insurers with the younger, healthier patients to those who serve an older, sicker population.
• Those restrictions will hardly make them nimble competitors.
• At the same time, the imposition of costly benefits packages and community rating will raise their costs.

That the government enjoys an edge in purchasing doesn't mean that the overall costs will fall. It's precisely the opposite. The public plan will be so heavily subsidized that Americans will tend to over-consume expensive medical services just the way they do now under regular Medicare. Only this time, the number of patients will be almost three times larger.

The demand for everything from knee surgery to mental health counseling will soar. But the government will keep a lid on prices, so Americans, for the first time, will be faced with rationing.

The hospitals and physicians simply won't be able to satisfy the unhinged demand for the services that look like a bargain. The lines will grow. And so will the spending, and the taxes.

And that's what Obama isn't telling you.

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Toxic Mortgage Tycoons Herb & Marion Sandler and the ACORN Connection

The "Glenn Beck Program" did an excellent piece on June 3 about Herb and Marion Sandler, the toxic mortgage king and queen, and their connection to ACORN and the inappropriately named Center for Responsible Lending. (The video clip is embedded above.)

Through their charity, the Sandler Family Supporting Foundation, they gave at least $5,723,222 to the ACORN network. Specifically, the charity gave $4,498,222 to American Institute for Social Justice (since 2003), $700,000 to Project Vote (in 2005), $525,000 to ACORN (2000–2001 according to Activist Cash). This excludes any contributions that either Sandler may have made personally to ACORN or its affiliates.

According to the "Glenn Beck Program," the Sandlers paid ACORN to send out protesters to hound Wells Fargo Bank, which competed with Golden West, the Sandlers' bank...

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ACORN Officials Set Sights On Gunowners

ACORN, the publicly funded national organization linked to voter fraud in several states, is now actively interfering with the exercise of firearm civil rights in New Jersey, and the Second Amendment Foundation is calling for an immediate federal investigation.

One example of ACORN's gun control activism is when its officials intervened in an unsuccessful attempt to defend Jersey City, New Jersey's local gun control ordinance, which was struck down December 13, 2006 in New Jersey state court as a violation of state law pre-empting stronger local gun ordinances.

"ACORN has, since 1998, received an estimated $31 million in government funding," said SAF founder Alan Gottlieb. "Now they have intervened in a New Jersey gun rights case in defense of an illegal Jersey City one-gun-a-month ordinance that violates the state preemption statute."

"For the past few election cycles," Gottlieb noted, "ACORN has clearly grown more partisan toward the political Left. ACORN'S PAC, in fact, endorsed Sen. Barack Obama for president, even though their tax-exempt status prohibits endorsement of political candidates.

That's hardly surprising since he used to serve as their legal counsel and he taught the group about community organizing. ACORN and Obama are lockstep in seeking to destroy our Second Amendment rights," he stated.

The organization is currently under FBI investigation over allegations of voter fraud in several states.

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Federal appeals court: Gun maker, dealer can't be sued in attack on LA Jewish center

Pasadena, Calif. - A federal appeals court rejected a lawsuit against gun maker Glock Inc. and a Seattle gun dealer stemming from a white supremacist's 1999 shooting rampage at a Los Angeles-area Jewish center and the murder of a postal carrier.

A 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' panel ruled Monday that a 2005 federal law shielding gun makers from lawsuits over criminal use of their products was constitutional...

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image toon 1st bbro legal - Sotomayor re 2nd amendment guns

N.Y. Republicans Regain Control of Senate as Democrats Switch

New York Senate Republicans regained majority control of Senate in a surprise maneuver with the help of two Democrats who switched sides.

Pedro Espada from the Bronx and Hiram Monseratte from Queens sided with 30 Republicans on key votes to change the Senate’s leadership.

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Coalition Denied Keys to New York Senate Chamber After Coup

ALBANY, N.Y. -- The leader of a coalition that mounted Monday's coup in New York's Senate says he's being denied the keys to the historic chamber. The alliance of Republicans and two dissident Democrats is asking for the resignation of the secretary of the Senate, a position appointed by the Democratic conference that appears to have lost its majority.

The secretary holds the chamber's keys.

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All Reporters Rise for Obama?

Patrick Gavin of the Politico put on display an eye-opening contrast on YouTube over the weekend. From February 28, 2008, President Bush made a morning appearance in the White House briefing room and is greeted unsurprisingly with reporters remaining seated.

But on May 1, 2009, when President Obama walks in the room (that would be the "dream sequence" appearance, as an NBC reporter put it), the reporters all stand until he asks them to be seated. You see them rise in the video.

This could be a rather mild outbreak of old-fashioned politeness to the chief. But in my two years in the White House press corps, I never saw reporters in the informal all-business setting of the briefing room stand up to greet the president...

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Only Politico Reports Palin a Thud at NRSC Dinner

Reports on Governor Sarah Palin's appearance at the National Republican Senatorial Committee dinner in D.C. on Monday nearly all mention that she was quite the center of attention with dinner attendees. Well, all agree with that characterization but Politico's Alex Isenstadt, that is. Isenstadt seems to have been the only one to report that her attendance was a dud.

This spurred our friend Videmus Omnia to wonder if Isenstadt went to the same dinner as everyone else? After looking it over, I have to ask the same question...

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Obama's America: There's no place like homelessness

When a Republican is in the Oval Office, you can count of the media to hyperventilate over homelessness, and blame the heartlessness of the GOP.

As America's economy falters under the weight of Obama's policies, homelessness has and will only get worse.

But don't hold your breath waiting for the stories on network news casts linking the condition in any way to the current president...

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51% Say Cut Everybody’s Taxes To Stimulate the Economy

Fifty-one percent (51%) of Americans favor an across-the-board tax cut for all Americans to stimulate the U.S. economy, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.

Thirty-four percent (34%) oppose such a tax cut, and 15% are undecided.

Fifty-nine percent (59%) of both Republicans and adults not affiliated with either major political party think an across-the-board tax cut is a good idea.

Democrats are fairly evenly divided.

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Matt Lauer: Scarborough 'New Face' of the Republican Party

NBC’s "Today" picked their leader to revive the Republican party: MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough. The former congressman (and former conservative) who admitted to bashing Republicans more than Democrats, appeared on the June 9 edition of "Today" to promote his new book "The Last Best Hope."

Host Matt Lauer inquired as to who should speak on behalf of Republican principles and quickly added "leave your name out of it for a second." Lauer then branded Christopher Buckley, who endorsed Obama, "a modern conservative" and then proceeded to quite "Obamican" promoting Scarborough as the "new face" of the Republican party.

[I think it's just terrific how helpful the MSM want to be in 'fixing' the Republican Party's problems.]

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[HT:RR]

WHY BOYS NEED PARENTS

image photo - fnn - HT:RR] = Why Boys Need Parents [re skateboard v hill]

image toon - 1st fnn msm - News ads now about overexaggerated swine flu

Science Magazine and the WHO Promote Pandemic Panic

Although the “worried well” are still swamping emergency rooms, our pig flu is appearing to be a piglet. But a study in Science magazine claims the outbreak portends a pandemic and the media have gone hog wild over it. “Swine Flu Is as Severe as 1957 Pandemic,” blared a typical headline about the outbreak that killed 1-3 million people worldwide and 70,000 Americans.

Actually reading the study and its accompanying citations – rather than just the summary and press release, as most reporters do – the data shows both that swine flu is less contagious and far less severe than ordinary seasonal flu...

[That's 'Science' magazine and the World Health Organization {WHO} - if you don't already associate their names with junk science, remember this for future reference when they next grand stand {and they will; it's their bread & butter}.]

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[Meanwhile, the real crisis continues...]

image toon - 1st mny - CDC tents Washington capitol to contain swine flu

Congressional Democrats try to push an ambitious agenda before recess

President Barack Obama and Democratic leaders in Congress are pushing hard to reform the nation’s health care system, pass sweeping climate change legislation and confirm a Supreme Court justice —

all in the seven [3-day: Tue-Thur] workweeks ...

[Same rush-stunt as was pulled for the unread porkulus bill. When do we start learning from our mistakes?]

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Qualms and Questions About Obama's Health Plan

Michael Barone

Barack Obama has said he wants to pass a national health care bill this year, with a government insurance policy option. Democratic congressional leaders have called for passage of such a bill before the beginning of the August congressional recess.

What they want more than anything else is a government insurance program that will tend over the next few years to crowd out private insurance. We are told that a government insurance plan reduces the amounts spent on health care by using "comparative effectiveness research" -- in other words, by rationing care and limiting options through the use of statistics. Unfortunately, statistics are constantly in flux and do not capture the differing needs of actual patients as well as skillful practitioners can.

Obama and his party are pursuing an ambitious goal. It could drastically change health care in the United States.

And there's not much time. Congress is scheduled to be in session for only six weeks from next week to the August recess. Six weeks of Tuesday-to-Thursday sessions means 18 days for actual legislating - ant that will other work on the table like annual appropriations and cap-and-trade. Still, Obama and the Democratic congressional leaders see this as a rare chance to make "transformational" changes in America.

Unfortunately, they may be right...

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Carbon costs add to health regions' woes

The Lower Mainland's health authorities will have to dig more than $4 million a year out of their already stretched budgets to pay B.C.'s carbon tax and offset their carbon footprints.

Critics say the payments mean the government's strategy to fight climate change will further exacerbate a crisis in health funding...

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Dem mutiny on climate bill grows

More and more Democrats are ready to vote against Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s climate change bill, according to a congressional committee chairman who opposes his leader.

The House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) said Wednesday that he’s at an impasse with the lead sponsor of a climate change bill strongly backed by Pelosi (D-Calif.), and that his list of Democratic members who would join him in voting against the measure is growing rather than shrinking....

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[ACT now >


"OPPOSE PELOSI CLIMATE BILL"


House-Pelosi: http://speaker.house.gov/contact/
YOUR Congressman: https://forms.house.gov/wyr/welcome.shtml

or: Speed Message them with your personal distribution list...

and as always, pass it on...

.

image toon - grn engry = Where do Oby's warming emissions go in winter?

MSNBC Guests Provide 'Clarity' on Iraq, Pre-War Intelligence and WMD

Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Colin Powell, appearing on Maddow's show and criticizing Dick Cheney's assertion that harsh interrogation of captured al Qaeda prevented terrorist attacks after 9/11 --

WILKERSON: You'll notice that Cheney always says, seven and a half years or almost eight years, no terrorist attack and so forth. That's because he has the honor of being, or the dishonor of being the man on whose watch 3,000 Americans died. More Americans died from a terrorist attack under Dick Cheney's leadership, if you will, than any other president in our history. [classy]

The reason we have not had another attack in this country, more than any other thing, is over 200,000 Americans who have been fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq against al Qaeda and other associated enemies. So we have had 200,000 Americans overseas presenting al Qaeda with very, very lucrative targets and therefore, why would they want to come here?* This is idiocy of the first order that Dick Cheney is putting out. [?!?...]

*> Also known as fighting them there instead of here. Chief proponents? George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.

A better example of "idiocy of the first order"?

Keeping those 200,000 Americans at home after 9/11 instead of deploying them abroad, the better to provide al Qaeda with "very, very lucrative targets" on the homefront. In addition to the skyscrapers, nuclear plants, bridges, dams and malls that al Qaeda would have targeted in the process...

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CBS’s Schieffer Admits Cheney ‘Winning’ Security Debate

While discussing Thursday’s opposing national security speeches by President Obama and former Vice President Cheney, on Friday’s CBS Early Show, Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer acknowledged:

"...the fact that the President of the United States had to make this speech, the fact that Congress had turned him down in giving him the money to close Guantanamo, on points, I give it to -- to the Vice President on this...Right now I think the Vice President has made his case. And at this point I'd have to say he's winning." [snip]


While both Smith and Schieffer recognized Cheney’s success at countering Obama on issues like closing Guantanamo Bay, near the end of the segment Schieffer still declared:

"I think most people think that Guantanamo is an open sore. That it in many ways it's a recruiting tool for these terrorists."

[Like it recruited the 9/11 terrorists. Just like CO2 & global warming: effect preceding cause. We're not smart enough to notice.]

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CBS News Chief Legal Analyst: Is Cheney Just A D**k?

It appears CBS News's Chief Legal Analyst doesn't agree with his colleague Bob Schieffer that former Vice President Dick Cheney is winning the national security debate with Barack Obama.

Quite the contrary, Andrew Cohen thinks Cheney is still living in "the world of September 11, 2001, a world where hijacked planes are screaming toward their targets, chaos reigns, and anything goes."

As a result, Cohen wondered in a Friday posting at his CBSNews.com blog "Court Watch" if Cheney is, "as many people say, just a d**k":

[And they're losing viewership - imagine.]

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Dude, Where's My Torture Prosecutions?

There has been very little attention paid in the MSM to a meeting on Wednesday between President Obama and various leftwing "human rights" groups,except for a brief mention at the CBS News Political Hotsheet.

However, according to a detailed report provided by Newsweek's Michael Isikoff, Obama has revealed that there won't be any prosecutions of Bush administration for so-called torture.

Perhaps this was the reason for so little MSM coverage on this meeting.

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image toon - gwot nsec - Pelosi wears bag for EIT deniability

'Booby-trapped horses used in attack'

Under the cover of morning fog, a group of around 10 Palestinian gunmen armed with "huge amounts of explosives" launched a failed Gaza border assault at the Karni Crossing on Monday, in which booby-trapped horses were used, a security source told The Jerusalem Post.

{Israel's continuing 'thanks' for having unilaterally and completely left Gaza.]

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Obama: “No You Can’t!”

North Korea is launching missiles, Iran is building nukes, Saudi Arabia is sponsoring hate that translates into worldwide terrorism, Sudan is still massacring and raping, China is busy ethnic cleansing Tibet into a Chinese province… but the Obama Administration is furious, yes “furious” at only one country, Israel.

What did Israel do? Well it’s building a hotel in Jerusalem...

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Obama's 2 pictures of Middle East

Two high-stakes speeches exactly a year apart, both delivered by Barack Obama, both focused on the Middle East. Same message, same tone? Not really.

The president reached out Thursday to the world's billion-plus Muslims in a conciliatory Cairo speech that included a bow to that religion and its contributions to the United States. He spoke of the U.S. desire to remove its troops from Muslim Iraq and Afghanistan, lamented that Palestinians have spent decades suffering "intolerable" treatment, and decried their "daily humiliations" under Israeli "occupation."

On June 4, 2008, presidential candidate Obama's emphasis was different when he addressed his country's most influential Jewish lobbying group. He promised the American Israel Public Affairs Committee an "unshakable commitment" to Israel's security, bemoaned the "rockets raining down" on Israeli towns from Palestinian territory, and said he would never force the Jewish nation to make concessions to its Palestinian and Arab antagonists... [snip]

When he was seeking Jewish-American votes a year ago, he said the holy city "will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided."

After Palestinians complained, he later said the city's fate should be decided by 'negotiation'...

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image toon - gwot israel = King whoever re Oby's washed hands v jews

Most Reject Government Control of Executive Compensation If Bailout Is Repaid

If a company repays its bailout funds, 61% of Americans say the government should not regulate the company’s executive pay and bonuses. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey also found that 31% disagree.

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Americans Disapprove of GM Takeover

Most Americans are unhappy with the actions the federal government has taken with General Motors, and people are uncertain about GM's future -- even with the government's help, according to a FOX News poll released Thursday.

By 58 percent to 38 percent voters across the country say they disapprove of the government takeover and majority ownership stake in General Motors. Majorities of Republicans (79 percent) and independents (59 percent) think it was a bad move, as well as a sizable minority of Democrats (39 percent).

And by an 8 percentage point margin slightly more Americans think the government should have let the market decide GM's fate (52 percent) than believe it was in the country's best interest to save the car maker (44 percent).

A majority of Democrats (62 percent) support the government intervening in GM, while majorities of Republicans (72 percent) and independents (54 percent) back letting market forces decide.

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image toon - crpt auto = Union car equiped with Oby donations to avoid bankruptcy court

Almost half of top unions have underfunded pension plans

Almost half of the nation’s 20 largest unions have pension funds that federal law classifies as “endangered” or in “critical” condition due to being underfunded, an Examiner review of federal actuarial reports shows...

[And the vast majority of the public (government) unions, meaning they're underwritten by guess-who?]

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State's budget crisis opens rift between unions and Democrats

Reporting from Sacramento -- The Capitol's usual political alliances are being tested by the state's severe financial problems as interest groups scramble to hold onto as much as possible of the state's shrinking coffers.

The union leaders say they are appalled that Democratic leaders are talking openly now about decimating government programs without first making a stand for bigger, broader tax hikes that could substantially offset budget cuts...

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image toon - bdd mny auto - big wad of cash to offset union pensions

The Man Who Cried Doom

If you ever wondered why the idea of Global Warming never sounded quite right....

It's been more than 20 years since James Hansen first warned America of impending doom. On a hot summer day in June 1988, Hansen, the head of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, came to Washington to announce before a Senate committee that "the greenhouse effect has been detected and it is changing our climate now."

The greenhouse effect would have looked obvious enough to anyone watching on television. The senators conducting the hearing, including Al Gore, had turned the committee room into an oven. That day it was a balmy 98 degrees, and as former Colorado senator Timothy Wirth later revealed, the committee members "went in the night before and opened all the windows. And so when the hearing occurred, there was not only bliss, which is television cameras and [high ratings], but it was really hot."

Hansen has been a media star ever since.... [snip]

But Hansen's "testimony is not working out". The earth has been cooling since 2001. .  .  .

They're scrambling," he says.

And indeed Hansen got caught with his hand in the cookie jar in 2007, when Stephen McIntyre, the man who debunked the infamous "hockey stick" graph showing stable Northern Hemisphere surface temperatures for most of the last millennia before a sharp upturn, found a flaw in Hansen's numbers. McIntyre analyzed NASA's temperature records for the last century and found that, contrary to Hansen's charts, 1998 was not the hottest year on record. That honor belongs to 1934, and five of the ten hottest years on record are now found prior to World War II.,, [snip]

"They don't understand what the hell is going on." Theon says, but evidently they don't need to because "Gore was in his corner and now the president is in his corner"...

[The state of 'science' in America.]

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‘Climate Change’ Is the Terrorist the U.S. Should Be Fighting, Muslim Leader Says

The Environmental Protection Agency announced last week that greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare, and on Monday, the agency held the first of two hearings to hear what the public thinks of its finding. Among the dozens of people offering comments on Monday, one Muslim leader claimed that the war on terror is ''really a euphemism'' for the battle to control the world’s oil supply...

[To a degree true - but only because we still refuse to develop our own vast reserves (literally greater than the Middle-East's).]

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image toon - engry = Gas price going back up

Essay: Beltway and Media Induce Conservative Stockholm Syndrome

It’s small wonder the fawning media continue to note how “confident” and “cool” the new president is in office. The Sun King has assumed the throne and found it to his liking. Barack “L’État c’est Moi” Obama is a company man in a company town – a statist in a place where he needs only to stretch a hand to stretch the state. The federal apparatus in Washington, D.C. is vast, and designed to do one thing: grow and assume power. Obama is large. He contains multitudes.

Small wonder too that the GOP lost its identity after 12 years controlling Congress. No matter how strong your small-government credentials, or how “in-touch” you are with the folks back home, living and working at the heart of a sprawling, powerful government apparatus “dulls the edge of husbandry,” as Shakespeare might have put it. Conservatives can end up captive to Beltway norms and mores, and end up conservative no more.

It’s Stockholm Syndrome for conservatives.

This is particularly so because the inherently liberal news media doesn’t question whether government should expand. So when the party of small government strays, who’s going to call them on it? Not the party of big government, and not the press.

So government grows...

[Recommended for its specific examples of the systems put in place to guarantee government growth... > ]

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Schwarzenegger suggests state consider flat tax

California
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said today that he would like to see such “radical” proposals come out of a commission now studying an overhaul of the state’s tax system. The governor told the editorial board of the Sacramento Bee that he hoped the commission would not be afraid to propose something like “a 15% straight tax.”

“That’s the kind of radical, daring kind of a proposal that I want to see on the table so we can look at it and say, ‘Oh, let’s study this, maybe that is the way to go,’ ” Schwarzenegger said during the discussion, which was webcast.

The current system, based on highly unstable income tax revenue that fluctuates with the economy, “doesn’t work,” Schwarzenegger said.

Advocates of a flat tax, which applies a single tax rate to all income, say it increases compliance with the tax codes because it is so simple and easy to understand. But opponents dislike that it taxes the wealthy at the same rate as the poor.

[Note that a15% state income tax represents a near doubling of the current 8% average - probably just an innocent slip.

And as long as the states controlled by liberals, a perfectly progressive flat tax will never be acceptable: it undermines the divide and conquor class warfare relied upon by the left to retain power. We want it done, we'll have to do it with a grass roots initiative - our politicians never will. ]

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image toon cali mny fnn = Beverly Hillbillies moving out of CA due to taxes

Fox Newsers Are 'Extremists' Who View the World Through 'S**t-Colored Glasses'

Alex Leo at The Huffington Post was delighted that Jon Stewart mocked Fox News "crazypants coverage" of President Obama's opus in Cairo. Stewart said of the speech: "How will it play with the extremists?" and then showed a Fox News Alert logo and a set of Fox clips.

Then Stewart just let the hate flow, mocking Fox's Gretchen Carlson with these words:

"What a torture it must be for such pretty people to have to see such ugly things. That's what happens when you view the world and apparently hear the world through "s--t-colored glasses."

[Class]

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Poll: Americans Want Sarah Palin for Neighbor

LOS ANGELES – If they had to live next door to a celebrity, American adults would most like to be neighbors with Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and chat show host Oprah Winfrey.

Republican vice presidential candidate Palin topped the poll of most desirable celebrity neighbors with 14 percent, closely followed by Winfrey, who was particularly popular with women.

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National Review Skewers Newsweek's Obama Fixation

The good folks at National Review are absolutely skewering Newsweek's disgraceful Obama fixation with a delicious parody of the magazine including "New, improved, and longer articles extolling the First Family!" (h/t Hot Air, larger picture below the fold):

Articles in the satirical issue include "The 'Toned' Debate: Barack's Pecs or Michelle's Arms?" by Jonathan Alter, and "Bo's Amazing Adventures" by Jon Meacham.

Last but not least, Evan "Obama Is 'Sort of God'" Thomas's "Better Than FDR (And Cooler Than JFK."

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[HT:BS]

image photo - fnn msm - Oby stop - it's not a halo

image toon - gwot nsec = Sleep depravation under Oby = bad decisions

Are We Learning Yet?

It’s old news that Barack Obama has held onto or reinstituted vast swaths of George W. Bush’s national security policy. From staying the course in Iraq to re-starting military tribunals, so many controversial Bush-era decisions have proved to be simply the best way forward in a legally and militarily treacherous gauntlet. Many observers had predicted that Obama would come to heed reality and adopt Bush policy. As the unfolds day by day the question to be asked is if that realization will be acknowledged.

As Pete pointed out, Obama recently told a BBC reporter that the U.S. shouldn’t impose its values on other nations, but that “Democracy, rule of law, freedom of speech, freedom of religion — those are not simply principles of the West to be hoisted on these countries, but rather what I believe to be universal principles that they can embrace and affirm as part of their national identity.”

Freedom and democracy as universal, not exclusively American, principles — where have I heard that before? From the 43rd president of the United States:

Some say that ending tyranny means “imposing our values” on people who do not share them, or that people live in parts of the world where freedom cannot take hold. That is refuted by the fact that every time people are given a choice, they choose freedom.

We saw that when the people of Latin America turned dictatorships into democracies, and the people of South Africa replaced apartheid with a free society, and the people of Indonesia ended their long authoritarian rule. We saw it when Ukrainians in orange scarves demanded that their ballots be counted. We saw it when millions of Afghans and Iraqis defied the terrorists to elect free governments.

At a polling station in Baghdad, I was struck by the words of an Iraqi–he had one leg–and he told a reporter, “I would have crawled here if I had to.”

Was democracy–I ask the critics–was democracy imposed on that man? Was freedom a value he did not share? The truth is that the only ones who have to impose their values are the extremists and the radicals and the tyrants. . . . Freedom is the dream and the right of every person in every nation in every age.

Not only do Obama’s words recall Bush’s philosophy; they echo an aspect of it that the Left had lambasted as fatally idealistic. But where Bush can unapologetically adduce Iraq as the most potent example of democracy’s universal appeal, Obama has chosen to bury the Iraq success for political reasons.

If Obama is going to walk the walk (we’re staying in Iraq) and talk the talk (democracy is universal), he needs to walk and talk at the same time, and own up to the political and ideological accomplishments on display in Iraq. When he follows up bold declarations of a universal democratic spirit with the weak sauce of Guantanamo apologies, he sounds as if he doesn’t believe his own words.

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S .F. Students Earn Their Stripes

California
When the San Francisco school board voted last month to restore the Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps program, it seemed that sanity had prevailed -- three years after the board voted to kill the popular program. Finally, the board had put students' welfare ahead of its ruthless political correctness.

Wrong. Unless the school board votes to recognize that JROTC fulfills students' high school physical education requirements at Tuesday's board meeting, the board's vote to keep JROTC could be viewed as a conniving stunt and a cruel hoax.

If students cannot get PE credit -- as they could before the board yanked it in 2007 -- many students will not be able to fit it into their schedules... [snip]

I urge readers to watch the video archive of the May 12 school board meeting on www.sfusd.edu. On the anti-side, you'll see some students, but mostly a bunch of aged hippies, who think we're still in Vietnam, railing against military atrocities. On the RO side, you'll see some parents and educators, but mostly kids, who aren't talking about themselves but something larger than themselves.

Students who are on the academic sweet track and those whose kids who are not yet there marvel at a program that taught them how to present themselves, ways to help others (first aid) -- and how to become leaders. They are confident young adults.

Unless the board quickly makes up for its folly, there will be fewer such students graduating San Francisco schools...

[Recommended > ]

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[source]

txt sclm bbro intl owg = NB POLL re Does Europe's Shift to the Right Mean Anything Here?

Israel rejects Clinton claim of no agreement on settlements

Just after US President Barack Obama's landmark address in Cairo, and just before US Mideast envoy George Mitchell returns to the region on Tuesday, the dispute between Washington and Jerusalem over settlement construction ratcheted up a notch. Israeli officials rejected on Saturday a statement by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton dismissing Israeli assertions that the Bush administration had agreed to allow some construction in the settlements to allow for natural growth.

[I seem to recall it Obama insisting that all side 'abide by prior commitments'? Self exempted, evidently.

Reminder: 'natural growth' means not one additional foot of land but home additions as children are born.]

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NBC's Mitchell Hails Hillary Clinton As a 'Foreign Policy Superstar!'

In a piece that could've been crafted by Hillary Clinton's PR shop, NBC's Andrea Mitchell, on Monday's "Today" show, gushed on and on about the Secretary of State's new "role of a lifetime," as a "a foreign policy superstar," and cheered Clinton has the "highest approval ratings of any time in her career."

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Taxpayers Have $80.3B Invested in Detroit

The taxpayers’ investment in the U.S. auto industry rose to $80.3 billion, after the U.S. Treasury provided a new $30.1 billion bankruptcy loan to General Motors(snip)two days after GM filed for bankruptcy, a new Treasury report said.

The funding amounts, through 15 transactions since December, total more than 10% of the $700 billion in bailout money Congress approved for the Troubled Asset Relief Program(snip)when it was created to help stabilize banks...

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image toon - mny auto sclm - GM at taxpayer atm

New GM Chair: 'I Don't Know Anything About Cars'

.You can't make this stuff up. The titled quote comes from a Bloomberg story about new GM Chairman Roger Whitacre. You also can't make up most of the media's calm acceptance of yet another person heavily involved with running General Motors, aka Government Motors, who knows next to nothing about cars except as a consumer who drives them.


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image toon - lbrty mny auto sclm = Oby's list of things done to run auto makers

The End of the Affair

There are few political humorists who have P.J. O'Rourke's instinct for what's important about a story or a pen as sharp and witty to describe it.
Car lover and brilliant satirist, O'Rourke nails it in this Wall Street Journal column:

The car ceased to be object of desire and equipment for adventure and turned into office, rec room, communications hub, breakfast nook and recycling bin-a motorized cup holder. Americans, the richest people on Earth, were stuck in the confines of their crossover SUVs, squeezed into less space than tech-support call-center employees in a Mumbai cubicle farm. Never mind the six-bedroom, eight-bath, pseudo-Tudor with cathedral-ceilinged great room and 1,000-bottle controlled-climate wine cellar. That was a day's walk away.

We became sick and tired of our cars and even angry at them. Pointy-headed busybodies of the environmentalist, new urbanist, utopian communitarian ilk blamed the victim. They claimed the car had forced us to live in widely scattered settlements in the great wasteland of big-box stores and the Olive Garden. If we would all just get on our Schwinns or hop a trolley, they said, America could become an archipelago of cozy gulags on the Portland, Ore., model with everyone nestled together in the most sustainably carbon-neutral, diverse and ecologically unimpactful way,

But cars didn’t shape our existence; cars let us escape with our lives. We’re way the heck out here in Valley Bottom Heights and Trout Antler Estates because we were at war with the cities. We fought rotten public schools, idiot municipal bureaucracies, corrupt political machines, rampant criminality and the pointy-headed busybodies. Cars gave us our dragoons and hussars, lent us speed and mobility, let us scout the terrain and probe the enemy’s lines. And thanks to our cars, when we lost the cities we weren’t forced to surrender, we were able to retreat..

Read also P.J.'s hilarious take on horses vs. cars. And make sure you read the whole thing...

[I.e., cars are liberating and among the highest contributors to our standard of living, allowing us to go anywhere at anytime with all the people or stuff we want - all completely paid for in perfect proportion by those who chose to do so. What's not to like? Given even a casual glance at our highways each day, despite the daily liberal diatribe against them and every conceivable effort by our elites to make their use less attractive, there we are: the overwhelming majority who chooses to drive because it suits our lifestyle best.

Who is anyone to gainsay our choice - to say noting of public 'servants' chutzpah to do so?]

Highly Recommended > ]

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image toon - grn engry sclm auto - new GM Obamacar

Scarborough Explodes On The "Failure Of The Mainstream Media"

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Scarborough's eruption was brought to you by the past (and continuing) failure of the main-stream media to cover President Obama fairly. In Mika Brzezinski’s morning news rundown, there was (what was supposed to be) a short segment on President Obama’s comments yesterday; regarding the latest in a series of auto-maker bailouts:

JOE SCARBOROUGH: How can he say that with a straight face? Seriously. This is one of the things that's troubling about this President is he can say things with a straight face that the media does not call him on.

After making a particularly entertaining analogy about choosing a lumberjack to perform spinal surgery (see the video above and to the right), Scarborough brought himself back on message:

SCARBOROUGH: The amazing thing is, this is the failure of the mainstream media. If the mainstream media had covered Barack Obama instead of applauding him during the campaign, you would know off the top of your head that nobody got more money from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac executives than Barack Obama. Nobody ran resistance...

Scarborough’s incredulity at the lack of media coverage is, to put it lightly, not entirely misplaced.

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image toon sclm auto msm fnn - Oby taking auto advice from bankrupt paper industry

Think twice about 'green' transport, say scientists

Agence France-Presse

PARIS (AFP) – You worry a lot about the environment and do everything you can to reduce your carbon footprint -- the emissions of greenhouse gases that drive dangerous climate change.

So you always prefer to take the train or the bus rather than a plane, and avoid using a car whenever you can, faithful to the belief that this inflicts less harm to the planet.

Well, there could be a nasty surprise in store for you, for taking public transport may not be as green as you automatically think, says a new US study.

Its authors point out an array of factors that are often unknown to the public.

These are hidden or displaced emissions that ramp up the simple "tailpipe" tally, which is based on how much carbon is spewed out by the fossil fuels used to make a trip.

Environmental engineers Mikhail Chester and Arpad Horvath at the University of California at Davis say that when these costs are included, a more complex and challenging picture emerges.

In some circumstances, for instance, it could be more eco-friendly to drive into a city -- even in an SUV, the bete noire of green groups -- rather than take a suburban train. It depends on seat occupancy and the underlying carbon cost of the mode of transport... [snip]

It used 2005 models of the Toyota Camry saloon, Chevrolet Trailblazer SUV and Ford F-150 to calibrate automobile performance; the light transit systems in the San Francisco Bay Area and Boston as the models for the metro and commuter lines...

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Lovely Organic Oil

I was speaking with an acquaintance recently and was struck by the number of people she knew that called themselves "environmentalists", and as such were wedded to the prevailing global warming rhetoric. It is hard to come to terms with the pervasive laziness of such people who are probably otherwise very nice upstanding citizens. I have been contemplating this problem and I believe I have had a breakthrough that I would like to share with you today.

Oil as I understand it is the product of carbon based organic matter being crushed and perhaps heated over many millions of years which is basically the earth's method of composting. That makes oil the single greatest and most useful organic product available to us today. When we drill for and refine oil we are merely recycling it into more useable forms and releasing it for further cyclical uses in the environment. When we drive, heat, or engage in other joyous human activities like boating at the cottage or getting together for a drive with our other car club members we are recycling carbon from one form to another.

Once that carbon is used and released, plants will soak up all that wonderful carbon dioxide and use it to grow and increase yields while reducing water use. This process by plant life is a beautiful and effective source of carbon capture and all natural to boot. All of that additional plant matter will decompose and be stored for future generations in the form of lovely oil and coal. Our ancestors will hopefully drill, refine and burn it once again partaking in this wonderful all natural recycling process. It's a beautiful thing.

So next time someone tells you they are an environmentalist tell them you are too. While they eat carrots in front of the TV in their air conditioned palaces praying to the gods of the sun and wind to rescue them, you can drive out to your favorite hotel in the mountains and enjoy a succulent steak. You will even experience great satisfaction that you are helping the environment and future of the planet by recycling carbon by using a rich organic product, which will help the generations of the future. You are doing this by living your life and by enjoying the bountiful wonders of carbon: yes, lovely oil.

[But DT; "it's organic".]

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image toon - grn engry auto = Oby removes engine to clean up car

WaPo Highlights Kids Used to Push Green Agenda, Fails to Question Propriety of Tactic`

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Have you ever read a newspaper article and walked away stunned that the writer seemed to be totally oblivious to the real story or left some significant questions unasked?

Conservative readers of the June 9 Washington Post could understandably answer yes to the aforementioned question after reading the front page story "Early Lesson in Eco-Activism Comes From Economics Book."

Writer Daniel de Vise begins:

Casting about for a cause, the Young Activist Club at Piney Branch Elementary settled on something close at hand: the hundreds of polystyrene trays and plastic utensils discarded daily in the school cafeteria.

Back up the train. An elementary school has politically motivated extracurricular clubs?

But young children are highly impressionable and the the political activism they would engender most certainly would be guided by the political views of their parents and teachers. As de Vise admits, Takoma Park is one of the area's "most socially conscious" (read: liberal/progressive in politics) communities.

But if the community at-large is pretty liberal, why on Earth isn't the push for eliminating styrofoam from the school's cafeteria the province of the Parent-Teacher Association (PTA)?

De Vise doesn't seem curious on that point, nor does he seem interested in probing how much the students understand about cost-benefit analysis.

Instead, de Vise opts to dutifully transcribe quotes from the little kids who are no doubt egged on by their teachers... [snip]

I'm not expecting a newspaper reporter to ask these difficult questions of impresionable 8-year-olds, but they are legitimate questions for the adults who are using the kids as "socially conscious" political props...

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'The Early Show' Shows Only Portion of Tasered Grandma Video

A local cop tasers a 72 great-grandmother and it's all caught on camera. How dare that nasty cop!! Which is precisely the reaction you'd get if you watched the segment on this morning's CBS's "The Early Show." The program begins the video right where the police officer tasers the woman, basically ignoring everything that transpired only moments before. "The Early Show" then shows a brief snippet of an interview with the woman:

WOMAN: I wasn't argumentative, I was not combative, OK? All of this is a lie.

All contributor Russ Mitchell noted in the cop's defense was that the cop said the woman "would not cooperate" and "swore at him." The reaction from the show's hosts is, well, not very surprising after Mitchell noted that the constable's office is standing by the officer who tasered the woman:

HOST MAGGIE RODRIGUEZ: Are you kidding me?

HOST JULIE CHEN: I saw a longer piece of the tape and she said "just give me the ticket and I'll sign it." And then that happened?

It's obvious that Chen didn't view that much longer a piece of tape, else she might have come to a different conclusion.

Here is a complete video of the incident via The Dallas Morning News, and it directly contradicts the 72-year old woman's claim from above that she "wasn't argumentative" and "was not combative."

She at first refused to sign the speeding ticket, whereupon the officer prepared to arrest her (standard procedure) for that refusal. He asked the woman to move to the rear of her vehicle, whereupon she then agreed to sign the ticket, but with a profanity-laced response. She then attempted to push past the officer which would have put her perilously close to the highway's oncoming traffic.

The officer warned the woman that if she persisted, he would have to resort to using his taser. The woman's reply was "Go ahead -- tase me. I dare you," whereupon she said "I'm getting back into my car." She then plowed right into the officer who was in her path. It was only then that the officer resorted to his taser.

The question is: How did "The Early Show" miss all of this?

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DMN/CNN tie Tea Party Protesters To Holocaust Museum, Tiller Shootings

Dallas Morning News’s Wayne Slater become one of the first pundits after the shootings at the Holocaust Museum on Wednesday to hint that there was a connection to mainstream conservative activists.

On CNN Newsroom, about two hours after the story broke, Slater linked this incident and the murder of abortionist George Tiller with “anti-tax secessionists in Texas,” his label for Tea Party protesters.

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AP Picks Up Huff-Po Blogger's Lame Smear Alleging Palin Plagiarism

If you would like a great example of how the Old Media takes a story that has no legitimacy at all and uses it as the basis for a smear job, the Associated Press offered a wonderful sampling of the tactic for you on June 8.

From a headline that makes the issue seem more weighty than it is, to the lack of competent reporting from both sides of the matter, AP employed this favorite Old Media tactic by taking another swipe at Governor Sarah Palin with little by way of substantive evidence. It's another "seriousness of the charge" story despite the complete lack of evidence as well as a lack of any gravitas on the part of the original source of the charge.

At issue is the false charge leveled by a Huffington Post blogger that Governor Palin "plagiarized" a section of her speech as she introduced talk show host Michael Reagan in Anchorage, Alaska on Wednesday, June 3. HuffPo blogger Geoffrey Dunn charged that Palin lifted several sections of Newt Gingrich's work without attribution, and AP ran with the story even as they allow Palin's lawyer to point out that she cited Gingrich twice in her speech...

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Study: TV Networks Cheer for Barack Obama's RevolutionStudy: TV Networks Cheer for Barack Obama's Revolution

Study: TV Networks Cheer for Barack Obama's Revolution
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During his first 100 days as President, Barack Obama has pushed an audaciously liberal agenda which, if enacted, would have radical consequences for America for decades. With Democrats enjoying monopoly control of the House and Senate, the news media have a professional duty to scrutinize those policies, and give audiences both sides of the story — not just the perspective of a powerful Chief Executive.


Unfortunately, a Media Research Center analysis of ABC, CBS and NBC evening news coverage of President Obama’s first 100 days in office shows network reporters have failed as watchdogs. The networks have raised few doubts about Obama’s left-wing agenda and showered each of Obama’s major policy initiatives with positive press.



MRC analysts looked at all 982 broadcast evening news stories about Obama and his administration from Inauguration Day (January 20) through April 29. Key findings:

• Obama’s first 100 days were defined by massive spending, aggressive intervention in the private sector and proposals for a huge expansion of the federal government. Yet none of the networks aired a single story on whether Obama’s policies were pushing the U.S. toward socialism, and no reporter used the term “socialist” to describe Obama.
• Not only that, network reporters never used the word “liberal” to describe either Barack Obama or his agenda during the first 100 days.
• The networks lavished good press on every major initiative of the early Obama administration, including the massive stimulus package, all of the various bailouts, health care, stem cells, the environment and foreign policy.

• In the days before the President unveiled his unprecedented $3.5 trillion budget — with a record-shattering $1.75 trillion deficit — four out of five statements on the evening newscasts parroted the White House spin that Obama was a deficit fighter.
• Reporters treated Obama’s hugely expensive $787 billion stimulus bill to mainly positive coverage (58 percent positive, 42 percent negative).
• The networks applauded Obama’s decision to use taxpayer money to fund embryo-destroying stem cell research (82% positive coverage).

• Network coverage of Obama’s mortgage bailout was also positive — 59% of statements supported the bailout or wanted even more intervention, compared to 41% who opposed the bailout as unfair to responsible homeowners.
• Reporters heavily skewed their coverage in favor of the President’s actions on global warming (78% positive).
• President Obama’s decision to send thousands of additional troops to Afghanistan was greeted by nearly unanimous (91%) positive coverage — a far cry from the highly negative coverage of President Bush’s successful troop surge in Iraq two years ago.

• Like Obama and the Democrats, the networks went on a feeding frenzy against big corporate bonuses. The networks aired six times more statements forwarding the “infuriated” reaction to business (104) than criticized politicians’ grandstanding (16).
• The networks spent days decrying AIG’s $165 million bonuses, but hardly mentioned the $210 million in bonuses handed out by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (the bailed-out mortgage giants with strong Democratic ties). ABC and NBC completely ignored the Fannie and Freddie bonuses, while the CBS Evening News gave it 27 seconds.

Such highly promotional coverage is not part of the normal “honeymoon” that exists between journalists and new Presidents. Rather, it seems to be a symptom of how few network reporters evidently see their professional role as operating on the public’s behalf as a check on whoever is in the White House.

The longstanding liberalism of network reporters made them aggressive adversaries of the Bush White House over the past eight years. The evidence from Barack Obama’s first 100 days is that that same liberal mindset has crippled reporters’ ability to be effective watchdogs on behalf of the public.

The once-fierce media watchdogs have become Barack Obama’s drooling, tail-wagging lapdogs.

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