China, called a developing country by the U.N., is being given a special definition by U.S. negotiators who want any final agreement to reflect that despite its vast swaths of undeveloped rural countryside, China is rapidly urbanizing, boasting fully modern cities.
Regardless, the United States will be spreading the wealth China’s way, helping them to meet whatever final carbon emissions reduction goals come out of Copenhagen.
The Copenhagen talks are part of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC), the U.N. body responsible for negotiating the Kyoto Protocol and its successor treaty, negotiation of which will be finalized in Copenhagen this December
]What's our trade deficit with that nation again?]
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Thursday, June 18, 2009
State Department Says China to Get U.S. Aid under New Climate Deal
Raising taxes by the mile
During the 2008 presidential campaign, President Obama endeared himself to many voters with a promise that 95 percent of Americans would get a tax cut and those making under $250,000"would not see a single dime of tax increase - not on anything."
Since Obama won and he's already spent so much, it was only a matter of time before this promise too went by the wayside...
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The Russians, Arabs, Drug Cartels and our Southern Border
immig
On June 3rd Sara Carter and the Washington Times reported, “Al-Qaeda Eyes Anthrax Attack On U.S from Mexico.” The story is based on an Al-Qaeda recruitment video first broadcast back in February on Al Jazeera.
In it, Kuwaiti dissident Abdullah al-Nafisi tells a roomful of people that Al-Qaeda is currently casing the U.S. border with Mexico to see how they could smuggle weapons through border tunnels and into the U.S....
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Meanwhile, in the SRM {State Run Media}...
CBS: Immigration Raid Left Iowa Town’s Economy ‘In Tatters’
On Saturday, CBS’s Anthony Mason blamed tough economic times in a small Iowa town on immigration enforcement:"...the small town of Postville, Iowa, is still struggling to recover from an immigration raid last year that left its economy in tatters."
In November, Doane issued an almost identical report on the impact of the raid on the Early Show: "With empty streets and shuttered shops, this small town is facing economic calamity. Mayor Bob Penrod is taking steps this weekend to declare a state of emergency here. But it's not a natural disaster. Rather, one that's manmade...It all started May 12th, when hundreds of federal immigration authorities raided Agriprocessors and arrested 389 workers."
What Doane failed to report in both stories was the numerous labor law violations that Agriprocessors has been accused of by many of the illegal immigrants who once worked at the Postville plant. A July 27, 2008 article in the New York Times detailed those allegations: ...
[Again and again: portraying the law breakers as the victims.]
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The Civil Rights Challenge of Our Time
edu
An incensed Andrew Sullivan -- homosexual journalist and activist -- told CNN anchor Anderson Cooper the other night that Barack Obama is ducking the "core civil rights challenge of his time."
Most recently, and flagrantly, was the announcement that Obama would sit by and allow Congress to pull the plug on the five-year old voucher program enabling 1700 kids in Washington, DC to attend private schools. This despite a new study from Obama's own Department of Education saying that these kids outperformed their peers in DC public schools in reading. And that the vouchers, valued up to $7500 per scholarship, cost less than half the $17,000 per student that DC spends to maintain one of the worst public school systems in the country.
Today's real minority group is low to middle income parents who want their children educated with traditional values. Of the 1700 kids in DC's soon to be defunct voucher program, 879 had been attending Catholic elementary or high schools.
Liberating our kids from the cesspools in our urban areas that we call public schools is the great "civil rights challenge" of our time.
[Recommended > ]
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WaPo Highlights D.C. Graduation Speaker Denouncing 'Snarl of Hatred' of Pro-Lifers at Notre Dame
edu msm vals
[once again; if you disagree with the left, it's because you 'hate']
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On Gov. Palin All the Lies Fit to Print
In hers headlined, "Palin should move to TV talk show," Harrop proves that she should move from Creator’s Syndiacte to the National Enquirer...
[why the continuing attacks? A: genuine fear - of genuine conservatives]
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Trip Outside shows Palin's national star still blazes
Gov. Sarah Palin returned to the national stage in a big way this past week, rocketing back into the national consciousness with her David Letterman feud, slams on the Obama administration and drama with national Republican leaders."Katie Couric doesn't have a lot of fans in Des Moines, Iowa, and Manchester, New Hampshire,"
Mueller said."Sarah Palin does."
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Sarah Palin, the 21st Century 'It' Girl
The best and the brightest on the left go into politics. The best on the right run their own businesses. So it is no surprise that the left is far more adept, even expert at the art of hardball politics. And they are telling us something profound.
The left is telling us something many feel, many know intuitively; that Sarah Palin is the most dangerous threat to the Obama administration...
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Wednesday, June 17, 2009
President Obama Taps Anti-Hunting, Animal Rights Extremist for Regulatory Czar
Washington, D.C. – President Obama has appointed his old friend and colleague, University of Chicago Professor Cass Sunstein, to run the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. Sunstein is a rabid enemy of Americans’ Second Amendment freedom, and harbors radical ideas about animal rights that only the most ardent PeTA activist would love. Now he will run the federal office that oversees all government regulations.
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The Trouble With Obama's Energy Czar
Yet another Clintonite has been wheeled out of the political morgue to serve in the Obama administration. Carol Browner, a neon-green radical who headed the Environmental Protection Agency from 1993-2000, is widely rumored to be the president-elect's choice for "energy czar."
In her first term as EPA head, a congressional subcommittee caught her using taxpayer funds to create and send out illegal lobbying material to over 100 grassroots environmental lobbying organizations. She exploited her office to orchestrate a political campaign by left-wing groups, who turned around and attacked Republican lawmakers for supporting regulatory reform.
These are the very same groups -- anti-business, anti-sound science, pro-eco-hysteria -- that Browner would be working arm in arm with as Obama's "energy czar." This is regression we can't afford.
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Obama's Czars Unconstitutional
Last week President 0bama appointed yet another “czar” with massive government power, answering only to him. Even before this latest appointment, the top-ranking Democrat in the Senate wrote President 0bama a letter saying that these czars are unconstitutional.
President 0bama’s “czar strategy” is an unprecedented power grab centralizing authority in the White House, outside congressional oversight and in violation of the Constitution....
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Uncontrolled Presidential Power is Inherently Totalitarian in Nature…
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Welcome to another rousing of edition of Venezuela redux… Headlined on Drudge this morning, ABC News finally came out of the media closet and bowed before Obama. Since it is a flash news update, here is what it said in its entirety
ABC TURNS PROGRAMMING OVER TO OBAMA; NEWS TO BE ANCHORED FROM INSIDE WHITE HOUSE
Tue Jun 16 2009 08:45:10 ET
On the night of June 24, the media and government become one, when ABC turns its programming over to President Obama and White House officials to push government run health care — a move that has ignited an ethical firestorm... [snip]
Late Monday night, Republican National Committee Chief of Staff Ken McKay fired off a complaint to the head of ABCNEWS:
Dear Mr. Westin:
As the national debate on health care reform intensifies, I am deeply concerned and disappointed with ABC’s astonishing decision to exclude opposing voices on this critical issue on June 24, 2009. Next Wednesday, ABC News will air a primetime health care reform “town hall” at the White House with President Barack Obama. In addition, according to an ABC News report, GOOD MORNING AMERICA, WORLD NEWS, NIGHTLINE and ABC’s web news “will all feature special programming on the president’s health care agenda.”
Today, the Republican National Committee requested an opportunity to add our Party’s views to those of the President’s to ensure that all sides of the health care reform debate are presented. Our request was rejected. I believe that the President should have the ability to speak directly to the America people. However, I find it outrageous that ABC would prohibit our Party’s opposing thoughts and ideas from this national debate, which affects millions of ABC viewers.
In the absence of opposition, I am concerned this event will become a glorified infomercial to promote the Democrat agenda. If that is the case, this primetime infomercial should be paid for out of the DNC coffers. President Obama does not hold a monopoly on health care reform ideas or on free airtime. The President has stated time and time again that he wants a bipartisan debate. Therefore, the Republican Party should be included in this primetime event, or the DNC should pay for your airtime.
Respectfully,
Ken McKay
I will say it again, uncontrolled Presidential power is inherently totalitarian in nature.
Each day we are served up a fresh intrusion of government driven by Obama:
Obama seeks to ‘give government new powers to seize key companies’
Federal Reserve to gain power under plan
Obama blocks access to visitor lists…
Is this what Americans wanted when they voted for change?
It’s beginning to feel like we have more than a little in common with the people of Iran these days. The question is, do we have the spine that they have?
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House votes to fund wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
WASHINGTON -- The House has narrowly approved a $106 billion bill to ensure financing for war operations in Iraq and Afghanistan over the coming months.
Passage of the bill comes over almost united opposition from Republicans, who objected to the inclusion of money in the legislation for an International Monetary Fund loan program for poor countries...
[And this is related to war funding how? Some 'change']
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Uighurs Tell FNC: Better Human Rights at Guantanamo Than in China
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“asked which was worse: Life at Gitmo versus China?” The interpreter relayed, over the voices of all of the men talking: “Of course it's China. There's no guarantee for human rights there.”
So, there's a new angle for the media: Guantanamo as a bastion of human rights protections. Not really much of a surprise in contrast to China, but it took a FNC reporter to frame the comparison between a U.S. military-run detention center and a communist nation.
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LAT's Rutten Seeks to Connect Okla. City Bombing, Domestic Terrorism to U.S. Military
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In light of some awful high-profile murders by sick individuals, the Los Angeles Times' Tim Rutten wants the Department of Homeland Security to revisit its report from earlier this year that connects potential terrorism to "right-wing extremism." And Rutten seems especially concerned about those serving in the military. From his column:"All three of the men involved in the Oklahoma City bombing met and developed their convictions while serving in the Army. As the body count mounts, the department may want to reconsider that apology..."
Rutten appears to imply that extremist "convictions" are developed while serving in the military.
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Bodies of foreign hostages found in Yemen
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— The bodies of several foreign hostages have been found in Yemen, officials said Monday, the first time in almost a decade a kidnapping in the country has resulted in deaths.
Seven Germans, including three children and two female nurses, were abducted last week in the volatile Saada province in northern Yemen along with a male British engineer and a woman from South Korea.
The missing nine belong to an international relief group that has worked for 35 years at a hospital in Saada, which borders Saudi Arabia, an official said on Sunday.
Local sources said the group was a Christian Baptist organisation that also has a medical team in the hospital at Jebla, south of Sanaa, where an Islamist militant killed three American doctors in December 2002...
[Our enemy.]
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Europe: No Longer A Role Model For America
The U.S.' population--and economy--is likely to grow as the E.U.'s declines.
For decades many in the American political and policy establishment--including close supporters of President Obama--have looked enviously at the bureaucratic powerhouse of the European Union. In everything from climate change to civil liberties to land use regulation, Europe long has charmed those visionaries, particularly on the left, who wish to remake America in its image.
Although the E.U.'s current top-down bureaucratic approach is clearly losing support [see last week's election results], these recent events don't necessarily mean the E.U. is doomed. It's just that people who might be happy to accept a customs union and perhaps even a common currency are simply proving loath to hand over land use controls and environmental standards, much less foreign policy, to Brussels-based bureaucrats. At its root this move represents both a cry against control and a cry for greater autonomy.
For the Obama administration, there may be some significant lessons here. Compared with Europeans, Americans are disposed to dislike too much central control. Turning Washington into a new Brussels, with regulations to cover virtually any human activity, could backfire both on the president and his party....
[But that is the intent. Recommended > ]
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Gerald Walpin speaks: The inside story of the AmeriCorps firing
The White House's decision to fire AmeriCorps inspector general Gerald Walpin came amid politically-charged tensions inside the Corporation for National and Community Service, the organization that runs AmeriCorps.
Top executives at the Corporation, Walpin explained in an hour-long interview Saturday, were unhappy with his investigation into the misuse of AmeriCorps funds by Kevin Johnson, the former NBA star who is now mayor of Sacramento, California and a prominent supporter of President Obama...
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Walpin-gate
Congress ought to open an investigation, New York Times editorialists should be in a state of apoplexy, and MSNBC hosts ought to be frothing at the mouth.
Without appropriate documentation or good reason, President Obama has fired a federal investigator who was on the case against a political ally of the president's. Mr. Obama's move has the stench of scandal.
On June 11, Mr. Obama fired Gerald Walpin, inspector general for the Corporation for National and Community Service. He offered no public reason for doing so other than that he "no longer" had "the fullest confidence" in Mr. Walpin... [ snip]"There have been no negative findings against Mr. Walpin by the Integrity Committee of the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency, and [Mr. Walpin] has identified millions of dollars in Americorps funds either wasted outright or spent in violation of established guidelines. In other words, it appears he has been doing his job. We cannot afford to have Inspector General independence threatened."
We concur. But will the Obamedia?
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Key Obama Ally Says President Obama Did Not Follow the Law in IG Firing
After being briefed today on President Obama’s firing last week of Gerald Walpin, Inspector General of the Corporation for National and Community Service,
Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., said the president did not abide by the same law that he co-sponsored – and she wrote – about firing Inspectors General...
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Gangster government's grip on the AmeriCorps
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Henry II’s supposed lament – “who will rid me of this turbulent priest?” – led a loyal knight to bury his sword in Thomas Beckett’s head, thus conveniently removing the Archbishop of Canterbury as a thorn in the side of the English king.
A scene reminiscent of that infamous martyrdom occurred in the White House late last week, as one of President Obama’s senior aides gave the AmeriCorps inspector-general an offer he supposedly could not refuse – resign within an hour or be fired.
President Obama’s options here are circumscribed by the Inspector-Generals Reform Act of 2007, which was co-sponsored by Sen. Barack Obama. The IGs are appointed by presidents but do not serve at the Chief Executive’s pleasure as do other presidential appointees.
The AmeriCorps case illustrates why IG independence must be zealously protected. Walpin found that Johnson used AmeriCorps funds for personal and political benefit.
Fortunately, IG Gerald Walpin, refused to go quietly despite threats from the assailant, Norman Eisen, special counsel to the president for ethics and government reform. Walpin reminded Eisen that the law required a president to give Congress 30-day notice of his intent to remove an IG and a detailed justification for the removal.
This is to prevent presidential politics from interfering with the independence and integrity of IGs, whose sole job is to ferret out waste, fraud and corruption in federal spending.
Eisen was last seen defending a proposed White House rule depriving the First Amendment rights of “anyone else seeking to influence the process” of economic stimulus grant awards. The proposed rule would enable Obama and company to dole out stimulus pork behind closed doors, away from prying eyes... [snip]
The key issue now is whether Congress will permit this latest illustration of what The Examiner’s Michael Barone calls Obama’s “gangster government”...
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Voters Put More Emphasis On Deficit Cutting Over Health Care Reform
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Support for health care reform has slipped as more voters think President Obama should work harder on his promise to cut the federal deficit in half in the next four years.
Thirty-six percent (36%) of U.S. voters say cutting the deficit is the most important of the four priorities the president cited in a speech to Congress in February, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. That’s up from March.
But a growing number of voters (63%) – up from 54% in March - also see cutting the deficit in half as the goal the president is least likely to achieve...
[It's a very bad sign that American are getting used to the growing gap between what our President says vs. what he does, and we evidently don't intend to hold him accountable for essentially lying to us. ]
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International Demand for U.S. Assets Slowed in April
Washington - International purchases of American financial assets slowed in April as China, Japan and Russia pared demand for Treasuries, underscoring the danger of U.S. reliance on foreigners to finance its fiscal deficit.
Total net purchases of long-term equities, notes and bonds rose a net $11.2 billion, compared with buying of $55.4 billion in March, the Treasury said today in Washington.
[I.e., they recognize printed-funny-money when they see it.]
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Kill TARP, spare the taxpayer
NEW YORK - For some, the slow, steady demise of TARP cannot happen soon enough. Last week, 10 of the nation's largest financial firms won their release from the Treasury Department's Troubled Asset Relief Program, setting the stage for them to pay back the billions of dollars the government loaned them last fall.
But this news was book-ended by legislation that aims to end the controversial program sooner rather than later...
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China wants U.S. to assume global duty of care for dollar
If you owe your bank $1,000 you have a problem, but if you've borrowed $1 million it's the bank that has the problem. Going by that old maxim, then China, which has lent the United States upwards of $1.3 trillion, has a very big problem...
And it knows it. As a consequence, Beijing is diversifying its overseas investments and pressing U.S. officials for an "exit strategy" from the ultra-loose fiscal and monetary policies that China fears will eventually inflate away the value of its U.S. bond holdings and fell the dollar.
from Tuesday's inaugural BRICs summit in Russia about the need for the United States to cede power in global financial institutions should not be taken as a signal that Beijing is positioning the yuan to challenge the dollar's supremacy...
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Trib Reruns 1934 Cartoon Critical of New Deal: 'Planned Economy or Planned Destruction?'
A fabulous 1934 Chicago Tribune cartoon that has recently been making the rounds in the blogosphere as an example of history sadly repeating itself was marvelously rerun at the paper's website on June 10.
In it, members of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's administration are seen shoveling money out of a wagon with a billboard on the side declaring,"Depleting the resources of the soundest government in the world."
On Wednesday, the Trib reprinted the cartoon with the caption "This is a 1934 Chicago Tribune political cartoon that many say rings true in today's political and economic climate. What do you think?" (full, largely legible print below the fold along with an explanation of the characters uncovered by The Federal Observer...
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Crops under stress as temperatures fall
Our politicians haven't noticed that the problem may be that the world is not warming but cooling, observes Christopher Booker.
There was midsummer snow not just in Norway and the Cairngorms, but even in Saudi Arabia. At least in the southern hemisphere it is winter, but snowfalls in New Zealand and Australia have been abnormal. There have been frosts in Brazil, elsewhere in South America they have had prolonged droughts, while in China they have had to cope with abnormal rain and freak hailstorms, which in one province killed 20 people.
It is now more than 200 years since the great astronomer William Herschel observed a correlation between wheat prices and sunspots. When the latter were few in number, he noted, the climate turned colder and drier, crop yields fell and wheat prices rose. In the past two years, sunspot activity has dropped to its lowest point for a century.
One of our biggest worries is that our politicians are so fixated on the idea that CO2 is causing global warming that most of them haven't noticed that the problem may be that the world is not warming but cooling, with all the implications that has for whether we get enough to eat... [snip]
It is appropriate that another contributory factor to the world's food shortage should be the millions of acres of farmland now being switched from food crops to biofuels, to stop the world warming,
Last year even the experts of the European Commission admitted that, to meet the EU's biofuel targets, we will eventually need almost all the food-growing land in Europe. But that didn't persuade them to change their policy. They would rather we starved than did that ...
[How could they be so insane? The usual reason; money. It was never about climate.]
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Meanwhile, in the Media...
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It’s Time to Cool the Planet
If we’re going to avoid climate disaster, we’re going to have start getting a lot more direct. We’re going to have to think about cooling the planet. The concept is called geoengineering, and in the past few years, it has gone from being dismissed as a fringe idea to the subject of intense debates in the halls of power.
[All based on the assumption that it's a) warming, and b) that the 'halls of power' know what the optimal temperature of the Earth is.
Niavegance: some proportion of naivety and arrogance.
BTW: a warmer world in better for nearly all life forms on Earth - man included.]
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'Nightly News': Don't Let the Mild Weather Fool You, There's Still Global Warming
With a cooler-than-usual winter and a mild temperatures leading up to the beginning of summer, global warming alarmists are finding they are losing steam in the debate. But "NBC Nightly News" won't give up the fight.
On the June 15 broadcast, anchor Brian Williams noted the peculiar weather patterns along the East Coast.
"The weather along the eastern seaboard has been more like Scotland in October lately," Williams said. "Then came the first of the Internet stories, some of them written by learned people in the weather field, wondering if summer as we know it was just not going to happen this year in some areas..." [snip]
According to NBC chief environmental affairs correspondent Anne Thompson, the phenomena are caused by the a jet stream dropping deeper into the United States than is usual for this time of year. But Thompson reliance told viewers not to let the current weather dispel any beliefs they have in global warming, because warmer weather is on the way.
"This less-than-beach-like weather may have you wondering about global warming," Thompson said. "This cold spell is a snapshot, just a couple of weeks. Global warming is something that happens over decades and centuries. So hang in there, summer and its warmth is on the horizon."
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Not to be outdone...
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White House Sounds Alarm On Climate Change
Harmful effects from global warming are already here and worsening, warns the first climate report from Barack Obama's presidency in the strongest language on climate change ever to come out of the White House.
Global warming has already caused more heavy downpours, rising temperature and sea level, rapidly retreating glaciers, longer growing seasons and altered river flow, according to the document released Tuesday by the White House science 'adviser' and other 'top officials'...
[Crisis upon crisis to push legislation through without reading.]
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Mont. gun law challenges federal powers
A new Montana gun law puts the state at the forefront of a national bid to restore states' rights by attacking up to a century of federal court decisions on Washington's power.
Two other states - Alaska and Texas - have had favorable votes on laws similar to Montana's, declaring that guns that stay within the state are none of the feds' business - and more than a dozen others are considering such laws...
[Can California be far behind?
{humor}]
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Media infatuation with Obama
The Obama infatuation is a great unreported story of our time. Has any recent president basked in so much favorable media coverage? Well, maybe John Kennedy for a moment; but no president since. On the whole, this is not healthy for America.
Our political system works best when a president faces checks on his power. But the press has so far largely abdicated its role as skeptical observer. [snip]
The study examined 1,261 stories by the Washington Post, the New York Times, ABC, CBS and NBC, Newsweek magazine and the "NewsHour" on PBS. Favorable stories (42%) were double the unfavorable (20%), while the rest were "neutral" or "mixed."
It concludes: "President Barack Obama has enjoyed substantially more positive media coverage than either Bill Clinton or George W. Bush during their first months in the White House."
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Tuesday, June 16, 2009
To Speak Out or Not to Speak Out
The folks at niacINsight are doing an absolutely spectacular job covering the uprising in Iran. Everyone should bookmark the site as an indispensable source. I’d like to quibble, though, with something I’ve read there and elsewhere a couple of times over the weekend.
U.S. Representative Mike Pence from Indiana said on CNN that he hopes President Obama offers a word of support for the dissidents in Iran. “This is absolutely the wrong thing to do,” wrote a contributor to the niac site. “Iran has a long history of rejecting foreign meddling in its internal affairs"
But right now the regime may be sticking its proverbial finger in the wind to sense what a foreign reaction to a more ferocious domestic response might look like. It’s somewhat surprising that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps hasn’t already gunned down a substantial number of people. Surely its commanders have at least considered massacring dissidents as in Tienanmen Square. If they feel they might get away with it because no one outside Iran is willing to stop them – which is exactly what happened in Burma last year – silence from the White House might actually increase the likelihood of something monstrous happening.
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The Iranian election: Barack Obama’s cowardly silence
Telegraph [UK]
The Obama administration's response to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's fraudulent election victory is cowardly, lily-livered and wrong.(Snip)As blood flows on the streets of Tehran, the United States government remains as silent as a Trappist Monk. According to The New York Times, the president "did not even convene any high-level White House meetings or conference calls on Sunday". That's not the mark of a leader but a clear display of weakness...
[As usual, we must rely on overseas' media to provide any straight talk on our own President]
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Obama on Cairo Speech: Just Kidding
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[remember this.]“The administration will deal with the situation we have, not what we wish it to be.”
That's what a senior Obama administration official told Mark Landler of The New York Times.
Of course there is a third, less passive, option. The president could seek to affect that situation.
He is the most powerful man alive, after all, and a man whose transformative words, his supporters tell us, can change the world....
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Tehran’s Answer to Obama
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When Obama went to Cairo, it was to signal a new era in America’s relationship with the Muslim world. No longer would the United States deal from a position of strength, but from a position of weakness.
In return for Obama agreeing to deal from a position of weakness, Iran will now deal with the United States from a position of strength...
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Poll: Americans Say Obama Not Tough Enough on North Korea, Iran
Most Americans -- including a majority of Democrats as well as majorities of Republicans and independents -- say President Obama has not been tough enough on North Korea and Iran.
A Fox News poll released Monday finds more than two-thirds of Americans say Obama has not been tough enough on North Korea and Iran (69 percent), while some 15 percent think his actions have been ''about right'' and 3 percent think he has been too tough...
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Thugophilia Isn't Moral
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I think we are going to see, incrementally, perhaps, a rise in the ratings of former president Bush. Iraq is proving to be amazingly resilient, not only functioning as a democracy, but by withstanding the best efforts of Iran to kill it off, proving destabilizing to Iran itself.
By removing Saddam, and trying to isolate Ahmadinejad and appeal to the Iranian people, Bush at least tried to prep the landscape for democratic change....
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NYT's Friedman: Democracy Spreading in Mideast Thanks to Bush
[Yes, that Friedman...]
Neither did I, but much to my surprise, such was said by Thomas Friedman in his most recent piece entitled "Winds of Change?"
Readers are strongly advised to fasten their seatbelts tightly across their waists, for you are about to enter an alternate media reality:
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CBS Publishes New Republic Piece Comparing Bush to Ahmadinejad
In today's "Will Bush Derangement Syndrome Ever End" segment, CBSNews.com published an article from The New Republic comparing Iran's crazed leader who believes the holocaust never happened and Israel should be wiped off the face of the planet to -- wait for it! -- America's 43rd president.
Isn't that special?
In a piece hysterically titled "Meet Iran's George W. Bush," author Laura Secor said Iran's upcoming elections (this is from last Monday) were similar to ours in 2004...
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MSNBC Suggests Obama Helped Defeat Hezbollah in Lebanon
On Tuesday’s Countdown show, MSNBC host Keith Olbermann suggested that President Obama’s speech in Cairo may have been responsible for the defeat of Hezbollah in Lebanon’s parliamentary elections which occurred a few days after the speech.
After a clip of Obama’s speech, the MSNBC host continued: "Three days later, voters in Lebanon elected an American-backed coalition instead of a Hezbollah-backed coalition."
But as Olbermann discussed the possibility that Obama had a hand in the results, he neglected to inform viewers that the apparent 71 out of 128 seats won by pro-Western candidates in 2009 is nearly identical to the 72 won in the last such round of elections in 2005.
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Olbermann Calls Dick Cheney 'As Insane As Any Terrorist'
MSNBC's Keith Olbermann has said a lot of disgraceful things in his tenure as "Countdown" host, but on Thursday evening, he attacked former Vice President Dick Cheney in a fashion that should make all of America's enemies both here and abroad proud."Neurotic, paranoid, false to fact and false to reason, forever self-rationalizing his inner rage at his own impotence, and failure dripping from every word, and as irrational, as separated from the real world, as dishonest, as insane as any terrorist; the former vice president has today humiliated himself beyond redemption."
But that was just the beginning, for moments later, Olbermann said Cheney was "culpable, morally, ethically" for 9/11: "At best, you are guilty of malfeasance and eternally lasting stupidity. At worst, sir, in the deaths of 9/11, you are negligent."
What follows is a video of this abomination along with a full transcript, some lowlights, and videos of Cheney's actual speech:
[And MSNBC is losing viewership - I can't understand it.]
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FLASHBACK s >
Cheney's Top Ten Points Every American Should Consider
CBS’s Schieffer Admits Cheney ‘Winning’ Security Debate
Cheney vs. Obama: A Mismatch
Favorable opinion of Dick Cheney on the rise
.Why is Dennis Ross being ousted as Obama envoy to Iran?
Washington insiders speculate that Obama has caved to Iran's persistent refusal to accept Ross as a U.S. emissary given the diplomat's Jewish background as well as his purported pro-Israel leanings.
Diplomatic sources in Jerusalem surmised that another possibility for Ross' ouster is his just-released book, "Myths, Illusions, and Peace - Finding a New Direction for America in the Middle East."
Ross, who co-wrote the book with David Makovsky, a former journalist who is a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, argued against a linkage between the Palestinian issue and the West's policy against Iran's nuclear ambitions...
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Q&A: Caroline Glick on Netanyahu & the World
GLICK: Obama and his advisors have made clear that their view on the settlements is not based on facts. It is based on their acceptance of the false Arab narrative of the Middle East conflict. They accept Arab historical revisionism that places the cart before the horse by claiming that Israel’s presence in the disputed territories is the cause of the conflict when in fact Israel’s presence in the disputed territories is a consequence of their continuous attempts to invade and destroy Israel. Since the Obama administration’s view is based on a false assertion, it is impermeable to fact and rational argument and therefore it is unlikely to change.
GLICK: It is very significant for Israel and world Jewry and perhaps for Israel’s supporters that Netanyahu responded to Obama’s Cairo speech. That speech was full of distortions of Jewish history and deeply dismissive of the Jewish claims to our homeland. It was absolutely necessary for Netanyahu to respond to Obama’s false and hideous assertion that Israel owes its creation to the Holocaust. And in explaining that the Holocaust could only happen because Israel didn’t exist at the time and by setting out the true 3,500-year-old Jewish connection to the land Netanyahu provided a necessary corrective to Obama’s move to write the Jewish people out of the history of the Middle East. Here too, Obama’s position is based on an Arab myth that the Jews are interlopers in the region.
GLICK: If the Palestinians follow through with their threat to renew their terror war against Israel it will be quite bad. This is so not because Israel will be unable to defend itself. Israel has the means to defend itself. It will be quite bad because, in light of the hostile treatment Israel is suffering at the hands of the Obama administration, and given the central role the U.S. under Lt. Gen. Keith Dayton is playing in arming and training the Palestinian army that will likely be attacking Israeli targets in Judea and Samaria, the U.S. may well side with the Arabs against Israel. The administration is already placing limitations on arms sales to Israel. In this event, Israel will have to move quickly to find other suppliers.
[Highly Recommended > ]
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'U.S. Jewish leaders deeply troubled by Obama'
There is growing concern among the American Jewish community over Obama's Mideast initiatives, this according to the executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Malcolm Hoenlein.
''President Obama's strongest supporters among Jewish leaders are deeply troubled by his recent Middle East initiatives, and some are questioning what he really believes'' ... ''I've heard it from some of his strongest supporters.''
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Obama to Jews: I'm just not that into you
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American Jews and Israel would do well to take a page from the book of Saul Alinsky, who provides the radical underpinning for much of how the Obama left sees the world:
[rember this?]"As an organizer I start from where the world is, as it is, not as I would like it to be."
It is [past] time for American Jews to leave the Democratic Party.
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Monday, June 15, 2009
MAYDAY!...NEVER MIND
As the flu panic recedes, we are left to contemplate this embarrassing fact: we've done it again. That is, responded to a modest risk with a dangerous stampede. The tendency seems to be built into our genes, or into the self-interest of big headlines and high ratings and of government and international health officials, says Michael Fumento, a health writer with a specialty in epidemiology.
To put the risks in perspective:
- Seasonal flu infects 15 million to 60 million Americans a year, hospitalizing 200,000 and killing 36,000.
- The new swine flu has so far killed only 15 in the United States, including one Mexican national who came here for treatment.
- Even in Mexico, where poor health care translates into higher mortality, the disease is not as widespread as we were led to believe; originally, the death count was reported at 159, but in actuality it is only 25.
However, the real threat is what hysteria will do to a sick global economy:
- The SARS panic cost the economies of East and Southeast Asia 0.6 percentage points of 2003 gross domestic product (GDP).
- Last year a World Bank report estimated that just the impact of avoiding infection during a flu pandemic, not the illness itself, would shave 1.9 percent off world GDP.
- Some poorer parts of the world -- including that containing Mexico -- would lose 2.9 percent of GDP.
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Politico's Cummings Whines Cheney's 'Made It Much Harder to Close Guantanamo'
So he's done an awful thing in daring to oppose something President Obama is “committed to doing.” Dreadful.
In fact, she soon charged that in complicating Obama's intention to close Guantanamo -- which Obama had announced without any plan for where to place the detainees -- “Cheney really did damage to the effort to keep our country secure [?] by turning this into a political issue. We were going to have to deal with this and to make it a political issue is not helpful. It's just not.”
To which columnist Charles Krauthammer retorted by pointing out the overwhelming bi-partisan vote to block the closing: “Cheney is the one who turned it into a political issue? I thought it was a 90-6 vote in the Senate. Just about every Democrat in the Senate-”
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Cheney's Top Ten Points Every American Should Consider
1. "I've heard occasional speculation that I'm a different man after 9/11. I wouldn't say that, but I'll freely admit that watching a coordinated, devastating attack on our country from an underground bunker at the White House can affect how you view your responsibilities."
2. "The first attack on the World Trade Center was treated as a law- enforcement problem, with everything handled after the fact: arrests, indictments, convictions, prison sentences, case closed."
3. "By presidential decision last month, we saw the selective release of documents relating to enhanced interrogations. This is held up as a bold exercise in open government, honoring the public's right to know. We're informed as well that there was much agonizing over this decision. Yet somehow, when the soul searching was done and the veil was lifted on the policies of the Bush administration, the public was given less than half the truth."
4. "It's hard to imagine a worse precedent filled with more possibilities for trouble and abuse than to have an incoming administration criminalize the policy decisions of its predecessor. Apart from doing a serious injustice to intelligence operators and lawyers, who deserve far better for their devoted service, the danger here is a loss of focus on national security and what it requires."
5. "We had a lot of blind spots after the attacks on our country, things we didn't know about al Qaeda. We didn't know about al Qaeda's plans, but Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and a few others did know. And with many thousands of innocent lives potentially in the balance, we did not think it made sense to let the terrorists answer questions in their own good time, if they answered them at all."
6. "On his second day in office, President Obama announced he was closing the detention facility at Guantanamo. This step came with little deliberation, and no plan. Now the president says some of these terrorists should be brought to American soil for trial in our court system. Others, he says, will be shipped to third countries; but so far, the United States has had little luck getting other countries to take hardened terrorists."
7. "The administration has found that it's easy to receive applause in Europe for closing Guantanamo, but it's tricky to come up with an alternative that will serve the interest of justice and America's national security."
8. "If fine speechmaking, appeals to reason, or pleas for compassion had the power to move them, the terrorists would long ago have abandoned the field."
9. "It's worth recalling that ultimate power of declassification belongs to the president himself. President Obama has used his declassification authority to reveal what happens in the interrogation of terrorists. Now let him use that same power to show Americans what did not happen thanks to the good work of our intelligence officials."
10. "To the very end of our administration, we kept al-Qaeda terrorists busy with other problems. We focused on getting their secrets instead of sharing ours with them. And on our watch, they never hit this country again. After the most lethal and devastating terrorist attack ever, 7- 1/2 years without a repeat is not a record to be rebuked and scorned, much less criminalized."It's indisputably an achievement of the Bush administration that it prevented the US from being attacked after 9/11. By ramming this point home, Cheney tees things up for some very tough questioning of Obama in the event that the US is attacked again.
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Middle East fertility wars
What does Hillary Rodham Clinton have against Jewish babies? Last week, the secretary of state issued a demarche to Tel Aviv stating that Washington "wants to see a stop to [West Bank] settlements - not some settlements, not outposts, not natural-growth exceptions."
The euphemism "natural growth" refers to children. About 9,600 babies were born in West Bank settlements in 2007, and the State Department views these bundles of joy as a threat to its precious peace process.
The new arrivals require larger houses, schools, playgrounds and other facilities, hence the need for the settlement growth that is upsetting Foggy Bottom. [despite no additional land being annexed - i.e., they're not to build housing additions as their families grow. Why is this important to Palestinians? ... ]
The no-baby declaration came as welcome news to Palestinians, who are rapidly losing their advantage in the breeding battle.
Aggressive international family-planning programs contributed to Palestinian fertility rates dropping almost 30 percent between 2003 and 2008, to 3.31 children born per woman. This compares to 2.77 births in Israel, which experienced a 10 percent increase over the same five-year time period. If these trends continue, Israelis will be outpacing Palestinians in a few years.
For this reason abortion is now a crime in the Palestinian Authority... [snip]
The State Department would do well to stay out of this issue.
The West Bank settlers will not respond well to finger-wagging from the United States over how many children they choose to have. Behind the euphemism "natural growth" are thousands of babies, girls and boys, who are objects of love and adoration of their doting parents.
Secretary Clinton's devotion to the peace process is a much less powerful force than the love of Israeli parents for their children....
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Judicial 'Activism' Isn't the Issue
Liberals and conservatives both show too much deference to Congress.
The growing dispute between conservatives and liberals over the Supreme Court nomination of Sonia Sotomayor obscures a more troubling point of agreement: The government should almost always win.
Many conservatives who think of themselves as proponents of limited government would be surprised to discover that conservative judges begin their constitutional analyses in almost every context by placing a thumb firmly on the government side of the scale. It's called "judicial deference." Many liberals, who take pride in being "empathetic," would be surprised to learn that liberal judges also subscribe to judicial deference.
The practical result is that judges of both persuasions almost never enforce any constitutional limit on the power of government to regulate property and the economy. Given that the vast majority of law concerns these two areas, the real crisis in constitutional law is not judicial "activism" but judicial passivism... [snip]
Bad government is usually the result of runaway government. And runaway government is usually the result of government exceeding its constitutional prerogatives. Because they have a far stronger stake in the integrity of checks and balances on government power than in the culture war, conservatives and liberals should declare a truce over "activism" and reflect on the need to take the whole Constitution seriously...
[Highly Recommended > ]
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44% Believe Constitution Doesn’t Restrict Government Enough
Eighty-three percent (83%) of voters nationwide rate the U.S. Constitution as good or excellent, and there is little public support for changing the document.
However, the latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 44% believe the Constitution doesn't place enough restrictions on the government. Only 10% hold the opposite view and say the nation’s governing charter places too many restrictions on government. Thirty-eight percent (38%) say the balance is about right.
Those figures reflect a modest shift from a year ago. The number who believe that there are not enough restrictions on government is up five points while the number who see too many restrictions is down four points.
As on many issues, there is a huge gap between the Political Class and the rest of the nation. Most who share Political Class views believe the current constitutional balance is about right. But 50% of those with populist or Mainstream views believe that there aren’t enough restrictions on government.
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Judges Order Own $$ Hike
All those in favor of giving yourself a raise, say ''aye.'' A state appeals court yesterday ordered legislators to give New York's 1,250 judges a raise within 90 days, saying the lawmakers "abused their power" by not doing so.
[Does anyone not recognize how out of control our judiciary has become? It's past time it be fixed.]
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52% Still Fear Government Will ‘Help’ Economy Too Much
Most U.S. voters continue to worry that the federal government will do too much in reacting to the country’s current economic problems.
For the second month in a row, 52% of voters express concern about the possibility of too much government action, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. That’s up from a low of 43% in mid-February to and remains the highest level of concern since Barack Obama was elected president in November.
The survey was conducted just before the government took a 60% percent ownership stake in General Motors in exchange for an additional $30 billion in taxpayer funds to keep the auto giant in business. GM has already gotten $20 billion in government loans to stay afloat.
Sixty-seven percent (67%) of voters oppose the GM bailout deal, a view shared by most Americans for months...
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LEAP IN U.S. DEBT HITS TAXPAYERS WITH 12 PERCENT MORE RED INK
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Taxpayers are on the hook for an extra $55,000 a household to cover rising federal commitments made just in the past year for retirement benefits, the national debt and other government promises...
Source: Dennis Cauchon, "Leap in U.S. debt hits taxpayers with 12% more red ink," USA Today
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NTERVENTION BY THE FEDERAL RESERVE
Neither the $700 billion bank bailout known as TARP and the $787 billion stimulus package approach the civic munificence displayed by the Federal Reserve.
In the past year, the Fed has undertaken interventions in the economy broader and deeper than anything attempted since its founding in 1913. And with the credit system paralyzed, the central bank increasingly looks like the lender of both first and last resort. Take the examples below:
- In October, the Commercial Paper Funding Facility was given up to $1.8 trillion to buy commercial paper (short-term debt that companies use to fund day-to-day operations like payroll).
- Up to $1.45 trillion was appropriated to buy debt from Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Loan Banks, as well as mortgage-backed securities from Fannie, Freddie and Ginnie Mae ('expanded' from an initial $600 billion commitment in November 2008).
- The Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility (TALF) was given up $1 trillion to spur consumer lending by purchasing securities back by credit cards, student loans, auto loans and other debt.
Largely unencumbered by congressional meddling, the Fed has in most cases refused to reveal the beneficiaries of its largesse lest panicky investors and depositors lose faith...
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45% Say Cancel Rest of Stimulus Spending
Forty-five percent (45%) of Americans say the rest of the new government spending authorized in the $787-billion economic stimulus plan should now be canceled. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that just 36% disagree and 20% are not sure.
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The Alice in Wonderland World of the Greens
"Curiouser and curiouser", said Alice. Not an unnatural response to the wholesale departure from reality she experienced at the Mad Hatter's Tea Party. And we have precisely the same head-scratching response to the refusal of green ideologues to grasp the energy realities of our age, especially as they affect a realistic role for renewable energy sources.
"We all know ..." Is that so? Because it seems that all the scientists and informed climate observers who signed the Manhattan Declaration clearly don't "already know". Neither do a raft of the world's leading climatologists and scientists in Japan, the UK, Australia, Russia, New Zealand, Denmark, Poland, the United States and hundreds of other prominent scientists, not to mention the 66 percent of Americans who are not convinced.
Indeed of the famous 2,000+ who proclaimed to "know" on behalf of the UN's IPCC, it seems a mere 20 percent (yes, around just 400) worked in any climate science capacity. None of which should come as a surprise when even the UN's own objective climate data reveals that the latest cycle of global warming ended in 1998.
So when Greenpeace states: "We all know..." what they actually mean is all Green ideologues "know"... [snip]
As we have said elsewhere, by the year 2030, while world energy demand is likely to increase by 50 percent, all serious projections agree that oil, gas and coal will still account for around 87 percent of world energy production.
Somebody's math somewhere is clearly wildly awry. So let's look at some basic facts...
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