THE IMMORALITY OF WAXMAN-MARKEY

If the pending Waxman-Markey energy and climate bill (HR 2454) becomes law, utility bills will soar. Farm and business energy costs will skyrocket -- and be passed on to consumers, or defrayed by layoffs. Everything Americans grow, make, buy and do will be far pricier. And bureaucrats will control our lives, says Investor's Business Daily (IBD).

Written largely by professional environmentalists, the complex 942-page bill would require an 83 percent reduction in U.S. carbon dioxide emissions by 2050 -- a level last seen in 1908.

Its costly provisions would dictate every aspect of our lives, for example:

• Compared to the no cap-and-trade regime, Waxman-Markey would cost the United States a cumulative $9.6 trillion in real gross domestic product (GDP) losses by 2035.
• The bill would also cause an additional 1.1 million job losses each year, raise electricity rates 90 percent after adjusting for inflation, provoke a 74 percent hike in inflation-adjusted gasoline prices [which raises the price of everything else] and add $1,500 to the average family's annual energy bill.

When the House Energy and Commerce Committee voted to approve Waxman-Markey, they also defeated amendments that would have suspended its punitive provisions if electricity prices go up 10 percent after inflation, unemployment reaches 15 percent or gasoline prices hit five dollars. [I.e., green no matter the cost to humans]

Thus, the bill radically "transforms" energy and economic systems, taxes and hobbles hydrocarbon use, mandates and subsidizes "green" energy and doles out innumerable preferences and penalties.

[I.e., THE mechanism by which Government can control and profit from all activity. ]

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Then >

"OPPOSE WAXMAN-MARKEY, HR 2454"


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...
.



House of Representatives switchboard:
202.225.3121 - 202.224-3121
.

THE PHANTOM UNINSURED

At a town hall meeting in Green Bay, Wis., last week, President Obama spoke of the need to cover the "46 million people who don't have health insurance." At another point he simply referred to the "46 million uninsured." At neither point did he refer to them as "Americans," says Investor's Business Daily (IBD). That was wise, because not all them are, says the Census Bureau:

• According to "Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States," a Census Bureau report published last August, of the 45.6 million persons in the United States that did not have health insurance at some point in 2007, 9.7 million, or about 21 percent, were not U.S. citizens.
• The Census Bureau does not ask if anyone is here legally or illegally, so we can't tell how many are actually illegal aliens; we do know that throughout the Southwest and elsewhere, emergency rooms have been overburdened by a continuous flood of illegal aliens.
• Also among the uninsured are 17 million Americans who live in households where the annual income exceeds $50,000; 7 million of those without coverage have incomes of $75,000 a year or more.

The notion that the uninsured are 'without' health care is bogus:

• They consumed an estimated $116 billion worth of health care in 2008, according to the advocacy group Families USA.
• Many of the uninsured are young and healthy (40 percent are between ages 18 and 34) and at this point in their lives, particularly in this economy, choose to put their dollars elsewhere.

Subtract noncitizens and those who can afford their own insurance but choose not to purchase it, and the number of uninsured falls dramatically.

"Many Americans are uninsured by choice," wrote Dr. David Gratzer in his book "The Cure: How Capitalism Can Save American Health Care."

Gratzer cited a study of the "non-poor uninsured" from the California HealthCare Foundation.

"Why the lack of insurance (among people who own homes and computers)?" Gratzer asks. "One clue is that 60 percent reported being in excellent health or very good health."

[And critically, states have mandated expansive coverage that most people refuse to pay for. We need to de-regulate the insurance industry (starting with making it an inter-state system vs. the closed markets which prevail today) so folks can buy insurance against truly catastrophic circumstance instead of politically correct (i.e., sex change) coverage at premium cost.

Involving the government will only move us in the wrong direction on all counts.]

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image toon - hcare = Side effects of Oby care = death

LESSONS OF THE FAIRNESS DOCTRINE

For five years the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) investigated whether "broadcasters are appropriately addressing the needs of their local communities." It concluded that the responsiveness of broadcasters has been less than ideal, and that FCC policies should change to foster more 'responsiveness' to local audiences.

In a new study, Cato Institute scholar John Samples argues, "Broadcast localism, like the Fairness Doctrine, is likely to do significant harm to freedom of speech. Policymakers who are aware of history will recall the lessons of the Fairness Doctrine and reject localism mandates for broadcasters."

For example:

• History suggests that the Fairness Doctrine served as a way for presidential administrations to systematically reduce or intimidate dissent of their policies.
• The doctrine also haphazardly restricted the speech of marginal individuals on the left and the right.
• The most frequently targeted speakers were conservative Christian ministers with a strong hostility to communism.

The current period seems similar to the Kennedy era:

• A new liberal president is pushing an ambitious agenda and fears the influence of conservative critics; now, as then, the president's political allies hope to manage speech with the help of the FCC.
• But newly empowered advisory boards could demand that license holders broadcast critics of the president's critics during the time set aside for local programming.
• Should a broadcaster refuse to follow that 'advice', the renewal of its license could easily come into question; after all, as members of the advisory board might testify, the license holder had refused to meet the needs of its local audience.
• The broadcaster might also choose to stay on the good side of its advisory board by deciding not to air "unfair" attacks on the president or his administration.

The history of the Fairness Doctrine suggests that the word "localism" will be defined in practice as the "raw political advantage" of those in charge of managing speech. Moreover, both the Fairness Doctrine and the localism proposal share a common weakness: they make broadcasters subservient to politics...

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Women turn history into a bizarre soap opera

Women historians have feminised history by focusing on the 'soap opera' of key figures' love lives rather than their achievements, David Starkey claims.

The TV historian said his female counterparts concentrated on 'big box-office' subjects such as the six wives of Henry VIII instead of major political events of the time.

Dr Starkey, 54, said: 'One of the great problems has been that Henry, in a sense, has been absorbed by his wives. Which is bizarre.

'But it's what you expect from feminised history, the fact that so many of the writers who write about this are women and so much of their audience is a female audience. Unhappy marriages are big box-office.'

In an interview with Radio Times, he said the programmes would focus on the monarch himself, adding:

'Wives appear simply to explain or complicate the story of Henry. This is his development, his psychology and, above all, why he matters.'

Dr Starkey said the 'soap opera' of Henry's personal life should come second to the political consequences of his rule, such as the Reformation and the break with Roman Catholicism. And he added:

'If you are to do a proper history of Europe before the last five minutes, it is a history of white males because they were the power players, and to pretend anything else is to falsify.'

[He obviously didn't get the memo: White men are to blame for {fill in 'problem' here}...]

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[HT:GC]

image toon = 1st fnn hcare = Swine being profiled at airport

600 protest Pelosi in Houston

Hundreds laid down their money to watch an onstage interview with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) in Houston, the epicenter of Bush Country, on Friday night. And hundreds turned up outside the venue to Tea-Party Pelosi. And the protesters themselves seemed pretty hardcorewith signs like,

"I'm the ProLife gun toting Consitutionalist the D.H.S. warned you about."

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image toon 1st reps bdd fnn - Speaker = tweeter woofer Pelosi= Liar

83% Say U.S. Legal System Should Treat All Americans Equally

Eighty-three percent (83%) of U.S. voters say America’s legal system should apply the law equally to all Americans rather than using the law to help those who have less power and influence. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that just 8% disagree.

This belief is shared overwhelmingly by Republicans, Democrats and voters not affiliated with either party.

However, voters are more divided when asked how the legal system is actually performing today. Thirty-seven percent (37%) say the U.S. legal system generally provides unfair advantages to minorities, while 34% say it generally treats all Americans equally.

Eighteen percent (18%) of voters say the American legal system generally discriminates against minorities.

[Coincidence that 17% don't think the legal system should apply equally and 18% think minorities are discriminated against??]

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image toon - 1st fnn bbro legal = Sotomayor's ankle due to shooting self in foot

Hiroshima, 2.0

I am referring to Siobhan Gorman's front-page story in last Wednesday's Journal, in which she reported widespread cyberspying of the U.S. electricity grid, much of it apparently originating in China and Russia.

"Authorities investigating the intrusions have found software tools left behind that could be used to destroy infrastructure components." ... "If we go to war with them, they will try to turn them on." [snip]

If you shut down power for about three days it causes very little damage. We can handle a long weekend. But if you shut down power for longer, all kinds of other things begin to happen. After about 10 days the curve levels off with about 72% of all economic activity shut down...

Plainly, we have a problem. And as we consider ever-more elaborate defenses for our vulnerable networks, here's a modest suggestion: Gently alert our non-NATO "partners" that we might be in their electricity grids, too.

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FLASHBACK > China deploys secure computer operating system

"China is playing chess while we're playing checkers"
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image toon - china sclm lbrty - Chinese flab wallpapered over American

Willful Deafness about the Real Meaning of Two States

[HT:DT {-1 demerit for not 'briefing'}]
The Palestinians, Saudis and Egyptians propose two states. The U.N., E.U., U.S. demand two states. Most Israeli governments have agreed to the concept of two states. Other than Israel, none of the proponents of a "two-state" solution ever planned for one of the states to be the Jewish State of Israel.

Just the thought of such a state is an insult to those who live in all-Muslim countries. On Sunday, when Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu offered a Palestinian State if there is recognition of a Israel as the national homeland for Jewish people, a senior Palestinian negotiator responded,

"Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu can wait a thousand years without finding a single Palestinian prepared to accept his offer."

The offer of living side-by-side in peace and tolerance is too offensive to discuss even for the "moderate" Arab Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said the demand that Palestinians recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people

"schuttles [sic] the chances for peace."

So what are these two states supposed to look like?

The Arab spokesmen are crystal clear on their intentions. One Judea/Samaria, a.k.a. the West Bank, will be 100% Palestinian immediately. Not a single Jew will be allowed to live there. It will be armed and ready to fire at close range into Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Haifa.

If history is a guide [and it's the only guide we have], within a short time, Hamas will challenge and beat the P.A., gain control and begin firing... [snip]

The other state, now Israel, will not only have to defend itself from terrorist and rocket attacks on all borders, it will need to open its doors to millions of Arabs, who have fabricated a “right” to return to Israel rather than a “right” of return to a Palestinian State.

Israel will then face destruction from within... [snip]

The President certainly doesn’t publicly chastise the Palestinian and other Arabs who reject a Jewish state as he did Israel’s Prime Minister for rejecting another terrorist state on Israel’s border.

The President praises the proposal for two states as an `important step` forward even though Palestinians and their Arab brothers have for over 60 years flatly rejected countless proposals for two-states if one of those states happens to be Jewish...

[Another sham. Again and again, our 'leaders' speak of a "two state solution" and our 'professional' media never ask any of them to name those two states...]

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Obama`s Real Agenda: Israel`s Dimona Nuclear Facility

[HT:DT {2nd demerit for again not 'briefing'}]

And any nation - including Iran - should have the right to access peaceful nuclear power if it complies with its responsibilities under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. That commitment is at the core of the Treaty, and it must be kept for all who fully abide by it. And I am hopeful that all countries in the region can share in this goal."

Pres. Barack Obama, June 4, 2009

As a policy statement, this means that America (or any other country) cannot deny the right of any country to WMD. It undercuts the reasons for America`s attack in Iraq, assents to nuclear proliferation and precludes any action against Iran.

It also turns the focus on Israel.

Amidst all of the distortions and inaccuracies of Pres Obama`s speech in Cairo, this paragraph sends chills through Israel`s intelligence community. Obama`s emphasis on a commitment to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, something which Israel has refused to agree, since that means opening all of its facilities to inspection - including its top secret plant in Dimona - is a direct threat to Israel`s security.

Aware of Israel`s long-standing policy in this matter, Obama shifts the attack. By linking support for Israel against Iran with the existence of Dimona and Israel's refusal to sign the pact, Obama can blame Israel for American inaction against Iran, and lack of support for its war in Afghanistan.

It`s a perfect excuse: `Israel didn`t do enough; it`s Israel`s fault.`

[Shameful. 'With friends like us... ]

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Carter Wants Obama to Remove Hamas from Terror List

[HT:DT {-3rd demerit for not 'briefing' - you're pushing it}]

Carter’s comments came during a joint press conference with Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh following their meeting today in Gaza. The former president said he tried to convince Hamas leaders to denounce violence, accept the existing interim agreements and recognize the right of the Jewish state to exist.

Haniyeh told Carter that he supported any plan that aims at preserving Arab rights and leads to the establishment of a sovereign Arab state on all the territories that were occupied by Israel in 1967 "with Jerusalem as its capital." He urged Carter to pressure Israel to lift the security blockade which was imposed on Gaza’s border crossings to prevent weapons smuggling. [presumably so they could flow once more]

During his visit Carter handed over a letter from kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit’s [kidnapped on 25 June 2006 by Palestinian militants] parents and asked the group to deliver it on humanitarian grounds.

Haniyeh said Hamas desired to end the Shalit case [prove it: free him] and welcomed Carter's mediation [media] efforts [exposure].

[Some things are recession proof: useful idiocy is alive and well...]

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Gilad Shalit (image courtesy of the Shalit family)

"If Arabs laid down their arms there'd be no war. If Israel laid down its arms, there'd be no Israel."

Council ef ex-Muslims

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[spot the example that's not funny]

image toon = israel gwot islm = Iran's idiot 3 truth examples

Earnest goodwill doesn't substitute for foreign policy

President Obama likes to see himself as a pragmatist, but in foreign policy he is proving to be a supreme idealist of the Woodrow Wilson variety.

Like Wilson's, Obama's foreign policy increasingly seems to rest on the assumption that nations will act on the basis of what they perceive to be the goodwill, good intentions or moral purity of other nations, in particular the United States. If other nations have refused to cooperate with us, it is because they perceive the United States as aggressive or evil. [snip]

In the speech, the Washington Post reports, "Obama made his own biography the starting point for a new U.S. relationship with Islam." Or as the New York Times put it, while "the president offered few details on how to solve problems around the globe," his basic argument "boiled down to this: Barack Hussein Obama was standing on the podium in this Muslim capital as the American president." [I.e., all about him. snip]

The last president who sincerely pursued this approach was Woodrow Wilson. He, too, believed that the display of evident goodwill and desire for peace, uncorrupted by the base motives of national interest or ambition, gave him the special moral authority to sway other nations. And Wilson was as beloved around the globe as Obama is today, possibly more beloved, at least for a moment.

His gifts to persuade, however, proved ephemeral, and the results of his efforts were, from his own perspective, an utter failure...

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image toon - gwot nsec intl = kim nkorea to Oby = still want to talk

GM needs fresh start from UAW, too

In March of this year, GM President Rick Wagoner was forced to resign at the insistence of the Obama administration. That Ron Gettelfinger, Wagoner's counterpart at the UAW, has clung to his own position is an injustice, but one that could easily be remedied with some pressure from Deese. Continuing to invite Gettelfinger to the table for restructuring talks makes as much sense as tapping Bernie Madoff to reform the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Gettelfinger oversaw the implementation of a UAW contract that runs to more than 1,110 pages, nearly five times larger than the nimble non-union contract Toyota works with. While GM bled $70 billion during the past two years, Gettelfinger resisted all significant cost-savings measures while loudly trumpeting trivial concessions like eliminating Viagra from the UAW health plan and giving up the Easter Monday holiday.

GM's workforce has seen countless layoffs and plant closures caused by deep-rooted union legacy costs and head-in-the-sand denial. When GM made a last-ditch attempt at viability by trying to restructure in 2007, the union instigated a futile 41-hour "shot across the bow" strike that in many ways sealed the automaker's fate.

The UAW has failed its members, and GM will never be competitive with the UAW's noose around its neck. The American public is set to become 60 percent shareholders, so we've all got a stake in Brian Deese's performance. We the shareholders can only hope that President Obama's fledgling car czar will exceed expectations, make the tough call, and sever the union cord for good.

The UAW had a good run, but it's time to go...

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80% want government to sell its stake in Car Companies Now

A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that only 11% disagree and want the government to retain ownership for a long time.

Support for ending the government ownership is so strong that 64% favor a proposal that would force the government to sell the auto companies within a year. Only 26% are opposed.

Voters feel nearly as strongly about the ownership interest the government has taken in several bailed-out U.S. banks. Seventy-one percent (71%) say the government should sell that ownership to private investors as soon as possible.

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Americans Have Voted ‘No' on GM Bailout From Day One

When GM came begging to the federal government last fall, driven to the brink of bankruptcy by poor management, high labor costs and a faltering economy, America signaled that the love affair was over. In survey after survey since, Rasmussen Reports has found that Americans are not in a bailout mood, for GM or anybody.

In November just after the election, 45% of Americans were opposed to the loans, 35% favored them, and 20% were undecided. Four-out-of-five (80%) were concerned the government would get too involved in the private economy.

That same month, nearly half of U.S. voters (48%) said it was better for the economy to let companies like General Motors fail rather than providing government subsidies to keep them in business.

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Once, We Would Have Called It a Scandal

In 1921, oil tycoon Harry Sinclair gave several prize head of cattle and around $269,000 to President Harding's Secretary of the Interior, Albert Fall.

In return, Sinclair got the exclusive rights to drill in an oil field in Wyoming. Sinclair's no-bid contract became the Teapot Dome scandal, the most notorious example of political corruption in America prior to Watergate.

Between 2000 and 2008, the United Auto Workers (UAW) union gave $23,675,562 to the Democratic Party and its candidates.

In 2008 alone, the UAW gave $4,161,567 to the Democratic Party and Barack Obama.

"At a Time When Some American Workers are Facing Stiff Pay Cuts, UAW Workers Gave Up Their Customary Paid Holiday on Easter Monday"

In return, the UAW received 55 percent of Chrysler and 17.5 percent of GM, plus billions of dollars.

"Never Has an American Union Done So Well At the Expense of Shareholders and Creditors"

But nobody's calling this a scandal.

"The issue of secured creditors' rights is bigger than Chrysler. It's an essential foundation of our capital markets. And fundamentally, this is about the law."

It's time we start.

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image toon - sclm bbro auto = How goes GM goes the nation...

GOVERNMENT'S PROFLIGATE FISCAL POLICIES LIKELY TO LEAD TO 1970S-STYLE STAGFLATION

Rather than cure Great Britain's economic recession, Gordon Brown's current fiscal policies are more likely to lead to 1970s-style stagflation, says David B. Smith, a professor at the University of Derby:

• Using the 2009 Budget forecasts, Smith calculates that next year the ratio of government expenditure to national income will rise to 53.4 percent, the highest ratio since World War II and 6.9 percent above the peak recorded in World War I.
• The ratio of public expenditure to private spending, which was 92.4 percent in 2008, will rise to 107 percent in 2009 and 114.5 percent in 2010 -- the highest burden since 1945; the private sector will therefore have to carry more than its own weight in government activity.
• To fund this, public sector net borrowing will increase from 8 percent of national income in 2008-09, to 14.1 percent in 2009-10, and 13.5 percent in 2011-12.

This represents the longest and largest run of fiscal deficits in Britain's peacetime history. There must be serious doubt whether deficits on this scale can be financed in a non-inflationary manner, without very large capital inflows from abroad. And it is hard to see why such inflows should be forthcoming now that the British economy has become so highly taxed by international standards.

[Sound familiar? And by a trivial 2/10th of a percent (49.7 v 49.9%), America is the second highest taxed industrial nation in the world...

and of course; FLASHBACK >

US Budget Deficit: $1.8T; Debt to GDP Ratio Hits Shocking 70% ]

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Will Widespread Global Cooling Reports Freeze Al Gore Media Credibility?

It is "an inconvenient truth" for Al Gore that the world is currently experiencing some of the coldest weather in decades. Just how cold? How about snow in Saudi Arabia in May according to this report?

According to a story in the Saudi Gazette and sourced to the American News Agency, the Associated Press, snow fell in Al-Baha city, to the south-west of Riyadh, on Tuesday.

If this were the only such report, it could be written off as just an isolated incident of freak weather. Unfortunately for Al Gore's credibility there have been widespread reports of unseasonably cold weather from many sources including a story yesterday in the Minneapolis Star Tribune about a "year without summer"...

[A: nope; there's too much money at stake to give up.]

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Al Gore invests millions to make billions in cap-and-trade software

Al Gore’s venture capital firm has invested $6 million in a software company that stands to make billions of dollars from cap-and-trade regulation — further fueling controversy that Gore lied about his profiteering from cap-and-trade to Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and the House Energy and Environment Subcommittee during testimony in April.

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State Department Says China to Get U.S. Aid under New Climate Deal

(CNSNews.com) - U.S. Special Envoy for Climate Change Todd Stern said that there was “no question” that China would receive both financial and technological assistance from the United States as part of upcoming climate change talks to be conducted in Copenhagen, Denmark.

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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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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image toon - vals libs crpt - Notre Dame degree next to abortion trophys

On Gov. Palin All the Lies Fit to Print

It seems that Froma Harrop of Creator's Syndicate news service was on vacation from just about five days before the general election until today and she's just catching up on all the Palin hatin' she must have missed. Unfortunately for Harrop, she still hasn't caught up with the truth yet because her latest is filled with every lie about Governor Palin she could jam into one column.

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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image toon 1st fnn sclm bbro lbrty = Michelle to Oby = need all Czars?

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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image toon 1st - lbrty sclm bbro = Oby's czars strangling USam

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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[that too is coming]

Uncontrolled Presidential Power is Inherently Totalitarian in Nature…

.
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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image toon c-art - bddbdd 1st lbrty bbro sclm - Constitution Under New Management

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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FNC's Catherine Herridge traveled to Bermuda to meet the four Chinese Muslim Uighurs just released from Guantanamo Bay and she elicited from them that living in China is worse than life at Guantanamo. Talking to them through an interpreter at their new home, a pink bungalow with a swimming pool, Herridge reported:

“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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image toon - gwot nsec intl 1st - Gitmo-Palau waterboarding at 200M$ cost

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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image toon - gwot nsec islm = Oby and OBL w-bomb reaching out

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

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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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image toon - mny auto sclm reps = Oby's ganster politics re Chrysler v UAW crpt

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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image toon - reps mny = Oby = remain calm debt attack only photo op

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.

For the second time in little over a year, it looks as though the world may be heading for a serious food crisis, thanks to our old friend "climate change". In many parts of the world recently the weather has not been too brilliant for farmers. After a fearsomely cold winter, June brought heavy snowfall across large parts of western Canada and the northern states of the American Midwest. In Manitoba last week, it was -4ºC. North Dakota had its first June snow in 60 years.

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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mage toon - msm bias - Thomas re 'sort of' god = right wing bias - libs

that'll do.

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image toon - 1st fnn = Larry King in High Definition = not so grreat

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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