Just a little reminder of how transparently corrupt the elite media has become.
Via Answering Muslims:
ABC News recently did a 20/20 special titled “Islam: Questions and Answers,” with Diane Sawyer, Bill Weir, and Lama Hasan. The program drew attention to moderate Muslims who will serve as America’s “first line of defense” against terrorism. Unfortunately, one of the moderate Muslims presented by ABC isn’t so moderate.
Ludwig von Mises. He totally understand the leftist mentality. He said this in 1954 and yet Mises gives a flawless description of the leftist mindset and tactics.
What public school history books often do not tell you is that the KKK was the militant wing of the Democratic Party.
Historian David Barton:
David Barton: Our Public School books have filtered out most of the good changes that American Christians carried out.
The Republican Party in many states such as Texas were founded by black Americans. The KKK was as partisan as it was racist.
At the time of publication the links provided are working and are varified.
Sections in brackets added by Political Arena.
Via PJ Media:
Official list of Occupy Wall Street’s supporters, sponsors and sympathizers
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Communist Party USA
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American Nazi Party
Media Matters, American Nazi Party, White Honor, Sunshine State News |
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Ayatollah Khamenei, Supreme Leader of Iran
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Barack Obama
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The government of North Korea
Korean Central News Agency (North Korean state-controlled news outlet), The Marxist-Leninist, Wall Street Journal, Times of India |
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Louis Farrakhan, Nation of Islam
video statement (starting at 8:28), Black in America, Weasel Zippers, Philadelphia Weekly |
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Revolutionary Communist Party
Revolutionary Communist Party, Revolution newspaper, in-person appearance |
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David Duke [Former Klan leader and now anti-Semetic ‘celebrity’]
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Joe Biden
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Hugo Chavez
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Revolutionary Guards of Iran
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Black Panthers (original)
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Socialist Party USA
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US Border Guard [Supremicist Extremist Group Note: not affiliated with the Minuteman Project]
White Reference, www.usborderguard.com, Gateway Pundit, Just Another Day blog |
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Industrial Workers of the World
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CAIR [Council on American Islamic Relations – Public Relations front group for the Muslim Brotherhood]
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Nancy Pelosi
Talking Points Memo, video statement, ABC News, The Weekly Standard |
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Communist Party of China
People’s Daily (Communist Party organ), Reuters, chinataiwan.org, The Telegraph |
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Hezbollah
almoqawama.org, almoqawama.org (2), almoqawama.org (3), wikipedia |
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9/11Truth.org [The “Bush took the towers down” conspiracy group]
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International Bolshevik Tendency
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Anonymous
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White Revolution
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International Socialist Organization
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PressTV (Iranian government outlet)
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Marxist Student Union
Marxist Student Union, Big Government, marxiststudentunion.blogspot.com |
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Freedom Road Socialist Organization
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ANSWER [Partially funded by communist groups and nations]
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Party for Socialism and Liberation
Liberation News (1), pslweb.org, The Daily Free Press, Liberation News (2) |
[Editor’s Note: Remember that Newsweek knew about Monica Lewinski and decided to try to kill the story so it was leaked to Matt Drudge. In the case of John Edwards many in the elite media knew about the affair, but all of them decided to cover it up until the National Inquirer broke the story.
Remember, the quality of the propaganda (read bullshit) is MUCH higher this election season. That is because it used to be aimed at Independents who started counting yard signs two weeks before an election. New attitude change propaganda is aimed at people sympathetic to the TEA Party which is most Independents. TEA/Independents are more politically informed so the new propaganda is smarter and designed to target conservative sensibilities as well as people’s cynicism about government, so the lies from the hired political communications guns are based on variations of truths you have heard before. It is very effective.]
The video below is a textbook example of how to do an interview and deal with a false accusation. Cain’s reaction over the weekend was to challenge the elite media to name names, who are these anonymous sources?
Notice the elite media’s reaction to an accusation by anonymous sources, buy a known bogus hit piece writer from Politico (Vogel), compared to how they reacted to multiple women who spoke out against Bill Clinton including credible claims of rape (Juanita Brodderick) and sexual harassment/assault (Paula Jones, Dolly Kyle Browning, Kathleen Willey, Elizabeth Ward Gracen and the list goes on) and not to mention multiple affairs (Gennifer Flowers, Monica Lewinski). In the case of Bill Clinton they circled the wagons and attacked the women. The Democrats and the elite media even very personally attacked Linda Tripp who was simply a witness who told the truth about the evidence she had.
After the Clarence Thomas attack there was a surge of bogus sexual harassment suits in the 90’s. Anyone who was a CEO would/could be a target of one. It is called a harassment suit.
Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann, Glenn Beck, Rick Perry, Herman Cain. Notice that the attacks came out when each one of these people was at their peak.
Yesterday was Herman Cain’s best fundraising day ever.
Now the Elite Media is crying “cover up”. The Cain Campiagn are staffed by political noobs whose messaging was muttered for the first daywhile they were trying to figure out from who and where this anonymous allegation came from.
The Cain Campaign has always done this when faced with a new issue or critique. It takes them a few days to get their footing just as it did on his Israel comments, abortion comments, answer to Homosexuality questions, the comments about not having Muslims in his administration etc. No one should be surprised that it was the same way with this curve ball.
The elite media doesn’t want to talk about the allegation because their story is a joke and from an anonymous source. So the elite media watching the story become about the Politico reporters who havce posted made up quotes in hit pieces before about SAarah Palin and others, have decided to move the goal post and interpret Cains messaging problems on a “cover up”.
According to witnesses in the incident Cain is aware of all he did was tell someone that they where about as tall as his wife and brought his hand to his chin, so she filed a harassment suit saying that Cain made a gesture that made her think of oral sex. Some official at the NRA paid her a small sum of money to go away. Harassment suits happen a lot. But here is the rub, since it is an anonymous source with few details Cain can not be sure if this is the incident or not.
Nice catch 22 isn’t it? If it is about this incident than there was no sexual behavior at all and this means nothing, if it is not this incident it is from an anonymous source with next to no details so it still means nothing, in both cases there is nothing to cover up. Like we said, this is just the elite media moving the goal post because if they talk about the allegation the story becomes about the liberal reporter who has a history.
The Media Research Center varifies our memory:
Networks Hype Vague Cain Charges, Ignored Sexual Harassment Claims Against Clinton
The three networks have aggressively covered vague charges of sexual harassment against Herman Cain, but brushed aside far more serious and specific claims against Bill Clinton.Since the Herman Cain sexual harassment story broke late Sunday night, the broadcast networks have covered it extensively: full stories on Monday’s morning news shows (ABC’s Good Morning America led off their broadcast); full stories on Monday’s evening news shows (the CBS Evening News made it their top item) and ABC’s Nightline; and the top story on all three Tuesday morning shows.
Good Morning America’s George Stephanopoulos on Monday hyped the story as a “bombshell blast” and on Tuesday he derided Cain’s “bizarre series of interviews” on the subject. On Tuesday’s Early Show, Jan Crawford highlighted how Cain has been “trying to shoot down these allegations.” NBC’s Matt Lauer gloated that the Republican was “finding out the hard way about the attention that goes along with being a front-runner.”
Cain’s accusers are still anonymous. Three women publicly accused Bill Clinton of far more serious instances of sexual harassment in the 1990s, but the networks all but ignored them. The coverage that did exist was often skeptical, insulting and hostile, an astonishing double standard.
– Paula Jones, who accused Bill Clinton of exposing himself to her in a hotel room when she was a state employee in Arkansas, held a public press conference in February 1994, CBS and NBC ignored those charges, while ABC devoted just 16 seconds to Jones’ press conference.
As a January 29, 1998 Media Reality Check pointed out, “The rest of the media waited three months, until Jones filed suit, and the networks then did just 21 stories in that month.”
Appearing on the late Tim Russert’s CNBC program, then-Nightly News anchor Tom Brokaw dismissed, “It didn’t seem to most people, entirely relevant to what was going on at the time. These are the kind of charges raised about the President before.”
In the Jones case, the networks were openly disdainful of covering her accusations. “It’s a little tough to figure out who’s being harassed,” NBC Today host Bryant Gumbel smugly asserted (May 10, 1994).
After ABC’s Sam Donaldson interviewed Jones for Prime Time Live in June 1994, anchor Charles Gibson wanted to know: “Why does anyone care what this woman has to say?”
Gibson continued to pile on, adding, “Bottom line, Sam: Is she not trying to capitalize on this, in effect to profit from impugning the President?”
Newsweek editor Evan Thomas, who sometimes appears on the networks to offer analysis, derided Jones as “some sleazy woman with big hair.” (This was on the May 7, 1994 Inside Washington.)
– In the case of Kathleen Willey, who said Bill Clinton groped her in the Oval Office while President, the networks gave minimal coverage to that story when it was broke by Newsweek magazine in late July 1997.
On July 30, 1997, the CBS Evening News aired a story, but managed not to mention Willey by name. Reporter Bill Plante warned, “But unless and until this case is settled, this is only the beginning of attempts by attorneys on both sides to damage the reputations and credibility of everyone involved.”
– In the case of Juanita Broaddrick, who publicly came forward to say Bill Clinton raped her while he was the Arkansas Attorney General and a candidate for Governor, the networks offered weekend coverage in March 1998, when the charge surfaced in a court filing by Paula Jones’ attorneys. NBC interviewed Broaddrick for a Dateline special in January 1999, but the airing was delayed until February 24, 1999, after the end of Clinton’s impeachment trial.
The March 1999 Media Watchpointed out the disparity of coverage of Broaddrick versus Anita Hill:
In the first five days of Hill’s charges (October 6-10,1991), the network evening shows (on ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC, and PBS’s NewsHour) aired 67 stories. (If a count began with Jones’ February press conference, the networks supplied just a single 16-second anchor brief; if the count began with her sexual harassment lawsuit against Clinton in May, the number was 15.)
But in the first five days after Juanita Broaddrick has charged the President with rape in The Wall Street Journal (February 19-23), the number of evening news stories was two. That’s a ratio of 67 to 2.
Is it any coincidence that each conservative candidiate from the last several elections was attacked when they peaked in the polls? Michelle Bachmann, Rick Perry, and now Herman Cain (remember how Sarah Palin was attacked?).
When you look at the history of minorities who ran as Republicans such as Michael Steele, Allen West, etc the Democrats in every case use the worst personal smear tactics against them, including releasing their social security numbers and personal credit information.
Remember Miguel Estrada who was picked by President Bush to be on the DC Circuit Court of Appeals? Democrats said in their leaked Judiciary Committee memo’s that they must smear and defeat him “because he’s Latino“.
And surprise surprise, the attorney for said un-named source is Joel Bennet. Most people do not have any idea Joel Bennet is. He was the head of the DC bar, and a co-chair of the National bar Association. Bennet is a big time power lawyer in DC and was even featured in Super Lawyers magazine. So who do you suppose is bankrolling this guy? You can be sure that it is not a former staffer at the National Restaurant Association.
With Solyndra and half a dozen other solar panel boondoggles which seemed only to go into business to launder government money from the American people, to the business and pay off cronies who gave big donations to Obama before shutting down, to the money we are paying for electric cars made in Finland, to the battery plant that is about to shut down in Greenfield, Indiana, to the failure of the government subsidized Chevy Volt; this is a lesson that America is learning the hard way. Except the British learned this lesson last February.
Via the BBC:
A study by consultants Verso Economics found there was a negative impact from the policy to promote the industry.
It said 3.7 jobs were lost for every one created in the UK as a whole and that political leaders needed to engage in “honest debate” about the issue.
The Scottish government called the study “misleading” and said 60,000 jobs could be created by the sector by 2020.
The report, called Worth the Candle? The economic impact of renewable energy policy in Scotland and the UK, said the industry in Scotland benefited from an annual transfer of about £330m from taxpayers and consumers elsewhere in the UK.
It said politicians needed to recognise the economic and environmental costs of support for the sector and focus more on the scientific and technical issues that arose.
Richard Marsh, research director of Verso Economics and co-author of the report, said: “There’s a big emphasis in Scotland on the economic opportunity of investing in renewable energy.
“Whatever the environmental merits, we have shown that the case for green jobs just doesn’t stack up.”
Co-author Tom Miers added: “The Scottish renewables sector is very reliant on subsidies from the rest of the UK.
“Without this UK-wide framework, it would be very difficult to sustain the main policy tools used to promote this industry.”
A spokesman for the Scottish government said other studies had shown Scotland’s natural resources and low carbon opportunities could bring “significant” economic benefits.
Oh we have seen the benefits havent we, namely in inflation, souring energy costs and hundreds of thousands of coal, natural gas, and oil workers put on unemployment by this administrations illegal drilling bans and revocation of environmental permits without cause.
We have already seen blizzards in October from the Northeast to Texas.
World Climate Report from last March:
Coldest Back-to-Back U.S. Winters in a Quarter Century
As the curtain falls on the climatological winter (December-February) of 2010-11 in the U.S., we are left shivering.
For the second year in a row, the winter temperature when averaged across the contiguous United States came in below the average temperature for the 20th century. This marks the first time since the winters of 1992-93 and 1993-94 that two winters in a row have been below the long-term normal, and it makes for the coldest back-to-back winter combination for at least the past 25 years.
Figure 1 shows the history of winter temperatures averaged across the Lower 48 as compiled by the U.S. National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) for the winters from 1895-96 through 2009-2010. Although all the data have yet to be completely processed by NCDC for the winter of 2010-11, when the final numbers are in the average winter temperature will probably fall within the oval we added at the end of the record. If it does so, it will mean that the combined average temperature for the past two winters will be colder than any two-winter combination since 1983-84 and 1984-85, and perhaps even as far back as the all-time back-to-back coldest winters of 1977-78 and 1978-79.
Figure 1. Average winter (Dec.-Feb.) temperature for the contiguous United States (data source: NCDC). The oval of the right hand side of the data series contains our guess as to the value for the winter of 2010-2011.
Since the left likes to demonize and invent all sorts of conspiracy theories against this man and his brother it seemed a good time to go back and actually examine his point of view.
Years of tremendous overspending by federal, state and local governments have brought us face-to-face with an economic crisis. Federal spending will total at least $3.8 trillion this year—double what it was 10 years ago. And unlike in 2001, when there was a small federal surplus, this year’s projected budget deficit is more than $1.6 trillion.
Several trillions more in debt have been accumulated by state and local governments. States are looking at a combined total of more than $130 billion in budget shortfalls this year. Next year, they will be in even worse shape as most so-called stimulus payments end.
For many years, I, my family and our company have contributed to a variety of intellectual and political causes working to solve these problems. Because of our activism, we’ve been vilified by various groups. Despite this criticism, we’re determined to keep contributing and standing up for those politicians, like Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who are taking these challenges seriously.
Both Democrats and Republicans have done a poor job of managing our finances. They’ve raised debt ceilings, floated bond issues, and delayed tough decisions.
In spite of looming bankruptcy, President Obama and many in Congress have tiptoed around the issue of overspending by suggesting relatively minor cuts in mostly discretionary items. There have been few serious proposals for necessary cuts in military and entitlement programs, even though these account for about three-fourths of all federal spending.
Yes, some House leaders have suggested cutting spending to 2008 levels. But getting back to a balanced budget would mean a return to at least 2003 spending levels—and would still leave us with the problem of paying off our enormous debts.
Federal data indicate how urgently we need reform: The unfunded liabilities of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid already exceed $106 trillion. That’s well over $300,000 for every man, woman and child in America (and exceeds the combined value of every U.S. bank account, stock certificate, building and piece of personal or public property).
The Congressional Budget Office has warned that the interest on our federal debt is “poised to skyrocket.” Even Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is sounding alarms. Yet the White House insists that substantial spending cuts would hurt the economy and increase unemployment.
Plenty of compelling examples indicate just the opposite. When Canada recently reduced its federal spending to 11.3% of GDP from 17.5% eight years earlier, the economy rebounded and unemployment dropped. By comparison, our federal spending is 25% of GDP.
Government spending on business only aggravates the problem. Too many businesses have successfully lobbied for special favors and treatment by seeking mandates for their products, subsidies (in the form of cash payments from the government), and regulations or tariffs to keep more efficient competitors at bay.
Crony capitalism is much easier than competing in an open market. But it erodes our overall standard of living and stifles entrepreneurs by rewarding the politically favored rather than those who provide what consumers want.
The purpose of business is to efficiently convert resources into products and services that make people’s lives better. Businesses that fail to do so should be allowed to go bankrupt rather than be bailed out.
But what about jobs that are lost when businesses go under? It’s important to remember that not all jobs are the same. In business, real jobs profitably produce goods and services that people value more highly than their alternatives. Subsidizing inefficient jobs is costly, wastes resources, and weakens our economy.
Because every other company in a given industry is accepting market-distorting programs, Koch companies have had little option but to do so as well, simply to remain competitive and help sustain our 50,000 U.S.-based jobs. However, even when such policies benefit us, we only support the policies that enhance true economic freedom.
For example, because of government mandates, our refining business is essentially obligated to be in the ethanol business. We believe that ethanol—and every other product in the marketplace—should be required to compete on its own merits, without mandates, subsidies or protective tariffs. Such policies only increase the prices of those products, taxes and the cost of many other goods and services.
Our elected officials would do well to remember that the most prosperous countries are those that allow consumers—not governments—to direct the use of resources. Allowing the government to pick winners and losers hurts almost everyone, especially our poorest citizens.
Recent studies show that the poorest 10% of the population living in countries with the greatest economic freedom have 10 times the per capita income of the poorest citizens in countries with the least economic freedom. In other words, society as a whole benefits from greater economic freedom.
Even though it affects our business, as a matter of principle our company has been outspoken in defense of economic freedom. This country would be much better off if every company would do the same. Instead, we see far too many businesses that paint their tails white and run with the antelope.
I am confident that businesses like ours will hire more people and invest in more equipment when our country’s financial future looks more promising. Laying the groundwork for smaller, smarter government, especially at the federal level, is going to be tough. But it is essential for getting us back on the path to long-term prosperity.
Mr. Koch is chairman and CEO of Koch Industries, Inc. He’s the author of “The Science of Success: How Market-Based Management Built the World’s Largest Private Company” (Wiley, 2007).
Associated Press Video:
Muslim turned Christian speaks out. Mosab Hassan Yousef, who helped Israel’s security forces kill and arrest members of Hamas, is probably marked for death. He should be keeping silent. But he’s got a story to tell, one he delivers in his new book, ‘Son of Hamas.’
The U.S. government has 15 different agencies overseeing food-safety laws, more than 20 separate programs to help the homeless and 80 programs for economic development.
These are a few of the findings in a massive study of overlapping and duplicative programs that cost taxpayers billions of dollars each year, according to the Government Accountability Office.
A report from the nonpartisan GAO, to be released Tuesday, compiles a list of redundant and potentially ineffective federal programs, and it could serve as a template for lawmakers in both parties as they move to cut federal spending and consolidate programs to reduce the deficit. Sen. Tom Coburn (R., Okla.), who pushed for the report, estimated it identifies between $100 billion and $200 billion in duplicative spending. The GAO didn’t put a specific figure on the spending overlap.
The GAO examined numerous federal agencies, including the departments of defense, agriculture and housing and urban development, and pointed to instances where different arms of the government should be coordinating or consolidating efforts to save taxpayers’ money.
The agency found 82 federal programs to improve teacher quality; 80 to help disadvantaged people with transportation; 47 for job training and employment; and 56 to help people understand finances, according to a draft of the report reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
Instances of ineffective and unfocused federal programs can lead to a mishmash of occasionally arbitrary policies and rules, the report said. It recommends merging or consolidating a number of programs to both save money and make the government more efficient.
“Reducing or eliminating duplication, overlap, or fragmentation could potentially save billions of tax dollars annually and help agencies provide more efficient and effective services,” the report said.
There have been multiple efforts to cull the number of federal programs in recent years, but they often run into opposition from lawmakers in both parties who rush to defend individual spending provisions. In fact, GAO’s recommendations are often ignored or postponed by federal agencies and lawmakers, particularly when they could require difficult political votes.
You just can’t make this stuff up:
The report says policy makers should consider creating a single food-safety agency because of a number of redundancies. The Food and Drug Administration makes sure that chicken eggs are “safe, wholesome, and properly labeled” while a division of the Department of Agriculture “is responsible for the safety of eggs processed into egg products.”
The report says there are 18 federal programs that spent a combined $62.5 billion in 2008 on food and nutrition assistance, but little is known about the effectiveness of 11 of these programs because they haven’t been well studied.
The report said five divisions within the Department of Transportation account for 100 different programs that fund things like highways, rail projects and safety programs.
On teacher quality, the report identified 82 programs that often have similar descriptions and goals and are spread across 10 federal agencies, including the Department of Education, the Department of Energy and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Nine of these programs are linked to science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Fifty-three of the programs are relatively small, receiving $50 million or less, “and many have their own separate administrative processes.”
The GAO highlighted 80 different economic development programs at the Department of Commerce, HUD, Department of Agriculture and Small Business Administration, that spent a combined $6.5 billion last year and often overlapped. For example, the four agencies combined to have 52 different programs that fund “entrepreneurial efforts,” 35 programs for infrastructure, and 26 programs for telecommunications. It said 60% of the programs fund only one or two activities, making them “the most likely to overlap because many of them can only fund the same limited types of activities.”
Notice Buckley said Canada as well as Mexico. Canada is in the process if lowering its corporate income tax to 16.5% (the USA is 35%). Canada is in the midst of a free-market awakening and wealth is flocking to Canada. They are slowly privatizing their health care system and streamlining their regulatory structure. Canada has realized that as the United States socializes that the wealth will flee, so they are making sure that the wealth does not have far to go.
(Reuters) – The chief executive of diversified manufacturer 3M Co called President Barack Obama anti-business in an interview with the Financial Times, arguing that manufacturers could move to Canada or Mexico as a result.
“We know what his instincts are — they are Robin Hood-esque,” 3M CEO George Buckley told the paper. “He is anti-business.”
Obama is working to shed the reputation that he is against the business community. Earlier this month, he assembled a group of top U.S. executives, chaired by General Electric Co Chief Executive Jeffrey Immelt, to advise him on economic matters.
He also brought on JPMorgan Chase executive William Daley as his chief of staff and made a high profile speech to the Chamber of Commerce, a business lobby, earlier this year.
But Buckley said he was not yet convinced by Obama’s actions.
“Politicians forget that business has choice. We’re not indentured servants and we will do business where it’s good and friendly. If it’s hostile, incrementally, things will slip away. We’ve got a real choice between manufacturing in Canada and Mexico — which tend to be pro-business — or America,” he told the Financial Times.
Inded GE’s Immelt has been sending jobs to China while encouraging Obama to do more of the same.
Via New American:
A recent survey conducted earlier this month by the Harris Interactive polling firm on behalf of the Bill of Rights Institute reveals some startling results. According to the survey, 42 percent of the over 2,000 respondents believe that Karl Marx’s maxim, “from each according to his ability and to each according to his need [or needs]” is part of one of our nation’s founding documents. Further, nearly 20 percent assigned it to the Bill of Rights. When the survey results are fragmented according to age, we find that 30 percent of young adults misidentified Marx’s statement as something written in either the Federalist Papers, the Declaration of Independence, or the Constitution.
The particulars of the answers to the poll’s questions are equally disturbing. Over half of respondents named “education” as a right protected from government encroachment by the First Amendment. Furthermore, not even 20 percent could name the five rights actually guaranteed by that amendment (those rights, should any of our readers need a refresher are: freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, the right peaceably to assemble, and the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances).
Please examine this video of Andrea Mitchell more or less trying to interrogate Donald Rumsfeld.
This is a fantastic example of many of the worst aspects of journalism. In this interview Andrea Mitchell displays the most common forms of bias that undermine journalistic ethics and standards. It is rare to find a single clip with so many clear examples of exactly how the ethical and professional journalist should not conduct themselves.
The biggest form of media bias is not a partisan slant to the left, it is the slant everything towards conflict, the more personal and/or salacious the better. As you examine the video you will notice that Mitchell takes every observation and even the slightest critique as an indication of dramatic personal conflict the likes of which one would only see in an epidode of “The West Wing”. In order to create this dramatic and combative narrative in her own mind Mitchell relies on statements and sources from people who were not “in the room” and were three or four levels down.
A journalist must always keep in mind that too many bureaucrats/consultants/staffers wish to see his or her name in the paper or in a book. Others wish to be a ‘secret source”. As is so often the case when stories or rumors come from officials three or four times removed from the President the story gets embellished, sometimes for dramatic effect and sometimes just to fill in the blanks. Through each stage the truth becomes less and less directionally accurate and this is much more so for the “source” that wants to see his name in a book or be “Deep Throat” as they have to keep feeding the journalist in order to keep them coming back for more.
Combine the biases of conflict creation, dramatic theatre, fill in the blanks, and attention whoring with Mitchells clear partisan slant and you can see that she ends up with a narrative in her own mind that she is certain is true, but does not resemble objective reality. Mitchell becomes incredulous while Rumsfeld simply explains to her that she just doesn’t know what she is talking about.
The concentration on conflict and the dramatic at the expense of the historical record is the biggest factor that marginalizes elite media journalism in the eyes of the public. Partisan bias is a significant second.
Journalism students, if you want to be truly respected and trusted the example Andrea Mitchell gave in her “performance” is perhaps the quintessential example of how journalism should not be done.
This shows about how well medical students, (at least in Australia and Britain where the study was done) are being taught ethics. If medical students cannot uphold even the most common sense ethical standards, imagine how bad journalism students are.
AUSTRALIAN medical students are carrying out intrusive procedures on unconscious and anesthetized patients without gaining the patient’s consent.
The unauthorised examinations include genital, rectal and breast exams, and raise serious questions about the ethics of up-and-coming doctors, Madison reports.
The research, soon to be published in international medical journal, Medical Education, describes – among others – a student with “no qualms” about performing an anal examination on a female patient because she didn’t think the woman’s consent was relevant.
Another case outlined in the research describes a man who was subjected to rectal examinations from a “queue” of medical students after he was anaesthetised for surgery.
“I was in theatre, the patient was under a spinal (anaesthetic) as well and there was a screen up and they just had a queue of medical students doing a rectal examination,” a student confessed.“[H]e wasn’t consented but because … you’re in that situation, you don’t have the confidence to say ‘no’ you just do it.”
The author of the study, Professor Charlotte Rees, voiced concerns about senior medical staff ordering students to perform unauthorised procedures, leaving the students torn between the strong ethics of consent in society and the weak ethics of medical staff.
Of students who were put in this position during the research, 82 per cent obeyed orders.
“We think that it is weakness in the ethical climate of the clinical workplace that ultimately serves to legitimise and reinforce unethical practices in the context of students learning intimate examinations,” writes Prof Rees.
The study consists of 200 students across three unnamed medical schools in Britain and Australia.
This post may help the laymen wrap their head around just how much deficit spending we are talking about.
The Weekly Standard:
* In actual dollars, President Obama’s $4.4 trillion in deficit spending in just three years is 37 percent higher than the previous record of $3.2 trillion (held by President George W. Bush) in deficit spending for an entire presidency. It’s no small feat to demolish an 8-year record in just 3 years.
* In inflation-adjusted dollars, President Obama’s $3.8 trillion (in constant fiscal-year 2005 dollars) in deficit spending in just three years is nearly double our $2 trillion (in constant fiscal-year 2005 dollars) in deficit spending in the five fiscal years during which we were fighting World War II (FY 1942-46). It’s no small feat to nearly double the United States’ inflation-adjusted deficits during the largest conflict in human history, and to do so in less time than it took American GIs to fight that two-front war.
* As a percentage of the gross domestic product (GDP), President Obama’s average annual deficit spending is 9.7 percent of GDP. That’s higher than during any single year of the Great Depression, the Cold War, the Korean War, or Vietnam. In fact, the only deficits in more than 200 years of American history that have exceeded even 6 percent of GDP have all involved either the Civil War, World War I, World War II, or President Obama.
* In average annual deficit spending as a percentage of GDP, the nearby chart shows how President Obama stacks up against other presidents who have served during the past four decades.
* The Obama deficit legacy, moreover, will be felt well beyond his tenure in office, especially if that tenure extends beyond a single term. First, Obama’s spending through 2012 essentially doesn’t include Obama-care. The CBO projects that Obama-care will increase spending by more than $2 trillion in the overhaul’s real first decade (2014 to 2023). That’s more than $2 trillion that could -otherwise be used to pay down the debt, rather than allowing the debt to rise continually and then piling a massive new entitlement program on top of it.
And these numbers are just to February of this year.
The Top Ten Heritage Charts are below, sorted by pageviews with the 10th most popular chart on top, and the most popular chart at the bottom. Turns out the most popular chart of 2010 is the same as the 2009 (with updated info).
10. Recent Spending Hikes Are Not Limited to Temporary Emergencies
8. Federal Government Revenues Have More Than Tripled Since 1965
7. Entitlements Will Consume All Tax Revenues by 2052
6. Taxes per Household Have Risen Dramatically
5. Obama’s Budget Would Create Unprecedented Deficits
4. National Debt Set to Skyrocket
3. Federal Spending Is Growing Faster Than Federal Revenue
2. Federal Spending per Household Is Skyrocketing
1. The Top 10 Percent of Income Earners Paid 71 Percent of Federal Income Tax
This is a long interview with Herman Cain by Ed Morrissey from January. It provides some perspective as to who Herman cain is, his views, and how his thought process works.
Remember that Clinton/Gingrich “Welfare Reform” law that was so effective at stopping people from gaming the system and helping people get back to work? Did you know it was reversed with the stimulus bill?
CNBC:
Government payouts—including Social Security, Medicare and unemployment insurance—make up more than a third of total wages and salaries of the U.S. population, a record figure that will only increase if action isn’t taken before the majority of Baby Boomers enter retirement.
Even as the economy has recovered, social welfare benefits make up 35 percent of wages and salaries this year, up from 21 percent in 2000 and 10 percent in 1960, according to TrimTabs Investment Research using Bureau of Economic Analysis data.
“The U.S. economy has become alarmingly dependent on government stimulus,” said Madeline Schnapp, director of Macroeconomic Research at TrimTabs, in a note to clients. “Consumption supported by wages and salaries is a much stronger foundation for economic growth than consumption based on social welfare benefits.”
[Those who are running on class warfare, eat the rich nonsense could be in for a rude awakening come 2012. It was just a few short months ago that the liberal Washington State had a referrendum and look at what they did. – Editor]
Even Microsoft opposed it. Gotta love the irony.
The mega rich guys who supported this are big time hypocrite. As 5% means nothing to them and since much of their income is not in the form of taxable wages they would have been exempted from most of it anyways. The producer class though would have gotten soaked.
The truth is we need wealth. Wealth goes where it is treated well and in case you haven’t noticed it is being treated well in China. We have lost 14,000 factories in the last 10 years. We want wealth to come to our communities, not drive them away.
Al Reuters:
The plan devised by the father of the Microsoft Corp co-founder to slap a 5 percent tax on earnings over $200,000 — Initiative Measure 1098 — was rejected by 65 percent of voters, with almost two-thirds of precincts reported.
The result is a boon for the anti-tax Tea Party movement and suggests Americans may be in the mood to extend tax cuts introduced by former President George W. Bush even for the wealthiest citizens. It also signals that Americans are unwilling to accept higher taxes as a way of balancing state budgets ravaged by the recession.
It is a stinging defeat for Bill Gates senior, who put $600,000 of his own money behind the campaign and also for his son, the world’s second richest person, who let it be known he would vote for the measure.
The vote is the fourth failure to introduce a state tax in Washington in the last 70 years and leaves the state as one of only seven without one.
Although the new tax would have affected fewer than 70,000 people out of the state’s 6.7 million residents, an opposition campaign run by an organization called Defeat 1098 persuaded voters that the tax on the wealthy would be extended to lower earners.
Major backers of Defeat 1098 include Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer, who contributed $425,000 to the campaign, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and Amazon.com founder and CEO Jeff Bezos.
Microsoft, Boeing and Alaska Airlines, all major employers in the state, also contributed to the opposition campaign, fearing that a tax on high-earners would hurt their ability to lure talented workers to the state.
Texas Governor Rick Perry recently seized on the issue to invite top businesses in Washington state to relocate to Texas, which does not have an income tax.
[Originally posted on my old college blog in April 2010 – Editor]
Via George Mason University, National Review, and HotAir.
The stimulus bill, as ill conceived as it is, gives is a fantastic opportunity to test Keynesian economic policy and models in comparison to actual results.
According to the law, districts with the highest unemployment were supposed to get the bulk of the stimulus money. Did that actually happen?
First: The idea behind the $787 billion stimulus bill is that, if the government spends money where it is the most needed, it will create jobs and trigger economic growth. Hence, we should expect the government to invest more money in districts with higher unemployment rates.
Controlling for the percentage of the district employed in the construction industry, a proxy for the vulnerability to recession of a district, I find no statistical correlation for all relevant unemployment indicators and the allocation of funds. This suggests that unemployment is not the factor leading the awards. Also, I found no correlation between other economic indicators, such as income, and stimulus funding.
Second: On average, Democratic districts received one-and-a-half times as many awards as Republican ones. Democratic districts also received two-and-a-half times more stimulus dollars than Republican districts ($122,127,186,509 vs. $46,139,592,268). Republican districts also received smaller awards on average. (The average dollars awarded per Republican district is $260,675,663, while the average dollars awarded per Democratic district is $471,533,539.)
The exact same thing happend under the “new deal” where much of the spending went to swing districts to buy votes. Massive amounts of money spent and non-farm unemployment never dropped below 20% during the New Deal.
The fact remains and it might as well be considered a Law of Economics: Politicians spend money with a political result in mind, not an economic one. Pictorial logarithm proof:
As you can see the log shows no correlation, but look at this….
Well would you look at that. Oh the news gets better…
In the report from Dr. Veronique de Rugy from George Mason University:
I found that an average cost of $286,000 was awarded per job created, a 16.3 percent increase over the previous period.
See the full report HERE.
Now in case you are thinking to yourself, /whiney voice on “Well wait, that economist you quoted doesn’t count cause she is French and she wrote a note about her findings to Natioal Review which means she is a nazi and only twice removed from Hitler’s third cousin!”
Well USA Today hired some econo-geeks and they came up with the same result:
Counties that supported Obama last year have reaped twice as much money per person from the administration’s $787 billion economic stimulus package as those that voted for his Republican rival, Sen. John McCain, a USA TODAY analysis of government disclosure and accounting records shows. That money includes aid to repair military bases, improve public housing and help students pay for college…
More crony capitalism and corruption.
And these numbers were taken from last December so it is even worse now. We have been losing about 400,000 jobs a week since that time based on new unemployment claims (in fairness this number does not include jobs created which helps to mitigate this number, but with wages going down and inflation goes up, lots of thes enew jobs are part time and/or are people just taking anything out of desperation).
While Democrats promised stimulus would create 3.7 million jobs, the reality is far different. To date, 48 out of 50 states have lost jobs, while the unemployment rate has remained at or above 9.5% for 15 consecutive months. As the nation nears the end of 2010 — when final statistics will be available to compare actual outcomes with the Administration’s pre-stimulus projections — Washington, D.C. remains the only place in America where those job-creation projections actually have been met. Meanwhile, the rest of the nation is left asking “Where are the jobs?”
| State | Administration Projection of Change in Jobs Through December 2010 | Actual Change in Jobs Through October 2010 |
| Alabama | +52,000 | -43,500 |
| Alaska | +8,000 | -1,200 |
| Arizona | +70,000 | -73,800 |
| Arkansas | +31,000 | -5,100 |
| California | +396,000 | -543,400 |
| Colorado | +59,000 | -83,200 |
| Connecticut | +41,000 | -39,200 |
| Delaware | +11,000 | -10,300 |
| District of Columbia | +12,000 | +21,100 |
| Florida | +206,000 | -169,200 |
| Georgia | +106,000 | -126,200 |
| Hawaii | +15,000 | -8,900 |
| Idaho | +17,000 | -16,100 |
| Illinois | +148,000 | -160,900 |
| Indiana | +75,000 | -40,200 |
| Iowa | +37,000 | -20,200 |
| Kansas | +33,000 | -32,800 |
| Kentucky | +48,000 | -7,700 |
| Louisiana | +50,000 | -15,600 |
| Maine | +15,000 | -9,900 |
| Maryland | +66,000 | -13,900 |
| Massachusetts | +79,000 | -33,500 |
| Michigan | +109,000 | -105,900 |
| Minnesota | +66,000 | -24,700 |
| Mississippi | +30,000 | -23,900 |
| Missouri | +69,000 | -66,500 |
| Montana | +11,000 | -8,600 |
| Nebraska | +23,000 | -11,400 |
| Nevada | +34,000 | -79,000 |
| New Hampshire | +16,000 | +5,200 |
| New Jersey | +100,000 | -104,600 |
| New Mexico | +22,000 | -13,300 |
| New York | +215,000 | -127,700 |
| North Carolina | +105,000 | -81,900 |
| North Dakota | +8,000 | +6,600 |
| Ohio | +133,000 | -157,500 |
| Oklahoma | +40,000 | -24,400 |
| Oregon | +44,000 | -41,300 |
| Pennsylvania | +143,000 | -71,900 |
| Rhode Island | +12,000 | -15,600 |
| South Carolina | +50,000 | -22,900 |
| South Dakota | +10,000 | -2,500 |
| Tennessee | +70,000 | -53,700 |
| Texas | +269,000 | -54,100 |
| Utah | +32,000 | -15,000 |
| Vermont | +8,000 | -5,200 |
| Virginia | +93,000 | -44,500 |
| Washington | +75,000 | -70,900 |
| West Virginia | +20,000 | -10,600 |
| Wisconsin | +70,000 | -69,100 |
| Wyoming | +8,000 | -7,800 |
Source: Administration February 13, 2009 projection and actual U.S. Department of Labor data.
The absolute must see video for anyone of Generation X and younger.
Simply one of the wisest columns on this subject ever written. It is worth reading twice.
By David French:
Our cultural elite knows nothing about Islam, yet they defend with it with sneering, condescending ferocity.
One of the more interesting phenomena of recent times has been the cultural elite’s aggressive defense of Islam. Whether they’re decrying the alleged “Islamophobia” of their fellow Americans, storming off TV sets, offering impassioned defenses of religious liberty, or offering uninformed theological statements about the religion’s alleged true nature, many of our most educated and politically aware citizens are united in outrage. A great religion is under attack, they say, and it’s under attack by a bigoted citizenry who let the actions of a tiny few define the nature of the many.
But what do they actually know about Islam?
Isn’t the “true” nature of a religion defined through its theologians and adherents? “True” Islam has been debated — and fought over — for more than 1,000 years. The existence of Sunni and Shi’ite divisions demonstrates that there is no monolithic definition of Islam even within the Islamic world. And yet men like our most recent presidents purport to define it as a “religion of peace” (President Bush’s favorite phrase) or a “religion that reaffirms peace, fairness, and tolerance” (President Obama’s recent description).
Again and again when I face outraged and indignant liberals — people who defame Ground Zero mosque opponents as bigots or pass around the latest Jon Stewart video as if it were more documentary than comedy sketch — I find their knowledge is skin deep, at best. “Jihad is really the inner struggle,” they say. “Islam had a glorious civilization in the Middle Ages,” they argue. Some cite the Muslims they know — kind-hearted, hospitable people — who serve as stand-ins for Muslims everywhere.
As for me, I spent a year in Iraq, talked to countless Muslims, have read the Koran and much of the Hadith, and I still don’t know what “true Islam” is. How could I? I struggle enough to define (and live) “true Christianity.” Can I really purport to understand Islam in all its complexity?
But I’m not entirely ignorant. Some things I do know, and I know them all too well.
We face an enemy that is recruiting its followers using explicit, religious themes. To them, jihad is not an “inner struggle” but a call to war. The call to jihad has grown so strong that thousands of young Muslims have served as suicide bombers, hundreds of thousands have served as jihadist fighters, and untold millions more support armed jihad through donations, public demonstrations, and in public opinion polls.
Even allegedly moderate Muslims, like a key investor in the Ground Zero mosque property, have been caught giving money to terrorist organizations, and the imam at the center of controversy has a history of radicalism that would shock the conscience of most Americans (declaring America an “accessory to the crime” of September 11 is moderate?).
And it’s sometimes tough to tell the difference between moderates and extremists. Anwar al-Awlaki, one of the world’s most-wanted terrorists, served as a Chaplain at George Washington University, and the Fort Hood shooter was not only an Army officer, he gave briefings on the “Koranic World View” to physicians at Walter Reed Hospital.
Moreover, anti-Semitism is rampant in the Muslim world, with children’s shows in Gaza featuring such characters as Assud, the Jew-eating rabbit, ancient anti-Semitic hoaxes like the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” aired as a “documentary” in Egypt, and Saudi-written and distributed textbooks preaching hate to Muslim children around the world.
Let’s flip the script for a moment. Let’s imagine that in the United States our Christian population was producing thousands of suicide bombers, recruiting tens of thousands of Jihadists, financing hundreds of millions of dollars of arms and ammunition, and distributing literature proclaiming Jews and others as worthy of death. Would Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg walk of the set at criticism of Christians? Would Time magazine decry “Christophobia”? Of course not. They would argue that Christianity was in crisis, and they would be right.
During my time in Iraq I met Muslims who laid down their lives every day to protect their community from the jihadists. After all, many thousands more Iraqi soldiers and police officers have died protecting their own country than have American soldiers. Moreover, many Muslim Americans have rendered courageous, indispensable service in the War on Terror. Their faith is real, and their service is greater than that of the vast majority of their fellow citizens. So, what is true Islam?
That definition I leave to Muslims. And as they struggle to work through the complexities of their own faith, I doubt they’ll consult President Bush, President Obama, or Joy Behar.
At the same time, however, all Americans have to deal with and guard against the actions and attitudes of many millions of Muslims, people who believe their faith calls them to support, to finance, and to fight an unending jihad against unbelievers. There is something rotten at work within Islam, and whether it takes five years, five hundred, or five thousand, that rottenness (regardless of its relationship to “true Islam”) must be resisted and defeated.
David French is a lawyer, writer, soldier, and veteran of the Iraq war. He is the director of the Alliance Defense Fund Center for Academic Freedom.
This is the kind of press coverage we can expect from the Washington Post and the rest of the crew of profoundly snarky pundits sometimes called the elite media or as some others have called it the “Democrat Media Complex”.
[Flashback November 2010]
You would think that if you are going to lie about someone or an event, perhaps it should be an event that wasn’t witnessed by 7 million people. This is exactly the same nonsense that Media Matters does on a regular basis.
Our pal JohnnyDollar, who has been on a roll lately with his vigilance, captured the video:
Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal also spoke the oil crisis and how the federal government had gotten in the way with some of the most foolish regulations one can imagine. Wasn’t the Department of Homeland Security reorganization supposed to fix this problem? Looks like it didn’t work.
At 7:00 the governor talks about how subversive public education has become.
In just under four minutes Dick Morris described flawlessly why public schools are too expensive, failing and are starting to lose dominance because state governments just cannot afford them any more.
Political Arena 