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The Press Is AWOL
Byron York did a Nexis search on the
Van Jones controversy, on
September 4, 2009. Here are the results:
Total words
about the Van Jones controversy in the New York Times: 0. Total words
about the Van Jones controversy in the Washington Post: 0. Total
words about the Van Jones controversy on NBC Nightly News: 0. Total
words about the Van Jones controversy on ABC World News: 0. Total
words about the Van Jones controversy on CBS Evening News: 0.
If
you were to receive all your news from any one of these outlets, or even
all of them together, and you heard about some sort of controversy
involving Obama's Special Adviser for Green Jobs, Enterprise and
Innovation, your response would be, "Huh?" If you heard that that
adviser, Van Jones, had apologized for a number of remarks and positions
in the recent past, your response would be, "What?" And if you
were in the Obama White House monitoring the Jones situation, you would
be hoping that the news organizations listed above continue to hold the
line -- otherwise, Jones, who is quite well thought of in Obama circles,
would be history.
Sometimes,
propaganda is what you don't report.
The New York Times Misrepresents The Facts
It's no surprise that
the media are in the tank for Barack Obama,
but the willingness of the New York Times to simply misrepresent the
facts -- while pretending to act as a fact-checker! -- is pretty
breathtaking. You may think the Times is an outlier, if not a joke, but
I suspect that many more news outlets are prepared to follow the Times'
lead in flat-out misreporting the facts, if that's what it takes to get
Obama elected.
There's a May 5th Times' story, "On McCain, Obama and a Hamas Link." It takes John
McCain to task for pointing out that Hamas has endorsed Obama. The Times
reporter, Larry Rohter, says that John McCain has "again portrayed the
Democratic contender as being the favorite of Hamas, the militant
Palestinian group." Of course, this is not McCain's "portrayal;" it is
an indisputable fact that Hamas has endorsed Obama and has said that it
hopes he will be elected. But the paper's most egregious error, in its
campaign "fact check" column, is yet to come.
Rohter notes that charges and counter-charges have gone back and forth
between the McCain and Obama campaigns, but Rohter judges that McCain is
mostly at fault:
But important nuances appear to have been lost in the partisan salvos,
particularly on Mr. McCain’s side.
McCain, Rohter writes, is guilty because he says that Obama has
advocated "unconditional" meetings with Iran's President:
[I]n a fund-raising letter sent out in April, a spokesman for Mr. McCain
wrote: "We need change in America, but not the kind of change that wins
kind words from Hamas, surrenders in Iraq and will hold unconditional
talks with Iranian President Ahmadinejad."
That, the Times says, is wrong.
But, who you gonna believe -- well, here's the video -- is the Times lying --
is Obama's Campaign lying -- you decide.
Not good enough? How about the fact that Obama's web site
contains this statement --
Diplomacy: Obama is the only major candidate who
supports tough, direct presidential diplomacy with Iran without
preconditions.
Obama's Plan To Desecrate 9/11
Obama is behind a cynical, coldly calculated political effort to
erase the meaning of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks from the
American psyche and convert 9/11 into a day of leftist celebration and
statist idolatry.
This effort to reshape the American psyche has
nothing to do with healing the nation and everything to do with easing
the nation along in the ongoing radical transformation of America that
Obama promised during last year's election campaign. Obama signed
into law a measure in April that designated 9/11 as a National Day of
Service, but it's not likely many lawmakers thought this meant that day
was going to be turned into a celebration of ethanol, carbon emission
controls, and radical community organizing.
Obama's plans were
outlined in an August 11, 2009, White House-sponsored
teleconference call run by Obama ally Lennox Yearwood, president of the
Hip Hop Caucus, and Liv Havstad, the group's senior vice president of
strategic partnerships and programs.
On the August 11th call,
Yearwood and other leaders kept saying repeatedly that they wanted 9/11
to be used for something "positive," "forward-leaning," and
"productive," said a source with knowledge of the teleconference.
The plan is to turn a "day of fear" that helps Republicans into a
day of activism called the National Day of Service that helps the left.
In other words, nihilistic liberals are planning to drain 9/11 of all
meaning.
"They think it needs to be taken back from the right,"
said the source. "They're taking that day and they're breaking it
because it gives Republicans an advantage. To them, that day is a
fearful day."
"Choose you this day whom ye will serve." That may be from the
Bible's Book of Joshua, but it could be from a book of Barack Obama.
Kathryn Lopez
asks, is that hyperbole? Only slightly, unfortunately.
In U.S. Department of Education materials surrounding the first
national presidential address to public-school students, children were
encouraged to write letters to themselves about what they can do to help
Obama. After some genuine and vociferous backlash, the Obama
administration took back some of these recommendations for recruiting
students to the cause that is Barack Obama.
But the pullback came
around the same time that an elementary school in Utah was scheduled to
show students a
video parade of celebrities pledging allegiance to Obama, and to the
liberalism for which he stands. In this video, various tabloid
types seeking to "Be the Change" vow to "smile more" and "love more."
Other plans include "to be the voice for those who have no voice"; and
to not always flush the toilet, for the sake of the planet; "To pledge
allegiance to the funk, of the United Funk of Funkadelica"; and, most
audaciously, "To free one million people from slavery in the next five
years." Yes, it was a bit of a mix.
The culmination of the
whole mess, however, was very clear; to "pledge to be of service to
Barack Obama . . . to be a servant of Obama and all mankind."
Rational people would argue that the head of a republican government
serves the people who elected him, not the other way around. But
reason does not live in an era of vague feelings.
The video was
produced and directed by noted thespian and liberal scold Demi Moore and
her husband Ashton Kutcher, who recently told Reuters: "There's an
assumption that this one man is going to take on his new job full-time
and somehow wave a magic wand of change, and I don't believe that to be
true. I think that we have to be the leaders, and that's not
celebrities -- I think that we as citizens have to be leaders of the
movement that we want to create." Evidently, in order to get
people to be the change, you have to get to them early, when they're in
public school. "We're all in this together," one celeb declared.
Would that have only been the case when George W. Bush was president?
Instead, examples of celebrity service during that era took the form of
actress Cameron Diaz (who makes an appearance in the Moore pledge video)
declaring on the Oprah Winfrey show during the 2004 election: "If you
think that rape should be legal, then don't vote. But if you think
that you have a right to your body, and you have a right to say what
happens to you and fight off that danger of losing that, then you should
vote."
What the heck is she talking about? Abortion,
obviously, once you cut through all the craziness. It's safe to
say Diaz wasn't into presidential servitude back then.
The
school indoctrination stories have been airing at the same time as
revelations, on the right-leaning Web site Big Hollywood, of a
government body organizing an artistic propaganda machine. Film
producer Patrick Courrielche was invited by the National Endowment for
the Arts to join a conference call sponsored by the NEA, the White House
Office of Public Engagement, and United We Serve, the organization
created by Obama to promote volunteer service. The stated purpose
of the call was "to help lay a new foundation for growth, focusing on
core areas of the recovery agenda -- health care, energy and
environment, safety and security, education, community renewal."
A few days after the call, Courrielche noticed that the starry-eyed
Rock the Vote campaign, whose "mission is to engage and build the
political power of young people in order to achieve progressive change
in our country," sent out an e-mail declaring: "We can't stand by and
listen to lies and deceit coming from those who are against reforming a
broken system...Young people demand health care now."
Unsurprisingly, Rock the Vote is in favor of a public component to said
health care.
A representative for Rock the Vote was on the NEA
conference call. He picked up the orders.
These have been
tough times for Obama. With a majority in Congress, and an adamant
imperative that his health-care reform will should be done, he had to
let summer recess in Washington come and go without his commands
fulfilled. You can understand wanting to use every resource
available to him.
Aristotle said that art completes what nature
cannot bring to a finish. Perhaps Obama's NEA might say that art
completes what democracy isn't obedient enough carry out.
The
problem is that, if the National Endowment for the Arts exists -- which
some of us think has always been regrettable in a nation that has more
than enough private resources and enthusiasm to support the arts without
need of government support -- it is not at the political service of a
politician. It's not meant to be an extension of his
communications office.
The video, the Department of "Political"
Education directives, the secular crusading ... these are alarm bells.
An emptiness exists, created by a tyrannical reign of elite secularism.
And self-declared servants of Obama may not realize this yet, but it's a
void that ultimately can't be filled by hollow rhetoric and bureaucratic
disasters.
We are a culture that understands art as an
elevation, not as a campaign tactic. And there is a higher
authority than the Resident of the United States whom you're still free
to pledge service to if you so choose.
Obama "Appointed By God"
Obama was "appointed by God," we are instructed by a man boasting
academic credentials.
Writing in the Orlando Sentinel,
Jeremy Levitt, "associate dean
for International Programs and a
distinguished professor of international law at Florida A&M
University College of Law in Orlando," makes this case at the conclusion
of a rambling attack on critics of ObamaCare and the right in general:
I would remind the far right what the Apostle
Paul wrote, " ... there is no authority except from God, and the
authorities that exist are appointed by God." Hence, Obama is
the U.S. president and leader of the Free World because he was
appointed by God.
Thomas Lifson
wonders how much criticism this statement will encounter on the
left, from the militant atheists and church-haters?
How many
Obama supporters actually believe this "distinguished professor"?
Criminney! Reader "JH" just emailed me
another one. The
perpetrators of this outrage are so proud of their "song,"
they even have a website, complete with
the words, and additional pictures of the children subjects. Here's their
email.
I'm sure they'd love to hear what you have to say about their
wonderful, wonderful work.
This is wrong on so many levels. This is
nothing more than the brainwashing of children -- and these children
haven't even reached the age of reason yet. It's just not wrong,
it's criminal. Everyone involved with these outragous videos
should be fired.
Just imagine what goes on in these classes
when the cameras are off?
Here is the email
to the principal of the B. Bernice Young Elementary School, Dr.
Denise King, and here's Mrs. Carol Zulla's, the vice-principal's,
email.
Americans Say Media In Tank For Obama
Much of the Mainstream Media has a low opinion of the American
people -- just like Obama. They believe them to be mindless cattle
who are easy to influence. To the MSM, it was propaganda that got
us into the war on terror, and it is their job to use propaganda to get
us out. The problem with that theory, is that the American people
are not dumb. They mistrust government and ask lots of questions
which is why people tend to gravitate toward the conservative point of
view. And one thing's for sure they see through the Mainstream
Media's act.
The latest update of the Sacred Heart University
media poll asked people about their attitudes regarding the Mainstream
Media. Most Americans felt that the media is not neutral, it tries
to influence public opinion and policy. They feel that most media
has a STRONG liberal bent, Fox news is the most accurate of news
services, they don't want one red cent spent on bailing out the
Newspaper Industry, and the media is in the tank for Obama.
• 86.6% strongly and somewhat agreed
that the news media have their own political and public policy positions
and attempt to influence public opinion.
•
85.3% strongly and somewhat agreed that the news media have their
own political positions and attempt to influence public policies.
• 83.6% agreed that national news
media organizations as very or somewhat biased.
• 89.3%, agreed the national media
played a very or somewhat strong role in helping to elect Obama.
• 69.9% agreed the national news media
are intent on promoting the Obama residency.
• 56.4%, agreed that the news media
are promoting Obama’s healthcare reform without objective criticism.
Capitol Hill Switchboard Used For Partisan Purposes
Warner Todd Huston says this certainly can't be legal… can it?
If you
call the switchboard for Congress, the number you'd call to be put
through to your Congressman or Senator's office, you get a short message
selling Obama's healthcare policies before being transferred to the
switchboard operator. This should be the sort of story the Old
Media would investigate fully. But will it?
How can this
even be legal? After all, this isn't the Democrat Party hotline we
are talking about here. It is the main phone number representing
all of Congress, not just Obama and his nationalized healthcare
policies. I repeat, this is the phone number for all of Congress,
not an activist's number to sell Democrats and their policies.
While it lasts, try it yourself and you'll see. The number is
1-800-828-0498.
Here is the transcript of the message you'll
hear:
Thank you for calling your Representative and
your Senators.
Please urge them to vote yes on health
insurance reform. Because the American people can no longer wait for
more choices, lower costs, and coverage we can count on.
After this little message the phone rings once again and
is patched through to the switchboard operator.
Here is the
audio that I recorded just in case the Obama administration does the
"transparent" thing and makes this message disappear down the memory
hole.
I have to say,
this message is frightening. We can't even call our representatives
without being hit over the head by the socialized healthcare message. Not to mention the fact that the message is a arguably untrue. A good
argument can be made that ObamaCare will not give us "more choices,"
ObamaCare will not "lower costs," and ObamaCare will not give us better coverage.
I
just cannot see how this is legal, and even if it is legal it is gauche
and not right. Can the message for the Congressional switchboard be used
for partisan purposes? I just can't see it being legal.
Naturally, the big question here is if the Old Media will report this? If a Republican president or a Republican controlled House and Senate
were to sponsor such a phone message on the Capitol Hill switchboard,
one would think that the Old Media would lose its collective mind that a
general government service was being used for partisan purposes. One
might rather imagine that the media would fall into a feeding frenzy
over such a thing were it to occur with the GOP in controlling power.
I received a single email
suggesting this may be a scam. However, I called the number myself
before posting this item. The operator who answered was very
annoyed, and suggested that she would put me through to my rep (So.
Boston's Steve Lynch). I said that would be useless, connect me
with any Republican, and she put me right through to the Republican
Congressional Committee.
The Obama Show
Matthew Continetti says it's time to change the channel.
Unemployment is close to 10 percent. The government is
embedded in the auto, banking, housing, and insurance sectors.
Obama's domestic agenda hangs in the balance. Things aren't rosy
on the global front, either. Public opinion has turned against the
war in Afghanistan just as a major decision on troop levels must be
made. The Iranians are busily working to obtain nuclear weapons.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict remains as intractable as ever.
It's a dangerous world at an uncertain time, and last week Obama
responded by going on the Late Show with David Letterman.
It's
all too apparent: Faced with the choice, Obama prefers the comforts of
celebrity to the duties of leadership. In addition to Letterman,
there was his appearance on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno last March
and his running commentary in the ESPN broadcast booth during baseball's
All-Star game last July. You might imagine a lame-duck making such
media appearances, but not one barely nine months into his term.
Obama clearly sees himself as a sort of salesman-in-chief, and considers
endless speechifying and interview-giving as the best way to further his
agenda. The adoring crowds, raucous applause, and obsequious press
coverage that accompany his appearances are cherries on top.
So,
in order to pressure Congress to act on health care and "call out" all
the lying racist, nihilist cynics who stand in his way, Obama delivered
his major address to a joint session of Congress on September 9.
He followed that up with giant "Si Se Puede" rallies in Minnesota,
Pennsylvania, and Maryland and a dizzying turn on five Sunday morning
news shows. Amazingly, Obama has also found time in September to
deliver a speech to the nation's schoolchildren; give major addresses on
the financial crisis and climate change; and contribute remarks at
Walter Cronkite's funeral. The month isn't even over yet, and the
salesman-in-chief has become a poor imitation of the late pitchman,
Billy Mays.
Patrick
Courrielchereceived a call from his cousin. He’d been
hearing some chatter from the family about something happening with a
series of NEA articles that I’d
written for Big Hollywood and wanted to find out from the horse’s mouth
what was going on. His question was simple and concise.
"What did the White House do wrong," he asked.
"The White House attempted to use federal agencies for
political gain," I blurted out.
Obama with former NEA Communications Director Yosi
Sergant
And that is
The Big Truth in a nutshell.
A moment of clarity hit me, and as with most eureka moments, a path of
how to explain this big truth came into sight. The full story
needed to be told -- includingpossible collusion, the
White House’s novel mode of operation, and the eventual cover-up
-- to fully understand and illuminate the government’s intention with
their arts effort.
Up until now, I have not discussed
Sergant’s former job in the White House Office of Public Engagement,
where Buffy Wicks currently resides, because the story had to develop to
understand the significance. I also haven’t discussed the email
that I received from Michael Skolnik, the moderator of the call,
immediately after the publication of the
original conference call article
-- an email that attempted to revise history and the role of the NEA and
the White House in the meeting. And what has yet to be discussed
is the White House’s recent ability to set up an
ArtistCorps, brought into
existence with less than 20 words in the Serve America Act.
(more…)
Jarrett’s Ministry of Culture
Conservative journalists have exposed the Obama administration’s
attempts to politicize the National Endowment for the Arts. Andrew
Breitbart’s website has detailed two conference calls in August aimed at
recruiting artists to shill for health care "reform" and environmental
legislation. However, it has been overlooked that an NEA official
and numerous employees in Valerie Jarrett’s office hosted an earlier
meeting on May 12 to enroll "artists" in advancing its political agenda
– and to get their input in shaping it. Both aspects are troubling, as
the invited participants included several of Van Jones’s ideological
fellow travelers, three people who claimed the CIA sells crack in
minority neighborhoods, a Jewish lesbian who confessed to having "a
little crush on Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ," representatives of the SEIU and
the Tides Foundation, a publisher who dubbed 9/11 "a major piece of
performance art conceived by" a jihadist with "an artist’s mind," a
director who wrote 9/11 was tied to Ronald Reagan’s withdrawal from
UNESCO, and the "former International Spokeswoman for the Universal Zulu
Nation."
The evidence shows the heavy involvement of Valerie
Jarrett’s office -- and possibly Jarrett herself -- the participants’
explicit understanding they were to promote Obama’s legislative agenda,
and the administration’s acceptance of those whose beliefs are at least
as radical as those of Van Jones.
The furor began when word
leaked out then-National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) communications
director Yosi Sergant invited Patrick Courrielche and
74 other artists to
participate in an August 10th conference call supporting the United
We Serve Program. Sergant invited his readers to "celebrate how
the arts can be used for a positive change!" The call’s organizer,
Michael Skolnick said (as administration officials listened in) that
artists who had worked to elect Obama must continue "to support some of
the president’s initiatives…to push the president and push his
administration." Sergant then emphasized, "I would encourage you
to pick something, whether it’s health care, education, the
environment…." (Read the
full call transcript.)
However, it was one of Valerie
Jarrett’s employees, Deputy Director of the Office of Public Engagement
Buffy Wicks, who was most explicit about the call’s partisan goals.
She told the participants, "we’re going to come at you with some
specific asks here." She did this because, "We’re actually running
the government. We need your guys’s help to promote this."
No, this is not a joke. I
Googled (News) to make sure this one was on the level -- it is.
Barack Obama was
awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for "his extraordinary efforts to
strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples," the
Nobel Committee said in Oslo today.
The Nobel Committee
awarded Obama his Peace Prize after only 11 days in office.
Obama says he's humbled.
Why are you laughing?
Obama, 48, last year was elected on a platform of extracting the
U.S. from the Iraq war (which he
hasn't) while increasing focus on an eight-year conflict in
Afghanistan (which he hasn't).
All U.S. forces are scheduled to be withdrawn from Iraq by 2011 (which
they won't), after the 2003 the U.S.-led invasion to topple
Saddam Hussein.
Obama is the third occupant of the Oval Office
to be awarded the prize, following Theodore Roosevelt in 1906 and
Woodrow Wilson in 1919. Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter won in
2002.
What the hell has
Obama done to even be considered for this award -- it's a disgrace --
but when one reads the list of presidential honorees -- Wilson, Carter
and Obama -- it kinda makes sense -- three losers!
The bloom was
off the Nobel Rose when they gave the thing to Yasser Arafat.
Even 4th-Worlders are saying it's a joke.
Liaqat Baluch, a senior leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami, a conservative
religious party in Pakistan, called the award an "embarrassing joke."
"Obama has a long way to go still and lots of work to do before he
can deserve a reward," said Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri. "Obama
only made promises and did not contribute any substance to world peace.
And he has not done anything to ensure justice for the sake of Arab and
Muslim causes."
Issam al-Khazraji, a day laborer in Baghdad,
said: "He doesn't deserve this prize. All these problems -- Iraq,
Afghanistan -- have not been solved... The man of 'change' hasn't
changed anything yet."
White House Admits They Control News Media
Gina's blog at Sodahead
reports Obama's presidential campaign focused on "making" the news
media cover certain issues while rarely communicating anything to the
press unless it was "controlled," White House Communications Director
Anita Dunn disclosed to the Dominican government at a videotaped
conference.
"Very rarely did we communicate through the press
anything that we didn't absolutely control," said Dunn.
"One of
the reasons we did so many of the David Plouffe videos was not just for
our supporters, but also because it was a way for us to get our message
out without having to actually talk to reporters," said Dunn, referring
to Plouffe, who was Obama's chief campaign manager.
"We just put
that out there and made them write what Plouffe had said as opposed to
Plouffe doing an interview with a reporter. So it was very much we
controlled it as opposed to the press controlled it," Dunn said.
Dunn: "Whether it was a David Plouffe video or an Obama speech, a
huge part of our press strategy was focused on making the media cover
what Obama was actually saying as opposed to why the campaign was saying
it, what the tactic was -- making the press cover what we were saying."
Anita Dunn's husband
is Obama's personal attorney -- he's the guy that's keeping Obama's bona
fides hidden from the American People -- and she's Obama's mouthpiece
and a proud admirer
of Chairman Mao -- it's a tight little bunch.
Obama Fumbles On Monday Night Football
Kyle Smith says his propaganda has seeped into everything.
Remember that time President Bush interrupted the Emmy telecast to tell
people we should support reform of Social Security before it bankrupted
the country?
Neither do I. Yet when I tuned in to watch
"Monday Night Football" this week to check out the Miami Dolphins’
Wildcat offense, I didn’t expect to see Obama taking the direct snap and
trying to pound his political message into the end zone.
Where’s
the flag for illegal procedure? Obama is popping up everywhere but
Cialis commercials. How long before we have to watch him and
Michelle holding hands in matching bathtubs as they lecture us about
executive compensation schemes?
With the full blessing of the
media, Obama is still in election mode, and I say: If elections
persist more than 24 months, it’s a problem. Especially when the
networks are giving him free time to air what amount to campaign
commercials.
Jonah Goldberg says that Rocco Landesman, the head of the National
Endowment for the Arts, didn’t get the memo, literally.
On
September 22, stung by controversy over the administration’s effort to
turn the arts community into proselytizers of its very special brand of
hope and change, the White House issued a stern warning to all
government agencies: Keep politics out of the arts.
The
White House denied that was ever the intent. Many in the media, as
is their wont, took the Obama administration at their word.
But
not the website Big Government (which broke the story) and the
Washington Times. They demonstrated that from the earliest days of
the presidential transition, Barack Obama’s political operation sought
to entrench the arts community in its "outreach" operations. Bill
Ivey, Obama’s transition adviser on the arts, admitted in June: "I
wanted to see some real connection between administration objectives and
the capacity of all the cultural actors in government. I made some
progress. I got some agreement."
That "progress" mostly
came in the form of enlisting arts groups -- groups that received
stimulus money -- in Obama’s national-service agenda.
Three days
after Landesman was confirmed as the head of the NEA, his communications
director, Yosi Sergant, told NEA grantees in a conference call: "I
would encourage you to pick something, whether it’s health care,
education, the environment -- you know, there’s four key areas that the
corporation has identified as the areas of service."
Two days
later, a host of arts organizations endorsed Obama’s health-care plan:
"We call on Congress to pass: A health-care reform bill that will
create a public-health option.... There is little time to
waste...." Of the 21 groups signing the statement, 16 had recently
received grants from the NEA or were affiliated with organizations that
had.
Sergant was thrown under the bus, and the September 22 memo
put an end to the story for the supportive media.
The Lid blog
reports on a new set of National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) emails that have been released, linking
the White House directly to the NEA scandal.
Four weeks ago, Big
Hollywood posted an
audio of a conference call in which Obama administration officials
asked "grant recipients to plug Barack Obama’s domestic agenda."
At least six federal laws and regulations were violated when then–NEA
communications director Yosi Sergant and White House Office of Public
Engagement deputy director Buffy Wicks tried twisting the arms of
artists and arts groups interested in getting federal arts grants to
produce government propaganda.
To protect the scandal from
expanding further, the White House threw Sergant under the bus, denied
that they were involved issued new guidelines for the NEA and promised
that it will never, ever, cross my heart, ever happen again.
Last
week, Judicial Watch, announced it had obtained
documents from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) through the
Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) related to the NEA's controversial
August 10 conference call encouraging artists to create work that
promotes the Obama agenda. The first set of documents were
internal NEA correspondence involving disgraced former NEA
Communications Director Yosi Sergant, who resigned over the scandal, and
former actor, star of House and current Associate Director of the White
House Office of Public Engagement, Kalpen Modi.
They indicate
that the call was part of a specific White House Arts Policy to use the
NEA as propaganda tool.
The following are
excerpts from the email correspondence:
Using Tax Money To Push Obama Agenda
WashingtonExaminer.com
reports that buried in the interior appropriations bill headed to
Obama's desk is a big spending increase for a controversial agency that
his White House staff aims to use as artistic cover for creating
political propaganda. The National Endowment for the Arts's annual
spending goes from $155 million to $167.5 million, the most since the
Clinton administration. A mere $12 million in a budget with $1.4
trillion in deficits might seem trifling. But documents obtained
by Judicial Watch via a Freedom of Information Act request leave no
doubt that Obama aides meant to put those tax dollars to work paying
"artists" to create posters and other propaganda paraphernalia
supporting the Obama agenda.
As The Examiner reported Friday, the
documents made public by Judicial Watch include a series of e-mails from
White House associate director of public engagement Kalpen Modi, whose
boss is Valerie Jarrett, director of the Office of Public Engagement and
a close Obama confidant. Modi worked with then-NEA communications
director Yosif Sergant planning an Aug. 10 telephone conference call
hosted by Sergant. The purpose of the call, moderator Michael
Skolnik explained at the outset, was to encourage participants "to get
involved in things that we're passionate about as we did during the
campaign but continue to get involved in those things, to support the
president's initiatives ..." Skolnik, political director for
hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons, told conference participants that he was
asked "by people in the White House and folks in the NEA" to organize
the call, which was joined by officials representing 21 arts groups
around the country.
Judicial Watch unearthed e-mail between
Sergant, Modi and Buffy Wicks, deputy director of the White House public
engagement office. Wicks campaigned for Obama in Missouri in 2008,
and before that worked for an ACORN-like activist group known as Wake-Up
Wal-Mart that was funded by the United Food and Commercial Workers
Union. Use of government time, equipment and facilities in
planning the conference call may violate the Anti-Lobbying Act, which
says "no part of the money appropriated by any enactment of Congress
shall, in the absence of express authorization by Congress, be used
directly or indirectly to pay for any personal service, advertisement,
telegram, telephone, letter, printed or written matter, or other device,
intended or designed to influence in any manner a Member of Congress, a
jurisdiction, or an official of any government, to favor, adopt, or
oppose by vote or otherwise, any legislation, law, ratification, policy,
or appropriation. ..." Sergant resigned from the NEA following
disclosure of the Aug. 10 conference call. Why are Modi and Wicks
still on the White House payroll?
Buffy Wicks ran
Obama’s Missouri campaign and the "Obama Truth Squad." Along with
two of St. Louis' high-profile prosecuting attorneys, Wicks'
Truth Squad threatened anyone who dared to disseminate
information that they didn't like about the then-candidate Obama.
One year ago on September 23rd, KMOV Channel 4 in St. Louis reported
that St. Louis County Prosecutor Bob McCullough and St. Louis Circuit
attorney Jennifer Joyce joined a high-profile group of law enforcement
officials (including Jefferson County Sheriff Glenn Boyer) threatening
to invoke "Missouri ethics laws" against anyone the prosecutors
determined had spread misleading information about Obama.
Obama
has shown that he has no problem using goon squad tactics, whether the
goons come from the SEIU or the halls of justice.
Obama Lunches With ObamaMedia
Michael Calderone
says Obama met with several journalists for lunch today at the White
House, according to a source with knowledge of the event.
The
attendees for Friday’s lunch were as follows: CNN's David Gergen,
Washington Post's Chris Cillizza, Newsweek's Jon Meacham and Howard
Fineman, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Cynthia Tucker, POLITICO's
Mike Allen, NPR/ Fox's Mara Liasson, Talking Points Memo's Josh Marshall
and New York Times trio David Brooks, Andy Rosenthal, and Gail Collins.
Also on hand were administration officials: David Axelrod, Anita
Dunn, Bill Burton, and Robert Gibbs.
The off-the-record lunch
lasted about two hours, and included a green salad, halibut and a pear
fart for dessert (excuse me "tart"
-- I couldn't help myself)
Obama's had several
meetings with columnists, editors and reporters since shortly before
inauguration. Early on, there was a conservative columnist dinner
at George Will's house, followed by a meeting with liberal and moderate
writers the next day. Just two weeks ago, Obama met with a group
of mostly liberal columnists and cable personalities.
Obama and the Obots continue to
compromise the American press, who have lost all sense of journalistic independence.
The ObamaMedia are now working directly for Barack Obama.
They are now promoters of his agenda, and defenders of his questionable
background.
Obama’s Great Leap Forward
When Barack Obama was campaigning in 2007, his backers frequently
compared him to former president John F. Kennedy. After a year in
office, however, Obama’s words and actions align more closely with
China’s despotic Chairman Mao than with JFK’s.
When Mao Tse Tung
conquered China in 1949, his secret goal was to dominate the world.
When Obama was elected, many started referring to him as "President of
the World." Both Obama and Mao had carte blanche to set out a path
of radical change.
As part of his strategy, Mao informed his top
echelon, "There has to be a personality cult…it is absolutely
necessary." With the aid of the state media, Mao crafted an iconic
image of himself as the savior of the common man.
Propaganda was everywhere -- including
the fields where workers could listen to messages from Mao as they
worked.
Sound familiar?
In 1958, Mao kicked off what he
called The Great Leap Forward, an extraordinarily creative intervention
in China’s economic development. Mao planned to abolish wages and
put society on a non-cash basis. He then set about abolishing
private property.
The ownership of tools, animals, and other
means of production were taken over by the state -- in the name of the
people. Just as the ownership of the auto, banking and insurance
industries of today have been taken over by Obama's government.
Chairman Mao, in the name of the people, also took over China’s health
care. The "state" determined who would receive this essential
service. The elderly were moved into "houses of happiness" so that
they could be looked after -- by the state. Much like the proposed
government takeover of America’s health care today.
Chairman
Mao’s government also plunged the country into a deep debt by
drastically increasing spending on the development of heavy industry.
But the state-sponsored industry that developed was not only
non-productive, it ended up wasting money and resources on a massive
scale without producing anything of value. Much like the bloated
government behemoth Obama’s policies are producing today.
Mao,
through a cult of personality and firm control of the levers of
government, had the ability to impose his own version of reality on
China. Just as Obama has today.
Those who ignore the
lessons of history are doomed to repeat them.
John Lillpop says for nearly two full years now, the American people
have been force-fed a steady diet of propaganda as to the formidable
genius and superior intellect of one Barack Hussein Obama.
According to the mainstream media and other liberal sources, Obama’s
superior intelligence was more important than the fact that, at age 46,
this savant from Chicago had no practical problem solving experience and
no accomplishments to his credit when he decided to seek the presidency.
His IQ is so extraordinary, they said, that he was entitled to
step into the most powerful position in the world with only the Audacity
of Hope on his resume, and the word CHANGE on his lips and loaded into
his teleprompter.
Barack Obama was the messiah, the One, the
Healer, all things good and glorious rolled into one clean and
articulate ball of genius that would save the world, America, and all of
mankind from eight years of W. and the Republicans.
Unfortunately, the American people bought into this bull excrement and
elected an enthusiastic agent of CHANGE who was, and is, exactly
clueless about the real world.
For the nightmare now residing at
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, we can thank mainstream media and the Democrat
party, and the 69 million people who voted with their hearts rather than
their brains.
After less than a full year in the presidency,
Barack Obama has distinguished himself as the most overrated and
unqualified president in American history.
The Associated Press
gleefully reports that the Obama administration has told the United
Nations that America's human rights record is less than perfect, but
stressed that the U.S. political system has built-in safeguards that
promote improvements.
In its first-ever report to the U.N. Human
Rights Council on conditions in the United States, the State Department
said Monday that some Americans, notably minorities, are still victims
of discrimination. Despite success in reforming such inequities as
slavery and the denial of women's right to vote, the department said,
considerable progress is still needed.
"Although we have made
great strides, work remains to meet our goal of ensuring equality before
the law for all," it said.
The report noted that although the
U.S. now has an African-American in the Oval Office and that women and
Hispanics have won greater social and economic success, large segments
of American society suffer from unfair policies and practices.
High unemployment rates, hate crime, poverty, poor housing, lack of
access to health care and discriminatory hiring practices are among the
challenges the report identified as affecting blacks, Latinos, Muslims,
South Asians, Native Americans and gays and lesbians in the United
States
The American Civil Liberties Union praised the
administration for engaging with the council but said the report
neglected to address key areas where the U.S. has not met its human
rights obligations. Those areas include inhumane prison
conditions, racial disparities in death penalty cases, and abuses in the
immigration detention system.
"It is time for the U.S. to match
its human rights rhetoric with concrete domestic policies and actions
and create a human rights culture and infrastructure that promote
American values of equality and justice for all," said Jamil Dakwar,
director of the ACLU's human rights program.
Those
straight white people are evil -- evil I tell you.
Related:U.S. human rights report hails Obama practices
Related:Obama Hauls Arizona Before the UN Human Rights
Council
What Has Obama Accomplished?
Nancy Morgan points out a question that's making the rounds of
conservative talk shows lately: "What has Obama accomplished so
far?" The question is asked of Obama supporters and the answers
range from "abolishing lobbyists" to "securing world peace" to "lowering
taxes."
One thing all answers have in common: They are all
grounded in perception as opposed to reality.
Obama has
accomplished the amazing feat of convincing millions of Americans that
black is white, that cold is hot, that the bad economy is the fault of
George W Bush, and the only things standing between America and peace on
earth are those darn Republicans and greedy capitalists.
As
author Thomas Sowell points out in "Is Reality Optional," social history
in the last 30 years has been a history of replacing what worked with
what sounded good. And no-where is this more evident than in the
"change" Obama is foisting on the American people.
The empty
rhetoric of "social justice" and "compassion" is convincingly and
successfully being used to justify ever more ludicrous social policies,
which just happen to come with a huge price tag and more government
control.
Ignored by the left and the media, however, is the
inconvenient fact that every single policy promoted by Obama and passed
by congress has been a dismal failure. From the jobs "stimulus" package
that has cost taxpayers a whopping $236,436 per job created -- to the
the "cash for clunkers" -- to the $61 billion bucks taxpayers just lost
through the AIG and auto industry bailout.
Add in the $75 billion
mortgage relief program to stem the largely government caused
"foreclosure crisis." This program has
helped a grand total of 31,000 borrowers to date, a paltry 4% of the
760,000 who have applied.
Despite the dismal failures of these
policies, Obama and his cohorts continue advocating more of the same.
As Dr. Sowell points out, "The anointed are often wrong but never in
doubt."
The Post & Email
reports that in the aftermath of yet another insult to our allies
via the refusal to participate to the traditional events surrounding the
award of the Nobel Prize including a dinner with the King, on the
pretenses that the recipient was a very busy, sitting "President,"
responsible for not one, but two, wars and facing the worst economic
crisis "EVAHHH," the White House is quietly organizing yet another
vacation for the Obamas.
They would have you believe that nothing
has been decided yet, when in fact the logistics of booking their 13 day
vacations in Hawaii, from December 23 to January 3, are in full swing,
and the invitations for the entourage are out!
Yesterday,
December 10, AFP's Laurence Haim, the only French-Press-accredited,
White House correspondent, revealed that she had received an email
inviting her and a guest to stay for the duration of Obama’s trip to
Hawaii, at a Hotel next to the Obamas’ vacations spot. Her
revelations were aired on the French TV leading evening news program.
To listen to the program in French, go to the 20:00 mark in
this broadcast.
According to Haim, the entire corps of White
House correspondents, domestic and international has been invited (with
a guest of their choice), to follow the Obamas under the sun at the
American taxpayer expense.
In times when the American people are
facing a bleak and sobering Christmas, when millions have lost their
jobs and homes, the Obama Court is relocating to a Hawaiian paradise on
the public dime. And to insure the cooperative silence of the Main
Stream Media, it is bribing the lackeys of the press, with lavishing and
outrageous favors.
This would be cause enough to raise eyebrows,
but since when is 13 day vacation outside of the mainland U.S.A.
accpetable the "President" of a nation at war?
I guess Christmas
at home in Chicago or New Year at Camp David does not fit the standards
of the Grandiose Obamas.
Probably not Historic enough!
State Control?
The Radio Equalizer says anyone wondering why an increasing number
of conservatives now use the term "state-controlled media" (which
originated with Rush Limbaugh) to refer to television networks and
newspapers, here's one that drives the point home.
During his
syndicated radio show Friday, libtalker and MSNBC host Ed Schultz
relayed to listeners how he observed "Morning Joe" Scarborough and Mika
Brzezinski take feedback directly from the White House during their
program last week.
Schultz appeared on Thursday's Morning Joe and
directly challenged Obama's David Axelrod on the current version of the
health care bill under consideration in Congress. Interestingly,
this particular segment has since generated a great deal of attention
elsewhere, given the defensive nature of the White House advisor and the
supposed conflict between the far left and the administration:
Is
it really possible that the White House has a direct line to MSNBC's
hosts, communicating with them during their live broadcasts? Now
THAT'S state control!
And do MSNBC staffers actually carry out
the administration's commands? In this case, they certainly made
room on short notice for a lengthy segment featuring Axelrod, there to
rebut comments made by Howard Dean and other recent guests.
TakingSides.com
notes that Obama finally made a public statement about the terrorist
attack on Flight 253 that occurred on Christmas Day. It was not
remarkable in its content including statements such as "This was a
serious reminder of the dangers that we face and the nature of those who
threaten our homeland," and "We will not rest until we find all who were
involved and hold them accountable." What was interesting was the
timing of the statement coming three days after the actual event and
only after much criticism of Obama's silence on the matter.
Perhaps most interesting of all was the way some in the liberal media
combined objective news reporting with custom made excuses for Obama's
latest misstep.
According to an
article in The New York Times, "Mr. Obama’s remarks to reporters
were the first public comments he has made since arriving here Thursday
and the first since a Nigerian man tried to set off explosives aboard a
flight approaching Detroit on Friday" -- completely factual and
objectively stated.
Yet several lines later the same article
states: "Until now, Mr. Obama had tried to strike a balance between
signaling that he is on top of the situation and not drawing more
attention to it than it already was generating. Each day since
Friday, his staff accompanying him here in his home state put out
statements indicating that the president was holding conference calls
and requesting action of government agencies. But he declined for
three days to address it in public himself, cognizant perhaps of
warnings by some terrorism experts against elevating such incidents and
by extension their authors."
How do these supposed journalists
know that the president was attempting to strike such a balance?
Not even the usual "sources requesting anonymity" are cited for this
information. And is it a journalist's job to speculate what a
world leader might "perhaps" be cognizant of?
As Obama proves
time and again that he and his cronies are not up to the challenges they
face, the media outlets that worked so hard to help get him elected are
twisting their professional ethics beyond recognition in a desperate
attempt to defend his missteps, mistakes and miscalculations. They
are delivering not just the news but built-in excuses for those who are
making that news.
The writer's description of ObamaCare, "...a welfare policy breakthrough ...".
Bad timing though, his messiah is turning out to be a disaster.
Lead by Playing Golf -- Another Obama First
Constitutional Guardian doesn't want to be
distracted from the health care crime the Senate committed against
the American people on Christmas Eve, yet the Christmas day terrorist
attack in the skies over Michigan deserves our attention. Because,
in essence, it is part of the same problem.
Irresponsible
leadership.
Obama continued on with his Hawaiian golf vacation
for almost three full days before he took the time to inform the nation
that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was "an isolated extremist." Except
the problem is, he wasn't. He is a self confessed, Al-Quada-connected
terrorist. And to make matters worse, while Obama was enjoying the
links, his administration was busy circulating the Sunday news programs
saying things like: "the system worked." That from Homeland
Security Secretary, Janet Napolitano, earning her the nickname:
Janet Incompetano. I hate to draw an obvious comparison but does
Janet Reno and Waco ring a bell?
And, may I ask where the
critics are that assailed President Bush during Katrina? Demanding
he end his vacation and return to the helm? Rest assured, they are
still with us, still peddling their form of editorial journalism at
places like The Washington Post, which declared Obama's un-response to
the terrorist attack: "low key." Below is an excerpt from the
Post's, December 27th report:
"President Obama has performed a difficult
but familiar balancing act over the past few days: ordering new
security measures in the wake of an attempted airliner attack
without excessively alarming the public -- or triggering an outcry
from civil liberties advocates.
He has done so almost
entirely out of sight. On vacation in Hawaii, tucked away in a
lush neighborhood where his family is renting a waterfront home,
Obama dispatched surrogates back in Washington -- chiefly Homeland
Security Secretary Janet A. Napolitano and press secretary Robert
Gibbs, who appeared on the Sunday talk shows -- to reassure the
public and explain his approach.
Yet even as the president
avoided cameras and played golf and basketball over the weekend, his
aides were quick to explain how fully Obama minded the aftermath of
the Detroit case."
No longer can we call this editorial journalism. This pathetic
Pablum can only be called one thing: Propaganda. No where is the
word "terrorism" or "terrorist" used. No where is Obama's delayed
response challenged. No where is the Homeland Secretary's absurd
statement: "the system worked" denounced or even thoughtfully examined.
There is no outrage over his "lush" waterfront home or the fact that he
amused himself with golf and basketball instead of addressing the
American people in the aftermath of the terrorism.
The standards
traditionally used to measure not just President Bush, but all former
presidents no longer seem to apply. Ignore terrorists, ignore the
airline security of Americans, ignore the cold-blooded shooting of our
soldiers at Fort Hood, ignore the unemployed, ignore the Constitution,
public opinion, common sense economic policies and most importantly, the
truth and you will be hailed as "historic."
No
media bias here
-- bad timing though, his messiah is turning out to be a disaster
The writer's description of ObamaCare is interesting, "...a welfare policy breakthrough ..."
Lead by Playing Golf -- Another Obama First
Constitutional Guardian doesn't want to be
distracted from the health care crime the Senate committed against
the American people on Christmas Eve, yet the Christmas day terrorist
attack in the skies over Michigan deserves our attention. Because,
in essence, it is part of the same problem.
Irresponsible
leadership.
Obama continued on with his Hawaiian golf vacation
for almost three full days before he took the time to inform the nation
that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was "an isolated extremist." Except
the problem is, he wasn't. He is a self confessed, Al-Quada-connected
terrorist. And to make matters worse, while Obama was enjoying the
links, his administration was busy circulating the Sunday news programs
saying things like: "the system worked." That from Homeland
Security Secretary, Janet Napolitano, earning her the nickname:
Janet Incompetano. I hate to draw an obvious comparison but does
Janet Reno and Waco ring a bell?
And, may I ask where the
critics are that assailed President Bush during Katrina? Demanding
he end his vacation and return to the helm? Rest assured, they are
still with us, still peddling their form of editorial journalism at
places like The Washington Post, which declared Obama's un-response to
the terrorist attack: "low key." Below is an excerpt from the
Post's, December 27th report:
"President Obama has performed a difficult
but familiar balancing act over the past few days: ordering new
security measures in the wake of an attempted airliner attack
without excessively alarming the public -- or triggering an outcry
from civil liberties advocates.
He has done so almost
entirely out of sight. On vacation in Hawaii, tucked away in a
lush neighborhood where his family is renting a waterfront home,
Obama dispatched surrogates back in Washington -- chiefly Homeland
Security Secretary Janet A. Napolitano and press secretary Robert
Gibbs, who appeared on the Sunday talk shows -- to reassure the
public and explain his approach.
Yet even as the president
avoided cameras and played golf and basketball over the weekend, his
aides were quick to explain how fully Obama minded the aftermath of
the Detroit case."
No longer can we call this editorial journalism. This pathetic
Pablum can only be called one thing: Propaganda. No where is the
word "terrorism" or "terrorist" used. No where is Obama's delayed
response challenged. No where is the Homeland Secretary's absurd
statement: "the system worked" denounced or even thoughtfully examined.
There is no outrage over his "lush" waterfront home or the fact that he
amused himself with golf and basketball instead of addressing the
American people in the aftermath of the terrorism.
The standards
traditionally used to measure not just President Bush, but all former
presidents no longer seem to apply. Ignore terrorists, ignore the
airline security of Americans, ignore the cold-blooded shooting of our
soldiers at Fort Hood, ignore the unemployed, ignore the Constitution,
public opinion, common sense economic policies and most importantly, the
truth and you will be hailed as "historic."
Patterico says a woman has written the same letter defending Obama
to dozens of publications across the country, getting them published in
at least 42 newspapers in 18 states, as well as Politico.com, the
Washington Times, and USA Today. And the woman, Ellie Light, has
claimed residence in many of these states.
Think there might be
some phony Astroturfing there? At the Cleveland Plain Dealer,
Sabrina Eaton makes a nice catch:
Ellie Light sure gets around.
In recent weeks, Light has published virtually identical "Letters to
the Editor" in support of Barack Obama in more than a dozen newspapers.
Every letter claimed a different residence for Light that happened to be
in the newspaper’s circulation area.
"It’s time for Americans to realize that
governing is hard work, and that a president can’t just wave a magic
wand and fix everything," said a letter from alleged
Philadelphian Ellie Light, that was published in the Jan. 19 edition
of The Philadelphia Daily News.
A letter from Light in the Jan. 20 edition of the
San Francisco Examiner concluded with an identical sentence, but with an
address for Light all the way across the country in Daly City,
California.
Variations of Light’s letter ran in Ohio’s Mansfield
News Journal on Jan. 13, with Light claiming an address in Mansfield; in
New Mexico’s Ruidoso News on Jan. 12, claiming an address in Three
Rivers; in South Carolina’s The Sun News on Jan. 18, claiming an address
in Myrtle Beach; and in the Daily News Leader of Staunton, Virginia on
Jan. 15, claiming an address in Waynesboro. Her publications list
includes other papers in Ohio, West Virginia, Maine, Michigan, Iowa,
Pennsylvania and California, all claiming separate addresses.
She
has more houses than John McCain!
But there are a few more places
her little pro-Obama missive appeared, besides those documented.
Like . . .
Obama-Drooling Media
Joan Swirsky says, that's right, the Obama-drooling media created
their own lame-duck, and it wasn't only Katie Couric.
For the
past two years, when Obama was in campaign mode and after his Acorn- and
foreign-money-fueled election, the entire leftwing media debased what
once passed for legitimate journalism. With absolute consistency,
they:
• Failed
utterly to vet an inexperienced, document-concealing candidate (we
still haven't seen Obama's Illinois law license or an authentic
birth certificate).
•
Failed to investigate the veracity of aggrandizing information
spewed by Obama's spin doctors and then repeated their spin (they
still say, for instance, that he was a law professor, which he never
was).
• Failed to conceal
their stunning lack of objectivity through the soft-ball questions
they asked and, as Bernard Goldberg says, their "slobbering"
obsequiousness.
• Failed to
distance themselves from the leftwing radicals who see racism where
none exists -- and even echoed their paranoia!
• Failed to camouflage their
personal biases both for Obama and against any of his critics or
political opponents and competitors.
•
Failed to correct his virtual avalanche of lies, which John
Ellis has
catalogued in scandalous and chilling detail, saying that "the
accumulated weight of Obama's deceit is overwhelming....as a result,
this nation is now in a position where it cannot believe a word that
he says, and that amounts to an unprecedented crisis of confidence
in the Presidency."
Continue reading, "Tyranny of the American Media,"
here .
. .
The "Ellie Light" Scandal
Brent Bozell says the declining (or is it dying?) newspaper industry
has suffered another blow to its image as punctilious skeptic. So
much for the motto, "If your mother says she loves you, check it out."
It turns out a pile of American newspapers can’t manage to check out the
most basic information about people who are flat-out using their pages
to push political agendas.
A person with the name of "Ellie
Light" has been successfully published with the same letter in at least
68 newspapers defending President Obama -- defrauding the editors by
using local addresses. Reports have "her" published in two papers
overseas.
Who is "Ellie Light"? We know this much: "She" is
a fraud.
Is this an official White House or Organizing for
America campaign? Is it simply a dirty trick? Is this
brass-knuckles (and dishonest) politics from the DNC? Or an
unauthorized Obama groupie? Some investigating conservative
bloggers have found several candidates for the mysterious "Light" writer
that could be connected to Obama.
But the ObamaMedia won’t.
This story hurts Obama, so they’ll spike it. Count on that.
Gawker has confirmed
that the mysterious pro-Obama letter-writer is, in fact, a nurse named
Barbara Brooks from Kern County, Calif. Except now Brooks says
it's really her husband, Winston Steward (picture).
Did Reuters Yank Article Because It Was Too Truthful?
Big Journalism
says sometimes, the truth hurts. In the case of an article
published yesterday at 4:04 p.m. Eastern, it appears that Reuters
editors were afraid writer Terri Cullen’s adventure into truthful
journalism might hurt their news agency’s relationship with Barack Obama
-- so they yanked it.
Published under the headline "Backdoor
taxes hit middle class," the article opened by describing the Obama
Administration’s plan to cut more than $1 trillion from the deficit over
the next decade as relying "heavily on so-called backdoor tax increases
that will result in a bigger tax bill for middle-class families."
Four hours and three minutes after it hit the wire, the story was
"withdrawn," apparently at the Administration’s urging, with a promise
that "a replacement story will run later in the week."
Why did
Reuters pull the story? One site cited a Reuters rep as saying the
piece was withdrawn "due to significant errors of fact" and "should not
have gone out." I think it was the language used in the article
that prompted Reuters to pull it. In particular, it was the series
of phrases shown below that, combined with the one mentioned above, must
have made the hair stand up on the back of Rahm Emanuel’s neck:
"…effectively a tax hike by stealth."
"middle-class families will face a slew of these backdoor
increases."
Perhaps the largest contributing factor to the
article being yanked is a list of tax break provisions popular among
middle-class families that Obama might allow to expire:
* Taxpayers who itemize will lose the
option to deduct state sales-tax payments instead of state and local
income taxes.
* The $250 teacher tax credit for
classroom supplies.
* The tax deduction for up to
$4,000 of college tuition and expenses.
* Individuals
who don’t itemize will no longer be able to increase their standard
deduction by up to $1,000 for property taxes paid.
*
The first $2,400 of unemployment benefits are taxable, in 2009 that
amount was tax-free.
The last line of the story was, perhaps, the
proverbial "nail in the coffin" for the Reuter’s piece:
* Trickle-down-taxation.
Here Come The
Cheerleaders
The quarterback scores a
touchdown, and is
jubilant. Now it's the cheerleader's turn to take the field --
to lead the celebration of the great victory. That's what's
coming.
Obama
scores a great victory (in his mind) by using a questionable
formation and play that has been
described as, "a messy perversion of democracy." He cheated.
But now the cheerleaders, the ObamaMedia will take the field -- and
they're platooning -- half of them will laud their hero and his deeds --
while the other half will savagely attack anyone they perceive to be his
foes, or foes of Obama's agenda.
There will be hundreds of
millions of taxpayer and network dollars disbursed for an endless
campaign -- glorifying Obama and ObamaCare -- the greatest thing in 100
years!
On the other hand, tens of millions of taxpayer and
network dollars will be spent on a relentless campaign against the
perceived foes of Obama and Obamacare.
If you even look like
you're gonna criticize Obama or ObamaCare, you're gonna get it.
Watch out Tea Partiers! Watch out Rush -- Glenn! You guys are
about to see a massive public relations campaign directed directly at
you, and folks like you. It's already started.
FoxNews.com is
reporting
that Tea Party protesters on Capitol Hill Saturday, were accused of
spitting on a congressman, shouted the "n-word" at black lawmakers, and
calling a gay congressman a slur. None of it happened. 48
Hours after the Capital Hill event, there are 786 news items returned
from a search of -- "Tea Party" slur -- in Google News.
Last
night, on his MSNBC show, Keith Olbermann went on a
rant that included the following, "If racism is not the whole of the
Tea Party, it is in its heart, along with blind hatred, a total
disinterest in the welfare of others, and a full-flowered,
self-rationalizing refusal to accept the outcomes of elections, or the
reality of Democracy, or of the narrowness of their minds and the equal
narrowness of their public support."
CNN's Roland Martin, the
Network's political analyst, took a cheap shot at ObamaCare critics who
claim Democratic health care reform measures are not free-market
approaches by
saying, "And so if you want to make an argument that there are core
differences, there are no doubt between Democrats and Republicans on
this issue. And you know what? You sometimes have to make
tough issues -- tough decisions. And so I just don't believe in
these ridiculous names, what's communism and what's socialism.
People probably can't even spell communism and socialism, much less
identify it."
And, then, there's Organizing for America's
14,000,000-member database, pumping out mass e-mailings every day
-- several times a day -- different banners, different sponsors --
same mass-marketed message from OFA's state-of-the-art marketing
database. The stuff pumped out of here is pure unadulterated
propaganda -- pure indoctrination.
Besides the propaganda, the
Obots use OFA's information for producing "Action Alerts." If OFA
wants to shut down an appearance of Jon Voight on a conservative radio
program, out goes the Action Item. Everyone in the database that
lives in the radio station's market gets an email to "call radio station
WXXX at 8 PM tonight, and keep calling until 9 PM.
They can shut
you down.
You need a couple of thousand protesters or
counter-protesters. Press a button -- and a motivated bunch shows
up -- right where you need them -- right when you need them.
To
see what is being disseminated from this bunch click
here to
enroll -- you can un-enroll anytime by going to the bottom of any
message and clicking "unsubscribe." It's worth taking a look at
this stuff. Unbelievable propaganda.
Watch this gain mass
and momentum daily.
Could Chavez-Style Media
Crackdowns Be Coming?
Steve Forbes says that many
of Hugo Chavez’s most ardent supporters here in the U.S. come out of the
"media reform" movement, which believes that our corporate media has
been thoroughly co-opted by capitalists bent on destroying the
benevolent leadership of the likes of Chavez. They think that our
capitalist-plagued media world is in dire need of reform.
The
chief proponent of this thinking – which amounts to an unprecedented
government intrusion into our own country’s media -- is Professor
Robert McChesney, founder of the Orwellian-named
Free Press, one of the most influential organizations in the growing
"media reform" movement on the far-left.
Free Press’ curious
stance on media reform can best be summed up by McChesney who suggests
that, "Any serious effort to reform the media system would have to
necessarily be part of a revolutionary program to overthrow the
capitalist system itself."
Such radical hyperbole coming from the
founder of a group called "Free Press" drips with irony. But it’s
a rhetorical flourish that Dr. McChesney is apparently quite comfortable
with. He has employed it repeatedly to argue that his version of
media reform is the first step in the struggle to remake American
society in a socialistic fashion. In his attack on the existing
media "power structure" in the U.S., he calls for a "class struggle from
below… In the end there is no real answer but to remove brick by
brick the capitalist system itself, rebuilding the entire society on
socialist principles."
If any of this sounds eerily familiar, it
should. It’s right out of Hugo Chavez’s playbook. Like Chavez,
Free Press' call for "media reform" harkens back to a bygone era when
the radical left’s doctrinarian opposition to a genuinely free press was
rooted in the totalitarian political theories of Marx, Lenin, Hitler and
others.
All of this could be ignored as the comical rants of a
loony leftist professor safely ensconced in the tenured halls of
academia, were it not for Free Press’ astonishing -- and growing --
influence on policymaking within the current administration and
Congress.
As hard as it may be to believe, McChesney and his
indefatigable band of media revolutionaries are being taken seriously by
some policymakers in Washington. They are granted regular
audiences with those overseeing our nation’s media policy at the FCC and
FTC, and meeting regularly with members of Congress.
Their latest
plan to defacto nationalize the media calls for the federal government
to bail out newspapers with $60 billion in new government subsidies.
As anyone familiar with Washington knows, money does not come free:
Such subsidies will virtually invite the government into the fourth
estate as overseers. Richard Nixon must be rubbing his eyes in
disbelief. But Free Press tells us not to worry. Such media
reform will have safeguards in place to protect the freedom of the press
from government influence. Uh-huh!
The headlines are all
warning about right wing violence that hasn't actually happened but
journalists seem to feel is imminent. Here's a few of today's
headlines:
The big headline in the last couple of days
is that lawmakers concerned as health-care overhaul foes resort to
violence.
The ObamaMedia misreported the coffin
placed on Rep. Russ Carnahan's (D-Mo.) lawn.
Allegations
of spitting and directing slurs at awmakers.
Rep. Markey claims to have
received threats over ObamaCare vote.
If you listened to the media as much of our country
still sadly does, it would be clear that right wing violence is a
burgeoning crisis. And as we know, this White House doesn't like
to see a good crisis go to waste.
So I'm thinking hey, wouldn't
this be the perfect time for some kind of...I don't know...national
civilian security force that...you know...answers to Obama...for our own
protection of course...or something.
It's not like Obama's not
thinking about it. Remember. He actually said, "America must
balance and integrate all elements of our national power. We can
not continue to push the burden onto our military alone, or leave
dormant any aspect of the arsenal of American capability. That's
why my administration is committed to renewing diplomacy as a tool of
American power and developing our civilian national security
capabilities."
And he spelled it out a little clearer by saying:
"We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the
national security objectives that we've set. We've got to have a
civilian national security force
that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded."
I
wonder how many more stories the media will have to write about right
wing violence (that hasn't actually happened yet) before Obama starts
chatting up the security force idea again. You know, for our own
protection.
What you are
seeing, is the application of Saul Alinsky's Rule 12, "Pick the target,
freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it." Cut off the support
network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and
not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions.
When
George Bush was president the media ignored the vicious attacks on him
by the Left. Now, a few incidents, that may or may not have
happened, are being used to stop the argument -- and this is just the
beginning. It's exactly the same trick as the "racist" attack --
and it works.
The ObamaMedia is tsk-tsking and Republicans and
conservatives find themselves responding to what may be baseless
charges, instead of unmasking these tactics and exposing the hypocrisy.
Related: The Obots continue to
take political advantage of reports of Republican vandalism and threats,
with the head of the Obama campaign organization, Mitch Stewart,
referring to one the alleged incidents in a fundraising appeal.
Also related: You won't read
about this death threat
made against the Palin family in the ObamaMedia though:
A fellow calling himself
Jason Brown has been posting since May 10, 2009, and has a total of
379 messages posted so far. He is a fan of Keith Olbermann and
Rachel Maddow. Typical of his leftist political beliefs are
messages like the one above.
In recent days, Brown has been
saying that he is concerned about the violence that he believes Sarah
Palin is fostering -- his irrational response -- threatening to kill
Sarah Palin and her family.
"Hundreds Of People, At
Least Dozens"
NewsBusters.com
reports that at the Tea Party Express event on March 27 in
Searchlight, Nev., where former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin spoke, the
Communist News Network's Fredericka Whitfield wasn't quite prepared to
give the rally credit it was due as far as participation. She
estimated that hundreds, but if not, "at least dozens of people"
were in attendance.
"Hundreds of people, at least dozens of
people -- we haven’t gotten a count of how many people turned out there.
We heard Sarah Palin talk about everything about the campaign, to unseat
Sen. Reid to what she calls ObamaCare, on the heels of that health care
vote and even talking about her definition of her love of America."
Politico's Kenneth Vogel had a little higher number
than CNN,
saying "an estimated 20,000 tea partiers gathered for a rally in a
windswept desert lot," in his March 27 report on the event.
And check out
this photo of the people who didn't make it into the event.
You Never Saw This Hate
In The ObamaMedia
Nor This Behavior
You Did See These "Most
Offensive" Images
The Huff-n-Puff Post has an
article
featuring the "10 most offensive" Tea Party signs and extensive
photo coverage of the Tax Day Protests by "citizen photojournalists."
Warning! There are other outrageous images like these
horrific pictures at the link (click the little dots).
These are the kinds
of images that have the ObamaMedia outraged -- what the
asshats at the Huff-n-Puff Post see as "most offensive."
Oh, the humanity!
Obama Doesn't Like "Vitriol"?
John Hinderaker
says CBS's interview with
Barack Obama has to be seen to be believed. Here, Harry Smith asks
Obama whether he is aware that some have called him a "socialist" or a
"Nazi." The tone of the interview is remarkable; just try to
imagine a network news correspondent asking George Bush in the same
sympathetic manner what he thinks about the appalling excesses of the
other side:
Note how Obama immediately starts talking about the "vitriol" of
Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck. This is a bad joke: has Obama never
listened to Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow et al.? I've never
watched or listened to Beck, but Limbaugh is a more moderate and
sophisticated analyst of the political scene than, say, Paul Krugman or
E.J. Dionne.
As for vitriol, has Obama forgotten his own
contributions? "If They Bring a Knife to the Fight, We Bring a
Gun," and "Get in their face"? Or how about his many denunciations
of the insurance industry, of doctors, and others involved in health
care? Can you remember the last time a president insulted millions
of Americans in this manner? I can't. As far as Obama is
concerned, "vitriol" is entirely a matter of whose ox is being gored.
Just a couple of buddies out
for a stroll.
It Was a Setup
Jim Hoft
says the
American Thinker
did an outstanding job describing the events on March
20th, when democratic members of Congress in Washington
DC were
reportedly taunted
by tea party activists with racial and sexual slurs.
It appears from the timeline of the events that this
race-baiting story was in the works before the Black
Caucus members paraded through the tea party crowd on
Capitol Hill.
Now
Doug Ross found
this: McClatchy
released their story on the reported attacks on the
Black Caucus members at
4:51 PM EST. The
McClatchy reporter William
Douglas refers to
Huffington Post
contributor Sam Snead as a source in his article.
Amazing! It
looks like the democratic-media complex was working on
this story before it even occurred. If it even
occurred.
The Black Caucus members and
democratic-media complex STILL have
not provided
any proof that the N-word was said once, let alone
15 times, as
Rep. Andre Carson claimed.
Andrew Breitbart
has more on Obama’s helter-skelter Alinskyite plans to
deconstruct America.
Rep. Michele Bachmann
agrees with
Andrew Breitbart -- Pelosi wanted to incite Tea Partiers
when she paraded through the protesters on Capitol Hill.
In three years I have never seen
Nancy Pelosi cross the street, the way that you saw in
that picture," Bachmann told Sean Hannity. "They
deliberately went through that crowd perhaps to try and
incite something." Bachmann said the Democrats were "slandering" Tea Partiers by calling them racist.
Update: The lies
are unraveling: Black Dem Rep. Emanuel Cleaver who
said he was spit on
now says others
are
making the claim up
on his behalf.
Communications Corruption At The White
House
An unhealthy pattern is developing in this White House -- a trend
that may very well have been a part of other presidencies as well -- but
what is happening today needs comment. Some journalists seem to be
putting their self interest above their responsibilities to the public
as well as their employers.
As
Howard Kurtz and
Glenn Greenwald have both commented, many White House correspondents
and other top tier journalists want to write Obama books -- anything
with "Obama" on it is running at a huge premium in the book publication
market.
But the kind of books that sell need "inside access" and this is
something that the communications team at the White House doles out
minimally, and increasingly, only when favors are part of the
arrangement.
What I have learned after discussions over the last several days with
several journalists who either have regular access to the White House or
are part of the White House press corps is that there is a growing sense
that access is traded for positive stories -- or perhaps worse, an
agreement that things learned will not be reported in the near term.
The White House is working hard to secure deals that yield fluffy,
feel good commentary about the Obama White House. One American
White House reporter used colorful terms to describe the arrangement.
The reporter said, "They want 'blow jobs' first [in the press sense].
Then you have to be on good behavior for a bit or be willing to deal,
and then you get access."
"Axe" and "Gibbs" know who needs access to get their books pushed
forward. They know who will pay for play -- and are taking notes
on who has been naughty and nice in their reporting.
Peter Wehner says one of the core claims made
by Barack Obama during his presidential campaign -- a commitment
absolutely central to his run for the presidency -- is that he would
change the political culture of Washington. He would, by the force
and power of his personality, uproot old habits. He would elevate
the national debate, usher in an unprecedented period of transparency,
eschew "spin" and the "50 plus one" style of governing, and "turn the
page" on the "old politics" of division and anger.
The political
culture has changed, but arguably for the worse. Obama has already
established himself as the most polarizing first-year president in
modern times. Our politics are tumultuous and often dyspeptic;
there is anger all around. Those conducting focus groups report
that citizens are turning against one another in a way that is
disquieting. The political divisions within our society appear to
be deepening rather than healing.
From the Obama perspective,
the reasons for all this have to do not with him but with his critics.
Many of them are, according to some of Obama's chief defenders, people
who are racist and bigoted, Klansmen without the robes and hoods,
individuals who have not made inner peace with a man who is
African-American. Obama's critics are attempting to incite, or
about to employ, political violence. Sarah Palin, in particular,
uses phrases that act like a dog whistle.
Other Americans, we are
told, are simply fearful because of the difficult economic times we
face. This is a moment of great discontent. Obama, it is
said, is an enlightened agent of change, helping to bring a sometimes
reluctant and benighted citizenry from where it is to where it needs to
be. This journey, while necessary, can be unsettling. And of
course the locus of our divisions can be found in talk radio, the bane
of our human existence, and Fox News. These are the pillars of the
vast right-wing conspiracy. And vast it is. Barack Obama may
have the Oval Office, Democrats may control the House and the Senate,
and most members of the press may have voted, in overwhelming numbers,
for Obama -- but the right wing is still winning the messaging war.
It is both malignant and in possession of almost mythical communication
powers.
That, at least, is one narrative. There is another.
Markos Moulitsas, the Obama operative that gave
us Obama's phony Certification of Live Birth, is still on the job.
The founder of the sleazy leftist blog, the Daily Kos, appeared with
MSNBC propagandist Keith Olbermann to lob some rhetorical bombs at the
Tea Party movement. Most notably he seemed to accuse the Tea Party
of espousing genocide, a statement that host Keith Olbermann did nothing
to dispute and sounded like he agreed with.
No stranger to
controversy, Moulitsas first questioned the "tea baggers" motives and
whether their support for smaller government was real, before
stating:
"They’re against democratic government,
they’re anti-democratic… basically with just respect for democracy
in this nation, I mean this is what the people voted for, and it’s
one thing to oppose it on policy, it’s another thing to use the kind
of exterminationist, eliminationist rhetoric that they’re using in
appealing to violence and uh, and uh, that sort of thing."
Is Obama Administration Behind Anti-Tea
Party Website?
Erick Erickson
says "Astroturf" is the act of professional interest groups
designing campaigns that appear to be grassroots efforts, but are not.
It is what the left has accused the tea parties of being. Only
more and more it looks like the anti-tea party movement is truly
astroturfing.
Writing on January 15, 2010, Glenn Greenwald at
Salon
noted Barack Obama’s new head of the Office of Information and
Regulatory Affairs, Cass
Sunstein, had championed creating fake websites and using outside
501(c)(3) interest groups to act as alleged independent champions of
government policy and to "cognitively infiltrate" opposition websites,
etc.
In other words, Cass Sunstein has favored the government
using outside parties as government propaganda agents to paint their
opposition as fringe and undermine their credibility. Kind of like
what has been happening with the tea party movement -- lots of SEIU
members pretending to be tea party activists causing violence in front
of TV cameras.
Sunstein advocates that the Government’s
stealth infiltration should be accomplished by sending covert agents
into "chat rooms, online social networks, or even real-space
groups." He also proposes that the Government make secret
payments to so-called "independent" credible voices to bolster the
Government’s messaging.
Considering Sustein’s recommendations, it is not
far removed to speculate the Obama administration is behind a new
anti-tea party website called The Other
95, which defends the government from tea party criticisms and
attacks the tea party movement as fringe.
The website purports to
be authentically grassroots, though one must wonder when the last time
was any grassroots activist took the time to defend the government.
The designer is
affiliated with MoveOn.org and other leftwing sites and causes.
But most notable, the donations page makes donations out to
Democracy in Action. Democracy in Action is not for individual
activists to use. It is for small and medium sized 501(c)(3)
organizations and others on the left. Among its clients?
ACORN, True Majority, NAACP, and others.
-- note: Brian has now
changed Democracy In Action to The Other 95 -- nobody ever said that
Obots weren't adaptable -- or deceitful.
Let’s also
remember that Center for American Progress, led by Obama’s transition
team director John Podesta, has regular 8 a.m. phone calls to coordinate
activity on the left.
It’s a play right out of Lenin’s handbook,
forget Alinsky, to call the authentic "inauthentic" and then create
something inauthentic demanding it be called "authentic."
Obamas Take "Middle Class" Holiday
Obama's propaganda machine is working overtime
this weekend. The Telegraph (UK) and hundreds of other sources all
claim that Barack and Michelle Obama flew off for a brief holiday in
North Carolina on Friday in what was seen as an attempt to take a
"middle class" vacation more in keeping with those of ordinary
Americans, a private weekend without their daughters.
The
Christian Science Monitor
describes Asheville as hip, environmentally aware, self-reliant and
undeniably quaint. It's a progressive's vision of what America
could be.
Founded as a health resort, the little city of
"hillbilly-hippies," entrepreneurs, musicians, retirees, and community
drum circles is, indeed, a progressive's vision of America.
Nestled in the oldest hills on earth, Asheville (pop. 70,000), the first
East Coast city to require sustainable green construction, is a sort of
experiment in environmentalism that has made the city the gateway to the
new Appalachia and gotten it listed both as one of America's "happiest
places" and as one of the "best places to reinvent your life."
It
also represents conservative fears about what Obama's intentions might
wreak: A dearth of high-paying jobs, relatively high taxes, large
numbers of homeless and other wards of the state, a high crime rate, and
a progressive ruling class perhaps more interested in maintaining
quaintness than thickening residents' wallets.
"At least as far
back as the arrival of the "middle class" Vanderbilts, it has
been a haven for artists, innovative types, sophisticated thinkers, and
people who want a little something more out of life than the average,"
writes former resident Thomas Osborne on City-Data.com. "Asheville
is cultured and educated, perhaps more like a New England town, but
amazingly friendly and polite, like a piece of decent southern
aristocracy."
But, middle class? Shirley, you jest!
click for
more images of Asheville's "middle class" resort
Surprise! Surprise!
P.J. Gladnick says it turns out that the
"grassroots" organizer of the "progressive alternative" to the Tea
Parties, the
Coffee Party, has been exposed as an Obama political operative.
If you had read the profiles of the Coffee Party founder Annabel Park (photo)
in the Washington Post or New York Times you wouldn't have had a hint as
to her extensive political activity in the 2008 Obama campaign. So
how did William A. Jacobson of Le-gal In-sur-rec-tion discover this
"deep secret" that the two major newspapers with their vast resources
were unable to find? Well, it required the "tremendous effort" of
tapping a few keys and a whole mouse click to find this subject matter
as Jacobson explains:
In fact, a simple internet search (which the
NY Times apparently is not capable of doing) reveals that Park
organized the Coffee Party for the specific purpose of undermining
the Tea Party movement.
Park is a former Strategy Analyst at
the NY Times who was one of organizers and operators of the United
for Obama video
channel at YouTube.
A strategy analyst for the New York Times who was
one of the organizers for United for Obama? Some grassroots
person! Perhaps in the rarified air which Times reporter Kate
Zernike breaths. After all she was the same reporter who somehow
managed to detect racial overtones in the Brooklyn accent of Jason
Mattera speaking at CPAC. So what was Zernike's lame excuse for
failing to reveal Park's background working as a political operative for
Obama?
Larry Elder
says "Obama Double Standard Disease" (ODSD), is an affliction that
causes the media to ignore, rationalize or trivialize in order to
defend, support and advance the tax-the-rich, spread-the-wealth,
expand-the-government agenda of Obama and his party. This stands
in stark contrast with the media treatment of those who refuse to
embrace the left-wing, America-bullies-the-world, dissenters-are-racist,
pro-amnesty, gay marriage-is-a-right, pro-Roe v. Wade worldview.
ODSD is pandemic. Here are just a few cases.
When the
economy recovered under Bush, the major news media pronounced it a
"jobless recovery." Now, despite unemployment stalled at 9.7
percent for several months, the same media call it a "surprising" or
"unexpected" recovery.
Obama urged passage of an $800 billion
"stimulus" package in order to prevent unemployment from reaching 8
percent. Post-stimulus passage, unemployment reached 10 percent.
Consider how the media would have treated Bush had he given varying
predictions about, and then varying accounts of, the number of jobs
supposedly "created or saved" -- a laughably unprovable yardstick.
Obama brazenly claims that under his policies, 95 percent of
"working Americans" received a "tax cut." But nearly half of
American workers pay absolutely nothing in income taxes. And after
exemptions, tax credits and other deductions, the Obama tax cut even
exceeded many workers' payroll taxes. How does a check, given to
someone who pays little or no taxes, become a "tax cut"?
The
Service Employees International Union, to elect Obama and other
Democrats in 2008, spent $85 million. And in support of corporate
bailouts, ObamaCare and higher taxes to "spread the wealth differently,"
SEIU President Andy Stern said, "Western Europe, as much as we used to
make fun of it, has made different trade-offs which may have ended with
a little more unemployment but a lot more equality."
NBC's Matt
Lauer did not ask Obama about the incredible willingness of the SEIU --
his biggest financial supporter -- to accept fewer jobs for "a lot more
equality." CBS' Katie Couric did no story on the union's admission
that higher taxes mean fewer jobs. No Washington Post editorial
page asked how Stern's "trade-off" of fewer jobs squares with what Obama
said about the importance of creating jobs: "That's the single most
important thing we can do."
ACORN strongly endorsed Obama.
The community activist group's CEO, Bertha Lewis, gave a speech at the
winter conference of the Young Democratic Socialists. She said:
"Any group that says, 'I'm young, I'm Democratic and I'm a socialist,'
is all right with me. You know, that's no light thing to do, to
actually say, 'I'm a socialist.' Right now, we are living in a
time which is going to dwarf the McCarthy era. It's going to dwarf
the internments during World War II. ... We are right now in a time that
is going to dwarf the era of Jim Crow and segregation. ... This rise of
this tea party so-called 'movement' -- bowel movement, in my opinion --
and this blatant uncovering is ripping off the mask of racism."
Did the media ask Obama about Lewis' lunatic attack on those who
disagree or about her open embrace of socialism? Did the media ask
if Obama cared to comment on his promise, made during the campaign, to
allow ACORN to "shape the agenda" of his presidency? Did they ask
why Obama dismisses critics who call his agenda "socialism" -- even as
one of his biggest backers uses that very word?
ODSD ravages the
country, and it guarantees a pass is given to an administration that
refuses to use the term "Islamofascism"; that offends traditional allies
like Israel and new ones like Poland and the Czech Republic; that
apparently accepts a nuclear Iran; that ignores government's role in the
housing meltdown while blaming Wall Street "greed"; and that makes
appeals to voters along racial lines.
It means that the harmful
consequences of the exploding welfare state get ignored, trivialized or
disputed. It means that "experts," hand-picked and quoted by the
media, overwhelmingly support the administration's income-equality
agenda. It means that inconvenient news stories -- ones that
question "bigger and better" government or show there is another side --
are downplayed, underreported or dismissed.
The Obama Double
Standard Disease is a pre-existing illness -- not covered, even under
ObamaCare.
Angry Journalists Refuse To Review Book
Lachlan Markay says that one of the worst ways
that the lack of ideological diversity in America's newsrooms shows
forth is in the media's treatment of sensational accusations against
Barack Obama.
Oftentimes, explosive allegations against
presidents are either untrue or drastically overstated: George W. Bush
deliberately lying to get the U.S. to war so he can cash in, or
deliberately ignoring Hurricane Katrina due to his hatred of black
people (a la Kanye West), Bill Clinton's supposed involvement in the
drug trade, so on and so forth.
Journalists do the public a
service by rebutting absurd conspiracy theories and wacko charges.
In recent memory, though, they have taken a much greater zeal toward
stamping out allegations against Democrats, particularly Obama, a stark
contrast to the kid glove or even promotional attitude they took toward
books by liberal authors alleging all sorts of anti-Bush absurdities.
Aaron Klein recently discovered this when he sent his new book, "The
Manchurian President," to members of the media he hoped would review it.
He got some very angry responses. Here are some of the more colorful
ones:
"Never, ever contact me again," wrote Time
Magazine senior writer Jeffrey Kluger.
Newsweek deputy editor
Rana Foroohar quipped, "This is sensational rubbish that is of no
interest to any legitimate publication."
"Absolute crap,"
replied Evelyn Leopold, a Huffington Post contributor who served for
17 years as U.N. bureau chief for Reuters until recently.
Nancy Gibbs, editor-at-large for Newsweek, fired, "Remove me from
your list."
David Knowles, AOL's political writer, responded,
"seriously, get a life."
Ben Wyskida, publicity director for
The Nation, claimed Klein's book is "so offensive" and "so far
afield."
Say what you will about this book's claims -- its
sub-header claims to expose "Barack Obama's Ties to Communists,
Socialists and Other Anti-American Extremists" -- but some of these
reporters' publications had no such qualms reviewing, and occasionally
endorsing, the far-left's radical anti-Bush claims during the last
administration, even when they were backed by unreliable sources, or by
no sources at all.
Matt Towery
says that being fair as a pollster isn't that hard if you don't have
an agenda. The same can be said of opinion pieces, as long as you
can persuade readers to join you in weighing all sides of an issue.
So here's my go at interjecting reality into some contemporary issues
that often have been distorted.
1. Obama's approval ratings.
CBS News has it at 51 percent, with 37 percent disapproving of the job
he's doing. The rest are undecided. Ludicrous polls like
this rarely draw the criticism in Washington political and media circles
that polls by, say, Rasmussen do. Rasmussen sometimes shows
Obama's approval rating as lagging his disapproval rating by as much as
10 points -- the opposite extreme of the CBS poll.
The average
of all national polls shows Obama's approval rating at around 48 percent
and his disapproval at 45 percent. So while he is not the revered
hero CBS would have us believe, he is also not considered an abject
disaster by the public. (CBS polls appear to under-sample
Republicans, based on the generally accepted axiom that partisan
identification in America is now about evenly split.) Suffice to
say Obama is not Mr. Popular right now.
2. A new Gallup Poll
says that GOP voter intensity -- how excited Republicans are about
turning out to vote in this year's elections -- has dropped. This
is true enough, but so what? There's nothing now in the news to
equal the healthcare legislation that so inflamed Republican passions.
Besides, the same poll shows Democrats' enthusiasm about voting to be
about 10 points below that of Republicans.
For the GOP, the good
news is that by the time campaign TV ads start running and we're well
into the fall election season, Republican voter intensity likely will be
sky-high. The bad news is that despite many Washington insiders
saying the GOP will take majority control of the House, my best guess
for now is that some significant new political development may have to
arise for that to happen.
3. Most media underplayed the fact
that the man who tried to bomb Times Square has ties to Islamic
terrorists. This shouldn't just be a part of the story, it should
be the story. Had the bomb worked, the Gulf oil spill --
horrendous as it has been -- would be below the fold on newspaper front
pages.
Few want to face the truth -- most Americans resent that
they have to undergo the third degree when boarding airplanes, even
though they don't remotely resemble the profile of successful modern-day
terrorists. That, while those who do fit the profile seem to get
waived past security. This is not my opinion, but a
well-researched fact that also is underreported.
4. As for
offshore drilling, proponents of more drilling can expect to wait at
least six months before this is politically feasible. The first
wave of media photos depicting oil-drenched wildlife or unemployed
fishermen will see to that.
5. For all the hysteria about
Arizona's new immigration law, public opinion continues to harden in
favor of enforcement of such laws, and of the repatriation of illegals.
Again, this is not my opinion, but the scientifically documented opinion
of the American public.
The AP Whitewashes Its Favorite President
John Hinderaker
says
the Associated Press takes up the question whether the Gulf oil spill is
the Obama administration's Katrina and concludes that the administration
has acquitted itself admirably. The AP headlines: Obama oil
response: aggressive as crisis unfolded. The AP takes on the
Katrina comparison directly:
Would there be a repeat of the bureaucratic
bungling that marked President George W. Bush's response to the
hurricane?
While the Obama administration has faced
second-guessing about the speed and effectiveness of some of its
actions, a narrative pieced together by The Associated Press, based
on documents, interviews and public statements, shows little
resemblance to Katrina in either the characterization of the threat
or the federal government's response.
Two things about the AP story immediately jump out
at the reader. First, it is based on interviews with
administration sources. It accepts their narrative and repeats it
uncritically. Second, despite describing the Obama
administration's response as "aggressive," the AP does not detail a
single action taken by the administration that did anything to
effectively combat the spill. Yet this doesn't seem to bother the
AP; its analysis takes place entirely on a symbolic level.
Actually, if you pay attention to the dates, the AP documents, as many
others have, the slow pace of the administration's response to the
spill. The Deepwater Horizon blew up on April 20, yet it wasn't
until April 28 that Barack Obama told his advisers that he wanted
meaningful action taken to counteract the spill. By what standard,
one wonders, is this an "aggressive" response?
Moreover, the AP
is either ignorant of, or prefers not to mention, the key facts that we
and others have publicized about this incident. As we have pointed
out, responsible federal officials believed by April 21 -- the day after
the oil rig exploded -- that a major oil leak, on the order of 10,000 to
20,000 barrels per day, was likely if not inevitable. This is
completely at odds with the AP's comforting assurance that in the early
days after the explosion, any resulting oil spill was believed to be
minimal.
Further, the AP never mentions the most obvious failing
of the federal response to the disaster -- the fact that, despite a 1994
plan that said major oil spills in the Gulf would be fought with fire
booms, when the Deepwater Horizon blew up the federal government did not
have a single fire boom on hand. This is malfeasance of an
extraordinary nature, and if a Republican administration were in the
White House, every American would know about it by now. Yet the
Associated Press and its fellows in the liberal media have successfully
kept the lid on what should be a scandal of major proportions.
This time it is the AP that says: Barry, you're doing a heck of a job!
White House Leaning on Its Press Office,
Not the Media
FoxNews.com says the White House press office
is behaving more and more like an independent media outlet, bypassing
traditional news avenues in favor of releasing its own "exclusive"
video, voicing administration opinions on its official blog and blasting
out updates via Twitter.
The administration's use of its myriad
new media platforms has raised questions among the press corps about
whether the White House is looking to just tap its own resources to make
major announcements. Obama leans more on internal media as he
continues to criticize the "24/7" media environment -- singling out
cable news, radio and blogs for occasional lectures -- and appears to be
abandoning the prime-time press conference forum he used to discuss
major developments during his first few months in office.
"They're doing a very adept job of using new media in the White House,"
said Pete Snyder, CEO of New Media Strategies. "Whether it's from
the constant updates of information at the White House website to ...
bypassing the mainstream news media in answering questions and thoughts
via Twitter to their use of the photo-sharing site Flickr, really to
show the softer side, the more human side, of the administration."
But the White House says the office is just trying to get
information out as directly and efficiently as possible.
Julie Mason
is reporting that Barack Obama today signed the Daniel Pearl Freedom
of the Press Act, a measure that gives the federal government an
oversight role in tracking international press freedom issues. The
pool-only event went down in the Oval, where Obama was asked if he would
entertain some questions -- specifically about the BP oil spill.
"Speaking of press freedoms," ventured Chip Reid of CBS News.
"You're certainly free to ask the question," Obama repield. "I
won't be answering, I'm not doing a press conference today, but we'll be
seeing you in the course of the week."
Oh, right. Wednesday's
press conference with visiting Mexican President Felipe Calderone.
We hear it's two questions per side. Obama strictly limits his
availability to spontaneous inquiry from journalists -- but we're still
"free to ask."
Related: Jennifer Rubin
says Obama wouldn’t say who killed Daniel Pearl at the signing
ceremony -- it is ironic and shameful that Obama could not bring himself
to identify the killers who beheaded the man who fearlessly reported on
the jihadist terrorists. Obama had this to say:
All around the world there are enormously
courageous journalists and bloggers who, at great risk to
themselves, are trying to shine a light on the critical issues that
the people of their country face; who are the frontlines against
tyranny and oppression. And obviously the loss of Daniel Pearl
was one of those moments that captured the world’s imagination
because it reminded us of how valuable a free press is, and it
reminded us that there are those who would go to any length in order
to silence journalists around the world.
If you didn’t know already, you’d never figure out
that he was talking about the Islamic fundamentalists who butchered
Pearl. Obama then pronounced:
What this act does is it sends a strong
message from the United States government and from the State
Department that we are paying attention to how other governments are
operating when it comes to the press. It has the State
Department each year chronicling how press freedom is operating as
one component of our human rights assessment, but it also looks at
countries that are -- governments that are specifically condoning or
facilitating this kind of press repression, singles them out and
subjects them to the gaze of world opinion in ways that I think are
extraordinarily important.
Oftentimes without this kind of
attention, countries and governments feel that they can operate
against the press with impunity. And we want to send a message
that they can’t.
But of course they can and do, safe in the
knowledge that they will pay no price so long as this administration is
in power. Has Obama done anything about the suppression of media
critics in Egypt (other than prepare a lucrative financial package for
the Egyptian government)? Has Obama made this a priority with any
thugocracy? No. And when signing a bill in the name of
someone who elevated and personified the freedom of expression, Obama at
least could have departed from his campaign to delete the name of our
enemies from the public lexicon.
Obama's $12-Per-Hour Photo Op Props
Mark Tapscott
asks, has it really come to this? Brett Michael Dykes reports
that BP paid busloads of temporary cleanup workers to show up as stage
props for Obama's visit to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill cleanup
operations on Grand Isle.
Dykes quoted Jefferson Parish
councilman Chris Roberts who said "the overnight contingent of workers
was there mainly to furnish a Potemkin-style backdrop for the event --
while also making it appear that BP was firmly in command of spill
cleanup efforts. New Orleans NBC affiliate WDSU reports that the workers
were paid $12 an hour and came mostly from neighboring Terrebonne and
Lafourche parishes."
"And as soon as Obama was en route back to
Washington, the workers were clearing out of Grand Isle too," Roberts
said.
Media Wolf Pack Holds Itself At Bay
Paul Mirengoff
says
here's how Washington Post reporter Michael Shear opens his front page
story about the Obama administration's
offer, via Bill Clinton, of a
position to Joe Sestak:
For nearly three months this year, President
Obama and his senior White House aides resisted acknowledging what
the top West Wing lawyer finally admitted on Friday: This
administration plays politics.
I have three observations about this paragraph.
First, shouldn't a news report begin by presenting the facts of the
story, rather than the reporter's conclusion about the meaning of those
facts?
Second, Shear's conclusion about the meaning of the facts
surrounding the White House-Clinton-Sestak story strikes me as pretty
close to the mark.
Third, does anyone suppose that, if the same
facts had arisen during the administration of George W. Bush, the Post
would have reached the same conclusion about their meaning? I
don't. I agree with John McCain:
Imagine if this was the Bush administration.
The media wolf pack would be in full cry. But this is
something we've grown used to. We have a compliant media.
The good thing is that the American people have figured it out.
They're not being guided by the views of the mainstream media.
If they were, Obama's polls wouldn't be where they are.
It's All About Me
Sherman Frederick suggests Obama's motto is,
"It's all about me, so, think good thoughts."
Pick just about any
issue these days -- unemployment, federal debt, Israel, Iran, terrorism,
illegal immigration, Gulf oil spill -- and two words always describe
Barack Obama's leadership style: "self" and "absorbed."
He tells
us he saved the American economy as we know it, but my hometown of Las
Vegas leads the league in unemployment at 14 percent -- and it's still
climbing. If this is what Team Obama calls "saved," then please,
let me give purgatory a shot.
Meanwhile, the federal debt
skyrockets without a credible plan to repay it, other than to pass the
buck to future generations.
Obama won't stand up for Israel as a
friend.
And he won't stand against Iran as a foe.
He
treats Islamic terrorists like they were 1960s counterculture protesters
with a righteous gripe against an imperialist America.
He gives
China more respect than Arizona -- one seeks to protect its border, the
other seeks to erase Tibet from the map. In ObamaLand, China gets
royal treatment at the White House and Arizona gets investigated by the
Justice Department. Go figure.
As illustrative as all that
is, nothing highlights Obama's narcissistic leadership more than what's
going on with the Gulf oil spill. Faced with a dire environmental
disaster, this guy can't rise above himself to effectively lead his
people.
Just before Memorial Day weekend, for example, Obama
visited the Gulf shoreline with a couple of hundred environmental
workers suited up in white garb. They combed the beach with Obama
as cameras filmed (or whirred, or whatever cameras do these days).
Local observers said they'd never seen that many workers in one
place before, and that the British Petroleum workers in those special
white spacesuits were rounded up just for the photo-op, but whether
that's true or not isn't that important. All presidents by their
very nature become a walking photo-op, and some administrations are
better at staging it than others.
Obama is mighty good at putting
form over substance. Remember the white-coated "doctors" standing
with him during the health care debate? Same schtick, different
location. Heck, might have been the same guys for all we'll ever
know from the sleepy watchdogs that are the Washington press corps.
John Nolte
says that when Hollywood turns against someone, you won’t have to
ask if they have. You’ll know.
When Leftist Hollywood turns
against someone, like they did President George W. Bush, neither our
country nor the safety of our men and women in uniform means anything --
for this industry will eagerly waste hundreds of millions of dollars on
a dozen-plus lousy films specifically designed to undermine our will to
win a righteous war. When Hollywood turns on someone, they not
only relentlessly mock, demean and denigrate that individual; they mock,
demean, and denigrate their family.
Yes, the children.
Incompetence, broken promises, partisan divisiveness, the Gulf dying
before our eyes, deficit forecasts with so many zeroes Einstein couldn’t
grasp them, and dirty backroom deals haven’t cooled Hollywood on Obama
one bit. The same industry that stands by a Roman Polanski
certainly isn’t going to jump off the USS ObamaWorship over a little
thing like double-digit unemployment. If nothing else,
Tinseltowners are loyal and their rules are simple: child rape’s fine,
just don’t let us catch you with a Rush Limbaugh bumper sticker.
Yes, recently we’ve heard some in the entertainment industry appear to
criticize Obama. Most notably "Daily Show" host Jon Stewart, who
ridiculed His Own Personal One over that oh-so presidential "ass to
kick" comment, and director Spike Lee, who suggested Obama drop the
cool, calm professorial act and "go off" over the oil spill. But
don’t be fooled. This is simply Obama’s own personal Palace Guards
doing their duty and guarding the palace.
You have to keep in
mind that with a very few notable exceptions, the whole of the
entertainment industry is a left-wing propaganda machine manned by those
who understand that politics is downstream from the culture, and who
fully grasp that their primary mandate is to protect Obama at all costs.
All Threats Must Be Eliminated. The only reason Obama’s been
taking a little pop culture heat lately is due to that fact that right
now the biggest threat to Obama is Obama and his own incompetence and
disconnect.
If anything, Hollywood is worried about and for
Obama. Worried about the upcoming mid-terms, his re-election
chances, his sliding poll numbers, and his gilded ship sailing off
course and landing in Carter-ita-ville instead of Mt. Rushmore.
Spike Lee, Jon Stewart and their ilk are certainly a little panicked
over how they see things going for their guy. But these recent
criticisms from Obama’s entertainment community pals should be
interpreted as nothing any more serious than dear and close friends
staging a helpful tough-love intervention. Hollywood can’t even
muster a little criticism for Obama’s mishandling of the Gulf oil spill.
The only exception I would grant to my otherwise cynical
observations (but that doesn’t make them wrong) is George Clooney’s
recent editorial criticism of the Obama’s administration’s lack of
engagement in the Sudan. As misguided as Clooney is in all things
(including his decision to make "Leatherheads"), his concern for the
Sudan is sincere. But one sentence in an 800-word piece is far
from a mutiny.
Rest assure that Obama can sleep well in the
comfortable knowledge that as soon as any kind of existential threat
looms on the horizon -- like, say, a feisty, self-made female governor
from some far off state -- the entertainment industry will immediately
snap back into line and set their powerful, elite broadcast capabilities
on DESTROY.
Obama's Radical Associations Matter
Diana West
says Obama's radical associations do matter, but they are ignored by
press.
A reporter from the Christian Science Monitor offered the
first response to publicist Maria Sliwa's e-mail queries to news
organizations about whether they would like to receive a review copy of
"The Manchurian President: Barack Obama's Ties to Communists, Socialists
and Other Anti-American Extremists" -- copies available at button in left column.
The answer was "no." But it wasn't just "no." The reporter
called the book by journalist-author-WABC radio host Aaron Klein and
researcher Brenda J. Elliott -- at the time embargoed and thus unread --
a name for toilet paper I'd rather not print.
Reflexively, Sliwa
hit the delete button (thus losing the reporter's name for posterity).
But when other e-mails started coming back with similarly visceral (and
even similarly scatological) responses, she started saving them,
realizing the reactions themselves were a story.
"Ridiculous crap," wrote John Oswald, news
editor of the New York Daily News.
"Never, ever contact me
again," wrote Time Magazine Senior Writer Jeffrey Kluger.
"Absolute crap," wrote Evelyn Leopold, former U.N. bureau chief for
Reuters.
"Seriously, get a life," wrote David Knowles, AOL's
political writer.
"This is sensational rubbish that is of no
interest to any legitimate publication," wrote Newsweek Deputy
Editor Rana Foroohar.
Such attitudes help explain why Newsweek is on the
block, and why mainstream media in general are hurting. But the
mind-set itself remains mysterious.
These ladies and gents of
the Fourth Estate didn't just want to ignore the Klein-Elliott book
about Obama's radical ties, they wanted to denigrate it, and some quite
angrily, which is an out-of-sync reaction to a book that last week
debuted on the New York Times best-seller list at No. 10. Somehow,
the book was personally or even existentially offensive to their most
cherished convictions.
Whether such convictions balance on a
halo affixed to Obama (threatened by the book's revelations) or rest on
their own sorry credentials as news professionals (ditto), or something
else, I don't know. But this rejectionist reflex, which
characterized the abysmal 2008 Obama campaign coverage, is why we now
have a president who poses a danger to the future of the republic.
Unfortunately, conservative media, too, are relatively AWOL on this
book. Even Fox News, which has indeed hosted Klein, hasn't built
on the book's newsiest chunks, the ones that make it stunningly clear
that Obama's radical-filled past was, as they say, merely prologue.
From Obama's participation in the socialist New Party in the
mid-1990s, to his connections to communist-terrorist Bill Ayers, it's
all relevant today. How? For example, some of the same
anti-American, anti-capitalist revolutionaries from those bad old days
now help craft republic-changing legislation.
Take Obama's 2009
stimulus package that started the outraged Tea Party movement. As
the authors report, a radical group with a Marx-inspired agenda called
the Apollo Alliance strongly influenced the legislation -- as the group
repeatedly brags at its Web site (apolloalliance.org), charting
similarities between the stimulus bill and Apollo's recommendations, and
citing Senate House Majority Leader Harry Reid's tribute to Apollo as an
"important factor."
Among Apollo's leftist founders is
Joel Rogers, who co-founded
the socialist New Party.
Jeff Jones, who co-founded the
Weather Underground with Bill
Ayers and Mark Rudd, is the director of Apollo's New York office.
The authors further explain why it is that, as a project of the
secretive
Tides Center -- on whose board sits Wade Rathke, founder of the
Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now and former member
of Weather Underground's parent group,
Students for a Democratic Society -- the Apollo Alliance's financial
sources are effectively impossible to trace.
All of this isn't
"guilt by association." It's association, a key to understanding
how the radicalism of Obama's past today shapes the policy dictating our
future. And it cries out for further journalistic digging.
Consumers of new media -- blogs, talk radio -- already know some of
the story, while "The Manchurian President's" brisk sales guarantee a
wide audience. But the MSM? Clueless.
Which wouldn't
much matter if it still weren't the case that only the MSM cover Obama.
Or do they cover up for Obama?
66% Of US Voters Are Angry At The
Obama-Loving Media
Sixty-six percent (66%) of U.S. voters describe
themselves as at least somewhat angry at the media, including 33% who
are Very Angry.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone
survey finds that 31% say they are not angry at the media, but that
includes just nine percent (9%) who say they are not at all angry.
It’s important to note, however, that the question did not in any
way define media or differentiate between media outlets such as CNN and
Fox News.
But voters have consistently said in surveys that they
believe the national media has a liberal bias and that most reporters
try to help the candidates they want to win. Just before Election Day
2008, 51% said most reporters were trying to help Barack Obama win the
presidency. Just seven percent (7%) thought they were trying to help
John McCain, while 31% viewed their coverage as unbiased.
Now
48% of voters think most reporters when they write or talk about
President Obama are trying to help the president pass his agenda. Only
18% think most reporters are trying to block the president from passing
his agenda. Twenty-seven percent (27%) say they are simply interested in
reporting the news in an unbiased manner.
Howie Carr
says the fawning media rumpswabs are finally turning on Barack Obama
-- to a point. So let’s review the state-run media’s role in
creating this calamity, by substituting hagiography for journalism in
coverage of this clueless boob. First, how they "reported" on
George Bush, then how the Messiah fared until recent days with the same
simpering sycophants.
Criticizing Bush -- the highest form of
patriotism. Criticizing Obama -- hate speech.
Who
caused Bush’s problems? -- Bush. Who causes Obama’s problems? --
Bush.
When Bush mispronounced a word (like nuclear) -- more proof
he is a complete cowboy moron. When Obama mispronounces a word
(like corpsman) -- how dare you even bring this up, you racist!
Unemployment at 4.6 percent under Bush -- a jobless recovery.
Unemployment at 9.7 percent under Obama -- the new normal, "steady," a
lagging indicator of the happy days that CNBC says are here again.
Demanding the right to videotape flag-draped military coffins at
Dover AFB under Bush -- the public has a right to know! Never
showing any returning coffins now that Obama occupies the Oval Office --
the public doesn’t care.
Economic woes under Bush -- portents of
a new Depression. Economic woes under Obama -- a blip on the radar
screen, surprising.
Cindy Sheehan under Bush -- a future
recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. Sheehan under Obama -- give it
up already, you old bag.
Bush playing a rare round of golf --
complete video coverage, showing his utter indifference to the suffering
of the American people. Obama playing one of his endless rounds of
golf -- only still photos allowed, yet another glowing indication of
Obama’s youth and physical fitness.
Bush’s speeches -- a chill up
their legs. Obama’s -- a thrill up their legs.
Media
reviews of Bush’s handling of Katrina -- he hates black people.
Media reviews of Obama’s handling of the oil spill -- Halliburton did
it.
Bush tapping the phones of foreign terrorists with
congressional authority -- fascism. Obama’s continuing attempts to
rein in free speech on the Internet -- good public policy.
Bush
on Air Force One -- junkets, fund--raising for GOP fat cats. Obama
on Air Force One -- fact-finding missions, reassuring the American
people of his tireless FDR-like commitment to them.
Two
hundred-point midday drops on the Dow under Bush -- ominous plummet.
Same drops under Obama -- the market is seeking direction.
Democrat women elected under Bush -- a triumph of feminism.
Republican women elected under Obama -- a setback for feminism.
(Brit twit Tina Brown actually said this last week to Obama worshipper
George Stephanopoulos on "Good Morning America.")
Popular
Bush-era rhyme -- Bush lied, people died. New rhyme -- Obama
snoozed, oil oozed.
Just kidding -- anyone in the drive-by
media who ever dared utter such blasphemy would be banned from both
MSNBC and the Hamptons. They’d be shunned by the Beautiful People
as totally as Ann Coulter and Michael Savage -- or George W. Bush.
MSNBC, Joke Network
John Hinderaker
says This really has to be seen
to be believed. We all know that MSNBC -- Chris Matthews, Rachel Maddow,
etc. -- is in the tank for the Obama administration, but I think this is
the first time an on-air MSNBC personality has confessed to "working
with the White House" on talking points; here, regarding the Gulf oil
spill. The MSNBC employee in question is Mika Brzezinski, the daughter
of Jimmy Carter's national security adviser. It's really pretty funny to
see her reading the White House talking points on air:
This case is unique because Ms. Brzezinski made no bones about
what she was doing, but one wonders: how much of "mainstream" news
coverage consists of purported reporters reading Democratic Party
talking points on the air? A great deal, I would say.
Obama Fails The Reality Test
Janet Daley
asks why has Barack Obama been such a disappointment? The
weaknesses of his leadership have now gone past the point where they can
be overlooked even by the people who had been wildly excited and
inspired by his election.
A brilliant article in the Washington
Examiner by Noemie Emery captures the moment of disillusion perfectly.
Quoting the innumerable comments of despairing media commentators, she
points to a consistent theme: Barack Obama was the intellectual’s dream
president. He was simply "too brilliant to fail," embodying as he
did all those virtues of the academic class and the liberal elite which
had been awaiting their moment for so many years. Now the dream
had come true: intellect was in the ascendancy, and the crass action-man
mentality of the Bush era was put to flight.
So what happened?
Obama staked his political credibility on importing the Big State
politics of Europe -- with its unsustainable welfare programs and
centralized controls -- at just the moment at which Europe was
discovering that such a philosophy was a route to sovereign bankruptcy
and social demoralization. The perverse consequences of Big
Government and the wrong-headedness of the benevolent intentions with
which it was established are old news in Europe but among the Leftwing
intelligentsia of the US, this lesson seems not to have reached home.
But it is the nature of Obama’s "brilliance" itself which is now
under useful examination: what exactly does this amount to? Ms
Emery makes the observation that it consists almost entirely of "verbal
facility" -- a trait much prized in academic (and journalistic) circles
but of rather less relevance to the real, concrete world of oil spills
and military incursions. I recall saying early on in Obama’s
presidential campaign that he and his followers would eventually
discover that politics was not an endless seminar. That day seems
to have arrived rather sooner than I expected.
The Economist Photoshops Obama
Henry Blodget says you're busted! The Economist
photoshopped Obama photo to make him look more depressed and alone.
It's just not quite the same for Barack Obama to be glancing down at
the water while chatting with others on the beach as it is for Obama to
be solemn and depressed and alone while contemplating oil-soaked sand.
But the Economist didn't have a picture of the latter. So they made
one:
The fraud was
discovered by Jeremy Peters of the New York Times -- and don't miss
the
10 biggest Photoshop frauds of all time.
JournoList 400
Apparently there are 400 progressive and
liberal journalists that have organized themselves into an Obama propaganda
cabal.
The fact that 400 journalists can't recognize how incorrect their collusion, however informal, shows an enormous ethical blind
spot toward the pretense of impartiality. As journalists actively
participated in an online brainstorming session on how best to spin
stories in favor of one party against another, they continued to cash
their paychecks from their employers under the impression that they
would report, not spin the agreed-upon "news" on behalf of their "JournoList"
peers.
The American people, at least half of whom are the
objects of scorn of this group of 400, deserve to know who was colluding
against them so that in the future they can better understand how the
once-objective media has come to be so corrupted and despised.
Andrew Breitbart is
offering the sum of $100,000 to the person who provides the full "JournoList"
archive. He says he will protect that person’s privacy and identity
forever. No one will ever know who became $100,000 richer -- and did the
right thing, morally and ethically -- by shining the light of truth on
this seamy underworld of the media.
Ezra Klein
wrote about an actual list of "journalists" who collaborate on
leftist propaganda talking points. Do they actually refer to themselves
as "Journo-List" journalists or did Ezra Klein coin that term? Or did Breitbart?
Dave Weigal, recently of the Washington Post,
confirmed the existence of the anti conservative cabal. Some say it’s a
choir of liars who’s religion is a derivative of Communism.
These are the guys who've been
tarring the Tea Party Patriots and Sarah Palin.
Related: Washington Post forgets
to mention that writer is an Obama operative.
Obama's Economic Stimulus Propaganda
The Washington Examiner
says there's no better definition of government waste than the
estimated $192 million Obama is forcing cash-strapped state officials to
spend on road signs touting his failed stimulus program. Even so,
with a critical congressional election coming in November, Americans
will see a proliferation of these politically self-serving signs in
coming months as Obama tries to convince voters who think his "Recovery
Summer" is just an economic Potemkin village.
Such signs would
not be needed if Obama's program had succeeded. Rep. Aaron Schock,
R-Ill., recently discovered that the Obama propaganda signs are required
for all projects funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
That's the official name for the $857 billion economic stimulus program
Obama promised would keep unemployment below 8 percent. A White
House memo Schock obtained told stimulus fund recipients they must
display the newly designed
ARRA logo.
According to the memo, the logo is "a symbol of President Obama's
commitment to the American People to invest their tax dollars wisely to
put Americans back to work." Instead of "symbol," a far more
appropriate word to describe this would be "propaganda."
The memo
is wrong on both counts. It's not a wise expenditure of tax
dollars when government spends as much as $10,000 apiece for propaganda
signs, especially when unemployment remains near 10 percent. And
Obama's stimulus program has not put Americans back to work, as the
latest jobless figures make starkly clear. A bunch of expensive
road signs won't change the fact that only 6 percent of Americans
believe that the Obama stimulus program has created new jobs, according
to a New York Times/CBS poll.
Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif.,
ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government
Reform, has demanded that the Recovery Accountability and Transparency
Board investigate whether the signs violate federal anti-propaganda
laws. Schock also plans to introduce a bill to yank funding for
the signs. Doing that has been the top vote-getter on YouCut, a
Web site set up by House Republican Minority Whip Eric Cantor, R-Va.,
that lets ordinary Americans choose federal programs to send to the
chopping block. In just six weeks, more than a million people have
voted to save $93.7 billion by axing old-style welfare programs,
eliminating raises for federal employees, reforming Fannie Mae and
Freddie Mac, selling excess federal property, not hiring more Internal
Revenue Service agents to enforce ObamaCare's individual insurance
mandate, and not subsidizing union activities.
Meanwhile, here's
another sign, this one from Tea Partiers who are sick and tired of
government profligacy, that has a more accurate description of Obama's
policies: "Central Planning: Destroying Human Prosperity Since 4000
B.C."
Obama’s "False Narrative"
Peter Wehner
says the Washington Post has an article on Obama’s dismal standing
among independents (it stands at 38 percent approval according to
Gallup, an 18-point difference from a year ago). Balz quotes both
Republican and Democratic strategists in searching for the reason for
this perilous polling condition: high unemployment, an unpopular
health-care law, bigger government, a liberal governing agenda, lack of
bipartisanship, and the inability to change the culture of Washington.
And then we find this:
White House senior adviser David Axelrod
said that the criticism of Obama as a big-spending liberal grows out
of decisions the president felt he had to make to prevent a
depression. "We were forced to do things from the start to
deal with this economic crisis that helped create a false narrative
about spending and deficits that’s had some impact on independent
voters," Axelrod said. "And that’s something we have to work
on."
Ah, yes, there’s that darn False Narrative again.
According to the True Narrative, Obama the Great acted with wisdom
and courage to forestall another Great Depression. The charges of
profligate spending have been manufactured out of thin air. The
stimulus package has been a spectacular success. ObamaCare will
bend the cost curve down. The economy is doing swimmingly.
The outreach to the Muslim world has led to unprecedented breakthroughs.
Nation after nation -- Iran, Turkey, Russia, China, Brazil, Venezuela --
are bending to Obama’s will. And all the problems America faces --
from nearly 10 percent unemployment to polarization to acne among teens
-- are owing to Obama’s predecessor.
Yet because the Forces of
Darkness so thoroughly and completely control the media and dominate the
messaging wars -- because Republicans have such fantastic spokesmen as
RNC Chairman Michael Steele and Democrats have no bully pulpits
available to them -- Obama has become massively unpopular among
independents. The White House, you see, has a message problem, but
no other. Once they get their message out better, Obama will once
again stride atop the political world.
Within the walls of the
White House, it seems, Barack Obama is still viewed by people like Mr.
Axelrod as a near-mythical figure. To much of the rest of the
nation, he appears to be presiding over a failing presidency. If
Obama and his top advisers persist in their self-delusion -- which is
unusual even for those working in a profession (politics) prone to
self-delusion -- they and their party are going to face, sooner or
later, a brutal awakening.
Obama Propagandist Says Democrats Could
Lose House
The Associated Press is
reporting Barack Obama's party could lose its House majority in this
fall's elections, his spokesman said Sunday, perhaps trying to jolt
Democratic voters with the specter of GOP lawmakers rolling back White
House policies.
"I think there's no doubt there are enough seats
in play that could cause Republicans to gain control. There's no
doubt about that," press secretary Robert Gibbels told NBC's "Meet the
Press."
Democrats now hold a 255-178 edge in the House, with two
vacancies in the 435-member chamber. Anywhere from 40 to perhaps
60 House seats could be competitive by the fall. Republicans would
need to take back about 40 seats to slip into the majority, placing the
current GOP leader, Ohio Rep. John Boehner, in line to replace Rep.
Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., as speaker.
Those House Democrats who won
election for the first time in 2008 in conservative leaning districts as
part of the Obama wave are particularly vulnerable this fall, given that
Obama is not on the ballot.
Gibbels said retaining House control
would depend on strong campaigns by Democrats. "I think we have to
take the issues to them," he said, adding that the primary argument
would be how Republicans would govern as the majority party.
His
remarks could be intended to light a fire under Democrats who are
dispirited after about 18 months of Obama's presidency.
Scott at PowerLine blog
says
that The New York Times reporter Matt Bai is writing for readers who get
their news from, well, the New York Times. So he feels free to
regurgitate this:
The question of racism in the amorphous Tea
Party movement is, of course, a serious one, since so much of the
Republican Party seems to be in the thrall of its activists.
There have been scattered reports around the country of racially
charged rhetoric within the movement, most notably just before the
vote on the new health care law last March, when Representative John
Lewis, Democrat of Georgia, the legendary civil rights leader, was
showered with hateful epithets outside the Capitol.
There are a few problems with this assertion
regarding the report that John Lewis was showered with "hateful
epithets" outside the Capitol last March. There was supposedly
only one epithet involved. Rep. Andre Carson was supposedly there
for the walk along with Lewis. And what about Reps. Emanuel
Cleaver and James Clyburn? What are they? Chopped liver?
Not legendary, I guess.
The real problem with Bai's assertion is
that it didn't happen. It's a big lie. A complete and utter
crock. Thus the failure of any independent witness or journalist
to vouch for the story, and the failure of any video to corroborate it
and win Andrew Breitbart's $100,000 reward. On the contrary, the
video record decisively refutes the story.
Is it possible that
Matt Bai doesn't know this? Only if he gets his news from the New
York Times.
Liberal Journalists' Libelous Conspiracy
A group of liberal journalists in 2008 sought
to sweep under the rug the Rev.
Jeremiah Wright scandal that threatened to derail then-Sen. Barack
Obama's presidential campaign, according to documents obtained by The
Daily Caller, an online publication founded by Tucker Carlson, a
conservative contributor for Fox News.
The documents offer
evidence to conservative critics who have long held that the mainstream
media were in the tank for Obama, and bolsters the argument that
reporters with major news outlets are biased in their coverage.
Journalists working for Time, Politico, the Huffington Post, the
Baltimore Sun, the Guardian, Salon and the New Republic expressed
outrage over the tough questioning Obama received from ABC anchors
Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos at a debate and some of them
plotted to protect Obama from the swirling controversy, according to the
Daily Caller.
Spencer Ackerman of the Washington Independent
pressed his fellow journalists to deflect attention from Obama's
relationship with Wright by shifting topics to one of Obama's
conservative critics, the Daily Caller reported.
"Fred Barnes,
Karl Rove, who cares -- and call them racists," Ackerman wrote.
Michael Tomasky, a writer for the Guardian, urged his fellow members of
Journolist, a private listserv comprised of several hundred liberal
journalists, to do "what we can to kill ABC and this idiocy in whatever
venues we have."
"This isn't about defending Obama," he wrote.
"This is about how the [mainstream media] kills any chance of discourse
that actually serves the people."
The Journolist members went as
far as issuing a statement -- one that was shaped with the help of Jared
Bernstein who went on to become Vice President Biden's top economist --
calling the debate "a revolting descent into tabloid journalism and a
gross disservice to Americans concerned about the great issues facing
the nation and the world."
Journolist was shut down last month
after leaks exposing member Dave Wiegel's scornful remarks of
conservatives led to his resignation at the Washington Post as a blogger
covering the conservative movement.
Conspiracy -- an evil, unlawful,
treacherous, or surreptitious plan formulated in secret by two or more
persons.
There is absolutely no doubt that Obama supporters in
the media, academia, and the civil-rights movement are actively
conspiring to slander and libel patriotic Americans to stir up voters of
color in this off-year election.
This stuff is pure evil.
It tells you a lot about Obama and his supporters.
The Lies That Refuse To Die
Here
is a transcript of a KSAL radio interview of Tracey Mann, a Republican
candidate for Congress.
The interviewer, Bryan Jennings, makes
several false statements that have been repeated over, and over by
supporters of Obama, and/or critics of Birthers.
In the third
paragraph of the transcript, Jennings says:
"So, the short certificate that was shown by
the state of Hawaii and the secretary of state of that state is not
sufficient for you, correct?"
That statement
is false. Obama's Certification of Live Birth (COLB), the short
form birth certificate, was never, ever "shown," either by the State of
Hawaii or its secretary of state. It first turned up on the Daily
Kos, where it was almost
immediately identified as bogus. It later
appeared on FactCheck.org where it was "certified"
by these two Obots.
No independent, qualified forensic document
examiner has ever been allowed to examine the document that Barack Obama
has presented as evidence of his eligibility to serve as our president.
As a matter of fact, the Politifact blog actually has Communications
Officer, Janice Okubo on the record
denying
that the electronic COLB image provided by the Obama campaign can be
authenticated by her or by anyone at DHOH! Politifact quotes Okubo
as saying:
"I don't know that it's possible for
us to even say beyond a doubt what the image on the site
(FactCheck.org) represents."
In the sixth paragraph, Jennings states:
"...but also the state of Hawaii had
confirmed that they did have the original copy; not only that, but a
newspaper article in Hawaii back in 1961 had the birth
announcement..."
And concludes:
"So in order for the conspiracy to be true
-- that the president is not a legal president -- not only would the
federal government and the state of Hawaii have to be conspiring,
but also an editorial board in a newspaper back in 1961 would have
to be conspiring."
There was no
"newspaper article" in 1961. Two birth announcements were
"discovered" during the campaign (2008), but no one has ever seen the
actual birth announcements in the actual newspapers (there were two, not
one, Mr. Jennings). The two birth announcements that Obama is
using to justify his eligibility were found in microfilm/fiche in the
public library.
Oddly, the librarian just happened to have these
microfilm/fiche documents on her desk when investigators came looking
for documentation about Obama's eligibility -- pretty convenient, huh?
Newspaper editorial boards don't have a damned thing to do with birth
announcements, wedding announcements, death announcement, etc.
Those items are submitted by families to newspapers all over the
country, not the hospital. Contact your own local newspaper and
ask them about the process.
Some of
these Obots are just ignorant of the issue. Some know they are
lying. The result is the same -- disinformation.
ObamaMedia Busted
The "Rasmussen
Reports Daily Presidential Tracking Poll" for Wednesday shows that
forty-six percent (46%) of the nation's voters "Strongly Disapprove" of
Obama's performance, giving him a "Presidential Approval Index" rating
of -22. This number ties the previous record.
Only 24% of
the nation's voters "Strongly Approve" of the way that Barack Obama is
performing.
Yet the "Rasmussen
Reports Media Meter" shows that the media coverage of Obama has been
55% positive over the past week.
Stimulus Website Is Propaganda
Gautham Nagesh
is reporting that Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) accused the White
House of using the stimulus tracking website Recovery.gov to disseminate
propaganda.
Issa released a 37-page report documenting alleged
misconduct by the Obama administration in several of its new-media
projects. The report documents several instances in which
government agencies allegedly promoted administration policies using
federal resources.
Issa called on the Government Accountability
Office (GAO) to investigate the allegations and determine if the
administration violated federal law by using taxpayers' dollars for
political purposes.
Specifically, the report points to websites
it claims contain false or misleading information, such as Recovery.gov
and HealthReform.gov, as well as to a conference call during which a
White House staff member urged artists and entertainers to support
Obama's agenda.
Rather than serve as a tool for strong oversight
and transparency, "Recovery.gov became a taxpayer-funded tool to promote
false and misleading propaganda to support the Democrat-backed
stimulus," the report states. "The manifest inaccuracies in the
data the White House used to justify its economic policies constitutes
the dissemination of false propaganda by the federal government."
Recovery Board Chairman Earl Devaney published a blog post Monday
arguing the site has accomplished its objective by providing
transparency of stimulus investments.
"Although this new level
of transparency may not be obvious to casual observers, it is inspiring
real transformation in the federal government," Devaney wrote.
The report also accuses Obama and Joe Biden of leveraging their White
House platform "to promote websites designed to disseminate propaganda."
It argues the claims made on Recovery.gov about jobs saved or created by
the stimulus are fictitious and misleading, citing news reports and
individual instances in which the displayed figures appeared to be
incorrect.
The report notes the White House responded to critical
reports by changing the displayed metric from "Jobs Created/Saved" to
"Recovery Funded Jobs Reported by Recipients" but says there is no
evidence the reported figures are any more accurate.
"Using new
technologies and the remnants of the most expensive presidential
campaign in history, the Obama administration’s use of taxpayer dollars
to engage in covert propaganda is disconcerting," Issa said in a
statement. "This new report and a GAO investigation are needed to
help shed light on how taxpayer dollars are being spent to illegally
further a political agenda."
Memo To The ObamaMedia
We don't believe him -- or you -- C. Edmund
Wright
says in a memo to the ruling class media.
We are not
ignorant or stupid. We've not forgotten Jeremiah Wright.
It's not that we don't "know" what faith Obama subscribes to -- it's
more that we don't believe him. Or you. Sorry. Not
buying.
Besides, sometimes we just like to tweak you with our
poll answers -- and use any poll as an excuse to "vote against Obama" in
any way, shape or form.
Frankly, it has been equal parts comedy
and insult to watch the ruling class media haplessly wrestle with the
reality that millions of Americans believe Obama to be a Muslim.
They are so clueless.
As if we needed any more proof-- this is
simply another positive dose that the ruling class media and the country
are divided by a huge gulf of philosophy, reality and experiences.
And they are just beside themselves that a country that was concerned
that Obama's (Christian?) pastor is a crazy nut in the spring and summer
of 2008 can totally forget about all that in the summer of 2010 and call
Obama a Muslim.
They so miss the point. We have forgotten
none of that. In fact, apparently now more Americans are deciding
to look into all of this, and process it in light of Obama's actions.
So allow me to help the media out on this thorny confusing issue:
We know you claim him to be a Christian. We know Obama has at
times claimed to be a Christian. We know Jeremiah Wright's Trinity
Church claims to be some kind of Christian denomination. We simply
doubt it. And the more we watch all of you, the less we are
inclined to believe any of it.
(And by "we," I mean folks who
would respond "Muslim" or "not sure" to your poll questions).
We
also know his father was a Muslim. We know his stepfather was a
Muslim. We know that under Sharia Law, he is a Muslim, and that
much of the Muslim World regards him as a Muslim. We know his
mother was an atheist. We know Obama sent a bureaucrat out to
claim that NASA's top mission was Muslim outreach. We know he
skipped the Boy Scout's 100th Anniversary bash. We know he's had a
couple Freudian slips pertaining to his faith. We know he has
publicly recited the shahada. We know he has called the Islamic call to
prayer the most beautiful sound on earth.
We know that in light
of all of this, some sycophantic White House spokesperson has the gall
to say how "obvious" Obama's Christianity is. Depends on what the
meaning of "obvious" is, I guess.
The Washington Examiner
says Obama's administration recently submitted a report to the
United Nations on human rights in America. The 29-page report
shows the nation badly flawed but fortunate to have a Nobel Prize winner
as its leader. The report is billed as "a partial snapshot of the
current human rights situation in the United States, including some of
the areas where problems persist in our society." Among the
nation's shortcomings listed in the report:
• Arizona has dared to try to enforce
immigration laws that the federal government will not. But
don't worry, Obama is suing them.
• We incarcerate
dangerous terrorists at a military prison in Guantanamo Bay. But
don't worry -- Obama has signed three executive orders to protect
them from the last administration's rough handling, and he "remains
committed to closure of the Guantanamo detention facility."
•
It's too hard to form a union, the document says -- either that or
unions have just become less relevant. But don't worry, "there
are several bills in our Congress that seek to strengthen workers'
rights" -- bills like "card check," which will help institutionalize
union intimidation and coercion by taking away a worker's right to a
secret ballot.
The report also notes that as bad as our human
rights situation is, help is on the way -- all thanks to Obama:
• America made "great strides" in human
rights when "President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into
law." That's better known as ObamaCare, the law that 60
percent of us want repealed.
• Obama is trying to repeal
"Don't ask, don't tell" in the Department of Defense, and the
Defense of Marriage Act, which protects states' right to define
marriage legislatively.
• The report mentions that in recent
months, "the Department of Justice has worked to strengthen
enforcement of federal voting rights laws." (So, just pretend,
at least for a moment, that the New Black Panther case never
happened.)
You get the picture: This is a self-serving
political document that portrays Obama policies as great leaps forward,
and things he opposes as steps backward. In the Bush years,
America ignored the UN High Commission on Human Rights because the panel
too often gave voice and sometimes positions of leadership to such human
rights beacons as Cuba and China. Now, under Obama, our government
is producing propaganda for world consumption at the expense of the
American people. In other words, Obama has not merely joined Cuba
and China on the commission, he is imitating their leaders' tactics, too.
There's No Business Like Show Business
Arlen Williams
is
reporting that Barack Obama is casting actors for a town hall
audience on Nielsen’s Back Stage
website -- "The Actor's Resource."
So, what are you doing,
October 14th? Would you like to "act" in a "town hall meeting" for
Barack Obama? According to this official casting notice in
Nielsen’s Back Stage site, you still have time to apply and/or audition.
After the hammerings that Obama took in the last
couple of town hall meetings he held, who could be surprised that
Obama's handlers have decided to be more careful, for the next one.
For background, we see on Back Stage's "About Us"
page, that
"For nearly 50 years, Back Stage has been the most trusted place for
actors to find performing arts and casting information." Nothing
but the best for the Obamamessiah, after all.
And as for the
talent Obama may tap, "Back Stage is a place where actors, singers and
dancers can connect with the greater performing arts community."
It is appropriate that Obama is considered part of the "greater" and
not, say, any lesser performing arts community -- American
exceptionalism after all, Obama style.
Nielsen takes pains to
point out their own exceptional attention to screening those who place
such casting notices: "Actors are, unfortunately, highly vulnerable to
all kinds of sleazy operators and scam artists. Back Stage takes
particular pride in trying to prevent that." Well, not even
Nielsen is perfect. But they go on to explain:
We offer
every actor our unique Back Stage Casting Pledge: We check out all
casting notices before we publish them.
We never simply publish
a casting notice as submitted. We ask questions, check references,
and refuse to publish calls that seem less than reputable. No
other publication takes the steps we do to protect actors.
For
instance, we ask production companies to indicate if roles are paid or
not; if any roles require nudity; are they seeking union or nonunion
actors (and if it’s union, under which contract); and so forth…
No mention of nudity is to be seen in the Obama casting call,
thankfully. However (and this may be very difficult to accept, among his
chief supporters), no union scale will be paid.
And, still noting
the "About Us" page, we have the following warning to taxpaying American
Citizens: "You should never go into an audition wondering if the person
behind that door will try to take your money -- or worse." Thank
you, Back Stage, but it is too late for that to be a mystery.
All
this being the case, they conclude with with the following confession:
"Despite our best efforts, con artists and creeps occasionally fool us."
Now they tell us!
MTV Denies That Obama Telecast Is Political
Emily Miller
says that the Viacom networks MTV, BET and CMT are giving an hour of free air time to Obama less than three weeks before the midterm elections.
The so-called "A Conversation with President Obama" will be live and commercial-free on six Viacom networks at 4 p.m. on Thursday. The networks will not give equal time to a Republican before the election, according to a spokeswoman. MTV denies that the Obama hour of TV is political, despite the timing, weeks before the midterm elections.
"We’re not giving an hour of free time to the president to freely express his views. We’re hosting a town hall with 250 young people to ask questions of the president," Viacom spokeswoman Kelly McAndrew said to HUMAN EVENTS. "This is not a campaign appearance. This is a town hall discussion."
The White House conceived of the concept and asked for the commercial-free TV time, according to Viacom.
"MTV and BET had 'asked' the White House to do something with the president," explained McAndrew. She said that the White House
"came back to both networks and said, ‘Hey we could do something. Would
you consider doing something together?’" "We said, ‘Great! Let’s see if we can get some more networks who would like to join in.’ And not only did BET, we have CENTRIC, Tr3s, mtvU, that will all be airing this particular town hall live," said McAndrew.
Viacom is adamant that the across-the-board network airing of the Obama hour is not political, and therefore does not demand equal time for a Republican.
"We are not giving a full hour of free air time. We are hosting a town hall for 250 individuals to ask questions of the president of the United States," the spokeswoman said repeatedly.
MTV asserts that the show will be balanced by the questions that may be asked by the audience of young people who
"provide some very different perspectives. We think that our audience is interested in a lot of different topics and hold varying viewpoints on all of these different topics. And this is the forum to provide an opportunity for young people to express those thoughts," said McAndrew.
Asked if the audience questions are submitted in advance, McAndrew said
"absolutely not." However, when asked if the audience is being pre-screened, McAndrew said yes, but to achieve their version of diversity.
"We’re talking to the individuals to be sure that we have an extremely diverse audience because we don’t want a single view audience," explained McAndrew of the vetting process.
Does Viacom and its networks have any intention of holding a town hall for a Republican?
"There’s nothing on our current schedule," McAndrew responded. She added that,
"we’ve hosted plenty of town halls and debates in the past." When questioned for specifics, she said,
"I know we hosted the one with John McCain on the most recent presidential
election. That was in 2007. That’s what I know right off the top of
my head."
Asked if MTV or other Viacom networks had given an hour to any Republicans in the past three years, McAndrew responded,
"You know, sittin’ here right now, I’d have to go back and look at the history.
We have been doing this a very long time across many of our network.
Comedy Central has a very well-known program that they host around lots of
elections."
So, what’s the name of the "well known program" on Comedy Central around the elections?
"The… uh…ohh …what is it called? … I’ll have to get you the name,"
stuttered Viacom’s spokeswoman. "We have 'Choose or Lose'... gosh... I don’t
know the year that started. We’ve had a lot of different things. I
mean gosh, just Google that and figure that out."
This is the Obama
faux town hall whose participants, umm "actors," are being cast
by Nielsen’s Back Stage website -- "The Actor's Resource."
Oprah to the Rescue
Oprah Winfrey has offered s to fly Jon Stewart
entire audience to DC for the Stewart's socialist rally.
Jom Hoft
says that the leftists sure are dumping a lot of their own money
into this Astroturfed rally.
First Arianna Huffington is spending
$250,000 to bus supporters to the rally. Now Oprah announced she
will fly Jon Stewart’s audience to DC and put them up in a hotel -- per
Just Jared, via Free Republic:
An audience member tells JustJared.com that
Oprah surprised the entire Daily Show audience today (October 14)
with a promise to fly the audience out to Washington, D.C. for the
Rally to Restore Sanity and put them all up in hotels!
Oprah
appeared before the live studio audience via satellite.
JustJared.com will be at the rally at the end of the month -- for
more information on the event, visit RallyToRestoreSanity.com!
Last month, Oprah showed support for the rally on her twitter.
"I think Jon Stewart’s on to something. Rally to Restore
Sanity," she tweeted. "Would you consider going? Oct 30,
2010?"
These leftists want to make sure that Barack Obama’s
socialist platform of no jobs and historic debt continues.
Stay the Course And Know It Will Get Better
An Obama-friendly Mary C. Curtis says Valerie
Jarrett has stayed as others in the Obama administration have planned
their departures to places such as Chicago or Harvard. None of the
others have Jarrett's job history with Barack Obama. Now, with a
tough mid-term election closing in, what advice does this senior White
House adviser and assistant to Obama have for the person she has been a
friend to for 19 years, since before he was elected state senator in
Illinois?
"To stay the course and to know that it will get
better," she said in an interview Friday. "He's a student of
history, so he knows that it's in times of great challenges when our
country has been the most innovative and creative, and we look for new
solutions and new opportunity. That's who we are; that's our
international reputation as a country."
Jarrett joined Obama on a
trip to Wilmington, Del. Friday to campaign for Democratic Senate
candidate Chris Coons -- and for the administration's agenda. "I
think that momentum is building," she said. In Delaware, Obama
called the Nov. 2 elections a "choice between our fears and our hopes."
Later in the day, while sitting in her West Wing office, Jarrett echoed
Obama's message. "Elections are about choices," she said, adding
that Republicans have, in this respect, "made the contrast easy for us."
That's a fair point, as even in state races, many GOP challengers --
along with some in his own party -- have taken issue with Obama's
policies on health care, the economy, and even Obama's personality.
According to the polls, that tactic is finding some success. And
it's not clear at this stage in the campaign that Obama has been able to
renew the bond he had with voters two years ago.
Jarrett has a
different view of those policies, not to mention the man behind them,
which is why she took time Friday to make the case for him -- and why
Obama is in campaign mode, traveling across the country to try to
energize the voters who elected him in 2008. "It's very important
to go out and remind people just how much progress we've made," Jarrett
said. "That's challenging because we still have a long way to go."
"I think he is not a slick politician," Jarrett said. "He
doesn't have the shtick, you know, the way a lot of politicians do.
He's completely sincere and true and I think people are not used to
seeing that in their politicians. So it's taking people a while to
realize that he's actually a real person and he's not just trying to
pretend and fool them and trick them into thinking he's something else.
He's exactly who he is," she said. "He doesn't do the theater."
(In 2008, his aides liked to call him "no drama, Obama.")
Jarrett
also blamed some of Obama's perceived problems on "the fact that there's
a kind of toxicity in the language." She said Obama "always keeps
an even tone and ... he always looks for the better angels in people."
That is not the general case in campaign 2010, she said. "The 24-hour
news cycle and the reality TV that we all live with" adds to that toxic
conversation. "It's always easier to scare people than to inform
them."
That's a
true-believer speaking. Describing Obama as, "completely sincere
and true," is insane. He is as insincere and false as any
politician -- ever!
It's Hard Out Here For A Messiah
Scott at PowerLine blog
writes: Yesterday I got around to reading Peter Baker's New
York Times Magazine article "The education of a president" in hard copy.
One comes away from the article with the uncomfortable feeling that
Obama thinks he's just too damned good for us.
Baker's article
made news in the middle of last week as a result of Obama's
acknowledgment that he didn't know "shovel-ready from a hole in the
ground (to borrow the formulation of Mickey Kaus). In other words,
he wasn't lying to us when he sold us his trillion-dollar "stimulus"
bill of goods. He just didn't know what he was talking about.
I found a couple things of interest in the article beyond the
"shovel-ready" quote that Baker puts near the top. Baker asked
Obama about his messianic pretensions (my words, not his). Here is
the passage:
When Obama secured the Democratic nomination
in June 2008, he told an admiring crowd that someday "we will be
able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment
when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the
jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to
slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended
a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last,
best hope on earth."
I read that line to Obama and asked how
his high-flying rhetoric sounded in these days of low-flying
governance. "It sounds ambitious," he agreed. "But you
know what? We've made progress on each of those fronts."
He quoted Mario Cuomo's line about campaigning in poetry and
governing in prose. "But the prose and the poetry match up,"
he said. "It would be very hard for people to look back and
say, You know what, Obama didn't do what he's promised. I
think they could say, On a bunch of fronts he still has an
incomplete. But I keep a checklist of what we committed to
doing, and we've probably accomplished 70 percent of the things that
we talked about during the campaign. And I hope as long as I'm
president, I've got a chance to work on the other 30 percent."
Baker takes another whack at Obama's promise of
deliverance:
But save the planet? If you promise to
save the planet, might people think you would, you know, actually
save the planet? He laughed, before shifting back to hope and
inspiration. "I make no apologies for having set high
expectations for myself and for the country, because I think we can
meet those expectations," he said. "Now, the one thing that I
will say -- which I anticipated and can be tough -- is the fact that
in a big, messy democracy like this, everything takes time.
And we're not a culture that's built on patience."
Yeah, it's hard out here for a messiah.
And
then there is this:
To better understand history, and his role
in it, Obama invited a group of presidential scholars to dinner in
May in the living quarters of the White House. Obama was
curious about, among other things, the Tea Party movement.
Were there precedents for this sort of backlash against the
establishment? What sparked them and how did they shape
American politics? The historians recalled the Know-Nothings
in the 1850s, the Populists in the 1890s and Father Charles Coughlin
in the 1930s. "He listened," the historian H. W. Brands told
me. "What he concluded, I don't know."
C'mon, man, who are those "presidential scholars"?
Good grief. If the best they can do is to liken a movement devoted
to the restoration of limited government to the Know-Nothings, the
Populists, and Father Coughlin, they really should have tried harder.
I doubt they got any resistance from Obama, whose knowledge even of
relatively recent American history is pitiful.
Barack Obama And The Pitfalls Of Fraudulent
Branding
Kyle-Anne Shiver says that forty years ago, the
real life Mad Men knew how badly a brand could be destroyed if they made
impossible claims about a product, a lesson that the creators of Barack
Obama's image are relearning the hard way.
If Barack Obama had
been a commercial product instead of a political candidate, then he and
his brand creators -- Axelrod et al -- would be facing one of the most
massive class action suits ever to hit any American business.
Branded as the superhero of smarts, Barack Obama would be to American
government what Einstein was to science.
Branded as an epochal
Lightworker, Barack Obama would be a president whose very life formed a
dividing line of history. All things would henceforth be measured
in before-Barack and after-Barack metaphors.
Branded as a
peacemaker of unprecedented prowess, Barack Obama would usher in the era
of worldwide kumbaya, while catching the elusive butterfly of
civilization’s perfection in his outstretched hand -- all without so
much as breaking a fingernail.
Sold to the American public as
"sort of God," marketed as a political savior of such extraordinary
intelligence and giftedness that there had simply never been anyone like
him, Barack Obama so misrepresented himself that hundreds of pundits are
still trying to make sense of what went wrong.
When reality met
branding-myth, the whole thing fell apart -- truth happened, you
nitwits.
So, imagine that corporate laws against fraudulent
branding applied to political advertising. Well, if they did, then
Barack Obama would prove the quintessential false branding case.
There wouldn’t be a law school in the country without a case study of
the Barack Obama swindle.
I imagine the lawsuit would be akin to
a tobacco liability suit on steroids.
Large, Loud Crowds Cheer Obama At Campaign
Rallies
The following
report from the Daily Caller is pure propaganda.
Focused on turning out base voters,
President Barack Obama is being cheered at raucous rallies and
spreading this message: Don’t turn your back on the change happening
in Washington.
What nonsense!
90% Of those people are
coming for the band.
September 28 -- Obama enlists rock band the National along
with singer-songwriter Ben Harper at Madison campus rally.
October 9 -- Biden to join Obama at Sunday's rally in Germantown
featuring the hip-hop band The Roots.
October 22 -- The band, Ozomatli, and Jamie Foxx are
scheduled to perform at Obama's rally for Barbara Boxer at USC.
Listening to Obama's bullsh!t is the price of admission.
Architect Of Government Takeover Of The
News
Tara Servatius says that last week, National
Public Radio CEO Vivian Schiller took a break from her crusade for a
government takeover of the media to swat a fly. With now-former
NPR analyst Juan Williams suitably splattered across the evening news
after politically incorrect comments he made on Fox News, Schiller can
return to her real passion -- the creation of a national network to
ensure that in the future, you get your news from the government in
general and NPR in particular.
Schiller could barely contain her
rage at Fox News and at Williams last week, saying he should discuss his
fear of boarding a plane with Muslim passengers with "his psychiatrist."
Those who understand what is at stake saw the Williams/Schiller dust up
for what it really was -- a declaration of war by one of the most
powerful women in journalism against for-profit, non-liberal media. If
Schiller and her liberal friends have their way, Fox and its viewers
will pay the bill for her new government news network.
As
Schiller explained in a speech to the NPR board of directors in 2009, it
is public radio’s responsibility to fill the gap in journalism left by
dying local television stations and newspapers.
Schiller, a
former New York Times executive, is one of a few dozen power players
working with the Federal Communications Commission, the Federal Trade
Commission and a leftist group called Free Press to "reinvent
journalism." That’s how the FTC describes it. The FCC calls
what they are doing the "Future of Journalism." Free Press, a
think tank funded by leftist billionaire George Soros, among others,
calls it "the new public media."
It’s all the same thing, a plan
to take over local news coverage from for-profit television, radio and
print media, which Schiller and her friends claim is in danger of
extinction. These "friends" get together regularly with the heads
of the FCC and FTC to brainstorm the details in government and
congressional meetings. These meetings include the leaders of all
the country’s public broadcasting outlets, including PBS, the
Corporation for Public Broadcasting and American Public Media.
They are beefing up their staffs in local news markets with herds of
public news reporters to "take over" coverage as commercial media fails.
Nationwide, this will cost $40 billion to $60 billion over a decade,
they believe. Their plans, according to the FCC’s Future of Media
report, are to raise this money by taxing for-profit news organizations
-- the ones whose reporting Schiller is supposedly trying to "save."
They want to charge "spectrum fees" of five percent of broadcast station
revenues for use of the public spectrum and airwaves, which the
government controls. They figure that could bring in $1.8 billion
a year. A one percent tax on all electronic devices like cell
phones, televisions and laptops could bring in billions more. So
would a monthly fee on internet subscriptions.
"Daily Show" host Jon Stewart
devoted the entire 22-minutes of his show (video)
to interviewing Obama in the main theater at the Harman Center for the
Arts. Stewart gently pressed Obama to account for campaign
promises that have not been delivered upon and to explain why Democrats
are struggling to convince the American public that they’ve effectively
used their majorities in Congress.
"You’re two years into your
administration," Stewart said in his opening volley, "and the question
that arises in my mind is: 'Are we the people we were waiting for, or
does it turn out those people are still out there and we don’t have
their number?' How are you feeling about that?"
Obama
relied, "I'm feeling great at where the American people are, considering
what they've gone through."
Related:On the Daily Show, Obama is the
last laugh
You mean what you've put the American people through, don't you, Barry?
You know, Obama's good at this talk show stuff. He is even
able to do it without teleprompters. Maybe he can build a career
for himself at Comedy Central after the American People throw his
Marxist butt out in 2012.
Heaven knows, his play-acting as president has been a colossal joke --
a cruel and deadly joke, no question -- but still a joke.
Obama Has Really Lost His Mojo
Ed Morrissey
says Tom Junod’s eulogy for Barack Obama’s mystique in Esquire
indulges in overwrought excuse-seeking and ultimately misses the obvious
conclusion, but it’s notable for recognition of one central fact:
Obama has been the Incredible Shrinking Man, and in more than one way.
Not only does Obama seem incapable of offering soaring rhetoric that
engages and inspires millions now -- as Junod puts it, he no longer
seems born to fill stadiums like a rock star -- but the rhetoric Obama
does offer makes it seem that Obama can’t even engage himself. As
the Anointed Obama vanishes, all that’s left is a politician who looks
very much like he’s in over his head:
Now his gift has all but deserted him, and all
that prevents the story from becoming tragic is his own apparent
refusal to be affected by it. There are many explanations for
why he seems diminished by the power of his own office, from the
vestigial racism of the American public to his misreading of his own
mandate. But those are political explanations of a predicament
that demands musical metaphors. Imagine Miles Davis losing not
just his ability to blow but also his mystique; he might get his
chops back, but the aura would be more difficult to restore, along
with his ability to captivate audiences by turning his back on them.
Of course, Obama has never turned his back on us, but so many
Americans have turned their backs on him that it amounts to The
Anointed One, as he is sometimes referred, being stripped of
something that can never return: his anointment. And without
it -- without his air of destiny, without the idea of Obama
augmenting his actuality -- the rooms he used to occupy so
effortlessly have changed dimensions on him, until at times he might
as well be speaking from the bottom of a well. Does anyone
remember the speech he gave at West Point, when he escalated the war
in Afghanistan after six weeks of slow-ketchup decision making?
He was all alone on that stage, and he looked all alone and somehow
outnumbered by the space that surrounded him. It was the first
time he was betrayed by his own stagecraft. It was the first
time the enormity of his decision dwarfed the eloquence he found to
express it, and he has never again looked like a man born to fill
stadiums.
All this was in play on Wednesday, at the press
conference he gave after the bloodletting of the mid-term elections.
Could anyone have ever imagined that Barack Obama would be made to
look inauthentic by the sloppy last-call tears of someone like John
Boehner? Could anyone have ever imagined that he’d be in a
room of reporters who wanted something from him -- that he wouldn’t
be able to deliver? The man acclaimed as the most gifted
communicator of our age had to be prodded into admitting "it feels
bad," and after nearly an hour of prolix boilerplate offered but one
takeaway line, "The Slurpee is a delicious drink," before warming up
and saying that he was going to invite Boehner to a Slurpee Summit.
Indeed, the press conference was so painfully incommensurate to its
historical moment that one had to wonder if he knew it -- if he knew
that even on this observance of loss he was losing his audience; if
he knew that that he had lost not only the House of Representatives
and a broad swath of the American electorate but his ability to talk
his way into or out of anything; if the great singer knew that he
had lost his voice. …
In less than two years he had gone from
sounding like a man who could always count on his ability to strum
the mystic chords of memory to a man who, no matter what he said,
sounded like a politician, and one in over his head at that.
Now he sounded like a man who had already realized that he had lost
more than he imagined he could but was just starting to understand
that he was never going to get it back. He wasn’t going to cry
about it -- leave that to the Republicans -- but he was going to
take stock, and that may have represented a beginning of sorts, even
if it was also clearly an end.
Ah, yes, the "vestigial racism" excuse, which shows
that Junod watches his share of MSNBC and its curiously monochromatic
lineup. No one who offers this threadbare rationalization seems to
explain how Obama got elected by a majority in 2008 by attracting the
same people who apparently are afflicted with this "vestigial racism"
now. This excuse has been used to explain voter dissatisfaction
with Democrats ever since Scott Brown won in Massachusetts, offered
usually in the casual, off-hand manner used here by Junod with
absolutely no substantiation whatsoever. It’s the elbow nudge to
the ribs among the Left that says, "You know that all those people are
racists," which is a form of bigotry in and of itself.
Junod
comes close to one of the reasons why Obama is in over his head, which
is his misreading of the mandate from the 2008 election, but whiffs
completely on the underlying problem. Obama got elected by saying
that change was more important than competence, and he has proven
himself massively wrong. Obama is in over his head, and it shows.
It showed on the campaign trail for those who bothered to look for it
rather than cheerlead Obama’s narrative. Why should anyone be
surprised when a man with no executive, economic, military, or
diplomatic experience who had only three years in the Senate starts
flailing when elected President?
If the media had vetted him as a
politician rather than a rock star, perhaps people like Junod might be a
little less surprised to find an emperor with no clothes instead of an
Anointed One.
Corrupt ObamaMedia Will Reap What It Has
Sown
Bill McIntyre
says
John Ziegler’s film Media Malpractice -- How Obama Got Elected -- is
finally getting the attention it deserves, mainly through the Internet
blogosphere. The film exposes the morally bankrupt ObamaMedia for
the shameful role it played in having Barack Obama elected.
Many
of the contributors to Canada Free Press have been warning for several
years that the ObamaMedia in both the United States and Canada have
abandoned any pretence of unbiased reporting in favor of political
activism and propaganda.
What Media Malpractice does is tie it
all together in a neat package using the Obamamedia’s own words and
images to expose them for what they are, namely liars, duplicitous
cowards and ridicule to destroy their victims, ostensibly under the
guise of news coverage. If I still worked in that industry I would
be profoundly ashamed and embarrassed to call myself a journalist at any
level.
The strange thing is it was obvious to me and many others
that the public should have been aware of the blatant attack campaign
against Sarah Palin and candidates not anointed by them. Most
chose to ignore the abuse or dismiss it as inconsequential or even
justified. The result? They got the government they
deserved.
I have only seen what happened at the national level.
There are several layers of media below them at the state, regional and
local level whose misdeeds do not attract much attention. I
suspect the bandwagon journalism ran much deeper than the film depicts.
Naturally the ObamaMedia are studiously ignoring the release of
Ziegler’s film (surprise, surprise) although he did appear on CNN’s
Parker/Spitzer show on Nov. 11.
Co-host Kathleen Parker spent
most of the segment defending herself from Ziegler’s contention that she
had been duped by Obama. She claimed in response that she actually
led the media assassination of Sarah Palin during the 2008 election
campaign.
Now that’s something of which to brag by someone
wearing the mantle of a journalist. It doesn’t get much more
pathetic than that. And what does that say about CNN as a whole?
Meanwhile if you want to see the shallowest newscasts in the
world by the cheesiest bobble-heads on TV just go the CNN’s sister
network HLN. A word of warning. Don’t go there if you
dislike being yelled at by over-emoting hosts and news readers.
Fortunately Ziegler’s film does not have to rely on the likes of CNN and
the rest of the ObamaMedia for exposure. Social networking sites
like YouTube and Facebook are more than picking up the slack along with
blogs such as Small Dead Animals and other posts over the Internet.
The ObamaMedia believe their audiences are illiterate, gullible and
stupid. This explains why they choose to ignore this blot on their
once respected reputation. They think Ziegler and others like him
will go away so they can get back to business as usual. They will
be disappointed as this story has legs and it will not stop here.
The ObamaMedia will not escape the consequences from its audiences
for its fraudulent reporting. A growing number of viewers and
readers now know they were misled, lied to and duped into thinking Obama
was the Messiah.
It is they who will write the last words in the
ObamaMedia’s obituary.
When you’re in the Far East talking to a colleague
from Down Under, if you’re not careful, it can be a case of thanks, but
no thanks. Obama found that out on Saturday, as he met with
Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard on the margins of the
Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.
After a picture-taking
session with the two, as photographers and reporters were being ushered
out, an Australian journalist turned to Obama and said, "Thank you, Mr.
President."
It didn’t take long for Obama to understand who’d
piped up. "I knew it must have been an Australian because my folks
never say thank you."
Which, being Americans, the U.S. contingent
took as a challenge. In unison, they, too, pronounced, "Thank you, Mr. President."
snip...
"Thank you, Mr. President," threatened to become
a theme of the day.
As reporters and photographers were ushered
from the summit’s opening meeting with Obama and other leaders, a White
House reporter and photographer leaned in to thank the U.S. president.
"We’re trying to be more polite," the reporter said, drawing on the
earlier exchange from the Obama-Gillard meeting. Then, from a
distance, came another photographer’s shout: "Thank You, Mr. President."
To which Obama replied: "Now, don’t overdo it."
Newsweak Cover: Obama As "God Of All
Things"
Newsweak should have done their
homework. The image is modeled from Shiva, "The Destroyer."
That's not only Shiva the Destroyer, that's Shiva
depicted as
Nataraja, in the act of
destruction of the universe, which is appropriate, considering the way Obama is destroying
America.
However, the Newsweak image gives Obama two extra arms and hands, so
he can be 50% more destructive, I guess. Allah knows, he's
trying.
Check out the small print, "Why the modern presidency may be too
much for one person to handle."
The
modern presidency is only too much for one person to handle, when
that person was demonstrably not qualified for the job in the first
place, and it was the ObamaMedia, including Newsweak, that committed
journalistic malpractice by acting as a cheerleader for the
socialist, instead of vetting him.
I
don't recall any alleged news sources complaining the job was too
much when Dubya served.
Now
you know why Newsweak was recently
sold for $1.00. That's exactly what it is worth.
He’s So Brilliant
Jonathan Strong
says the vice president is a talker, and then some. But in a
new interview with GQ, he managed some gems, even for Joe Biden.
For instance, reporter Lisa DePaulo pressed Biden repeatedly on why
Obama isn’t connecting with the American public and is instead viewed as
professorial and aloof. "So what is it?" asked DePaulo.
"I
think what it is, is he’s so brilliant. He is an intellectual,"
Biden said.
Also, Obama has a "blind faith" in the American
public’s ability to understand the benefits of his policies. "[He
says] 'No. The American people get this. Just tell them.
Just go out there and do the right thing'," Biden said.
Biden
went on to explain how Obama’s childhood shows he does, in fact, deeply
understand the American public. "Look, think about the guy.
This is an African American who had a Caucasian mother, raised in a
Caucasian neighborhood by Caucasian grandparents. Talk about a guy
who knows what it’s like. This is a guy who gets it," Biden said.
Barack Obama
understands the
American public like the average 5th grader understands quantum physics.
20/20? Not Hardly
Fox News
is reporting that
Obama says that praying and reading
the Bible are part of his everyday life.
In a
wide-ranging interview broadcast Friday night, Barack and Michelle Obama
were interviewed on ABC's 20/20 by Barbara Walters, in one of the most staged and
scripted interviews ever.
When asked if he prays himself, Obama
said: "I do. Every night."
[not likely]
"Michelle and I have not
only benefited from our prayer life, but I think the girls have too,"
Obama told Walters. "We say grace before we eat dinner every
night. We take turns."
"In the end, we always say we hope we live
long and strong," the first lady said.
"Long and strong.
And that we give back."
[ha! these people are takers, not givers]
Obama has been dogged by criticism about
his faith since he took office. A poll released in late August
showed that a growing number of Americans -- one in five, up from one in
ten in March -- say he is a Muslim.
Obama asserted, once again, that the rumors are untrue and that
both he and his family benefit from their lives as Christians.
Opening with a question about the impact of his faith on his life,
Walters asked point-blank why Obama thought the rumor of his religious
background had any staying power.
"The internet has a
powerful effect these ways," he told Walters, "so the way rumors can
take up a life of their own ends up being very powerful."
And
Walters allowed Barack and Michelle to advance the myth that presidents
always lose Congress during midterm elections.
[false]
MICHELLE OBAMA: It's a tough time.
I mean, my understanding is that, number one, every president in
history has lost Congress at the midterms. Maybe that's
overstating it, but it's happened for every president in my
lifetime.
BARACK OBAMA: It's the norm.
MICHELLE
OBAMA: It's the norm.
Walters didn't contradict Obama nor
the wife. After all, presidents losing Congress during the
midterms has not been at all "the norm" since Mrs. Obama was born in
1964.
Here are the facts that contradict the Obamas' unchallenged
assertion.
Denying reality, Obama
added, "The
fact is, that we stabilized the financial system…we turned an economy
that was contracting to one that was growing. We have added a
million jobs over the last year to the economy."
[delusion]
However, as it turned out, the Obama-Walters love-fest tanked in the
ratings. He got a shellacking there, too, to follow the one in the
midterm elections.
His conversation with Barbara Walters
placed second in total viewers to a rerun of CBS’ "Blue Bloods" and
third in the 10 p.m. time slot in the 18-to-49 age group. On that
count, Obama was behind Tom Selleck and NBC’s broadcast of the fantasy
film "Enchanted."
The Walters interview averaged 5.7 million
viewers for ABC. The "Blue Bloods" repeat, the second of two
Friday night, pulled in 7.6 million for CBS.
I don't know why, but I have this
strong suspicion that Walters' questions were written by someone in the
White House.
"No Labels" Tries To Redefine Obama Into
The Center
Ben
Johnson has
reported extensively on the new
faux
centrist organization "No Labels" and its organizers'
efforts to form a new, national third party in time for the 2012
presidential elections. After its kickoff event yesterday in New
York City, it is clear the group is rendering yet another service to
Obama. It attempts to portray Barack Obama as a centrist.
In a story today,
Politico
surmizes that No Labels "may
inadvertently serve a stalking horse for President Barack Obama."
However, it does not seem so very inadvertent. Democratic donor
Jim Torrey, who attended the event,
admitted, "Of all the people in
the audience, if you drilled down you wouldn't find that many
Republicans." The few who showed up were either "former" Democrats
(Mark McKinnon, Michael Bloomberg) or
RINOs run herd out of the GOP
by the Tea Party movement (Mike Castle, Bob Inglis).
Torrey added that Obama "aligned with the values of
this organization." He was right -- and that seems to be the group's
current raison d'etre,
to pretend its views are the political "center," and coincidentally
Barack Obama shares them all. Thus, whoever opposes his agenda is
an extremist who must be read out of polite political society.
The attempt to demonize the flyover country booboisie
began on schedule. One participant told the gathering, "You just
have to look to Arizona to see extremists who are trying to divide us."
Upon hearing this, Jim Geraghty of
National Review
wrote, "I thought the point of
the group was to stop labeling people; but I guess it's okay to label
the overwhelming majority of Arizonans 'extremists'".
On the contrary, that is its purpose -- to beat back
the Tea Party,
revive the spirit of Bob Michel,
and keep the country moving steadily to the Left.
As I have noted, the
Left center's target is not
just Arizonans. The
majority of Americans support
Arizona's immigration law, and
68 percent of Americans support
building a border fence. But the intelligentsia gain votes, cheap
labor, or inexpensive house servants from our Open Borders immigration
policy, so they portray the vast majority of Americans as victims of "nativism"
and "racism."
Enforcing our immigration laws was but one front of
the No Labels labeling effort. Its neutered RINOs took relish in
lambasting their former party. Former Congressman Bob Inglis of
South Carolina, who lost his primary to a more conservative challenger,
hailed Obama's willingness to
"compromise" on taxes, saying, "I'm willing to believe that that's what
Obama's really been always been [sic.] about." (It is not, in
fact, what Obama's really been always been about.)He
blamed the GOP for telling
Obama, "we can't cooperate -- we've got to call him a socialist, we've
got to call him a secret Muslim."
Now the game is clear. "No Labels," representing
the make-believe middle, decrees that only extremists believe Obama --
who has long expressed
his desire to take wealth from those who
earned it and redistribute it to others who
have not -- is a socialist. Sober-minded people such as -- well,
such as
themselves
-- "cooperate" with the Great One.
The new assault on non-compliant politicians recalls
Obama's year-long attempt
to delegitimize Fox News.
Obama's surrogates said it had "a perspective" and unbiased media should
not follow its example. Failing at that, he moved on to
belittling John Boehner.
This reporter has noted Obama's attempt to redefine
the political spectrum to place himself in the center. Former
Weather Underground leader Bill Ayers recently
endorsed Jon Stewart's "Rally
to Restore Sanity" -- essentially a day-long Hate Glenn Beckfest -- at
about the same time Barack Obama did.
Funny, that.
At the same time, Barack Obama is attempting to move
the Left further leftward. This author reported that the Obamas'
and
Valerie Jarrett's radical
friend Marilyn Katz has called for
a new Popular Front to give the
extreme Left a mainstream voice. Her effort is the "bottom-up"
component of the Left's pincer movement to radicalize America.
They hope it will soon be impossible to express mainstream conservative
thought without being branded a hatemonger or troglodyte.
No Labels seems happy to do its part. However,
some of its organizers cannot bring themselves to pretend they actually
represent any constituency. No less a titan than Michael Bloomberg
admitted, "It's not clear that the average voter wants what we are all
advocating." The event's kickoff panels were hosted by media
figures that spanned the political spectrum from MSNBC to…the
New York Times.
Politico reported that a few more than 500
people showed up from around the country for yesterday's gala. (In
characteristic hyperbole, its website estimated attendance at
"more than 1,000 people.")
The group sold a whopping 88 t-shirts, or 113 if you count online sales.
(Incidentally, No Labels
plagiarized its logos, although
it
initially lied about it.)
Nonetheless, its organizers still talk a big game.
Nancy Jacobson said No Labels plans to have
one million members within the next year.
Fellow organizer John Avlon hoped No Labels will begin a
political action committee to "go on the offense."
Slow down, John. Your work seems offensive enough.
