Ken Berwitz

Want the latest indication of how people are reacting to "Obamacare"?

From a Washington Post poll shown at www.pollingreport.com.

_

This should tell you how seniors - who see their medicare going away to make room for Obamacare - feel about the proposed legislation.

Even the youngest, the 18-29's (who were Obama's biggest supporters) barely see any benefit (less than three in ten think it will make things better).

Do you blame them?

Ken Berwitz

You have to hand it to the New York Times.  Those folks are certainly johnny-on-the-spot in exposing what a clunker the "cash for clunkers" idea was.......after the entire program has been completed, of course.

Here is today's editorial, slipped quietly into the last position on the page:

Clunkers Don’t Come Cheap

Published: August 30, 2009

 

The $3 billion cash-for-clunkers program that ended last week worked well as a jolt of economic stimulus. Nearly 700,000 people used the rebate to buy new cars in July and August — adding about 0.3 to 0.4 percentage points to economic growth in the third quarter, at an annual rate.

 

But there’s also another lesson in the cash-for-clunkers experience: such rebates are a spectacularly inefficient way to implement environmental policy. Sure, the new cars deliver about nine miles per gallon more than those traded in, on average. But the benefits — measured in terms of reduced greenhouse gas emissions — come at inordinate expense.

 

On average, cars are driven 12,000 miles per year, according to government statistics. Considering that the traded-in clunkers had an average fuel economy of 15.8 m.p.g. while the new ones deliver 24.9 m.p.g., a swap saved some 278 gallons of gas per year — which would have released almost 2.8 tons of carbon dioxide when burned.

 

Assuming the clunkers would have been driven four more years, the $4,200 average rebate removed 11.2 tons of carbon from the atmosphere, at a cost of some $375 per ton. If they would have been driven five years, the carbon savings cost $300 per ton. And if drivers drive their sleek new wheels more than they drove their old clunkers, the cost of removing carbon from the atmosphere will be even higher.

 

To put this in perspective, an allowance to emit a ton of CO2 costs about $20 on the European Climate Exchange. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that a ton of carbon would be valued at $28 under the cap-and-trade program in the clean energy bill passed by the House in June.

 

The program might have been more efficient with modifications, like a smaller rebate. But even if the new cars bought under the program had zero emissions, the price of removing the clunkers’ carbon dioxide from the atmosphere would have been nearly $140 per ton.

 

The best tool to induce Americans to drive more fuel-efficient cars would be a gas tax that provided rebates for low-income drivers. Another, though inferior, alternative — if Congress couldn’t face the political risks of a gas tax — would be a program that provided a rebate for drivers of clean cars while imposing a fee on drivers of gas hogs.

 

In any case, as environmental policy, it’s just too expensive to buy clunkers to take them off the road.

Wow.  the program was a wasteful, ineffecient environmental mess. 

And that is without even getting to the fact that used car prices have jumped higher due to the removal of these cars from the road.  Or that one of the reasons the program was stopped was that government was administering it so poorly that dealer weren't getting their money, and were dropping out in droves.

All this......after the program was devised, implemented, run and completed. 

But, hey, you can't blame the Times for not seeing this right away.  After all, how could anyone possibly know that suddenly, dramatically lessening of the supply of used cars would raise the prices of the ones still on the road?  I mean, who ever heard of a relationship between supply and demand?

You also can't blame the Times for not understanding that there would be costs, both monetary and environmental, to removing and disposing of now-unusable cars.  How could anyone expect something like that?  Don't they just magically disappear?

And why in the world would anyone doubt that government would run this program with precision and efficiency.  Doesn't government always run things this way?

Ok, sarcasm ended.

If the New York Times wonders why its circulation dropping almost as fast as its reputation, maybe its reporting (non-reporting is more like it) of the "cash for clunkers" circus is worth thinking about.

Ken Berwitz

In Iran, they squashed the protests and jailed the protest leaders.  Some of them have died in jail and we can only guess how.  The reason?   According to the illegitmately "elected" government the protesters were fomenting a "velvet revolution" (i.e. a revolution without guns).

In Venezuela?  We have this report today from Agence France Presse:

Venezuela accuses protesters of attempting 'rebellion'

Aug 29 03:12 PM US/Eastern

 

Venezuela's top prosecutor said Saturday that recent street protests were legally tantamount to "rebellion" against President Hugo Chavez's government and that demonstrators will now be charged.

 

The dramatic move by Attorney General Luisa Ortega capped a week of huge street protests, mostly directed against a new education law that critics say is politically charged.

 

"People who disturb order and the peace to create instability of institutions, to destabilize the government, or attack the democratic system, we are going to charge and try them," Ortega said in a statement, referring to the government of leftist-populist Chavez.

 

William Ojeda, of the opposition A New Time party, argued that "the very right to protest is being turned into a crime."

 

"The justice system is now being used as a tool of political and ideological persecution," Ojeda added.

Ortega claimed opposition groups were looking for "any reason to march, to create chaos, whatever they can, what they want is to destabilize, even by encouraging people to disobey the law."

 

Last Saturday, thousands of marchers protested against the education law and police used tear gas to break up the crowds and keep them from marching on the National Assembly.

 

"These precise actions are in effect criminal civil rebellion," Ortega stressed, warning in her statement that the crime carries sentences of between 12 and 24 years.

 

"I want those people who have risen up against the government with a hostile attitude against a legally formed government to know what the consequences are," Ortega warned.

 

Earlier in the week, 11 workers with the Caracas mayor's office, led by opposition Mayor Antonio Ledezma, were jailed for resisting authority.

 

On Thursday, former Cuban leader Fidel Castro accused the United States of seeking to "eliminate" Venezuela's leftist government and amass power in South America through a controversial deal allowing it access to military bases in Colombia.

 

Castro said the real US objective in Colombia was to "eliminate the revolutionary process" begun by Chavez, a key Cuban ally, and to "gain control of the oil and other natural resources in Venezuela.

And in the United States? 

The protestors at town hall meetings are being called "Extremists", "Thugs", "Brown shirts", "The mob", and more.  These are everyday people, many of them seniors, who fear a government takeover of health care.

-Just as Iranians fear a fraudulent government taking away what rights they have left.

-Just as Venezuelans fear the end of their democracy at the hands of a ruthless dictator.

So, do we have anything to worry about? 

You tell me.

Ken Berwitz

From Bloomberg news:

UAE Seizes North Korean Weapons Shipment to Iran (Update2)

 

By Bill Varner

Aug. 28 (Bloomberg) -- The United Arab Emirates has seized a ship carrying North Korean-manufactured munitions, detonators, explosives and rocket-propelled grenades bound for Iran in violation of United Nations sanctions, diplomats said.

The UAE two weeks ago notified the UN Security Council of the seizure, according to the diplomats, who spoke on condition they aren’t named because the communication hasn’t been made public. They said the ship, owned by an Australian subsidiary of a French company and sailing under a Bahamian flag, was carrying 10 containers of arms disguised as oil equipment.

The council committee that monitors enforcement of UN sanctions against North Korea wrote letters to Iran and the government in Pyongyang asking for explanations of the violation, and one to the UAE expressing appreciation for the cooperation, the envoys said. No response has been received and the UAE has unloaded the cargo, they said.

The UAE and Iranian missions to the UN didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. The Financial Times reported the weapons seizure earlier today.

The Security Council voted on June 12 to adopt a resolution that punishes North Korea for its recent nuclear-bomb test and missile launches through cargo inspections and enforcement of restrictions on financial transactions. The measure calls for the interdiction at seaports, airports or in international waters of any cargo suspected of containing arms or nuclear or missile-related materials going to or from North Korea.

UN Sanctions

Iran is under three sets of UN sanctions for its refusal to halt uranium enrichment, a process to isolate a uranium isotope needed to generate fuel for a nuclear power reactor or, in higher concentrations, to make a weapon.

Iran denies allegations by the U.S. and some of its major allies that it seeks an atomic weapon or the means to build one, insisting the nuclear work is intended to generate electricity.

U.S. President Barack Obama has said the Iranian government must respond by late September to his request for new talks on curbing its nuclear program. Iran last month said work is under way on proposals that may provide the basis for renewed talks.

I will finish with four questions, all of which can be answered with the word "Yes".

-Didn't former President Bush warn us about North Korea and Iran? 

-Aren't they two of the three countries Mr. Bush referred to as "the axis of evil"?  

-Wasn't President Bush ridiculed by Democrats, and the left in general, for that statement?

-And won't it be a cold day in hell before any of them admit that Mr. Bush was 100% correct?

Ken Berwitz

Who would have thought that President Obama, the man who always tells the truth and never ever breaks any pledges, just might break one. (Ok, ok, just about everyone who isn't still mesmerized by his aura).

From today's Washington Post, via www.sweetness-light.com:

Obama May Have To Break Tax Pledge

From the Washington Post:

Tax Pledge Is a Target As Deficits, Debt Grow

Obama Advisers Will Not Rule Out Broad-Based Hike

By Lori Montgomery
Saturday, August 29, 2009

During last year’s campaign, President Obama vowed to enact a bold agenda without raising taxes for the middle class, a pledge budget experts viewed with skepticism. Since then, a severe recession, massive deficits and a national debt that is swelling toward a 50-year high have only made his promise harder to keep.

The Obama administration has insisted that the pledge will stand. But the president’s top economic advisers have refused to rule out broad-based tax increases to close the yawning gap between federal revenue and government spending and are warning of tough choices ahead.

Republicans are already on the attack, accusing Obama of plotting to break his no-tax vow, the same political transgression that cost Democrats control of Congress under former president Bill Clinton and may have cost president George H.W. Bush his job. Democrats say Obama is highly unlikely to break the pledge before next year’s congressional election and observe that it would be safer to wait until his second term if a tax increase becomes unavoidable.

Some lawmakers are focused instead on setting up an independent commission to solve the deficit problem. Senate Budget Committee chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) plans to hold hearings on the topic when Congress returns to Washington this fall.

Obama, meanwhile, has vowed to pay for any new initiatives and to draft an overhaul of the health-care system that eventually would save the government money, driving deficits down. But effective health reforms would take decades to produce savings. In the meantime, White House budget director Peter R. Orszag acknowledged, "there are additional steps that will be necessary."

"The administration is very concerned about these [future] deficits, and getting those deficits under control is a top priority of the administration," Orszag told reporters this week as he rolled out a new economic forecast that added $2 trillion to deficit projections from 2010 to 2019.

Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner and White House economic adviser Lawrence H. Summers have both delicately sidestepped the tax question on Sunday talk shows. Orszag has also refused to discuss what steps Obama might take to reduce the deficit in the budget blueprint he will present to Congress in February. But budget analysts say he has few real options.

"If you rule out inflating our way out of the problem and defaulting on the debt, there are two ways: Cut spending or raise taxes," said William G. Gale, an expert on fiscal policy at the Brookings Institution. With more than 80 percent of federal spending devoted to politically untouchable programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, he said, "it’s going to be really hard to make significant headway on the spending side. So that means you’ve got to think about taxes." …

What a shock, huh?

We didn’t see this coming.

If only the deficit hadn’t shot up like that.

Did you seriously believe that "95% won't have their taxes raised one penny" BS? 

If so, how come?  Obama lied about transparency in government.  He lied about giving us (not to mention congress) enough time to read bills before they were passed.  He lied about not signing legislation with earmarks.  He lied about a lot of things.  And he will lie about a lot more.  Why, then, would anyone think he wouldn't lie about raising taxes?

Barack Obama was elected on a concocted image.  Certainly not on his experience or accomplishments. 

So when the concocted image crumbles, there isn't much left.  Which is why Mr. Obama's approval ratings are so low now. 

And raising taxes, to cover for the gargantuan deficit increase he caused, won't do anything to reverse this trend - even if (when) he blames it on Bush.

Ken Berwitz

Very simple explanation.  My domain expired without the (is it "the webmaster"?  Or just "the guy who I buy the domain from" or something else?  Who knows?) being notified by "the registrar.  So he didn't notify me.

Anyway it took a couple of emails and hustling up someone from, I guess "the registrar" to get hopelesslypartisan.com back up and running - not easy on a Sunday in the summer, it seems - but it is done. 

To regular readers who enjoy this blog, sorry about the lapse.  And to readers who don't enjoy this blog, as we used to say at the P.S. 144 schoolyard where my friends and I hung out, tough padookies.  It's back.

Ken Berwitz

The Obama administration keeps assuring us that illegal aliens will not get "Obamacare". 

Here are two reasons that tell you they are lying:

1) The detailed reason:  Michelle Malkin’s piece that shows the loopholes which will allow illegals to get Obamacare..Click on the link, read her evidence and see for yourself;

2) The simple one:  Have you seen or heard of even one protest about Obamacare by ether illegal aliens or any organization which advocates on their behalf?  Do you doubt for one nanosecond that they would be screaming bloody murder if there were any doubt about their inclusion?

Remember, this is the Obama administration.  Those honest folks who told you there would be full transparency in government, that there would be no earmarks in any legislation, etc. etc. etc. etc. 

How many times do these people have to lie to our faces before we recognize that they lie to our faces? 

For some people, the answer is infinity.  I hope you're not one of them.

Ken Berwitz

So I'm watching the Yankee game (after doing all the chores my beautiful bride gave me).  The Yankees are winning 2-0.  There are men on first and second and no one out. 

Jeter is batting about .330, with 17 home runs batting mostly leadoff, and 23 stolen bases.  There is no way manager Joe Girardi will ask him to sacrifice bunt. 

But Jeter sacrifice bunts on his own - successfully, as he does just about everything successfully on a baseball field - and the runners advance.  Johnny Damon, the next batter, singles, and both of them score. 

Just another day at the office for Mr. Jeter.

I have been watching baseball for a great many years, and have seen a lot of ballplayers, including, I'm pretty sure, more than half the players who are in the hall of fame.  But I don't think I have ever seen anyone who combines Derek Jeter's talent, accomplishments and personal attributes.

In 15 years in the big leagues, all with the Yankees, I may - may - have seen him visibly upset on the field 1 or 2 times.  I can think of players who are visibly upset 1 or 2 times a game.  Jeter is the most even-tempered, respectful, professional player you will ever find.  Certainly on the field.  And, to my knowledge, off the field as well. 

And it's not like Jeter is some journeyman, lucky to hang on for another year.  He is a sure first-time selection for the hall of fame - one who will not think twice about sacrificing himself for the team and is always a gentleman. 

Derek Jeter is the perfect antithesis of the prima donna types that you see so often in sports.

How I wish we could find politicians like this. 

Ken Berwitz

Why would that combination apply to this blog?  Well, just read the Chicago Sun-Times article and see for yourself:

Woman uses lighter to check gas can level, blows up car

August 29, 2009

A Joliet woman suffered second-degree burns Tuesday night after she used a cigarette lighter to help her see how much gas was in a can she was been filling.

The incident happened at a 7-Eleven gas station at 1609 E. Cass about 10:30 p.m., police said.

The 27-year-old woman "was filling up a gas can, which was sitting on the passenger seat of the car. [She] then used a lighter to . . . observe how full the can was," police said.

The flame ignited the gas, and the can exploded, setting the car's interior aflame.

Apparently afraid that the fire would spread to the gas pump she had been using, the woman began to push the burning car.

The car was about five feet from the gas pumps and engulfed in flames when firefighters arrived.

The woman was treated at the scene for second-degree burns to her right wrist and right thigh before being taken to Silver Cross Hospital. Her injuries were serious but not life-threatening.

Is that a Darwin Award finalist, or what?  She is filling up a gas can INSIDE THE CAR (not outside by the pump, that would be too much trouble), can't see how much is in the can, and ignites her lighter to take a look-see.

I'm sorry for the woman's injuries, but the truth is that she's damn lucky to be alive at all, and the 7-11 is damn lucky the whole place didn't go up.

The Darwin Award was created with folks like her in mind.  She is a finalist for sure.

Ken Berwitz

A month or so ago, I blogged that a poll commissioned by the Jerusalem Post showed 6% of Israelis consider President Obama to be pro-Israel.

That is a stunningly low percentage by any measure.  But given that most US Jews support Mr. Obama it is utterly astounding.

Since then, however, there have been reports that President Obama is brokering a deal that would get Israelis and Palestinian Arabs back to the "peace process" (the one that has been going on since 1967).

If the couple of Jewish friends I've asked are any indication, this is a really strong plus for Mr. Obama.  It shows he's Israel's bosom buddy and cares deeply about Jews, Israel and the continuity of Israel as a primarily Jewish state.

So how impressed are Israeli Jews?  Well, read this excerpt from the Jerusalem Post article about the latest poll data , and see for yourself:

4% of Israeli Jews: Obama pro-Israel

Aug. 27, 2009
Gil Hoffman , THE JERUSALEM POST

 

The number of Israelis who see US President Barack Obama's policies as pro-Israel has fallen to four percent, according to a Smith Research poll taken this week on behalf of The Jerusalem Post.

 

Fifty-one percent of Jewish Israelis consider Obama's administration more pro-Palestinian than pro-Israel, according to the survey, while 35% consider it neutral and 10% declined to express an opinion. The poll of 500 people representing a statistical model of the Jewish Israeli population had a margin of error of 4.5%.

 

A much-cited Post poll published on June 19 that put the first figure at 6% had been cited by top officials in both the White House and the Prime Minister's Office as the catalyst for recent American efforts to improve the American-Israeli relationship. But the new poll proves that those efforts have not improved Obama's reputation among Israelis.

 

The earlier poll, taken shortly after Obama reached out to the Muslim world in a landmark address in Cairo, found that 50% of those sampled considered the administration's policies more pro-Palestinian than pro-Israeli, and 36% said the policies were neutral. The remaining 8% did not express an opinion.

 

Obama's popularity among Israelis has been plummeting since a May 17 Post poll on the eve of a meeting between Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Obama at the White House. In that poll, 31% labeled Obama pro-Israel, 14% considered him pro-Palestinian, 40% said he was neutral, and 15% declined to give an opinion.

 

The May poll found that Israelis' views of Obama's predecessor in the White House, George W. Bush, were nearly the opposite. Some 88% of Israelis considered Bush's administration pro-Israel, 7% said he was neutral and just 2% labeled him pro-Palestinian.

Wow and double wow.  Mr. Obama's perception is even lower now than it was last month, before this "initiative".  I didn't think that would be possible, but there it is.

I would love to see an article or two about why the disconnect between US Jews (most of whom just read about Israel in the paper) and Israeli Jews (the ones who have to live with the consequences of Mr. Obama's policies) is so incredibly vast.

Maybe Israelis understand something about the consequences of Mr. Obama's words, and the ultimate meaning of his policies, that US Jews do not.

Ken Berwitz

Now there's a title you don't see very often. 

But before you credit (or blame) me for it, read this story by the author of the title, and article:  Talia Whyte of www.thegrio.com:

Ken Berwitz

If you're going to make your state a haven for illegals, provide massive governmental services for them, and you're going to fund it by taxing the excrement out of the legals while regulating businesses to death, then you better hope there is never a serious economic downturn.

That is a lesson Californial is learning very clearly these days. 

Here is an excerpt from an article in yesterday's Los Angeles Times.  Please pay special attention to the parts I've put in bold print, and see how it squares with the headline and sub-head:

The end of the line for California automaking

Toyota will shut down the joint venture it operated with General Motors in Fremont in March, eliminating 4,700 jobs. Sagging sales and GM's bankruptcy are blamed.

By Martin Zimmerman and Maura Dolan

August 28, 2009

 

Reporting from Los Angeles and Fremont, Calif. - Toyota Motor Corp.'s decision to abandon its assembly line in Fremont marks the end of large-scale auto manufacturing in California, which over the years boasted a dozen or more plants building vehicles ranging from Studebakers to Camaro muscle cars.

The Japanese automaker said Thursday that it would end production at the plant March 31, throwing 4,700 people out of work, and return some production to Japan.

It's another hard blow for California, a state already grappling with an 11.9% unemployment rate -- its highest since World War II and the fourth-worst in the nation.

In addition to wiping out the jobs directly tied to the plant, closing the facility will send ripples through the web of suppliers that make components for the factory and through nearby stores, restaurants and bars that depend on its workers for business.

Overall, closing the plant could cost more than 40,000 jobs, according to Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who has worked with other public officials to try to keep the plant open. But communications with Toyota eventually broke down, she said.

Operated as a joint venture between Toyota and the former General Motors Corp. since 1984, the plant saw its future put in doubt last month when GM pulled out of the arrangement as part of its bankruptcy reorganization.

Executives of the venture, New United Motor Manufacturing Inc., told union members Thursday morning about Toyota's decision. It is the first time that Toyota has ever closed a major auto assembly plant.

Assembly line worker Jose Hernandez, 40, who commutes 75 miles to the plant from the Central Valley town of Ceres, said the news was a bit surprising because the plant had been busy since the government's "cash for clunkers" program jump-started auto sales this month.

"What can I do, look for a job, which is going to be very difficult right now?" he asked.

End of an era

Shutting down the plant will be another milepost in the long erosion of California's once-thriving auto industry -- a decline that is being only partly offset by the rise of a new breed of start-up car companies specializing in such advanced technology as all-electric drivetrains.

The old plants with their union payrolls provided a vital boost into the middle class for many Californians.

"The auto industry was very important in this state," said Jack Kyser, economist for the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp. "You could be a less-than-stellar student in high school and go to work on an assembly line, and pretty soon you were making good wages with good benefits."

Many of the shuttered plants were either bulldozed or converted into shopping malls, where paychecks for retail clerks typically are much skimpier. The old GM plant in Van Nuys is now a shopping center anchored by Home Depot, for instance, and a Samson Tire & Rubber factory in City of Commerce was turned into the Citadel mall.

Analysts say those better-paying union jobs, along with other costs of doing business in California, are big reasons that California's auto production has fled overseas or to other, lower-cost states.

The Fremont plant, which makes Corolla compact cars and Tacoma pickups for Toyota and, until last week, Pontiac Vibe hatchbacks for GM, was the Japanese company's only U.S. auto plant with a union workforce. As Japanese and German automakers opened vehicle production to the U.S. beginning in the 1980s, they often have opted for states such as Kentucky, Texas and Alabama, where union shops are more rare.

"It just made sense for Toyota to pull the plug," said Dennis Virag, president of the Automotive Consulting Group in Ann Arbor, Mich. "When you look at states like Kentucky and Tennessee, California just isn't competitive in manufacturing with its taxes, regulations and overall cost of doing business."

The costs apparently outweighed a package of incentives put together by state and local officials in an effort to persuade Toyota to stay in Fremont. The incentives included tax breaks, lower utility rates and publicly funded road and rail improvements around the plant, according to Feinstein.

State Sen. Dave Cox (R-Fair Oaks) said an executive from the Fremont plant had expressed concern to lawmakers about the state's workers' compensation system, overtime laws and employee leave requirements.

You look at that sub-head about sagging sales and GM bankruptcy being the cause of these closings, and you have to wonder if whoever wrote it bothered to read the article.

Yes, there are sagging sales and yes GM declared bankruptcy.  But the company is still in business and still making cars.  Just not in California.

The reason it closed the California plant is because, compared to alternative sites, the state made it so much harder to conduct business that it didn't make any sense to remain there.  So 4,700 workers are out of jobs, along with the "ripple-effect" job losses for companies that serviced the plant.  Just like the other California auto plant closings in recent years.  

California is approaching (or maybe is already at) critical mass.  It HAS to revamp the way it conducts itself.  It HAS to stop being a cookie jar for illegals to be welcomed, complete with health and social services paid by actual legal citizens.  It HAS to dramatically change its attitude toward business, which is basically that businesses can be taxed and regulated to the hilt, but they'll be happy to pay up because it is such a privilege to operate in California. 

In fact, it isn't a privilege at all;  it has become a detriment.  And businesses most assuredly know it - even if some of California's elected officials don't.

Do the state's politicians (Democratic majority) have the will to do something about this?  If so, they better show it fast.  Because if they don't, there will be a continued exodus of productive enterprise - thus jobs - from the state and things will get even worse.

Or will the state's politicians throw up their hands and blame it all on someone else.  Like, for example, President Bush (which they very well might do if they can find some kind of rationale;  it is easier than making the tough decisions which could start turning things around).

We'll see.....

Ken Berwitz

From George Stephanopoulos' blog at www.abcnews.com:

Death Panels and the Politics of Death

August 28, 2009 5:54 PM

 

Mike Huckabee tossed a hand grenade into the debate over who's politicizing Ted Kennedy's death Thursday morning when he told his radio audience that under Obamacare, Kennedy would be told to "go home to take pain pills and die."

 

Which Democrat will toss it back first?

 

Will any Republicans jump on it by challenging Huckabee head-on?

 

One thing's for sure: by joining the debate in this time in this way, Huckabee is showing how determined he is not to be outmaneuvered by Sarah Palin in the early 2012 bidding for the GOP's conservative base

 

How will Mitt Romney respond?

 

-George Stephanopoulos

Er, George..........

Before you get to the clever political convo, maybe you would like to address the ISSUE Huckabee raised?

Is the former Governor and possible presidential candidate right?  Under "Obamacare", would someone in Kennedy's condition be told to go home, take pain killers and die?

Maybe, just maybe, Mike Huckabee wasn't politically maneuvering.  Maybe, just maybe, he was telling us what was wrong with the health care legislation.

Maybe, just maybe, he was explaining why we have seen so many scared, angry seniors at town hall meetings over the past 4 - 6 weeks -- you know, the ones who look older and don't have the pre-printed signs.  The ones who aren't intentionally stacked in the front of the meeting hall with those pre-printed signs.  The ones the union thugs sometimes "escort" out of the room so they won't be heard.  The ones some politicians (henry waxman among them but he's far from the only one) find ways to shut out of the dialogue.

Can you be that tone-deaf?  Or is your tone deafness, shall we say, a tad selective in nature?

Ken Berwitz

This story comes to us from Fox News.  It is a taste of the interview with Dick Cheney which will air tomorrow on Fox News Sunday:

Former Vice President Dick Cheney on Friday said the Obama administration should be debriefing CIA interrogators about keeping the country safe rather than trying to punish them for doing their jobs.

In an exclusive interview taped to air this weekend on "FOX News Sunday," Cheney called the Justice Department probe of interrogators an "outrageous political act" that will do long-term damage to the United States' capacity to protect the country.

"We had a track record now of eight years of defending the nation against any further mass casualty attacks from al Qaeda. The approach of the Obama administration should be to come to those people who were involved in that policy and say, 'How did you do it? What were the keys to keeping this country safe over that period of time?'" Cheney said.

"Instead, they're out there now threatening to disbar the lawyers who gave us the legal opinions -- threatening contrary to what the president originally said. They're going to go out and investigate the CIA personnel who carried out those investigations," Cheney added.

Last week, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said he was appointing a special prosecutor to look at data obtained about enhanced interrogation techniques to determine whether criminal acts were committed. The data are the same previously reviewed by career prosecutors in the Eastern District of Virginia, where the CIA is headquartered. The data led to one arrest and conviction.

The former vice president for months has demanded the CIA release materials to show the effectiveness of harsh tactics in enabling interrogators to get information used to thwart planned attacks. 

This week, the CIA's inspector general released a declassified report on the use of enhanced interrogation tactics. The report said that CIA agents got valuable information but critics insist the results did not justify the methods.

Is Mr. Cheney right? 

I don't mean politically right, I mean is he right about the Bush/Cheney policies keeping us safe from terrorism for the past eight years?

Oh, wait.  I forgot.  Terrorism doesn't exist anymore. Our intrepid homeland security chief, Janet Napolitano, has declared that there is no terrorism, there are only "man-made disasters".

Well, there's your answer.  By virtue of Ms. Napolitano's declaration, terrorism does not exist under the Obama administration.  Therefore, it is irrelevant that we were kept safe from terrorism throughout the Bush/Cheney years, even as al qaeda, the taliban, hezbollah, hamas and their kindred pals were striking other countries around the world during that period.

I guess there's just nothing left to do but vigorously prosecute the people who facilitated Bush and Cheney's policies.

Yep.  That will definitely make us safer.

Ken Berwitz

I watched a bit of NBC's evening news tonight.  Lamentably, there was a report that we have had more US troop casualties in Afghanistan this year than any other year since the war began (and that's with over four months to go).

But then NBC started floating reasons for the increased casualties.  You would think that they might include something about Barack Obama's troop surge, which has been a crushing failure so far.  But no, that wasn't even on the radar.  Instead, they tried these two:

1) Because there are 21,000 more troops, there are more targets for the Taliban to hit;

2) It is the summer, which, in Afghanistan, is the "fighting season" (so help me, that was the term used).

Can this get lamer?

1) President Bush ordered a troop surge in Iraq, and our casualties went dramatically lower.  So much for reason #1;

2) Unless I'm mistaken, there was a summer every other year in Afghanistan.  So much for reason #2.

It remains to be seen just how far NBC will go to cover for Barack Obama's horribly failed troop surge strategy in Afghanistan.

I would like to tonight was rock bottom and NBC won't go any lower.  But I don't believe it any more than you do.

Ken Berwitz

Incredibly, someone from www.huffingtonpost.com named Melissa Lafsky actually wrote this about Mary Jo Kopechne, the young woman who drowned in Ted Kennedy's car:

Ken Berwitz

Want an entry for the funniest unintended media humor of the year?

How about this one, which I saw at www.sweetness-light.com, but comes to us from Time Magazine's paean to Ted Kennedy:

Kennedy only fully embraced Catholicism later in life, particularly after marrying his second wife.

So help me, that line, verbatim, is in the article.  Just click here and go to the beginning of the 6th paragraph.

I'm sitting here trying to come up with an equivalently idiotic statement for other religions.  Here's one:

Goldberg only fully embraced Judaism later in life, particularly after munching on a pork sandwich

 

What's that you say?  Jewish dietary laws do not allow eating pork?  Yeah, I know.  But the last time I checked Catholicism doesn't recognize divorces or second wives either.  And that, of course is the point.

Let's do one more:

Abdullah only fully embraced Islam later in life, particularly after buying his wife a tank top and mini-skirt to wear around town.

Does that sound absurd to you?  Me too.  But it is equivalent to what Time Magazine wrote with 100% seriousness.

Thank you, Time, for your first-rate entry in the Funniest Unintended Media Humor of the Year contest.  You are definitely in the running.

Ken Berwitz

This blog is for anyone who still is of the delusion that Barack Obama and his administration have any regard for your privacy.

To disabuse them of their fantasy, I am posting excerpts from two articles - one from www.cbsnews.com and the other from www.news.cnet.com:

From the article posted at www.cbsnews.com:

One of the problems with any proposed law that's over 1,000 pages long and constantly changing is that much deviltry can lie in the details. Take the Democrats' proposal to rewrite health care policy, better known as H.R. 3200 or by opponents as "Obamacare." (Here's our CBS News television coverage.)

Section 431(a) of the bill says that the IRS must divulge taxpayer identity information, including the filing status, the modified adjusted gross income, the number of dependents, and "other information as is prescribed by" regulation. That information will be provided to the new Health Choices Commissioner and state health programs and used to determine who qualifies for "affordability credits."

Section 245(b)(2)(A) says the IRS must divulge tax return details -- there's no specified limit on what's available or unavailable -- to the Health Choices Commissioner. The purpose, again, is to verify "affordability credits."

Section 1801(a) says that the Social Security Administration can obtain tax return data on anyone who may be eligible for a "low-income prescription drug subsidy" but has not applied for it.

Over at the Institute for Policy Innovation (a free-market think tank and presumably no fan of Obamacare), Tom Giovanetti argues that: "How many thousands of federal employees will have access to your records? The privacy of your health records will be only as good as the most nosy, most dishonest and most malcontented federal employee.... So say good-bye to privacy from the federal government. It was fun while it lasted for 233 years."

From the article posted at www.news.cnet.com:

Internet companies and civil liberties groups were alarmed this spring when a U.S. Senate bill proposed handing the White House the power to disconnect private-sector computers from the Internet.

 

They're not much happier about a revised version that aides to Sen. Jay Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat, have spent months drafting behind closed doors. CNET News has obtained a copy of the 55-page draft (excerpt), which still appears to permit the president to seize temporary control of private-sector networks during a so-called cybersecurity emergency.

To those of you who still believe Barack Obama's smooth talk:  Wake up.  For god sake, wake up.

This is what is happening right under your noses. 

Is your privacy worth more than reflexive support for the man who is taking it away? 

I urge you to think about that.  Long and hard.

===================================================================

UPDATE:  Andrew McCarthy of National Review has this to say about the dropping of charges against Richardson:

Holder's 'Rule of Law' Strikes Again: Richardson Case Dropped   

Here's the bottom line: If you're a CIA interrogator who used harsh interrogation techniques authorized by the Bush administration to obtain life-saving intelligence from terrorists, and professional line prosecutors — after laboriously scrutinizing your conduct — decided there was no criminality, Attorney General Eric will unleash a new prosecutor to investigate the case yet again, seven years after the fact.

But if you're a high-profile Democrat pol who helped Barack Obama get elected, the Holder Justice Department's political appointees will reach out from Washington to kill a corruption investigation begun only last year by professional line prosecutors and a grand jury in New Mexico.

Sadly, it seems that he is 100% right.

Ken Berwitz

Did you know that, out of nowhere, and with no fanfare, all charges against Democratic Governor of New Mexico Bill Richardson have are being dropped by the Department of Justice? 

Dropped.  Just like the case against those Black panther thugs who intimidated voters in Philadelphia and didn't bother defending themselves against the charges.  That was dropped too, even though there was a clear default judgment against the thugs.

Maybe that's why they call it the Department of Justice.  Because, for Democrats, they just ice the charges and let them go free.

From yesterday's Wall Street Journal article:

A spokesman for the United States Attorney's office in Albuquerque did not return telephone calls seeking comment, and the federal Department of Justice would not confirm that the investigation into so-called pay-to-play allegations had been dropped.

In January, Mr. Richardson, a Democrat, withdrew his nomination to be secretary of Commerce, citing a federal investigation into a company that did business with the state.

A federal grand jury was looking into whether his administration steered a financial-advisory contract to CDR Financial Products of Beverly Hills, Calif., in 2004 after an executive with that company made large contributions to Mr. Richardson's political action committees.

Both the governor and the company denied that the contributions were linked to the contract, under which CDR made about $1.5 million.

Read the entire article.  Try and find the part where it says new evidence came to light which exonerated Richardson.  Look all you want, it isn't there.

Nope.  There is no reason given.  Richardson just goes free.  And - what an amazing coincidence - just like the Black panther thugs he is a Democrat.  Imagine that.

Isn't it great having a "D" after your name?

Ken Berwitz

What do you call it when a democracy acts in a democratic way, according to its democratic laws, under the auspices of its highest court -- and, because it acts this way, is condemned, isolated and ostracized? 

I call it defecating on democracy. 

From Reuters:

U.S. moves toward formal cut off of aid to Honduras

Thu Aug 27, 2009 3:23pm EDT

 

WASHINGTON, Aug 27 (Reuters) - U.S. State Department staff have recommended that the ouster of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya be declared a "military coup," a U.S. official said on Thursday, a step that could cut off as much as $150 million in U.S. funding to the impoverished Central American nation.

The official, who spoke on condition he not be named, said State Department staff had made such a recommendation to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who has yet to make a decision on the matter although one was likely soon.

Washington has already suspended about $18 million aid to Honduras following the June 28 coup and this would be formally cut if the determination is made because of a U.S. law barring aid "to the government of any country whose duly elected head of government is deposed by military coup or decree."

The official said that $215 million in grant funding from the U.S. Millennium Challenge Corporation to Honduras would also have to end should Clinton make the determination that a military coup took place.

About $76 million of that money has already been disbursed and a second U.S. official said this implied that the remaining roughly $139 million could not be given to Honduras should the determination be made.

Diplomats said that the United States had held off making the formal determination to give diplomacy a chance to yield a negotiated compromise that might allow for Zelaya's return to power.

Such efforts, however, appear to have failed for now and so the United States is taking steps -- including its decision on Tuesday to cease issuing some visas at its embassy in Tegucigalpa -- to raise pressure on the de facto government.

"The recommendation of the building is for her to sign it," said the first U.S. official said of the 'military coup" determination, saying this was a response to the de facto government's refusal to accept a compromise that would allow Zelaya to return to power ahead of November elections. (Editing by Jackie Frank)

A quick synopsis of events in Honduras:

-manuel zelaya was legally elected President;

-The Honduran constitution does not allow him to succeed himself, nor does it allow him to hold a referendum to change the succession law (only the Honduran congress can call such a referendum - the President is explicitly forbidden to do so);

-zelaya decided he didn't like the law so he ignored it and attempted to run a referendum anyway, using military force to obtain the referendum ballots.  (An elected President ignoring the laws to become a de facto dictator is a blueprint that we saw with hugo chavez.  It is common knowledge that zelaya is an admirer, and protegé, of chavez);

-The Honduran Supreme Court ruled that zelaya was acting outside of the constitution and had to be removed;

-The Honduran military - on orders of the Supreme Court -  removed him;

-zelaya was replaced, on an interim basis (elections are to be held this November), by Roberto Micheletti; the President of Honduras' national congress, who was next in line of succession. 

In other words, the removal of manuel zelaya was a model of democracy in action. 

Despite the unbelievably dishonest media spin we have all seen, there was no military coup at all.  Honduras is not being led by Generalissimo Micheletti or Colonel Micheletti.  It is being led by the civilian Roberto Micheletti - a member of zelaya's own party - who was next in line to preside over the country. 

Honduras' government wasn't overthrown.  The same elected party still rules.  What happened was that the legal system removed a rogue President who decided he was above the law.

And in return for Honduras acting in this exemplary way, not only has President Barack Obama immediately shunned the interim government, demanding that the dictator wannabe zelaya be reinstated, but now our brilliant state department is cooking up a financial punishment on his behalf.

Could hugo chavez be any happier with our policy toward Honduras?  I doubt it.

What a sad day for democracy.  And what a disgrace for the Obama administration.

Ken Berwitz

My pal, West Coast Russ, keeps coming up with funny emails.  And, as regular readers know, I sometimes post them.

Today (actually late last night in his neck of the woods) he sent me the following group of (purportedly) are actual transcripts of dialogue between computer users and technical support. 

See if you find them as funny as I do:

Ken Berwitz

Andy Warhol said (paraphrasing) that we all get our 15 minutes in the limelight.

cindy sheehan had hers, when she sat on a folding chair near George Bush's Crawford, Texas ranch to protest the war in Iraq.  Without going into the details (and there are plenty to go into) she became a huge international superstar for doing so. 

Then, as coverage of her sit-in started to wane (though still enormous in dimension) sheehan decided to challenge Nancy Pelosi for her congressional seat.  At that point our wonderful "neutral" media decided she wasn't worth covering at all, and she has more or less been ignored ever since.

But now we have this story, which comes to us from Agence France Presse:.

Sheehan returns to rebuke Obama

Aug 27 01:27 PM US/Eastern

 

After spending weeks dogging George W. Bush's presidential vacations, anti-war protester Cindy Sheehan is now trying to make life uncomfortable for President Barack Obama.

Sheehan used to pitch a peace camp near Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, becoming a symbol of the anti-war movement after her son Casey died in action in Iraq.

On Thursday, she and a band of anti-war protesters turned up outside the media center used by journalists covering Obama's vacation on the well-heeled east coast resort island of Martha's Vineyard.

"The reason I am here is because ... even though the facade has changed in Washington DC, the policies are still the same," Sheehan told a handful of journalists, against a backdrop of her "Camp Casey" banner.

She told US peace activists to wake up and protest Obama's escalation of the war in Afghanistan, and complained that despite the president's anti-war stance, US troops remained in Iraq.

"We have to realize, it is not the president who is power, it is not the party that is in power it is the system that stays the same, no matter who is in charge."

"We are here to make the wars unpopular again," she said.

Well, there she is again.  She's back, like a morsel of rancid beef at 3AM in the morning.

Do you think she'll get the same coverage for going after Democrat Barack Obama that she did for going after Republican George Bush?  Or anything even remotely near it?  After all, it's the same cindy sheehan and the same issue, right? 

Or do you think she'll get strictly "16th minute" treatment, right from the git-go -- primarily because, this time, she's going after a Democrat?

I have a feeling you already know my expectation.  What's yours?

Ken Berwitz

Ted Kennedy is not even in the ground, and there already are Democrats - both in politics and in the blogosphere - trying to exploit his corpse by sounding the call to "pass health care for Teddy".  To that end, there is even talk of naming it the "Kennedy Health Care Bill".

This is an outrage of the first order.

The bill is what it is.  If a congressperson was against the legislation before Kennedy's death, the fact that he died did not make it any better. 

For the sake of simple fairness, may every congressperson vote for or against health care on the merits of the legislation, not because it is somehow "owed" to Ted Kennedy.

Simply stated, the people asking that they "pass health care for Teddy" are exploitative ghouls.  Shame on them all.

Ken Berwitz

I'm pretty sure most readers are not familiar with Ellie Greenwich, who died yesterday in New York at the age of 68, after an unsuccessful battle with pneumonia.

But I have no doubt most are aware of at least some of the songs she wrote, which ranged from teen romance material (Be My Baby, Leader Of The Pack, Then He Kissed Me) to fun, silly stuff (Do Wa Diddy Diddy, Hanky Panky, Da Doo Ron Ron) and lots, lots more.

Though her name was not what you'd call a household word, Greenwich had a hugely successful career and I doubt you can find anyone, certainly among baby boomers, who doesn't count one or more of her songs among their favorites.

May she rest in peace.

Ken Berwitz

Here, courtesy of the always-worthwhile www.sweetness-light.com, is another look at the UK's National Health Service (NHS), to see what our future might be under Obamacare.  The bold print is sweetness-light's, not mine:

NHS Imports Foreign Docs For Off Hours

August 27th, 2009

 

Another cautionary tale from the UK’s Daily Mail:

 

Foreign GPs who commute to Britain: £100-an-hour Poles and Lithuanians fly in for shifts our doctors won’t do

By Rebecca Camber
25th August 2009

 

The huge extent to which the NHS needs foreign doctors to treat patients out of hours is revealed today.

 

A third of primary care trusts are flying in GPs from as far away as Lithuania, Poland, Germany, Hungary, Italy and Switzerland because of a shortage of doctors in Britain willing to work in the evenings and at weekends.

 

The stand-ins earn up to £100 [$162] an hour, and one trust paid Polish and German doctors a total of £267,000 [$434,674] in a year, a Daily Mail investigation has found.

 

It raises fresh concerns that British patients are being treated by exhausted doctors without a perfect command of English.

 

Yesterday the Royal College of GPs and the General Medical Council called for a ‘radical review’ of out-of-hours care so that the NHS no longer has to rely on help from abroad.

 

The figures come months after an investigation was launched into the conduct of a German doctor after two patients died on his first shift in Britain.

 

Daniel Ubani had just three hours sleep after travelling from Germany before he went on duty in Cambridgeshire.

 

The Nigerian-born doctor injected 70-year-old kidney patient David Gray with ten times the maximum recommended dose of morphine, and an 86-year-old woman died of a heart attack after Ubani failed to send her to hospital.

 

The NHS is having to rely on doctors from overseas because a lucrative new contract for British GPs has resulted in more than 90 per cent opting out of responsibility for their patients in the evenings and at weekends.

 

Despite doing less, their pay has soared by 50 per cent to an average of almost £108,000 [$175,823].

 

Responsibility for out-of-hours cover has now passed to primary care trusts.

 

The rules state that foreign doctors need to have basic GP training, but recent experience is not always necessary.

 

Their qualifications are checked by the General Medical Council and the local PCT, but no checks are in place to ensure that they are not exhausted after working long hours in their home country.

 

Our investigation revealed that more than a third of the 152 primary care trusts (PCTs) in England have flown in foreign GPs in the last year. Of the 146 trusts who responded, 51 have used overseas GPs in the last 12 months.

 

The figure has trebled since 2008 when just one in ten primary care trusts were flying in GPs from abroad. However, it is impossible to know the exact number of GPs travelling to the UK as many primary care trusts do not keep a record of their nationality…

 

This is another aspect of socializing our healthcare system that has received little attention.

 

Doctors refusing to work evenings and weekends.

 

And notice that despite that, their salaries have gone up 50 percent.

 

So much for all the vaunted savings.

 

But don’t worry. It can’t happen here.

Take a good look.   A good, long, hard look.  Thiss what has happened since the UK nationalized health care.  And, for the same reasons it happened there, this very well may be our future.

How do you like it?

Ken Berwitz

As readers of this blog are aware, shortly before his death Ted Kennedy requested that the rules of succession be changed - again - so that Democratic Governor Deval Patrick would select his successor instead of holding a special election.

The Governor was able to fill vacated senate seats until 2004, when John Kerry was running for the presidency and, if he won, the Republican Governor, Mitt Romney, would pick his successor.  At that time, the Democratic-dominated statehouse - for only the most elevated non-partisan reasons, of course - quickly passed legislation that instead required a special election.

Now that the Governor is a Democrat, the Democratic-dominated statehouse - for only the most elevated non-partisan reasons, of course - want to change it back to the old way.  And Governor Patrick, being the elevated nonpartisan we all know that he is, says he will be glad to sign that change into law.

But as of now, the law is that a successor must be chosen by special election.  So, this morning, I sent the following email to the person responsible for the special election:  William Francis Galvin, Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts:

Secretary Galvin;

 

When will the special election be held to replace Senator Kennedy?  Will it be on election day this year?

 

Thanks in advance for this information.

 

 

Ken Berwitz

I will post any reply I get -- assuming a) I get one and b) that Democrats haven't changed the law, in order to insure that the Democratic Governor rather than the people select Massachusetts' new senator.

Stay tuned.

======================================================================

UPDATE:  I have not heard a thing from Secretary Galvin's office.  How nice of them to ignore the question (so far, anyway).  But I did see a story on the Today Show this morning in which told me that the seat must remain vacant for 5 months before there is a special election (and, since then, I have read that the specific time frame is 145 - 160 days after the seat is vacated.)

FYI, the same report, by Kelly O'Donnell, told me that "Unlike most states, Massachusetts Governor, Deval Patrick, does not have the power to name a Kennedy replacement", followed shortly thereafter by "...and Kennedy had requested that state lawmakers make the change to allow the Governor to appoint a replacement for that five month period...."

Ms. O'Donnell was nice enough to avoid mentioning that, as noted earlier in the blog the Governor of Massachusetts did have this power until 2004.  It was changed then because John Kerry was running for the presidency and, if he won, Republican Governor Mitt Romney would have picked Kerry's successor.  

Senator Kennedy was just fine with that change back in 2004, because it prevented a Republican Governor picking Kerry's successor.  And, yes, this is the same Senator Kennedy who, just last week, wrote a letter asking that the law be reversed back so that the now-Democratic Governor could pick his successor.  In other words, heads-Democrfats-win, tails-Republicans-lose.

This is worth remembering, for anyone foolish enough to buy into the claim that Kennedy was in any way bipartisan.

Ken Berwitz

I am fighting the urge to make keith olbermann a Darwin Award finalist, along with the woman who stuffed the 12 pack of beer between her legs.

But I will defer to him on the grounds that he is a very important media man.  A giant of the industry.  (Just ask him.) 

olbermann has been the host of MSNBC's "Countdown" for almost 6 1/2 years.  He took over for Phil Donahue, because Donahue, in the judgment of MSNBC's brain trust (such as it is) wasn't building enough of an audience and couldn't compete effectively with Bill O'Reilly, who hosts "The O'Reilly Factor.

Well, after 6 1/2 years, and a small ocean's worth of bile aimed at O'Reilly and Fox in general (ok, maybe a medium ocean's worth),  olbermann has built up to - ta DAAAAA - about one-third of O'Reilly's audience. 

If I were Phil Donahue I'd be spitting blood over this.  He got 6 months and was dumped.  olbermann has gotten over 6 years, and can barely see O'Reilly in the distance.

Anyway, because olbermann was being smashed so completely by O'Reilly, whom he hates with a pathological fervor, olbermann started trying to find ways to pretend he was outperforming O'Reilly. 

His first ploy (that I know of) was talking only about the 25-54 demographic, at a time when he had built up to a relatively competitive performance against O'Reilly in that group.  He vaingloriously assured viewers that he was overhauling "Bill-O" (one of the less offensive sarcasms he uses for O'Reilly).

But there was a problem.  Shortly thereafter, O'Reilly built right back up to dominance in the 25-54 demographic.  Illustratively, the latest data available (via www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/ratings) - for Tuesday night - show O'Reilly at 1,000,100 among 25-54's versus 384,000 for olbermann's Countdown.  And that is no fluke;  it is very typical of the ratings differential between them these days.

What to do, what to do.

Well, olbermann is now trying another ploy.  This one is even more pathetic.  I'll let Noel Sheppard, of www.newsbusters.org, provide the particulars: 

Olbermann: Fox News Watchers Are Paranoids and Racists

 

By Noel Sheppard (Bio | Archive)
August 26, 2009 - 00:14 ET

 

Did you know that Keith Olbermann's "Countdown" on MSNBC is the highest rated news program on cable?

You didn't?

 

Well, it is according to Keith Olbermann.

 

Honestly.

 

Even worse, in his view, folks that watch Fox News are "tin foil hatters, conspiracy theorists, paranoids and racists."

 

He said so Tuesday evening, so it must be true (video embedded below the fold, relevant section at 0:52, h/t NBer Brad90956):

 

KEITH OLBERMANN: I hate to intrude with the facts but ours is the highest rated cable news program viewers 35 and younger and the highest rated cable news program for all viewers not on Fixed News. And since Fixed News has since now migrated completely over to serving propaganda to tin foil hatters, conspiracy theorists, paranoids and racists it is not a news organization making this show the highest rated cable news program, period.

 

Yes, and the Toronto Blue Jays are the best team in Major League Baseball if you ignore all those situated in America.

 

Nice try, Keith. 

 

Could you BE any more of an embarrassment to your industry?

 

For the record, on Monday, these were the top cable news programs:

 

The O'Reilly Factor - 3,440,000 viewers
Hannity - 2,937,000 viewers
Glenn Beck - 2,810,000 viewers
On The Record w/ Greta Van Susteren - 2,450,000 viewers
Special Report with Bret Baier - 2,066,000 viewers
Fox Report w/Shep Smith - 1,860,000 viewers
Countdown w/ K. Olbermann - 1,114,000 viewers
Larry King Live - 1,063,000 viewers 

 

Exit questions: if it's wrong for a conservative talk show host to call the President racist, isn't it wrong for a liberal talk show host to accuse millions of Americans of being similarly prejudiced?

 

Will the advocacy group founded by the President's green czar Van Jones petition Olbermann's sponsors to stop advertising on his program due to these deplorable comments?

 

If not, why not?

 

*****Update: Further for the record, this recent claim by Olbermann concerning his popularity with people 35 and younger is just another movement of the goalposts to flatter himself. Last year, despite being trounced by virtually every prime time show on Fox News, he used to refer to his prowess in "the demo" which is folks aged 25 to 54.

 

Unfortunately, quoting such numbers no longer works for Olberman, as on Monday he was beaten in this demographic by O'Reilly, Beck, Hannity, Baier, Smith, Van Susteren, and even HLN's Nancy Grace!

 

In fact, even "Fox & Friends" beat Olbermann in Monday's demo.

 

So keep moving those goalposts, Keith! We're sure your ego needs it.

See, in the world of olbermann, it is not enough to finitely tailor demographics to fantasize being #1, when, in reality, you are so far back that you barely can eat O'Reilly's dust.  It is also necessary to name-call, with all the finesse and aplomb of a three year old who didn't get his lollipop.

The concept isn't very sophisticated. It is that if you pretend the shows ahead of you don't exist, you're in the lead.  Sheppard's example using the (surprisingly hapless) Toronto Blue Jays is dead-on.  The only difference is that I'm not surprised olbermann is hapless.  Or factless.  Or clueless.

And what if this doesn't work?  Who will he try to separate out next?  How about 28 year olds with psoriatic toenails who wear one earring and have had a pastrami sandwich in the past three weeks? 

So what do you think?  Should I have put keith olbermann in the running for a Darwin Award based on this childish, ludicrous, viciously insulting rant?  Or should I just laugh at how ridiculous a fool he makes of himself.

Your call.

Ken Berwitz

For the second straight day we have a Darwin Award finalist to talk about.

This story comes to us from WFAB, Zachary, Louisiana:

Woman steals 12-pack between her legs

Posted: Aug 27, 2009 7:53 AM EDT Updated: Aug 27, 2009 7:53 AM EDT

ZACHARY, LA (WAFB) - Zachary police say surveillance video shows a woman steal a 12-pack of beer from a small grocery store by putting it between her legs and waddling away.

She is also suspected of shoving several cans of soda into her top.

The Miller Light and soft drinks were taken from the Cross Roads Grocery on August 2.

"It's just amazing how people go this far to steal," said David McDavid with the police department. "It just doesn't make sense."

However, this "beer between the legs" bandit apparently didn't work alone.

The video also shows a man try to hide the woman as she shimmies down the aisle while tucking the beer between her legs.

Zachary police are also looking for her alleged partner in crime.

Unbelievable.  But there it is.

Maybe she took the beer and soda from the refrigerated case, and figured it would contract her so much that no one would notice.  Fat chance.

"Hey chief, I think we have a lead on her partner.  We just picked up a guy with a bottle of Jack Daniels stuck up his......"

Er, never mind.

Ken Berwitz

Want to see your future under government-run health care?

This story, which comes to us from the London Daily Mail, just may be a part of it:

The babies born in hospital corridors: Bed shortage forces 4,000 mothers to give birth in lifts, offices and hospital toilets

By Jenny Hope and Nick Mcdermott
Last updated at 8:36 AM on 26th August 2009

Maternity crisis: Women are giving birth in lifts and even toilets

Thousands of women are having to give birth outside maternity wards because of a lack of midwives and hospital beds.

The lives of mothers and babies are being put at risk as births in locations ranging from lifts to toilets - even a caravan - went up 15 per cent last year to almost 4,000.

Health chiefs admit a lack of maternity beds is partly to blame for the crisis, with hundreds of women in labour being turned away from hospitals because they are full.

Latest figures show that over the past two years there were at least:

• 63 births in ambulances and 608 in transit to hospitals;
• 117 births in A&E departments, four in minor injury units and two in medical assessment areas;
• 115 births on other hospital wards and 36 in other unspecified areas including corridors;
• 399 in parts of maternity units other than labour beds, including postnatal and antenatal wards and reception areas.

Additionally, overstretched maternity units shut their doors to any more women in labour on 553 occasions last year.

Babies were born in offices, lifts, toilets and a caravan, according to the Freedom of Information data for 2007 and 2008 from 117 out of 147 trusts which provide maternity services.

One woman gave birth in a lift while being transferred to a labour ward from A&E while another gave birth in a corridor, said East Cheshire NHS Trust.

Others said women had to give birth on the wards - rather than in their own maternity room - because the delivery suites were full.

Tory health spokesman Andrew Lansley, who obtained the figures, said Labour had cut maternity beds by 2,340, or 22 per cent, since 1997. At the same time birth rates have been rising sharply - up 20 per cent in some areas.

Mr Lansley said: 'New mothers should not be being put through the trauma of having to give birth in such inappropriate places.

 

More...

• Woman gives birth on pavement 'after being refused ambulance and told to walk'
• Father turned away from hospital with pregnant wife delivers baby on bathroom floor - and saves his daughter's life

'While some will be unavoidable emergencies, it is extremely distressing for them and their families to be denied a labour bed because their maternity unit is full.

'It shows the incredible waste that has taken place that mothers are getting this sort of sub-standard treatment despite Gordon Brown's tripling of spending on the NHS.

'Labour have let down mothers by cutting the number of maternity beds and by shutting down maternity units.'

The NHS employs the equivalent of around 25,000 full-time midwives in England, but the Government has promised to recruit 3,400 more.

However, the Royal College of Midwives estimates at least 5,000 more are needed to provide the quality of service pledged in the Government's blueprint for maternity services, Maternity Matters.

At the same time almost half of all midwives are set to retire in the next decade.

Jon Skewes, a director at the Royal College of Midwives, said: 'The rise in the number of births in other than a designated labour bed is a concern. We would want to see the detail behind these figures to look at why this is happening.

'There is no doubt that maternity services are stretched, and that midwives are working harder and harder to provide good quality care. However, we know the Government is putting more money into the service.

'The key now is to make sure this money is spent by the people controlling the purse strings at a local level.'

Care services minister Phil Hope said: 'The number of maternity beds in the NHS reflects the number of women wanting to give birth in hospital. Giving birth can be unpredictableand it is difficult to plan for the exact time and place of every birth.

'Local health services have plans to ensure high quality, personal care with greater choice over place of birth and care provided by a named midwife.

'We recognise that some parts of the country face particular challenges due to the rising birth rate and that is why last year we pledged to increase funding for maternity by £330million over three years.

'We now have more maternity staff than ever before and we have already met our target to recruit 1,000 extra midwives by September.'

I know I know.  This could never happen under Obamacare.  He promised.

And a man who promised us transparency in government, no earmarks on legislation and no legislation passed until we all got a chance to read it wouldn't lie to us.

Would he?

Ken Berwitz

Dominick Dunne, the best-selling author, regular contributor to Vanity Fair magazine, and a man with as varied and fascinating a career as you're likely to find, died today in Manhattan at the age of 84.  The cause was bladder cancer.

Dunne was a decorated veteran of WWII, a stage manager for, of all things, the Howdy Doody children's show in the '50's, a recovered addict and alcoholic, a reporter who covered many famous trials (the Menendez brothers among them), and an author who wrote a number of books, most of which sold quite well - with one on the way, which will be published posthumously by Random House.   He is also the father of actor Griffin Dunne.

It is sad that Ted Kennedy's death will probably overshadow Dunne so completely in the media.  But not at this blog.

May he rest in peace.

Ken Berwitz

This genius is definitely in the running. 

From AOL news:

Victim Sees Suspect Wearing Her Clothes

AOL News

posted: 4 HOURS 32 MINUTES AGO

 

(Aug. 26) -- It wasn't hard for Tammy Brown to identify a likely suspect in the burglary of her home.

 

One of her neighbors, Kathleen Lawson, 36, allegedly walked right up to Brown while wearing Brown's own clothes.

 

Brown was planning to move from her home, so much of her belongings were packed. She left her home briefly Monday and returned to find it had been burglarized, reported CBS13 in Sacramento, Calif.

 

"I was shocked," Brown told the local CBS affiliate. "She walked right up the gate and said, 'What are you going to do with the dryer?' I said, 'How do you know there is a dryer? You've gone in my house … you are wearing my clothes.'"

 

Brown said Lawson told her she had "good taste in clothes."

 

Lawson faces burglary and drug charges, and two other suspects were also arrested in connection with the case.

.

Ken Berwitz

Yes, Howard Dean was shouted down by angry protestors at congressperson jim moran's "town hall meeting".

Now, as you watch the video (by clicking here), please note:

-The stacked deck moran gave Dean (all those professionally printed "Thank You" and "Health Care Not War" signs in the front - just coincidence I'm sure);

-The idiotic comment by moran (who is no stranger to idiotic comments) that the protestors are just "a handful of people");

-The equally idiotic comment that they are not from his district (how would he know?);

-And the demand that they leave (yep, that's the ticket.  If they disagree get rid of them):

There you go.  jim moran and Howard Dean's idea of democracy in action.

How do you like it?

Ken Berwitz

Excerpted from an Associated Press article:

Bauer to ask embattled Sanford to resign

JEFFREY COLLINS
The Associated Press

Published: Wednesday, August 26, 2009 at 10:47 a.m.
Last Modified: Wednesday, August 26, 2009 at 10:47 a.m.

 

COLUMBIA — South Carolina's lieutenant governor will ask embattled Gov. Mark Sanford to resign at a news conference Wednesday, a spokesman said.

 

Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer will agree to stay out of next year's governor's race if Sanford steps down, an offer he first made in June after his fellow Republican admitted a yearlong affair with an Argentine woman.

 

"People need to take their personal, political considerations off the table and think about what's best for the state," Bauer spokesman Frank Adams said.

My take on this:  Sanford has irredeemably disgraced himself, and should have resigned without being asked.  Every day he is in office is a travesty and every day he is in office hurts his party.

Governor Sanford:  Go away.  Now.

Ken Berwitz

Does the American Civil Liberties Union give a dam about privacy rights?

The answer just may be that they do - when the rights protect enemies of the state - but not when the rights protect people who try to protect us.

Think I'm exaggerating?  Then you better read Michelle Malkin's latest column:

ACLU SPIES ENDANGER AMERICA

Last updated: 4:34 am
August 26, 2009
Posted: 4:33 am
August 26, 2009

SAVOR the silence of America's self-serving champions of privacy. For once, the American Civil Liberties Union has nothing bad to say about the latest case of secret domestic surveillance -- because it is the ACLU that committed the spying.

Last week, The Washington Post reported on a Justice Department inquiry into photographs of undercover CIA officials and other intelligence personnel taken by ACLU-sponsored researchers assisting the defense team of Guantanamo detainees. According to the report, the pictures of covert CIA officers -- "in some cases surreptitiously taken outside their homes" -- were shown to jihadi suspects tied to the 9/11 attacks in order to identify the interrogators.

The ACLU undertook the so-called "John Adams Project" with the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers -- last seen crusading for convicted jihadi assistant Lynne Stewart. (She's the far-left lawyer who helped sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, convicted 1993 World Trade Center bombing mastermind, smuggle coded messages of violence to outside followers.)

Working from a witch-hunt list of 45 CIA employees, the ACLU team tailed and photographed agency employees or obtained other photos from public records. Then they showed the images to suspected al Qaeda operatives implicated in murdering 3,000 innocent men, women and children on American soil.

Where is the concern for the safety of these American officers and their families? Where's the outrage from all the indignant supporters of former CIA agent Valerie Plame, whose name was leaked by Bush State Department official Richard Armitage to the late Robert Novak?

Lefties swung their nooses for years over that disclosure, citing federal laws prohibiting the sharing of classified information and proscribing anyone from unauthorized exposure of undercover intelligence agents.

ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero refused to comment on Project CIA Paparazzi and instead whined some more about the evil Bush/CIA interrogators.

Left-wing commentators and distraction artists are dutifully up in arms about such "inhumane" tactics as blowing cigar smoke in the faces of Gitmo detainees. But it's Romero blowing unconscionable smoke: "We are confident that no laws or regulations have been broken as we investigated the circumstances of the torture of our clients and as we have vigorously defended our clients' interests," he told the Post. "Rather than investigate the CIA officials who undertook the torture, they are now investigating the military lawyers who have courageously stepped up to defend these clients in these sham proceedings."

Courage? What tools and fools these jihadi-enablers be.

Civil-liberties opportunism is literally a part of the al Qaeda handbook. A terrorist manual seized in a Manchester, England, raid in 2005 advised operatives: "At the beginning of the trial . . . the brothers must insist on proving that torture was inflicted on them by state security before the judge. Complain of mistreatment while in prison."

Since 9/11, the "champions of privacy" have recklessly blabbed about counterterrorism operations, endangered the lives of military and intelligence officials at Gitmo and undermined national security through endless litigation. Now, caught red-handed blowing the cover of CIA operatives, they shrug their shoulders and dismiss it as "normal" research on behalf of "our clients."

But don't you dare question their love of country. Spying to stop the next 9/11 is treason, you see. Spying to stop enhanced interrogation of Gitmo detainees is patriotic. And endangering America on behalf of international human rights is the ultimate form of leftist dissent.

I hope you read that carefully.  Because I doubt you'll hear much about it from our wonderful "neutral" media - what we laughingly call "mainstream" media, that is.

But, hey, it's not that important anyway.  It's just the ACLU "outing" people who are trying to protect the country from terrorism, and showing their faces to the people who are trying to destroy us.  What's so important about that?

Ken Berwitz

If the UK's Guardian has it right (you decide, after reading the excerpt from yesterday's article which I've posted below), Barack Obama may have found a way to resurrect the so-called "peace process" between Palestinian Arabs and Israel.  The bold print is mine:.

Barack Obama on brink of deal for Middle East peace talks

Barack Obama is close to brokering an Israeli-Palestinian deal that will allow him to announce a resumption of the long-stalled Middle East peace talks before the end of next month, according to US, Israeli, Palestinian and European officials.

Key to bringing Israel on board is a promise by the US to adopt a much tougher line with Iran over its alleged nuclear weapons programme. The US, along with Britain and France, is planning to push the United Nations security council to expand sanctions to include Iran's oil and gas industry, a move that could cripple its economy.

In return, the Israeli government will be expected to agree to a partial freeze on the construction of settlements in the Middle East. In the words of one official close to the negotiations: "The message is: Iran is an existential threat to Israel; settlements are not."

 

Rory McCarthy reports on the hurdles Binyamin Netanyahu might face if he stopped building on occupied territory Link to this audio

Details of the breakthrough deal will be hammered out tomorrow in London, where the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, is due to hold talks with the US special envoy, George Mitchell. Netanyahu met Gordon Brown today in Downing Street, where the two discussed both settlements and the Iranian nuclear programme.

Although the negotiations are being held in private, they have reached such an advanced stage that both France and Russia have approached the US offering to host a peace conference.

If true, this means that United States policy toward Iran will finally be what it should have been all along -- because a nuclear Iran threatens our security as well as Israel's. 

And Israel will allow some settlement construction but not all of it - as it would have if there were no "deal" at all. 

In other words, Mr. Netanyahu's agreement is little other than a face-saver for Mr. Obama, who desperately needs one at the moment.

That said, the payoff of all this is what?  The continuation of a 42 year old series of "negotiations", which have absolutely no meaning unless Palestinian Arabs agree to the concept of peaceful coexistence with Israel. 

Until they do, this is nothing more than a dog and pony show.

Yawn.

Ken Berwitz

I don't know if Charles Rangel is the single most corrupt person in congress.  But he has to be in the running.

Over the last year, I have detailed Rangel scandal after Rangel scandal, including his tax cheating, his illegal use of rent-controlled apartments, his financial shenanigans, etc.  And now we have this new one, which comes to us via an article at Congressional Quarterly by Richard Rubin and Alex Knott:

Rangel’s Wealth Jumps After Disclosure

By Richard Rubin and Alex Knott, CQ Staff

House Ways and Means Chairman Charles B. Rangel , already beset by a series of ethics investigations, has disclosed more than $500,000 in previously unreported assets.

Among the new items on Rangel’s amended 2007 financial disclosure report were an account at the Congressional Federal Credit Union worth at least $250,000, an investment account with at least $250,000, land in southern New Jersey and stock in PepsiCo and fast food conglomerate Yum! Brands. None of those investments appeared on the original report, which was filled out by hand and filed in May 2008.

According to the original report, Rangel’s net worth was between $516,015 and $1,316,000, while the amended report showed his net worth, as of Dec. 31, 2007, roughly double that amount — at least $1,028,024 and as much as $2,495,000.

Rangel also revised his disclosed investment income from 2007. The original report showed he had received between $6,511 and $17,900, but the new report shows between $45,423 and $134,700. The report also includes eight previously undisclosed financial transactions.

House rules allow lawmakers to exclude their personal residences and report asset values within broad ranges.

Rangel’s office and his lawyers did not respond Tuesday to requests for comment.

The forensic accounting firm he hired, Watkins, Meegan, Drury & Company, declined to comment.

If there were an "R" instead of a "D" after Charles Rangel's name, it is highly likely that he'd have been removed from congress and in a jail cell already, because of his actions before this latest scandal.

But Rangel has a "D" after his name instead of an "R".  So you'll be lucky to see any mention of his latest disgrace on the network news, the morning shows, the NY Times, the LA Times, etc. etc. etc., let alone any editorial demand that he step down.

Oh, did I forget to mention?  Charles Rangel currently chairs the House Ways and Means Committee, which is responsible for tax law.

Outraged yet?

Ken Berwitz

The www.yahoo.com headline was all you needed to know where that site is coming from:

Ok, why bother to read on?  The story is already told.  There are a bunch of imbeciles out there who are buying into myths about the health care proposals being pushed by Barack Obama and his lopsidedly Democratic congress.

But are they myths?  Or is the myth found in the claim that they are myths? 

Here is an excellent piece about the "myth mythology" from John Hinderaker of www.powerlineblog.com.  The mythology is yahoo's.  the common sense is John's, and the bold print is mine:

Why We Believe "Myths"

August 25, 2009 Posted by John at 7:19 PM

 

This story was highlighted on Yahoo News today: "Majority of Americans Believe Health Care Reform 'Myths.'"

 

More than 50 percent of Americans believe a public insurance option will increase health care costs, according to a new survey on assertions the White House has called myths.

 

The national survey, conducted from Aug. 14 - 18, involved a random sample of 600 Americans aged 18 and older living in the 48 contiguous states and Washington, D.C. Respondents indicated whether or not they believed 19 claims about health care reform, each of which is considered a myth by the White House.

 

The survey was originally reported here. In general, the "myths" are believed by many because they are true, like "Millions of Americans will lose their current health insurance." But let's focus on one example:

 

46 percent believe reforms will result in health care coverage for all illegal immigrants (66 percent of Republicans, 29 percent of Democrats, 43 percent of Independents).

 

Put aside the "all" for a moment: is it a myth that illegal immigrants' health care will be paid for if the current bill passes? The Democrats insist that it is. But, as is so often the case, the Democrats' assurances fall apart if you actually look at the details of the House bill. Congressman Lamar Smith points to a Congressional Research Service analysis of this issue:

 

Open access to Insurance Exchange: HR 3200 contains no provisions preventing illegal immigrants from participating in the Health Insurance Exchange that is to be created, including the government-run "public plan" that will be available through the federally-run and federally-subsidized Exchange.

 

According to CRS: "Under H.R. 3200, a 'Health Insurance Exchange' would begin operation in 2013 and would offer private plans alongside a public option...H.R. 3200 does not contain any restrictions on noncitzens--whether legally or illegally present, or in the United States temporarily or permanently--participating in the Exchange."

No verification mechanism: Democrats point to language in the House bill that says illegal immigrants cannot get benefits. While that may be technically accurate, it is far from the truth.

 

The fact is that the statement is meaningless because the bill contains no verification mechanism to ensure that illegal immigrants do not receive benefits. Democrats defeated amendments in two congressional committees to close this loophole, including amendments that would use the very same verification mechanism that already exist in statute for other federal programs. Why not include the same verification mechanisms in this bill as already exist for other federal benefits programs? Without the requirement that there be a verification mechanism or a specific verification mechanism provided in statute, the Commissioner could determine that the eligibility requirements could be met either without verification or with as little as a signed attestation.

 

According to CRS: "Some have expressed concerns that since H.R. 3200 does not contain a mechanism to verify immigration status, the prohibitions on certain noncitizens (e.g, nonimmigrants and unauthorized aliens) receiving the credits may not be enforced. However, others note that under §142(a)(3) of the bill, it is the responsibility of the Health Choices Commissioner (Commissioner) to administer the "individual affordability credits under subtitle C of title II, including determination of eligibility for such credits."

 

Family eligibility for affordability credits: Section 242(a)(2) of the bill provides that "[e]xcept as the Commissioner may otherwise provide, members of the same family who are affordable credit eligible individuals shall be treated as a single affordable credit individual eligible for the applicable credit for such a family under this subtitle." This suggests that if one member of a family is legally eligible, every family member will be considered eligible. This is significant in terms of numbers -- the Pew Hispanic Center estimated that there are almost two million families in the United States where illegal immigrant parents have U.S.-born children. That does not include other "mixed status families" - one legal parent, one illegal parent and illegal child, etc.

 

According to CRS: "There could be instances where some family members would meet the definition of an eligible individual for purposes of the credit, while other family members would not. For example, in a family consisting of a U.S. citizen married to an unauthorized alien and a U.S. citizen child, the U.S. citizen spouse and child could meet the criteria for being a credit-eligible individual, while the unauthorized alien spouse would not meet the criteria. H.R. 3200 does not expressly address how such a situation would be treated. Therefore, it appears that the Health Choices Commissioner would be responsible for determining how the credits would be administered in the case of mixed-status families."

 

Most Americans, like most Congressmen, haven't read the House bill. But Americans' skepticism about what the effects of the Democrats' legislation will be is amply justified.

 

Via The Corner.

Refresh my memory:  Isn't this the same administration that told us there would be transparency in government, that we would all get a chance to read the bills before congress voted on them, and that the President would not sign legislation that had earmarks embedded in it?  

Since every one of those promises was demonstrably untrue, why then would we believe the same people when they call our concerns about the health care legislation "myths"? 

The only surprise to me is that so many are still buying into their baloney.

Ken Berwitz

Here is Jeff Jacoby's column from today's Boston Globe.  It explains the "cash for clunkers program just about perfectly. 

See if you agree:

Clunker Q&A

by Jeff Jacoby
The Boston Globe
August 26, 2009

Q: CONGRESSMAN, was "Cash for Clunkers" a success?

 A: Of course it was! I'm surprised you'd even ask. "It has been successful beyond anybody's imagination," President Obama said last week. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood said he was thrilled "to be part of the best economic news story in America." GM executive Mike DiGiovanni raved that "it really is all thumbs up," a rare example of an undertaking "that it's hard to find anything negative about." If that's not success, I don't know what is.

Q: If it has been such a wonderful program, why did it end this week?

A: Well, nothing wonderful lasts forever. All the money available for rebates has been claimed, so the program has come to a close.

Q: But why close down "the best economic news story in America?" You extended it once; why not a second time? Why not keep it going forever?

A: You forget that Congress has other priorities too. Cash for Clunkers has been terrific for automobile dealers, but there is more to the economy than cars.

Q: Oh, you mean you're now going to offer rebates to consumers who buy other things, like new couches or paint jobs or airplane tickets?

A: No, that wasn't exactly what I --

Q: But aren't those purchases as deserving of subsidies as cars? Surely Congress wants to help furniture dealers and housepainters and airline employees too?

A: Yes, of course, but -- I mean -- well, let me think about that.

Q: By the way, if the "clunkers" program were really such a boon for the auto business, why did so many car dealers back out of it early?

A: "So many?" Don't exaggerate!

Q: It's no exaggeration, congressman. Associated Press reported that AutoNation, the largest dealership chain in America, pulled out of Cash for Clunkers last Thursday -- three full days before the deadline. Automotive News ran a story about other dealers who found the government so difficult to deal with that they got out even earlier. "It's just a mess, an absolute mess," one of them said. The News surveyed dealerships, and more than one-eighth of those responding said they had stopped doing "clunker" deals because it was such a bureaucratic nightmare. According to the New York Post, half of the Greater New York Automobile Dealers Association dropped out early. Does that sound like something the president should be calling "successful beyond anybody's imagination?"

A: OK, maybe there have been snafus with the government's computers and whatnot, but you're missing the forest for the trees: This has been an incredible shot in the arm for the economy. Thousands of jobs have been created or saved, and hundreds of thousands of cars were sold.

Q: Yes, but for every car sold, a car had to be destroyed. I understand why that might make GM happy. But how does the destruction of 750,000 used cars -- all of which had to be in drivable condition to qualify for a rebate -- help your constituents who can't afford a new car? All this program did for them was guarantee that used cars will become more expensive. Poorer drivers will be penalized to subsidize new cars for wealthier drivers. Isn't that immoral?

A: Look, there are tradeoffs to everything. You're overlooking all the benefits that those new car sales will generate.

Q: No, I'm refusing to ignore all the costs that inevitably accompany those benefits. Congress and the administration took $3 billion from taxpayers in order to boost car sales. That's $3 billion taxpayers will not be able to spend on groceries or tuition or a down payment on a new house. Before you can credit Cash for Clunkers with the "multiplier effect" of those new-car sales, you have to charge it with a negative multiplier effect at least as great: all the jobs and growth and stimulus that won't materialize because the government decided to spend $3 billion disabling, crushing, and shredding used cars. Don't you see that everything government does, it does at someone's expense?

A: You can say what you like, but this was a popular program.

Q: According to the polls, 54 percent of Americans opposed it. You call that popular?

A: Look, I have to go. But let me just say this: If Cash for Clunkers were as dubious as you suggest, it wouldn't have had so many takers.

Q: Oh, for heaven's sake, congressman: If you give away money, won't people always line up to take it?

 Remember, again:  This is the same government that wants to take over your health care. 

You ok with that?

Ken Berwitz

Ted Kennedy died this morning at the age of 77.  The cause was brain cancer, which he suffered with for almost two years before succumbing.

I agreed with Mr. Kennedy on some issues and disagreed on a good many others.  But it would be very hard to find a United States Senator who was more dedicated to his beliefs, or more effective at moving them through the legislative process.  And it would be hard to find a United States Senator who was more beloved by his constituents.

May he rest in peace.

Ken Berwitz

The government wants to run health care?  Ok, let's see how they're doing on the previous major legislation, the so-called "stimulus package".

Excerpted from Fox News (Wassamatta?  Did you really expect NBC to tell you about this???):

Stimulus Checks Mistakenly Sent to 1,700 Inmates, Federal Agency Says

The inspector general's office for the Social Security Administration is looking into the problem as part of its broader audit on stimulus spending. The Social Security Administration acknowledged the $425,000 glitch following a report that nearly two-dozen inmates in Massachusetts had wrongly received the $250 stimulus checks. 

By Judson Berger

FOXNews.com

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

The federal government mistakenly sent out stimulus checks to 1,700 inmates, the Social Security Administration said Tuesday -- a $425,000 error. 

Social Security spokesman Dan Moraski told FOXNews.com in a written statement that the money went out because official records "did not accurately reflect that they were in prison." 

The inspector general's office for the Social Security Administration is now looking into the problem as part of its broader audit on stimulus spending. The Social Security Administration acknowledged the glitch following a report that nearly two-dozen inmates in Massachusetts had wrongly received the $250 stimulus checks. 

Even before the agency disclosed that the problem was more widespread, the discovery prompted complaints from Republicans critical of the $787 billion stimulus and the way it has been managed. 

"It is unacceptable for convicts to be getting stimulus funds. It speaks to the lack of oversight and accountability to have such nonsense coming out of Washington. Where is the accountability?" House Minority Whip Eric Cantor said in a written statement. 

This is the same administration which is trying to take over our health care. 

Need I say more?

Ken Berwitz

The following comment was posted at www.politico.com by someone using the screen name of Igu:

"This is a White House that will protect Black Panthers threatening voters, while attacking CIA personal for the crime of saving US lives."

How I wish I could disagree.

Ken Berwitz

That's what it is.  The war against the war against terrorism.  Or is that "man-made disasters", since this administration doesn't like the term "terrorism"?

Here, from Ben Smith's blog at www.politico.com, is how Congressperson Peter King of Long Island (NY) reacts to the announcement that eric holder will go after terrori....er, perpetrators of man-made disas.....er, actually the CIA, which is (or at any rate was) busy protecting us from our enemies:

August 25, 2009
Categories: Congress

King on Holder: 'You wonder which side they’re on'

A "furious" Rep. Peter King, the hawkish, maverick Long Island Republican, blasted a "disgraceful" Eric Holder for opening an investigation of CIA interrogators and chided his own party for what he described as a weak response to the move in an interview just now with POLITICO.

"It’s bulls***. It’s disgraceful. You wonder which side they’re on," he said of the attorney general's move, which he described as a "declaration of war against the CIA, and against common sense."

"It’s a total breach of faith, and either the president is intentionally caving to the left wing of his party or he’s lost control of his administration," said King, the ranking Republican on the House Committee on Homeland Security and a member of the House Select Committee on Intelligence.

King, channeling both the sense of outrage and of political opportunity felt in parts of the GOP, defended in detail the interrogation practices — threats to kill a detainee's family, and or to kill a detainee with a power drill — detailed in a CIA inspector general report released yesterday.

"You're talking about threatening to kill a guy, threatening to attack his family, threatening to use an electric drill on him — but never doing it," King said.  "You have that on the one hand — and on the other you have the [interrogator's] attempt to prevent thousands of Americans from being killed."

"When Holder was talking about being 'shocked' [before the report's release], I thought they were going to have cutting guys' fingers off or something — or that they actually used the power drill," he said.

Pressed on whether interrogators had actually broken the law, King said he didn't think the Geneva Convention "applies to terrorists," and that the line between permitted and outlawed interrogation policies in the Bush years was "a distinction without a difference."

"Why is it OK to waterboard someone, which causes physical pain, but not threaten someone and not cause pain?" he asked, warning of a "chilling" effect on future CIA behavior.

"You will have thousands of lives that will be lost, and the blood will be on Eric Holder's hands," he said.

King faulted his own party leaders for an insufficient response to yesterday's announcement.

"They’ve declared war on the CIA. We should resist and fight back as hard as we can," he said. "It should be a scorched earth policy. ... This isn't just another policy. This goes to the heart of our national defense. We should do whatever we have to do."

"You wonder which side they're on".   Bingo.

Regular readers know that I've asked that same question about the Obama administration.  I couldn't agree more with Mr. King's anger and frustration.

Less than a week ago the Libyan government was asked to be very low-key about receiving the terrorist who blew up Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland and was (inexplicably) released by the Scottish government.  qaddafi's answer was to send his personal plane to fetch him, and give him a hero's welcome in Libya.

And our answer, just days later?  Our show of strength and defiance?  We're going after......the people who fight terrorism.  Isn't that what the effing TERRORISTS do?

Whose side is this administration on? 

Ken Berwitz

Excerpted from Norma Zager's latest column at www.newmediajournal.us:

With the chutzpah of the Maccabee’s, Israel battled to survive. War after war, terrorist attack after terrorist attack, but still they marched and blossomed.

 

In the short 61 years since the United Nations Vote, Israel brought the world the cell phone, most of the windows operating system, an earthquake detector for home use, instant messaging (the ICQ instant-messaging program was created by four Israeli computer geeks who made it possible for people to communicate with their friends and know when their friends are online), firewall security software, Intel wireless computer chips, numerous medicines, and miniature video camera capsules to examine internal organs, voice mail technology and agriculture advances a hungry world already embraces, not to mention new technologies to harvest the power of the wind and the heat of the sun and to desalinate ocean water in order to reduce our dependency on oil and adjust to living in severe water-shortage conditions.

 

Cardiology, genetics, neurology and ophthalmology are but a few of the medical sciences benefiting from advanced Israeli technology.

 

Israeli medical and biotechnological firsts include state-of-the-art surgical lasers; fully computerized no-radiation diagnostic instrumentation for breast cancer; an intelligent medical sensor that can be used to track and direct instruments to an exact three-dimensional location in the heart or other organs via a real-time virtual image; the fully flexible waveguide fiber for endoscopic surgery; unique computerized monitoring systems for critical care patients; pain-relieving transcutaneous devices; a revolutionary autoclave design to combat AIDS and other infectious diseases; and many more.

 

A new type of internal combustion engine was developed that will double engine efficiency, reduce carbon emissions by half and cut nitrogen oxide emissions by 80%.

 

Israeli Tzion Badash, 16, invented a small, circular device, called the Z5, that once fitted onto nearly all existing car air filters will change, for just a fraction of a second, the way air behaves when it enters the combustion chamber and allow the engine to use air more efficiently. It will save up to 40% on fuel and give more thrust at the same time.

 

The list is endless.

 

Israel’s future is not predicated on American support, but by its own confidence and ability as a nation. I envision the Jewish Homeland as the Rocky of the 21st century. I see Israel as a long-shot contender with the soul of a giant who rises from obscurity to become the champ.

 

Oh wait, I’ve heard this story before. And little David slew Goliath to become King. Perhaps recalling Bible history may go a long way in reviving Israel’s self esteem and rebuilding its image.

 

We’ve won the match, now let’s wear the belt and behave like the champion and “light among nations” Israel is meant to be.

There are parts of Ms. Zager's column that I do not agree with.  But the list of accomplishments from Israel - accomplishments that benefit mankind?  She is 100% correct. 

And to Israel's enemies?  Keep waiting for an equivalent list of accomplishments from hamas, or fatah, or hezbollah.  I'm sure it will here any day.

Ken Berwitz

Yesterday I talked about the fact that Democratic-controlled statehouse of Massachusetts changed the rules in 2004 so that if John Kerry won the presidency, the Republican Governor (Mitt Romney) could not name his successor.

I pointed out that in 2009, when Ted Kennedy is about to relinquish his senate seat due to his battle with brain cancer, he has asked that the rules be changed back so that the now-Democratic Governor (Deval Patrick) can appoint his successor.

Does this stink to high heaven?  Of course it does. 

But not to the New York Times.

This is from the Times'editorial today.  The bold print is mine:

Massachusetts governors used to fill Senate vacancies. But in 2004, the Democratic majority in the State Legislature changed the law to require a special election. The leaders were concerned that if Senator John Kerry was elected president, Gov. Mitt Romney would appoint a fellow Republican. To change back now would look like an unseemly amount of partisanship in setting the rules for who goes to Congress.

To change back now would look like partisanship?  LOOK LIKE???????

How about "To change back now would BE unseemly partisanship in setting the rules for who goes to congress"?   How about a condemnation of changing the rules and then asking that they be changed back, based 100% on raw political partisanship?  How about outrage that the people of Massachusetts are being ignored in favor of one party literally dictating who will hold its senate seat?  How about the fix being in?  How about the deck being stacked?

Nope, according to the Times' "brain trust", this just "would look like an unseemly amount of partisanship" (i.e. some is ok, but this is a bit more than it should be). 

Then the Times wonders why it has become a laughingstock to anyone who cares about honest journalism? 

I think that looks like an unseemly amount of sticking their heads in the sand.

Ken Berwitz

If you can nail George Bush and/or Republicans in general, and/or the people who are trying to protect us against terrorism, why worry about the truth?

That appears to be the credo of The Today Show (and NBC generally). 

You want proof?  This morning, Today reported - again for the umpteenth time - that sheik khalid mohammed, the "mastermind" of 9/11, was waterboarded 183 times. 

This is an absolute lie. 

The "183 waterboardings" lie was pulled from a heavily redacted document the Obama administration was nice enough to provide.  Yes, the number 183 is there, but much of the text regarding what it means is not.  In the happy horse-manure world of NBC news, that's good enough.

But - again - it is a lie.

What are my sources for this accusation?  How about the Red Cross, and sheik khalid mohamed himself?  That good enough for you? 

The Red Cross personally interviewed mohammed to check and see if he was being tortured.  His own account of the waterboarding can be found on page 10 and 11 of that report, which I urge you to read by clicking here.  You will see that he claims a total of 5 waterboarding sessions. Here it is, verbatim, from the Red Cross report: "The procedure was applied during five different sessions during the first month of interrogation in his third place of detention".  

And let's remember that, if khalid sheik mohamed was going to lie about this, he would lie to make his treatment seem worse than what actually happened, not better.

Did you read it?  If so, good.  Now you know that NBC was lying as well as I do.

It has been speculated that, to get to the 183 number, every individual "drip" during one session was counted separately.  That would be the equivalent of pouring yourself one cup of coffee in the morning, finishing it in 12 sips, and then being told you had coffee twelve times.  Or eating a hot dog in 6 bites and being told you had 6 hot dogs.  Does it get more ridiculous?

One other thing:  Since there is no way the redacted document supplied by the Obama administration would have said he was waterboarded 183 times, the administration KNEW that the claim was spurious.   But it didn't say a word when our wonderful "neutral" media reported it day and night, and it still hasn't.  That makes the administration fully complicit in this lie. 

Transparency in the Obama administration?  Yeah, right. 

The Obama administration is about as transparent as.......the Today Show.

==================================================================

UPDATE:  Last night (Tuesday, August 25) I watched NBC's 11:00PM local news show.  It also stated as a fact that khalid sheik mohamed was waterboarded 183 times.  Liars.

Ken Berwitz

Readers of this blog know I'm not at all taken with Glenn Beck.  But when he's right, he's right. 

And Glenn Beck is 100% right about Van Jones.

Do you know Mr. Jones?  He is President Obama's "Green Jobs Czar";  one of dozens of "czars" Mr. Obama has slipped in, under the radar, (more exactly, without most mainstream media telling you about them), completely unvetted, to run major areas of government. 

These "czars", who answer to no one other than Barack Obama, are one of the key reasons that I have talked about him "Chavezing" the United States.

Glenn Beck has been under considerable attack for talking about Jones.  Beck has called Jones a self-avowed nationalist and communist, and has railed about the fact that he was handed a position of such power and influence without a public hearing which would give people a chance to know about him.  An LA Times blog quotes Beck as asking "Why is it that such a committed revolutionary has made it so high into the Obama administration as one of his chief advisers?"

If he is right about Jones, that's a damn good question.

Beck's commentaries have been effective enough for "Color of Change", an activist organization Jones co-founded, to demand an advertiser boycott of Beck's radio and TV shows. 

If Beck is lying about Jones, I don't blame them.  But is he?

Ok, let's go to Beck's reference point (or at least one of them):  The East Bay Express, which is an alternative newspaper out of (where else?) Berkeley, California.  Here is a segment of an article about Van Jones that should give us some insight (along with a link the entire article):

Jones had planned to move to Washington, DC, and had already landed a job and an apartment there. But in jail, he said, "I met all these young radical people of color -- I mean really radical, communists and anarchists. And it was, like, 'This is what I need to be a part of.'" Although he already had a plane ticket, he decided to stay in San Francisco. "I spent the next ten years of my life working with a lot of those people I met in jail, trying to be a revolutionary." In the months that followed, he let go of any lingering thoughts that he might fit in with the status quo. "I was a rowdy nationalist on April 28th, and then the verdicts came down on April 29th," he said. "By August, I was a communist.":  From "The New Face of Environmentalism, by Eliza Strickland, East Bay Express, November 2, 2005.

 

As evidence goes, that looks pretty impressive to me.  Unless Jones denies the direct quote (and, to my knowledge, he has not), it pretty much confirms what Beck is saying about him.

What better source that Van Jones is a rowdy nationalist and a communist than Van Jones himself? 

And why were we not given a chance to learn about his background in a public hearing?  Why is a "czar" immune to any examination?

It's not like Jones is the only one either.  Beck supplies summaries of all the czars -- 32 of them so far, and who knows how many more to come --  on his website, which you can see by clicking here.  If you do nothing else, check what they are paid and the amount of money they are in control of.  You won't believe your eyes.

A few of the names, for better or worse, are recognizable to me.  Most are not.  Importantly, none of them have been vetted for the job President Obama has given them.  Not a one.

If we had a serious media in this country - a media concerned when Presidents act like dictators - there would be a deafening outcry about Barack Obama's "czars".  But we do not, so there is not.

Too bad it wasn't George Bush creating the "czar" system.  Then we'd have heard about it -- assuming the media weren't too busy trying to prove he missed a National Guard meeting 35 years ago, that is.

Ken Berwitz

If you are as resentful as I am over the claim that those people - the vast majority of them just everyday people - who are so outraged at town hall meetings across the country are "astroturfing" (i.e. part of some organized plot against Obamacare), then I strongly urge you to read this piece by Ed Morrissey of www.hotair.com. 

Come to think of it, if you're under the delusion that this claim is at all valid, you have an even greater need to read Ed's piece. 

Please pay particular attention to the passages I've put in bold print:

Why unions are “Astroturfing” health-care town halls

posted at 2:18 pm on August 24, 2009 by Ed Morrissey
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After enraged constituents started showing up at Congressional town-hall forums to oppose ObamaCare, the unions acted quickly to counterdemonstrate on behalf of the Democratic agenda item.  In at least one case, union representatives used violence to intimidate and harrass ObamaCare opponents.  The same union, which represents a large percentage of government workers and would be presumably immune from any health-care reform action, issued memos demanding volunteers to “drown out” opposition to ObamaCare. But why?

This report from the Detroit Free Press explains that the unions have a good reason — actually, ten billion good reasons:

Antilabor forces say it’s welfare for the UAW and Democrats’ union allies. Labor supporters say it falls short of what’s needed as tens of thousands of union members are pushed into early retirement as employers cut back health care coverage.

They’re both talking about a $10-billion provision tucked deep inside thousands of pages of health care overhaul bills that could help the UAW’s retiree health-care plan and other union-backed plans.

It would see the government — at least temporarily — pay 80 cents on the dollar to corporate and union insurance plans for claims between $15,000 and $90,000 for retirees age 55 to 64. …

Greg Mourad of the National Right to Work Committee called it “a shameless case of political payback,” saying Democrats and President Barack Obama are trying “to force the rest of us to pay billions to cover those unions’ health care.”

The money will be yet another bailout of Detroit, although the Obama administration and the Democrats have it flying under the radar, buried in HR3200:

Thanks to Detroit’s twin auto bankruptcies and other concessions, the UAW’s voluntary employee benefit association, or VEBA, had to take stock of unknown value for $24 billion in claims, while adding thousands of early retirees to its rolls.

Outside experts estimate the funds have about 30 cents in cash for every dollar of future claims, with no guarantee of what its stock assets will be worth. Lance Wallach, a New York-based VEBA expert, says if the funds “don’t get something, they’re out of business in 12 years.” …

Key provisions in House and Senate proposals set aside $10 billion to pay some claims for early retirees covered by employers and VEBAs, before other cost-saving measures kick in. Critics call it a union giveaway, but the union says the money would keep companies from further slashing coverage.

That’s explicitly a bailout.  It comes on the heels of tens of billions of dollars committed to GM and Chrysler, as well as politically-motivated bankruptcies that violated the rights of senior creditors in favor of the unions.  The unions have overcommitted and underresourced their health plans, and now Congress wants to surreptitiously bail them out from bankruptcy — all while making them more or less immune from the restrictions in the rest of the bill.

That $10,000,000,000 bailout certainly gives the unions a big incentive to crack heads and intimidate people into retreat on ObamaCare, doesn’t it?  That’s the granddaddy of all Astroturfing efforts.

Update: My friend Warner Todd Huston wrote about this almost two weeks ago — be sure to read it.

Undaunted by the impossible debt it is inflicting on succeeding generations, the Obama administration continues to spend untold amounts of money that we do not have. 

And where does it go?  What value is it providing?  Does paying off unions make you feel healthier?

Is it any wonder that so many everyday people, having watched the implementation of a "stimulus package" which has accomplished little other than putting us further in debt, are against this new monstrosity?

Ken Berwitz

For the past couple of weeks we have heard angry Democrats rail about the claim that "Obamacare" would set up counselling that would dissuade elderly people, in need of expensive treatments, from trying to extend their lives ("Death Panels, as Sarah Palin called them).  We were told that was a lie, an outrage, a fraud, idiotic, a fantasy, yada, yada, yada.

Thenm, however,  congressional Democrats (no Republicans welcome on legislation these days) suddenly removed language from the legislation that was characterized as setting up such "death panels" (Interesting question"  how could they remove what wasn't there in the first place?)

Me?  I'd love some of the people who assured us it was all BS and President Obama would never do such a thing, to explain why that same President Obama resurrected the VA "Death Book" (which President Bush had ordered retired). 

Don't know what I'm talking about?  Ok, fair enough.  Here are the particulars from writer Connie Hair, and (gasp!!) Rush Limbaugh.  Read themn through and then tell me there was no reason for concern:

Limbaugh Takes on White House for VA 'Death Book'

by  Connie Hair

08/24/2009

 

On Friday, radio talk show king Rush Limbaugh was on fire over the content of the Veterans’ Administration "Death Book" (pdf), the “end of life counseling” the VA now inflicts on our veterans.

RUSH: “Page 21 from the Death Book, from the VA, reinstated by Obama. ‘What makes your life worth living? Instructions: This exercise will help you think about and express what really matters to you. For each row, check one answer to express how you would feel if this factor by itself described you,’ and there are, you know, A through S here. Here's A. ‘I can no longer walk but get around in a wheelchair.’ Life like this would be: ‘difficult, but acceptable; worth living, but just barely; not worth living; can’t answer now,’ and the people reading the book are supposed to check off which of these things apply. So, ‘A. I can no longer walk but get around in a wheelchair.’ Eh, difficult. I could take it. ‘It's worth living, but just barely. Not worth living.’

“‘B. I can no longer get outside -- I spend all day at home.’ Can you...? You're asked to say, you know, to hell with it. I don't want to live that way. It's the it's not worth living if I can't leave my house. Hell! ‘C. I can no longer contribute to my family's well-being.’ Eh, that's not worth living. ‘C. I am in severe pain most of the time. E. I have severe discomfort most of the time (such as nausea, diarrhea, or shortness of breath).’ My God, that can happen when you're constipated! So you're sitting here saying, ‘Okay, I'm constipated. Life's not worth living.’ Well, you don't have diarrhea when you're constipated until you do the fix. ‘F. I rely on a feeding tube to keep me alive.’ Eh, that's not worth living. ‘G. I rely on a kidney dialysis machine to keep me alive. H. I rely on a breathing machine to keep me alive. I. I need someone to help take care of me all of time. J. I can no longer control my bladder. K. I can no longer control my bowels. L. I live in a nursing home.’ I live in a nursing home. Yeah, that's difficult but acceptable. ‘Worth living but just barely. Not worth living. M. I can no longer think clearly -- I am confused all the time.’ That describes half the population. ‘N. I can no longer recognize family/friends.’ That sometimes could be a blessing.

Ken Berwitz

Here, without any comment from me, is the New York Post's editorial on "Obamacare" from today's edition.

Make of it what you will:

OBAMACARE ON LIFE SUPPORT

 

The more Americans hear about President Obama's health-care agenda, it seems, the sicker they get.

A Washington Post-ABC News poll Friday shows that fully 50 percent of Americans dislike Obama's handling of health care -- 42 percent, strongly so -- the highest either number has been.

Support for a "public option" to compete with private health insurers is down 10 points in less than two months. And only 19 percent of Americans think ObamaCare would improve their health care or lower expenses.

No surprise, though: Obama and congressional Democrats have yet to explain, say, how they plan to control costs without widespread rationing of care.

Or how the heavily subsidized public option wouldn't crowd out private plans, leading to de facto nationalization.

Most likely, that's because they can't.

So it's just as unsurprising that the Democrats are resorting to tactics befitting a schoolyard bully.

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), chairman of the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee, last week sent letters to 50 of the nation's largest health insurers, demanding detailed information on how much they spend on executive salaries and corporate junkets.

Surely it's just a coincidence that Democratic talking points now stress the need to bash insurance companies in order to save ObamaCare.

The president, meanwhile, was taking Republicans to task for not being "bipartisan" -- though his biggest problem has always been skeptical Democrats.

Meanwhile, Senate Dems were reportedly scheming to pass the most radical parts of the plan with a parliamentary trick that would avoid the need for a filibuster-proof, 60-vote majority.

Better they ditch the desperate moves -- and try to figure out what all the opposition is trying to tell them.

Ken Berwitz

From ABC News (and damn few other media venues):

A "profanity-laced screaming match" at the White House involving CIA Director Leon Panetta, and the expected release today of another damning internal investigation, has administration officials worrying about the direction of its newly-appoint intelligence team, current and former senior intelligence officials tell ABC News.com. Leon Panetta, director of Central Intelligence Agency, listens at a luncheon at the Pacific Council...

Amid reports that Panetta had threatened to quit just seven months after taking over at the spy agency, other insiders tell ABCNews.com that senior White House staff members are already discussing a possible shake-up of top national security officials.

"You can expect a larger than normal turnover in the next year," a senior adviser to Obama on intelligence matters told ABCNews.com.

Since 9/11, the CIA has had five directors or acting directors.

A White House spokesperson, Denis McDonough, said reports that Panetta had threatened to quit and that the White House was seeking a replacement were "inaccurate."

According to intelligence officials, Panetta erupted in a tirade last month during a meeting with a senior White House staff member. Panetta was reportedly upset over plans by Attorney General Eric Holder to open a criminal investigation of allegations that CIA officers broke the law in carrying out certain interrogation techniques that President Obama has termed "torture."

A CIA spokesman quoted Panetta as saying "it is absolutely untrue" that he has any plans to leave the CIA. As to the reported White House tirade, the spokesman said Panetta is known to use "salty language." CIA spokesman George Little said the report was "wrong, inaccurate, bogus and false."

 

Investigation by CIA Inspector General

Another source of contention for Panetta was today's public release of an investigation by the CIA inspector general on the first two years of the agency's interrogation and detention program. The report has been delayed by an internal administration debate over how much of the report should be kept secret.

One CIA official said colleagues involved in the interrogation program were preparing for a far-reaching criminal investigation.

In addition to concerns about the CIA's reputation and its legal exposure, other White House insiders say Panetta has been frustrated by what he perceives to be less of a role than he was promised in the administration's intelligence structure. Panetta has reportedly chafed at reporting through the director of National Intelligence, Dennis Blair, according to the senior adviser who said Blair is equally unhappy with Panetta.

"Leon will be leaving," predicted a former top U.S. intelligence official, citing the conflict with Blair. The former official said Panetta is also "uncomfortable" with some of the operations being carried out by the CIA that he did not know about until he took the job.

I've always respected Leon Panetta.  I've always thought of him as a pretty square guy - certainly by political standards. 

Because of that respect, I've also thought  that his appointment to head the CIA gave the Obama administration a considerable credibility upgrade. 

Evidently, however, the Obama administration thinks of Leon Panetta as little other than window dressing.  So why would I be surprised to read that Mr. Panetta is furious about it - and, I'm sure about the difference in the administration's regard for Mr. Panetta versus Attorney General and toady-in-chief, eric holder?

If this is true, I don't blame Mr. Panetta a bit, and would not blame him a bit if he resigned.  I expect him to do so in the near future.

Ken Berwitz

Who knew you'd get a quicxk yiddish lesson this morning.  But here it is.

Luchenkup (with the "ch" pronounced by closing the back of the throat, the way you would for the German "ach") means "hole in the head".   It is never (to my knowledge) used as a serious description (e.g. "the bullet pierced his skull and caused a luchenkup"), but only as an exaggerated way of saying that you wish something had not happened (e.g. "I need another problem this morning like I need a luchenkup").

With that, let me show you why, if Barack Obama knows a little yiddish (maybe Rahm Emanuel or David Axelrod taught it to him) he might be using this expression right now. 

From yesterday's New York Post:

PEEVED OBAMA TRUMPS PATERSON'S RACE CARD

 

By FREDRIC U. DICKER in Albany and MAGGIE HABERMAN in New York

 

Last updated: 4:07 am
August 23, 2009
Posted: 3:52 am
August 23, 2009

 

President Obama's aides were so furious that Gov. Paterson dragged him into a rant about racism that they sent a message sharply criticizing the governor's comments just hours after he made them, The Post has learned.

Aides to Obama were angered by Paterson's tirade on liberal talk-radio station WWRL on Friday, sources said.

Paterson blamed his political woes on racially slanted coverage and predicted the president would be the next "victim" of biased media.

Obama's team delivered a pointed message to Paterson within hours of the morning broadcast, multiple sources said.

It came in a call from White House political director Patrick Gaspard, who has deep ties to the New York political scene, to Larry Schwartz, the governor's first deputy secretary.

Gaspard wanted to know "why [Paterson] was dragging the president into" his troubles, said one source.

But although Obama's aides were unhappy, the sources said, the conversation was not hostile.

Obama, who still enjoys popularity in the polls despite taking some hits on the health-care issue, has rarely touched directly on issues of race. He won election by a wide margin with support across demographic lines and broad support among white voters.

"I'm not surprised" that his advisers were displeased, said one Democratic insider, adding that Gaspard is a fiercely loyal adviser who has been monitoring the situation in New York.

Paterson is facing growing calls from union leaders and others to reconsider his chances of winning election in 2010.

Paterson, New York's first black governor, is suffering historically low popularity. He blamed his and Obama's problems on a white-dominated media that he said had embarked on an attack campaign.

"My feeling is it's being orchestrated, it's a game, and people who pay attention know that," he said.

He compared his troubles to Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, the nation's only other black governor, then brought in the president.

"The next victim on the list -- and you see it coming -- is President Barack Obama," he said, citing his efforts to change health care.

 

Paterson said the health-care debate was an example of how the nation is "not a postracial" society, a phrase often proudly used to describe the United States in the wake of Obama's election.

Paterson aides declined comment yesterday.

But on Friday, the governor issued a "clarifying" statement, saying, "What I did point out was that certain media outlets have engaged in coverage that exploits racial stereotypes."

There was speculation the later statement came because of the Gaspard call, although it was unclear whether they were related.

Paterson, in his efforts on Friday to point out reports he'd found biased, cited accounts of his late-night partying at a Chelsea club.

But on Friday night, he was partying again -- this time at the second annual "Best Buddies" party in the Hamptons, where he posed for photographs with Paris Hilton's mom, Kathy.

As I have previously noted, David Paterson, at present, is a loser of the first order.  A human albatross.  Someone who isn't going down because he already is down, and can only bring others down with him.

With the war in Afghanistan dramatically worsening after his troop surge, health care legislation on life support, unemployment way above where the "stimulus package" was supposed to cap it and his poll numbers plummeting, President Obama needs a tie to Paterson - especially a phony racially-charged tie - like....well, like a luchenkup.

What a shandeh.  What unnecessary tsuris.  President Obama must be saying oy vey is mir, how about a little rachmaunis.****

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

****Translation:  What a travesty.  What unnecessary troubles.  President Obama must be saying oh, woe is me, how about a little merciful compassion.

Ken Berwitz

Truth is, I used the above title to get your attention.  Because it appears that "Time Magazine" and "honest reporting" are less and less related to each other.

From Steve Gilbert, at www.sweetness-light.com:

Haditha Reporter Questions The CIA

August 24th, 2009

From the erstwhile news magazine, Time:

Haditha scooper, Aparisim ‘Bobby’ Ghosh.

Five Questions for the CIA IG’s Interrogation Report

By BOBBY GHOSH / Washington

Former Vice President Dick Cheney and other members of the Bush Administration might have had a tense weekend. After months of delay and controversy, the Obama Administration is expected on Monday to declassify the 2004 CIA Inspector General’s report into the Agency’s interrogation program. Cheney, the most prominent of several Bush era officials who have vociferously defended the program, faces either vindication or more vilification.

Over the past two days news reports have quoted unnamed officials as saying the IG’s findings include instances where CIA interrogators used power drills and even a gun to threaten a detainee; on another occasion, as first reported by Newsweek, they allegedly staged a mock execution. If true, these tactics would go well beyond the coercive techniques permited [sic] by the Bush Administration’s legal counsel.

A heavily-redacted version of IG John Helgerson’s findings was released last year. The new version may still contain some redactions, but it is expected to answer some of the pressing questions that remain over the CIA’s use of coercive interrogation techniques against high-value terror detainees. That could be a key factor in whether Attorney General Eric Holder decides to order a separate investigation into the interrogations. The President is said to favor dropping the matter. But if the IG report declares or even suggests that interrogators went beyond the bounds of what the Bush Administration top lawyers deemed legal, that may force Holder’s hand. Here are five of those questions:

1. Who was really behind the interrogation regime?

Critics of the Bush Administration have long claimed that the CIA was itself coerced into using harsh methods. Under this scenario, the agency was pressured by its political masters to go into the "dark side" — a phrase made famous by Cheney in the aftermath of 9/11. Bush backers counter that it was the intelligence professionals who said that hardened Al Qaeda operatives could only be broken in this manner. The IG report may help to establish the origins of the program. If it turns out the agency was forced into employing the harsh techniques, expect even louder calls for indictments of high level Bush Administration officials.

2. Did the interrogations work?

Defenders of the harsh interrogation – notably Cheney – claim it yielded a rich vein of information, possibly including details of imminent attacks on the U.S. homeland. But tantalizing references to the IG’s findings contained in the now infamous "torture memos" by the Bush Administration Office of Legal Counsel suggest that interrogators didn’t get much actionable information out of the detainees. Former CIA Director Michael Hayden said last week that the truth lies somewhere in between: that the program achieved "modest success" – providing the agency with useful information about Al Qaeda organization and leadership, but not necessarily information about attacks. If the IG report says no specific attacks were prevented because of information gleaned by the use of water-boarding and other harsh methods, that would be a major embarrassment for Cheney.

3. What did the interrogators really do?

The OLC memos from 2002 to 2005 provided the legal underpinning for the harsh techniques, and we already know that many of these were in fact used – water-boarding was used on one detainee 183 times, and an on another 83 times. But the IG report should supply more granular detail on the use and frequency of the techniques.

4. Did the program go off the rails?

Supporters of the harsh interrogations say they were conducted in a highly controlled environment: doctors were on hand to monitor the health of detainees, strict limitations were placed on the extent and frequency with which the techniques were applied. But water-boarding a detainee 183 times – not to mention the use of power drills — suggests things got out of hand. The IG report should tell us if the interrogators went rogue.

5. What happened before August of 2002?

The first OLC memo to authorize the use of harsh methods was dated August 1, 2002 but there have been some suggestions that interrogators were employing coercive techniques well before then. An FBI interrogator who was involved in interrogations until May that year has testified to Congress that some methods being used then were "borderline torture." (In protest, the FBI withdrew from participating in the interrogations before the first memo was written.) If the IG report confirms that, it may be impossible for Obama to hold off Holder’s planned investigation.

The Administration is also expected to release a fourth OLC memo, from 2007, as well as a Justice Dept. memo from 2006, about conditions at the secret prisons. And, as if to underline the Administration’s commitment to transparency, the Pentagon has decided to notify the Red Cross of the identifies of the detainees being held in secret camps in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Regular readers will recognize the name of the Muslim-born Aparisim ‘Bobby’ Ghosh.

Mr. Ghosh, along with Tim McGirk gave us the ‘scoop’ libel that Marines had killed civilians in Haditha Iraq in cold blood. A report that turned out to be completely fabricated.  Ghosh source, Haditha journalism student Thaer Thabit al-Hadithi.

For their scoop Messrs Ghosh and McGirk lied about their sources, and just about every other detail of the story. (Which they did not bother investigate in person.)

But Mr. Ghosh was rewarded for his journalistic efforts with a promotion. He is now the first “non-American” World Editor of Time.

So that now he is pronouncing his fantasies from an even loftier perch.

Indeed, as we have previously noted, Mr. Ghosh has regularly opined on the CIA’s criminal interrogations of terrorists, and the need to prosecute the Bush administration for its war crimes in general.

Most recently Mr. Ghosh has decided that the CIA interrogators should have used cookies rather than harsh words.

It really is too bad their are no trials for crimes of ‘journalism.’

By the way, note how Mr. Ghosh accepts the physically impossible claim that one detainee was waterboarded 183 times. A claim which we have many times debunked.

(Hint: Mr. Mohammed told his ACLU lawyers and the Red Cross he was only waterboarded five times.)

But this is what passes for journalism at Time magazine.

Still subscribe to Time?  Still read it at the doctor's office while you're waiting for your appointment? 

Ok.  Just remember, this is the quality of what you're reading.

Ken Berwitz

In today's excellent column. Chris Stirewalt of the Washington Examiner takes a look at the Obama administration and how it is handling media adversity (a level of "adversity", let's understand, that President Bush would have considered blissfully positive):

The thrill is gone for Obama and the media

By: Chris Stirewalt
Political Editor
August 24, 2009

There’s nothing like a summer vacation to rekindle a romance. So maybe a week on Martha’s Vineyard can bring back some of the magic between the Obama administration and the media.

Before White House press secretary Robert Gibbs left town, he tried to clarify President Barack Obama’s comment that “everybody in Washington gets all wee-weed up.” Gibbs explained to reporters that what the president meant was that they were a bunch of bed wetters who made too much out of the implosion of the White House health care strategy.

Gibbs has grown more sardonic and patronizing as the summer wears on and Obama’s poll numbers wilt.

The press secretary has lectured reporters on the nature of their jobs — apparently to defend the administration against “misinformation” rather than asking impertinent questions like “How will you pay for it?”

When asked recently about the administration’s endless evasions on the public option, Gibbs instead opted to define a monopoly.

“If you had one place to eat lunch before you came to the briefing, do you think it would be cheap?” Gibbs demanded of CNN’s Ed Henry.

Henry should have asked Gibbs to define monopsony: a market in which one buyer is so large that it can control suppliers and ruin competitors. Henry could then explain he’d rather pay too much for the sandwich he wanted than have to eat at a government chow line opened across the street to encourage “competition.”

Gibbs is so crabby because, incredibly, the administration blames the media for the president’s problems.

It tried blaming Republicans, but the GOP is too far out of power. When the leader of the free world is complaining about a posting on the former governor of Alaska’s Facebook page, he’s got problems.

Team Obama tried blaming special interests, but that was a bust too. The president’s deal with the pharmaceutical industry gets him $150 million worth of ads to boost his plan, whatever it is.

The same people who bombard us with ads for products that promise to prevent hardened arteries or encourage hardening elsewhere will soon be selling you Obamacare.

“If you experience doubts about the plan lasting more than four hours, seek immediate help from Organizing for America.”

Democrats tried blaming the “mobs” of “un-American” protesters and “evil mongers” who were giving raspberries to members of Congress at town halls.

That flopped too, leaving the administration to blame the messenger.

And one can understand why Gibbs would be a bit shocked by the slightly less accommodating tone of the media.

Reporters who traveled with the Obama campaign tell horror stories about the organization — dishonesty, rudeness and abysmal access. But those reporters still served up the glowing coverage.

Obama was the hottest news story of their generation. Rather than covering the long-shot freshman senator who would be crushed in February, Obama campaign reporters experienced the reflected glory of being along for a historic journey. There was plenty of motivation to keep that journey going.

Conversely, Obama making a hash out of health care provides plenty of good copy for the White House press corps. And because Obama fatigue has set in with the reading and viewing public, skeptical stories match the national mood.

Some are still in the tank for Obama. But many liberal reporters think the president is blowing the Left’s big chance.

In talking about how everything got so “wee-weed up,” Obama observed that in August of 2008 the media predicted doom because John McCain began to close the gap after picking Sarah Palin.

In trying to explain that the president was talking about media incontinence, Gibbs referred to August and September of 2007, when most predicted Hillary Clinton would roll to victory in Iowa.

So not only are Obama and his people still reliving the campaign, they’re drawing the wrong lessons from it.

At this point in 2007, Obama was coming up in the polls, making Iowa a three-way race with Clinton and John Edwards. Now, the president’s numbers are sinking.

And if the trend line in the late summer of 2008 had held, Obama would have lost. It took a tsunami of bad economic news and the McCain campaign’s mishandling of it to put Obama back on top.

But there is no opponent here other than public opinion and no finish line other than the end of his term.

With only the steady breeze of favorable coverage of a typical Democratic president instead of the gale of positive press that once helped drive Obama to victory, it’s going to be a very long journey.

Arrogance like this takes time to build.  But - assuming our wonderful "neutral' media finally start looking at the Obama administration objectively (a pretty big assumption, wouldn't you say?) - it may be poised for a humpty-dumptyesque fall.

The ironic part is that, it can be argued, this would be as good for the administration as it would be for the integrity and collective conscience of the media.  A healthy dose of humility might cause some of these folks to look with a lot more intropsection at what they are doing, and to understand why so many normal, everyday people are turning against them.

We'll see.......

Ken Berwitz

Ted Kennedy is dying of brain cancer. 

While his doctors certainly have not consulted with me, it seems 100% clear that he will no longer be able to serve in the senate - and that that he will not live very much longer.

Here is what Mr. Kennedy himself has said about what should happen to his senate seat - and how Jeff Jacoby, the brilliant Boston Globe columnist, reacts to it.  See what you think (the bold print is mine):

Do the right thing, Senator Kennedy. Resign

by Jeff Jacoby
The Boston Globe
August 23, 2009

RUNNING FOR RE-ELECTION in 1982, Senator Ted Kennedy aired a series of sentimental television ads in which longtime supporters spoke of him as an empathetic human being who was no stranger to suffering and sorrow. One of those supporters was 83-year-old Frank Manning, founder of the Massachusetts Association of Older Americans. "He's not a plaster saint, he's not without his faults," Manning said in the ad. "But we wouldn't want a plaster saint." 

I didn't vote for Kennedy in 1982 or any other year, and I have certainly never thought of him as a saint, plaster or otherwise. Play-to-win politics, not piety, has been the essence of his long career in the Senate. He has a gift for the poignant gesture, the moving turn of phrase; there is no denying he is a deft hand at evoking the affection of his many admirers. But beneath the tug at the heartstrings, there is always shrewd political calculation. Those 1982 TV spots, for example, had less to do with Kennedy's re-election in Massachusetts, which was never in doubt, than with the prospect of another presidential campaign and the need to improve his image in neighboring New Hampshire, where he had suffered a crushing defeat in the Democratic primary two years earlier.

Today Kennedy is gravely ill with brain cancer, but his political instincts are as sharp as ever. Given his condition, the letter he sent to Massachusetts political leaders last week could not help but generate a fresh wave of sympathy -- "I am now writing to you," it said, "about an issue that concerns me deeply -- the continuity of representation for Massachusetts, should a vacancy occur." As a human being, Kennedy is surely grateful for that sympathy. As a canny political navigator, he reckons it may provide the cover needed to change Massachusetts law so as to benefit his party.

Kennedy wants the Legislature to upend the succession law it passed in 2004, when -- at his urging -- it stripped away the governor's longstanding power to temporarily fill a Senate vacancy. Back then, John Kerry was a presidential candidate and Republican Mitt Romney was governor; Kennedy lobbied state Democrats to change the law so that Romney couldn't name Kerry's successor.

They followed his advice with gusto. When the final vote took place, the Boston Globe reported, "hooting and hollering broke out on the usually staid House floor," and House Speaker Thomas Finneran acknowledged candidly: "It's a political deal. It's very raw politics."

It still is. Now that Massachusetts has a Democratic governor, Kennedy is lobbying to restore the gubernatorial power to name an interim appointee who would serve until a new senator could be elected. That would guarantee Democrats in Washington two reliable Senate votes from Massachusetts, even if Kennedy isn't there to cast one of them.

Needless to say, Kennedy's letter says nothing about raw politics. No, it's all lofty principle and good government. "It is vital for this commonwealth to have two voices speaking for the needs of its citizens and two votes in the Senate during the approximately five months between a vacancy and an election," he writes.

Well, if Kennedy is sincere -- if his chief concern is that Massachusetts not be left for months without the services of a full-time senator -- then he should do the right thing right now: He should resign.

For well over a year, Massachusetts has not had the "two voices . . . and two votes in the Senate" that Kennedy himself says its voters are entitled to. Sickness has kept him away from Capitol Hill for most of the last 15 months. He has missed all but a handful of the 270 roll-calls taken in the Senate so far this year, including votes on the Children's Health Insurance Program, the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, the confirmation of Justice Sonia Sotomayor, and numerous appropriations and budget acts. Through no fault of his own, he is unable to carry out the job he was re-elected to in 2006. As a matter of integrity, he should bow out, and allow his constituents to choose a replacement.

"Democrats are keenly feeling the absence of Ted Kennedy," reported The Politico from Washington last week. "Senate Democratic insiders . . . say there's been little contact with the Massachusetts Democrat recently." Though his staff tries to keep up appearances, it is clear that Kennedy is no longer an active participant in Senate business. Few things are harder for those accustomed to power than letting it go. But there is no honor in clinging to office till the bitter end.

Senator Kerry told ABC News the other day that his friend and colleague "doesn't believe that under any circumstances, now or ever, Massachusetts should have anything less than full representation in the United States Senate." But it has less than full representation -- much less -- right now. For the sake of the state and Senate he loves, Edward Kennedy should step down.

Just in case you think this is new territory for Democrats:  don't.  When Bill Clinton became President he immediately instituted a 5 year ban on senior political appointees taking lobbying jobs after leaving office.  Goodbye and good luck to the Bush administration's appointees.  But three weeks before leaving office Clinton rescinded the ban.  Hello and ker-ching to his appointees.

And, in keeping with this heads-we-win-tails-you-lose philosophy, we have Massachusetts' 2004 legislation which would have prevented the then-Republican Governor of Massachusetts from appointing a successor to Senator Kerry if he won the presidency.  Then, five years later when a gubernatorial appointment would work for, rather than against, Democrats?  Change the law back.

How do they get away with this?  There is one answer:  media.  Our wonderful "neutral" media all too often look the other way for Democrats, even as they nail Republicans for anything they can get on them. 

It would be nice if this time were an exception.  But you already know the answer to that, don't you?  Where, other than in Jeff's column and/or here, have you read a word about this?

Then they wonder why people call them biased.....  

Ken Berwitz

Here, from Reuters, is further information concerning whether the UK handed over the subhuman terrorist scumbag al megrahi in return for a lucrative oil deal.  The bold print is mine:

Sunday August 23, 12:36 AM
WRAPUP 7-Gaddafi hugs Lockerbie bomber; Britain denies deal

 

By Salah Sarrar and Luke Baker

TRIPOLI/LONDON, Aug 22 (Reuters) -

 

Britain dismissed suggestions of a link between the Lockerbie bomber's release and energy deals with Libya on Saturday, and the head of the U.S. FBI said the move gave comfort to terrorists.

 

London and Washington have condemned the 'hero's welcome' given to Abdel Basset al-Megrahi on his return to Libya after being freed from a life sentence in a Scottish jail on compassionate grounds because he is dying of cancer.

 

'The idea that the British government ... would sit down and somehow barter over the freedom or the life of this Libyan prisoner and make it all part of some business deal ... it's not only wrong, it's completely implausible and actually quite offensive,' said British Business Secretary Peter Mandelson.

 

In Washington, FBI director Robert Mueller released an angry letter he sent to Scottish minister Kenny MacAskill, who ordered the release, calling it inexplicable and detrimental to justice.

 

'Indeed your action makes a mockery of the rule of law. Your action gives comfort to terrorists around the world,' Mueller wrote in the letter posted on the FBI's website.

 

Prime Minister Gordon Brown's office issued a copy of a letter he wrote to Gaddafi on Aug. 20 expressly asking him to refrain from a 'high-profile' welcome for Megrahi.

 

Gaddafi met Megrahi on Friday, embracing him and getting a kiss on the hand in return. The beaming Libyan leader expressed gratitude to Brown and Queen Elizabeth.

 

'This step is in the interest of relations between the two countries...and of the personal friendship between me and them and will be positively reflected for sure in all areas of cooperation between the two countries,' he told Libyan TV.

 

His son Saif al-Islam went further, saying that whenever he had met British officials to discuss business, the issue of Megrahi's release was a condition of any deal being struck.

 

Mandelson said he had met Gaddafi's son twice in the past year and the issue of the Lockerbie bomber had been raised both times, but his release was not tied to business deals.

 

'It's not only completely wrong to make any such suggestion or insinuation, it's also quite offensive,' he told reporters.

 

Megrahi, 57, is the only person convicted of the bombing, in which a Pan Am (PNAA.PK - news) jet carrying 259 passengers -- most of them American -- was blown up over Lockerbie in Scotland in December 1988, killing all those on board and 11 people on the ground.

 

After years of wrangling and sanctions, Libya handed the former intelligence agent over for trial and he was sentenced by a special Scottish court sitting in the Netherlands in 2001. He was freed on Thursday because of terminal prostate cancer.

 

BUSINESS LINK?

 

'In all British interests regarding Libya, I always put you on the table,' Saif al-Islam's newspaper quoted him as telling Megrahi on his return to Libya.

 

'All the visits of the ex-Prime Minister Blair and the big secret and public work that all the parties entered into was carried out in order to release you. The exploitation of British-Libyan political and trade interests was always done with the aim of releasing Abdel Basset al-Megrahi.'

 

European governments including Britain's are lobbying hard for business in Libya as it emerges from years of sanctions. Oil companies such as BP and Shell (LSE: RDSB.L - news) are among several British firms hoping to make big profits in the desert country.

 

Britain's Foreign Office flatly denied any link.

 

'No deal has been made between the UK government and Libya in relation to Megrahi and any commercial interests,' a spokesman said, adding the release was Scotland's decision.

 

More than 1,000 Libyans gathered at an airport in Tripoli on Thursday to welcome Megrahi home, cheering and waving national flags, despite the fact relatives of the American victims said they had received assurances there would be no hero's welcome.

 

In his letter to Gaddafi, addressed 'Dear Muammar', Brown said a 'high-profile return would cause further unnecessary pain for the families of the Lockerbie victims. It would also undermine Libya's growing international reputation'.

 

Megrahi said in an interview with Britain's Times (1832.HK - news) newspaper published on Saturday he would present new evidence before he died exonerating him of the bombing.

 

He dismissed the international furore over his release, saying U.S. President Barack Obama should know he would not be doing anything apart from going to hospital and waiting to die. Doctors say he may have less than three months to live.

 

'My message to the British and Scottish communities is that I will put out the evidence (to exonerate me) and ask them to be the jury,' Megrahi said, without elaborating.

Do you believe that al megrahi's release had nothing to do with oil?  Well, maybe you're right because no one knows for 100% sure at this moment.  But, since it is the only reason I can think of that has any plausibility, you'll pardon me if I disagree. (A sudden, "compassionate" release to a terrorist when these deals are being negotiated?  Yeah, right).

And that "Dear Muammar" letter from Prime Minister Brown-nose?  When does he learn that kissing up to people like qaddafi gets him nothing but comtempt, disdain and the belief on their part that he is a patsy who can be played for a sucker? 

After receiving the "Dear Muammar" letter, qaddafi sent his personal plane to fetch al migrahi, and gave him a hero's welcome when he arrived, with plenty of media coverage so the whole world could see.  The message could not have been clearer.

Now, as a US citizen, my big question:  Did qaddafi's dismissal of Gordon Brown teach President Obama this lesson?  Because he certainly needs it.

Personally, I very much hope that it did.  But I'm not optimistic.

Ken Berwitz

I promised that if Sheila Leavitt wanted rebuttal space on this blog she would get it   Since I'm reasonably certain the person supplying what you are about to read is in fact Sheila Leavitt, I will keep my word and post her response, and her previous responses which she asked me to add.   (The chronological order, therefore, goes from bottom to top).

Not one word is changed or censored.  The only difference is that, since my blog's "comment" system does not allow a space between paragraphs, as a courtesy to Ms. Leavitt (and for easier reading) I've put them where I think they should be.  And, in fairness to Ms. Leavitt, I will not respond to her comments at this time (though I will in a subsequent post).  This blog is all hers:

Sheila Leavitt, M.D.

 

Hi Ken. Would you please re-post what I've already written? I did not make a copy of it, and I hate to repeat myself.

 

I understand that you felt my tone to have been somewhat angry. Perhaps it was. Personally, I feel that, having been widely vilified and slandered; having suffered unfounded allegations of fraud, merely for stating, accurately and with no intent to mislead, that I am a doctor; and having done this as a means of brief self-introduction in a public forum where the topic was health care reform, I have good reason to be angry.

 

I understand that it is exciting for partisan bloggers to sit in front of their computers and play "gotcha" journalism with powerful search engines via which they believe all truth can be discovered. But any good physician will tell you that, when a patient presents with what may be, initially, a confusing set of signs and symptoms, an open mind is one of the most important tools in the doctor's diagnostic kit. If a physician decides, before all the facts are in, that the patient must be suffering from a particular problem, and, perhaps without even realizing it, the doctor forces the test results to fit this preconceived notion, unfortunate errors in diagnosis often occur.

 

A real, good journalist must begin, as must a real, good doctor, with an open mind. Findings that do not support one's initial thesis must be acknowledged and a new thesis proposed. A competent cardiologist, for example, obviously bears in mind that not all chest pain originates in the heart, even though this organ may be his or her area of expertise. Sometimes what appears to be angina pectoris may just be gastric reflux. On the other hand, many patients (especially women) have in the past been misdiagnosed with reflux and gone on to succumb to a heart attack.

 

This whole brouhaha has disturbed me on several levels. On a personal note, my kids, especially my young teenager who saw all these blogs before I did and, unbeknownst to me, responded to a couple of them, was quite upset. He's a nice kid and he respects his parents and is proud that they are involved in the public debate over how health care reform might be structured.

 

Furthermore, I put in many long years of training and, whether or not I am currently practicing, I have every right to refer to myself as a doctor. Finally, and most importantly, I deplore the attempt, by you and dozens of other bloggers, to use this fake "fake doctor" story to slander the health care reform efforts of the Obama administration, whether or not you agree with the plan. (I, too, have many differences of opinion with Obama and the current Democratic plan, as I strongly favor single payer Medicare for all---what you might call socialized medicine. You might read Dr. Arnold Relman's article in the recent New York Review of Books if you want an excellent discussion of why this might be the best option).

 

Okay, Ken, so yours was a poorly researched cheap shot. So what would you like to see: notarized copies of my medical school diploma from the University of Rochester? My Alpha Omega Alpha medical honor society award? My pay stubs from my internship year at Rochester General and Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester? My license to practice medicine, currently inactive as I have not practiced for two and a half decades (on file, however, at the New York State Board of Medicine, as I think someone already noted elsewhere. Like they told me when I called the Board to check if they ordinarily inform callers about the names of doctors on their list:"Of course, Dr. Leavitt! Once a doctor, always a doctor! Don't people know that?)? W2 forms from the two years I practiced as a full-time physician at Rochester Institute of Technology in their Student Health Service? A letter from the Department of Pathology at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston where I was half-way through a residency in Pathology when our first kid, now a medical student, was born, had a health problem, thereby convincing me to take time off for child rearing?

 

What do you want Ken? Please let me know. Because I would like you to apologize, very publicly, and despite the fact that we disagree about the specifics of health care reform; and to let other bloggers, etc., know that their partisan "gotcha" journalism has not flushed out a fake Obama-camp planted doctor, but just a private citizen with a lot more medical background that 99+% of you guys out there at your keyboards; a citizen who really cares about getting health care to the 50 million uninsured Americans, and who believes that the best way to do this is to get the profit motive out of the insurance system.

 

But this is just MY opinion, to which I'm at least as entitled as the next guy. BTW, I drove that crappy old corolla because I also hate paying a lot of collision insurance to protect fancy metal when all I really care about is getting me and mine from point A to point B cheaply and without using too much gas. Do you really think that all, or even most, doctors are in it for the big cars and fancy houses? Some are, sure, but if you are looking for those really chasing the big bucks, look at the insurance industry. If you locate a "health insurance CEO" driving a 12 year old Corolla, by all means, check him out. Or her. He (or she) might well be a fake.

 

Waiting for your reply, Ken. Please omit any self-justifying nonsense or irrelevant liberal bashing. I've handed you the scoop out of this whole pile of crud you folks have created, handed it to you because you seemed the most reasonable, rational, and interested in the truth.  Don't let me down, Ken.  (08/23/09)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sheila Leavitt, M.D.

Yeah, Mr. Partisan Blogger, you've done a very good job of showing how disinformation on the web is spread and amplified and perpetrated. Thanks for re-stating what I already acknowledged in my previous post: Sheila Leavitt has a fairly extensive internet presence as a leftie loudmouth who drove a ratty old car and raises chickens and was against the war, and not afraid to say so publicly, etc. etc.

Ho, i might say, hum. Neither this information, nor Rush Limbaugh's seal of approval on the "fake M.D." label, make her a liar about her M.D. degree, nor a plant doing the bidding of anyone but her own unrelenting self. She is a citizen, an educated citizen with no claim to an active medical practice, but 4 years of medical school, an M.D. degree, a completed internship, a license (on record in the State of N.Y., although not currently active) to practice medicine, a couple of years in practice, and a year of residency at a fine Boston hospital, which she interrupted to raise a family. This makes her a fake---what?

One of her questions at the Dartmouth town hall meeting was about support in the health care reform bill for training more primary care doctors. What a very radical idea! A second question was critical (critical!) of the Democratic leadership and of Obama for not getting out ahead of the right wing, anti-reform, insurance industry financed, Harry and Louise, Swift-boat-flavored smear machine. I mean, where were those guys to let you run this debate???

Oh, I forgot. They were trying to hammer out a compromise bill that would somehow provide health care for all and keep the Republicans from trying to kill it. But that, as we know, was impossible from the get-go, because Republicans have no interest in providing health care for those who can't afford it, not if that means cutting into the obscene profits of the health insurance industry or angering their hard-core base, with its totally hardened "I've-Got-Mine-Jack" attitudes and their hatred for the current occupant of the White House.

Further soul- and mind searching on your part are in order, Mr. Partisan. My opinion. (08/21/09)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sheila Leavitt, M.D.

Ken, Ken, Ken: You've re-pasted all that blogosphere libel about me not being a "real" doctor, disinformation that is being used in a further attempt to smear Obama's health care reform attempts by accusing them of using "fake M.D. plants" at their town meetings. You don't appear to have the integrity to do your own independent fact-checking.

Whining about the fact that "several different websites" gave you bad information, and then re-posting more bad information, just doesn't look that smart, frankly, Ken. Put this exchange out there where others can read it, and judge for themselves, if you really believe what you are saying. And you don't have the guts to put my rebuttal on your main post page, just sticking it out here in "comments". (08/21/09)

Ken Berwitz

MSNBC's home page has a headline this morning which reads:

Bill weakens but is still dangerous

I found myself reading on, to see if it referred to the hurricane, or Obamacare.

Ken Berwitz

From www.littlegreenfootballs.com (and many other web sites) comes this unspeakably ugly claim:

Lockerbie Bomber Released for Oil?

World | Sat, Aug 22, 2009 at 8:43:31 am PDT

Scottish officials said they were releasing Lockerbie terrorist Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi for “compassionate reasons.”

Well, that ... and those Libyan oil contracts.

LONDON — In the wake of the sole convicted Lockerbie bomber’s return to a hero’s welcome in Tripoli, questions intensified in Britain on Friday as to whether lucrative Libyan oil contracts were as much a factor in his release as compassion for a dying man.

The bomber, Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, suffering from terminal prostate cancer, was freed from a Scottish prison on Thursday and flown home in a V.I.P. jetliner to scenes of jubilation in Libya that were broadcast around the world, angering many in Britain and America, including President Obama.

On Friday, Lord Trefgarne, chairman of the Libyan British Business Council, said Mr. Megrahi’s release had opened the way for Britain’s leading oil companies to pursue multibillion-dollar oil contracts with Libya, which had demanded Mr. Megrahi’s return in talks with British officials and business executives.

If this is true, it makes me sick to my stomach. 

And, sadly, it has the ring of credibility since, in looking for a reason that this subhuman mass-murdering scumbag was set free, a quid pro quo of some kind is the most logical explanation.

That said, though, we have to be fair.  As of now this claim is being denied.  So let's hold off until we see what information comes forward in the next few days. 

But the UK better have something more than a smile and a verbal assurance to convince us.  A lot more.

Ken Berwitz

This wit and wisdom from New York's Governor-by-accident David Paterson, comes to us via the New York Daily News:

ALBANY - Gov. Paterson blamed a racist media Friday for trying to push him out of next year's election - launching into an angry rant that left even some black Democrats shaking their heads.

"The whole idea is to get me not to run in the primary," Paterson complained on a morning radio show hosted by Daily News columnist Errol Louis.

He suggested that Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, the country's only other African-American governor, also is under fire because of his race.

"We're not in the post-racial period," Paterson said.

"The reality is the next victim on the list - and you can see it coming - is President Barack Obama, who did nothing more than trying to reform a health care system."

Paterson said the campaign against him is being "orchestrated" by reporters who would rather make the news than report it.

But critics said the governor should blame his own blunders.

"He's given the media more than enough to feed on with the incompetence shown in his administration," said state Sen. Kevin Parker (D-Brooklyn), an African-American.

"To quote Michael Jackson, he should start with the man in the mirror," Parker said.

Even state Sen. Bill Perkins (D-Harlem), a black supporter of the governor, urged him to be more like Obama by staying "focused on the message."

Paterson has been the target of Democrats who fear his low approval ratings - 18% at their lowest and about 30% now - will endanger the party next year if he decides to run for his first full term as governor.

Paterson insisted in the interview that he has made tough decisions to deal with the state's ballooning budget deficits while at the same time helping those most in need.

He noted that the state, despite its fiscal crisis, has not had to write IOUs or had its bond ratings drastically reduced, like California, and is not in as bad straits as Pennsylvania, Michigan or Massachusetts.

He seemed to take a shot at Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, a possible primary competitor. Polls show Cuomo would trounce the governor in a match-up.

"If I run in the primary, the same people who are sitting in beach chairs while I'm in the ocean with the sharks will have to come into the ocean - and they will be eaten alive."

Paterson said there would be no shame in running next year - and losing.

"It will be my highest honor to have served as governor of this state, to make the tough decisions," he said.

Later, Paterson looked to downplay his comments, saying, "At no point did I claim that this media piling-on effect was due to race."

"What I did point out was that certain media outlets have engaged in coverage that exploits racial stereotypes," he said.

Of course it has nothing to do with the fact that Paterson is an incompetent who has given us a series of fiascos (like Caroline Kennedy's senate fling, for example), or that he illegally used campaign funds for things like hotel rooms to bed women other than his wife, and to go on trips, etc.  And it is unrelated to his through-a-trapdoor polling numbers.

Nope, it isn't any of that.  It is that he's Black.

This kills me because, phony-baloney whining aside, racism does exist and remains a horrible reality.  But when people like Paterson use it as a cheap political gimmick to cover their personal shortcomings, racism is trivialized and people have an excuse not to take it seriously.

How I wish David Paterson would just shut up.  But not everybody's wishes are granted, are they?  So we probably will endure months more of his BS.  Too bad for him, too bad for us, and too bad for the victims of real racism.

Ken Berwitz

As you may have noticed, I wrote a piece about Sheila Leavitt a few days ago that someone using her name angrily rebutted.   Based on further investigation I retracted my first story - but noted that I consider Leavitt to be a nut-job.  I thought that might end the issue.

But if you look at the "comments" for my retraction (SHEILA LEAVITT:  WRONG NUT-JOB)  you will see that the same person, now specifically claiming to be Sheila Leavitt is still angrily making demands of me.

Ok, here's my answer, which comes in the form of a standing offer to her -- and to any public figure I talk about:

If this commenter actually is Sheila Leavitt (she'll have to demonstrate as much to my satisfaction), and she writes a rebuttal of reasonable size (no bigger than what I usually put up myself), I will post it. Word for word.  (I don't censor other people).  Then you can make up your own mind about her.

I, of course, reserve the right to respond.

Let's see where this goes.....

Ken Berwitz

While we're on the subject of poor decisions, let's reprise Attorney General (and chief toady) eric holder's repulsive one, to vacate a default judgment against members of "the new Black panther party" who were overtly intimidating voters in Philadelphia.

John Fund, of the Wall Street Journal has a terrific column on this, and here it is: 

Holder's Black Panther Stonewall

Why did the Justice Department dismiss such a clear case of voter intimidation?

By John Fund

President Obama's Justice Department continues to stonewall inquiries about why it dropped a voter intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party.

The episode—which Bartle Bull, a former civil rights lawyer and publisher of the left-wing Village Voice, calls "the most blatant form of voter intimidation I've ever seen"—began on Election Day 2008. Mr. Bull and others witnessed two Black Panthers in paramilitary garb at a polling place near downtown Philadelphia. (Some of this behavior is on YouTube.)

One of them, they say, brandished a nightstick at the entrance and pointed it at voters and both made racial threats. Mr. Bull says he heard one yell "You are about to be ruled by the black man, cracker!"

In the first week of January, the Justice Department filed a civil lawsuit against the New Black Panther Party and three of its members, saying they violated the 1965 Voting Rights Act by scaring voters with the weapon, uniforms and racial slurs. In March, Mr. Bull submitted an affidavit at Justice's request to support its lawsuit.

When none of the defendants filed any response to the complaint or appeared in federal district court in Philadelphia to answer the suit, it appeared almost certain Justice would have prevailed by default. Instead, the department in May suddenly allowed the party and two of the three defendants to walk away. Against the third defendant, Minister King Samir Shabazz, it sought only an injunction barring him from displaying a weapon within 100 feet of a Philadelphia polling place for the next three years—action that's already illegal under existing law.

There was outrage over the decision among Congressional Republicans, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, and in the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division—especially after it was learned one of the defendants who walked was Jerry Jackson, a member of Philadelphia's 14th Ward Democratic Committee and a credentialed poll watcher for the Democratic Party last Election Day.

Then the Washington Times reported on July 30 that six career lawyers at Justice who had recommended continuing to pursue the case were overruled by Associate Attorney General Thomas Perrelli—a top administration political appointee. One of the career attorneys, Appellate Chief Diana Flynn, had urged in an internal memo that a judgment be pressed against the defendants to "prevent the paramilitary style intimidation of voters" in the future.

Justice spokesman Alejandro Miyar says the dismissal was "based on a careful assessment of the facts and the law." But Rep. Frank Wolf (R., Va.), has been asking for more information. Assistant Attorney General Ronald Welch, for example, claims in a July 13 letter to Mr. Wolf that charges against the New Black Panther Party itself were dropped because there wasn't "evidentiary support" to prove they "directed" the intimidation. But Mr. Wolf notes in a letter sent to Justice that one defendant, Black Panther Party Chairman Malik Zulu Shabazz, said on Fox News just after the election that his activities at the polling station were part of a nationwide effort. Mr. Shabazz added that the Black Panther activities in Philadelphia were justified due to "an emergency situation."

Mr. Wolf's demands that Justice make the career attorneys on the case available for questions have been rebuffed. He also wants the House Judiciary Committee to hold hearings. A spokesman for House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers was noncommittal as to whether any hearing would be held.

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights voted on Aug. 7 to send a letter to Justice expanding its own investigation and demanding more complete answers. "We believe the Department's defense of its actions thus far undermines respect for rule of law," its letter stated. It noted "the peculiar logic" of one Justice argument, that defendants' failure to show up in court was a reason for dismissing the case: "Such an argument sends a perverse message to wrongdoers—that attempts at voter suppression will be tolerated so long as the persons who engage in them are careful not to appear in court to answer the government's complaint."

The commission noted that it could subpoena witnesses and documents if Justice doesn't better explain its actions.

President Obama needs to clear the air. As a former law professor who specialized in voting rights, he is aware of how important even-handed application of the law is to election integrity. In 2007, then-Sen. Obama introduced a bill to protect Americans from tactics that intimidate voters. It also increased the criminal penalty for voter intimidation to five years in prison from one year.

"There is no place for politics in this debate," he testified before Mr. Conyers's committee in March, 2007. "Both parties at different periods in our history have been guilty in different regions of preventing people from voting for a tactical advantage. We should be beyond that."

One way to get there is for Mr. Obama to insist his Justice Department reinstate the Black Panther case or provide a full explanation for why it was dropped.

Why?  That's the one and only question here.  Why would this clear case, and a default judgment, be given a free pass?

I hate to raise the issue, but Barack Obama's opponent is White, while Barack Obama, Attorney General holder and the intimidators are all Black.  

If those colors were reversed, what would you be hearing about this incident in the media?  Would it have been buried this way?  What would .....ahhhh, you get the picture.

Bottom line:  This is a disgrace.  A travesty of justice.  And Barack Obama damn well should be doing something about it.  Fast.

Ken Berwitz

This remarkable incident, as detailed by Investor’s Business Daily, is a classic example of two recurring themes I talk about a lot:  the Obama administration’s incompetent foreign policy, and the bias and/or ineptitude of our media. (The bold print is mine):

Where's The Thanks?

By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Friday, August 21, 2009 4:20 PM PT

Allies: Tiny Honduras last week handed over a Syrian death merchant to face justice in the U.S. That's right: The same 'coup-government' the Obama administration reviles is one of the very few helping us fight terror.

As shadowy moneymen in the terror underworld go, not many are as unsavory as Jamal Yousef, an ex-Syrian military man turned terrorist arms supplier. Three years ago in Honduras, undercover U.S. agents caught him trying to sell 100 AR-15 assault rifles, 100 M-16 assault rifles, 10 M-60 machine guns, C-4 explosives, 2,500 hand grenades, rocket-propelled grenades and as many as 18 surface-to-air missiles to Colombia's FARC Marxist narcoterrorists.

His price? A ton of cocaine, something he knew how to "move."

Honduran cops put him away for petty charges, but he did only three years in prison that ended this week.

Instead of letting him walk, the Honduran government put him on a plane bound for New York to stand trial on narcoterror conspiracy charges, arriving there Wednesday. If convicted, Yousef faces at least 20 years in one of our slammers.

The extradition was noteworthy because Honduras has been blasted by Obama administration officials over what it claims is a coup around the Honduran Supreme Court's removal of former President Mel Zelaya, a Chavista leftist who on June 28 illegally tried to extend his term in office.

The Obama administration presumes to know Honduran law better than the Honduran Supreme Court and has yanked visas of Honduran officials, condemned the tiny country in the United Nations and the Organization of American States, and refused to recognize anyone in the current government.

It could be worse — economic sanctions are also possible — but it's bad enough.

In light of how hard it is to get any nation — even a friend — to extradite a criminal to the U.S., what Honduras did for a nation that refuses to recognize its government was rather remarkable.

Mexico, by contrast, didn't start extraditing terrorists until a couple of years ago, and other countries still refuse to do so.

Lest we forget, Americans have suffered at the hands of the FARC. Three were held in the jungle as FARC hostages for six years, during which 11 contractors and military personnel were killed. Anyone who arms these barbarians has American as well as Colombian blood on his hands.

Yet in its press release, the Justice Department thanks everyone and his brother for the fine police work that resulted in this extradition — everyone, that is, except the Honduran government.

How ungrateful can we be?

Incredible.

How many ways can Barack Obama and his foreign policy "geniuses" muck this up? 

-First we immediately and emphatically take the wrong side when Honduras’ President-turned-dictator is legally removed by the country’s supreme court.  Instead, we support the dictator wannabe, who, as it turns out, is a major protegé of hugo chavez.  A backhanded slap to the country and its legal system.  Brilliant.

-Now, when the interim government looks past our foreign policy and does this for the United States, we give credit to everyone but the interim government.  Another backhanded slap.

But, hey, why not?  It’s not like our wonderful “neutral” media (other than IBD, obviously) are about to inform the public that this is taking place, is it?  

That’s some daily double.  Stupidity for foreign policy, and a media that do not report it. 

Would they have reported it if this were the Bush administration?  .

Then they wonder why people call them biased.

Ken Berwitz

A couple of days ago I noted that the nut-job who was comparing Obamacare to naziism at Barney Frank's town hall meeting (who Frank, correctly, gave the business to) was Sheila Leavitt.

I retract that.  The person doing that apparently was a different nut-job. 

Today, I received these rather unpleasant comments from someone using the screen name "Sheila Leavitt" (though writing about her in the third person).  The bold print is mine, not hers:

sheila leavitt Sheila Leavitt and the person carrying the Hitler/Obama poster are two different people, as you would know if you did even a minimum amount of research. Sheila Leavitt asked a question of Congressman Frank, but she was a couple of questioners before the loony whom Frank, rightly enough, compared to a kitchen table. Leavitt, who is indeed a physician (she never claimed to be practicing, licensed, a spokesman for the medical profession, or qualified to do brain surgery, just the possessor of a medical degree, which she is) asked Frank about whether the proposed bill included support for the training of more primary care physicians. She also asked why the democrats weren't out in front of this right-wing smear campaign against health care reform. Leavitt said nothing about Nazis, which I'm sure you will see if you do a little rudimentary research (both Leavitt and the Nazi-spewing looney were wearing black sundresses, similar although not identical, and appeared in the same edited video clip, one of the many which is widely available on the internet). I am sure you will not print this, as I am sure that the truth is not your real objective here, but I will be checking back. Sorry if this does not support your agenda of smearing the Democrats by outing "fake doctors" and planted questions. Smarten up. (08/21/09)

 

sheila leavitt Addendum: If you do check your "facts" and realize how silly you look, I hope that, rather than merely deleting your post, you will write a full retraction of this nonsense and disseminate it widely. Leavitt made no attempt to hide her identity, and was, naturally, fully aware of her online persona. You may well call her a nutty liberal vegetarian home schooling greasecar-driving leftie, but she is not a fake doctor and no one ever planted her anywhere (maybe you were confused because of the vegetarian thing). Probably a lot of politicians working for passage of Obama's bill, which she supports as long as it contains a strong public option, wish she's stayed home. But Leavitt is very serious about the need for real health care reform, reform designed to deliver excellent health care to all our citizens, as is done in enlightened and civilized countries around the world. In many polls (you can check this) about 60% of all U.S. physicians support some form of nationalized health insurance. This percentage is much higher among those providing primary care. (08/21/09)

Ok.  First off, I've checked around and the "sheila leavitt" commenter appears to be correct.  The actual Sheila Leavitt  is not the one who compared Obama's health care proposals to naziism. 

In my own defense, there were good reasons to think she was the one - i.e. several different web sites saying so, one of which I referenced in my blog.  And they had at least one pretty good reason too:  even the commenter admits the women wore similar clothing. 

But that doesn't change the fact that I was wrong.  So I retract what I said about Sheila Leavitt and apologize for my error.

(By the way, in case the "sheila leavitt' commenter thinks she finessed me into what I just wrote, let me assure her of something regular readers already know:  this is not the first retraction I've made here, and I'm sure it won't be the last.  When someone shows me I'm wrong I say so.)

Regarding the commenter's charge that I won't print what she said and I'm not interested in the truth, I would think that's a bit hard to justify at the moment.

Nor did I "out" a fake doctor nor did I plant questions.  I live in New Jersey and wasn't within 250 miles of that meeting.  Sorry, sheila, try harder.

As far as the real Sheila Leavitt is concerned, frankly it wouldn't be hard to believe she'd say or do anything.  There are many sources for the description of Leavitt, but I'm picking Gateway Pundit's blog because of his updates (but not because of his last paragraph, which is far too general in its attack on Democrats for my taste):

Sheila Leavitt is not a real life doctor-- but she does play one at town hall meetings...
When she's not filling up her car with grease.

Buck's Right found another phony protest doctor.

I’m having trouble finding evidence that an ObamaCare supporter who spoke at Barney Frank’s town hall meeting last night, identified by the Associated Press and other media outlets as a Newton, MA doctor, actually is a doctor.

Here’s what the Associated Press had to say.

Others at Tuesday’s meeting were more supportive of reform.

Dr. Sheila Leavitt, a physician from Newton, said she hoped for changes that would support primary care physicians who aren’t paid as much as specialists. She said some of the rowdy critics at Tuesday’s meeting appeared to be using the same “talking points” as those who showed up at similar meetings around the country.

(This version CORRECTS Corrects spelling of ‘Leavitt’ sted “Levitt’ in last graf.)

The only references to Sheila Leavitt as a medical doctor I can find on Google (besides references to last night’s town hall) are self-references; where she identifies herself that way. I could find no listing for a medical office belonging to Sheila Leavitt. Physicians generally have offices where they practice medicine.

As far as I can tell, she is not listed as a licensed Physician at the Massachusetts State Medical Board web site. Several “Leavitts” are doctors in Massachusetts, but none are named “Sheila.” Just for kicks I tried the Associated Press’ original misspelling of the name, “Levitt,” and also found no “Sheila” as a licensed doctor.

 

Kate at Small Dead Animals found this:

 

 

 

Sheila Leavitt, who owns the protest car, shown here has been noticed by Margery Eagan of the Boston Herald who wrote:

You could call Sheila Leavitt a nutty, annoying, unrelenting Newton leftie who home-schools the kids and raises chickens to share eggs with neighbors, not to eat. She is, of course, a vegetarian.

I see her as one of those rare people who puts their convictions on parade, then faces uneasy consequences. Like the beefy, mad, middle-aged guy who followed her around the Esplanade yesterday, before dawn, tearing down her "Impeach Bush'' posters as fast as she put them up. Or the trucker she said rear-ended her at a Mass Pike toll booth, sending her head into the steering wheel of her '88 Toyota Corolla with bumper stickers saying ``War is barbaric'' and ``Support our troops . . . Draft Jenna and Barbara,'' as in Bush.

How much easier, really, discretion? Or just waving the flag and sticking your popular ``Support the Troops'' yellow ribbon on the rear window.

No one's going to rear-end you for that.

Well, you should've seen Sheila Leavitt's in-your-face Toyota yesterday as this 54-year-old trained physician and mother of four in sundress and flip-flops did her ``one-person protest parade'' through the Back Bay and South End.

Kate adds: The only thing I can't find is evidence of a practice.

More... The Boston Globe reported in 2007 that Leavitt filters cooking oil in her basement to fuel her Volkswagen Beetle.
-- A Sheila Leavitt protested Condi Rice in 2006.
-- Sheila Leavitt is the founder of StopTrafficNewEngland.org, an expired domain.

--Any help on the Sheila Leavitt's background is appreciated.

More... Granny adds:

Massachusetts licenses every last danged thing. If you want to fix your neighbors porch you need a $150 license to do so.

If the medical licensing board website does not list her as having a medical license, then she is NOT practicing medicine in the state of Massachusetts.

Still More... Kate adds this in the comments:

I just called the AP in Massachusetts, told them there were questions being raised about Sheila Leavitt, and they're going to look into it.

I suggested they try Google.

That's www.google.com in case they have trouble.

UPDATE: She's a realtor.
At least that's what she says here.
...But, then again, she probably doesn't have a realtor's license either.

UPDATE 2: A commenter who claims to be "The Son" confirms that she never practiced medicine.

UPDATE 3: It figures. Granny found evidence that Sheila's real estate license is expired, too.

UPDATE 4: Search-Engine found this adn has more photos:

There is a Sheila Leavitt and Andrew Lichtman who own a single family home in Newton, MA:

http://www.ci.newton.ma.us/Assessors2003/InteractiveMap.asp?id=21005+0001

UPDATE 5: From BullMooseGal--

Whoever the lady is, she doesn't and hasn't published in any reputable journal in the last thirty years (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez). That wasn't so unusual thirty or even fifteen years ago for doctors, but over the last fifteen years, medical professionals have increasingly been expected to contribute to research, so apparently raising her kids (honorable enough) and protesting (laughably) are her professions.

UPDATE 6: Rush Limbaugh added--

What is it with these Democrats and their attraction to fake doctors? Well, the answer is very simple. Everything they are doing is fake; everything is a head fake; everything is deceit; everything is fraud. They have to send the union thugs out to try to intimidate the people who are showing up out of genuine passion. It's so great because they've got all this power, and now they're just showing everybody who they are, what they are, and people are seeing it. And when Obama loses that commodity that he had, the trust, you don't get that back. When people start doubting you, and you are The Messiah, and you lose your messianic status, I don't know how you get it back.

Posted by Gateway Pundit at 8/19/2009 05:48:00 AM

Bottom line?  I mixed up two nut-jobs. 

Sorry about that.

Ken Berwitz

Commenter "free" has just pointed out an error correction in today's L.A. Times that I am still laughing about.  He found here.

You decide if it really was an error or the paper was right the first time:

Friday, August 21, 2009

"Countdown" = "Jackass"

From the LA Times corrections page:

Andrew Malcolm reported on the LA Times' mixup:

"TV listings: The Prime-Time TV grid in Thursday's Calendar section mistakenly listed MTV's "Jackass" show on the MSNBC cable schedule at 7 and 10 p.m. where instead MSNBC's "Countdown With Keith Olbermann" should have been listed."

 

Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

 

Posted by Gateway Pundit at 8/21/2009 05:43:00 AM

Who knows?  Maybe next week they'll list an Obama press conference as "So You Think You Can Dance"

Ken Berwitz

I just read a piece by Eric Alterman at www.americanprogress.com.  You can read it by clicking on the link I've supplied, but here is the beginning........with some comments of mine added in blue:

On Friday of last week, I received the following email from Maxim Lott, a reporter from FOXNews.com:

“Hi Eric, I am writing an article for FOXNews.com on how the NBC Universal store sells 29 different items about Barack Obama—from a shirt that says ‘yes we did’ to fridge magnets, to his books—but no items from, say, McCain/Palin or Bush. Some conservatives are saying this indicates that NBC has a left-wing bias. Since you're the author of What Liberal Media? I would love to get your take on this. Does this indicate anything? Unfortunately my deadline is 1 p.m. today. Sorry for the short notice, and hope to hear from you soon. Thanks…”

Well, I try to be a nice guy, and so even though it was a Friday in August, and (as I later learned), both Media Matters and FAIR refused to respond, I gave it my best shot and answered:

“I think it indicates that NBC thinks it can make money from selling Obama items but not from McCain or Bush items. I think this is a sound judgment. Don't you?”  That’s his best shot?  A total of 31 words saying Obama would be a bigger seller than….than who?  Lott didn’t say McCain/Palin or Bush explicitly, he used them as examples of people other than Obama who had a different political perspective.  That’s what the word “say” is meant to convey – as Alterman of course knows.  Further, using Alterman’s logic, why do retail stores put items other than the “best seller” on their shelves?  They all do, so maybe they know something he doesn’t.

I mean the guy did win the election and all, is the president, and NBC is in New York City where pretty much everybody voted for Obama, etc., but Mr. Lott continued to wonder if perhaps there wasn’t more to it. He wrote back: NBC may be in New York City, but a) not everyone in NYC voted for Obama and b) the NBC store is a tourist destination where people come from all over the country and all over the world.  I suggest Mr. Alterman might benefit by watching maybe 10 minutes of the next Today Show, reading some of the signs people hold up in NBC Plaza to see where they come from, and then considering the fact that this is the same plaza where the NBC store is located.  That might be very instructive.  And that, of course, is before we discuss the fact that NBC is supposedly a politically neutral venue.

“Thanks. I'll be sure to include your point in the article. Conservatives I talk with say that even if it's true that it's a purely business decision and NBC sells only Obama items because those sell best—aren't they likely to take the same attitude for on-air reports? More positive coverage of Obama, if that's what sells? Would be interested in your response to that.”

Here, I’ll admit, Mr. Lott got me thinking. I suppose I should have realized that a conspiracy must lie beneath the sales of the tchotka-stocking decision-making establishment at the NBC gift shop, but alas I did not. Now that he raised it, I felt Mr. Lott deserved a more complete reply. I wrote back: A minor point, but I pronounce that “tchotchke”.  I’ve never heard it pronounced the way Alterman spelled it.  Let’s be nice and call it a typo.

“I think it an almost comically stupid question. Do these conservatives think that the person making the decision of what items to sell in the NBC gift shops is the person giving orders about how to slant the politics of NBC news? What about the choice of beverage sales in the cafeteria? Is that a conspiracy to send people to Obama's death panels? Do they, like Obama, hate white people? Really, this would be funny except that FOX pretends to be a real news network.... “  Ok, there’s the real Eric Alterman.  Snide, obnoxious and arrogant.  I wonder if it ever occurred to him that Lott meant his question from the opposite position – i.e. that the people producing the on-air reports are driving what is sold in the gift shops?  Lott certainly doesn’t say what Alterman’s rant suggests, does he?  And where did the attacks relating to death panels and racism come from?  Evidently in the world of Alterman if you’ve seen one right wing conspiracy you’ve seen ‘em all.

Give Mr. Lott credit. His piece is entirely fair to my point of view. And he found two sources without obvious right-wing affiliations to gin up the conspiracy angle: “DePaul University journalism professor Bruce Evensen said, ‘The [NBC] site seems like a campaign stop for those following their messiah...The appearance that NBC isn't reporting the news with fairness, balance and impartiality—but is instead cheerleading—is apparent,’ he said.”  Gee.  After all this, Alterman has to admit that Lott wrote a fair piece.  Ok, if that’s so then why was that bucket-load of bile we just discussed necessary?

With great trepidation (after all, I'm probably just one false move away from being attacked on death panels and racism too) I have a slight suggestion for the NBC store, that Eric Alterman might find logical.

Since the NBC store can only find a reason to sell tchotchkes that celebrate someone from one of the two major political parties, and since NBC presumably wants people to seriously believe it is politically neutral........maybe the store shouldn't sell tchotchkes that celebrate anyone from either of the parties.  Maybe, it being the NBC Store and all, it should just sell NBC stuff.

Heeeyyyy.  That idea is so crazy that it just might work..

Ken Berwitz

Yesterday I blogged about MSNBC showing some heavily edited footage of a man carrying a weapon at an Obama rally, after which its "on-air talent" used it as the basis for decrying racism in the US, with one of its commentators assuring us that this kind of racism could result in a serious attempt on President Obama. 

The problem?  The man carrying that weapon was Black.  They edited out every angle which showed it, and left only the footage with a holstered gun on a man wearing pants and a shirt - no visible skin.

I agreed with "allahpundit" of www.hotair.com, one of the sites that exposed this fraud, that MSNBC's story was straight down the sinkhole of dishonesty.

Well, allahpundit has a follow-up on the story.  Here is an excerpt:

MSNBC on race-baiting gun segment: Um, we were speaking “generally”

posted at 4:10 pm on August 20, 2009 by Allahpundit
Er, yes. That was precisely the problem. So lame that it barely qualifies as spin:

Following the shot of the African American man focusing specifically on the gun, MSNBC host Contessa Brewer said that “you have a man of color in the presidency and white people showing up with guns strapped to their waists or to their legs.”…

[B]y raising the racial issue in this context, bloggers claimed that MSNBC was purposely misleading viewers by not showing that at least one African-American man has also carried a gun to an event.

An MSNBC spokesperson responded to POLITICO: “Contessa was speaking generally and not about that specific person with the automatic weapon.”

Indeed she was, even though the presence at the rally of that specific person — which was withheld from MSNBC viewers — undercut her general thesis that the gun display was motivated by racial paranoia rather than libertarian principle.

This is really just an extreme version of the media “forgetting” to mention who’s really responsible for those Obama/Hitler signs at town halls. The sin in that case is one of omission in order to further the “Republican mob” narrative; in this case, they went a step further and actually trimmed the video to support their race-war storyline.

And the best defense MSNBC can offer for it is a Larger Truth/fake-but-accurate non-answer. It’s one thing when the media doesn’t report things that should be reported, but when they’re actually doctoring facts to better tailor them to their ideological agenda? I don’t know where we go from here.

Liars.  Frauds.  And their hero, keith olbermann, calls FOX "fixed news"?  When does he do a segment on MSNB....er, they pay him, don't they?  Ok, never mind.

Ken Berwitz

As we have chronicled over the past several weeks, President Obama's performance in national polls has taken a major pummeling.  This is true in in major poll after major poll (Rasmussen, Gallup, Quinnipiac, Pew, NBC all have him at 51% approval or lower).

Now Zogby has checked in with its latest data.  Here it is:

Released: August 21, 2009

Zogby Interactive Poll: Obama's Job Approval Sinks to Record Low 45%

 

UTICA, New York - President Barack Obama's job approval rating has sunk to a record low of just 45%, the latest Zogby Interactive poll shows. Fifty-one percent of likely voters now say they disapprove of the President's job performance.

 

"None of these numbers looks counter-intuitive to me. Gallup, NBC, and Pew all have Obama at record lows. Rasmussen also shows low approval. Things are volatile out there and news travels fast. There is a lot of anxiety over healthcare," said Zogby International President and CEO John Zogby. "The President let it get away from him and voters are scared right now. They are experiencing sacrifice overload and feel more threatened than empowered. The President is being forced to play defense and he is much better when he is in possession of the ball. But do not underestimate Obama. Last August he was toast."

 

The Zogby Interactive survey of 2,530 likely voters nationwide was conducted Aug. 18-20, 2009, and carries a margin of error of +/- 2.0 percentage points.

 

Zogby International also uses a four-point scale of job performance. Using that measure, this latest survey finds 16% rate his job performance as excellent and 27% as good. Another 11% gave him a fair rating while 45% said his job performance is poor. Both scales show a significant drop from a Zogby International telephone poll conducted July 31-Aug. 4, which showed 53% approving of Obama's job performance, and 38% disapproving. At that time, 51% rated his job performance as excellent or good and 48% rated it as fair or poor. Zogby's last survey showed an improvement over a Zogby Interactive survey conducted July 21-24. Then, 48% approved and 49% disapproved. In that same poll, on the four-point scale, 47% gave Obama excellent or good grades, and 53% chose fair or poor.

 

While this latest poll shows Democrats continue to overwhelmingly approve of Obama's job performance (84%), just 6% of Republicans say the same. Most independents (59%) now disapprove of the job the President is doing.

 

"He has lost support among political independents, that's the biggest change from our last survey. He is also starting to lose support he had picked up among investors and frequent Wal-Mart shoppers -- who both are on the conservative side but where Obama had been making gains," Zogby said. "Remember, Zogby polling has generally been ahead of the curve during the past three administrations."

 

For a complete methodological statement on this survey, please visit:

http://www.zogby.com/methodology/readmeth.cfm?ID=1412

Is this what Mr. Obama meant when he said that everybody in Washington is "all wee-wee'ed up" right now?  

Maybe it was different in the various places where Barack Obama grew up, but where I come from "wee-wee" is a child's way of describing urine.  If that is what Mr. Obama meant to convey, he is amazingly arrogant, amazingly condescending.....and amazingly deep in denial. 

This isn't "wee-wee", it is voters realizing that they do not like what he and his administration and his congressional majority are doing.  And the correct response is better performance, not childish insults.

Ken Berwitz

After 9/11 President Bush said to the countries of the world that they were either with us or against us.  Tough, threatening words. 

Shortly thereafter, Libya's dictator, moammar qaddafi, who was a leading supporter and instigator of worldwide terrorism, very publicly ended his nuclear program.  Clearly, he feared what President Bush would do about it.

On July 9th of this year, during one of his world tours in which he apologized for the United States to some of the worst scum of the earth, as if we owed them an apology, President Obama met with moammar qaddafi and shook his hand.  Clearly, this was a very different way of interacting with qaddafi.  Even though Bush reestablished relations with Libya in 2006, he didn't fantasize some klind of warm, friendly relationship with its dictator.

On August 20th, the Scottish government, in its inexcusable idiocy, released convicted terrorist abdelbaset al megrahi.  megrahi was the one and only man convicted of taking down Pan Am flight 103 near the town of Lockerbie in 1988, and killing 270 people - most of them American and a great many of them young students. 

The rationale for al megrahis release was that he is dying of prostate cancer (a condition many people survive and live long lives afterwards).  This was supposed to show "compassion" (to a terrorist and mass murderer).

The Obama administration - this is a month after that friendly handshake - strongly urged qaddafi to immediately put al megrahi under house arrest once he got back to Libya.  Instead, qaddafi sent his personal plane to pick up al megrahi and bring him back to Libya, where qaddafi had a wildly cheering celebration waiting for him at the airport.

There are a lot of lessons to be learned from these events.

Sadly, the most important, which involves how the scum of the world react when a President of the United States apologizes for our actions, and then cozies up to them, may remain unlearned. 

See how our wonderful "neutral" media cover this angle of the al megrahi story.  If it is barely covered, or not covered at all, you will be shown a major reason why President Obama can ignore the lesson in front of his eyes and continue behaving exactly the same way.

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UPDATE:  I was just speaking with my son, Scott, and he encapsulated the point about qaddafi and his kindred scum beautifully:  "They don't care about what you say, they care about what you might do to them". 

I don't think it can be said better than that.

Ken Berwitz

The Obama administration has abruptly announced that the "cash for clunkers" program will end Monday:

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Obama administration plans to end the popular $3 billion Cash for Clunkers program on Monday, giving car shoppers a few more days to take advantage of big government incentives.

The Transportation Department said Thursday the government will wind down the program on Monday at 8 p.m. EDT. Car buyers can receive rebates of $3,500 or $4,500 for trading in older vehicles for new, more fuel-efficient models

Does this sudden about-face have anything to do with the fact that many car dealers are pulling out of the program because the reimbursements for those "clunkers" are coming to them either late or not at all?  It seems to me that's a  pretty good guess.

In any event, Tim and Alissa Birkel, writing for www.newsreal.com, have a really good piece on this program (ok, I admit that I like it because they are saying what I've already said in this blog - that if the government can't run cash for clunkers, how can it run health care?).  

Here it is: