Ken Berwitz

From Richard Grenell at www.bigjournalism.com:

A Tale of Two Donors, Media Bias Division

Posted by Richard Grenell Mar 30th 2010

Let’s summarize: A donor to the Democratic National Committee threatens to kill Republican Whip Eric Cantor in the same news cycle that a donor to the Republican National Committee gets financially reimbursed for going to a racy club in Los Angeles, but the old-school news media leads with the GOP donor story.

I’d actually argue that threatening to kill someone from the other party is a more serious offense and deserves serious attention – especially in light of the four-day media frenzy over “intimidation” tactics after the vote to hijack health care. But maybe that’s just because I live in Los Angeles?

Shouldn’t the liberal media at least talk about both stories together? This is a perfect example of why many people have turned to new ways to get their news and why the old model of news gathering is in deep financial trouble.

I’m not suggesting that the media should ignore the GOP donor issue, it’s just a question of priorities and innate bias for Washington and New York media executives.

 What a nice guy Mr. Grenell is.  Too nice, actually.  I think he's wrong:  there is no reason at all to talk about these stories together. 

Ken Berwitz

The "Hutaree militia" is a group of "people" who consider themselves Christian warriors, preparing to fight the anti-Christ.

"People" like these send a cold chill up and down my spine.

Here are excerpts from a Wall Street Journal article on this lunatic (not lunatic fringe, but flat-out lunatic) brigade:

Militia Chief's Mistrust Festered, Friends Say

Portrait Emerges of Man Who Despised Authority; Undercover Agent Played a Role in Probe

 

By ALEX P. KELLOGG, LAUREN ETTER, KEITH JOHNSON and TIMOTHY W. MARTIN

 

The leader of a Michigan militia group charged this week with conspiring to kill law-enforcement officers was described Tuesday as a private, family-oriented man who nurtured a festering mistrust of governmental authority, according to people close to the family.

 

"On the inside of this man's brain, something evil lurks, and until you get to know him, you don't know it," said Andrea Harsh, who was engaged to David Brian Stone Sr. until the couple broke up last year.

 

She described Mr. Stone, a trim 45-year-old man who wears his whitish hair cropped short over spectacles and a bushy gray mustache, as having a "bubbly personality." But he became consumed by the Hutaree, she said, a southeastern Michigan militia group that described its members as "Christian warriors."

 

In an indictment Monday, federal authorities named Mr. Stone as leader of the Hutaree and accused him and eight members with plotting to spark an uprising against the U.S. government by killing police. Along with Mr. Stone, seven other men and one woman from Michigan, Ohio and Indiana are in being held without bond on weapons and sedition charges.

 

The indictment said Hutaree had practiced attacks and other military maneuvers for more than a year, and had planned to kill a law-enforcement officer, then use homemade bombs to attack officers who attended the funeral.

Those charged in the case included Mr. Stone's current wife, Tina Mae Stone, 44; as well as two sons, David Brian Stone Jr., 19; and Joshua Matthew Stone 21. Attorneys for Ms. Stone, David Jr. and Joshua declined to comment Tuesday; the senior Mr. Stone had no attorney as of late Tuesday.

 

Family members and acquaintances said Mr. Stone doesn't curse, smoke or drink alcohol and was a strict disciplinarian with his sons, whom he home-schooled from a young age. While he rarely attended church, he studied the Bible nightly, memorizing long passages, said Ms. Harsh, his ex-fiance. Several scripture passages appear on the Hutaree Web site.

 

Ms. Harsh, 40, said she began dating Mr. Stone in 2008 after meeting him at a plastics recycling factory where they worked. Mr. Stone showed her a Hutaree business card when they met, but otherwise said little about the group while they dated for several months.

 

After they moved in together, Ms. Harsh said, he spent hours on the computer, building the group's Web site and searching online for weapons. "His life was pretty much consumed by the Hutaree," she said.

 

Mr. Stone despised authority, Ms. Harsh said, particularly "anyone with a badge." She said his temper finally drove her away last year. Mr. Stone remarried a few months later.

 

Over the past couple of years, Mr. Stone attracted more Hutaree members, Ms. Harsh said: "His goal was to have all of the states have at least one group of Hutaree."

 

But he scared off some potential recruits. Jon Killman said he visited Mr. Stone and his sons in December because he was interested in joining a militia to practice survival skills.

 

He said Mr. Stone was a gracious host and offered him coffee. But soon Mr. Killman "got a bad vibe" as the Stones started joking about police officers who'd been shot in a coffee shop in Washington state.

 

The family's dining room table was strewn with shotgun shells, Mr. Killman recalled. The elder Mr. Stone said the shells would be filled with gunpowder and tied to trip wires to simulate landmines.

 

At first "they just seemed like a down-to-earth hillbilly family," he said. "After 20 minutes into the meeting, I realized these guys are not dealing with a full deck."

I myself am not Christian.  But if I were, I would cringe at the thought that these "people" had co-opted the name of my religion for their lunacy.

We can only guess how many more such groups there are just like them.  And we can only hope that, eventually, the number will be zero..

Ken Berwitz

Here is Republican congressperson Mike Pence's reaction to President Obama's apparent support of offshore drilling:

Pence Calls President’s Drilling Announcement “Smokescreen”

"This Administration's energy plan is simple: increase the cost of energy on every family inAmerica and trade American jobs overseas at a time when millions of Americans are looking for work."

MARCH 31, 2010

Washington, DC—

 

U.S. Congressman Mike Pence, Chairman of the House Republican Conference and the American Energy Solutions Group, issued the following statement today regarding President Obama’s announcement on oil and gas exploration:

 

“As usual the devil is in the details.  Only in Washington, D.C., can you ban more areas to oil and gas exploration than you open up, delay the date of your new leases and claim you’re going to increase production. 

 

“The President’s announcement today is a smokescreen.  It will almost certainly delay any new offshore exploration until at least 2012 and include only a fraction of the offshore resources that the previous Administration included in its plan. 

 

“Unfortunately, this is yet another feeble attempt to gain votes for the President’s national energy tax bill that is languishing in the Senate.  At the end of the day this Administration’s energy plan is simple: increase the cost of energy on every family in America and trade American jobs overseas at a time when millions of Americans are looking for work.”

Ok, now you have both sides.

Who do you believe?

Ken Berwitz

With all appropriate apologies.....

I was just sent this remarkable picture by West Coast Russ.  Though I can't be 100% sure, it seems to be real, not a photoshop at all.

Let's just call it a major-league whoopsie......

Apparently they didn't consider the sun when designing this wall 

 

 

SAINT PETER'S BASILICA in ROME

Ken Berwitz

Michelle Malkin has a fiery new column in which she rips Henry Waxman a new body part - which is not easy to do, since Waxman so often acts as though his entire being is that body part.

Other than the references to tobacco executives (whom I don't have a lot of regard for), she is dead-on target.

Here is the column, without any further comment from me:

Henry Waxman: The Witch Hunter of Capitol Hill

by Michelle Malkin

been a time when 18-term liberal Democratic Rep. Henry Waxman's nostrils weren't flaring indignantly at corporate executives and entrepreneurs? The man wields his gavel over the free market like a Damoclean sword. He throws the weight of his congressional chairmanship around like a sumo wrestler walking across hot stones. For more than 35 years, Waxman has made it his taxpayer-funded business to use the power of government to undermine private business.

No one should be surprised by his latest thuggish efforts to silence companies speaking out about the cost implications and financial burdens of Demcare -- least of all, those companies.

This is the Eliot Ness-wannabe who serves proudly as the left's chief inquisitor. This is the Capitol Hill haranguer who herded tobacco company CEOs in front of the cameras, made them raise their right hands and cackled as he forced them to testify under oath about the evils of their products. Waxman's demagoguery then was so over the top that it prompted Washington Post columnist William Raspberry to write that the "Capitol Hill inquisition masquerading as legislative hearings reminds me of nothing so much as a witch-hunting Joe McCarthy."

Last month, Waxman stacked the deck at the Toyota inquisition hearing with auto industry-bashing Naderites. In 2007, he held court over the Valerie Plame show trial. And in February 2008, he wasted four hours on a nationally televised interrogation of baseball legend Roger Clemens and his trainer. Republicans called Waxman out on his Captain Queeg-ish vendetta against Clemens. The debacle was dubbed a "Roman Circus." After squandering public resources on congressional showboating over steroid use, Waxman himself confessed that he "didn't think it was a hearing that needed to be held."

 

When he isn't abusing the deliberative process to add to his press-clipping collection and serve up red meat (er, blue meat) for the TV airwaves, he's short-circuiting hearings to ram through political power grabs masquerading as "reform." Waxman pushed massively expensive, complicated cap-and-tax legislation through the House last year by leapfrogging over subcommittee debate. He also staved off Republican efforts to slow down and scrutinize the behemoth bill by hiring a "speed reader" to plow through the 900-page bill during mark-up.

Waxman himself couldn't be bothered to familiarize himself with the trillion-dollar regulatory tyranny stuffed into his own bill. When a GOP colleague on his committee asked him whether he knew a specific provision had been embedded in the proposal with his name on it, Waxman snorted: "You're asking me?"

The indignant interrogator then went on to question the patriotism of anyone who dared ask questions about the climate change tax scheme -- and accused conservatives of "rooting against the country."

Now, Waxman is targeting the heads of Deere, Caterpillar, Verizon and AT&T with "invitations" they can't refuse to testify at an April 21 hearing on their public statements regarding Demcare-caused writedowns. Waxman's fishing expedition letters sent out last week "asked" the company heads to produce copious documentation.

Business execs are damned if they do disclose how the costs of the new federal health care taxes will hit their bottom line and damned if they don't. If they stay silent, they'll be violating Securities and Exchange Commission disclosure requirements passed by Congress after the Enron scandal. If they talk, they'll be paraded in front of the camera like those poor tobacco heads Waxman waxed more than 15 years ago.

Who's next? On Monday, Prudential said it would take a $100 million charge in the first quarter thanks to Demcare. In Colorado, the Steamboat Ski and Resort Corp. said the health care law will cost $2 million a year starting in 2014. AK Steel Corp., 3M and Valero Energy have all announced similar writedowns. At this rate, if Waxman insists on hauling up every last truth-teller in the marketplace, he'll be holding an inquisition-a-thon a day.

And that would suit the Witch Hunter of Capitol Hill just fine. If he isn't meddling, he isn't working. And if he isn't using his powers to bully, bulldoze or bankrupt his enemies, he is failing the gods of progressivism. 

Ken Berwitz

Al Sharpton has for years provided us about as blatant an example of media bias as there is.  Sharpton has spent much of his adult life securing personal benefit by acting as a racial huckster, a liar, an inciter of racial violence, and a shameless self-caricature.  

Frankly speaking, if the Republican party treated someone like this as a valuable asset, it would - rightly - be excoriated every day by our media.  But Al Sharpton has become an important national Democrat, someone presidential candidates have to pass muster with, and the same media seems almost entirely unconcerned.

Here, from Scott Johnson, is the latest example of what a lying buffoon Sharpton is - and has been for many years:

Al Sharpton plies his trade

March 30, 2010 Posted by Scott at 6:21 AM

When Don Imus sought absolution for his characteristic display of poor taste, he bent his knee to Pope Al Sharpton. How is it that Al Sharpton has become the arbiter elegantiae for matters pertaining to race and etiquette? Though he is accorded an absurdly respected role in the Democratic Party, he is easily one of the most vile men active in American public life.

Jay Nordlinger reviewed Sharpton's record as of early 2000 in his brilliant National Review feature article "Power Dem." Jay updated his take on Sharpton in his Impromptus column "Words from Pope Al."

From his promotion of Tawana Brawley's hoax and his defamation of Steven Pagones and Robert Abrams, to his defense of the Central Park "wilding" rapists, to his role in the pogroms leading to the murders of Yankel Rosenbaum in Crown Heights and eight victims in Freddy's Fashion Mart in Harlem, Sharpton has compiled a record that should result in his excommunication by decent people from civil society. Here is Pope Al on the accidental death of Gavin Cato in Crown Heights in August 1991:

The world will tell us that [Gavin Cato] was killed by accident....What type of city do we have that would allow politics to rise above the blood of innocent babies?...Talk about how Oppenheimer in South Africa sends diamonds straight to Tel Aviv and deals with the diamond merchants right here in Crown Heights....All we want to say is what Jesus said: If you offend one of these little ones, you got to pay for it. No compromise. Pay for your deeds....It's no accident that we know we should not be run over. We are the royal family on the planet. We are the original man. We gazed into the stars and wrote astrology. We had a conversation and that became philosophy....We will win because we are right. God is on our side.

Writing in the Village Voice in December 2004, Wayne Barrett proclaimed Sharpton to have hit "a new low." And Sharpton of course contributed to the miscarriage of justice represented by the dismissed rape charges brought against the three Duke lacrosse players. In an April 2006 interview with Bill O'Reilly, Sharpton said (among other things): "This case parallels Abner Louima, who was raped and sodomized in a bathroom like this girl has alleged she was. That's the case and just like the Louima case, you have people saying she fabricated it. They said he fabricated it -- two guys in jail right now for that."

Last week Peter Wallsten reported in the Wall Street Journal that Sharpton has emerged as a key ally of President Obama. It turns out that President Obama is just about as post-racial as he is post-partisan.

Jim Hoft points out that Sharpton appeared on Bill O'Reilly's Fox News show last night peddling the Democratic Party's line tarring opponents of Obamacare and Obama's program of national socialism as racists. Sharpton told O'Reilly that he had seen the (non-existent) tape showing Tea Party protesters abusing black congressmen with racial epithets.

CLICK HERE TO SEE VIDEO

In the video above, O'Reilly calls Sharpton on his bald-faced lie. Let's just say that this particular tiger has not changed his stripes.

There's our wonderful "neutral" media in action.  Looking the other way when this lying buffoon puts on his circus show.

But listen to them squeal like stuck pigs if you call them biased.

Ken Berwitz

Who understands more about what is going on in this country?  The Tea Party people or the congress?

As you consider your answer (which I have a feeling you've already come to) it might be interesting to read what the Rasmussen Poll found in its national study:

Most Say Tea Party Has Better Understanding of Issues than Congress

Sunday, March 28, 2010

 

In official Washington, some consider the Tea Party movement a fringe element in society, but voters across the nation feel closer to the Tea Party movement than they do to Congress.

 

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 52% of U.S. voters believe the average member of the Tea Party movement has a better understanding of the issues facing America today than the average member of Congress. Only 30% believe that those in Congress have a better understanding of the key issues facing the nation.

 

When it comes to those issues, 47% think that their own political views are closer to those of the average Tea Party member than to the views of the average member of Congress. On this point, 26% feel closer to Congress.

 

Finally, 46% of voters say that the average Tea Party member is more ethical than the average member of Congress. Twenty-seven percent (27%) say that the average member of Congress is more ethical.

 

As you would expect, there is a wide divide between the Political Class and Mainstream Americans on these questions. Seventy-five percent (75%) of those in the Political Class say that members of Congress are better informed on the issues. Among Mainstream Americans, 68% have the opposite view, and only 16% believe Congress is better informed.

 

By a 62% to 12% margin, Mainstream Americans say the Tea Party is closer to their views. By a 90% to one percent (1%) margin, the Political Class feels closer to Congress.

 

“The gap between Americans who want to govern themselves and politicians who want to rule over them may be as big today as the gap between the colonies and England during the 18th century,” Scott Rasmussen, president of Rasmussen Reports, says in his new book, In Search of Self-Governance. “If we had to rely on politicians to fix these problems, the outlook for the nation would be bleak indeed. Fortunately, in America, the politicians aren’t nearly as important as they think they are.”

 

Earlier polling found that just 16% of voters nationwide consider themselves part of the Tea Party Movement. However, just 11% believe Congress is doing a good or an excellent job.

 

Seventy-six percent (76%) think most members of Congress are more interested in their own careers than in helping people.

 

On all questions, Republicans overwhelming prefer the Tea Party. Unaffiliated voters also prefer the Tea Party by wide margins, but Congress fares a bit better with unaffiliateds than they do with Republicans.

 

Democrats, perhaps not surprisingly since their party currently controls both the House and Senate, are more evenly divided. Forty-five percent (45%) of those in Nancy Pelosi’s party say that their views are closer to the average member of Congress. However, 28% of Democrats say their views are closer to the average member of the Tea Party.

 

Men are more likely to align with the Tea Party than women, but a plurality of women prefer the Tea Party over Congress on every question in the survey.

 

If the Tea Party was organized as a political party, 34% of voters would prefer a Democrat in a three-way congressional race. In that hypothetical match-up, the Republican gets 27% of the vote with the Tea Party hopeful in third at 21%.

 

However, if only the Democrat or Republican had a real chance to win, most of the Tea Party supporters would vote for the Republican.

 

Fifty-one percent (51%) of Americans had a favorable view of the so-called “tea party” protests just after they were held on Tax Day, April 15, last year. It was those events around the country that gelled into the Tea Party movement, a protest largely against what are viewed as the big government policies of both major political parties.

Interesting. 

If these data are accurate, they tell a story that politicians (outside of those in safe Democratic districts) and media elite would do well to think long and hard about. 

Earlier this morning I put up data showing Fox News in a dominant position over the other cable news networks (I'll show this even more clearly later on).  I think it would be reasonably safe to conclude that these data are a good indication of why. 

Ken Berwitz

Let's start with the fact that Barack Obama lies.  A lot. 

Ok, with that in mind, we have this apparent policy change, excerpted from an Associated Press article:

In a reversal of a long-standing ban on most offshore drilling, President Barack Obama is allowing oil drilling 50 miles off Virginia's shorelines. At the same time, he is rejecting some new drilling sites that had been planned in Alaska.

Obama's plan offers few concessions to environmentalists, who have been strident in their opposition to more oil platforms off the nation's shores. Hinted at for months, the plan modifies a ban that for more than 20 years has limited drilling along coastal areas other than the Gulf of Mexico.

Obama was set to announce the new drilling policy Wednesday at Andrews air base in Maryland. White House officials pitched the changes as ways to reduce U.S. reliance on foreign oil and create jobs - both politically popular ideas - but the president's decisions also could help secure support for a climate change bill languishing in Congress.

The president, joined by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, also was set to announce that proposed leases in Alaska's Bristol Bay would be canceled. The Interior Department also planned to reverse last year's decision to open up parts of the Chukchi and Beaufort seas. Instead, scientists would study the sites to see if they're suitable to future leases.

Obama is allowing an expansion in Alaska's Cook Inlet to go forward. The plan also would leave in place the moratorium on drilling off the West Coast.

In addition, the Interior Department has prepared a plan to add drilling platforms in the eastern Gulf of Mexico if Congress allows that moratorium to expire. Lawmakers in 2008 allowed a similar moratorium to expire; at the time President George W. Bush lifted the ban, which opened the door to Obama's change in policy.

Under Obama's plan, drilling could take place 125 miles from Florida's Gulf coastline if lawmakers allow the moratorium to expire. Drilling already takes place in western and central areas in the Gulf of Mexico.

I am a huge proponent of solar, wind, natural gas and/or any other alternative that can supplant oil.  But I also recognize that the practical, general-use application of most such alternatives is a good many years away - and we need energy now.

If true, therefore, this would appear to be good news. But is it true?

Here, via Jake Tapper of ABC News, is what Mr. Obama said during the presidential campaign:

In June 2008, then-Sen. Obama told reporters in Jacksonville, Florida, "when I'm president, I intend to keep in place the moratorium here in Florida and around the country that prevents oil companies from drilling off Florida's coasts. That's how we can protect our coastline and still make the investments that will reduce our dependence on foreign oil and bring down gas prices for good."

Given Mr. Obama's propensity for lying to us, about a whole lot more than energy policy, I would be very cautious about this.  I have to wonder if it is nothing more than a move to get support for climate change legislation, after which there will be a policy switcheroo.

But, if it is true?  Good for President Obama, and it's about time.

Ken Berwitz

 Having posted the previous blog, I thought it would be a good idea to show you how viewing audiences feel about Joy Behar and Glenn Beck.

Here are the latest Neilsen data, by the key 25-54 age group and in total, as compiled at www.mediabistro.com:

The Scoreboard: Monday, Mar. 29

By Chris Ariens on Mar 30, 2010 04:35 PM

25-54 demographic: (L +SD)

Total day: FNC: 415 | CNN: 129 | MSNBC: 145 | HLN: 146

Prime: FNC: 699 | CNN: 173 | MSNBC: 331 | HLN: 159

	5p:	6p:	7p:	8p:	9p:	10p:	11p:
FNC	Beck:	Baier:	Shep:	O'Reilly:	Hannity:	Greta:	O'Reilly:
	562	464	458	906	582	590	459
CNN	Blitzer:	Blitzer:	KingUSA:	Brown:	King:	Cooper:	Cooper:
	139	117	125	135	183	201	124
MSNBC	Matthews:	EdShow:	Matthews:	Olbermann:	Maddow:	Olbermann:	Maddow:
	111	175	227	414	347	232	135
HLN	Showbiz:	Prime:	Issues:	Grace:	Behar:	Grace:	Showbiz:
	87	131	163	213	115	156	190

Data by Nielsen Media Research. Live and same day (DVR) data.


Total Viewers: (L +SD)

Total day: FNC: 1466 | CNN: 492 | MSNBC: 518 | HLN: 316

Prime: FNC: 2538 | CNN: 614 | MSNBC: 1154 | HLN: 453

	5p:	6p:	7p:	8p:	9p:	10p:	11p:
FNC	Beck:	Baier:	Shep:	O'Reilly:	Hannity:	Greta:	O'Reilly:
	2155	2137	1799	3379	2101	2112	1490
CNN	Blitzer:	Blitzer:	KingUSA:	Brown:	King:	Cooper:	Cooper:
	551	530	524	469	560	812	448
MSNBC	Matthews:	EdShow:	Matthews:	Olbermann:	Maddow:	Olbermann:	Maddow:
	527	742	742	1400	1325	736	508
HLN	Showbiz:	Prime:	Issues:	Grace:	Behar:	Grace:	Showbiz:
	206	264	404	627	395	360	378

Data by Nielsen Media Research. Live and same day (DVR) data.

Notice a slight difference in viewer acceptance?

Beck utterly dominates his time slot, with about 4 times the viewership of any other cable news show.  Heck, if you combined the rest of his competition, their total wouldn't even be close to Beck's.

By contrast, Behar is dead last in her time slot.  Rachel Maddow, as snarky and contrived as she is, triples Behar's numbers.  Even what's left of Larry King blows her away.

Point made.

Ken Berwitz

Joy Behar cannot get enough of Glenn Beck.

Few people on TV have spent more air time telling us that they don't care about the person they keep talking about than Behar, when talking about Beck.

Here is the latest example, from Jeff Poor of www.newsbusters.org:

Joy Behar in Leno Appearance to Glenn Beck: 'I Don’t Give a Flying [Expletive] About You'

 

By Jeff Poor (Bio | Archive)
Wed, 03/31/2010 - 07:08 ET

 

"The View" co-host Joy Behar isn't known for being the most graceful person, but for whatever reason she has managed to land her own cable news show and is now a sought after personality for shows like NBC's "Tonight Show with Jay Leno."

 

In a March 30 appearance on "The Tonight Show", Leno asked Behar about her feud with Fox News and talk radio host Glenn Beck. Beck recently suggested there is an "I Hate Glenn Beck" club and that Behar was a member. Behar denied she hated Beck.

 

"Oh yeah, Glenn Beck - I can't take a man who cries," Behar said. "I mean, it's enough on my wedding night I had to watch that. You know what I mean? I can't, but -- he does. He talks about me. I'm on his list of ‘I Hate Glenn Beck.' It's like being on Nixon's enemies list. I loved it. But I don't hate him. I don't hate him."

 

Behar told Leno she would have Beck on her HLN program, even though Beck's program draws roughly four times the audience at 5 p.m. ET that Behar's 9 p.m. ET prime time HLN program draws, with the caveat he is "neutered and spayed."

 

"It's showbiz," Behar said. "But you know what, if I could take the opportunity to tell Glenn -- which is my camera -- because I'd like to say I don't hate him and I want him to know that. Where is it? Glenn, listen, I don't hate you. Sincerely, Glenn Beck, from the bottom of my heart, I don't hate you. I don't give a flying [expletive] about you."

 

Behar's statement is a tad curious because on her HLN show, the topic of Beck has come up time and time and time again. But despite that, Behar said she would have Beck on, who once had a show on Behar's network, but said she wouldn't go on his and he likely wouldn't go on hers.

Ironically, Ms. Behar and I do, to some degree, share a feeling of disdain for Beck.  I've written several times about Mr. Beck here;  mostly that he is over-the-top, often ridiculous and an embarrassment to Fox News Channel.

But I also think he is often right on target regarding political issues and makes a lot of good points.  (I doubt Joy Behar would agree with me about that.)

And, by contrast, I think that Ms. Behar is a ridiculous loudmouth, usually unknowledgeable and unprepared when she argues (which is pretty much all she does), and entirely reliant on a sympathetic audience (The View) or network (HNN's parent company is CNN) to forgive and ignore her deficiencies.  (I doubt Joy Behar would agree with me on that as well.)

I'm glad both are on TV, because I am against censorship and want all voices heard, even if they are sometimes shrill, obnoxious and ignorant.

But, however many problems I have with Glenn Beck, I would watch his show 100 times out of 100 if my alternative were Joy Behar.  He may be annoying, contrived and over the top.  But she is all those things, plus loud, ignorant and stupid.

Ken Berwitz

Although I do not agree with them, I respect people whose beliefs are that life begins at conception.  And I certainly respect any congressperson who, believing abortions are wrong, voted against the health care bill earlier this month because, as written, it would allow federal funding for abortions.

Now; ask me what I think of people who profess anti-abortion beliefs, but change their vote from "no" to "yes" in return for a political payoff.

With that in mind, please read the following article from Fox News.  The bold print is mine:

Updated March 29, 2010

Pro-Life Democrats Who Switched Vote for Health Bill Request Billions in Earmarks

FOXNews.com

The 11 House Democrats led by Rep. Bart Stupak who dropped their opposition to health care reform mere hours before the final vote have requested $3.4 billion in earmarks -- and one watchdog group wants to know whether the money represents business as usual, or a political payoff. 

The 11 House Democrats led by Rep. Bart Stupak who dropped their opposition to health care reform legislation mere hours before the final vote have requested $3.4 billion in earmarks -- and one watchdog group wants to know whether the money represents business as usual or political payoffs. 

The Sunlight Foundation says it plans to track the earmark requests, which were put in one day after health care reform cleared Congress, to see whether they're approved and whether it appears lawmakers are being rewarded for their vote. 

"We know that in Congress one of the ways that leadership tries to influence members is through earmarks," said Bill Allison, editorial director at the nonpartisan organization. "So this seemed to us something good to follow." 

Stupak and the 10 other Democrats were critical to the success of the health care bill. They were holding out over concerns about funding for abortion coverage but announced the president had assuaged their worries -- with an executive order restricting abortion funding -- the morning of the big vote. 

Stupak's office said there's absolutely no link between the earmarks and the health care bill's passage. 

"The congressman's vote for health care has no connection to annual appropriations requests," spokeswoman Michelle Benoche said. "Appropriations requests were submitted on Monday, March 22, because that is the deadline of the Appropriations Committee." 

She also said his earmark requests this year are in line with prior years, in number and in total amount.

But watchdogs want to know whether there's more to the story. 

Since the health care reform push hit its final stretch, numerous sweeteners for lawmakers' districts and states have been found inside the package. Earmark requests are made outside of the health care bill, making them a bit more difficult to link to any vote-trading. But it is precisely that kind of tricky-to-catch deal-making that Republican Sen. Tom Coburn said he and other GOP senators would be monitoring for months to come. 

"If you think you can cut a deal now and it not come out until after the election, I want to tell you that isn't going to happen," Coburn said a few days before the bill passed. 

Lawmakers like Stupak have since been heavily scrutinized. Allison said the lawmakers who stood with him will find out if those earmarks are approved when the Appropriations Committee's bills come out in June or July. 

The individual earmarks requests from each of those lawmakers range from $20 million to $1.4 billion. Of the eight lawmakers whose 2010 requests were available for comparison, five requested more money than they did a year ago. Stupak requested $579 million. 

Here are the earmark amounts requested by the 11 House Democrats in the 2011 bill: 

Rep. Jerry Costello of Illinois.: $1,418.7 million ($256.4 million in 2010)

Rep. Solomon Ortiz of Texas: $618 million ($726.1 million in 2010)

Stupak of Michigan: $578.9 million 

Rep. Steve Driehaus of Ohio: $332.2 million 

Rep. Marcy Kaptur of Ohio: $294 million ($305.7 million in 2010)

Rep. Kathy Dahlkemper of Pennsylvania: $236.8 million ($54 million in 2010)

Rep. James Oberstar of Minnesota.: $207 million ($226 million in 2010)

Rep. Brad Ellsworth of Indiana.: $115.4 million ($82.3 million in 2010)

Rep. Charles Wilson of Ohio: $84 million ($62.3 million in 2010)

Rep. Paul Kanjorski of Pennsylvania.: $67.1 million 

Rep. Joseph Donnelly of Indiana: $19.8 million ($11.65 million in 2010)

The Sunlight Foundation also says it is going to look at Republican earmarks. House Republicans say they are not requesting any earmarks for the next fiscal year, but Allison said the Sunlight Foundation will watch GOP senators to see if they appear to be putting in earmark requests for their House colleagues. 

How bad does this stink?  Could it stink worse?

Does anyone seriously believe that the almost three and a half BILLION dollars in earmarks, submitted on the very last day before the bill was voted on - when there would be the least amount of time for media scrutiny - had nothing to do with those vote changes? 

I especially love the line about earmark requests being "in line" with with prior years in number and total amount.  Sure, Stupak attaches $578.9 million in earmarks to pretty much every bill that congress votes on.  And that 1.4 billion from Jerry Costello, the 600 or so million from Solomon Ortiz and the $300 million plus from Driehaus and Kaptur?  Heck, it happens every day. 

Poor Wilson, Kanjorski and Donnelly; they didn't even get into 9-figure range.  I guess they're the honest ones.

Ok, now that Fox News has reported this, where are the rest of our wonderful "neutral" media?  What happened to their reports?

Aren't these the folks who sneer that Fox is neither fair nor balanced? 

So where are their reports about a 3.4 billion dollar earmark-fest by the supposed anti-abortion contingent?  Where are their reports about how, if you believe this bunch really is anti-abortion, they may have sold the unborn down the river to get $$$$$$$ out of ObamaCare?

Does "fairness and balance" mean you suppress the news that makes the house members responsible for passing this atrocity (i.e. without them it doesn't get a majority) look like hypocrites and - by their own stated standards - abettors in the murder of unborn babies?  Evidently, to these "journalists", it does.

But listen to them squeal like stuck pigs if you call them biased.

Ken Berwitz

As expected, we saw a positive bounce for President Obama after signing the health care legislation into law.

Now comes the other bounce - the one which occurs after euphoria gives way to reality. 

From USA Today:

Health care law too costly, most say

By Susan Page, USA TODAY

 

Nearly two-thirds of Americans say the health care overhaul signed into law last week costs too much and expands the government's role in health care too far, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds, underscoring an uphill selling job ahead for President Obama and congressional Democrats.

Those surveyed are inclined to fear that the massive legislation will increase their costs and hurt the quality of health care their families receive, although they are more positive about its impact on the nation's health care system overall.

Supporters "are not only going to have to focus on implementing this kind of major reform," says Robert Blendon, a professor of health policy and political analysis at Harvard. "They're going to have to spend substantial time convincing people of the concrete benefits of this legislation."

The risk for them is that continued opposition will fuel calls for repeal and dog Democrats in November's congressional elections. The bill was enacted without a single Republican vote.

In an interview airing Tuesday on NBC's Today, Obama acknowledges concerns about cost. "It is a critical first step in making a health care system that works for all Americans," he said of the law, adding, "We are still going to have adjustments that have to be made to further reduce costs."

Obama's approval rating was 47%-50% — the first time his disapproval rating has hit 50%.

In the survey:

• A plurality predicts the law will improve health care coverage generally and the overall health of Americans. But a majority says it also will drive up overall costs and worsen the federal budget deficit.

• When it comes to their families, they see less gain and more pain: Pluralities say it will make coverage and quality of care worse for them. By 50%-21%, they predict it will make their costs higher.

Opponents of the health care bill are a bit more likely than supporters to say the vote will have a major impact on their vote for Congress in the fall. Three in 10 are much more likely to vote for a candidate who opposes the bill. One in four are much more likely to vote for a candidate who supports it.

	USA TODAY/ GALLUP POLL Do you think the health care legislation: (percentage who said "yes") Source: USA TODAY/Gallup Poll of 1,033 adults March 26-28. Margin of error +/- 4 percentage points.

The poll of 1,033 adults, taken by land line and cellphone Friday through Sunday, has a margin of error of +/–4 percentage points.

Half call passage of the bill "a bad thing" and 47% "a good thing." That differs from a one-day USA TODAY poll taken March 22 — a day after the House approved the legislation — in which a 49%-40% plurality called the bill "a good thing."

"Any one-day poll in the immediate aftermath of a major event is likely to be subject not only to sampling error but also to very short-term effects," says political scientist Charles Franklin of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. At the time, "the news cycle was dominated by the positive side of the story, and only a little bit by the Republicans' rebuttal to that."

There was a strong reaction against the tactics Democratic leaders used to pass the bill. A 53% majority call Democratic methods "an abuse of power;" 40% say they are appropriate.

And when asked about incidents of vandalism and threats that followed the bill's passage, Americans are more inclined to blame Democratic political tactics than critics' harsh rhetoric. Forty-nine percent say Democratic tactics are "a major reason" for the incidents, while 46% blame criticism by conservative commentators and 43% the criticism of Republican leaders.

Suppose you are a congressperson in a competitive district, who voted for ObamaCare.  How do you feel about these data? 

Sorry I asked.  Just let me know after you get your head out of the toilet bowl you're regurgitating in.

Ken Berwitz

In the previous blog, the Las Vegas Review-Journal's editorial demonstrated that the people around President Obama are woefully short on private-sector experence.  Its exact words were:

"Most of these people (in the administration) have never had a real job in their lives," a senior lobbyist for one of the firms told the American Spectator over the weekend. "They don't understand a thing about business, and that includes the president

Is this true?  Let's find out.

Months ago, J.P. Morgan put together a chart showing the real-world experience in every presidential cabinet over the past century.  I posted it at that time. 

Let's look at it again now:

Just so there's no mistake, here are the same data in a written chart:

Percentage of Cabinet Appointees Who Came From The Private Sector (as opposed to government or academia):

T. Roosevelt   38%
Taft              40%
Wilson           52%
Harding         49%
Coolidge        48%
Hoover          42%
F. Roosevelt   50%
Truman         50%
Eisenhower    57%
Kennedy        30%
Johnson         47%
Nixon            53%
Ford             42%
Carter           32%
Reagan         56%
GH Bush        51%
Clinton          39%
GW Bush       55%
Obama            8%

There, folks, is the problem.  Obama has surrounded himself with academics, political wonks and ivory tower theorists.  Not people who ever had to earn a buck in the real world. 

Does that explain a lot, or what?

Ken Berwitz

There's an old saying:  "Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on me"

Nowhere is the truth of this saying more evident than the fact that, after demanding passage of the so-called "stimulus package" before anyone read it (you know, the legislation that was going to cap unemployment at 8%, remember?),  President Barack did exactly the same thing with ObamaCare. 

Write it, rewrite it, add to it, build it up, get to 2,700 pages of verbiage, then demand that it be voted on and passed before most congresspeople have more than a cursory knowledge of what's actually in it.  Yeah, that's the ticket. 

Well, it worked.  Again.  Just like the "stimulus package". 

And because it worked again, the congressional Democrats who were so proud of its passage just a few days ago now will have to live with its actual contents.

How bad could that be?  In (partial) answer, here is today's editorial from the Las Vegas Review-Journal, which should give you an idea.  The bold print is mine:

EDITORIAL: Didn't understand what was in it

Ramifications of health care bill already surfacing

 

Since the passage of ObamaCare, several major U.S. companies -- so far, they include AT&T, Verizon, Caterpillar, Deere, Valero Energy, AK Steel and 3M -- have announced that they expect the law to cost them billions of dollars in higher health care expenses.

 

This has prompted an angry Rep. Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce and one of many Democrats who swore up and down that the measure would actually cut costs, to summon some of the executives to Capitol Hill to defend their assessment.

 

Rep. Waxman is also demanding that the executives give lawmakers internal company documents related to health care finances, a move one committee Republican describes to Byron York of the Washington Examiner as "an attempt to intimidate and silence opponents" of ObamaCare.

 

Perhaps these Democrats really are surprised ­-- perhaps (as Republicans consistently warned) they never actually read and comprehended what was in their nearly 3,000-page social engineering experiment.

 

"Most of these people (in the administration) have never had a real job in their lives," a senior lobbyist for one of the firms told the American Spectator over the weekend. "They don't understand a thing about business, and that includes the president. My CEO sat with the president over lunch with two other CEOs, and each of them tried to explain to the president what this bill would do to our companies and the economy in general. First the president didn't understand what they were talking about. Then he basically told my boss he was lying."

 

Nor is this just coming from Republicans. One Democratic staffer affiliated with the Waxman committee told the magazine that neither Rep. Waxman nor Rep. Bart Stupak, chairman of the Oversight and Investigations panel, had anything more than a cursory understanding of how the many sections of the bill would impact business or even individuals before they voted on the legislation.

 

"We had memos on these issues, but none of our people, we think, looked at them," says the staffer. "When they saw the stories last week about the charges some of the companies were taking, they were genuinely surprised and assumed that the companies were just doing this to embarrass them. ... They just didn't understand what they were voting on."

 

And it's only just begun

As you can see, instead of worrying about ObamaCare's affect on major corporations (you know, those terrible people who employ so many millions of us), henry waxman's reaction is to act like some tinhorn torquemada and demand that they answer to him for daring to point out what it does to their cost structure. 

Tell me:  who appointed henry waxman God?  Is it his sickening combination of arrogance and partisanship, combined with over four decades of being a politician (the last 35 of them in congress) rather than living in the real world, that makes him so ridiculous?

Also, let's not forget that this editorial is running in a major Nevada newspaper.  Nevada is a battleground state (whoops, sorry if I incited anyone to violence by saying "battleground") in which Harry Reid - with Nancy Pelosi one of the two most significant facilitators of ObamaCare - is fighting for his political life. 

There's a long time between March and November. How many more parts of ObamaCare will the voters learn about between now and then - parts that a) they resent and b) they had no idea were in there? 

We'll find out, won't we?

Ken Berwitz

The threats against Democrats were important enough for The Today Show to do days of stories and discussions on. 

Here is a partial list:

-The Tea-partiers calling John Lewis and Emanuel Cleaver "nigger" - which no one has any recording of, whether video or audio or tape or digital, even though there were cameras and cell phones and media everywhere?  An outrage.

-The Tea-partier spitting on Cleaver, which even Cleaver has now backed down from?  An outrage.

-The guy who screamed "faggot" at Barney Frank (one person in a crowd, with no one else yelling out support for)?  An outrage.

-The threats called into several Democratic congresspeople's offices?  An outrage.

But then we started finding out that Democrats were not the only ones being threatened.  We also had.....

-The threats called into Republican congresspeople. Really?  That's too bad. 

-The brick put through a double-pane window at Republican headquarters in Charlottsville, Va.  Oh, that's too bad too.

-The threats called into several Republican congresspeople's offices.  Did that happen?  No kiddin'.

-The bullet that hit Republican minority whip Eric Cantor's office in Virginia.  Ah, that's nuthin', they probably were shooting in the air and it just landed at Cantor's office.  What a coincidence.

Notice a slight difference in concern?  Well, trust me, that, in essence, was how Today handled the threats against Republicans -- up to, and including, yesterday when Matt Lauer made the mistake of interviewing conservative commentator Laura Ingraham after airing a particularly one-sided hit piece which tied Sarah Palin to the threats.  Ingraham made mincemeat of both Lauer and George Lewis, the "journalist" who made this utterly false connection.

But wait, there's more.  Yesterday we learned that the FBI had arrested "man" named norman leboon, for putting up a youtube video which said, and I quote:

"My Congressman Eric Cantor, and you and your cupcake evil wife..." "Remember Eric...our judgment time, the final Yom Kippur has been given. You are a liar, you're a Lucifer, you're a pig, a greedy fucking pig, you're an abomination, you receive my bullets in your office, remember they will be placed in your heads. You and your children are Lucifer's abominations."

Was leboon some Republican operative who went over the edge?  One of those hated Tea-party looney-toons? 

Well, no.  Actually norman leboon is a big Obama supporter who gave over $500 to his presidential campaign.  So, of course, the Today show, which pulled out all stops for the undocumented claims of theats against Democrats, would do a major feature on this unequivocal, fully documented real threat, right? 

Having watched Today for years and years, and experienced its "evenhandedness", I was skeptical.  That is why, yesterday, I had this to say about leboon and the Today Show:

There are two important lessons to be learned here:

1) There are lunatics on every side of a political issue, whether right or left, Republican or Democrat. 

2) Be careful when attacking one side for what both sides do.  What goes around comes around.

That said, let's see how those renowned neutralists at The Today Show handle this one tomorrow.  If I were betting, I'd bet they don't even mention it.  But I would love to be proven wrong.

We'll find out then.

Now we have our answer.  This morning, the Today Show has not said one word about leboon.  No feature, no discussion, not even a mention in its news report.  Today was too busy sugar-glazing its viewers by airing Matt Lauers's cheesy, softball interview with the show's great love, Barack Obama.

The partisanship level on Today (among many, many other supposedly "neutral" media venues) is breathtaking.

Ken Berwitz

Another day and another blackout on which 100 or so house members refused to sign a letter expressing concern that “the highly publicized tensions” in US-Israeli ties will “not advance the interests” of either state.

Just like the letter last may which 76 senators signed - and we never were told which 24 did not.

I would bet just about anything that, ron paul and possibly Dan Issa notwithstanding, the vast majority of refusers are Democrats.  But I do not know for sure. 

Why in the world is this information being kept secret?

Ken Berwitz

Since The Today Show (among numerous other media venues) is so hot to trot when it comes to blaming Sarah Palin's speeches against ObamaCare for violent threats against Democrats, I wonder which Democrat's speeches in favor of ObamaCare the show will blame for this.

It comes to us from Justin Elliott, writing for (the usually Democratic-oriented) www.talkingpointsmemo.com:

Man Charged With Threatening To Kill Rep. Eric Cantor

Justin Elliott | March 29, 2010, 12:22PM

sed The U.S. Attorney in Philadelphia issued this statement today. The text of an accompanying affidavit is also below. TPM's ongoing coverage of the story is here.

PRESS RELEASE

PHILADELPHIA - Today, a two-count complaint and warrant was filed charging Norman Leboon with threatening to kill United States Congressman Eric Cantor and his family, and threatening to kill Congressman Eric Cantor, who is an official of the United States, announced United States Attorney Michael L. Levy and FBI Special Agent in Charge Jan Fedarcyk. As set forth in the affidavit to the complaint and warrant, in or about late March, 2010, Leboon created and then transmitted a YouTube video to Google over the internet, in which he threatened to kill Congressman Cantor and his family. No harm came to the Congressman or his family as a result of Leboon's threats.

"The Department of Justice takes threats against government officials seriously, especially threats to kill or injure others," said Levy. "Whether the reason for the threat is personal or political, threats are not protected by the First Amendment and are crimes."

INFORMATION REGARDING THE DEFENDANT

NAME ADDRESS AGE
Norman Leboon Philadelphia, PA 33 years old

If convicted of all the charges, the defendant faces a maximum possible sentence of 15 years imprisonment, 3 years supervised release, a fine up to $500,000, and a $200 special assessment.

The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Philadelphia Police Department, and is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Robert K. Reed.

And how, specifically, did norman leboon threaten Rep. Cantor and his family?

From the Department of Justice Affidavit (you can read the entire affidavit by clicking here):

4. On March 26, 2010, the FBI, San Francisco Division, received a copy of a video that had been removed from the internet website YouTube. The video included images of a white male, later identified as NORMAN LEBOON, making threats against United States Congressman Eric Cantor, 7th Congressional District - Virginia. The video appeared to be homemade and was of good quality. The face of the white male can clearly be seen.

5. During the video NORMAN LEBOON made the following statements:
"My Congressman Eric Cantor, and you and your cupcake evil wife..." "Remember Eric...our judgment time, the final Yom Kippur has been given. You are a liar, you're a Lucifer, you're a pig, a greedy fucking pig, you're an abomination, you receive my bullets in your office, remember they will be placed in your heads. You and your children are Lucifer's abominations."

Whoever kills or attempts to kill any officer or employee of the United States or of any agency in any branch of the United States Government . . . while such officer or employee is engaged in or on account of the performance of official duties, or any person assisting such an officer or employee in the performance of such duties or on account of that assistance, shall be punished [as set forth in that statute.]

Maybe Matt Lauer can figure out a way to blame this on Sarah Palin too.  But, somehow, I doubt it. 

Then again, if he doesn't maybe keith olbermann can.  Or ed schultz.  Or bill maher.  Or david letterman.  Or any of the other geniuses who can't wait to attack Ms. Palin regardless of whether there is an actual reason.

There are two important lessons to be learned here:

1) There are lunatics on every side of a political issue, whether right or left, Republican or Democrat. 

2) Be careful when attacking one side for what both sides do.  What goes around comes around.

That said, let's see how those renowned neutralists at The Today Show handle this one tomorrow.  If I were betting, I'd bet they don't even mention it.  But I would love to be proven wrong.

We'll find out then.

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

UPDATE:  I have now read reports that leboon contributed $500 or more to the Obama Presidential campaign.   Assuming this is true (I don't have 100% confirmation), was it a speech Mr. Obama made that moved him to do so?  And if it was, does that mean the the President incited......er, never mind.  That wouldn't make any sense, would it?

Ken Berwitz

When George Bush made military decisions based on saddam hussein having WMD's, the line "Bush lied, people died" was repeated countless times, and gleefully jumped on by much of our wonderful "neutral" media.  Never mind that Bush was acting on information from our own intelligence, and Israeli intelligence, and French intelligence, and Russian intelligence, etc. etc.  Bush was villified as if he had invented the premise out of thin air.

But what happens when a US President really does lie about Iraq?  Read this short report from Mark Finkelstein of www.newsbusters.org and see:

Will MSM Let Obama Get Away With 'We Don't Quit' War Whopper?

By Mark Finkelstein | Mon, 03/29/2010 - 06:44

 

"The United States of America does not quit once it starts on something.  You don't quit, the American armed services does not quit.  We keep at it.  We persevere." -- Pres. Obama to US troops in Afghanistan, March 28, 2010

 

"Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is calling for the immediate withdrawal of all U.S. combat brigades from Iraq, with the pullout being completed by the end of next year. 'Let me be clear: There is no military solution in Iraq and there never was,' Obama said." -- Obama calls for immediate withdrawal from Iraq, AP, Sep. 12, 2007 [emphasis added]

 

There are lies, damned lies, and then the kind of brazen rewriting of what a man stands for that Barack Obama engaged in yesterday.

My only criticism of Mark's commentary is its title.  Will MSM let Obama get away with this whopper?  Well, did you catch any comment about it on the news last night?  On the morning shows or in your newspaper today?

In our media, Bush didn't have to lie to be called a liar.   And Obama didn't have to tell the truth not to be called a liar. 

But listen to them squeal like stuck pigs if you call them biased.

Ken Berwitz

From Reuters:

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Two female suicide bombers killed at least 38 people on packed Moscow subway trains during rush hour on Monday, stirring fears of a broader campaign in Russia's heartland by Islamists from the North Caucasus.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who cemented his power in 1999 by launching a war to crush Chechen separatism, broke off a trip to Siberia, declaring "terrorists will be destroyed."

So tell us again, Mr. Putin, about the restraint that Israel should show against Palestinian Arabs whose governments - fatah and hamas both - have glorified suicide bombings that kill Israelis.  What do you figure they should do about it?

Ken Berwitz

Let me tell you about two segments of The Today Show this morning. 

The first is a report by NBC newsperson George Lewis, about Sarah Palin's hugely successful speech to Tea Partiers in Searchlight, Nevada (not coincidentally Harry Reid's home town).  The second is an interview about the report which Matt Lauer conducted with conservative talk show host and Fox news contributor Laura Ingraham.

Let's take them one by one.

First we go to the report by George Lewis.  In a word, it was despicable. 

-Without saying it in so many words, Lewis directly tied Ms. Palin's popularity with Tea Partiers to potential violence against Democrats.  He said, among other things, "But does she get people too riled up?  Some members of congress reported receiving death threats during the voting on health care reform.  In the middle of that Palin was criticized for her Twitter and Facebook messages to supporters saying 'don't retreat - instead RELOAD", and images of crosshairs on targeted congressional districts.". 

-He then said "Palin told the crowd the media got it wrong, that it was not a literal call to arms" -- while the video he used showed one idiot with someone or something (we could not read its message) hung in effigy.  One idiot out of a crowd of 9.000. (you can bet that, if there were others, he'd have shown a montage of them).

-Later in the report Lewis showed footage of a rally in Mesa, Arizona during which two loud, disruptive hecklers were removed.  Instead of criticizing the hecklers for disrupting Ms. Palin's speech, he called it "More proof that Palin stirs up strong passions.....".  Presumably this was supposed to be more evidence that she is an inciter.

So, bottom line, the report attempted to show that Sarah Palin, by virtue of the enthusiastically positive reception she received, was fomenting violence against Democrats.  The fact that Ms. Palin's enormous popularity flies directly in the face of media's year-and-a-half long crusade to demonize her, led by those noted neutralists at NBC's sister network MSNBC, had nothing to do with this attempt, I'm sure.

At the end of Lewis's report I said to my wife that, of all the hit jobs I've seen on Today, this one might have been the single most blatant and despicable.  I reminded her that while the term reload, and a map with crosshairs.can conceivably be tied to violence, it is also true that NBC (and every other media venue) ongoingly refer to political opponents as being in each others' crosshairs, and that there are battleground states, and that candidates have "war rooms", etc. etc. etc.  In other words, when Sarah Palin does exactly what NBC and other media do, we're supposed to see it as completely different.

Now we go to the interview with Laura Ingraham.  In a word, it was a massacre.

Given his rich history of attacks on political conservatives, I have no doubt that Mr. Lauer was eagerly waiting to take Ms. Ingraham down on the supposed connection between Sarah Palin and violence threatened against Democrats. 

But a funny thing happened on the way to that takedown.  She took him down.  And I mean she really took him down.  Laura Ingraham made absolute mincemeat of Matt Lauer and turned him from a confident inquisitor to a pusillanimous wuss who had to replace his attack with a clumsy, inept defense. 

-The interview started with Lauer introducing Ingraham.  Then, her first words:  "Hey Matt.  Can I just say something? George Lewis's report, and I love George Lewis, I think he does a great job, how do you go from Sarah Palin giving a speech to saying 'did she rile up the people too much' and then talking about death threats?  I think that kind of reporting really is what drives people crazy about the dinosaur media". 

-Wow.  Lauer was so completely thrown by Ingraham's opening salvo (whoops, another violent word there) that he stammered out "Well, well there have been some people who say that, that some of her, her comments and, and some of her graphics that she's used over the last couple of weeks uh, have, have perhaps incited some people, and maybe, and maybe misrepresented her thoughts; she cleared it up herself, so why wouldn't you connect the two?".

That's a riot.  Lauer was rendered so off-stride that he actually said that Palin cleared it up, so why wouldn't Ingraham connect the two -- an obvious contradiction, since, if she cleared it up there would be nothing to connect.  He literally was reduced to incoherence.

-Ingraham's answer?  After first laughing (probably in amusement and derision) she said  "Why wouldn't you connect the two?  For the same reason the media didn't connect the film The Assassination of George Bush to any, uh, any threats against the President...to say that Sarah Palin and the Tea Party movement is responsible for vandalism or threats is just a way to dismiss the American people and their, and their dissatisfaction with this health care bill." (FYI:  that double "and their" was not stammering, it was because Lauer had started to talk over her.)

-At this point, a clearly shaken Lauer said he wasn't sure Lewis said what Ingraham claimed and that he would go back to Lewis's script script to see.  Said Ingraham:  "Well, that was the import of it.  We're, we're smart here Matt, we know what's going on".

Simply stated, she blew Lewis amd Lauer away.  As they both richly deserved.

You can see both Lewis's report and the entire Ingraham massacre (further on she blows MSNBC away too) by clicking here.  I urge you to do so.

Thank you Laura Ingraham!

Ken Berwitz

My sister just sent this to me.  Since most of the news today is not good, I thought I would start with it.  I think you'll be touched:

THE FUNERAL SERVICE

 

As a bagpiper, I play many gigs. Recently I was asked by a funeral director to play at a graveside service for a homeless man. He had no family or friends, so the service was to be at a pauper's cemetery in the Kentucky back country.

 As I was not familiar with the backwoods, I got lost and, being a typical man, I didn't stop for directions. I finally arrived an hour late and saw the funeral guy had evidently gone and the hearse was nowhere in sight.

 There were only the diggers and crew left and they were eating lunch.  I felt badly and apologized to the men for being late. I went to the side of the grave and looked down and the vault lid was already in  place. I didn't know what else to do, so I started to play.

 The workers put down their lunches and began to gather around. I played out my heart and soul for this man with no family and friends. I played like I've never played before for this homeless man. And as I played 'Amazing Grace,' the workers began to weep. They wept, I wept, we all wept together. When I finished I packed up my bagpipes and started for my car. Though my head hung low, my heart was full.

 As I opened the door to my car, I heard one of the workers say, "I never seen nothin' like that before and I've been putting in septic tanks for twenty years."

 Apparently I'm still lost.....

Ok, maybe you'll be tetched....

Now back to politics.

Ken Berwitz

In late May, 76 congresspeople supposedly signed a letter urging President Obama to consider the level of risk Israel is under while formulating his policies toward Iran.  Here is what I wrote about it at that time:

WHICH 76 SENATORS?  WHICH 195 HOUSE MEMBERS?

Ken Berwitz

Over a week ago, it was reported that 76 US senators and 195 house members signed a letter to President Obama strongly urging him to recognize the level of risk Israel is under as he formulates his policy on Iran.

The senate sponsors of this letter were Chris Dodd, Arlen Spector, Johnny Isakson and John Thune.  That's four

Why, after all this time, have no media outlets I can find reported who the other 72 senators are - and, more to the point, which 24 senators would not sign that letter?  Why have no media outlets reported who the majority of house members not signing this letter are?

Why is this information being withheld?  Is it because the non-signers are disproportionately Democratic and media, as an entity, don't want us to know because it could affect some people's view of the party?  Is it some other reason?  What reason?

When does this stop being a secret?.

To this day I have never seen a list of who did and did not sign the letter.

Now, today we have this, which comes to us (among many other places) from Ed Morrissey at www.hotair.com:

327 House members tell Obama to make U-turn on US-Israeli relations

posted at 10:00 am on March 28, 2010 by Ed Morrissey

Barack Obama talks a lot about the “spirit of bipartisanship.”  Now he’s had a chance to see it for himself, thanks to a series of diplomatic fumbles between the White House and Israel, usually one of America’s closest allies.  More than three-quarters of the US House of Representatives signed a letter expressing dismay over the direction of the alliance, warning that the “highly publicized tensions” aren’t helping America’s interests:

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu will continue discussions with his senior ministers in the coming days, looking for a way out of the crisis with the US. He received some badly needed support on Friday from 327 congressmen, who signed a letter expressing concern that “the highly publicized tensions” in US-Israeli ties will “not advance the interests” of either state. …

Meanwhile, in Washington, [327] congressmen – three-quarters of the House of Representatives – signed a bipartisan letter to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressing solid support for Israel and the expectation that differences between Jerusalem and Washington will be smoothed over quickly and in private.

“We are writing to reaffirm our commitment to the unbreakable bond that exists between our country and the State of Israel and to express to you our deep concern over recent tension,” the letter read. “A strong Israel is an asset to the national security of the United States and brings stability to the Middle East.

“We are concerned that the highly publicized tensions in the relationship will not advance the interests the US and Israel share. Above all, we must remain focused on the threat posed by the Iranian nuclear weapons program to Middle East peace and stability.”

The letter stated that the US’s unswerving commitment to Israel’s security has been essential in forging previous Israeli-Arab peace agreements, “both because it convinced those who sought Israel’s destruction to abandon any such hope and because it gave successive Israeli governments the confidence to take calculated risks for peace.”

The letter’s lead signatories were Eric Cantor (R-VA) and Steny Hoyer (D-MD).  The letter had only circulated for three days last week before garnering 327 signatures, probably the most bipartisan effort seen on Capitol Hill in this session of Congress.  It provides a measure of just how far out of the mainstream the Obama administration has gotten on relations with Israel.

There are currently 431 house members from the two parties:  253 Democrats and 178 Republicans.  That leaves over 100 who did not sign. 

Who are they?  Why is it that, though I look high and low, I cannot find a list of the signers/non-signers.

My strong suspicion is the same as it was for the letter last May:  That, given where the anti-Israel sentiment is, the vast majority of non-signers are Democrats and that this information is being withheld from us. 

I will wait to see if a list of names is published.  Based on last year, I doubt it will be.

This stinks.

Ken Berwitz

I know you've never heard of The Euphoria Notch before, because I just invented the term.  It is the (usually short) period of time after a politician and/or a political party has a major victory of some kind.  Positive reaction jumps upward....and then, usually (though not always) trickles back down.

Here, from www.pollster.com, is every poll taken about the health care legislation since President Obama signed it into law:

Euphoria notch?  What euphoria notch.  Look at those last three polls.  If it existed at all, it lasted all of one day.  This is not what you'd call good news for Democrats. 

No wonder they are so desperately trying to tell you you're a racist, homophobe, misogynist, anti-Semite, etc. etc. ete. if you are against ObamaCare.  What else have they got?

Will it work?  We'll see.  But if I were betting, I'd bet on a resounding no.

Ken Berwitz

About the 3,486th time I've read something that either suggests or specifically states that to disagree with President Obama's policies is to be a racist, I start to wonder if, just maybe, it might be a strategy to shut his critics up.  Just maybe.

Here are the latest examples (and, believe me, there are plenty of others to choose from):

Charles Blow in the New York Times:

A woman (Nancy Pelosi) pushed the health care bill through the House. The bill’s most visible and vocal proponents included a gay man (Barney Frank) and a Jew (Anthony Weiner). And the black man in the White House signed the bill into law. It’s enough to make a good old boy go crazy.

Colbert King in the Washington Post:

The angry faces at Tea Party rallies are eerily familiar. They resemble faces of protesters lining the street at the University of Alabama in 1956 as Autherine Lucy, the school's first

 

Those same jeering faces could be seen gathered around the Arkansas National Guard troopers who blocked nine black children from entering Little Rock's Central High School in 1957.

 

Those were the faces I saw at a David Duke rally in Metairie, La., in 1991: sullen with resentment, wallowing in victimhood, then exploding with yells of excitement as the ex-Klansman and Republican gubernatorial candidate spewed vitriolic white-power rhetoric.

Frank Rich in the New York Times:

The conjunction of a black president and a female speaker of the House — topped off by a wise Latina on the Supreme Court and a powerful gay Congressional committee chairman — would sow fears of disenfranchisement among a dwindling and threatened minority in the country no matter what policies were in play.

Etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. Ad nauseam.  This is what they are selling. Their logic appears to be:

"When you are losing on facts and public opinion is way against you with an election coming up?  Tell 'em they're racists, homophobes, misogynists and anything else you can think of.  Make 'em think that only bad people disagree with the administration. 

 

"Stereotype them every way you know how.  Just like the kkk stereotypes Blacks and the nazi party stereotypes Jews.  Hey, it's worked before, hasn't it?"

Well, here's hoping it doesn't work this time. 

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

UPDATE:  I was just watching Meet The Press and the leftward writer (and plagiarist, let's never forget), Doris Kearns Goodwin connected being against ObamaCare with racism and angry Whites - while Jon Meacham, the editor of increasingly hard-left Newsweek, nodded agreement. 

I rest my case.

Ken Berwitz

Did you know that troop casualties are up dramatically in Afghanistan?  That there are twice the number of fatalities compared to last year, and injuries - often horrible mutilations - suffered by our troops are through the roof?

Did our wonderful "neutral" media tell you about this?  Are you seeing and/or reading feature after feature decrying the troop surge there and what it is doing to our military?  Or the fact that the taliban, at least so far, doesn't seem to be weakening as a result of it?

Well, it's not as if this kind of information is unavailable to the news outlets you rely on.  Excerpted from an Associated Press article:

US troop deaths double in Afghanistan

 

Mar 27, 12:46 PM (ET)

By SEBASTIAN ABBOT

 

KABUL (AP) - The number of U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan has roughly doubled in the first three months of 2010 compared to the same period last year as Washington has added tens of thousands of additional soldiers to reverse the Taliban's momentum.

Those deaths have been accompanied by a dramatic spike in the number of wounded, with injuries more than tripling in the first two months of the year and trending in the same direction based on the latest available data for March.

U.S. officials have warned that casualties are likely to rise even further as the Pentagon completes its deployment of 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan and sets its sights on the Taliban's home base of Kandahar province, where a major operation is expected in the coming months.

"We must steel ourselves, no matter how successful we are on any given day, for harder days yet to come," Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at a briefing last month.

In total, 57 U.S. troops were killed here during the first two months of 2010 compared with 28 in January and February of last year, an increase of more than 100 percent, according to Pentagon figures compiled by The Associated Press. At least 20 American service members have been killed so far in March, an average of about 0.8 per day, compared to 13, or 0.4 per day, a year ago.

Where are our media?  Where are the questions about why we have a troop surge in a place where, other than two or three "cities" (one look at them would explain why I put that word in quotes) there is no territory to secure, just desolation and caves overseen by warlords who answer only to whoever pays them the most or who they fear the most.

When President Bush agreed to a troop surge in Iraq - which, unlike Afghanistan, is a real country with real cities and real assets that can be secured - we never heard the end of it.  In fact, one of the most vocal critics was then-Senator Barack Obama, who assured us not only that would it fail, but that it would make things even worse than they were. 

But how did it turn out?  It turned out that Mr. Bush was right about okaying the troop surge and Mr. Obama was dead wrong. 

So now, as our casualties mount and the taliban remains strong enough to inflict them, I ask again:  Where are our media?

But listen to them squeal like stuck pigs if you call them biased.

Ken Berwitz

Barack Obama appears perfectly willing to live with a nuclear Iran.

But can Israel, which Iran boasts it will "wipe of the face of the earth", do the same?

From today's Jerusalem Post (the bold print is mine):

'Obama resigned to nuclear Iran'

By JPOST.COM STAFF
28/03/2010 05:31

Former US ambassador to the UN John Bolton expressed concern Sunday that Washington was coming to terms with a nuclear Iran.

“I very much worry the Obama administration is willing to accept a nuclear Iran, that's why there's this extraordinary pressure on Israel not to attack in Iran,” Bolton told Army Radio.

The former envoy claimed that this pressure was the focus of last week's meetings in Washington between Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyhau and US officials, including President Barack Obama.

Bolton said that the Obama administration had embraced the view, prevalent in Europe, that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was the key to the resolution of all other conflicts throughout the Middle East, including the Iranian conflict.

He added that the rift in US-Israel relations stemmed from a fundamental difference in the understanding of the Middle East and Israel's role in the Middle East, and is not really about east Jerusalem at all.

Bolton said that the treatment Netanyahu received during his visit "should tell the people of Israel how difficult it's going to be dealing with Washington for the next couple of years."

On Saturday, meanwhile, The New York Times reported that international inspectors and Western intelligence agencies suspect that Teheran is preparing to build more sites in defiance of United Nations demands.

 

 According to the report, half a year after the revelation of a secret Iranian nuclear enrichment site northeast of Qom the UN inspectors assigned to monitor Iran’s nuclear program are now searching for evidence of two such sites, prompted by Israeli assessments as well as by recent comments by a top Iranian official that drew little attention in the West.

The paper said that the inspectors were looking into a mystery about the whereabouts of recently manufactured uranium enrichment equipment.

In an interview with the Iranian Student News Agency, the official, Ali Akbar Salehi, head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, said President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had ordered work to begin soon on two new plants. The plants, he said, “will be built inside mountains,” presumably to protect them from attacks.

“God willing,” Mr. Salehi was quoted as saying, “we may start the construction of two new enrichment sites” in the Iranian new year, which began March 21.

 

One European official noted to the Times that “while we have some evidence,” Iran’s heavy restrictions on where inspectors can travel and the existence of numerous tunneling projects were making the detection of any new enrichment plants especially difficult.

The paper went on to quote American officials as saying that Israel had "pressed the case" with their American counterparts that evidence points to what one senior administration official called “Qom lookalikes.” 

The revelation that inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, now believe that there may be two new sites comes at a crucial moment in the White House’s attempts to impose tough new sanctions against Iran, the Times report added

Don't you love that threat to "impose tough new sanctions against Iran"?  What did the tough old sanctions do, other than give ahmadinejad and the mullahs a good belly laugh.

The Obama administration is playing with fire here.  The UN will not do anything to prevent Iran from its goals, any more than it did anything to stop the genocide in Darfur or to prevent its own troops from raping young girls in the Congo, and other places where they are sent.  The UN is morally, spiritually and ethically dead - and has been for a long time.

That leaves the USA.  If we also decline to do anything, or we do things that are clearly not going to work, what choices do we leave Israel?

And who will we blame if Israel acts to prevent its own annihilation?  Benjamin Netanyahu?  Last week's star of "Guess Who's Not Coming To Dinner"?

I don't think so.

Ken Berwitz

What happens if a company dares to state that ObamaCare will raise its costs?

Does the administration respectfully disagree?  Does it ask why so that it can reconsider parts of the legislation?

Or does it immediately open an inquisition aimed at the company making such a statement?

Here is your answer, courtesy of Bloomberg, via www.businessweek.com:

AT&T, Deere CEOs Called by Waxman to Back Up Health-Bill Costs

March 27, 2010, 7:28 PM EDT

By Viola Gienger

 

March 27 (Bloomberg) -- Representative Henry Waxman called the chief executive officers of AT&T Inc., Verizon Communications Inc., Caterpillar Inc. and Deere & Co. to provide evidence to support costs the companies plan to book related to the new health-care law.

 

Waxman of California, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and subcommittee Chairman Bart Stupak of Michigan released letters they wrote to the executives, saying their plans to record expenses against earnings as a result of the law contradict other estimates. The lawmakers requested the executives appear at hearing Stupak plans on April 21.

 

“The new law is designed to expand coverage and bring down costs, so your assertions are a matter of concern,” Waxman and Stupak, both Democrats, wrote in the letters yesterday. “They also appear to conflict with independent analyses.”

 

AT&T, the biggest U.S. phone company, is among employers that have announced plans to book costs related to the health- care law signed this week by President Barack Obama. The 10- year, $940-billion legislation is intended to cover 32 million uninsured Americans and provide benefits such as restricting premiums and ending the practice of denying coverage for pre- existing conditions.

 

Dallas-based AT&T said in a regulatory filing yesterday it would record $1 billion of costs, the most of any U.S. company so far.

 

AT&T previously received a tax-free benefit from the government to subsidize health-care costs for retirees. Under the new bill, AT&T will no longer be able to deduct that subsidy.

 

Tax Burden

 

“As a result of this legislation, including the additional tax burden, AT&T will be evaluating prospective changes to the active and retiree health-care benefits offered by the company,” the carrier said in the filing.

 

New York-based Verizon, the second-largest U.S. phone company, told employees in a note shortly after the law was signed that the tax will make a drug subsidy less valuable to employers like Verizon and so “may have significant implications for both retirees and employers.”

 

Moline, Illinois-based Deere, the world’s largest maker of farm machinery, said on March 25 that the new health-care law would increase its expenses by $150 million this fiscal year.

 

Peoria, Illinois-based Caterpillar, the world’s largest maker of bulldozers and excavators, expects to record a charge of about $100 million in the first quarter of 2010, reflecting new tax liabilities on retiree drug benefits.

 

No Charge at GE

 

General Electric Co., the world’s biggest maker of jet engines, power-plant turbines and locomotives, said today it doesn’t anticipate taking a charge tied to the health-care law.

 

GE, of Fairfield, Connecticut, doesn’t see any “material effect” from the law, spokeswoman Anne Eisele said today.

Waxman and Stupak said the Congressional Budget Office had reported that average premium costs per person would decrease as much as 3 percent by 2016 for companies insuring more than 50 employees. They also cited what they said was a November estimate by the Business Roundtable, an association of chief executive officers, of reduced health-insurance cost trends.

 

The lawmakers asked the companies to provide documents to the committee supporting their planned charges by April 9.

There's your answer.

Now please note the paragraph I've put in bold print:  Whose concerns?  The operatives in the administration's war room?  Whose independent analyses?  The only one I've seen that looks positive for ObamaCare is from the Congressional Budget Office, which bases its estimates on the assumptions provided by this administration, which means it's a stacked deck from the word "go".

Don't overlook the fact that one of the companies making this claim is Caterpillar, which Mr. Obama featured and heralded to sell his "stimulus package" last year.  Now there's a honeymoon that is definitely over.

And the fact that GE says everything is hunky-dory?  Isn't this the same GE which stands to make billions and billions on the administration's environmental policy; the same GE that, as parent company of NBC, loaded the MSNBC network with hard left hosts who have done little but spout the Obama line on policies, while sneering out condemnations at everything and anything that Republicans say?  Now there's a honeymoon that is not over.

The 2010 elections cannot come fast enough.

And that goes double for 2012.

Ken Berwitz

Speaking of the ObamaCare vote, Nancy Pelosi had this to say:

“No major piece of major social legislation has ever been passed without the vote being partisan"

That so?  Well, here from www.politicalmathblog.com, is a chart of what probably are the three most major pieces of social legislation of the past 50 years until ObamaCare. 

Here are the same graphs with the full vote, yay and nay.

Nancy Pelosi is a liar.

When Nancy Pelosi lies, however, she is secure in the knowledge that our wonderful "neutral" media will look the other way on her behalf.

Media abets her lies, so she feels liberated to lie more and more blatantly.  Why not?  Who's calling her on it?

The 2010 elections can remove this liar as speaker of the house.  They can't come fast enough.

Ken Berwitz

For whatever it's worth, here is what the Rasmussen poll says about public reaction to ObamaCare.  Please pay special attention to the parts I've put in bold print:

55% Favor Repeal of Health Care Bill

Thursday, March 25, 2010

 

Just before the House of Representatives passed sweeping health care legislation last Sunday, 41% of voters nationwide favored the legislation while 54% were opposed. Now that President Obama has signed the legislation into law, most voters want to see it repealed.

 

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey, conducted on the first two nights after the president signed the bill, shows that 55% favor repealing the legislation. Forty-two percent (42%) oppose repeal. Those figures include 46% who Strongly Favor repeal and 35% who Strongly Oppose it.

 

In terms of Election 2010, 52% say they’d vote for a candidate who favors repeal over one who does not. Forty-one percent (41%) would cast their vote for someone who opposes repeal.

 

Not surprisingly, Republicans overwhelmingly favor repeal while most Democrats are opposed. Among those not affiliated with either major party, 59% favor repeal, and 35% are against it.

 

Most senior citizens (59%) also favor repeal. Earlier, voters over 65 had been more opposed to the health care plan than younger adults. Seniors use the health care system more than anyone else.

 

A number of states are already challenging the constitutionality of that requirement in court, and polling data released earlier shows that 49% of voters nationwide would like their state to sue the federal government over the health care bill.

 

Rasmussen Reports will track support for the repeal effort on a weekly basis for as long as it remains a significant issue. The next update will be released Monday morning. 

 

Sixty percent (60%) of likely voters believe the new law will increase the federal budget deficit. Only 19% disagree and say it will not. Twelve percent (12%) think it will have no impact on the deficit.

 

Throughout the legislative debate, advocates of the reform expressed frustration about the fact that voters believe it will increase the deficit. Many, including the president, pointed to Congressional Budget Office projections to argue that the plan will actually reduce the deficit. However, voters are skeptical of the official government projection, and 81% believe the actual cost of the program will be higher than projected.

 

Voters have consistently said that reducing the federal budget deficit is a higher priority than health care reform. They also believe that deficit reduction is the goal Obama is least likely to achieve as president.

 

Overall, 41% of voters believe the new health care legislation will be good for the country, while 49% believe it will be bad for the country.

 

While 64% of Mainstream voters think the health care plan will be bad for the country, 90% of the Political Class see its passage as a good thing.

 

Twenty-six percent (26%) of voters nationwide say the legislation will have a positive impact on them personally, while 43% expect a negative impact. Twenty-five percent (25%) say the massive overhaul of the health care system will have no impact on them personally.

 

A total of 24% believe it will be good for the country and good for them personally. Forty percent (40%) believe it will be bad for the country and bad for them personally.

 

Generally speaking, the partisan and demographic breakdowns have shifted little since passage of the health care bill. Those groups who opposed the bill tend to support repeal and those who supported the bill oppose repeal.

 

The president has enjoyed a bounce in his Job Approval ratings in the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll following passage of the legislation. However, the bounce has come from increased enthusiasm among Democrats rather than increased support from Republicans and unaffiliated voters.

 

While some aspects of the new health care law are popular, most voters oppose the measures required to cover the nearly one trillion dollars in additional spending called for over the next decade. Fifty-six percent (56%) oppose the reductions in Medicare spending, a figure that includes 70% of those over 65.

If these data are correct (and I'm always skeptical of political polling), this is devastating news for the Democratic Party.

The only major segment happy with ObamaCare appears to be Democrats (who might feel this way just because their party finally had a political victory, irrespective of what it was for).  And even that may be short-lived (today's Rasmussen poll shows one-quarter of the positive bounce gone). 

As would be expected, Republicans are vastly against ObamaCare.  But, according to Rasmussen, Independents are emphatically against it too - which should be chilling news for Democratic incumbents in competitive races this year.

Actions have consequences.  A consequence of this country voting in Barack Obama and a lopsidedly Democratic congress is this health care legislation.  And a consequence of this health care legislation may well be a major, even epic, reaction at the polls next November.

We'll see......

Ken Berwitz

Want to know just how badly ObamaCare affects individual states?  Well here, from an unlikely source - the New York Times - is a partial answer.  Please pay special attention to the paragraph I've put in bold print:

Some States Find Burdens in Health Care Law

By MICHAEL LUO

Published: March 26, 2010

Because of the new health care law, Arizona lawmakers must now find a way to maintain insurance coverage for 350,000 children and adults that they slashed just last week to help close a $2.6 billion budget deficit.

Louisiana officials say a reduction in federal money to hospitals that treat the uninsured under the bill could be a death knell for their state-run charity hospital system.

In California, policymakers estimate they will have to come up with an additional $500 million a year to make necessary increases in payments to Medicaid providers.

Across the country, state officials are wading through the minutiae of the health care overhaul to understand just how their governments will be affected. Even with much still to be digested, it is clear the law may be as much of a burden to some state budgets as it is a boon to uninsured consumers.

States with the largest uninsured populations, like Texas and California, might be considered by its backers the biggest winners to emerge from the law, because so many additional residents will have access to health insurance. But because those states are being required to significantly expand their Medicaid programs, they are precisely the ones that will face the biggest financial strains, in many cases magnified by existing budget shortfalls.

“The federal government has to account for states’ inability to sustain our current programs, much less expand,” said Kim Belshé, secretary of California’s Health and Human Services Agency.

In contrast, states like Massachusetts and Wisconsin, which already have extensive health care safety nets, do not expect to spend much more money, while still taking in billions in federal grants.

In Massachusetts, for example, which already has a form of universal coverage, the federal government will wind up taking over from the state a significantly larger share of the costs of Medicaid coverage for adults without children, officials said.

“On balance, it’s definitely a gain,” said JudyAnn Bigby, secretary of the Massachusetts Office of Health and Human Services.

Supporters of the new law have argued that states will benefit from efforts to slow health care inflation and billions of dollars in new federal spending on subsidies for the uninsured and on an array of programs like community health centers.

But even with more federal help, the challenge for states like Alabama, Arkansas and Texas that now offer only limited Medicaid coverage will be substantial. In these states, Medicaid has been mostly restricted to low-income families with children, pregnant women, certain people with disabilities and some elderly. The income cutoffs have also been extremely low.

Beginning in 2014, however, anyone with an income of up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level, or $29,300 for families of four, will be eligible for coverage under Medicaid. For the first three years, the federal government will pick up the entire cost of these new enrollees, but the state share then gradually increases until it reaches 10 percent in 2020.

Texas, which has some of the most restrictive Medicaid eligibility rules in the country for adults, currently covers working parents only if they do not earn more than roughly 20 percent of the federal poverty level. The program does not cover childless adults.

Anne Dunkelberg, associate director of the Center for Public Policy Priorities, a research group in Austin that strongly supported the health care law, estimated that if the legislation went into effect today, an additional one million adults would qualify for Medicaid, at a cost of $370 million a year if Texas were to pay its full 10 percent share.

In addition, Ms. Dunkelberg said, many children who are currently eligible but are not enrolled in Medicaid and the state Children’s Health Insurance Program will emerge and want to join, potentially costing the state several hundred million dollars.

Some states, like Arizona, face an immediate fiscal conundrum because of stipulations in the law that prohibit them from rolling back their existing Medicaid programs before the required expansion takes effect.

About a decade ago, voters in Arizona approved a measure to expand Medicaid to include childless adults whose incomes were at or below the federal poverty limit. As part of an effort to close a $2.6 billion budget gap next year, state officials recently decided to end that program, along with the state’s Children’s Health Insurance Program. Gov. Jan Brewer, a Republican, signed the cuts into law last week.

Now, however, the state must come up with the money to restore the programs, estimated at a billion dollars annually.

“Any flexibility we used to have is gone with the new mandate,” said Tom Betlach, director of the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System, which runs Medicaid.

Because the circumstances of the states are so varied, the challenges facing them under the legislation diverge considerably. In Louisiana, there is particular concern about what the statute will mean for the future of the state’s charity hospital system, which has a long and storied history of treating the poor in the state. The state-run hospitals are heavily dependent on special federal payments to institutions that treat large numbers of the uninsured. The new health care legislation cuts those payments significantly, though some of that could be offset by in the increase in insured patients.

California’s fiscal woes have been particularly devastating and unrelenting. The state is now facing a $20 billion shortfall. Besides the anticipated flood of new enrollees to Medicaid, an equally urgent concern there has to do with increases to the reimbursement rate for Medicaid providers, which are currently among the lowest in the country.

Under the new health care legislation, states will have to raise the Medicaid rates paid to primary-care doctors to the same level the federal government sets under Medicare, the program for the elderly. For the first two years, the federal government will pay the difference. After that, it is left up to the states whether to continue paying the higher rates, which could mean an additional $500 million in costs a year for California, officials said.

But California officials said they also believe they will have to significantly raise rates for other outpatient Medicaid providers to ensure an adequate supply of providers for all the newly insured. They believe this will cost an additional $2 billion a year.

Supporters of the health care overhaul argue that states will wind up getting a huge economic injection from the billions of dollars in new federal money pouring into Medicaid. States could also save money as hospitals that treat the uninsured become less needy, although many of these institutions are also heavily supported by localities.

In the end, supporters say, the ledger ends up in the black for states.

Translation:  ObamaCare is a killer for many states, which will now have to figure out how to overcome its crushing financial burden.

And in Massachusetts?  Don't be fooled by the partisan, pollyanna-ish assessment by Dr. Bigby, an appointee of the state's far-left Governr Deval Patrick (who is in big trouble for re-election).  Click here and read the real story about Massachusetts' health care situation.

But, as the bold-print paragraph shows, its supporters do see a silver lining:  States will be far more dependent on the federal government which has caused this financial crisis.

Can they move the 2010 elections up?  Please?

Ken Berwitz

Innkeeper:  Servant to the poor, butler to the great"

His sarcastic wife:  "Hypocrite and toady and inebriate"

Those lyrics come from Les Miserables' "Master of the House".  I couldn't help but think of them as I read Paul Mirengoff's devastating exposé of what a hypocrite and toady Paul Krugman is.  (I have no idea of whether Mr. Krugman drinks too much, though if I were as big a hypocrite and toady as he is I probably would).

Here is what Paul has to say about Krugman, from www.powerlineblog.com:

Sun Rises In East; Krugman Makes Fool Of Himself

March 26, 2010 Posted by John at 6:41 PM

 

One thing about Paul Krugman, he always gets the memo. You can count on his column in the New York Times to echo the Democratic Party's talking points of the moment, whatever they are. Thus, his current column accuses Republicans of threatening violence against those poor little Democrats. It's a dumb claim, so it suits Krugman perfectly. His "evidence" is lame beyond belief. After referring to "the wave of vandalism and threats aimed at Democratic lawmakers"--no mention of Eric Cantor's office being shot at, death threats against Sarah Palin, etc.--he continues:

 

What has been really striking has been the eliminationist rhetoric of the G.O.P., coming not from some radical fringe but from the party's leaders. John Boehner, the House minority leader, declared that the passage of health reform was "Armageddon."

 

Is that scary, or what? An "Armageddon" is "any great and crucial conflict." I think the debate over health care qualifies, and, judging by their own statements, so do the Democrats. Krugman continues:

The Republican National Committee put out a fund-raising appeal that included a picture of Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House, surrounded by flames, while the committee's chairman declared that it was time to put Ms. Pelosi on "the firing line."

 This is downright funny. Krugman, in his usual dishonest-but-ineffective way, forgets to mention the whole point of the RNC fund-raising appeal, i.e., "Fire Pelosi." Here it is; click to enlarge:

 

CLICK HERE AND SCROLL DOWN FOR IMAGE

 

Now, Paul, let's take this slowly, and try to follow along: "Fire Nancy Pelosi" means to cause her to lose her job as Speaker of the House. That will happen if the Republicans take the majority of the House in November, see? So the flames aren't an incitement to burn Ms. Pelosi alive, they are a pun on the word "fire." Get it? And Steele's reference to putting Pelosi on "the firing line," while perhaps infelicitous, obviously referred to the theme of the campaign: Fire Pelosi, not to assassinating the Speaker of the House. Here is the rest of Krugman's "evidence": 

And Sarah Palin put out a map literally putting Democratic lawmakers in the cross hairs of a rifle sight.

Wow, how violent can you get? Here is the map: 

 

CLICK HERE AND SCROLL DOWN FOR IMAGE

 

"It's time to take a stand." Palin is pushing the envelope of political discourse, all right. It's easy to see how an unbalanced tea partier could take one look at that map and reach for a .30-06. (That's a powerful rifle, Paul.) Just wait until the next time a Republican mentions a "battleground state." They'll have him arrested.

 

You might think I'm kidding, but take a look at the linked column--that is literally all of the evidence that Krugman cites for the proposition that Republican leaders are systematically inciting violence. He continues: 

All of this goes far beyond politics as usual. Democrats had a lot of harsh things to say about former President George W. Bush -- but you'll search in vain for anything comparably menacing, anything that even hinted at an appeal to violence, from members of Congress, let alone senior party officials. 

Well, let's see. How about the cover of this book, which depicts President Bush as Frankenstein's monster and Dick Cheney as Hitler? Disgusting! Whose book is it? Oh, yeah...Krugman's:

 

CLICK HERE AND SCROLL DOWN FOR IMAGE

 

And, as many have noted, Krugman also wrote--just last December!--"A message to progressives: By all means, hang Senator Joe Lieberman in effigy." I think that Krugman "hinted at an appeal to violence" far more clearly, to put it mildly, than any of the Republicans whose innocuous words he quoted.

 

Many people believe that Krugman doesn't actually write the columns that appear under his name in the Times, because they are so stupid. I don't know. For that to be a credible theory, he must have once written something intelligent. If he ever has, I missed it.

So what are we think of Paul Krugman's column? 

To rephrase the innkeeper's wife's assessment of her husband's sexual endowment: 

"He says he's quite a writer, but there's not much there"

Ken Berwitz

TSA.  The Transportation Security Administration.  Sounds pretty important, doesn't it? 

Well it is.  And a very talented, dedicated, competent person should be running it. 

Would you like to know who has been running the TSA since Barack Obama took office as President?  Ok, sure.  That peson's name is..............

The reason you don't see a name, is because there isn't one.  In over a year, Mr. Obama has not provided our country with a head of this most important area of national security.  Let's talk about why.

First off, it was 8 months before he even nominated one.  Great going, Mr. President.

Then the person he nominated after all that time, Erroll Southers, had a record so unacceptable that it was a gross embarrassment for him to even have been considered.  Among Southers' "issues" were that, after he and his wife separated, he illegally used his access to the FBI database to collect information on her new boyfriend.  He also was agreeable to TSA employees being unionized (how do you feel about a strike-threat by a security arm of the government?).  And he seemed to share Barack Obama's distaste for Israel as well. 

Here is Southers' explanation of the al qaeda threat:

"Due to connectivity that we have with countries such as Israel, France -- countries that are seen by groups, by al Qaeda, as being infidels or anti-Islamic -- by the true nature of our alliance with them means that we are subject to being attacked as well."  I do, think, however, it deserves to, perhaps have some parity with global warming, with education, with the economy, but national security is always going to supersede everything else..."

There you go.  al qaeda is a problem because of Israel and France. 

What does that mean?  Was Southers trying to tell us that if we'd only toss those two countries under the bus al qaeda would like us and be friendly, tra la, tra la?  It sure looks that way.  (Sadly, the Obama administration's behavior towards Israel and France suggests at least some level of agreement).

And how nice that, after equating national security with global warming, education and the economy, Southers tosses in an afterthought that security is the superseding issue.  Well, if so, why did he say the other three "perhaps have some parity"?  Did this guy know what he was saying from one minute to the next?

Ok, exit Southers.  Now a year has gone by and still no one running TSA.  So Mr. Obama nominated Robert Harding. 

On paper Harding was a superb choice, having spent almost 35 years in intelligence.  In the army, Harding rose to the rank of Major General, and was Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency.  After his army career he ran Harding Security Associates, Inc.  In short, he looked like a grand slam home run.

But when his company was audited following the completion of a $50 million contract for work in Iraq, it turned out that it was collecting more money for those services than it should have.  Specifically, about $6 million was charged for termination costs at the end of the contract -- $2.4 million of which was determined to be above and beyond acceptable charges.

To his credit, Mr. Harding admitted the audit had merit and took personal responsibility for this multi-million dollar ripoff.  That was certainly the honorable thing to do.  But it doesn't change the fact that this money was collected and accepted.

In this regard, I think of Mr. Harding roughly the way I think of Bernard Kerik, New York's police commissioner during 9/11 who was tapped to be our Homeland Security Chief during the Bush administration.  He was highly competent at what he did, but liked extra money too.  Now he languishes in a jail (I have no idea if that will be Harding's fate as well).

The bottom line?  Over 14 months into the Obama administration, and we still do not have anyone running a major security arm of the United States which is responsible, among other things, for airport safety. 

WHEN are we getting someone to head TSA?  Ever? 

Ken Berwitz

Did General David Petraeus essentially sell Israel down the river, as so many blogs, and minstream media articles, suggested over this past week?

Nope.  It was all a hot steamy load. 

And who is my source for this revelation?  Well, how's David Petraeus?

From Philip Klein at American Spectator:

Petraeus Sets the Record Straight on Israel

By Philip Klein on 3.25.10 @ 6:09AM

Earlier this month, a posting on the Foreign Policy website caused a firestorm by reporting that in January, Gen. David Petraeus “sent a briefing team to the Pentagon with a stark warning: America's relationship with Israel is important, but not as important as the lives of America's soldiers.”

According to the dispatch by Mark Perry (an advocate of talks with terrorist groups), Petraeus requested that the West Bank and Gaza be shifted to his Central Command (from European Command) so that the U.S. military could “be perceived by Arab leaders as engaged  in the region's most troublesome conflict.”

The report, which was presented as context for the recent blowup between the Obama administration and Israel, was quickly seized on by critics of Israel as confirmation of their view that U.S. support for Israel hinders America’s national security interests.

Soon, other blogs followed up by reporting that Petraeus echoed this sentiment in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee. For instance, in a post titled, “Petraeus Makes His Move,” Talking Points Memo’s Josh Marshall wrote, “Now we have (Petraeus) saying it in his own words.”

But on Wednesday, Petraeus poured cold water on the controversy, explaining in detail why “all three items...were wrong, frankly.”

Petraeus made the remarks in response to a question by TAS at a press briefing held prior to a scheduled appearance St. Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire. (Watch video of the full exchange here.)

To start with, Petraeus said he never requested to have the West Bank and Gaza added to his responsibilities as leader of the military’s Central Command. He said that “every year or so” commanders submit a plan that takes a geographic look at their areas of responsibility, and then there’s discussion about whether it would make sense to redraw the boundaries. For instance, he said, last time Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Djibouti were shifted to the Africa Command.

“Typically, there’s a question of should we ask to have Israel and Palestinian territories included, because what goes on there is obviously of enormous interest to the rest of the Central Command area, which is the bulk of the Arab world,” Petraeus said. However, he emphasized that it was “flat wrong” to claim he actually requested responsibility for the areas.

He said the report was “based on ‘bad gouges,’ as a sailor would say -- bad information.”

He also refuted the claim that he had sent a request to the White House, saying he “very rarely” sends things to the President, and only does so if he’s specifically asked.

In addition, he explained that the quote that bloggers attributed to his Senate testimony was actually plucked out of context from a report that Central Command had sent the Armed Services committee.

“There’s a 56-page document that we submitted that has a statement in it that describes various factors that influence the strategic context in which we operate and among those we listed the Mideast peace process,” he said. “We noted in there that there was a perception at times that America sides with Israel and so forth. And I mean, that is a perception. It is there. I don’t think that’s disputable. But I think people inferred from what that said and then repeated it a couple of times and bloggers picked it up and spun it. And I think that has been unhelpful, frankly.”

He also noted that there were plenty of other important factors that were mentioned in the report, including “a whole bunch of extremist organizations, some of which by the way deny Israel’s right to exist. There’s a country that has a nuclear program who denies that the Holocaust took place.”

Petraeus continued, “So we have all the factors in there, but this is just one, and it was pulled out of this 56-page document, which was not what I read to the Senate at all.”

Don't hang by your thumbs waiting for the voluminous number of media and blogosphere venues which posted this BS to retract.  Because if you do, you'll have some pretty sore thumbs.

One other thing:  When Philip Klein describes Mark Perry as an advocate of talks with terrorist groups, he is being far too kind.  Here is a bit more of Perry's sorry history from Laura Rozen's article of July 14, 2006 at American Prospect:

Mark Perry is co-director of the Conflicts Forum, a Beirut-based nongovernmental organization that has, over the past three years, put former senior American and British policy-makers and intelligence officials in talks with Hezbollah and other militant political Islamic groups in Lebanon. He formerly worked as an adviser to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.....

Now there's a neutral source for you.....

Ken Berwitz

Ezra Klein, usually a reliably-leftward columnist for the Washington Post, has realized there is an unbelievably stupid loophole in  ObamaCare -- one that we talked about here weeks ago.  I'll let him tell you about it (the bold print is mine):

How does the individual mandate work?

So long as legal challenges to the individual mandate are in the news, we might as well be clear about what the mandate is, and how it works.

The individual mandate is a requirement that all individuals who can afford health-care insurance purchase some minimally comprehensive policy. For the purposes of the law, "individuals who can afford health-care insurance" is defined as people for whom the minimum policy will not cost more than 8 percent of their monthly income, and who make more than the poverty line. So if coverage would cost more than 8 percent of your monthly income, or you're making very little, you're not on the hook to buy insurance (and, because of other provisions in the law, you're getting subsidies that make insurance virtually costless anyway).

Most people will never notice the mandate, as they get insurance through their employer and that's good enough for the government. But of those who aren't exempt and aren't insured, the choice will be this: Purchase insurance or pay a small fine. In 2016, the first year the fine is fully in place, it will be $695 a year or 2.5 percent of income, whichever is higher. That makes the mandate progressive.

And what happens if you don't buy insurance and you don't pay the penalty? Well, not much. The law specifically says that no criminal action or liens can be imposed on people who don't pay the fine. If this actually leads to a world in which large numbers of people don't buy insurance and tell the IRS to stuff it, you could see that change. But for now, the penalties are low and the enforcement is non-existent.

The theory behind the mandate is simple: It's there to protect against an insurance death spiral. Now that insurers can't discriminate based on preexisting conditions, it would be entirely possible for people to forgo insurance until, well, they develop a medical condition. In that world, the bulk of the people buying insurance on the exchanges are sick, and that makes the average premiums terrifically expensive. The mandate is there to bring healthy people into the pool, which keeps average costs down and also ensures that people aren't riding free on the system by letting society pay when they get hit by a bus.

The irony of the mandate is that it's been presented as a terribly onerous tax on decent, hardworking people who don't want to purchase insurance. In reality, it's the best deal in the bill: A cynical consumer would be smart to pay the modest penalty rather than pay thousands of dollars a year for insurance. In the current system, that's a bad idea because insurers won't let them buy insurance if they get sick later. In the reformed system, there's no consequence for that behavior. You could pay the penalty for five years and then buy insurance the day you felt a lump.

Luckily, consumers aren't usually that cynical, and the experience of places such as Massachusetts suggests that individual mandates encourage people to buy insurance even when it might make sense for people to simply pay the penalty. But for all the furor over the individual mandate, the danger in the bill is much more that it is too weak and too good a deal than that it is too strong and too punitive a tax.

Ezra was doing beautifully until that last bold-print phrase.  And, in truth, he did beautifully there too because, though it is ridiculouslky naive, at least it made me howl with laughter. 

If given a choice of paying thousands of dollars for insurance each year, or paying a far less expensive yearly fine until/unless costly medical care is needed, what do you think most people will do?  What will you do?

This legislation is an atrocity.  And it is end-arounds like this that make it a complete laughingstock to boot.

If the current congress had even a small degree of concern about the quality of this legislation, ObamaCare would be scrapped today and a new bill would be written with a lot less partisanship and a lot more common sense.

Which is precisely why it will never happen.

Ken Berwitz

Here is the genuinely bizarre report from MSNBC:

SEOUL - A South Korean naval ship sank Friday night after an explosion tore a hole in the hull, but officials played down earlier suggestions that it may have been the result of an attack by the North.

U.S. officials told NBC News there was no indication that the boat was attacked, or that the North was involved in any way.

"It is not clear whether North Korea was involved," Presidential Blue House spokeswoman Kim Eun-hye told Reuters.

Staff in Seoul also said it could not conclude that the reclusive North was behind the sinking of the military vessel Cheonan off the coast of South Korean-controlled Baengnyeong Island.

An official with the Joint Chiefs of Staff said early Saturday that the 1,200-ton ship sank about four hours after it began taking on water. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said at least 58 of the 104 crew members have been rescued.

Do you find this story as bizarre as I do?

It says that, according to US officials, there was no indication the boat was attacked or that the North was involved in any way. 

But then, in the next sentence, a South Korean spokesperson says "it is not clear" whether North Korea was involved, which means the answer is in doubt. 

And the next sentence after that says that staff in Seoul "could not conclude" that North Korea attacked the ship, which means they don't know one way of the other.

Tell me:  How does the US know more about this than the South Koreans?  Based on what, other than wishful thinking?

Personally, I hope the US officials are right.  Because if they aren't we may be about to see a grotesquely bloody war that could quickly draw other countries into it. 

Keep  your fingers crossed.  This is no joke.

Ken Berwitz

Michelle Malkin has written a superb, extensively referenced column on the vast gulf between what tea partiers are accused of and what actually happened.  This is must-reading for anyone who gives even the smallest damn about truth (which probably means the Today Show and its parent company, NBC/Universal, will shun it like Dracula shuns a cross):

How the Left fakes the hate: A primer

By Michelle Malkin  •  March 26, 2010 10:40 AM

I’m still on semi-vacation, but the Left never takes a break from falsely accusing the Right of fomenting hatred and violence through political speech. The MSM never takes a break from whitewashing leftist intolerance, death threats, and extremism — and engaging in selective reporting (or rather, non-reporting) of the long history of leftists’ manufacturing of hatred for political gain. My syndicated column fills in the missing context. In related developments, Glenn Reynolds takes a look at a new dubious report of rock-throwing. Erick Erickson shreds Josh Marshall’s specious incitement accusations. Patterico reports on the latest Twitter death threats against the Palin family. (Here’s a reminder about the one a Toronto Star columnist posted about me, which was laughed off by her editor and ignored by her colleagues). Here’s Mary Katharine Ham’s reminder that 7 of the 10 violent incidents during the summer town hall protests were brought to you by Obama-bots and union thugs. And in case you need a quick refresher on the routine liberal ugliness that will never be decried by the civility police, see here here here here here here here here here here here here here here here here here here here. For starters. See also: Unhinged.

 

How the Left fakes the hate: A primer
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2010

If you can’t stand the heat, manufacture a hate crime epidemic.

After years of covering racial hoaxes on college campuses and victim sob stories in the public arena, I’ve encountered countless opportunists who live by that demented mindset. At best, the fakers are desperately seeking 15 minutes of infamy. At worst, their aim is the criminalization of political dissent.

Upon decimating the deliberative process to hand President Obama a health care “reform” victory, unpopular Beltway Democrats and their media water-carriers now claim there’s a Tea Party epidemic of racism, harassment, and violence against them. On Thursday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi issued a tepid, obligatory statement against smearing all conservatives as national security threats. But her lieutenants had already emptied their tar buckets. Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chairman Chris Van Hollen blamed Republican leaders of “stoking the flames.” Democrat House Whip James Clyburn accused the GOP of “aiding and abetting” what he called “terrorism.”

Yet, the claims that Tea Party activists shouted “nigger” at black House Democrats remain uncorroborated. The coffin reportedly left outside Missouri Democrat Rep. Russ Carnahan’s home was used in a prayer vigil by pro-life activists in St. Louis protesting the phony Demcare abortion funding ban in President Obama’s deal-cutting executive order. Videotape of a supposed intentional spitting incident targeting Missouri Democrat Rep. Emanuel Cleaver at the Capitol shows no such thing. Cleaver himself backed off the claim a few days later. He described his heckler to the Washington Post in more passive terms as “the man who allowed his saliva to hit my face.” Slovenliness = terrorism!

The FBI is now investigating the most serious allegation – that Tea Party activists in Virginia are somehow responsible for a cut gas line at the home of Democrat Rep. Tom Perriello’s brother. But instead of waiting for the outcome of that probe, liberal pundits have enshrined the claim as conclusive evidence of the Tea Party reign of terror.

Need more reasons to treat the latest Democrat hysteria with a grain of salt the size of their gargantuan health care bill? Remember:

*In November 2009, Kentucky Census worker Bill Sparkman was found dead in a secluded rural cemetery with the word “Fed” scrawled on his chest with a rope around his neck. The Atlantic Monthly, the Huffington Post, and liberal media hosts stampeded over themselves to blame Fox News, conservative blogs, Republicans, and right-wing radio. Federal, state, and local authorities discovered that Sparkman had killed himself and deliberately concocted a hate crime hoax as part of an insurance scam to benefit his surviving son.

*In mid-October 2008, news outlets from Scranton, Pa., to ABC News, to the Associated Press and MSNBC reported that someone at a Sarah Palin rally shouted “Kill him” when Barack Obama’s name was mentioned. In fact, the Secret Service (which was at the event in full force) couldn’t find a single person to corroborate the story – other than the local reporter for the Scranton Times-Tribune who made an international incident out of the claim. Agent Bill Slavoski “said he was in the audience, along with an undisclosed number of additional secret service agents and other law enforcement officers and not one heard the comment,” the paper reported in a red-faced follow-up. Maybe the shouter is hiding with Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman’s real killer.

*In late October 2008, a gaggle of liberal blogs spread the rumor that a Republican supporter of vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s had shouted that Barack Obama was “a nigger” during a campaign rally in Iowa. Video and first-hand accounts showed that the protester did not shout “he’s a nigger,” but “he’s a redistributor.” A lefty activist at the “progressive” Daily Kos blog confirmed the truth – but to this day, the crisis-manufacturing smear lies uncorrected and unretracted across the Internet.

*In September 2009, supporters of Colorado Democrat Rep. John Salazar falsely accused a town hall protester of hurling a death threat at the congressman. Liberal blogs again disseminated the angry Tea Party mob narrative. A week later, the local press quietly reported that Grand Junction police had investigated the incident – and determined the claim was “unfounded.” A police spokeswoman revealed that “[p]eople who witnessed the interaction between the man who made the complaint and the suspect confirmed they never heard any direct threats made regarding Congressman Salazar; the witnesses included a Grand Junction cop “in close proximity when the interaction took place.”

 *In late August 2009, as lawmakers faced citizen revolts at health care town halls nationwide, the Colorado Democratic Party decried a vandalism attack at its Denver headquarters. A hammer-wielding thug smashed 11 windows and caused $11,000 in property damage. The perpetrator, Maurice Schwenkler, turned out to be a far Left nutball/transgender activist/single-payer anarchist who had worked for a SEIU-tied 527 group and canvassed for a Democrat candidate. Nevertheless, State Democrat Party chair Pat Waak continued to blame “people opposed to health care” for the attack.

Then, as now, being a Democrat Party official means never having to say you’re sorry for smearing conservative dissent.

There's the reality check. 

Now grow old waiting for our wonderful "neutral" media to reverse field and talk honestly about what has happened.

Ken Berwitz

I wonder how many Black citizens would support a President with this record....if he were not a Black President.

From Donald Lambro, writing at www.townhall.com (the bold print is mine):

For Blacks, Jobless Rate Brings Desperation

by Donald Lambro

WASHINGTON -- The harsh economic reality for black Americans and their national leaders here is that black unemployment is worsening under the policies of the first black president.

The sadder political reality is that these leaders, frustrated that blacks have the highest jobless rate among all other Americans, are going easy on President Obama, with polls showing virtually no decline in black support for him, at least not yet.

Even more depressing, black leaders are still calling for more of the same old economic bromides to deal with black unemployment, unwilling to break with leftist Democratic policies that have made things worse for their own people.

While the national unemployment rate for all Americans is at nearly 10 percent (17 percent if you count people who have given up looking for jobs or work only part time), the black jobless rate stands at 15.8 percent and a lot higher than that in states such as Michigan, New York and California.

Jobless statistics in key sectors of the black population are off the charts for younger blacks. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, more than half of black males between the ages of 16 and 19 are unemployed.

If George W. Bush -- or any Republican, for that matter -- were still in the White House, black leaders would be pounding the White House for their failure to create more jobs. The nightly news programs would be running nonstop stories about inner-city unemployment and the bleak employment picture among minorities.

But as the jobless numbers worsened in black communities as well as across the country, the complaints among black leaders in Congress were few and far between or at least muted.

A recent front-page headline over a Washington Post story about black unemployment read, "Black Caucus frustrated but reluctant to say so," with the subhead that read, "Lawmakers think Obama should be doing more for African Americans, but they won't criticize him."

But as the situation grows more desperate among black Americans, who are beginning to see little or no evidence that they are benefiting from the nearly $1 trillion the president is spending on the jobs programs he has signed into law, black leaders are beginning to speak up. The first faint glimmers of political unrest are beginning to be seen and heard.

Increasingly disgruntled Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) leaders are now saying that White House officials have taken them for granted, believing that they would not publicly criticize one of their own.

Black leaders admit that they held their tongues and kept quiet in public, despite their frustrations. But as the complaints grew back home about the dismal economic environment blacks face, the feedback is becoming a bit more testy and more critical.

"We concluded they were just kind of listening to us and that then they would go back (to their offices) and conclude that we would do nothing," Missouri Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, the CBC's vice chairman, told the Post's Michael Leahy. "Because they had concluded there's a black president in the White House and that, to some degree, the Black Caucus, you know, was constrained in expressing its desires. After a while, we said, 'Hey, we see what's going on and it's nothing.'"

Black leaders met privately with Obama earlier this month, but thus far they remain in line with his economic policies, more big-spending jobs bills, higher taxes to pay for them and an increased minimum wage that at $7.25 an hour has priced younger blacks out of the workforce.

And state minimum-wage laws are pushing the hourly wage higher to $8 or more in places such as California, Illinois and Massachusetts, where it is a job killer.

Raising the minimum wage was one of Obama's first economic moves and, to a large degree, is responsible for reducing the number of jobs for unskilled, unemployed blacks who are disproportionately high-school dropouts. As Democrats and Obama have pushed the minimum wage ever higher, entry-level jobs for the unskilled have fallen sharply and black unemployment has grown exponentially.

While Obama spends his time bashing the big banks and the insurance companies and business, the entry-level jobs these black Americans are desperately seeking have disappeared.

Black leaders last week were pushing for more spending on summer youth jobs, government training programs and public-works projects when they should be calling for a lower minimum wage, or a youth differential wage to make them employable again.

When black leaders came out of the White House following their one-hour meeting earlier this month, California Rep. Barbara Lee, who heads the CBC, said, "We talked about the desperation that we're feeling in our communities throughout the country."

That desperation is only going to get worse as long as Barack Obama and black leaders continue to pursue the same old tax-and-spend policies to grow government instead of policies that will grow the private economy.

For many years, Democrats have taken the Black vote for granted -- understandable, given that, come hell or high water, over 90% of Blacks vote Democrat.  So why would Democratic President Barack Obama operate any differently? 

Do you think that the fact he is Black means he'll worry about this?  Think again.

This is the President who turned his back on motivated Black students in Washington DC, allowing the hugely successful school voucher program to die so he'd retain support from the teachers' unions.  That is because there are a lot more votes at stake among teachers' unions than there are among families of the educationally motivated Black children he is screwing in Washington DC.  So why would anyone expect him to give a damn about Black unemployment either? 

Poor education and high unemployment among the Black population?  That's not something to address legislatively, it's just something to make speeches about, complete with a few clever sound bites which generate wildly cheering responses for the nightly news shows. 

And the so-called Black "leadership"?  Read those comments again.  What are they saying other than that "we're very disappointed but we're not going to say or do much about it."?

Bottom line:  Black citizens - especially young, unskilled Blacks - are being left out of the equation,;  doomed at the starting gate.

The Obama administration's message to them?  "Bye bye, good luck....and don't forget to vote Democrat next November, right?"

The saddest part is that a vast majority probably will.

Ken Berwitz

From CNN we get this:

Washington (CNN) -- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid mistakenly called out "no" Thursday when asked for his vote on the health care reconciliation bill, setting the chamber howling with laughter.

 

Reid voted the wrong way when the clerk called for his vote, realized his error and quickly changed his vote to "yes."

 

"He did it again," someone said amid laughter.

 

Reid, who spent months persuading fellow senators to vote "yes" on President Obama's top domestic priority, made the same mistake December 24 when voting on the original health care bill.

Poor guy.  He must have had a senior moment and thought the bill was for his own health care, not what he's inflicting on us.

That would certainly explain the "no" vote.

Ken Berwitz

This superb analysis by John Hinderaker (www.powerlineblog.com) demonstrates with crystal clarity what Israel is up against from a media that, either through ideology, fear of writing the truth or a combination of both, does not even try to present the full story:

The Moral High Ground

March 25, 2010 Posted by John at 9:58 PM

 

It is often said that press coverage of the Arab-Israeli conflict is biased against Israel. That's true, but it doesn't go far enough. Sometimes, it borders on insane.

 

Consider this specimen, from the world's most influential news agency, the Associated Press. The AP's bureau chief for Israel and the Palestinian territories, Steven Gutkin, wrote it with help from correspondent Mohammed Daraghmeh, reporting from Ramallah. This is an "analysis" piece, which means in AP jargon that its reporters are free to say what they really think. (Actually, they tend to do that anyway, but that's another story.)

 

The article addresses the controversy over Israel's proposed construction of homes for its citizens in Jerusalem. This is how the AP begins:

 

Following a seemingly chilly reception at the White House, Benjamin Netanyahu is learning the hard way that he can't have it all.

That greedy Netanyahu! He foolishly thought that he could "have it all"--Jews could live in East Jerusalem, the millenia-old center of Jewish life, and not be murdered by terrorists! The Obama administration evidently explained how unreasonable it is to expect to "have it all."

 

This is the stark challenge faced by Netanyahu, and Israel, as framed by the AP:

With Israel's international standing in tatters and its relationship with Washington at a low point, Netanyahu's moment of truth appears close. Will he stick to his hawkish roots or conclude, as his two predecessors Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert did, that occupying captured lands and their large Arab populations imperils Israel's future as a Jewish state?

I think it is actually the genocidal fanaticism of its enemies that threatens Israel's future as any kind of state. Israel would be delighted, I'm sure, not to occupy anything, but in the case of Gaza that didn't work out well--a fact on which the AP ventures no comment.

 

A central liberal delusion holds that if only Israel didn't exist--or comported itself in accordance with Arab demands, pretty much the same thing--the region's problems would largely disappear. There is no evidence for this proposition and a great deal of evidence against it, but liberals would rather believe a proposition that is obviously false than face up to the unhappy reality. So the AP sings the liberal chorus:

Both [Hillary] Clinton and Gen. David Petraeus said that lack of progress toward solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict impedes other U.S. goals around the world and fuels extremism.

For what it's worth, that overstates what Petraeus actually said. The AP continues:

Pressure to compromise can only increase if that idea gains steam along with rising international impatience with Israel, most recently illustrated by Tuesday's extraordinary decision by Britain to expel an Israeli diplomat over the alleged use of forged British passports in a plot to slay a Hamas operative in Dubai in January.

The Dubai incident is an interesting one about which we have written quite a bit. I don't believe the true story of that event has yet come to light, but, worst case, the Israelis killed a major terrorist. Just like we do with drones every couple of days in Afghanistan and Pakistan. I will say, though, that it's great to see the world's powers taking passports so seriously. Does this mean we can start enforcing our immigration laws?

In what seemed like a veiled reference to Petraeus' and Clinton's suggestion, Netanyahu told the same pro-Israel convention in Washington this week that anti-Semitism, in its most "pernicious" form, "argues that if only Israel did not exist, many of the world's problems would go away."

I think that is exactly right. If Israel should ever cease to exist, much of the world will be convinced that it was in a good cause. But the AP seems to regard Netanyahu's view (and mine) as self-refuting. The AP next turns to an Israeli to reinforce its anti-Netanyahu theme:

Alon Liel, former director general of Israel's Foreign Ministry, described what he called an Israeli "bubble" where the prevailing view is "let's go on settling in Jerusalem, the world is against us, the Palestinians will always be our enemy." Netanyahu, he said, is "the leader of the bubble."

 

On the other side, Liel said, are Israelis "who realize that this story cannot go on, that there is an international community, there is a United States, there is a world public opinion and there is a U.N. -- and we have to be part of it and not live under siege ... as a pariah state."

In other words, Israel must give in to those who hope that she will cease to exist. But who is Alon Liel, the AP's resident Israeli expert? He is, among other things, the head of the Israel-Syria Peace Society. Not too promising; sort of like the Israeli Ramsey Clark. Liel explains his political loyalty here:

[Asharq Al-Awsat] Do you trust President Bashar al-Assad and believe in his sincerity in proposing a peace initiative with Israel?

 

[Liel] Yes, I trust him and believe him. He wants peace and prosperity for his people. I know that he has opponents in Syria, but he is strongly maintaining his course.

It is safe to say that an Israeli who "trusts" and "believes in" Assad is not exactly mainstream. But he fits the Associated Press's political agenda very well.

 

We are only now getting to the dark heart of the AP's attack on Israel:

No Israeli prime minister has even considered halting Jewish construction in east Jerusalem since Israel captured that part of the city in 1967, and the Palestinians readily sat down with Olmert for intensive peace talks even as he pressed ahead with settlements -- something they are now refusing to do with Netanyahu.
So what has changed?

Not to be pedantic here, but the AP has just told us that Israel's position has remained consistent, while the Palestinians' approach has changed. Doesn't that pretty much destroy the whole point of the AP's "analysis" piece? At a minimum, shouldn't we look for the source of that change in Palestine, not Israel? Don't be silly--that's much too logical for the Associated Press:

Palestinians tend to feel that peace is simply not possible with Netanyahu.

That's a weird sentence, actually. Has Netanyahu done something to disturb the peace? No. On the contrary, the AP specifically notes that "he has done more to ease life for Palestinians than his immediate predecessors, boosting the economy by taking down dozens of roadblocks and significantly slowing settlement construction in the West Bank." So we are left with this: in the Middle East, "peace" is a term of art which means surrender by Israel.

 

What actually explains the Palestinians' aggressiveness is that Islamic radicals believe things are going their way: Iran will soon be a nuclear power; the United States is led by a pathetic administration; the "international community," which means Europe, mostly, is more than ever on their side. Which brings us, finally, to the real reason for this post:

The row over east Jerusalem settlements has been a public relations boon for the Palestinians. However, they relinquished some of the moral high ground in recent days through a decision to rename a major West Bank square after a female militant who killed dozens of civilians in a notorious 1978 bus hijacking.

Contemplate that assertion for a moment: the Palestinians hold the "moral high ground." Why? Because Jews have the temerity to contemplate building homes in Jerusalem. Of course, Arabs build homes in Jerusalem all the time, and no one thinks anything of it. That's different, of course, and doesn't deprive Arabs of the "moral high ground." Nor does the fact that Israel's enemies pretty much unanimously yearn for, and try to bring about, genocide deprive them of the "moral high ground." It is only the unfortunate timing of the Palestinians' naming a landmark in honor of a mass murderer at the very moment when the AP and the world's establishment thought they had Israel on the run that threatens the Palestinians' "moral high ground."

 

As I said, this isn't just biased, it is insane.

No further comment from me.  Thank you Mr. Hinderaker:  I couldn't have said it better.

Ken Berwitz

The Today Show was in rare (ok, maybe not so rare) form this morning.  It did a story on the threats, and claims of violence, against members of congress that was so biased that I am watching the segment again (on the show's web site ) to accurately report the full measure of it's blatant one-sidedness.

After Meredith Viera's introduction, Kelly O'Donnell reports that about 10 members of the house have come forward to talk about threats made against them. 

I know that at least two house members who came forward are Republicans (Eric Cantor and Jean Schmidt).  But the very next thing we see is Democrat house majority leader Steny Hoyer (the guy who lied to us about congress getting the same health care as what they're saddling us with) talking only about Democrats who have been threatened.

This entire segment is 3:54 long.  Hoyer's comments start at about :50, leaving roughly 3 full minutes.  But from :50 to about 2:20 (half the remaining segment) there is nothing but a succession of Democrats talking about threats directed at them.

Then comes the requisite attack on Sarah Palin (sometimes I wonder if they object to the way she poops in the morning;  they object to everything else) who said on her web site that Republicans, having lost the house vote, should not retreat, they should reload - which obviously means they should get past this defeat and continue the political attack on Democrats.

Democrats and Republicans talk about attacks, battleground states, etc. all the time.  It is nothing more than standard political discourse.  But Today inserted Ms. Palin's comment in there anyway - presumably to convince some of its more gullible viewers she said something unusual, and possibly called ObamaCare opponents to violence.  Nice.   (NOTE:  PLEASE READ THE UPDATE BELOW)

Now we're at 2:38.  And the Democratics-as-sole-victims tour continues, with Steny Hoyer firing his second salvo (gee, I guess I'm for violence too).

At the 2:52 mark, and after 2 full minutes of nothing but the Democratic side, we get to see several Republicans.  We see John McCain - but we don't hear him.  We see Mitch McConnell - but we don't hear him.  And, finally, at 2:57, we not only see house minority leader John Boehner, we hear him too.  

Interestingly, Boehner's comments were taken from a Fox News broadcast; not from Today, which presumably would have used its own footage if the show had bothered to ask his opinion. 

And even more interestingly, the only thing we hear from Boehner is that, yes, people are very angry at Democrats and that violence is wrong.  This seems to imply that he agrees over-the-top Republicans/tea partiers/etc. are solely responsible for the phone threats and violence. 

Does he?  Or does Mr. Boehner at least suspect some of this sudden activity might be the work of plants, who make the calls so that one-sided media can then pick up the cudgel and blame Republicans/consdervatives/tea-partiers/the right generally?  (Do you?)  The use of plants to make the other side look bad is an old tactic that has been used many times over many years.  And no one knows whether or not it is being used here.  But there is no indication at all of this possibility on the Today show.  Why not?

Now we're at 3:15.  And we still have not heard anything but the Democratic side and a Republican comment, extracted from a longer statement, which could be taken to mean that Democrats have a point. 

Now there are a few visuals of angry tea-partiers (presumably to bolster the premise that they may have been behind this).  And, at long last (3:20 of the report) we hear a Republican talking about his party's side of things. 

But we don't hear about the violence and threats aimed at Republicans.  We only hear Judd Gregg saying "This bill is fundamentally flawed.  It needs to be repealed and it needs to be replaced"  The exclusivity of Democratic victimhood remains 100% intact.

The remaining time is spent on O'Donnell's wrap-up, during which she (correctly) states that Republicans want changes but they probably won't get them. 

That's it.  That's the entire segment.  It ends without viewers having any idea at all that both parties received threats.

If you want to see/hear this segment for yourself, just click here, then click on the segment starting at 7:02 (yes, this was, of course the lead story).  See/hear for yourself that what I've just said is entirely accurate.

The most amazing part of all this?  That they then wonder why people call them biased.......

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

UPDATE:  Shortly after posting this blog I received an email from Democratic operative, and consummate hatchetman, Paul Begala.  Not surprisingly, it was a vicious attack on Republicans and "the right".  But I thought you might be interested in how it ended:

Do we stand with President Obama and his progressive vision? Or do we let crazy conservatives destroy everything?

Here's the only acceptable answer: We fight.

So the opposition to ObamaCare is nothing but a bunch of "crazy" conservatives and the only acceptable thing to do is "fight". 

FIGHT?  As in promoting violence?  As in the same kind of comment made by Sarah Palin?  Based on the tenor of Today's report, that's exactly what it is. 

Don't hold your breath waiting for Today or NBC in general to note that Democrats use "violent" terminology, though.  They knew it before the Begala email was sent and intentionally ignored it.  So why wouldn't they ignore this too?

But listen to them squeal like stuck pigs if you call them biased.

Ken Berwitz

Much has been made of the CBO evaluation of ObamaCare -- especially its estimate that the legislation will result in lower health care costs.

From yesterday's New York Times:

Social Security to See Payout Exceed Pay-In This Year

By MARY WILLIAMS WALSH

Published: March 24, 2010

The bursting of the real estate bubble and the ensuing recession have hurt jobs, home prices and now Social Security.

 

This year, the system will pay out more in benefits than it receives in payroll taxes, an important threshold it was not expected to cross until at least 2016, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

The CBO estimated that social security would operate at a surplus until 2016.  But the CBO was wrong.  Way, way, way wrong.

Anyone want to tell me about the CBO's ObamaCare estimates again?

People who believe that ObamaCare is going to cover 30 million more people, but simultaneously lower insurance costs (while maintaining the same quality of care, let's not forget), are living in a fantasy world. 

Ken Berwitz

This is excerpted from an Associated Press article. Make of it what you will:

HAVANA (AP) -- It perhaps was not the endorsement President Barack Obama and the Democrats in Congress were looking for.

Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro on Thursday declared passage of American health care reform "a miracle" and a major victory for Obama's presidency, but couldn't help chide the United States for taking so long to enact what communist Cuba achieved decades ago.

"We consider health reform to have been an important battle and a success of his (Obama's) government," Castro wrote in an essay published in state media, adding that it would strengthen the president's hand against lobbyists and "mercenaries."

It's nice to see that two heads of state can agree so completely........

Ken Berwitz

I just read an excellent commentary by National Review's Victor Davis Hanson, which talks about the sudden - possibly orchestrated - concern of Democrats regarding civil political discourse and behavior. 

Here it is.  See what you think:

Thursday, March 25, 2010

More Bottled Piety   [Victor Davis Hanson]

This week’s talking point is the sudden danger of new right-wing violence, and the inflammatory push-back against health care. I’m sorry, but all this concern is a day late and a dollar short. The subtext is really one of class — right-wing radio talk-show hosts, Glenn Beck idiots, and crass tea-party yokels are foaming at the mouth and dangerous to progressives. In contrast, write a book in which you muse about killing George Bush, and its Knopf imprint proves it is merely sophisticated literary speculation; do a docudrama about killing George Bush, and it will win a Toronto film prize for its artistic value rather than shock from the liberal community about over-the-top discourse.

Socialism and totalitarianism are tough charges from the hard right, but they seem to me about as (or as not) over-the-top as Al Gore screaming “digital brown-shirts” or John Glenn comparing the opposition to Nazis. When 3,000 were murdered in Manhattan, and Michael Moore suggested Bin Laden had wrongly targeted a blue state, I don’t think that repulsive remark prevented liberal politicians from attending his anti-Bush film premiere. Yes, let us have a tough debate over the role of government and the individual, but spare us the melodrama, the bottled piety, and the wounded-fawn hurt.

Like it or not, between 2001 and 2008, the “progressive” community redefined what is acceptable and not acceptable in political and public discourse about their elected officials. Slurs like “Nazi” and “fascist” and “I hate” were no longer the old street-theater derangement of the 1960s, but were elevated to high-society novels, films, political journalism, and vein-bulging outbursts of our elites. If one were to take the word "Bush" and replace it with "Obama" in the work of a Nicholson Baker, or director Gabriel Range, or Garrison Keillor or Jonathan Chait, or in the rhetoic of a Gore or Moore, we would be presently in a national crisis, witnessing summits on the epidemic of "hate speech."

So here we are with the age-old problem that once one destroys decorum for the sake of short-term expediency, it is very hard to restore it in any credible fashion on grounds of principle when the proverbial shoe is on the other foot. A modest suggestion: If the liberal community wishes to be more credible in its concern about contemporary extremist anti-administration rhetoric, then they might try the following: “Please, let us avoid extremism and do not fall into the same trap as Baker, Chait, Keillor, Gore, Moore, or Range when they either expressed open hatred toward their president, or speculated about the assassination of their president, or compared their president to a fascist. We must disown such extremism, past and present."

What was that old saying about living in glass houses and throwing stones?

Tell me:  where was the Democratic Party when the examples Mr. Hanson enumerates were taking place?  How many condemnations of over-the-top behavior did you hear from them at that time?

And where were our wonderful "neutral" media?  Were they jumping all over each other to condemn the people doing and saying those things, the way they have condemned tea partiers on their alleged use of the words "nigger" and "faggot" against Democrats (for which there is no audio or video record, even though there were tons of people and tons of media there to record it)?

Then they wonder why people call them biased.

Ken Berwitz

From Reuters:

Osama bin Laden, in tape, threatens to kill Americans

Thu Mar 25, 2010 8:03am EDT

 

Wed, Mar 17 2010

 

DUBAI, March 25 (Reuters) - Osama bin Laden, in a fresh audiotape, threatened to execute any Americans taken prisoner by al Qaeda if accused Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is executed, al Jazeera television reported on Thursday. (Writing by Cynthia Johnston)

Point of order:  Wasn't one of the major themes of Barack Obama's presidential campaign that President Bush had failed to capture osama bin laden?  Didn't Mr. Obama promise in no uncertain terms that, if elected, he would take care of this unfinished business?

Well, it is over a year since Barack Obama became President.  And no osama bin laden.

In truth, I do not blame Mr. Obama for this failure.  It is far easier to stick out that chin and arrogantly promise bin laden's capture than it is to find him, while he hides in a lawless part of the world and is protected by a network of supporters who aid and abet him.

But I do blame our wonderful "neutral" media, which happily published those attacks on the previous President.  Why are they not holding Barack Obama's feet to the fire?  Why are they not demanding to know why, with all that bravado in all those campaign speeches, he a) has not produced bin laden either and b) seems to have erased bin laden from his memory bank, since he no longer even talks about capturing him.

To review:  Media had no problem seconding the motion when then-Senator Obama attacked then-President Bush for letting bin laden slip away.  Yet those same media also have no problem ignoring the fact that, after all his attacks and promises, Obama has done no better.

But listen to them squeal like stuck pigs if you call them biased.

Ken Berwitz

Are you wondering about what legislative changes are, and are not taking place in the senate as they "fix" ObamaCare?

Joseph Klein, from www.newsrealblog.com, fills us in via the following excerpt from his latest article:

The True Agenda Of Obamacare Progressives Exposed

2010 March 25

 

by Joseph Klein

Progressive Democrats are telling the opponents of Obamacare to chill out.  Once the American people understand what is in the legislation, they argue, it will be as popular as Social Security and Medicare.  I don’t think so.

Republican amendments to the reconciliation bill were defeated last night in the Senate on a party-line vote.  The amendments – and their defeat by the Progressives in charge of the Senate –  are instructive in highlighting what Obamacare is really all about.

Here are just a few of the amendments to improve health care reform that were defeated by the triumphant Progressives:

• a measure to prevent Medicare from being raided for new entitlements and to use Medicare savings to save Medicare;
• a measure to prevent convicted child molesters and rapists from getting reimbursed by the government for drugs like Viagra to treat erectile dysfunction;
• a measure to certify that no households earning less than $250,000 will see increased taxes as a result of health care reform; and
• a measure to certify that Americans will not have to change their health insurance as a result of the bill if they do not want to.

And in perhaps the most hypocritical, self-serving action of all, the Senate Democrats voted to defeat Republican Senator Grassley’s amendment to make sure the President, Cabinet Members, all White House Senior staff and Congressional Committee and Leadership Staff are purchasing health insurance through the health insurance exchanges established by Obamacare for the rest of us!

Take a good look at what Democrats voted down, folks.  Think about whether you feel these amendments should be there. Then, regardless of how you felt about ObamaCare previously, think about whether the fact that Democrats voted them down makes you happier or less happy with the legislation.

And then please hold those thoughts.....until you vote on election day.

Ken Berwitz

Ed Schultz is a low-rated performer on MSNBC.  And on radio, though relatively successful by liberal/left standards, he is small potatoes compared to Rush Limbaugh.  Very small.  Maybe just potato chips altogether.

So what is his solution?

From Brian Maloney at www.radioequalizer.blogspot.com:

VIVA HUGO!

Libtalker: Time For Socialism In Broadcasting

Feeling emboldened by the Democratic Party's success in imposing ObamaCare on the American public, lefties are already looking for the next hot issue to shove down our throats. For MSNBC libtalker Ed Schultz, it's the airwaves that should next be subjected to a socialist government takeover.

From Caracas, Hugo Chavez sends his best wishes.

After all, how is it fair that Rush Limbaugh has over 600 stations, while Big Eddie's affiliates can be counted on one hand? Here's what he told radio listeners earlier this week:

SCHULTZ (30:58, initially responding to caller claiming "virtual war" between Dems and GOP): It is a cultural war that's taking place in America, you're exactly right. And it's being played out over the airwaves of America. And I hope the Democrats now turn to the Fairness Doctrine.

It's time now for the Democrats to consider the Fairness Doctrine when you've got Rush Limbaugh out there saying, it's, we've got to defeat these bastards. He is now openly admitting that he is going to work against and campaign against the Republican, against the Democratic Party and campaign against Obama, and he is motivating people with the microphone and he's electioneering. Keep on talking, Rushsky! Hell, maybe I'll get on 600 stations too, or how many you own or whatever.

The fact is, look, it's not a level playing field when it comes to the audio culture of the country. Ownership has its privileges. When you own, I will be honest, if I owned 500 stations, the drugster wouldn't be on any of 'em. And that's just where it's at right now. But maybe we have reached the point where the Congress needs to equal it out. Equal out the audience.

SCHULTZ (32:51): Just keep in mind, there aren't any poor people with microphones.

SCHULTZ (33:56): And so, I think that, you know, hell, if we're going to be socialist, let's be socialist all across the board.

There you go.  "The Fairness Doctrine" - which, despite its impressive name, is, in reality, a scam that would force radio programmers to ignore ratings and give equal time to the also-rans like Ed Schultz. 

See, Rush Limbaugh has 600 stations, and THAT'S NOT FAIR.  It has nothing to do with the fact that Mr. Limbaugh has excellent ratings so stations pick up his show.Nor does the far smaller number of stations carrying Schultz have anything to do with the fact that not as many people want to listen to him.  It's just unfair.  That's what it is.  Waahhh Waaaaahhh  Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh.

Hey, I have a great idea.  Since Mr. Schultz is so hotsy-totsy on fairness, and since MSNBC has nothing but leftward hosts throughout its broadcasting day, why doesn't he mount a crusade to force MSNBC to hire conservative hosts.

It can start with evening programming, which currently consists, in its entirety, of Schultz, Chris Matthews, keith olbermann and Rachel Maddow.  Two of them have to go, and will be replaced by conservatives. 

That would not affect Ed, though, because he was a right-leaning Republican for years and years before magically turning to the left.  So I suppose he could claim to be his own walking, talking fairness doctrine.   (Was Schultz's political metamorphosis due to the fact that, even on the right, he couldn't compete with Rush or Sean or Dennis Prager, Michael Medved, Hugh Hewitt, etc.?  You tell me.)

Yep, that's the ticket.  Make MSNBC half conservative.  And you can count on Schultz leading the charge -- about a week after Dick Durbin resigns his senate seat, renounces the Democratic party and replaces Phylis Schlafly at the Eagle Forum.

Ken Berwitz

It's only March.  But even with over 9 months to go, it is a pretty safe bet that Albert Bailey of Connecticut will be a finalist for the 2010 Darwin Award.

From www.nbcconnecticut.com:

Bank Robbers Call Ahead for Cash, Get Cops Instead

By LEANNE GENDREAU

Updated 9:37 AM EDT, Wed, Mar 24, 2010

 

Two accused bank robbers might have just been trying to save time when they called ahead and demanded that the bank have the cash ready when they got there. But placing and order for cash didn’t get them far.  

 

Albert Bailey, 27, and a 16-year-old, both from Bridgeport, called People's United Bank on Stratfield Road about 10 minutes before they came to rob it on Tuesday afternoon, the Connecticut Post reports.

 

"You can't make this stuff up," Sgt. James Perez, Fairfield police spokesman, told the Post. "They literally called the bank and said to have the bag of money ready on the floor because they're coming to rob the place.”

 

Then, true to their word, they showed up – just as police were coming to greet them.

 

I would classify these individuals as, 'Not-too-bright.' They should have spent time in school instead of trying to rob a bank," Perez said.

 

When the suspects called, they threatened to create “a blood bath,” Fairfield police Lt. Thomas Mrozek told the Post.

 

Fortunately, there was no bloodbath. The suspects did not use a weapon.

 

Bailey waited in a parked car while the 16-year-old, who was not identified because of his age, picked up the bag of cash and walked out, the Post reports.

 

It was not difficult for Fairfield Officer Michael Guilfoyle to find the youth because the bank described him. As Guilfoyle tried to take the teen into custody, the situation got even worse by the dye pack exploding. Then, more police showed up so cops were able to nab both suspects before they left the parking lot.

 

Both robbery suspects were charged with first-degree robbery and first-degree threatening. The 16-year-old was sent to an area juvenile jail, police said.

 

Bailey was on probation for robbing a People's Bank branch in Bridgeport in 2003, the Post reports, and was held without bond to be turned over to the Department of Correction.

My favorite part is Sgt. Perez saying  "I would classify these individuals as not too bright".  This man is a true master of understatement.

Let's put it this way.  If Bailey and his friend were on a quiz show, and the competition was a pickled beet, the pickled beet would be going on to the lightning round.

Ken Berwitz

These days, it is hard even for an average, not-famous person to walk down the street or speak without being recorded in some way.  This is because just about everyone has a cell phone, and many people carry small, portable digital cameras.  

So when a great many congresspeople walk down the street, through a crowd of protesters and with loads of media along with them, it stands to reason that what happens during that walk will have been recorded by countless cell phones, cameras, etc.

So where is the recording of people screaming "nigger" at John Lewis?  Emanuel Cleaver?   And, other than one person (hardly a definer of the entire tea party movement) where is the recording of Barney Frank being called a "faggot"? 

If media have such recordings, either theirs or someone else's who recorded it, let's have a story, complete with the audio/video proof, so we know it happened.

If media do not have such recordings, and no one else can provide them, let's have a story that the claim of such language - which a good many even in mainstream media have used to condemn the tea party movement - is unfounded and may be fraudulent. 

And even if there were a very few such incidents, how do we know the people using such offensive language were tea partiers, and not plants who were sent to do it so that the tea party people could then be blamed?  It's not like that hasn't been done before.

Let me end by asking, and answering, two questions:

1) If the audio and/or video of  this happening were in media's hands, is there any doubt we'd have heard/seen it immediately?  The answer, of course, is no doubt at all.

2) If there are no such audios and/or videos, why are media not questioning the veracity of these claims?   The answer, of course, is that media are ignoring it, so that they can bash the tea party movement (which appears to scare the crap out of them).  Simply put, if the story line is that it didn't happen, media would have to be going after people like Clyburn and Frank.  And they don't go after protected species, do they?

But listen to them squeal like stuck pigs if you call them biased.

Ken Berwitz

What will the future of ObamaCare look like?

In 2006, Massachusetts (with Mitt Romney as Governor, it should be pointed out) passed a state health care system not dissimilar from what just passed through the house of representatives.  Most of the major promises we have heard about ObamaCare, including lower costs, were also promised in Massachusetts.

Would you be interested in knowing how that worked out?

This is how, courtesy of Aleksandra Kulczuga, writing for www.dailycaller.com.  (The bold print is mine):

Skyrocketing