Ken Berwitz

Barack Obama has been President for over a year and a half.  Do you miss George Bush? 

 It is becoming very clear that a lot of people do.

The latest evidence comes to us  from Tom Jensen at Public Policy Polling, a political research outfit that counts among its clients the far left dailykos.com.  The bold print is mine:

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Previewing Ohio

 

We'll start rolling out our Ohio poll results tomorrow but there's one finding on the poll that pretty much sums it up: by a 50-42 margin voters there say they'd rather have George W. Bush in the White House right now than Barack Obama.

Independents hold that view by a 44-37 margin and there are more Democrats who would take Bush back (11%) than there are Republicans who think Obama's preferable (3%.)

A couple months ago I thought the Pennsylvanias and Missouris and Ohios of the world were the biggest battlegrounds for 2010 but when you see numbers like this it makes you think it's probably actually the Californias and the Wisconsins and the Washingtons.

There's not much doubt things are getting worse for Democrats...and they were already pretty bad. Somehow the party base needs to get reinvigorated over the next two months or there's going to be a very, very steep price to pay.

Is the Democratic Party in trouble?

That's like asking if the Sahara Desert is sandy.

Ken Berwitz

This isn't political, nor does it have anything to do with the entertainment business we touched on in the previous blog.

But it is uproariously funny.  I promise.

Click here and see for yourself.

Ken Berwitz

Let's get this "news" out of the way, so that we can get back to something - anything - of value.

Here is  article #1 from abcnews.com, which discusses that paragon of vacuousness and self-importance, paris hilton:

One would think that it would be hard to mistake cocaine for chewing gum, considering one substance is powdery, white, illegal and most commonly found in tiny plastic bags, and the other is solid, multi-colored, sold at convienience stores around the country, and often wrapped in foil.

But apparently, Paris Hilton has trouble telling the difference between the two.

According to an officer's report, when a little white baggie fell out of the purse Hilton was carrying in Las Vegas Friday, Hilton said that "she had not seen [the bag] but now thought it was gum."

The bag actually contained 0.8 grams of cocaine, according to People magazine, and now the 29-year-old heiress faces felony drug-possession charges, with an Oct. 27 arraignment.

Hilton maintains she didn't put the drugs in the bag. According to the police report, she attested to owning a broken Albuterol pill, Zig Zag wrappers commonly used to smoke marijuana, and $1,300 in cash and credit cards, but said "several cosmetic items inside the purse were not hers."

And here is article #2, from her equally vacuous, self-important soul sister, lindsay lohan:

In an interview with Vanity Fair magazine conducted prior to her latest jail and rehab stint, Lohan told the magazine that she wants A-list status in Hollywood again, by any means necessary.

"I want my career back," she said. "I want the respect that I had when I was doing great movies. And if that takes not going out to a club at night, then so be it. It's not fun anyway.

"I don't care what anyone says. I know that I'm a damn good actress," she continued. "And I know that in my past I was young and irresponsible, but that's what growing up is. You learn from your mistakes."

Are there two less significant people who get more publicity than paris hilton and lindsay lohan?  Could there be?

Yeah, I know I just gave them some myself.  But it's just once, and only to make a point about how warped media priorities are when it comes to wannabe sex kittens who have no idea of, or interest in, how to exist in the real world.

Ok, the end.   Back to politics.  Or submarine race watching.  Or tiddlywinks.  Anyone or anything but them.

Ken Berwitz

Investors Business Daily is an excellent source for hard-hitting, intelligent, thoughtful editorials.

And its editorial on the remarkably obtuse, self-destructive behavior of Democrats regarding the "Restoring Honor" event this past Saturday is a classic.

In fairness to IBD I won't post every word.  But here are key excerpts - and you can treat yourself to the rest by clicking here.

Ignoring Glenn Beck — And Us

 Posted 08/30/2010 07:04 PM ET

Nothing going on here, Mr. President, just a few hundred thousand Americans from across the country that a Fox News pundit “stirred up.”... View Enlarged Image

Grass Roots: The president says he didn't watch any of Glenn Beck's "Restore Honor" rally on the National Mall. That's not surprising. Democrats and the White House haven't been listening to the people for awhile.

Whistling past the political graveyard looming for his party in November, President Obama dismissed the crowd gathered to hear the Fox News pundit, telling Brian Williams of the NBC Nightly News, "It's not surprising that someone like a Mr. Beck is able to stir up a certain portion of (the American people) ... "

He dismissed this crowd just as he and his party dismissed the "angry mobs" that descended on health care town meetings wanting to know why their government no longer wanted to hear their voices or seek out the consent of the governed. Those people were also said to have been "stirred up" by political opponents and conservative talk radio.

The movement that met on the Mall and had coalesced into what became known as the Tea Party comes from different parties and, despite what the so-called mainstream media say, different ethnic groups and nationalities. They have one thing in common: They are tired of being ignored. They are opposed to the kind of arrogance that convinces a president that maybe he just didn't make himself clear enough and he only needs to make more speeches in a perpetual campaign to get it through our thick skulls.

The Democrats push health care that Americans don't want by overwhelming numbers. The feds sue the sovereign state of Arizona over the wishes of a majority of Americans that want secure borders. Then the secretary of state slams Arizona, citing SB1070 as a human rights violation to the United Nations.

The American people see the disconnect between "saved" jobs and near double-digit unemployment. They are weary of a government so out-of-touch that once again we seem to have taxation without representation. They see a government making war on job-creators, punishing success and rewarding failure, redistributing wealth while creating none. They see an energy policy that produces no energy in order to save a planet that is not in danger.

Ignore that crowd on the Mall at your peril, Mr. President. That "certain portion" of the people grows bigger every day and by November your party may lose big in all 57 states you campaigned in.

Brilliant.  And spot-on true. 

To IBD:  Thank you.

To the Democratic Party:  Wake up.  For your own sake, wake up.

Ken Berwitz

Credit where credit is due.  This time Matt Lauer asked the right question in the right way.

And then President Obama's Press Secretary, Robert "Baghdad Bob" Gibbs, lied to our faces.

From Lauer's interview of Gibbs on this morning's Today Show:

LAUER:  Let me read you something.  In January of 2007, when President Bush announced the surge in Iraq, then-senator Barack Obama had this to say:  quote:  I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq are going to solve the sectarian violence there.  In fact I think it will do the reverse.

So when President Obama speaks to former President Bush today, will he change his mind on that?  Will he give President Bush credit for making that decision on the surge, and admit that it contributed to the situation of more stability on the ground today?

 GIBBS:  Matt, what is certainly not up for question is that President Obama, then candidate Obama, said that adding those 20,000 troops into Iraq would indeed improve the security situation, and it did.  What was necessary for this moment to happen was a diplomatic surge, a change in the Sunnis, a Sunni awakening, rather than fighting with al qaeda they fought against al qaeda….”

Oh yeah?  WHEN did then Senator Obama say that?  Did he say it when he said that the surge would not work, that it would have an opposite effect?  Or if he said it at all, was it months and months afterwards, to cover his backside because he was so wrong in the first place?

First let's look at President Bush's explanation of the troop surge, from his 2007 State of the Union Address.  The bold print is mine:

In order to make progress toward this goal, the Iraqi government must stop the sectarian violence in its capital. But the Iraqis are not yet ready to do this on their own. So we're deploying reinforcements of more than 20,000 additional soldiers and Marines to Iraq. The vast majority will go to Baghdad, where they will help Iraqi forces to clear and secure neighborhoods, and serve as advisers embedded in Iraqi Army units. With Iraqis in the lead, our forces will help secure the city by chasing down the terrorists, insurgents, and the roaming death squads. And in Anbar Province, where al Qaeda terrorists have gathered and local forces have begun showing a willingness to fight them, we're sending an additional 4,000 United States Marines, with orders to find the terrorists and clear them out. (Applause.) We didn't drive al Qaeda out of their safe haven in Afghanistan only to let them set up a new safe haven in a free Iraq.

See that bold-print excerpt?  The one about Anbar province?  Anbar has a predominantly SUNNI population.  And President Bush made a specific point of sending additional troops there because the Sunnis had started fighting al qaeda.  That is in direct contradiction to "Baghdad Bob" Gibbs' absolute BS.

Now let's look at what Barack Obama actually did have to say about the surge.  Here, copied from a blog I wrote just last Friday, are a few other quotes of his.  See if you can find what Gibbs is talking about in any of them:

-"October, 2006 (months prior to the surge):  "It is clear at this point that we cannot, through putting in more troops or maintaining the presence that we have, expect that somehow the situation is going to improve, and we have to do something significant to break the pattern that we've been in right now."

-January, 2007, reacting to President Bush's State of the Union speech:  "I don't think the president's strategy is going to work. We went through two weeks of hearings on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; experts from across the spectrum--military and civilian, conservative and liberal--expressed great skepticism about it. My suggestion to the president has been that the only way we're going to change the dynamic in Iraq and start seeing political commendation is actually if we create a system of phased redeployment. And, frankly, the president, I think, has not been willing to consider that option, not because it's not militarily sound but because he continues to cling to the belief that somehow military solutions are going to lead to victory in Iraq."

-July, 2007, as the surge was yielding dramatically positive results:  "My assessment is that the surge has not worked."

Does that look like President Obama was saying Iraq's security was improved to you?  Because it sure as @^#$ doesn't look anything like that to me. 

What it looks like is Senator Obama desperately clinging to his original incorrect assessment, even as it was being proved dead wrong.

So:  Is Robert "Baghdad Bob" Gibbs a pathetic liar?  That's like asking if a 50 year old outhouse smells from human waste.

Sorry for the unpleasant comparison, but somehow Robert Gibbs and human waste seem to go together.....

Ken Berwitz

Excerpted from an article at UPI.com:

PHOENIX, Aug. 31 (UPI) -- The U.S. Justice Department says it has filed an immigration lawsuit against Arizona authorities alleging hiring discrimination by schools in the state.

The lawsuit alleges a group of community colleges acted illegally in requiring non-citizens to provide their green cards before they could be hired for jobs, The Washington Post reported Monday.

Justice Department officials said the Phoenix-area Maricopa Community Colleges discriminated against nearly 250 non-citizen job applicants by forcing them to fill out more documents than required by law to prove eligibility to work, a violation of the federal Immigration and Nationality Act.

That's right.  You read it correctly.  The Department of Justice is suing to make sure that non-citizens in a state with an estimated half-million illegals sucking its health care, education and social services dry, and an intensely violent, murderous drug war boiling over across its border, do not have to prove they are legal.

This administration, aided and abetted by the Attorney General and Obama sock-puppet eric holder, is hell-bent to make sure that illegals get everything they are not entitled to.

And as long as Mr. Obama has a majority in congress, he will be able to continue doing so.

A little something to remember on election day....

Ken Berwitz

As men go (not "Black" men, just men), Harry Alford is major-league impressive.  You can read his many accomplishments by clicking here, and I hope you do.

Given the quality of the man, and his impeccable credentials as, among many other things, a hugely successful promoter and cheerleader of Black-owned businesses, I thought you might be interested in what he has to say about Glenn Beck, the "Restoring Honor" event, and the so-called Black "leaders" who have opposed and denounced it.

This is an excerpt from Mr. Alford's commentary for the Charlotte (NC) Post:

Beck is a very interesting person.  He first started his television career on the liberal CNN.  From there he transitioned to the conservative Fox News and “blew up” with his tirades and accusations of the liberal camps.  He became the pride and glory of the conservative movement and many credit him with the start of the tea party movement.  He is unashamed of his ultra conservatism and will call out anybody in much detail and doctorial fashion.  To the surprise of many he has lately been applauding black history and many of the little known heroes of black history.  
He is actually on a campaign to show all of the contributions of our leaders in the making of America.  It is admirable and you must give him his due praise. That is, if you are not on a mission to counter whatever he says as opposed to weighing his words as he speaks them. 

From my black viewpoint, Mr. Beck has been on the “1” in discussing the contributions of Frederick Douglas, Booker T. Washington, George Washington Carver and many others.  
So why are these human rights Democratic groups bashing him.  Could it be the money they receive from the DNC that is doing it?  Probably, it is reported that the Department of Education is giving one organizer $1.5 million to talk about education with Secretary Arne Duncan, who attended the protest rally, by the way.


I went on the Glenn Beck show last December after a series of regrets.  I finally relented just to see what would happen.  We talked about the racist innuendos of California Senator Barbara Boxer and the discrimination by construction unions in employment and contracting.  The professionalism of his staff was very impressive.  More than that, they were quite diverse with blacks interacting at the management level.  My wife and I must admit that the professionalism of his staff is probably better than that of any other talk show host. 

Glenn Beck knows what he is doing and his ratings are the second highest in cable television.  
The Lincoln Memorial event he produced on the anniversary date of the “I Have a Dream” speech (August 28) is not a coincidence.  His recent campaign to promote black history falls right in line with this event. It was here that he made clear that “one man can change the world” over and over throughout the ceremony.  As a student of Dr. King and a direct benefactor of his work, I am impressed and appreciative of what Glenn Beck is doing.  
No one else thought of it.  The human rights groups’ reaction was knee jerk as they were caught sleeping.  They had no plans whatsoever to honor the anniversary.  It was reactionary and on demand from the Democratic National Committee.  It is so tough to be an organization when you have a “boss” telling you what to do.  As my grandmother would say, “they were like chickens with their heads cut off.”  They were running and ranting with no distinct purpose. 

Mr. Beck with his 500,000-plus followers had an agenda and mission.  They accomplished it.
Glenn Beck is now touting that his movement is going back to the roots of conservatism. 

“We were the first ones to shout freedom for everyone and we are reclaiming that”.  He flipped the script and the traditional colored groups took the bait.

Pretty interesting, wouldn't you say?

It's a funny thing:  I personally do not care for Glenn Beck.  I've made that clear in previous posts.  Yet, the bile, the hatred and the dishonesty hurled his way over the past week has turned me into one of his defenders.

Among the most frequent charges against Beck is that he is a racist and the "Restoring Honor" event (not "Restoring America", as I erroneously called it in earlier, now-revised posts) is a racist enterprise.

One look at the stage, and the crowd, would tell any honest person that the event was not racist at all.  But screaming racism, regardless of whether it exists, is an all-purpose panacea for the professionally oppressed (in this case, al sharpton; a career hater who, accomplishment-wise, couldn't come within 1,000,000 miles of a man like Harry Alford). 

So sharpton stayed true to form and screamed racism about Beck this weekend. 

Just as our wonderful "neutral" media stayed true to form by conveniently forgetting sharpton's disgusting, racist past and describing him as a "civil rights leader".

Me?  I'll take a Harry Alford over an al sharpton 100 times out of 100.  Let the media have sharpton.  They are responsible for keeping him in the public eye all these years, so they deserve him.

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

Ken Berwitz

Let me start by responding to a question that is sure to be asked.  Yes, there are dishonest rightward media too. 

But the difference is that the left dominates our media.  So its dishonesty is that much more damaging.

Following is an excerpt from an article by Ed Lasky at americanthinker.com, which gives you a good idea of what I'm talking about:

Ken Berwitz

This morning's Today show had a two-person "discussion" about Saturday's "Restoring Honor" event. 

It, of course, included one person who supported the event and one who did no......

.....Oh, wait, I forgot.  This is the Today Show on NBC.  Never mind, both were against the event.

The "discussion", if that's what you can call it, consisted of al sharpton and Ben Jealous.

-sharpton, a career racist and anti-Semite, was the progenitor of a pathetic little counter-march, which drew something like 2,000 - 3,000 people -- and only got that much because a few unions sent out their members.  Additionally, according to the Washington Examiner, Education Secretary Arne Duncan, who spoke at the sharpton counter-march, tried to boom up attendance by urging his personnel to attend it.  I seriously wonder if that is even legal for Duncan to have done, given that it is the boss "suggesting" attendance for people he can hire and fire..

-Jealous is the head of the NAACP, which supported the sharpton counter-march.

Does that come across as a fair representation of both sides to you?  Or is it a little like having your performance on American Idol judged by another contestant's mother and boy friend.

Anyway, this is what passes for a "discussion" on the Today show.

Way to go guys.  Very professional, I'm sure.

Ken Berwitz

This excerpt comes from Matthew Philbin's blog at newsbusters.org:

Want a tutorial in the hypocrisy, vitriol and deep unhappiness of the American left? You don't need to subject yourself to MSNBC, or wade through the muck of Daily Kos. Actor John Cusack's Twitter feed is a clearing house for liberal memes and nasty rhetoric.

Here's his peaceful entry from Aug. 29 [All spelling from original Tweets, but Cusack admits: "I type with I phone fast and loose with no spellcheck."]:

Johncusack: I AM FOR A SATANIC DEATH CULT CENTER AT FOX NEWS HQ AND OUTSIDE THE OFFICES ORDICK ARMEYAND NEWT GINGRICH-and all the GOP WELFARE FREAKS

Presumably, this is a reference to the controversy over the Ground Zero Mosque. And "all the GOP WELFARE FREAKS" seems to follow on this theme:

Johncusack: taht's the gop philospy.. gourge the stae while claiming to be rugged individuaist who live by the free market - biggest joke there is..

 

Johncusack: think of our the us treasury as the last frontier to be stripped mined if only pesky gov itelf wasn't in the way.

 

Johncusack: privatized gains- socialized loses-- complete hippcorites

There's more.  If you have the stomach, click on the link I've provided and get a cesspool-ful.

Simply stated - in Mr. Cusack's own language form - he comes across like a fukcign moorn

Ken Berwitz

What do you get when you segment a group of congresspeople by race, and their districts keep re-electing the same congresspeople every election cycle without the opposition party having any chance whatsoever of unseating them?

You get a racist organization with corrupt members in it, that's what.

We've seen it with william jefferson and his frozen money.  We've seen it with charles rangel and his illegal apartments and unpaid taxes.  we're seeing it with maxine waters and what appears to be her personally-profitable intervention on behalf of a bank she and her husband have a stake in.

And now we're seing it with Eddie Bernice Johnson, who first denied, and now admits to, doling out money to her relatives and a staff member's children, using funds they have no business getting a penny of.

Excerpted from an article in today's Dallas Morning News (the bold print is mine):

Longtime Dallas congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson has awarded thousands of dollars in college scholarships to four relatives and a top aide's two children since 2005, using foundation funds set aside for black lawmakers' causes.

 

The recipients were ineligible under anti-nepotism rules of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, which provided the money. And all of the awards violated a foundation requirement that scholarship winners live or study in a caucus member's district.

 

Johnson, a Democrat, denied any favoritism when asked about the scholarships last week. Two days later, she acknowledged in a statement released by her office that she had violated the rules but said she had done so "unknowingly" and would work with the foundation to "rectify the financial situation."

 

Initially, she said, "I recognized the names when I saw them. And I knew that they had a need just like any other kid that would apply for one." Had there been more "very worthy applicants in my district," she added, "then I probably wouldn't have given it" to the relatives.

 

Her handling of the scholarships puts a rare spotlight on the program and how it is overseen. Caucus members have great leeway in how they pick winners and how aggressively they publicize the awards. Some lawmakers promote the program online, for instance, while Johnson does not.

 

Philanthropy experts said such lax oversight of scholarship money doesn't match the standards for charities.

 

The foundation – which is supported by private and corporate donations, not taxpayer money – provides $10,000 annually for each member of the Congressional Black Caucus to award in scholarships. Each gets to decide how many ways to split the money and whether to create a judging panel, choose personally or delegate the task.

 

Johnson, a former chairwoman of the caucus who has served on the board that oversees the foundation, said she wasn't fully aware of the program rules and emphasized that she didn't "personally benefit."

Uh, let's see:  Hayes is a former chairwoman of the caucus, she has served on the board which overseas the foundation, but she didn't know the most basic rule - who can and cannot get the money - so she just happened to give it to her family and an aide's children.

If you believe that, you'll believe anything. 

And if media buy that, media will buy anything.  Or is it more a case of them preferring not to see what is in front of their eyes?

Look, let's be brutally honest here:  If media had even the remotest interest in looking into how the CBC operates, it would long ago have found out about how this money was spent, or at the very least found out that it couldn't find out and started asking questions about why the information was hidden.

But in this day and age, when any investigation of any Black official is virtually certain to generate howls of "racism", no matter how flagrant that official's actions are, is it not reasonable to conclude that media intentionally look the other way?

Would they do it for, say, a White Citizen's Council?  Not a chance.  And I assume you will join me in emphatically agreeing that they should not. 

But a Black congressional caucus - every bit as racist for exactly the same reason (i.e. members must have the right skin color) and even worse,  given that the CBC is comprised of federal officers doing federal duties on federal properties while being paid by federal money?  Apparently that is another story.

I would like to think that this amount of corruption would cause voters in the relevant districts to remove the offenders.  But I don't see Rangel (who, ironically, is being challenged by Adam Clayton Powell IV, a son of the man he himself unseated), or maxine waters or Eddie Bernice Johnson being sent anywhere but back to congress.

How sad.  How terribly said.

Ken Berwitz

Is NBC News anchor Brian Williams a pro-Obama partisan?  If his latest interview of the President is any indication, the answer is a resounding yes.

This morning's Today Show tackled the fact that many people believe Mr. Obama is a Muslim.  We were told that Williams, who interviewed Mr. Obama this weekend (see the previous blog), asked him about it.

Matt Lauer led in to the Williams segment by noting that Mr. Obama was just back from New Orleans where he marked the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, and that the President "...has faced a storm of his own recently, after polling shows that a staggering number of Americans believe he is Muslim"

That's fair enough. 

But then Brian Williams came on, and things deteriorated, and fast.  He started by saying:

“Well, good morning to you Matt.  And when you think about it…nowhere in our recorded history, in the history of the presidency, 44 people have occupied the job, has one ever had to face accusations by his enemies that he is somehow a Muslim”

Brilliant.  And I'll bet no one ever asked any of the other former Presidents if he was Black.  Or if he had a wife named Michelle.  Or if he used to be called Barry Soetoro. 

That is because observations about, and attacks on, Presidents tend to be based on their individual characteristics and personal backgrounds. 

Illustratively, critics called Bill Clinton a philanderer and George Bush a cowboy.  No one called Mr. Obama either of these things, did they?

Williams correctly pointed otu that neither Clinton nor Bush nor any other former President was ever called Muslim.  But did any of them have a Muslim name, a Muslim father, a Muslim stepfather, and four years of education in a Muslim country (Indonesia) where they were signed into school under the religious designation of "Islam"?  Well Barack Obama did.  Maybe, just maybe, those factors bear on why some people believe he is a Muslim.

Ok.  Now, having given us a lead-in of absolutely no meaning whatsoever, Williams cuts to the interview. 

What should Brian Williams have asked?  Here are a few reasonable questions on the subject:

-Why do you believe people think you are a Muslim?

-When you were growing up were you taught to be a Muslim, even if you eventually did not become one? 

-Did you get Muslim religious instruction in Indonesia during the years you were there? 

-Did you attend Muslim services there?  Did you attend Christian services?  If both, which was more prevalent during your upbringing?

But what did Brian Williams ask?  Here it is, verbatim:

-"Mr. President.  You are an American-born Christian.  And yet increasing and now significant numbers of Americans in the polls, upwards of a fifth of respondents are claiming you are neither.  A fifth of the people, just about, believe you are a Muslim....this has to be troubling to you.  This is, of course, all-new territory for an American President.

This is a QUESTION????  Unbelievable. 

Williams' "question" blew off not only the claim that Mr. Obama is Muslim but, out of nowhere, tossed in the origin-of-birth issue as well.  Thus he not only pre-empted President Obama's answer by (in his mind, I suppose) debunking the possibility of his being Muslim before Mr. Obama even spoke, but, as an extra-added attraction, associated anyone who believes he is Muslim with the so-called "birther" movement. 

Incidentally, since the polls which asked about Mr. Obama's religion - at least the ones I've seen - went no further than generally asking respondents if they believed Mr. Obama is a Muslim, there is no way to distinguish between people who believe he was born and raised Muslim and those who think he is currently a practicing Muslim. 

Given Mr. Obama's Muslim name, his Muslim father, his Muslim stepfather, his mother's apparent indifference to religion and the fact that, in the Muslim religion, if the father is Muslim his children are too --- could it just possibly be that there is a valid reason to believe Mr. Obama/Soetoro was born and raised that way? 

Evidently Brian Williams is too ignorant of this, and/or too busy sucking up to Barack Obama, to bring it up.

And Mr. Obama's answer?  Not one word specifically relating to the issue of whether or not he was, at any time, a Muslim in any way.  Hey, why answer what isn't being asked?

There, folks, is Brian Williams' hard-hitting, neutral Q and A with President Obama on his connection to the Muslim religion. 

About as hard-hitting as a 6 year old playing T-ball.  And about as neutral as a stump rally.

But listen to Brian Williams squeal like a stuck pig if you call him biased.

Ken Berwitz

This quote is from Brian Williams' woefully partsan interview with Barack Obama, after the "Restoring Honor" event that, despite low coverage by media and decidedly negative coverage when there was any at all, drew hundreds of thousands of people to Washington DC on Saturday:

"It's not surprising that somebody like a Mr. Beck is able to stir up a certain portion of the country"

Does the tone of that quote communicate anything to you?  Maybe something strongly negative and insulting?  I know it does to me.

Does that tone suggest a continuation of Mr. Obama's comments in San Francisco during the presidential primary season (April, 2008), when he said:

“You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. So it’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

Has Mr. Obama's arrogance and consdescension lessened even one iota? 

Nope.

Ken Berwitz

The estimates of how many people attended the "Restoring Honor" rally vary dramatically - from "thousands" to "tens of thousands", to 87,000, to 100,000, to upwards of 500,000 or more.

That being the case, I thought I would give you a visual basis for deciding which of the various estimates is most accurate:

There you are.  Decide for yourself.

Ken Berwitz

The Washington Post's headline for its article on yesterday's event:

"Glenn Beck and Al Sharpton:  The rallies of 8/28

In other words, the Washington Post, like NBC's David Ushery, is trying to equate the two marches.  Only if you read the detail do you get any sense that the Beck rally generated almost all of the total attendance.

Liars.  Frauds.

However, I will give the Post this much.  Well within the article it admitted that: 

Sharpton drew a mostly black crowd of union members, church-goers, college students and civil rights activists.

For all the claims that Glenn Beck's rally was racist/lily White (not true at all, by the way) how much publicity was the majority-Black makeup of Sharpton's tiny little counter-rally given by most media -- besides none?

And they're calling other people racist???????????

Wow.

Ken Berwitz

There is misinformation.

And there is non-information.

Last night, I watched NBC's local news last night (the New York station).  Its coverage of yesterday's "Restoring Honor" event in Washington DC was a pathetic joke.

Anchor David Ushery gave equal time to the so-called "counter march" featuring al sharpton, which consisted of maybe 2-3,000 people.  In fact, the video he showed had sharpton first, as though his piddling nothing-with-nothing "event" was the main attraction.  And then he said the crowd estimate "for the two marches combined" was either 500,000 or 300,000.  I don't remember which, because I was so taken aback by his combining the two as if they were about equal.

When I was younger, I had a great trivia question:  Which two brothers had the most home runs of any brothers in Major League baseball history.  No one ever got it either.  The answer was Hank Aaron, who hit 755 home runs, and his brother Tommy Aaron, who had a brief career and hit just 13 home runs.  The reason it was a good trivia question is that, because of the way the question was framed, the people I asked spent their time trying to think of brothers who both were big home run hitters.  That was the trick. 

And it is the same trick used by Ushery when he reported the "Restoring Honor" story.  

This morning I went to the New York Times web site to see its estimate of crowd size for the "Restoring Honor" event.  To my surprise, I found that it wasn't the Times' main story, or even one of the second-tier stories (i.e. with a headline, descriptive sentence and link to the rest).

But if you scroll well down the page, and look at the list of "other news",  you one with the following description: "At the Lincoln Memorial, a Call for Religious Rebirth". 

No mention of the event's name, the crowd size, or Glenn Beck or Sarah Palin or Alveda King.  Just a nondescript title in a place most people won't even see, that might or might not communicate this event to them.

That is what a newspaper does when it doesn't want readers to see a story.  Yeah, it's there - sort of - so the paper's backside is covered.  Nothing more.

Incidentally, the article itself indicates the organizers said the crowd was about 500,000 and that NBC's estimate was 300,000.  Taking the midpoint, that's a 400,000-person march.  Do you think it could have earned at least second-tier status?  One of the second-tier articles was about some guy who likes to write about the Hamptons.  Was that more significant than this event?

Oh, and if you're wondering about the Times' print edition?  The article is buried on page 15.  

So we have NBC news doing its best to misinform viewers by presenting the "Restoring Honor" event as equivalent in scope to the counter-march, and the NY Times online edition doing its best to have readers know as little about the event as possible.

Then they wonder why people call them biased.

Ken Berwitz

Here is a transcript (which I pulled from Noel Sheppard's blog at newsbusters.org) of Chris Matthews' hateful, envious whine, from Friday's edition of his MSNBC  "Hardball" show, about today's "Restoring Honor" rally:

CHRIS MATTHEWS, HOST: Let me finish tonight with those few lines from the Martin Luther King speech of 1963.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR., CIVIL RIGHTS ICON: But not only that, let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia! Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTHEWS: Dr. King was talking about the founding place of the KKK, Stone Mountain. The site of the Scottsboro Boys trial -- Lookout Mountain.

This was 1963, never forget. The civil rights bill was a year away. Lunch counters and gas station restrooms were still for whites only, so were hotels and restaurants throughout the South. I remember myself seeing those white-only signs along the highway heading south during a spring break. I remember seeing one still there when I went to rural Louisiana to train for the Peace Corps.

There was a hard divide in this country back then. On one side stood the people who believed in the power of the federal government to do the right thing, especially when state governments, local governments and local businesses persisted in doing the wrong thing or doing nothing.

It was the time when governors like Ross Barnett of Mississippi and George Wallace of Alabama stood up to keep their universities white only.

A time when people used terms like "nullification" and "interposition," who claimed the right to obstruct the federal government, to act even when Congress passed a law.

Today, we hear the echoes of those voices, people calling for nullification. Even secession gets a call from those who just don`t like the federal government and certainly don`t like the man leading it.

Tomorrow, those who thrill to such words are heading here to Washington. They`re heading directly to the Lincoln Memorial, site of the Martin Luther King speech. The main speaker is the man who said this about this country`s first African-American president.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GLENN BECK, FOX NEWS HOST: This guy is, I believe, a racist. Look at the way -- look at -- look at the things that he has been surrounded by.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTHEWS: That is the man who comes to Lincoln`s feet to claim the mantle of Martin Luther King.

Can we imagine if King were physically here tomorrow, today, were he to reappear tomorrow on the very steps of the Lincoln Memorial?

I have a nightmare that one day a right wing talk show host will come to this spot, his people`s lips dripping with the words "interposition" and "nullification." Little right wing boys and little right wing girls joining hands and singing their praise for Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin. I have a nightmare.

Many talked today about a religious center near Ground Zero being a desecration. What do you call this?

There you go.  They're all a bunch of right wingers and racists.  Just ask Chris Matthews.

And if Glenn Beck dares to think that Barack Obama is a racist - a term jerks like Chris Matthews, keith olbermann and the rest of the MSNBC crowd throw around like so much confetti - it makes Beck the racist.

Evidently Marltin Luther King's niece, Aveda King, doesn't feel that way.  She spoke at the rally.  And evidently the many, many Black people who attended the rally don't feel that way.

But what do they know?  Certainly not as much as the arrogant, paternal Mr. Matthews, who has no problem stereotyping hundreds of thousands of people he never met.

The best thing I can say about Chris Matthews is that he is an envious, hate-filled south end of a northbound horse. 

And, believe me, that is a good deal more positive than what I really think.

Ken Berwitz

This is an easy blog.

The following links come to us from www.drudgereport.com:

ZUCKERMAN: The Most Fiscally Irresponsible Government in History...

Joint Chiefs Chairman: National Debt is a Security Threat...

Recession pushes US birth rate to new low...

RECOVERY BUMMER: Youth employment lowest since 1948...

Thousands line up before dawn for mortgage help in Palm Beach County...

Helluva "stimulus package", Mr. President.

Great "Recovery Summer" too.

I'll just bet that Democratic congressional candidates, both incumbent and non-incumbent, can't wait to run on your record......

.....and try blaming it on George Bush.

Ken Berwitz

In the previous blog I talked about how dishonest our media have been about who is responsible for the withdrawal of troops in Iraq.

That was before I read the lead editorial in today's New York Times.  If I had done so, I would have featured it to make my point.

The Times' first paragraph;

On Tuesday the American combat mission in Iraq — a war that should never have been fought — officially ends. President Obama deserves credit for promising the withdrawal and for sticking to it. But America’s responsibilities in Iraq will not end now.

All credit to Barack Obama.  Not even 1% to President Bush.

But it's not like they didn't mention Mr. Bush.  Later on in the editorial:

President George W. Bush invaded Iraq in 2003 looking for weapons of mass destruction, and defended that rationale long after it was clear that those weapons were not there. America’s credibility has still not recovered. The war cost the lives of more than 4,400 Americans, as well as those of an estimated 100,000 Iraqi civilians, and hundreds of billions of dollars.

The Iraq war also, disastrously, shifted attention and resources away from the far more important fight in Afghanistan. The Taliban — routed by the United States and Afghan forces after 9/11 — quickly regained the battlefield momentum after the Pentagon and White House lost interest. The two wars have grievously overtaxed American forces.

What a pile of manure.

Yes, President Bush invaded Iraq looking for weapons of mass destruction --- weapons that intelligence agencies around the world said were there, and virtually every politician, including virtually every Democratic leader (among them, Kennedy, Clinton, Kerry and Pelosi) agreed were there.  How nice of the Times to leave that out.  How nonpartisan.  What a wonderful display of professional journalism.

And, with all due respect to the Times (which, in this case, means almost none), the taliban never "regained the battlefield momentum" throughout Mr. Bush's two terms.  Ironically - and, of course, unmentioned by the Times - the closest the taliban has come to doing so is right now  After over a year and a half of President Obama and with the Obama troop surge that has four times as many of our military personnel there as Bush ever had.

Sometimes I think the New York Times editorial staff is in a competition to win the "Most Dishonest and Unprofessional Newspaper Of The Year" award. 

If this editorial is any indication, they're certainly in the running.

Ken Berwitz

I can't just call it Obama's Big Lie, because it is in a tie with other big lies.  So let me be more specific and call it Obama's Big Lie About The Iraq Troop Withdrawal.

First the lie itself, as excerpted from an article at Reuters:

Obama says Iraq war is ending, his promise is kept

(Reuters) - President Barack Obama said on Saturday Iraq could "chart its own course" and told Americans the drawdown of U.S. troops helped fulfill a promise he made during the 2008 presidential campaign.

Obama, who is vacationing on the Massachusetts island of Martha's Vineyard, declared in his weekly radio and Internet address that "the war is ending" and pledged to take care of troops who are returning home.

The U.S. military recently cut its strength to under 50,000 troops in Iraq, helping to make good on Obama's promise to end the war launched 7-1/2 years ago by his Republican predecessor, George W. Bush.

Obama's Saturday remarks may be a preview of a rare, televised address the president plans on Tuesday evening from the White House Oval Office about the troop drawdown.

"On Tuesday, after more than seven years, the United States of America will end its combat mission in Iraq and take an important step forward in responsibly ending the Iraq war," Obama said.

"As a candidate for this office, I pledged I would end this war. As president, that is what I am doing."

The White House is trying to emphasize Obama's accomplishments ahead of November elections to bolster fellow Democrats, who are likely to lose seats and possibly majorities in one or both houses of Congress.

With economic growth slowing and unemployment still near double-digit levels, the White House hopes the fulfillment of a foreign policy promise will help offset the economic pain at the forefront of voters' minds.

How dare President Barack Obama take claim to this withdrawal as if it were his doing?  How dare he not even mention President George Bush?

Let's start with the fact that there is no way either President would have been able to effect a withdrawal of this kind if it had not been for the troop surge in 2007;  the one that decisively turned the tide and won the war.  It was President Bush who approved and ordered that surge.  It was then-Senator Obama who opposed it and who said, over and over again that it would not work.

In several previous blogs, I've put up a single quote of Mr. Obama's ("I am not persuaded...I think it will do the reverse") to show that he was against the surge.  But his latest thoroughly dishonest, thoroughly narcissistic claim of accomplishment regardling Iraq has angered me enough to put up other quotes as well. 

Peter Wehner's July 28, 2008 article at The Weekly Standard  provides a sampling of the Obama quotes, and proves just how completely opposed to (and wrong about) the surge he was:

In October 2006--three months before the president's new strategy was unveiled--Obama said, "It is clear at this point that we cannot, through putting in more troops or maintaining the presence that we have, expect that somehow the situation is going to improve, and we have to do something significant to break the pattern that we've been in right now."

On January 10, 2007, the night the surge was announced, Obama declared, "I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq are going to solve the sectarian violence there. In fact, I think it will do the reverse." A week later, he insisted the surge strategy would "not prove to be one that changes the dynamics significantly." And in reaction to the president's January 23 State of the Union address, Obama said,

I don't think the president's strategy is going to work. We went through two weeks of hearings on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; experts from across the spectrum--military and civilian, conservative and liberal--expressed great skepticism about it. My suggestion to the president has been that the only way we're going to change the dynamic in Iraq and start seeing political commendation is actually if we create a system of phased redeployment. And, frankly, the president, I think, has not been willing to consider that option, not because it's not militarily sound but because he continues to cling to the belief that somehow military solutions are going to lead to victory in Iraq.

In July, after evidence was amassing that the surge was working, Obama said, "My assessment is that the surge has not worked."

Obama, then, was not only wrong about the surge; he was spectacularly wrong. And he continued to remain wrong even as mounting evidence of its success gave way to overwhelming evidence of its success.

Yet now this consummate fraud takes credit for withdrawing troops that the surge enabled him to withdraw.

But wait.  I'm not through yet. 

Are you aware that Barack Obama isn't even responsible for the withdrawal agreement?

Do yourself a personal favor and read the "Agreement Between the United States of America and the Republic of Iraq On the Withdrawal of United States Forces from Iraq and the Organization of Their Activities during Their Temporary Presence in Iraq".  You will see that the very first part, Article I, says:

 "This Agreement shall determine the principal provisions and requirements that regulate the temporary presence, activities, and withdrawal of the United States Forces from Iraq",

And Article 5, section 2 says (bold print is mine):

Upon their withdrawal, the United States Forces shall return to the Government of Iraq all the facilities and areas provided for the use of the combat forces of the United States, based on two lists. The first list of agreed facilities and areas shall take effect upon the entry into force of the Agreement. The second list shall take effect no later than June 30, 2009, the date for the withdrawal of combat forces from the cities, villages, and localities. The Government of Iraq may agree to allow the United States Forces the use of some necessary facilities for the purposes of this Agreement on withdrawal.

Now look at the bottom of the agreement and see what date it was signed.  You'll find the date to be November 17, 2008.  When George Bush was President.  Not Barack Obama, who took office on January 20 of the following year.

In other words, the entire negotiation for withdrawal of forces from Iraq, right through to the signing of the formal agreement detailing how it would be accomplished, took place 100% under President George Bush. 

This, readers, is what President Obama is now taking full credit for.

How dare he?

And how dare our media for not making these facts - these easily checkable facts that I found in about two seconds flat sitting at my computer - known to the public?

How can you believe a thing Barack Obama says?

And how can you believe a media that goes this far to abet him in his big lie?

Ken Berwitz

As regular readers know, I'm no fan of Glenn Beck. 

But I know out of control hatred when I see it, and I just read  an example of that kind of hatred from, of all people, a sports writer

The writer's name is rick chandler, and he is with (what else is new?) NBC.  chandler takes exception to the Glenn Beck "Restoring America" rally to be held in Washington DC this weekend, and to the fact that St. Louis Cardinal manager Tony LaRusso and perennial all-star Albert Pujols are going to be in attendance. 

Let me pull an excerpt from chandler's piece so you can see why his comments are repulsive enough to merit space in this blog:

If there were one piece of mail I would handle only with barbecue tongs and a plastic evidence bag, it would be an invitation to Glenn Beck's "Restoring Honor" rally in Washington D.C. Yet Tony La Russa and Albert Pujols -- men who have shown no other outward signs of mental imbalance -- have accepted their invites. Going out of one's way to align themselves with Glenn Beck surely is a mystery ... especially for La Russa and Pujols, who don't seem like Fox News types. But I could be wrong. Oh, this just in: Featured speaker at the rally ... Sarah Palin.

 

In case you're not aware, Beck's rally is described by him as a way to "celebrate America by honoring our heroes, our heritage and our future." But it's being held on Aug. 28 -- the same date as the Martin Luther King Jr. "I Have a Dream" speech in 1963 -- and in the same location, the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. This has caused great wailing and gnashing of teeth among some civil rights leaders.

So what do we have here?  We have rick chandler, a sports writer, giving us a hate-soaked, insulting political diatribe against Glenn Beck, his rally, Fox News and Sarah Palin (who is invoked, apparently, in the expectation that you hate her as much as he does, so you will be shocked into hating the event as much as he does too.) 

Then, of course, there is the requisite suggestion of racism that seems never to be overlooked by the chandlers of the world ("This has caused great wailing and gnashing of teeth among some civil rights leaders").

For the record, Beck has said he was unaware that this was the anniversary date of Martin Luther King's speech - and, out of respect for King, he will stand further down the steps, so he will be below where King spoke.

I wonder how chandler felt when perennial all-star Carlos Delgado, an outspokenly anti-War activist, refused to stand up or even be in the dugout at any ballpark that played "God Bless America".  Why do I have a sneaking suspicion that wasn't a problem to him?

My advice to rick chandler and other sportswriters (I have a particular other one in mind who I won't name, but I like very much on a personal level) is to stick to sports.  That's what you do, that's what you're paid for.

And that's what most of chandler's readers want.  If you doubt me, click on the link to his article, read through the comments and see for yourself.

Ken Berwitz

Excerpted from an article by Peter Finn in today's Washington Post:

The Obama administration has shelved the planned prosecution of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, the alleged coordinator of the Oct. 2000 suicide attack on the USS Cole in Yemen, according to a court filing.

 

The decision at least temporarily scuttles what was supposed to be the signature trial of a major al-Qaeda figure under a reformed system of military commissions. And it comes practically on the eve of the 10th anniversary of the attack, which killed 17 sailors and wounded dozens when a boat packed with explosives ripped a hole in the side of the warship in the port of Aden.

 

In a filing this week in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, the Justice Department said that "no charges are either pending or contemplated with respect to al-Nashiri in the near future."

Words fail me.  Maybe you have a few.

The 2012 election cannot come fast enough.

Ken Berwitz

I doubt you have ever heard of Karl Spooner.  So let me give you a brief heads-up.

When Karl Spooner was promoted to the Brooklyn Dodgers at the end of the 1954 season, he was an amazing pitching phenom.  He won his first start by pitching a shutout and striking out 15 batters.  And his second start was another shutout with 12 strikeouts. Wow and double wow.

But in spring training next year, Spooner's arm suddenly gave out.  He recovered from the arm injury, but was never the same.  His record in 1955, the year Brooklyn won its first and only world championship, was a journeyman-like 8-6, including just 3-5 as a starter.  He never pitched again.

Now, fast-forward to Stephen Strasburg.  When Strasburg was promoted to the Washington Nationals in June, he was an amazing pitching phenom.  He won his first start by giving up just 2 earned runs in 7 innings and striking out 14 (arguably exceeding Spooner, who needed 9 innings to get his 15).  In his next two starts Strasburg struck out 9 and 10 batters, setting an all-time major league record of 32 strikouts in his first three starts.

But in July Strasburg's arm became inflamed and he was put on the disabled list.  He came back in August, but reinjured the arm on August 21. 

Today, Strasburg was diagnosed with a torn ulnar collatoral ligament.  It will require "Tommy John surgery" (named after a the pitcher it first was performed on), and he will be out of action for an estimated 12 - 18 months.  Thus the next time Strasburg steps onto a major league pitching mound is likely to be in 2013, when - obviously - there will be no guarantee that he can perform as he did in his first three starts.

Let's hope that this ends the parallel career path with Karl Spooner (who faded into obscurity after his baseball career, and died at the too-young age of 53). 

Lots of luck to you young Mr. Strasburg.  I hope you make a full recovery!

Ken Berwitz

Cliff May, writing for National Review, has given us a superb commentary on the so-called "ground zero mosque" and how our wonderful "neutral" media are dealing with the controversy over whether it should be built.  You Mr. May's piece by clicking here - and, believe me, every word is worthwhile.

Let me give you just a few of its highlights.  Please pay special attention to the part I've put in bold print:

Wow! The Washington Post has identified “rabble-rousing outsiders!” I don’t think I’ve heard language like that since Southern segregationists complained about young civil-rights activists descending on Mississippi. So who are these interlopers stirring up the unwashed masses? No need to guess: It’s anyone who dares criticize plans for an Islamic center near Ground Zero in Manhattan. According to Jason Horowitz, the author of a story on the front page of the Post’s Style section, New Yorkers take a “dim view” of them.

Mr. Horowitz informs us that the planned Islamic center has become “the prime target of national conservatives who, after years of disparaging New York as a hotbed of liberal activity, are defending New York against a mosque that will rise two city blocks from Ground Zero.”

Mr. Horowitz was no doubt so busy reporting this big story that he missed the bulletins about Senate majority leader Harry Reid and former Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean — no nasty national conservatives, they — also opposing the Ground Zero Islamic project.

Mr. Horowitz also interviews Oz Sultan, a spokesman for the project, who sings from the same hymnal: “The people behind this [Islamic center] are New Yorkers. These are local yokels.”

How does that square with Mr. Sultan’s refusal to rule out the possibility that funds for this $100 million project may be raised in Saudi Arabia and Iran? Inquiring minds may want to know; Mr. Horowitz does not even ask.

If this piece were exceptional, it would be unfair of me to give it such a tongue-lashing. But, as I’ve argued before, it’s part of a pattern, a trend — one that, despite criticism, continues to strengthen.

A New York Times piece on the controversy similarly avoids any uncomfortable questions. Its reading of recent history: “On top of the fear and confusion in New York about Islam after 9/11, a movement had begun to spring up against Muslims seeking a larger role in American public life.” What movement would that be? Who leads it? Where do they meet? Shouldn’t the Times — the Times! — include some attempt to substantiate the announcement of the birth of such a terrible “movement”?

Let’s say it one more time loudly for the media moguls in the cheap seats: Most Muslims are not terrorists. But in the 21st century, most of those slaughtering women and children in the name of religion are Muslims. This is a movement. This is a reality. And it is a problem. It ought to be seen by Muslims as very much their problem — a pathology within their community, within the “Muslim world,” within the ummah.

Instead, the richest and most powerful Islamic organizations — often financed by oil money from the Middle East — incessantly play the victim card. Daisy Khan tells ABC’s Christiane Amanpour that in America, it’s “beyond Islamophobia. It’s hate of Muslims.”

Time encourages this grievance mentality (or tactic) by asserting that “to be a Muslim in America now is to endure slings and arrows against your faith — not just in the schoolyard and the office but also outside your place of worship and in the public square, where some of the country’s most powerful mainstream religious and political leaders unthinkingly (or worse, deliberately) conflate Islam with terrorism and savagery.”

No, they don’t. What they conflate with terrorism and savagery are al-Qaeda, the Taliban, Hezbollah, Hamas, Lashkar-e-Taiba, al-Shabaab, Abu Sayyef, Fatah Al-Islam, the Muslim Brotherhood, and dozens of other groups that justify their terrorism and savagery based on their interpretation of Islamic doctrine.

Many of the country’s religious and political leaders would like to hear more of their Muslim neighbors say plainly: “Not in my name! Not in the name of my religion!” They are distressed when they learn — not through the mainstream media — that Imam Rauf has said instead: “The United States has more Muslim blood on its hands than al-Qaeda.”

 Does that pique your interest?  I hope so.  Because May is talking straight and true. 

How sad that, when it comes to the "ground zero mosque", a lot of our media don't seem to have even a passing acquaintance with either attribute.

Ken Berwitz

Just once I would like to find out, after the fact, that the initial economic news was worse than the reality, not better.

Just once I would like our wonderful "neutral" media to be skeptical of economic data coming out of Washington, on the grounds that it almost always is exaggeratedly positive.

Here is the latest example, excerpted from an article at msnbc.com (the bold print is mine):

WASHINGTON — The economy grew at a much slower pace this spring than previously estimated, mostly due to the largest surge in imports in 26 years and a slower buildup in inventories.

The nation's gross domestic product — the broadest measure of the economy's output — grew at a 1.6 percent annual rate in the April-to-June period, the Commerce Department said Friday. That's down from an initial estimate of 2.4 percent last month and much slower than the first quarter's 3.7 percent pace. Many economists had expected a sharper drop.

The widening trade deficit subtracted nearly 3.4 percentage points from second quarter growth, the largest hit from a trade imbalance since 1947, the government said.

The report confirms the economy has lost significant momentum in recent months. Most analysts expect the nation's GDP will continue to grow at a similarly weak pace in the current July-to-September quarter and for the rest of this year.  

The only question, it seems, is how the Obama administration can make economic data look good between now and election day -- and whether mainstream media will dutifully, obediently, unskeptically report the look-good material as if there were any reason to believe it.

Ken Berwitz

Here are excerpts from a congressional candidate's TV ad:

"In Washington, they call this 'flyover country'.  They look down from 30,000 feet and don't care about our agriculture, the second amendment or our fiscally conservative values....i took on liberal leaders to protect our right to own guns...."

Obviously this ad, with its anti-Washington tone and big-time dig at the administration's economic policies, is on behalf of a Republican running against a Democrat.  Right? 

Well, hold onto your hat.  Because it isn't.  The ad is for Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, the incumbent Democratic congressperson from South Dakota, who is in the fight of her life against Republican Kristi Noem.

Since I didn't know a lot about Ms. Herseth Sandlin's voting record, I went to the invaluable web site www.vote-smart.org - a nonpartisan venue that keeps track of both parties' politicians by posting their voting records and how various organizations on the left and right evaluate them.

I found that while, on the whole, Ms. Herseth Sandlin is certainly a Democratic partisan, she is relatively moderate compared to many others in her party (e.g. she gets a 65% rating from the liberal Americans for Democratic action and 20% from the American Conservative Union, instead of the 90%+/under 10% evaluations we see for dozens of other Democrats). 

But there is no doubt that Ms. Herseth Sandlin's Democratic identification has been put into a lockbox for this campaign. 

Illustratively, the TV ad I quoted at the beginning of this blog has absolutely no verbal or visual indication that she is a Democrat.  And the only mention of President Obama's policies is that she implies (without saying it outright) opposition to his economic policies - a tough sell, given that she voted in favor of the Obama budget, with its "stimulus package last year.

So here we have another Democrat running, not walking, from her party; especially from her President.

There will be more.  Count on it.

Ken Berwitz

Is the Obama administration really this petty and vindictive? 

Does Barack Obama really want to butt heads with New Jersey Governor Chris Christie?

Read the following blog by Daniel Foster of nationalreview.com, watch the video (if you have any trouble doing so click here), and you'll quickly see why I'm asking these questions:

How Vindictive Is This Administration?

August 26, 2010 9:54 A.M.

By Daniel Foster 

 

I’m not usually the conspiratorial type, but watch Gov. Chris Christie explain how the Obama administration disqualified the state of New Jersey from hundreds of millions in education funds because some clerk in Trenton turned in the wrong excel spreadsheet:

 

Democrats in Washington have already shown a willingness to withhold federal education dollars from states that don’t follow their preferred tactic for navigating the recession: giving teachers raises like it’s the Gay ’90s. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is more punishment for a state that committed the crime of balancing its budget.

But the Obama administration has made a serious mistake here: they’ve given Chris Christie an opening, a reason to take them on directly. And how does the old saying go? Never go up against a Sicilian, when political credibility is on the line?..

 

 

 

Are Barack Obama and his administration really this willing to hurt New Jersey schoolchildren so they can "get back" at the guy who embarrassed them by beating Jon Corzine last year?  Evidently, the answer is yes.

I hope you're every bit as sickened by this disgusting, vengeful act as I am.

Ken Berwitz

There are many reasons why Arizona's exasperation with the federal government's non-enforcement of immigration laws got to the point where it passed a state version of those laws.  Here's one of them.

Excerpted from an article at msnbc.com:

MEXICO CITY — The sole survivor in the massacre of 72 illegal immigrants headed to the U.S. has said a notorious drug gang gunned them all down after they refused to work as assassins, according to a source at the prosecutor's office for the state of Tamaulipas quoted in Mexican media.

The teen — an Ecuadorian who escaped and stumbled wounded to a military checkpoint on a highway — told authorities that his captors had identified themselves as Zetas, a drug gang whose control of parts of the northern state of Tamaulipas is so brutal and complete that even many Mexicans avoid traveling its highways.

The migrants had little cash, Pomavilla reportedly said, and the gunmen then told them they could work as Zetas assassins and get paid $2,000 a month. It was not clear if they were supposed to work in the United States.

When the migrants refused, the gunmen opened fire, the source described Pomavilla as saying.

The Zetas gang, started by former Mexican army special forces soldiers, is known to extort money from migrants who pass through its territory.

Is that clear enough?  Is that enough of a wake-up call for President Obama and his pathetic, incompetent sock-puppet of an Attorney General  eric holder?

Some people romanticize the border security issue as poor campesinos, desperately trying to scratch out a meager living to feed their families, heroically fighting not only poverty and hunger, but the big, bad USA too.

Well, it's a little more complicated than that.

We're talking about drugs.  We're talking about murder.  We're talking about cartels heavily involved in both which soon will be hot and heavy on our side of the border --- if we don't do something about it and fast.

Yet all the Obama administration has done, so far, is to sue Arizona in an effort to prevent them from enforcing the laws, thus rendering the border open and available to one and all, including the Zetas gang and their kindred pals from other drug cartels.

This is insane.

Ken Berwitz

They say a picture is worth a thousand words.  But, in my opinion, the one I'm about to show you (which West Coast Russ just put me on to) is worth a million or more.

Democrats took over both houses of congress in January, 2007.  The first budget written by that Democratic congress (which has reemained Democratic ever since) kicked in on October 1, 2007.

Now click on the following chart and see how unemployment has moved.  (If you have trouble viewing the chart, or just want to see a bigger version without that "an error occurred, please try again later" screen I don't know how to get rid of, just click here):

Updated 07.15.10, The Decline: The Geography of a Recession by LaToya Egwuekwe (OFFICIAL)

 

Does that tell a story, or what?

Ken Berwitz

Will the Democratic Party lose the house this year, or will it retain control for the third consecutive time?

That question is going to be asked endlessly until the November election when - we hope- there will be a definitive answer one way or the other.

Until then, of course, we don't know for sure.  And there are pretty good arguments leading to both conclusions.

Reid Wilson of nationaljournal.com believes Democrats will retain the house.  But his analysis, though clearly slanted towards this conclusion, gives us a very complete look at both arguments.  Here are some of the highlights -- but do yourself a favor and read his entire piece as well:

• Money: On both a macro level and a micro level, Republicans are seriously behind in the money chase. Most candidates enrolled in the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee's Frontline program for endangered incumbents have huge cash leads over their rivals, and the DCCC has nearly twice as much on hand as the National Republican Congressional Committee.

 

On Tuesday, Boehner said his goal was to run a $50 million independent expenditure program through the NRCC. With $22 million on hand as of Aug. 1, Republicans are nowhere near reaching that goal. The DCCC, on the other hand, has already reserved airtime worth $49 million -- and that's only the first wave.

 

• Turnout: Beyond advertising, money pays for turnout operations, another area in which Democrats have a clear advantage. The Democratic National Committee has pledged $30 million in cash and services to turn out the estimated 15 million voters who cast their first ballots for President Obama in 2008, and the DCCC has put an average of five field staffers on the ground in 75 districts.

 

Then again, Republicans have a silver lining in the form of well-funded candidates at the top of the ticket. In Ohio, for example, Senate candidate Rob Portman (R) is likely to build his own turnout operation, one that will benefit GOP House candidates. The same can be said for the self-funding Meg Whitman, running for governor in California; Senate candidates Marco Rubio in Florida and Mark Kirk in Illinois; and others. Their largesse could help cash-strapped candidates lower on the ballot.

 

• Opposition Research: Call it the Harry Reid model: When you're not popular, your only hope of winning election is to make your opponent even less popular. Democrats have engaged in what they characterize as an unprecedented research campaign, digging up dirt on GOP candidates in hopes of driving their negative numbers through the roof.

 

Here, too, is where money comes in. Republicans have recruited a number of candidates who have never sought office and are largely undefined. If Democrats spend the money early to portray Republicans as unacceptable alternatives, and to frame races as contests they can control, they will be using their monetary advantages to the fullest.

 

But Republicans have their own opposition research, and rumors are perpetually flying about one member or another. What's more, Republicans can point to health care legislation, cap-and-trade, the stimulus package and other key votes Democratic incumbents have taken, all of which poll horribly with independent voters. Those votes are powerful bits of opposition research on their own.

 

For every possible reason Democrats have to be confident this year, Republicans have an equally valid point as to why they're in a stronger position. But both parties agree that expectations are too high, and that the Republican takeover of Congress is far from a done deal.

 

Republicans still have a strong chance to gain an important toehold in the legislative branch. But they should not invest in new drapes just yet; dislodging a majority is harder than it seems, and Democrats are using every lever of power at their disposal to hold on.

Personally, if I were betting my money would, at this point, be on Republicans taking over with room to spare. 

There is great anger with the Obama agenda, and great understanding that his lopsidedly Democratic congress facilitative that agenda.  Importantly, most polls indicate that this is pretty strongly manifested among independent voters;  i.e. voters not committed to one particular party, thus most willing to switch their votes in a general election.

Since there seems to be little likelihood that things will turn around between now and November, and even less likelihood that swing voters are buying the "it's Bush's fault" BS anymore, Republicans are positioned for a watershed election.

But this is politics, and all things can change.  Sometimes they change in no time flat. 

So, as Mr. Wilson suggests (in the part of his commentary that I haven't posted above), maybe Republicans shouldn't be measuring the drapes just yet.

Ken Berwitz

If it is "right wing violence" and "extremism" if a Democratic venue is attacked - as we were relentlessly told earlier this year - what exactly is this?

From WBAL-TV Baltimore:

Gunshot Shatters Glass Door Of GOP Office

Salisbury Police: MDGOP Office Vandalized

POSTED: 8:18 pm EDT August 25, 2010
UPDATED: 8:41 pm EDT August 25, 2010

SALISBURY, Md. -- A gunshot shattered a glass door Wednesday at a Salisbury office of the Maryland Republican Party, according to a party statement.

 

The party published the statement on its website, indicating that a single gunshot shattered the front door at the office early in the morning.

 

Salisbury police officers discovered the shattered glass after midnight and reported that the office had been vandalized.

 

The statement indicated that a party staffer found a bullet in the office.

 

If you have any information regarding this continuing investigation, contact Salisbury police by dialing 410-548-3165.

Now grow old waiting for our wonderful "neutral" media, and cable news hosts (like Chris Matthews, for example) who went ballistic over attacks on Democrats, to tell you about "left wing violence" and "extremism".

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

Ken Berwitz

Yesterday I blogged about a New York City cab driver, who was stabbed by an apparently drunken "man" named michael enright, who first asked if the cabbie was Muslim, found out he was, and then attacked him,

I watched NBC's coverage of the stabbing this morning on both the local news and the Today show.  Each report referenced the "ground zero mosque", thus tying the attack to that issue.  But neither mentioned that the attacker, michael enright, was a volunteer worker for an organization (Intersections International) that strongly supports the mosque.  Without that information, I think it is fair to say most viewers assumed it probably was a hate attack by an anti-Muslim, furious over the building of that mosque.

Then I read the New York Times' coverage of this story.  The good news is that the Times did cite enright's volunteer work for the organization, along with very important details about his troubled, violent past.  The bad news?  This information was buried so deeply within the article that many readers, maybe most, might not even have seen it.

Here is the relevant Times excerpt:

He was arrested in November on charges of criminal trespass and disorderly conduct. According to the police, he was picked up on Second Avenue between 49th and 50th Streets, where he was acting violently, banging on walls and ringing doorbells. There was also a warrant out for him at the time for another violation, though it was unclear on Wednesday what it was for.

Mr. Enright is also a volunteer with Intersections International, an initiative of the Collegiate Churches of New York that promotes justice and faith across religions and cultures. The organization, which covered part of Mr. Enright’s travel expenses to Afghanistan, has been a staunch supporter of the Islamic center near ground zero. Mr. Enright volunteered with the group’s veteran-civilian dialogue project.

Those, folks, are the 24th and 28th paragraphs of the story. 

That's right.  You had to reach paragraph 24 to find out that enright had a violent past (i.e. there is a reason to think that his tendency to violence, rather than Muslim hatred, was the primary motivation for the attack), and paragraph 28 to find out that enright was an unpaid volunteer (isn't that what you do when you're seriously committed to a cause?) for an organization that "has been a staunch supporter of the Islamic center near ground zero".

Do you think you'd have had to wait 28 paragraphs if he was an unpaid volunteer for an anti-ground zero mosque group?

Our wonderful "neutral" media at work......

Ken Berwitz

As the months go on, the midterm elections approach, and the economy remains in the tank, reality is starting to hit Democrats - most especially Democratic incumbents in (the increasing number of ) competitive congressional seats.

Read this excerpt from yesterday's blog at politico.com and see for yourself:

Democrats privately fear House prospects worsening

By JIM VANDEHEI & ALEX ISENSTADT & MIKE ALLEN | 8/25/10 9:07 PM EDT

Top Democrats are growing markedly more pessimistic about holding the House, privately conceding that the summertime economic and political recovery they were banking on will not likely materialize by Election Day.

In conversations with more than two dozen party insiders, most of whom requested anonymity to speak candidly about the state of play, Democrats in and out of Washington say they are increasingly alarmed about the economic and polling data they have seen in recent weeks.

They no longer believe the jobs and housing markets will recover – or that anything resembling the White House’s promise of a “recovery summer” is under way. They are even more concerned by indications that House Democrats once considered safe – such as Rep. Betty Sutton, who occupies an Ohio seat that President Barack Obama won with 57 percent of the vote in 2008 – are in real trouble.

In two close races, endangered Democrats are even running ads touting how they oppose their leadership.

“Democrats kept thinking: ‘We’re going to get better. We’re going to get well before the election,’” said one of Washington’s best-connected Democrats. “But as of this week, you now have people saying that Republicans are going to win the House. And now it’s starting to look like the Senate is going to be a lot closer than people thought.”

A Democratic pollster working on several key races said, “The reality is that [the House majority] is probably gone.” His data shows the Democrats’ problems are only getting worse. “It’s spreading,” the pollster said. 

Do Democrats have reason to fear this election?  You bet your buckaroo they do.  All the speechifying, and grinning, and all the attempts to shunt blame to Republicans, combined, times 50, will not convince the electorate that anyone but Obama and the Democratic party are to blame for our awful economy.

And they're 100% correct. 

It sure as hell wasn't Republicans who passed the so-called "stimulus package", which not only has failed miserably, but - at a cost of unprecedentedly large deficits - has resulted in the exact opposite result of what Democrats promised.  Out of over 200 Republican members of congress, a total of three voted for it - one of whom then switched parties and became a Democrat.

Let me end by citing an edited, but particularly salient quote: 

"I am not persuaded that (the stimulus package) is going to solve the (economic problems we are facing).  In fact, I think it will do the reverse,"

Right on.  Whoever said that is a prophet.

Except for one thing:  The man who said that was not talking about the economy.  The actual quote is:

"I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there. In fact, I think it will do the reverse":  Senator Barack Obama, September 26, 2008.

Mr. Obama was as wrong about the troop surge as he was about the so-called "stimulus package"

Moreover, the success of that troop surge was what has enabled now-President Obama to remove most or all of our combat troops from Iraq - which he has spent much of August bragging about and taking credit for, as if his policies had anything to do with it.

How can anyone believe a thing this man says?

Ken Berwitz

As you probably know, Joe Miller, the insurgent Republican who challenged incumbent Senator Lisa Murkowski in Alaska, rode Sarah Palin's (and others') endorsements to victory --- a) by a hair's breadth (47,027 to 45,359:  a margin of 1,668 votes, with all precincts counted) and b) subject to a recount, and the adding of what  originally was billed as about 7,600 absentee ballots.

But this is what I just read at Erick Erickson's www.redstate.com:

Posted by Erick Erickson (Profile)

Thursday, August 26th at 5:00AM EDT

 

Joe Miller has won the GOP nomiation for the United States Senate in Alaska. Looking at where the absentee ballots are coming from, etc., Murkowski is not going to be able to make it up. Sources close to Miller, Palin, and external media sources all seem to think Murkowski can’t make up the difference.

 

But there is a problem.

 

The absentee ballots will not be counted for a week or so. Already there are rumors of “found” ballots. Murkowski is refusing to go away quietly, even allowing her campaign to float the idea of a third party bid or write-in candidacy.

 

Joe Miller needs a quick infusion of cash to his campaign to pay for a ballot integrity program. Tea Party activists need to get to Alaska immediately to help secure the process and make sure Murkowski cannot steal the election.

 

And once all of that is done, Alaska media sources are reporting the Democrats may yank the winner of their contest and put in former Governor Tony Knowles, who they think will have a stronger shot at Miller.

 

Give Joe Miller what you can ASAP.

I've left the request for contributions in - not because I endorse Mr. Miller or personally want you to send him money, but so that you can see the entire blog and know where Mr. Erickson is coming from.

Needless to say, I (and I hope you) will be closely following the absentee ballot count.

Two other things:  1) I don't know how the Democratic party can "yank" its primary winner and insert someone else;  I'd love for Mr. Erickson to explain, and 2) According to the Tacoma News Tribune, if Murkowski loses, she is not ruling out a third-party run on the Libertarian ticket.  For this to happen, the nominee, who has already been picked, would have to step aside.

Is this Alaska or Chicago?  Because, politically, they don't seem real far apart.

Ken Berwitz

Earlier yesterday evening, a Manhattan cab driver picked up an apparently drunk fare, who asked if he was a Muslim.  When the cabbie said he was, the passenger pulled out a knife and stabbed him repeatedly.  The driver is lucky to be alive.

What an ugly, sickening act.

But it wasn't the only ugly, sickening act associated with this incident. 

The following excerpt from Michelle Malkin will tell you more:

As you may have heard, a Muslim cabbie was stabbed in a terrible incident in NYC today.

The reportedly drunk perpetrator worked/volunteered for a liberal interfaith film company and there is zero evidence that he is a Fox News fan, Glenn Beck listener, Republican voter, or conservative blog reader.

No matter. The left-wing media couldn’t wait to indict the Right.

University of Michigan professor Juan Cole headlines his screed: Republican National Committee Slashes New York Muslim Cabbie.

The Village Voice asked hopefully before providing grudging updates: Was the Muslim Cab Driver Slashing the First “Ground Zero Mosque” Hate Crime?

And the bilge-spewing commenters at Think Progress went to town (language warning, as usual):

#
glogrrl says:

It was only a matter of time. Nice work, Rethugs. Welcome to Amurika.
August 25th, 2010 at 11:19 am

F**k the Army (brought to you by the US Army) says:

Anyone who commits murder is guilty of a crime
Anyone who provides the murder weapon is also guilty.
Anyone who incites another to commit murder is guilty as well.

Are you listening, Glenda Beck, Caribou Barbie, Flush Limpdick, et al.?
August 25th, 2010 at 11:23 am

#
#
trevinla says:

Thanks Newt!
Thanks Barbie!
Thanks Beck!
Thanks Rush!
Thanks Comcast!
Thanks Fox!
Thanks Reagan!
Thanks Bush!
Thanks Clinton!
Thanks Bush!
Thanks Cheney!
Thanks BP!
Thanks Exon!
Thanks Xe (nee:Blackwater)!!
Thanks Haliburton!!

there is more to thank but I have to get back to work…
August 25th, 2010 at 11:43 am

#
Chicano2ndFightingTerrorismSince1492 says:

Tell me again, friggin wingnuts, republicans and t-baggers, what religion is violent?
August 25th, 2010 at 3:22 pm
#
P.D. says:

This is an absolute disgrace. I blame MSM, Becky and all the other hate mongers out there. They have blood on their hands ever since Dr. Tiller was murdered.
August 25th, 2010 at 3:25 pm

Ok.  Now that you've seen the hate-filled, vitriolic response to everyone and everything conservative, let's find out if Ms. Malkin is correct in saying the passenger was a member of a "liberal" (as she calls it) group. 

For that, we excerpt from  (believe it or not) New York's venerable, decidedly leftwing Village Voice -- the same Village Voice which initially suggested this might be a "ground zero mosque hate crime":

A cab driver picked up a 21-year-old fare yesterday in Murray Hill on 24th and Second around 6 p.m. The fare -- "visibly drunk" -- gets in the cab, and reportedly asks the driver: "Are you a Muslim?" The driver answers that he is. And what happens next? The fare, as we've now heard, stabs the cab driver. Here's where it gets strange:

Michael Enright of Brewster, New York, who was booked on charges of attempted murder and assault with a weapon as a hate crime, is listed on Facebook as an employee of the New York City-based Intersections International, a "global initiative dedicated to promoting justice, reconciliation and peace across lines of faith, culture, ideology, race, class, national borders and other boundaries that divide humanity." And a few weeks ago, they announced their support for -- you guessed it -- the Cordoba House, better known to many as the "Ground Zero Mosque."

Can you even begin to imagine what the media would be saying if Michael Enright worked for a conservative organization?  A Christian organization?  A pro-life organization?

Well, let's see how our wonderful "neutral" mainstream media handle it now that we know he did not work for a conservative, Christian or pro-life group, but a kumbaya organization that supports the ground zero mosque.

Or do you already think you know?

Ken Berwitz

Ann Coulter has tackled both these questions in her latest column. 

Here's the excerpt I like most:

And there's a lot more evidence that Obama's a Muslim than Republicans are racists. Let's compare:

Evidence for the Proposition That Obama's a Muslim: His father was a Muslim; his mother, an atheist, married two Muslims; he attended a Muslim school in Indonesia from age 6 to 10; and, during the campaign, he proudly posted on his webpage his statement that America is "no longer" a Christian nation, a statement he has repeated as president, while announcing on French TV that America is "one of the largest Muslim countries in the world."

Evidence for the Proposition That Republicans Are Racist: (Nothing so far.)

Evidence for the Proposition That Liberals Lie About Republicans Being Racist: Video of a supporter of Rand Paul's opponent pretending to be a racist Paul supporter; Oregon public school teacher Jason Levin caught operating a website asking liberals to show up at Tea Parties pretending to be right-wing racists; The New York Times' Maureen Dowd claiming she heard Rep. Joe Wilson shout, "You lie, boy!" when he shouted "You lie!" during Obama's speech to a joint session of Congress; and the mainstream media lying about civil rights hero John Lewis being called the N-word 15 times at an anti-ObamaCare protest, with no one ever being able to produce a videotape, despite a $100,000 reward.

Do yourself a favor and read the entire column at www.anncoulter.com.  It's well worth your while.

Ken Berwitz

How many Democrats are going to abandon the Obama ship of state over its awful performance on the economy?  Quite a few, I would guess.

The latest one is Colorado Senator Michael Bennet, who just won a hard-fought primary over Andrew Romanoff.  

Excerpted from Michael Sandoval's article at National Review (bold print is his, not mine):

Sen. Michael Bennet’s recent appearance in Greeley, Colorado is sure to set political tongues wagging–Bennet is quoted as saying that though trillions of dollars of Federal debt has been incurred through spending since he was appointed to the Senate in January of 2009, “we have nothing to show for it”:

Michael Bennet, D-Colo,at a town hall meeting in Greeley last Saturday, Aug 21 said we had nothing to show for the debt incurred by the stimulus package and other expenditures calling the recession  the worst since the Great Depression. [...]

Regarding spending during his time in office he said, “We have managed to acquire $13 trillion of debt on our balance sheet” and, “in my view we have nothing to show for it.” Speaking of the debt, he said our debt almost equals the economy. Regarding the current job situation, Bennet said the situation has been dire for over a decade saying, “We have created no net new jobs in the United States since 1998” which were the last two years of the Clinton administration. Pointing to a slide showing budget expenditures, he said that currently 65 percent of the budget was for social security, Medicaid and Medicare expenditures and that we could not grow our way out of debt.

Regarding the expiration of the Bush tax cuts Bennet would not commit to a position on whether to extend them simply saying, “I hope we look at it comprehensively.”

What does this tell us?  Essentially that the Obama economy is a mess and several - soon to be a great many, I suspect - Democrats cannot and will not run on it.

But Vice President Biden disagrees.  True, he's not calling the so-called "stimulus package" by that name anymore.  True, he's not calling this a "Recovery Summer" anymore.  But he's still telling us that we're moving in the right direction.

That makes Jackass Joe look even more jackassian than usual.

Hee Haw.

Ken Berwitz

At one time, polls indictated that Sarah Palin - at an astonishing 87% approval - was this country's single most popular Governor.

Now, after two years of relentlessly negative, frequently vicious and offensive attacks on Ms. Palin and everything about her........she has become an extraordinarily influential power broker in the Republican Party.  In most cases, a Palin endorsement means votes.  Lots of them.

The latest person to find this out is Linda Murkowski, the incumbent Republican Senator from Alaska and daughter of Frank Murkowski, who Sarah Palin upended in the 2006 gubernatorial primary on her way to becoming Governor of the state.

Ms. Murkowski was backed by the Republican establishment, and had dramatically more money than her conservative, Tea-Partier opponent, Joe Miller.  But Miller had one thing Murkowski did not:  a Sarah Palin endorsement.

As I write this, with about 98% of the precincts reporting, and about 7,500 - 8,000 absentee ballots to count, Miller leads Murkowski by 1,960 votes:  45,909 to 43, 949. 

Can Ms. Murkowski eke out a win?  Yes she can.  Miller's lead is due to a late surge, which presumably occurred after most absentee ballots had been cast.  But even if Murkowski does prevail it will be by next to nothing.  Regardless, given the circumstances under which he ran (underfunded with virtually no party support), Miller's showing is tremendous. 

Based on how her candidates have made out this year, maybe Ms. Palin should send a thank-you note to our wonderful "neutral" media --  along with a request that, as a results-oriented person, she hopes they continue their hatchet job on her. 

Just one other thing:  If you're holding an event, and the Murkowskis and Palins are invited, I would suggest that you try not to sit them at the same table......

Ken Berwitz

Is support for the so-called "ground zero mosque" a political waterloo?

Well, read this excerpt from yesterday's article on the subject at rasmussenreports.com, and decide for yourself:

A lot more voters are paying attention to the plans to build a mosque near the Ground Zero site of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York City, and they don’t like the idea.

 

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 85% of U.S. voters say they are now following news stories about the mosque planned near Ground Zero. That’s a 34-point jump from a month ago when only 51% said they were following the story. 

 

The new finding includes 58% who are following the story very closely, up from 22% in mid-July.

 

Now 62% oppose the building of a mosque near where the World Trade Center stood in Lower Manhattan, compared to 54% in the previous survey. Twenty-five percent (25%) favor allowing the mosque to go ahead, and 13% more are not sure.

If these data are correct, the answer is that, rightly or wrongly, support for this mosque most certainly is a political Waterloo.  Nothing less.

To review:  A month ago, 51% said they were following news stories about the "ground zero mosque", with 22% saying they were following the story closely.  At that time a majority of 54% were against its being built.

But now, just one month later?  85% say they are following it, with 58% saying they are following the story closely.  And along with this huge rise in awareness is a similarly huge rise in opposition:  62% against versus 25% in favor -- a 2 1/2 to 1 ratio.

Did I say Waterloo?  Maybe I'm understating.

Bottom line:  Let's suppose you are a Democrat in a competitive race this year and you are asked for your opinion regarding the "ground zero mosque".  What are you going to say? 

This may turn out to be one of the most intriguing - and most voter-influential - questions of the 2010 election.

Ken Berwitz

Jackass Joe is at it again.

Vice President Biden made a speech in Cleveland yesterday, in which he sang the praises of our current economic situation.

Evidently, in the world of Biden, over a trillion more dollars in debt, resulting in higher unemployment and millions of lost jobs, is a spectacular success.

Here, are two of the Vice President's verbatim quotes (in rust) and my reaction to them (in blue):

(Reacting to Rep. John Boehner’s suggestion that the Obama economic team be fired):  "For eight years before we arrived in the West Wing, Mr. Boehner and his party ran the economy literally into the ground.  We've seen this movie before, Mr. Boehner. We've seen it before and we know how it ends."  Wrong.  Democrats ran both houses of congress for the final two years of the Bush administration.  Democrats were writing the budgets.  And those two years were when the economy, which had been humming along beautifully (unemployment under 5%, 52 consecutive months of growth) suddenly reversed course.  Is that a coincidence?

”…no doubt we're moving in the right direction.” Hmmm, let’s think about this.  A deficit which had ballooned to 400 billion dollars in Bush’s last year (with a Democratic house and senate writing the budget, let’s not forget) is now somewhere between 1.5 and 2.0 trillion dollars.  President Obama told us that the so-called “stimulus package” (passed on February 17, 2009) would cause unemployment, then at about 8%, to stop dead in its tracks and head in the opposite direction, while 3,500,000 – 4,000,000 new jobs would be created by the end of 2010.  Instead, unemployment jumped over 10%. is currently stagnating at about 9.5%, and the economy has lost almost as many jobs (about 3,000,000) as the gain we were promised.  Is that the “right direction” to you?

Not for nothing do I call him Jackass Joe.

Ken Berwitz

As mediamatters.org continues in gloat mode over the (not unreasonable) assumption that they were at least partly responsible for getting Laura Schlessinger to voluntarily (no one was pushing her out) leave her radio show, I thought you might be interested to see what is being said by the folks mediamatters gives a free pass to.

The following is excerpted from L. Brent Bozell's latest column, at townhall.com:

Start with Ed Schultz, perpetually out of control on MSNBC. On June 16, 2009, Joe Scarborough asked Schultz if he felt Dick Cheney hoped Americans would die in a terrorist attack so it would benefit Republicans. "Absolutely, absolutely," said Schultz. "I think Dick Cheney is all about seeing this country go conservative on a hard-right wing, and I think he'll do anything to get it there."

On the radio Aug. 11, 2009, Schultz spewed: "Sometimes I think they want Obama to get shot. I do. I think that there are conservative broadcasters in this country who would love to see Obama taken out." This might be what they call projection coming from Schultz, since he begged for Cheney to die. "Lord, take him to the promised land," he proclaimed on May 11, 2009.

 

Or take Montel Williams, the former TV talk-show host who had a brief tenure on Air America radio before it imploded. On July 21, 2009, he explained what conservatives had planned for uninsured Americans: "When they show up at the emergency room, just shoot 'em! Kill them! ... Do we have enough body bags? I don't know."

 

Reporters scream in protest over anyone calling Obama a socialist but they don't find anything scandalous in vicious lies like these.

 

Randi Rhodes aired a February 2008 radio skit where she bizarrely imagined the Mitt Romney campaign saying they would go on a shooting rampage and commit mass suicide if John McCain won the GOP nomination. She had one Republican claim: "As a true Republican, I'm prepared to poison my own children if John McCain is the nominee."

 

Left-wing radio hosts even blame their conservative counterparts for 9/11. I'm not kidding. Mike Malloy shouted at his opponents on Jan. 19, 2010: "Do you not understand that the people you hold up as heroes bombed your goddamn country? Do you not understand that Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly are as complicit of the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attack as any one of the dumb-ass 15 who came from Saudi Arabia?"

Has any conservative ever said anything remotely similar to this?

 

He also claimed on April 19, 2010 that Beck and Limbaugh rejoiced over the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995: "This is what Beck and Limbaugh and the rest of these right-wing freaks want to see happen again. And again. And again. Endlessly."

 

Perhaps Malloy is granted an exception because he sounds clinically insane. He has claimed Rep. Michele Bachmann "would have gladly rounded up the Jews in Germany and shipped them off to death camps." He has claimed Cheney "must have feasted on a Jewish baby, or a Muslim baby." He has claimed that the mild-mannered Fred Barnes "is beyond crazy. I'm sure he eats children's arms or legs for afternoon snacks."

 

Then consider this: Malloy was a news writer for CNN for years. Schultz was awarded a platform on MSNBC for his hatred. Those supposed guardians of civility in our liberal media are not bowing their heads in embarrassment. They are nodding their heads in agreement.

On her radio show, Laura Schlessinger said that rap singers and Black comedians on HBO continually use the word "nigger", but it's supposed to be taboo for everyone else.  She did not call  anyone a nigger, she used the word to make a point about how the term is used.  Just as I did in this paragraph.

For that crime, our wonderful "neutral" media, with groups like mediamatters.org leading the charge, went after her with everything they had.

But when hard leftists like Schultz, Malloy, Rhodes, etc. say - and mean - the things Mr. Bozell enumerated in the above excerpt?  That's just fine.  No problem.  Move along folks, nothing to see here.  Nothing to hear, see?

Look, I understand that mediamatters.org is a sorosian hard-left venom...er, venue.  For that reason I expect it to see only one side of things. 

But what about the rest of our media?  You know, the part that presents itself as neutral?  Where are they?

Bozell ends his piece by saying they are "...not bowing their heads in embarrassment.  They are nodding their heads in agreement.".

Exactly.

And then they wonder why people call them biased.

Ken Berwitz

Barack Obama promised that, even after ObamaCare was implemented, we would be able to keep whatever insurance we currently have. 

Well, Barack Obama made a lot of promises about a lot of things, didn't he?

Excerpted from an Associated Press article:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A plan by Medicare to try to make it simpler for consumers to pick drug coverage could force 3 million seniors to switch plans next year whether they like it or not, says an independent analysis.

That risks undercutting President Barack Obama's promise that people can keep their health plans if they like them.

And it could be an unwelcome surprise for many seniors who hadn't intended to make a change during Medicare's open enrollment season this fall.

The analysis by Avalere Health, a leading private research firm, estimated that more than 3 million beneficiaries will see their prescription plan eliminated as part of a new effort by Medicare to winnow down duplicative coverage and offer consumers more meaningful choices.

Seniors would not lose coverage, but they could see changes in their premiums and copayments.

Medicare officials dismissed the Avalere estimate without offering their own number. "Anybody who is producing that kind of analysis is simply guessing," said Jonathan Blum, deputy administrator for Medicare.

But Bonnie Washington, a senior analyst with Avalere, said the company's analysis used Medicare's specifications.

My favorite line is that it "risks undercutting" the Obama promise about people being able to keep their health plans.  That's a little like saying if you break both of your ankles it risks your ability to run the Boston marathon.

I'm sure seniors all over the USA are highly "appreciative" of the curve ball Mr. Obama tossed them on Medicare.  I mean, why should they be left out, when he's done the same in so many ways to so many other citizens?

I'm also sure that Republicans are hoping they demonstrate their "appreciation" at the voting booths on election day.

How can anyone believe a word this man says?

Ken Berwitz

Newsweek, in a display of its (self-ordained) wisdom, has an online article called "America The Ignorant - Dumb things Americans believe".  In it, writer David A. Graham cites 11 areas in which, he tells us, we are ignorant, dumb or both.

However, I think there are a couple of problems with Mr. Graham's analysis.  Let me explain.

For one, it is the cheapest of cheap shots to do an article like this.  I don't care which country you survey, there are going to be a large number of people spouting "ignorant" opinions and attitudes.  One look at the percentage of people in  Europe ( which is far more intelligent and sophisticated, we are told) who think Israel is the single greatest threat in the middle east will tell you as much.

But what about the individual "dumb/ignorant" beliefs Graham cites?  Are they as dumb and ignorant as he thinks?  Well, here are the ones I take issue with:  

#1. Barack Obama Is A Muslim:  Graham says that "nearly one-fifth of Americans (mistakenly) believe that President Obama is a Muslim".  Are they mistaken, David?  His father and stepfather were Muslim.  He has a Muslim name.  He was educated for four years in the Muslim country of Indonesia, where his school registration listed his religion as "Islam".  If you're arguing that he is not a practicing Muslim you have a point.  But that isn't what the question was, and - as I have just shown - there is ample reason to believe that is the religion he was raised in. 

#2. Disbelief of Darwin's Theory of Evolution:  About a quarter of Americans do not believe in Darwin's theory of evolution.  Personally, I do.  But maybe someone should tell Mr. Graham that there is a reason it is called a theory - as in not settled science.  And maybe Mr. Graham should reflect on how much so-called settled science has been debunked over time. 

#4. Death Panels:  Sorry David, but you're wrong again.  ObamaCare has siphoned an estimated half billion dollars out of Medicare.  That means health care for seniors inherently must be rationed.  This, in turn, means that panels of "experts" have to decide what procedures will and will not be available to them.  So, although the term "death panels" may be overly dramatic and provocative, Ms. Palin has a point. 

#5. Whether saddam hussein Had WMD's and Whether He Was Involved in 9/11.  Graham gets half credit on this one.  As President Bush said, saddam hussein was not directly involved in 9/11.  But the WMD's?  How does Mr. Graham know?  If they did exist, saddam had a half year to hide, export or destroy them.  During that time, there was aerial surveillance of convoys of trucks loaded with something (we do not know what) traveling from Iraq to Syria.  Intelligence from the US, France, Israel, Russia, etc said he had them***.  And virtually every politician on BOTH sides of the aisle (including Bill Clinton, John Kerry, Ted Kennedy, Nancy Pelosi, etc. etc. etc. specifically said he had WMD's - a fact which has conveniently been expunged from our wonderful "neutral" media's collective memory chip over time.  These factors certainly qualify as reasons to believe saddam had WMD's.  The conclusion itself may be right or may be wrong, but the belief that WMDs existed is perfectly reasonable. 

Hmmm.  Wasn't this supposed to show that Americans are dumb, not Newsweek writers? 

Let's remember that two of David Graham's "dumb" examples are that almost 1/5th (18% actually) of the country believes President Obama is a Muslim and about a quarter (thus about 25%) are skeptical of the theory of evolution.

So what would Mr. Graham call a writer who is wrong on 32% of his examples (3 1/2 out of 11)?  Does any four-letter word starting with "d" come to mind?

If you come up with one - like, for example, "dumb" - please note that I will disagree with you.  I am dead certain David Graham is not dumb. 

But, then again, I don't think cherry-picking a few wrong answers to questions like these necessarily makes anyone else dumb.  

Does that make I me dumb?  You decide.

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

***This was added after commenter zeke reminded me of it.  Sorry for my inadvertent forgetfulness.

Ken Berwitz

Here's a ripe one for the "you can't make this stuff up" file.  

Excerpted from an Associated Press article I saw at yahoonews.com:

BERLIN – Police say a man living in Germany was shot in the back of his head, but that it took him five years to realize it. Police said Tuesday that the 35-year-old man was hit by a .22-caliber bullet in the western town of Herne as he was out in the street partying and drunk on New Year's Eve five years ago.

They say the man recalled receiving a blow to the head, but told them he didn't seek medical assistance at the time.

The bullet did not penetrate the skull, and police say the Polish man only went to see a doctor recently when he felt a lump on the back of his head.

He was partying and drunk, so he didn't notice he was shot???????? That must have been some night of booze. 

Wouldn't you think he'd have sobered up enough during the following five years to notice there was a bullet lodged in his head?  An overripe rutabaga would have noticed it, but he didn't?

My favorite part of the article is where it says the bullet did not penetrate his skull.  I have a feeling nothing penetrates this guy's skull.

Ken Berwitz

For months, we were promised a "recovery summer" with up to a half million new jobs a month -- all of it due to the "stimulus package" inflicte...er, enacted by President Obama and the lopsidedly Democratic congress a year and a half ago.

Well, it is late August.  And no recovery summer.  No recovery anything.

Now, albeit belatedly (though faster than CBS or NBC), ABC News is admitting what a bust "Recovery Summer" has turned out to be.  Here is the beginning of its analysis:

After months of withering job losses and weak economic growth, summer was going to be the season of recovery, the Obama administration heralded in June.

Thousands of infrastructure and construction projects funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act were to come on-line during June, July and August, helping to "create jobs for American workers and economic growth for businesses, large and small."

The White House dubbed it "Recovery Summer" and President Obama declared the economy had begun "growing at a good clip." Vice President Joe Biden predicted weeks earlier that creation of 250,000 to 500,000 new jobs a month could soon be on the horizon.

But with summer quickly coming to an end, those jobs gains and a robust economic recovery have not yet materialized, leaving Democrats on the verge of a fall election campaign in which Republicans are poised to make them eat their words.

"Sadly, this so-called 'Recovery Summer' could end up with more Americans finding themselves out of work then when it began," said National Republican Congressional Committee spokesman Ken Spain. "Expect Republican candidates across the country to ask one simple question of Democrat incumbents: 'Where are the jobs?'"

Unfortunately, the rest of ABC's story reverts back to standard-issue mainstream media drivel.  For example, it suggests that the stimulus package was beneficial, by making the unquantifiable claim that things would have been much worse without it - minus any mention of the impossibly burdensome deficits it created.  And it copiously quotes someone from the Economic Policy Institute, which - amazingly - it characterizes as "non-partisan" (I wonder if that was ABC's attempt at humor.  For the network's sake, I hope so).

But nonetheless, the point is made that the "Recovery Summer" never happened.

Maybe they should rename it "The Summer We Need To Recover From"....

I will end by posting a comment about the the article from someone using the screen name "rdhl77".  I think he/she nails it beautifully:

Very poor reporting by ABC or misinformation? The numbers the article cites for growth are old. The commerce department revised 1st quarter 2010 GDP downward to 2.7% from initial estimates. It did this on June 25, 2010. It also added that a large part of the estimate was due to inventory restocking - a temporary surge. And as the numbers on the second quarter continue to compile, commerce is indicating another downard revision of 2nd quarter from 2.4% to what is looking to be just over 1%. All this information can easily be obtained by ABC. I suggest their reporters do some basic research and report, not propagandize. Even with this window dressing, the people know they are being fed a bowl of crock. Recovery Summer has become Obama Bummer. We have run up a massive debt and have very little to show for it other than a hefty interest bill. Keynesian economics has never worked and it is not working now. This is the weakest "recovery" in modern times. Democrats took over almost 4 years ago when growth was robust, unemployment historically low (well under 5%) after 52 months of job growth and a deficit of only $169 billion. So tell me. After almost four years of Democrat Congress, Democrat legislation and Democrat policy, are you better off now than you were four years ago? Should we continue to attack businesses and the most productive members of our society at the expense of jobs for all of us? Should we continue the expensive government policy of "stimulus" bill after "stimulus" bill by way of massive borrowing? Or should be put our faith back into the private sector that provides real jobs and growth that provide income to us and the government by way of taxes?

Posted by:
rdhl77 9:15 AM

Ken Berwitz

In the previous blog I referenced mainstream media personalities, and how far they would go in the name of political correctness when it came to the so-called "ground zero mosque. 

Would you like a couple of specific examples?  Try these on for size:

-NBC/MSNBC's norah o'donnell, last week:  opponents of the so-called "ground zero mosque" are "...like the people who attacked America and killed 3,000 people:

-CBS's katie couric, yesterday:  "...we cannot let fear and rage tear down the towers of our core American values"

There they are.  Two major-network "news" personalities, unsubtlely suggesting that opposition to a showcase mosque, with a name (Cordoba House) that symbolizes a Muslim military triumph, being built two blocks from the 9/11 site, is equivalent to the terrorist attack itself. 

o'donnell and couric are beneath contempt.

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

UPDATE:  For whatever it's worth, www.mediabistro.com is reporting that last week, katie carwreck...er, couric, who has been a perrenial #3 since taking over the CBS anchor desk from Dan Rather/Bob Schieffer, had her lowest viewership ever.  The numbers were:

	NBC	ABC	CBS
Total:	7,420,000	6,510,000	4,890,000
A25-54:	2,150,000	1,760,000	1,440,000

Try to imagine how troubling this is to me.......

Ken Berwitz

I sometimes wonder if the state department has taken leave of its senses.  And then I realize that the state department is not doing anything differently at all, it is just acting the way it usually does - which doesn't make me feel any better, I assure you.

It just sent the so-called "ground zero Imam", feisal abdul rauf, on a multinational trip at our expense.  To where?  To do what?  To say what to who?  We're not supposed to know that.  What we do know, however, is that fauf has connections to unsavory groups -- like the terrorist-connected Counsel on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) - and audio has been found from 2005, four years after the 9/11 attack where he accuses the USA of being worse than al-qaeda.

Are you happy with this sack of manure being funded by our tax dollars?  Me neither.

Well, it turns out that hatred of the USA and taxpayer-funded junkets are a family affair.  rauf's wife, daisy khan is on the gravy train too.

Excerpted from today's blog by Claudia Rossett, writing for pajamasmedia.com:

Yes, fresh from denouncing America on national television as a place rife with “hate of Muslims,” a place so Islamophobic that “it’s beyond Islamophobia,” Daisy Khan, co-planner of the Ground Zero mosque project, will soon be hopping a plane at taxpayer expense, courtesy of the State Department, to jet from New York to the United Arab Emirates and deliver to the Emiratis her views about Muslim life in America.

This is what the State Department calls “public diplomacy” — a program that enlists about 1,200 Americans each year to fly with plenty of leg room to foreign lands and tell folks over there what it’s like to live in America. You might think a lot of these junkets would by now be redundant, in a world so interconnected that the Fort Hood shooter took cues from an imam in Yemen. But then, the web just doesn’t have the zing of international business class and $496 per diems.

For Daisy Khan’s circle, State’s public diplomacy program is a boom industry. (So are a lot of things for Khan & partners right now, subject of my latest column, Cashing In On Ground Zero). Khan’s husband and “bridge-building” partner, the man behind the Ground Zero mosque, Imam Feisal Adbul Rauf, is already on a more extensive State Department tour. After stops in Bahrain, where he has just been, and Qatar, where he will be this week, Rauf will meet up with Khan in the UAE, from Aug. 29-Sept.2. His trip will cost U.S. taxpayers $16,000. Hers will  cost $12,000.

Is this insane?  Obscene?  An outrage?  Yes, yes and yes.

Is it our state department?  Yes again.

I long for a day when we have a President who will clean out this swamp.  So far, neither political party has produced one. 

It is long, long overdue.

And I long for a day when I won't have to go to the blogosphere to find out about things like this;  when mainstream media report it as news, instead of burying it for reasons of political correctness -- and, in more than a few instances I suspect, agreement with the rauf/khan assessment of this country.

Ken Berwitz

I rarely post someone an entire blog written by someone else; usually I post an excerpt with a link.  But this blog is short and to the point, so there isn't much opportunity for excerpting.  I am therefore making an exception.

With apologies to www.powerlineblog.com (whose bloggers have an open invitation to take material from here any time they want), here is Paul Mirengoff's commentary on whether the USA, in general, hates Islamic people:

August 23, 2010

Is America Islamophobic?

August 23, 2010 Posted by Paul at 10:23 PM

 

Following up on Time Magazine's article arguing that American may be Islamophobic, the Washington Post takes its stab at pressing the indictment. Post writer Annie Gowen focuses mostly on opposition to a proposed sprawling Islamic center in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. The Post claims that opposition is intense, but it presents no data on where overall public opinion in the area stands. Thus, the Post apparently has no idea whether the headline of the story that appeared in the print edition -- "Nowhere near Ground Zero, but no more welcome" -- is accurate.

 

The Post does refer to a poll that appeared in the Time article finding that 43 percent of Americans hold unfavorable views of Muslims. But which Muslims were the respondents referring to when they answered?

 

Was it the Muslims they know personally or the Muslims involved with the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a group named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation trial? Was it the Muslims who cheered the 9/11 attacks, the Muslims who condemned them, or the Muslims who called the attacks a crime, but claimed America was an accomplice? Was it the Muslim population in peaceful Indonesia or the Muslim population in Gaza? Was it the Iranian dissidents or the Iranian government?

 

The Post notes that 25 percent of respondents said that most Muslims are not patriotic Americans. If this answer to an empirical question is incorrect (I assume it is, but don't really know), the conclusion should be that a relatively small, though certainly not de minimis, percentage of Americans showed bias in their answer to this question. The conclusion should not be that America as a whole is Islamophobic; if anything, the opposite conclusion better fits this piece of data.

 

The Post acknowledges that the overall level of anti-Muslim sentiment hasn't shifted much as a result of the Ground Zero Mosque controversy. But it quotes unnamed "religious scholars and other experts" who find the change in tone "striking." That's certainly possible, given the "in your face" nature of the decision to build a mosque on the site of a building that was damaged by the deadly 9/11 attack. But if overall sentiment hasn't changed, one wonders why Time and the Post are suddenly suggesting that Americans are Islamophobes.

 

In the end, of course, the question comes down to how one defines Islamophobia. If it means disliking American Muslims because of their religion, then I don't think the charge sticks. If it means disliking a good deal of what many Muslims are doing in the wider world, and seeing some sort of a connection between that conduct and the religion of Islam, then Americans may well be Islamophobic. But we would be fools if we weren't.

Well done, Paul.  Your conclusion is spot-on.

Ken Berwitz

I have been asked by a reader (face to face, not online) to explain why I have said that Joe Biden mangled the duties of the Vice Presidency during his debate with Sarah Palin.

I told him I would post the answer on my blog, for everyone to see.  So here it is.

First, from the debate transcript, we have Senator Biden's verbatim description of the Vice Presidency (scroll about 3/4 of the way down), which suggests Dick Cheney was an ignoramus who didn't understand his own job:

BIDEN: Vice President Cheney has been the most dangerous vice president we've had probably in American history. The idea he doesn't realize that Article I of the Constitution defines the role of the vice president of the United States, that's the Executive Branch. He works in the Executive Branch. He should understand that. Everyone should understand that.

Then we have the constitution's verbatim description of the Vice Presidency, straight from Article 1:  The Legislative Branch, Section 3:  The Senate: 

CONSTITUTION:  The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no Vote, unless they be equally divided.

Let's review:

-Joe Biden, a 6 term Senator, disdainfully claimed that then-Vice President Dick Cheney "doesn't realize" he works in the executive branch;

-The constitution specifically states the Vice President works in the Legislative branch - exactly what Cheney said.

Not for nothing do I call him Jackass Joe.

Ken Berwitz

feisal abdul rauf is the front man for the so-called "ground zero mosque".  He is also on a taxpayer funded junket around the world - the Muslim world, that is - for reasons that neither he nor the Obama administration are telling us.

With that in mind, I thought you might be interested in finding out what rauf thinks of the USA.  The following article by Jason Mattera of www.humanevents.com is based on an audio tape uncovered by Pamela Geller, of www.atlasshrugs.com.  Listen to rauf's own words, and then see if you can come up with any reasonable explanation for our wonderful "neutral" mainstream media not coming up with the tape and reporting about it:

Ground Zero Imam Says U.S. Worse than al-Qaeda

by  Jason Mattera

08/23/2010

New audio has surfaced of the imam behind the controversial mosque near Ground Zero allegedly telling an audience overseas that the United States has been far more deadly than al-Qaeda. "We tend to forget, in the West, that the United States has more Muslim blood on its hands than al-Qaeda has on its hands of innocent non Muslims," Feisal Abdul Rauf said at a 2005 lecture sponsored by the University of South Australia. After discussing the U.S.-led sanctions against Iraq under Saddam Hussein, Rauf went on to argue that America is to blame for its testy relationship with Islamic countries.

"What complicates the discussion, intra-Islamically, is the fact that the West has not been cognizant and has not addressed the issues of its own contribution to much injustice in the Arab and Muslim world." The audio was uncovered by blogger Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs.

(TO LISTEN TO THE AUDIO, CLICK HERE)

Ken Berwitz

I came upon this perfectly repulsive story while scrolling through www.freerepublic.com (which I do every day).  It is from Felicia Kitzmiller, writing for the Panama City (Florida) News Herald, and is a definite entry for our "you can't make this stuff up" file (and, in this case the "you can't stuff this stuff up" file too):

Cash falls from man's posterior during strip search

August 18, 2010 10:28:00 AM

FELICIA KITZMILLER / News Herald Writer

BAY COUNTY - A man being booked into jail gained another charge when detention officers found dollar bills falling out of his posterior.

Nicholas Ryan Harris, 19, of 503 Wood Trail, was undergoing a strip search after being booked into Bay County Jail on charges of driving under the influence, possession of marijuana and possession of paraphernalia when “several dollar bills … fell from Nicholas’ buttocks area,” according to an incident report. There were $45 total recovered.

According to the report, Harris had been asked prior to the search if there was anything hidden on his body and he said no.

Officers added introducing contraband into a county facility to his charges.

Maybe he lost his wallet. 

He said he wasn't hiding anything, but that didn't pass the smell test.

Well, since the money fell out, at least we know he's not anal-retentive.

Ok, enough is enough.  The next bad joke is yours.  No ifs, ands or butts......

Ken Berwitz

Here, from an Associated Press article, is Iranian faux-President mahmoud ahmadinejad's friendly greeting to President Obama.

CAIRO – Iran's president offered friendship to the United States but also taunted Washington by saying he does not fear an attack by the U.S. because it could not even defeat a small army in Iraq, according to a television interview with the leader aired Sunday.

There are no logical reasons for the United States to carry out such an act," President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told the Arabic satellite television channel Al Jazeera, according to an Arabic translation of the interview in Farsi.

"Do you believe an army that has been defeated by a small army in Iraq can enter into a war with a large and well trained army like the Iranian army?" he asked, referring to the insurgents in Iraq.

Can't you just feel the respect.  Can't you just feel the concern.  Can't you just see ahmadinejad quaking at the thought of President Obama's previous warnings, and the warnings that will come in the future?

The 2012 election cannot come fast enough.

Ken Berwitz

How do you retain support from senior citizens, when your economic policies have resulted in a major depletion of their retirement savings, and your health care legislation is taking at least a half billion dollars from medicare funding?

Logic tells me that this is a major problem, maybe an insurmountable one. 

But, as discussed by Paul Mirengoff of powerlineblog.com, Democrats are trying it anyway. 

Here is a key excerpt from his commentary (you can read it all by clicking here).

Last week, the Washington Post reported that the Democrats, in their desperation to avoid a crushing defeat in November, are making a new run at the votes of senior citizens. I doubt that this portion of the electorate holds much promise for the Dems in this cycle. Seniors are at least as appalled as the electorate as a whole by the failure of the economy to stage a decent recovery -- a failure that dims both their retirement prospects and the job prospects of their children.

Nor are seniors likely to be thrilled that Obamacare is being funded in significant part by massive cuts in Medicare. The Dems claim that this will have no real impact on the quality of medical care for the elderly, since the cuts will come from fraud, waste, and abuse. But seniors weren't born yesterday.

At a more fundamental level, I wonder whether there isn't a powerful anti-government attitude taking hold among the elderly. This thought occurred to me when I happened to channel-surf my way onto one of those PBS fundraising programs. Instead of the normal fare -- a show devoted to doo-wop or British invasion music -- this program featured a guy named Ed Slott who was explaining how to "stay rich for life." In practical terms, this seemed to mean mostly how seniors can protect their hard earned lifetime savings from the clutches of the federal government.

I think Paul's blog is excellent from start to finish.  But my favorite part is how he ends the second paragraph:  "But seniors weren't born yesterday". 

That's right.  They weren't.  That's why so many of them know a) when they are being given the short end of the stick and b) that it is not a good idea to re-elect the people who are giving it to them.

November is shaping up as a very unhappy month for Democrats.  And they've earned it.

Ken Berwitz

I may have to start wearing a hat, because I have a second reason to tip one today.

Here, from today's Toronto Sun, are excerpts from an excellent commentary on the unsurpassed absurdity of blaming Israel - with less than 1/5 of 1% of Arab land area, 1/50th the population of Arab states (1/70th if you're only counting Jew) and virtually no oil - for Arab ills and deficiencies around the world.  It was written by Salim Mansur - and, yes, Mr. Mansur is a practicing Muslim:

Monday, August 23, 2010

Don’t blame Israel for Arab failures

By SALIM MANSUR, QMI Agency

Last Updated: August 21, 2010 2:00am

TEL AVIV — Size matters, and in geopolitics it can be critically important.

A grasp of this elementary fact could provide a better understanding for, and empathy with, a small country besieged by hostile powers on its borders.

Israel is merely a dot relative to the Arab world, and yet made responsible, in the logic of the anti-Zionist bigots, for the problems of the Middle East and the inability of the Arab-Muslim culture to deal with the challenges of the modern world.

Consider the following: The Arab world, excluding Iran and Turkey, is comprised of 22 countries stretching from the Gulf to the Atlantic Ocean with a total area around 13 million sq. km and a population of nearly 350 million.

In terms of territorial size, only Russia is larger than the Arab world at 17 million sq. km.

Israel is barely 22,000 sq. km, or about three times the size of New York City, with a population of 7.5 million of which 20% are Israeli Arabs.

An objective consideration of the huge disparity in size and population between the Arab world and Israel should dispel the drivel the world has been fed that Arabs are the “underdog” in a colonial struggle against Jews as a colonizing people.

The reverse disparity between Israelis and Arabs is the tremendous human achievement of the former as free people, and the contrast when measured against the sullen reality of the Arab world just about at the bottom of the UN human development index despite the resources available.

But here, too, Arabs, Muslims and their apologists in the West will fault Israelis for the collective failure of the Arab world.

It is as if the plight of Palestinian “occupation” by Israelis explains the Sudanese civil wars and genocide in Darfur, or the savage killings inside Algeria, or the long list of atrocities, gender oppression, humiliation of religious minorities, wars, military dictatorships, and with no end in sight of violence and murder in the name of Islam across the Arab world.

What a refreshing breath of fresh air!   And how exasperating it is that this obvious logic is denied or just ignored by so many in the domestic and international media.

Let me end with a quote by Mr. Mansur;  one that we should be especially mindful of in this day and age:

"only in a free society will you find Islam as a faith and not a political religion."

Ken Berwitz

Here's a little something you won't be hearing Hollywood dupes like sean penn and danny glover bragging about.

And, very surprisingly, it comes to us by way of a feature in today's New York Times - a newspaper which I am usually very critical of, but my hat (if I ever wear one) is off to this morning.

Here are some key excerpts:

Venezuela endures worse murder rate than Iraq

Number of homicides is three times higher than when Chávez was elected in 1998

By Simon Romero (and Maria Eugenia Diaz)

 

CARACAS, Venezuela — Some here joke that they might be safer if they lived in Baghdad. The numbers bear them out.

 

In Iraq, a country with about the same population as Venezuela, there were 4,644 civilian deaths from violence in 2009, according to Iraq Body Count; in Venezuela that year, the number of murders climbed above 16,000.

 

Even Mexico’s infamous drug war has claimed fewer lives.

 

Venezuela is struggling with a decade-long surge in homicides, with about 118,541 since President Hugo Chávez took office in 1999, according to the Venezuelan Violence Observatory, a group that compiles figures based on police files. (The government has stopped publicly releasing its own detailed homicide statistics, but has not disputed the group’s numbers, and news reports citing unreleased government figures suggest human rights groups may actually be undercounting murders).

 

There have been 43,792 homicides in Venezuela since 2007, according to the violence observatory, compared with about 28,000 deaths from drug-related violence in Mexico since that country’s assault on cartels began in late 2006.

 

Caracas itself is almost unrivaled among large cities in the Americas for its homicide rate, which currently stands at around 200 per 100,000 inhabitants, according to Roberto Briceño-León, the sociologist at the Central University of Venezuela who directs the violence observatory.

 

That compares with recent measures of 22.7 per 100,000 people in Bogotá, Colombia’s capital, and 14 per 100,000 in São Paulo, Brazil’s largest city. As Mr. Chávez’s government often points out, Venezuela’s crime problem did not emerge overnight, and the concern over murders preceded his rise to power.

 

Reasons for the surge are complex and varied, experts say. While many Latin American economies are growing fast, Venezuela’s has continued to shrink. The gap between rich and poor remains wide, despite spending on anti-poverty programs, fueling resentment. Adding to that, the nation is awash in millions of illegal firearms.

 

Police salaries remain low, sapping motivation. And in a country with the highest inflation rate in the hemisphere, more than 30 percent a year, some officers have turned to supplementing their incomes with crimes like kidnappings.

 

But some crime specialists say another factor has to be considered: Mr. Chávez’s government itself. The judicial system has grown increasingly politicized, losing independent judges and aligning itself more closely with Mr. Chávez’s political movement. Many experienced state employees have had to leave public service, or even the country.

 

More than 90 percent of murders go unsolved, without a single arrest, Mr. Briceño-León said. But cases against Mr. Chavez’s critics — including judges, dissident generals and media executives — are increasingly common.  

Way to go, hugo.  Now that you've expropriated just about all the freedoms Venezuelans had, you don't have to worry about a thing. 

Who cares if the streets run with blood?  It's not your blood, hugo. 

Who cares if the murder rate in Venezuela is almost 8 times that of the United States (which our media never tires of describing as gun-happy and bloodthirsty)?  Life is sweet.  You've got your palace, don't you.  You've got your podium at the OAS and at the UN, don't you?  The USA-haters think you're great, don't they?

And so what if, after 12 years of a chavez government, oil-rich Venezuela has a third world economy where people cannot support themselves, so they turn to kidnapping, drugs, etc?  You're certainly living well, aren't you?

Heck your biggest problem is deciding what to serve for dinner when one of the Hollywood idio...er, enablers - and Iranian terrori...er,  "leaders" visit. so they can stand in front of the cameras and sing your praises.

Ken Berwitz

I'll bet you didn't know that Barack Obama is on a winning streak.

I'll bet you thought (as do most rational people) that he was pretty decidedly on a losing streak, as his poll numbers clearly suggest.

Well, Eugene Robinson, the Washington Post columnist and consummately self-impressed MSNBC regular, who - possibly because he demands it - is always introduced as a Pulitzer prize winner (as he smirks his approval), says you are wrong. 

Here, via excerpts from his latest column, is Mr. Robinso - uh, sorry, PULITZER PRIZE WINNING Mr. Robinson's reasoning:

This is a radical break from journalistic convention, I realize, but today I'd like to give credit where it's due -- specifically, to President Obama. Quiet as it's kept, he's on a genuine winning streak.

 

It's hard to remember that the inauguration was just 19 months ago. Expectations of the new president were absurdly high. If Obama had done back flips across the Potomac River, when he reached the other side he'd have faced probing questions about why it was taking him so long to cure cancer, solve the Arab-Israeli conflict and usher in an age of universal peace and prosperity.

 

But look at what he's accomplished in just the past few weeks. Let me highlight four recent headlines.

 

"Last U.S. combat troops leave Iraq": Before dawn on Thursday, the last U.S. combat brigade crossed the border into Kuwait, effectively ending the military misadventure that Bush named Operation Iraqi Freedom.

 

"General Motors to launch stock offering": One of the many crises Obama faced when he took office was the imminent collapse of an iconic industrial giant. But now, after making more than $2 billion in profits so far this year, the restructured company is confident enough to sell stock on Wall Street -- and begin repaying the government's investment.

 

"Gulf oil spill contained": When BP's Deepwater Horizon well went rogue, the Obama administration was criticized for being slow off the mark. Some of the criticism was justified -- the initial response did seem unfocused. But the administration managed to turn things around and quiet any talk of "Obama's Katrina."

 

And finally, "President wades into mosque controversy": Yes, I'm serious. Supporting the mosque in Lower Manhattan didn't score any political points. But Obama saw his duty to uphold the values of our Constitution and make clear that our fight is against the terrorists, not against Islam itself. Instead of doing what was popular, he did what was right.

Ok, there you have it.  There is Eugene Robinso -- oh, excuse me, PULITZER PRIZE WINNER Eugene Robinson's explanation.

Let's take his points one by one:

-The US combat troops are out of Iraq because President BUSH implemented the troop surge that turned a stagnant war effort into a victory, thus enabling us to withdraw them.  Significantly, then-Senator Barack Obama not only opposed the surge, but said that it would have the opposite affect.  In other words, this part of the  "winning streak" is George Bush's, no matter how many times Mr. Obama grins at us and tries to take credit for it;

-The GM stock offering may or may not be a success for Barack Obama.  I admit not knowing enough about the situation at GM to comment.  So I'll just concede this one to Mr. Robinson;

-The BP oil spill, however, I do know about.  And it was a bungled mess from day one.  President Obama had nothing whatsoever to do with any success there.  To the contrary, Mr. Obama and his people were a major impediment to the oil rig disaster, because they refused the offers of equipment and expertise from over a dozen foreign countries for weeks upon weeks, while the situation worsened.  And when the well was finally capped (as it now seems to be), it was BP that did it, not the Obama people, who never had even the slightest hint of a plan of action..  Calling this a "win" for Barack Obama is ludicrous;

-And the mosque controversy?  What was his "win"?  Do you "win" by saying one thing on Friday, then backing away and claiming you said something different on Saturday?  And even if the President had said the same thing both times, how is that a "win"?  Is the situation resolved?  Have tensions lowered?  Has the issue been settled in any way? 

There you have it.  There's the Eugene Robinso...whoops, I forgot again:  The PULITZER PRIZE WINNING Eugene Robinson's definition of a winning streak.

I have a feeling there are a few casinos in Las Vegas and Atlantic City that would love for Mr. Pulitze...er, Mr. Robinson to show up and "win" exactly the same way.

Ken Berwitz

As President Obama and his family enjoy yet another of their many vacations this year (Spain was so tiring for Michelle and Sasha), I thought you might like to see what is happening on the illegal immigration front. 

This story comes to us from Reuters.  I don't suggest that you be eating when you read it:

MEXICO CITY — Four decapitated and mutilated corpses were strung from a bridge in a popular getaway outside the Mexican capital Sunday, the latest atrocity as the country battles an escalating drug war.

The bodies of the four young men were discovered early on Sunday, hung upside down by their feet from a bridge near a wealthy area of Cuernavaca, a leafy city about an hour outside Mexico City, where many of the nation's elite own homes.

The victims' genitals, index fingers and heads had been cut off, according to a statement from the attorney general's office in Morelos state, which includes Cuernavaca.

Their heads and genitals were found nearby, along with a handmade sign, the statement said.

"This will happen to everyone that helps the traitor Edgar Valdes," the placard read, referring to a leading drug capo whose real name is Edgar Valdez.

It was signed C.P.S., the initials for the South Pacific Cartel, a relatively new drug gang that has claimed responsibility for other gruesome killings.

Drug violence has escalated across Mexico as President Felipe Calderon goes after powerful cartels and as rival gangs fight over smuggling turf. More than 28,000 people have died in drug violence since Calderon took office in late 2006.

While much of the bloodshed is centered in northern Mexico, violence has climbed Cuernavaca, a once-quiet colonial city, since security forces killed a top drug lord, Arturo Beltran Leyva, in a shootout there in December.

His death kicked off a power struggle within his cartel, and rival gangs have been seeking to co-opt his territory.

Valdez, a Mexican-American known as 'La Barbie' due to his blond hair, is a leading contender to head the Beltran Leyva cartel.

A spokeswoman for the state attorney general's office said the crime appeared to be linked to drug trafficking and that federal authorities would lead the investigation.

Arizona is already flooded with drug trafficking, to the point that U.S. citizens are being warned away from parts of the state because they would not be safe.  And since the Obama administration has done exactly nothing about this, the state enacted legislation that would make it more difficult for illegals - very much including the drug traffickers - to remain unidentified.

The good news is that Arizona's new legislation finally roused the Obama administration into action.  The bad news?  Its action was to sue Arizona to prevent those laws from being enforced.

Enjoy Martha's Vinyard today, Mr. President.  And know that you, and your disgraceful sock-puppet of an Attorney General, are enabling the drug traffickers in Arizona (and New Mexico, and Texas, and southern California) to operate freely, thus ensuring that, soon enough, there will be grisly scenes like the one described above on our side of the border too.

Hope you have a great round of golf....

Ken Berwitz

Noel Sheppard of newsbusters.org apparently has decided to check on the inaccuracy of keith olbermann after each "Countdown" show.  Not a bad idea, since it yields material for his blog just about every day.

Here, excerpted from today's blog, is his latest mess.  (I'm just giving you the bare bones; do yourself a favor and use the link I've provided to read Sheppard's entire blog):

Olbermann Rips 'Racist' Nugent for Speaking at Beck Rally He's NOT Going To

By Noel Sheppard (Bio | Archive)
Sat, 08/21/2010 - 11:52 ET

Keith Olbermann on Friday evening once again stuck his foot in his mouth on national television when he bashed Ted Nugent for appearing at Glenn Beck's "Restoring Honor" rally next Saturday.

Problem is Nugent is booked at the Boise Knitting Factory Concert House that night, and won't be attending the Beck event.

But this actually wasn't the only fact Olbermann got wrong on MSNBC's "Countdown," for he also accused Nugent of making racist remarks while giving a concert in Dubuque, Iowa, a few weeks ago.

Turns out this was flatly contradicted by an eyewitness

...a photographer that was in the crowd at the Mississippi Moon Bar in Dubuque on the evening in question has flatly contradicted what Olbermann, Media Matters, and the Telegraph Herald claimed:

Although the Telegraph Herald seemed to be reporting that Ted Nugent put on a racially biased show last night, what I head [sic] him say in his opening monologue was this: "Hey there sure are a lot of white people in this crowd. You need to do something about that."

He later said, heavy on the sarcasm, "Dubuque is a white town."

If anything, Nugent showed how much he honored and respected black performers of the past such as Wilson Pickett, Ray Charles, Chuck Berry and James Brown among others. He said at one point that all American soul came from these black performers who gave their blood, sweat and tears to the music. He even launched into an American Soul retrospective with songs such as Soul Man and Hey Baby.

Is olbermann a serial liar?  Is he so invested in promoting the left side of things that he jumps on "information" which supports his views without fully checking it out?  Both?  (Make up your own mind, but I'd say option #3 is your best bet).

How proud the folks at MSNBC must be of their "star", keith olbermann.   

Ken Berwitz

There is no doubt that most of the terrorism we read about is done in the name of Islam.  But does that make it reasonable to equate Islam with terrorism? 

Here, from his invaluable web site, www.sweetness-light.com (which is worth reading every day) is Steve Gilbert's take on this issue, via his comments about an Associated Press article on the subject:

Americans Associate Islam With Violence!

August 21st, 2010

 

From a thoroughly outraged Associated Press:

 

Americans still associate Islam with violence

By Daniel Trotta – Fri Aug 20, 2010

 

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The furor over plans to build a Muslim cultural center near the World Trade Center site shows nine years of efforts to separate Islam from association with terrorism have largely failed, experts say.

 

"I’d take it one step further. I’d say that it’s far, far worse today than it was in the immediate aftermath of 9/11," said Reza Aslan, a writer and scholar on religion, using the shorthand for the attacks of September 11, 2001.

Gee, why on earth would that be? Certainly, 9/11 was the last time that there has been any violence whatsoever associated with Mohammedans.

Public opinion polls show more than 60 percent of Americans oppose building the proposed Muslim cultural center and mosque two blocks from the site known as "Ground Zero."

 

Former U.S. President George W. Bush repeatedly sought to separate Islam from the al Qaeda hijackers who carried out the attacks there and on the Pentagon…

If the media can’t induce Mr. Bush to come out and personally defend Mr. Obama on this matter, they will simply do it for him this way.

[A]nd all major American Muslim organizations have issued repeated statements condemning violence in the name of Islam.

Sure they have.

But that message has been overpowered by news coverage of the seemingly endless attacks on civilians often claimed by al Qaeda, the Taliban and other Islamist extremists in the Muslim world, in addition to images of U.S. troops fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan…

 

Perhaps the news media should stop reporting these “seemingly endless attacks.” After all, who really knows if they actually were done by Muslims or not.

Receiving far less attention are regular statements from the Islamic Society of North America, the Muslim Public Affairs Council, and the Council on American-Islamic Relations strongly condemning any violence perpetrated in the name of Islam…

You mean to say that the milquetoast "statements’ from these worthies have gotten less attention than the dozens of terrorist attacks on our country? What is this world coming to?

 

By the way, if you are belaboring under any illusions about these Islamic groups, you can begin your education by reading about the Islamic Circle of North America at Discover The Networks.

 

Discover The Networks also has a nice write up on the Muslim Public Affairs Council, which it describes as a “Los Angeles-based Muslim organization whose leadership defends extremist violence.”

 

And, lest we forget, CAIR was an ‘unindicted co-conspirator’ in the Holy Land Foundation trial. Discover The Networks has more on their background, as well.

Both Muslim and non-Muslim religious scholars generally support that view of the faith’s mainstream, but for many Americans extremist actions have had more resonance than the moderate majority’s words and practices…

This is simply untrue. Many of Islamic scholars, such as those at Islam Q&A declare that jihad is a more important duty for Muslims than even performing a Hajj (trip to Mecca).

 

The Associated Press is simply and blatantly lying about a major tenet of Islam. 

Republicans have seized on the controversy over the plan [to build a mosque at ‘Ground Zero’] ahead of midterm elections where Democrats are fighting to retain control of Congress amid difficult economic conditions…

And of course the fact that Americans have somehow come to associated violence with Islam is all the fault of those dastardly Republicans who will stop at nothing in their ruthless pursuit of power. Indeed, the AP has far more hatred for members of the GOP than would ever have for those heroic terrorists ‘Muslim extremists.’

Religious scholar Aslan blames "Islamophobia" that he said was being whipped by the Republican Party establishment.

 

"They are making religious bigotry — just as they made anti-immigrant sentiment — part of their political platform," Aslan said. "Democrats in the most cowardly fashion have completely caved in to this challenge."

Which of course is why the AP went to Mr. Aslan in the first place. They knew they could put their words in his mouth. Still, who knew that Harry Reid and Howard Dean were part of the “Republican Party establishment”?

 

Of course the AP would never let such petty objections as that get in their way of labeling an entire political party – and a vast majority of the American populace – as religious bigots.

 

The AP are that desperate. And that despicable.

 First, let me say that, although I'm no stranger to criticizing the Associated Press, Steve is far further down that path than I am. 

Now, what about his points regarding Islam, and some of the Muslim groups that the AP describe as speaking up against terrorism?

Islam has extremists.  Many of them.  This is not an issue.  However, Islam is not the only religion that has extremists.   There have certainly been abortion clinic bombings done in the name of Christianity.  And in 1994, Israeli and orthodox Jew Baruch Goldstein murdered 29 Arabs and injured many more at a mosque in Hebron. 

But can these individual incidents in any way be compared to the huge, multinational monster that is today's Islamic terrorism?  How many killings have there been in your lifetime specifically in the name of Christianity or Judaism?  Are hundreds of millions of Christians and Jews scared into silence for fear of being killed by their religious extremists if they dare to speak out against them? 

The answer in every case is no. 

And Steve is dead-on right in pointing out that the general statements  deploring all forms of violence and terorism that are issued from groups that, themselves, have ties to terrorist individuals and groups, are a crock of BS. 

So does this mean Islam, per se, is a religion of violence and terrorism?  The answer is an emphatic no.  Most Muslims, I am certain, would just like to live their lives in peace.  And although the koran is loaded with violence, it doesn't mean every Muslim wants to kill infidels any more than the violence in the old and new testaments turns Christians and Jews into killing machines.

But, that not withstanding, in today's world it is undeniable that Islam vastly predominates as the source of violence and terrorism.  Therefore, the vast majority of the war on terrorism must be fought against the segments of Islam which are perpetrating it.

We ignore this reality at our own peril.

Ken Berwitz

My pal Bob the Toy Guy put me on to this month-and-a-half-old article by Ryan Ellis, writing for Americans for Tax Reform.  It details the tax hikes we will be subjected to next year.

I thought you might be interested in seeing just how bad things are about to get, so I am posting the entire piece. 

Six Months to Go Until
The Largest Tax Hikes in History

From Ryan Ellis on Wednesday, July 7, 2010 5:27 PM

In just six months, the largest tax hikes in the history of America will take effect.  They will hit families and small businesses in three great waves on January 1, 2011:

(N.B. This version of the document contains even more tax hikes than the original version did)

First Wave: Expiration of 2001 and 2003 Tax Relief

In 2001 and 2003, the GOP Congress enacted several tax cuts for investors, small business owners, and families.  These will all expire on January 1, 2011:

Personal income tax rates will rise.  The top income tax rate will rise from 35 to 39.6 percent (this is also the rate at which two-thirds of small business profits are taxed).  The lowest rate will rise from 10 to 15 percent.  All the rates in between will also rise.  Itemized deductions and personal exemptions will again phase out, which has the same mathematical effect as higher marginal tax rates.  The full list of marginal rate hikes is below:

- The 10% bracket rises to an expanded 15%
- The 25% bracket rises to 28%
- The 28% bracket rises to 31%
- The 33% bracket rises to 36%
- The 35% bracket rises to 39.6%

Higher taxes on marriage and family.  The “marriage penalty” (narrower tax brackets for married couples) will return from the first dollar of income.  The child tax credit will be cut in half from $1000 to $500 per child.  The standard deduction will no longer be doubled for married couples relative to the single level.  The dependent care and adoption tax credits will be cut.

The return of the Death Tax.  This year, there is no death tax.  For those dying on or after January 1 2011, there is a 55 percent top death tax rate on estates over $1 million.  A person leaving behind two homes and a retirement account could easily pass along a death tax bill to their loved ones.

Higher tax rates on savers and investors.  The capital gains tax will rise from 15 percent this year to 20 percent in 2011.  The dividends tax will rise from 15 percent this year to 39.6 percent in 2011.  These rates will rise another 3.8 percent in 2013.

Second Wave: Obamacare

There are over twenty new or higher taxes in Obamacare.  Several will first go into effect on January 1, 2011.  They include:

The Tanning Tax.  This went into effect on July 1st of this year.  It imposes a new, 10% excise tax on getting a tan at a tanning salon.  There is no exemption for tanners making less than $250,000 per year.

The “Medicine Cabinet Tax”  Thanks to Obamacare, Americans will no longer be able to use health savings account (HSA), flexible spending account (FSA), or health reimbursement (HRA) pre-tax dollars to purchase non-prescription, over-the-counter medicines (except insulin).

The HSA Withdrawal Tax Hike.  This provision of Obamacare increases the additional tax on non-medical early withdrawals from an HSA from 10 to 20 percent, disadvantaging them relative to IRAs and other tax-advantaged accounts, which remain at 10 percent.

Brand Name Drug Tax.  Starting next year, there will be a multi-billion dollar tax assessment imposed on name-brand drug manufacturers.  This tax, like all excise taxes, will raise the price of medicine, hurting everyone.

Economic Substance Doctrine.  The IRS is now empowered to disallow perfectly-legal tax deductions and maneuvers merely because it judges that the deduction or action lacks “economic substance.”  This is obviously an arbitrary empowerment of IRS agents.

Employer Reporting of Health Insurance Costs on a W-2.  This will start for W-2s in the 2011 tax year.  While not a tax increase in itself, it makes it very easy for Congress to tax employer-provided healthcare benefits later.

Third Wave: The Alternative Minimum Tax and Employer Tax Hikes

When Americans prepare to file their tax returns in January of 2011, they’ll be in for a nasty surprise—the AMT won’t be held harmless, and many tax relief provisions will have expired.  These major items include:

The AMT will ensnare over 28 million families, up from 4 million last year.  According to the left-leaning Tax Policy Center, Congress’ failure to index the AMT will lead to an explosion of AMT taxpaying families—rising from 4 million last year to 28.5 million.  These families will have to calculate their tax burdens twice, and pay taxes at the higher level.  The AMT was created in 1969 to ensnare a handful of taxpayers.

Small business expensing will be slashed and 50% expensing will disappear.  Small businesses can normally expense (rather than slowly-deduct, or “depreciate”) equipment purchases up to $250,000.  This will be cut all the way down to $25,000.  Larger businesses can expense half of their purchases of equipment.  In January of 2011, all of it will have to be “depreciated.”

Taxes will be raised on all types of businesses.  There are literally scores of tax hikes on business that will take place.  The biggest is the loss of the “research and experimentation tax credit,” but there are many, many others.  Combining high marginal tax rates with the loss of this tax relief will cost jobs.

Tax Benefits for Education and Teaching Reduced.  The deduction for tuition and fees will not be available.  Tax credits for education will be limited.  Teachers will no longer be able to deduct classroom expenses.  Coverdell Education Savings Accounts will be cut.  Employer-provided educational assistance is curtailed.  The student loan interest deduction will be disallowed for hundreds of thousands of families.

Charitable Contributions from IRAs no longer allowed.  Under current law, a retired person with an IRA can contribute up to $100,000 per year directly to a charity from their IRA.  This contribution also counts toward an annual “required minimum distribution.”  This ability will no longer be there.

You might, at this point, be wondering how come our wonderful "neutral" media have not been doing stories, features, panel discussions, etc. on this impending horror show. 

If so, I suggest you reflect on which party will be damaged if taxpayers understand just how badly they are about to be soaked.  That should give you the answer.

Ken Berwitz

Barack Obama has, at least temporarily, stopped trying to blame former President Bush for the economy (presumably because it has become comical, even to many Democrats).  That means he needs to find another scapegoat.  Who can it be?

Well, how about congress. 

CONGRESS?  Aren't both houses of congress dominated by Democrats?  Isn't that his own party?   

Well, yeah.......but as pointed out earlier, it can't be Obama. So it's got to be someone or something else.

Excerpted from Andrew Malcolm's blog at (of all places) the Los Angeles Times (the bold print is mine):

Just a few minor things to catch up on for the weekend now that the Fundraiser-in-Chief has gone on another vacation (Don't worry though. White House chef Sam Kass went along, so the first family need not eat ordinary human food.)

-- The Congressional Budget Office says the 2010 federal deficit will be in excess of $1.3 trillion, as in $1,000,000,000,000+. (BTW, the next level we'll be talking about out of Washington is quadrillion, which has fifteen 0's.)

-- Despite Vice President Joe Biden's April boast that administration stimulus spending would spur the economy to add a half-million jobs a month by now, initial unemployment claims jumped a half-million last week, the worst since last November, as national unemployment remains at 9.5% and the economy sheds 131,000 more jobs.

-- But the economy's going great at the Democratic National Committee, which reports collecting $11.5 million from donors in July on top of the $53.8 million already taken in from various sources this year. The president just devoted three workdays across five states to rake in several more millions for his party.

-- But before leaving for his ninth presidential vacation, 10 days at a....

...secluded estate on Martha's Vineyard, Obama devoted four minutes in the White House driveway to a special statement on the latest disappointing jobs numbers. (Full text, as usual, can be read on the jump, along with a brief reaction from the Republican National Committee chairman.)

No questions allowed because the president didn't want to explain why despite the administration's announced Recovery Summer Program, the jobs numbers have started going backward again after 19 months of promises and $787 billion in alleged stimulation spending. Because, faced with the uncertainty of the economy and the certainty of new taxes after Nov. 2, employers are holding back on hiring.

According to the president, he's been "adamant" with Congress for months now about a new jobs bill to help small businesses. Obama says this really good bill is stalled in the Senate, where so much administration legislation has been crammed through so effectively by Majority Leader Harry Reid.

Reid's been so good at it, in fact, that he's now running for his political life in a reelection campaign back in Nevada where unemployment is 14.3% and Obama's legislation is not so popular.

The very same party that has controlled both houses of Congress since the 2006 election and really controlled them both since the 2008 hopey-changey balloting. 

Hard to believe, isn't it? 

Who will Mr. Obama blame next?  His cabinet?  His personal secretary?  Michelle and the girls?

Maybe, just maybe, there is someone else to consider.....

Ken Berwitz

Joe Biden, talking about the midterm elections:

“The reports of the death of the Democratic Party have been greatly exaggerated.…

“On Nov. 3, the day after the election, there will be a Democratic majority in the House and a Democratic majority in the Senate.  If it weren’t illegal, I’d make book on it.…

“When we have the American people focus on our differences, I think we are going to do just fine in November. The choice is not between Democrats and the Almighty, it’s between Democrats and the Republican Tea party.”

Based on virtually all the polling data, and Mr. Biden's track record when it comes to making predictions, my advice for you is to bet Republican. 

Heavily.

Ken Berwitz

Last week we had President Obama making a statement that appeared to clearly support the so-called "ground zero mosque" - and then, the next day, make another statement claiming he never said any such thing.

Evidently that presto-chango routine is standard operating procedure for our President.  Because now, after a year of silence about Scotland's release of the one "man" convicted of murdering the passengers on Pan Am flight 103 at Lockerbie, Scotland, we have this - excerpted from an Associated Press article:

Obama seeks reimprisonment for Lockerbie bomber

By AP | Published: 1:50 PM 08/20/2010 | Updated: 7:27 PM 08/20/2010

VINEYARD HAVEN, Mass. (AP) — The Obama administration asked Friday that the only person convicted for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 be returned to a Scottish prison.

John Brennan, President Barack Obama’s counterterrorism adviser, told reporters accompanying the vacationing leader that the U.S. has “expressed our strong conviction” to Scottish officials that Abdel Baset Al-Megrahi (AHB’-dehl BAH’-seht AH’-lee ahl-meh-GRAH’-hee) should not remain free. The comments came on the first anniversary of Al-Megrahi’s release.

Brennan criticized what he termed the “unfortunate and inappropriate and wrong decision,” and added: “We’ve expressed our strong conviction that Al-Begrahi should serve out the remainder — the entirety — of his sentence in a Scottish prison.”

Now there's a strong statement. 

I'll just bet that Libyan dictator qaddafi can't wait to get al-megrahi on a plane back to Glasgow.  Heck, maybe he'll even use the plane he sent to bring al-megrahi to Tripoli, where qaddaffi then threw a victory celebration to honor him.

My question is where the HELL was President Obama and his administration for the entire year al-megrahi was free?  And why was Mr. Obama's only contribution until now a recommendation to the Scottish Government on how he should be freed (the Obama administration agreed that it should be "compassionate release")?

This is a sham, a fraud, and a lame attempt to cover up the fact that we did not rage at Scotland for releasing a mass murderer of USA citizens, mostly young students.  Nothing more, nothing less.

Ken Berwitz

Are significant numbers of Jews disengaging themselves from President Obama and, more generally,the Democratic Party?  The latest poll data suggest this is happening.

Here is a very well written discussion of how much and how far Jews are moving from Obama & Co., excerpted from Charles Blow's column in today's New York Times  (and congratulations to Mr. Blow for the quality of his analysis, which I have strongly criticized in the past):

Is President Obama good for the Jews? For more and more Jewish-Americans, the answer is no.

In a Pew Research Center report issued on Thursday and entitled “Growing Number of Americans Say Obama Is a Muslim” (tragic in its own right), there was another bit of bad news for Obama: the number of Jews who identify as Republican or as independents who lean Republican has increased by more than half since the year he was elected. At 33 percent it now stands at the highest level since the data have been kept. In 2008, the ratio of Democratic Jews to Republican Jews was far more than three to one. Now it’s less than two to one.

 (It should be noted that the Pew poll was taken before Obama’s bold support for the right of Muslims to build a community center and mosque a few blocks north of ground zero.)

Some of the president’s most ardent critics and some of Israel’s staunchest American defenders — two groups that are by no means mutually exclusive — have seized on what they see as the administration’s unfair and unbalanced treatment of Israel and have taken their denunciations to the extremes.

The White House, feeling pressure over the developing rift, sought to mend fences in May through a series of meetings and statements, but as Helene Cooper reported in The Times, “It remains unclear whether Mr. Obama’s latest outreach will reassure American Jews and the general public in Israel, where Mr. Obama’s approval ratings have plummeted.” And, it’s still foggy.

Fair or not, these criticisms are crystallizing into a shared belief among many: Obama is burning bridges with the Jewish community in order to build bridges to the Muslim world.

There is very little independent polling, aside from Pew’s party identification polling, to help us understand how American Jews see the president, his stance toward Israel and the political implications. So in that vacuum, pollsters with partisan leanings have been spinning their findings like dreidels.

Wherever the truth lies, it is fair to say that it doesn’t bode well for Obama. While Jews are only 2 percent of the United States population, their influence outweighs their proportion. Furthermore, in crucial battleground states like Florida, their vote is critical. Obama won Florida by 3 percentage points in 2008. Jews represented 4 percent of the overall vote in that state.

As Ed Koch, the former mayor of New York City, told Fox News in April, “I have been a supporter of President Obama and went to Florida for him, urged Jews all over the country to vote for him, saying that he would be just as good as John McCain on the security of Israel. I don’t think it’s true anymore.”

Is it true?  Are Jews, as a group, finally disengaging from a President and a party which are more and more prone to, at best, taking them for granted and, at worse, standing against them, especially regarding Israel (as I've chronicled over the last year)?

My best guess is that a lot of this is just blowing smoke:  i.e. if elections were held today, many Jews who are pontificating about how awful Barack Obama is would still find a rationale to vote for him and his cohorts in the Democratic Party.  But - and this is the problem for Obama  Co. - a good number mean it, and would move towards the Republican Party which, for years and years, has been demonstrably more pro-Israel than Democrats.  Maybe enough to change the results in one or two states with relatively large Jewish populations.

One look at Black voters in the 1960's will tell you that when a lot of  people rethink their allegiance in a short period of time, it can result in a major, long-term change of voting patterns.

Can the same thing happen with Jewish voters?  The answer is yes.  The issue is whether it will happen.

Stay tuned.

Ken Berwitz

Unless you are a raving left wing lunatic or keith olbermann (actually, what's the difference?) you probably see The Washington Post as something of a Democrat-leaning publication.

So it is especially meaningful when the WaPost's Chris Cillizza starts talking about how an already bad situation for Democrats is deteriorating.

Here is the first part of his blog (you can read it all by clicking here):

The expanding Senate playing field

As we sat down to rank which ten Senate races are most likely to flip party control on November 2, it became immediately clear that our Line wasn't big enough.

The simple truth is that over the past six to nine months, the Senate playing field has expanded to the point where there are now (at least) 15 races where a party switch is a real possibility -- if not a probability.

Most of that expansion has benefited Republicans, who have effectively taken advantage of a national playing field tilted in their favor to take previously non-competitive races like Washington and Wisconsin and put them on the target list.

If you're on the blue side of the aisle, that isn't very good, to say the least.

And what is driving this movement?  The answer is as clear as glass:  the overall economy and the jobs picture.  Far, far more than any other issues, these are defining the midterm elections.

Can things turn around?  Can the economy suddenly brighten?  Can we see a fast spurt of new jobs?  Yes, it is possible.  But, as of now,  there is exactly zero indication that any such thing is going to happen in the near future.

Simply stated, as things now stand, the Democratic Party has one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel.

Ken Berwitz

Remember that Ship Of Fools I talked about some time ago?  Well, it is heading for Gaza.

Excerpted from an article at Agence France Presse:

UNITED NATIONS (AFP) – Israel informed the United Nations Friday that it reserves the right to use force to stop a new aid flotilla from reaching the blockaded Gaza Strip.

In a letter sent to UN chief Ban Ki-moon, Israel's UN Ambassador Gabriela Shalev said the stated intention of the Bolivian-flagged all-women cargo ship Mariam "is to violate the existing naval blockade of Gaza."

She added that Israel also had information that another vessel, the Naji al-Ali, plans to leave from a Lebanese port with the aim of violating the blockade.

"Israel reserves its right under international law to use all necessary means to prevent these ships from violating the aforementioned naval blockade," Shalev warned.

She said such "confrontational actions by the organizers as well as those that offer their consent, is deeply troubling and requires the attention of the international community."

I remain fascinated that a ship filled with women only (or so we are told) would be sympathetic to Gaza, where women barely have any rights, over Israel, where women have full rights. 

I guess that, for some, hatred of Israel and/or Jews (almost always both) trumps everything else, including women's rights.

Here is what I wrote in my initial post about this ship - and it still applies 100%:

Israel implemented its blockade to protect itself from hamas-controlled Gaza, which is committed, in writing, to decimating the country, killing or subjugating every Jew there (preferably killing them) and transforming it into Gaza's prevailing culture. 

 

And here we have a ship populated entirely by women - whom this same culture treats as fifth-class citizens, and subjugates completely.

 

In Israel women are human beings with rights.  In Gaza, along with almost all of the Arab/muslim world, they are chattels with no rights. 

 

How ironic.  How pathetic.  A shipload of women detrermined to endanger a culture which provides their gender with freedom and individual value, in favor of a culture that provides them with neither.

 

A ship of fools if there ever was one.

I hope for their sake that, when Israeli soldiers board the ship, the women (or whomever else is on board) do not try to attack them.

Ken Berwitz

Can Richard Blumenthal, Connecticut's popular Attorney General, lose his senate bid to Linda McMahon, the former CEO of a low-down enterprise called World Wrestling Entertainment?

In a word.....yep.

The main reason is that Mr. Blumenthal appears to have only a casual acquaintance with the truth.

First there was the revelation that, for many years, Blumenthal lied about his service in Vietnam -- whoops, excuse me:  he misspoke.  That's what he calls it.   This is very believable, I'm sure -- if you happen to be his press secretary or his mother.

And now we have his apparent lie about accepting PAC money.

Excerpted from Carole's blog at www.talkingsides.com:

On January 7, the day after he entered the US Senate race, Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal (D) proudly stated, "I've never taken PAC money, and I have rejected all special interest money." Now that he has accepted almost half a million dollars from Political Action Committees and special interest groups, his Republican opponent Linda McMahon has released a new ad asking, "How can he fight special interests if they're paying for his campaign?"

While Mr. Blumenthal's statement that he had not taken PAC or special interest money was made during the kickoff of his senate campaign, Blumenthal campaign manager Mindy Myers claims the ad is an attempt to distort the Democrat's image saying, "It's clear from the clip he's talking about the last 20 years."

But Ed Patru, the communication director for Ms. McMahon disagrees saying, "Clearly, the intent was to mislead, to say one thing when he had no intent of doing that." (source)

A little common sense reveals which campaign is telling the truth. Why would newly minted Senate Candidate Blumenthal mention his fundraising purity at his coming out party if he didn't want and expect voters to believe he would continue rejecting PAC and special interest donations? What candidate would brag about his past virtue and hope people realized that, while he hadn't been for sale for the past 20 years, now he is?

Like her or don't, Linda McMahon is what she is.  A successful executive of (what I consider to be) a repulsive "entertainment" enterprise.  But at least she's on the square. 

Blumenthal, by contrast, seems to have no problem lying about himself and hoping Connecticut voters don't find out.

But given the money Linda McMahon is able to spend this race, believe me they will.  And enough of them just might be sufficiently turned off to hand the seat to her.

Ken Berwitz

Excerpted from an article in today's Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch:

A local project that President Barack Obama cited during a visit Wednesday to Columbus as an example of how the federal stimulus package has worked isn't actually being funded with stimulus dollars.

 

The president spoke at the North Side home of architect Joe Weithman, and both Obama's comments and information from the White House touted Weithman's work on a project that the president said was being at least partially funded by the $787 billion stimulus bill passed last year.

 

"What we've been trying to do is to build infrastructure that puts people back to work but also improves the quality of life in communities like Columbus," Obama said in his remarks. "So Joe is an architect, and he's now working on a new police station that was funded in part with Recovery Act funds."

 

But although federal money is being used for the project in question, there are no stimulus dollars involved, said Columbus Finance Director Paul Rakosky, a Democrat.

 

Rakosky said the project is not a police station but rather the renovation of an abandoned warehouse that the city purchased on the South Side in 2007 to house the city's police crime lab and property room.

 

Weithman's firm, Mull & Weithman Architects, is handling the $300,000 in design work for the crime lab as part of the project, and the $300,000 is coming from a congressional earmark, Rakosky said.

Imagine that.  The President of the United States bragged about how a police station was built with "stimulus package" money.  Except it wasn't a police station and not one penny of "stimulus package" money was used.

This happened on Wednesday.  Which means yesterday's newspapers and news shows were loaded with stories about about how completely the President screwed everything up and how ridiculous and/or dishonest he came across as being.  Right?

Well, right?  It was all over the media, wasn't it?  I mean it had to be, didn't it? 

Uh....what's that you say?  You didn't see or hear or read about it?  Not at all?

Hmmmmmmmm.

Tell me:  Do you think it would have been covered a bit more if the President were named Bush?

Some things just answer themselves, don't they?

Ken Berwitz

President Obama has just made a recess appointment of maria del carmen aponte to be our Ambassador to El Salvador. 

Why was it necessary for him to bypass congress?  Because of what would happen if she were ever sbjected to the vetting process. 

And why would the vetting process have been a problem?

Here are a couple of reasons for you:

-aponte was the lover of a Cuban communist spy.  That is why, when Bill Clinton nominated her to be ambassador to the Dominican Republic, her name had to be withdrawn.  You would think that would forever end any chance for her to serve as a US ambassador right there.  But we are in the Obama administration, aren't we?

-aponte is also a former board member of La Raza ("The Race"), a radical latino organization that believes much of the southwest and west USA is Mexican territory and should be given back.

Excerpted from Andy McCarthy's piece for National Review, December 16, 2009:

Ken Berwitz

As you may know (not that our wonderful “neutral” media are blasting it all over the airwaves) Feisal Abdul Rauf, the “ground zero Imam”, is currently on a tour of Muslim countries – that is funded by the USA taxpayer.

Why is the state department funding this trip?  What is it for?  What is it supposed to accomplish?  And why is there virtually no media coverage of it?

If that doesn’t make you uncomfortable, you’ve got some helluva comfort level.  A lot more than mine, I assure you.

One of the few journalists trying to fill in these blanks is Claudia Rossett, writing for pajamasmedia.com.  Here is the first part of her latest report – which you owe it to yourself to read in its entirety:

It’s now almost a month since the imam behind the Ground Zero mosque project answered any questions from the U.S. media (or any other media, as far as I’m aware), or even bestirred himself to fill in the American public on his exact whereabouts. All it’s been possible to discern is that after spending weeks in Malaysia (and elsewhere?), Rauf is moving on to the Middle East — with the State Department, after two weeks of hemming and hawing, finally confirming on Wednesday the bare-bones dates of his taxpayer-funded travels to Bahrain, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates.

But I can report a recent sighting, of sorts. Not a sighting of Rauf himself, mind you. Nor the sound of his voice. But late Thursday night, New York time — Thursday morning in the Middle East — I phoned the U.S. Embassy in Bahrain, the first stop on Rauf’s “public diplomacy” tour.

Asked if the imam had arrived in Bahrain, an embassy official told me: “Yes, that’s correct.”

And that, folks, is the sum total right now of the information available to the American public about the taxpayer-funded public outreach activities these next few days of  Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf in Bahrain. I had more questions. But Imam Feisal evidently moves in circles in which inquiries about whom he’s meeting overseas, what he’s telling them, or where he plans to get $100 million for his mosque and Islamic center near Ground Zero are seen by both Rauf and his hosts as an extraordinary intrusion on his public outreach and bridge-building endeavors. The U.S. Embassy in Bahrain would offer nothing further on the record about Ambassador Adam Ereli’s controversial guest. There is so far no reply to queries I emailed to the U.S. embassies in Bahrain, Qatar and the UAE. Visitors to the web site of the U.S. Embassy in Bahrain are of course welcome to read President Barack Obama’s remarks at last Friday’s Iftar dinner at the White House, in which Obama effectively endorsed Rauf’s mosque and Islamic center project near Ground Zero, referring to the right of Muslims “to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in Lower Manhattan.”

 Asking again:  Why is the state department funding this trip?  What is it for?  What is it supposed to accomplish?  And why is there virtually no media coverage of it?

I watched former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani on the Today show yesterday.  He told us that the mosque project, which estimated to cost something like $100 million, had only raised about $180,000 so far.  That’s less than one fifth of one percent. 

Where is the rest of the money coming from?

Is Feisal Abdul Rauf touring the Muslim world raising funds for the “ground zero mosque” that the public (other than media, I assure you) is so strongly against, on our taxpayer dollars?

It would be nice if our media, which have no problem telling us any and every thing about Sarah Palin they can turn into a punch line, would give us just a little bit more information about the activities of Feisal Abdul Rauf that we are subsidizing.  Like any at all.

Count on it happening -- about two weeks after jodie evans and medea Benjamin shut down Code Pink and become life members of the Eagle Forum.

And count on these same media to squeal like stuck pigs if you call them biased.

Ken Berwitz

That title is not a sex exposé.  It is a political question.

Is it real?  Can Jerry Brown possibly be accepting warm/fuzzy support from the USA hating, Israel-hating, hamas-loving, code pink operative, jodie evans?

I do not know for 100% certain that this is true, and will try to verify it during the day.  But if it is, Brown should be ashamed of himself and then some. 

Simply stated, Jerry Brown accepting this kind of support from a used scumbag like jodie evans should be the wake-up call of wake-up calls to Californians.

And, yes, I know that evans was a fundraiser and bundler for Barack Obama too. 

Nice of our wonderful "neutral" media to make sure the public knew about it....

Ken Berwitz

When President Obama and his administration were promoting comprehensive health care legislation, more commonly known as ObamaCare, they made a lot of promises about it.

But how are things actually working out?

Ben Smith of politico.com has written about this, and makes some very interesting political observations.  Here is the first part of his blog (and I urge you to click on my link to read the rest):

Dems retreat on health care cost pitch

By BEN SMITH | 8/19/10 4:55 PM EDT Updated: 8/19/10 6:36 PM EDT

Key White House allies are dramatically shifting their attempts to defend health care legislation, abandoning claims that it will reduce costs and deficit, and instead stressing a promise to "improve it."

The messaging shift was circulated this afternoon on a conference call and PowerPoint presentation organized by FamiliesUSA — one of the central groups in the push for the initial legislation. The call was led by a staffer for the Herndon Alliance, which includes leading labor groups and other health care allies. It was based on polling from three top Democratic pollsters, John Anzalone, Celinda Lake, and Stan Greenberg

The confidential presentation, available in full here and provided to POLITICO by a source on the call, suggests that Democrats are acknowledging the failure of their predictions that the health care legislation would grow more popular after its passage, as its benefits became clear and rhetoric cooled. Instead, the presentation is designed to win over a skeptical public, and to defend the legislation — and in particular the individual mandate — from a push for repeal

As you can see, instead of booming up support for Democrats, ObamaCare is a major-league albatross around their necks.  Therefore, instead of futilely trying to pretend it is, or does, what was originally promised, the Obama administration has been reduced to telling the people they duped that it can be "improved". 

Improved how?   That's what they aren't saying.  You're just supposed to believe them.  Just as you were supposed to believe their cock and bull story last year, that when 30 - 50 million more people (including many who could not pay) were put on health care, the quality of individual care would be just as high, and it would cost less.

So the lies about ObamaCare are now on the scrap heap -- along with the "stimulus package" promises of lower unemployment with millions of new jobs, and the "recovery summer".  

I hope have plenty of room left, because there's a very good chance that scrap heap is going to keep growing.

How can anyone believe a word these people say?

Ken Berwitz

This one hurts to even think about -- and certainly has a place in our "you can't make this stuff up" file.

From Shanghai, China's web site, www.english.eastbay.com:

Cops confirm that, at bottom, patient stitched

2010-08-19 07:30

Police in southern Shenzhen City confirmed a patient's claim that her anus had been sewn by a midwife suspected of taking revenge during the patient's labor because she failed to receive a good tip.

A medical report by the police showed the anus had been sewn with black threads and needle near her bleeding hemorrhoid, reported Nanfang Daily yesterday.

The midwife surnamed Zhang had denied it.

The report conflicted with a previous statement that said the patient's anus was not sealed up and there was no evidence supporting the sewing claim, by the Shenzhen Health Bureau and Shenzhen Population and Family Planning Commission on July 30.

Zhang claimed she applied the ligature treatment to cure the woman's bleeding pile out of generosity, though it violated professional practice.

However, the police's report said the woman's bleeding position was not the one that Zhang claimed she ligated.

The director of Fenghuang Hospital in Luohu District, where Zhang worked, said she couldn't comment because she didn't see the report. But she said further investigation was still needed.

Zhang was also unavailable for comment.

According to the patient's husband, surnamed Chen, the midwife had hinted that he give her extra money before the child's birth on July 23. But Chen gave her only 100 yuan (US$15), which she thought too meager and sparked her revenge.

On reflection, a bigger tip probably would have been a good idea.

Lucky the husband gave at least $15.  Keep in mind that there are other things to sew down there.

Anyway, they'll never convict the midwife.  Obviously her accuser is full of sh....er, you can finish that one yourself.

Ken Berwitz

Is the Obama administration worried about the increasing suspicions that he is a Muslim?  This excerpt from an Associated Press story gives us the answer:

WASHINGTON — The White House says President Barack Obama is a Christian who prays daily.

White House spokesman Bill Burton made the remark Thursday, hours after a poll showed 18 percent of Americans think Obama is Muslim, up from 11 percent who thought so last year. A third think he's Christian, and 4 in 10 say they don't know Obama's religion.

Burton said: "The president is obviously a Christian. He prays every day."

 According to the poll, conducted by the Pew Forum (which no one ever accused of being partisan to Republicans), 18% of all respondents believe President Obama is a Muslim, 34% believe he is Christian and 43% aren't sure.  Last year the same poll showed 11% believing he was Muslim and 51% believing he was Christian.  In other words, a 40% Muslim-Christian differential dropped to 16% in a single year.  That is huge.

Is it because Mr. Obama kowtowed to Islamics - e.g. bowing to that Saudi prince?  Is it because of his studied indifference when Iranians marched in the streets to protest the clerics who abetted ahmadinejad's fraudulent election?  Is it because he seems significantly more in tune with Palestinian Arabs versus Israelis than other Presidents have been?  Who knows? 

But regardless of the reasons, the tide of public opinion has turned enough for the administration to try deflecting it.

I just have one question:  When President Bush made a point of talking about how frequently he prayed to Jesus, he was deemed a religious fanatic by the left.  Well, President Obama says he prays to Jesus every day. 

Waiting......................

Ken Berwitz

I can't say I feel any sympathy for the two young women who tried to blackmail their landlord.

But I can't say I feel any sympathy for the landlord either.

Here are the particulars, from UPI (two whom I apologize -- this article is too short to excerpt).  See if you agree:

FAIRFAX, Va., Aug. 18 (UPI) -- Two women face charges after allegedly trying to extort money from a landlord by blackmailing him in a sex-for-rent scheme, Fairfax County, Va., police said.

Jessica Testin, 23, and Rachel Beloff, 26, are accused of offering sexual favors to their landlord in exchange for a month's rent, and then threatening to tell his wife about it if he didn't pay them, The Washington Post reported Wednesday.

In an affidavit filed Tuesday in Fairfax Circuit Court, Detective Mike Holland said the landlord -- whose name was not released -- went to the women's apartment and they told him to go into a bedroom and undress.

After one of the women "did a slow dance while removing some of her clothing" and jumped on the bed, the other woman grabbed the landlord's clothes and cellphone, Holland wrote. He eventually retrieved his belongings and left -- but police say the suspects called him and told him they had the incident on a DVD.

"Unless he gave them $500 per week and free rent," the affidavit said, "they would give a copy of the DVD to his wife."

The alleged victim reported the matter to police, and Holland instructed him to contact the women. During a telephone call, one of the women said she would turn over photos and video of the incident in exchange for $11,000, the affidavit said.

Police arrested the women Tuesday on a charge of felony threat to extort money. The crime is punishable by as much as 10 years in prison, the Post said.

The two young women are busted (that's not an anatomical reference).  No doubt about it.

But what about the landlord, who was caught with his pants down (literally)?   How can he be an aggrieved party if he went into the other room and undressed?

In the immortal words of Desi Arnaz, it looks to me like all three of them have lots of 'splainin' to do....

Ken Berwitz

This isn't a news article, it's template.

Excerpted from the Associated Press:

NEW YORK (AP) -- Stocks fell Thursday after the Labor Department said claims for unemployment benefits rose unexpectedly last week, renewing concerns about the pace of the economic recovery.

The Labor Department said initial claims for unemployment benefits rose by 12,000 to 500,000 last week from an upwardly revised 488,000 a week earlier. Economists polled by Thomson Reuters forecast claims would fall slightly.

How many times this year has unemployment "unexpectedly" gone up?  How many times this year have last week's unemployment numbers been revised upward - which 1) made last week's numbers look better than they actually were and 2) makes this week's rise in unemployment look less significant?

Other than yellow-dog Democrats and people who unconditionally love President Obama and Democrats (both in dwindling supply if the polls are correct), does anyone out there believe this crap anymore?

If so, god help them.

Ken Berwitz

About the 43,852nd time I read, hear or view media personalities bemusedly telling me that there are actually people who - the next word is usually something like "incorrectly" or "mistakenly" -  think President Obama is a Muslim, I start to wonder just how hard they have tried to find out what is or isn't true.

The latest example is from Time Magazine's latest poll, which explores US reaction to Muslims in general along with President Obama's roots.  Here is the first part of Time writer Alex Altman's analysis of the poll's findings:

Opponents of the planned Islamic community center and mosque near Ground Zero in Lower Manhattan have public opinion firmly in their corner. According to a new TIME poll, 61% of respondents oppose the construction of the Park51/Cordoba House project, compared to 26% who support it. More than 70% concur with the premise that proceeding with the plan would be an insult to the victims of the attacks on the World Trade Center. Opposition to the project appears to derive largely from the conviction that the proposed site of the project — just two blocks from Ground Zero, in a building that formerly housed a Burlington Coat Factory outlet — is so close to "hallowed ground," as President Obama put it.

Yet the survey also revealed that many Americans harbor lingering animosity toward Muslims. Twenty-eight percent of voters do not believe Muslims should be eligible to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court. Nearly one third of the country thinks adherents of Islam should be barred from running for President — slightly higher than the 24% who mistakenly believe that the current occupant of the Oval Office is himself a Muslim. In all, just 47% of respondents believe Obama is a Christian; 24% declined to respond to the question or said they were unsure, and 5% believe he is neither Christian nor Muslim.

Let's get by the preliminaries quickly:

-Yes, a large majority is opposed to the so-called "ground zero mosque".  Importantly, however, based on other polls and news accounts, a great many within that majority are not against building a mosque per se - maybe not even a mosque that physically is close to ground zero.  They are opposed to a huge, maximally conspicuous showcase mosque, funded by who knows who, which could be seen by terrorists as a symbol of Islamic "victory" over us;

-I am neither surprised nor shocked that 28% of voters feel Muslims should be shut out of the Supreme Court.  Nor would I be surprised or shocked if there were a large percentage of people favoring ineligibility for other groups.  Too bad the Time poll did not establish context by also asking about, say, Blacks, Jews, Southerners, etc.  There are plenty of bigots and racists in this country (and every other country, folks, not just the USA).  Singling out the fact that such sentiment exists regarding Muslims makes for interesting reading, but suggests a uniqueness that isn't there.  I would expect there is MORE of it for Muslims because of 9/11, and the subsequent terrorist attacks, both successful and unsuccessful, on USA soil.  But in the absence of any context to that 28%, no one can know for sure.

Ok, now to the main event.  Are people mistaken in believing Barack Obama is a Muslim?

Well, to quote the inimitable Bill Clinton, it all depends on what "is" is.

Is Barack a practicing Muslim?  I don't know of any basis to believe he is, and the Time poll apparently doesn't ask.

But is he a Muslim by birth or upbringing?  Here's where it gets complicated.

-Barack Obama's father was a Muslim. 

-His stepfather was a Muslim. 

-He was raised for four years in Indonesia, a Muslim country.

-His elementary school registration in Indonesia (where he lived from 1967 to 1971) states that he was a Muslim.  Here is the actual, hand-written admission page, in which he is registered under the name "Barry Soetoro" (Soetoro was his stepfather's name, which he used while growing up).  On line 4, Obama's religion is identified as "Islam. (His nationality appears to be listed as Indonesian also, but that's for another blog entry).  FYI, this registration form was found and published by the Associated Press, thus available to all of the journalists who state as a fact that Mr. Obama is not a Muslim. I wonder how many even know it exists -- or, worse still, do know it exists and have declined to report it;

-Since we have never seen his actual birth certificate (that "Certification of Live Birth" is not an actual birth certificate, no matter how many times Chris Matthews, keith olbermann and their pals lie to you about it) we have no way of knowing whether the original indicates his religion and, if so, which religion it is;

-All we know about Barack Obama is that a little over 20 years ago (when he was almost 30 years old) he became a member of Trinity United Church of Christ (TUCC) in south-side Chicago.  Then, and until he became President, TUCC was under the spiritual leadership of a radical, hate-filled, Black liberation theology adherent named jeremiah wright.  In 2007, the year before this country voted Mr. Obama President, TUCC named a career White-hating, Jew-hating Muslim - louis farrakhan - its man of the year, and wright gushed that farrakhan "epitomized greatness".   But when that happened, then-Senator Obama did not leave the church or object in any way.

So;  is Barack Obama a Muslim?  Maybe it's not as easy an answer as Alex Altman and his likeminded cohorts in our wonderful "neutral" media have made it out to be.

Your call.

Ken Berwitz

Fred Barnes has written a very interesting commentary in today's Washington Examiner, about how Democrats are changing their political strategy in an effort to avert a major disaster in the midterm elections.

Here is the first segment which, I suspect, will entice you to read the rest:

The Democratic strategy in the 2010 election is simple: Change the subject. And given the subject on everyone’s mind, who can blame them? That subject is the economy and related matters like spending, the deficit, debt, and President Obama. These are the last things Democrats want to talk about.

 

Instead, they’d like to reduce each race for the House and Senate to the personal level. Their aim is to emphasize the individual flaws of Republican candidates. In the Democratic game plan, the economy and national issues are taboo.

 

This microstrategy is one of pure desperation. It’s all that’s left when macro-political trends are going against you. Indeed, Democrats start with two strikes against them. A midterm election is usually a referendum on the president’s performance, and this year’s is no exception.

 

And the most important measure of the president’s success or failure is the condition of the economy.

 

Given this, the campaign is on a track that’s likely to produce a Republican landslide in November. So Democrats are eager to create a separate track, a parallel campaign aimed at minimizing their losses.

Ken Berwitz

A week after using the word "nigger" - not as a pejorative against Black people but in an explanatory way, as I myself have used it numerous times in this blog - Laura Schlessinger has apparently been pushed off the air.

Excerpted from Anahad O'Connor's article at the New York Times web site:

August 17, 2010, 11:26 pm

Dr. Laura Schlessinger to End Radio Show

By ANAHAD O'CONNOR

 

12:43 a.m. | Updated Dr. Laura Schlessinger, the conservative talk radio commentator under fire for repeatedly using a racial epithet, announced on Tuesday that she was ending her long-running radio show.

 

Dr. Schlessinger made the announcement on Tuesday night on “Larry King Live,” saying she made a decision not to renew her contract when it expires at the end of the year and suggesting that she did not want her opinions and language, however provocative, to be muzzled.

 

Television, via Reuters Dr. Laura Schlessinger in 2000.

 

“I want to regain my First Amendment rights,” she said. “I want to be able to say what’s on my mind and in my heart and what I think is helpful and useful without somebody getting angry, some special interest group deciding this is the time to silence a voice of dissent and attack affiliates, attack sponsors. I’m sort of done with that.”

 

But she stressed that she was not retiring, only ending her show, and would continue to write books and appear at speaking engagements.

 

“I’m not quitting,” she told Larry King. “I feel energized actually — stronger and freer to say the things that I believe need to be said for people in this country.”

 

No stranger to controversy, Dr. Schlessinger has been under intense pressure in recent days following an exchange with a caller on her radio show last week in which she used the racial epithet — the so-called N-word — 11 times. The caller, a black woman, was complaining that she was married to a white man whose friends and family members frequently made racist comments in her presence. Dr. Schlessinger responded by arguing there was a “confusing” double standard — that blacks could use the epithet freely while whites could not.

 

“If anybody without enough melanin says it, it’s a horrible thing; but when black people say it, it’s affectionate,” she said. “It’s very confusing.”

 

Even after the caller complained — “I was a little caught back by the N-word that you spewed out, I have to be honest with you” — Dr. Schlessinger repeated it a number of times, insisting her caller had “too much sensitivity.”

 

A day later, as the show was generating controversy on blogs and cable news shows, Dr. Schlessinger issued an apology on her blog. She also read it on her radio show.

 

“I was attempting to make a philosophical point, and I articulated the ‘n’ word all the way out — more than one time,” she said. “And that was wrong. I’ll say it again — that was wrong.”

 

The apology, however, only generated more attention to the original comments, prompting Dr. Schlessinger to appear on CNN to make her announcement Tuesday night.

 

Shortly after Dr. Schlessinger made her announcement, one of the groups that had called for advertisers to back away from her show, Media Matters for America, issued a statement applauding the outcome.

 

“Dr. Laura’s radio career ended in disgrace tonight because of the bigoted, ugly and hateful remarks made on her show. Americans have had enough,” the group’s president, Eric Burns, said in the statement. “Listeners are now holding hosts, affiliates, and sponsors accountable for the offensive and inexcusable content on the airwaves.”

 There is an old joke about a woman who goes to a poultry store to buy a chicken.  She picks one up and starts sniffing it. Up, down, around, every which way.  She goes to the manager of the store and says "I wouldn't pay a penny for this chicken.  It stinks!"  And the manager, who had been watching her, says "Lady, could you pass that test"?

If some of the censorious haters, like media matters, for example, ever applied the same standards they demand of conservative media personalities to the hard left they are so enthralled by, it would be open season on Rosie O'Donnell, Roseanne Barr, keith olbermann, Ed Schultz, Chris Matthews and a raft of others.

The hatred, invective, offensive characterizations, etc. spewed by this bunch are legion.  I have chronicled a great many examples here, and I've barely scratched the surface. 

But the truth, as I would hope you are aware, is that the censorious haters on the left do not care about this kind of behavior from their own.  The objective is not quality programming, it is getting political opponents off the air - even if all they have done is talk about how an offensive word is viewed, depending on who is using it.

I don't listen to Ms. Schlessinger's radio show.  Other than reading about what she said last week, her TV appearances are pretty much my entire frame of reference.  But I did read the transcript of the show in question and, in my opinion, she should never have allowed herself to be browbeaten into an apology.  She did not do anything wrong.

But she did apologize.  And now she says she's leaving the air to prevent this kind of censorship from being inflicted on her again, so I guess that's that. 

What a great triumph for the censorious haters.  I wonder who's next?

Ken Berwitz

Now there's a blog title I could use just about every day.......

This latest installment comes to us from Brad Wilmouth's blog at newsbusters.com.  Here is the first part of Brad's blog -- and I urge you to use the link and read it all:

On Monday’s Countdown show, MSNBC host Keith Olbermann used a clip of U.S. Army Staff Sergeant Tim Osborn, stationed in Iraq, commenting on how he had previously felt that the war in Iraq "wasn’t ever going to stop," to fit into the Countdown host’s suggestion that American troops had remained in Iraq too long. But what Olbermann did not show his viewers is that Staff Sergeant Osborn had also expressed strong support for the war effort in a clip which was shown earlier that evening on the NBC Nightly News during a piece which correspondent Richard Engel filed from Iraq:

 

RICHARD ENGEL: He tells me his greatest accomplishment: giving Iraqis a chance.

 

STAFF SERGEANT TIM OSBORN, U.S. ARMY: If what was going on here was going on in America, I wouldn't want my kids to grow up in that world. I would want somebody else to come in and help. And if it took them doing what we did here, then I would welcome that.

 

But Olbermann was apparently only interested in using a clip of Staff Sergeant Osborn that would fit into the MSNBC host’s characteristic anti-war shtick:

Yes, olbermann withheld half the story, so that he could feed some red meat to the hard-left segment of (i.e. majority of) his viewers. 

Yes, he is that dishonest.

And, yes, he does it regularly, as I (and many others) have chronicled.

What a pathetic man.

Ken Berwitz

Let me start with a personal conclusion:  patrick fitzgerald is a disgrace.  He displays little in the way of scruples, honesty or competence. 

I wrote a lot about fitzgerald while he was running the "Valerie Plame" charade, while knowing almost all that time that that to the extent she could be "outed" (Plame was about as covert as Madonna) Richard Armitage was the "man" who did it.  Armitage told him as much just months after the investigation began.  But that didn't stop fitzgerald from infl