Ken Berwitz

So this guy calls his wife and tells her "I won the lottery!  Start packing!"  She goes nuts and screams "EEEEEOOOWWW, THAT'S AMAZING.  Should I pack for hot?  Should I pack for cold?"  And he says "I don't give a damn how you pack.  Just be gone by the time I get home"

I used to think that was a joke.  But based on this story, which is excerpted from a web site called emigrate.co.uk, I'm not so sure anymore:

People have always used the saying, “leave your personal life at home.” Well if this one emigration officer would have listened to that saying he may still have a job. Reports show that an emigration officer was fired after he tried to stick his wife on a watch list of people banned from boarding flights into Britain.

Apparently the man did this in an attempt to get rid of his wife. After his wife left the country to fly to Pakistan to see family, he put her on the terrorist watch list. Thus, for the past three years, she has not been able to return to the UK from Pakistan.

This little stunt of his would have went unnoticed for longer had he not been selected for a promotion and his wife’s name was found on the suspects’ list during a vetting inquiry. Needless to say, the Home Office confirmed that the man has been canned for what they are calling gross misconduct.

Well, it certainly didn't turn out well by the husband's reckoning.  But you have to give him points for being creative.  Most guys probably would have just moved, and not left a forwarding address.

Then there's the claim that he "tried to stick his wife on a watch list...".

Tried?  Tried?  She couldn't get back to the UK for three years!!!!  That's more than a try.

And I'm fascinated by the fact that what he did only came to light because he was being given a promotion.  Too bad he didn't see "The Reader":  he would have known to just quit his job and disappear.

Anyway, I wonder if his wife packed for hot or cold.  Either way, I'm sure she was good at it.  After all, she did come from Pak-istan, didn't she?

Ken Berwitz

Excerpted from an article at Reuters:

A judge in Florida on Monday became the second judge to declare President Barack Obama's healthcare reform law unconstitutional, in the biggest legal challenge yet to federal authority to enact the law.

U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson, appointed to the bench by President Ronald Reagan in 1983, ruled that the reform law's so-called "individual mandate" went too far in requiring that Americans start buying health insurance in 2014 or pay a penalty.

"Because the individual mandate is unconstitutional and not severable, the entire act must be declared void. This has been a difficult decision to reach, and I am aware that it will have indeterminable implications," Vinson wrote.

He was referring to a key provision in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and sided with governors and attorneys general from 26 U.S. states, almost all of whom are Republicans, in declaring it unconstitutional. The issue will likely end up at the Supreme Court.

Let's see:  A Republican-appointed judge, has ruled in favor of a majority of states - almost every one of them having a Republican Attorney General - and against the Obama administration.

Politically, the issue is a very basic one:

- If most people (especially among independents, who have the greatest propensity for switching their vote from one party to another) are in favor of ObamaCare, this is going to hurt Republicans and help Democrats. 

- If most people (again, especially independents) are against ObamaCare, this is going to help Republicans and hurt Democrats.

Which do you think is the greater likelihood?  You probably won't have to wait long to find out.

One other thing:  If I were a Republican strategist, I would be all over this.  I would be screaming from the rooftops that over 700 "Obama-connected" companies and unions had asked for, and been granted, waivers so they didn't have to be stuck with ObamaCare, and that Judge Vinson has ruled, in effect, that the rest of us are just as good as those FOB's (Friends of Barack) and don't have to get stuck with this awful legislation either.

I cannot, however, say I would be surprised if they didn't do this.  We're talking Republican strategists, aren't we?  

Ken Berwitz

This guy is a class A Darwin award finalist.  Read what he did, from Florida's Sun-Sentinel, and you won't need me to tell you why:

A man smoking a cigarette while using an oxygen machine was seriously hurt Monday when the oxygen unit exploded, a fire spokesman said.

The man was taken to Broward General Hospital, according to Matt Little, a spokesman for Fort Lauderdale Fire Rescue. The man's name wasn't released because of medical privacy laws. His condition was unavailable.  

Let's all hope and pray that he never gets a job as a blow torch operator.

And I don't need Fire Rescue to tell me his condition.  I already know it.  He has a severe case of TI:  Total Idiocy.

Ken Berwitz

How bad would it be if Mohamed El Baradei and the Muslim brotherhood took over Egypt?

Excerpted from John Hinderaker's superb, highly informational blog today at powerlineblog.com:

An Egyptian government in which the key players are the Muslim Brotherhood and El Baradei would be a terrible development for us; for Egypt, perhaps a catastrophic one. Some are now arguing that the MB is a relatively benign force to which we should not be opposed. Andy McCarthy explains in detail why we should fear the Muslim Brotherhood--the organization that has spawned most of today's terrorist groups--but really, all you need to know is the Brotherhood's motto:

 

Allah is our objective, the Prophet is our leader, the Koran is our law, Jihad is our way, and dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope. Allahu akbar!

 

That pretty well sums it up.

 

El Baradei, meanwhile, has a long history of anti-American activism. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, which is often repeated in the press as though it were a good thing. As is so often the case in recent years, El Baradei's prize was a reward for sticking his finger in America's eye, as we noted back in 2005:

 

When the Nobel Peace Prize, which has become more or less a badge of infamy, was awarded to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and its Director-General Mohamed El Baradei, many suspected that the award was--once again--an implied rebuke to the United States. It turns out that this wasn't just paranoid suspicion by us conservatives:

 

The speculation at the United Nations was that the Norwegian Nobel committee was sending its own message to the U.S. administration for its refusal to take meaningful steps on nuclear disarmament and for its continued militaristic policies in Iraq and Afghanistan.

 

El Baradei achieved his greatest renown in connection with the pre-war weapons inspections in Iraq, which he headed on behalf of the IAEA. One particularly discreditable moment in his tenure, which sheds considerable light on El Baradei, requires a walk down memory lane.

If you read the full blog - and you should - it will take you through El Baradei's history vis a vis the United States.  Believe me, you won't wonder why jihadists like this guy.

Is Hosni Mubarak bad?  Yes.  But let's also remember that the alternative to bad could be better.....and it could be worse too. 

I hope this administration is pulling the right strings and doing what has to be done to help the best possible outcome along.  And if it does, you will see high praise from me in this blog. 

The reason I usually write so negatively about Barack Obama is because I don't like what he is doing.  If/when I do, that changes things.  And I will be thrilled to write laudatory comments about Mr. Obama and his administration if they can help to facilitate a more Democratic Egypt, with or without Mubarak, rather than a Muslim brotherhood horror show.

But if our efforts result in El Baradei as the new Egyptian leader - a Muslim brotherhood selection, and favorite of Iran?  Forget it.  Better to have a flawed, repressive Mubarak.

Ken Berwitz

Are you wondering which lucky 733 entities have been granted waivers from ObamaCare?

Well just click here and you can see the list.

If you're in one of the lucky companies, unions or states (that's right, states), then congratulations.  You are an escapee.

If you aren't?  Then my condolences.  You are not.

Ken Berwitz

Since the Muslim brotherhood figures prominently in the Egyptian unrest - as it has in unrest and mayhem around the globe, including the United States, I thought readers might be interested in learning more about it.

In May of 2010 Larry Kelley, writing for townhall.com, gave us an excellent description of this group, along with a highly disturbing chronology of its activities.  You can read Mr. Kelley's entire piece by clicking here - and I strongly urge you do just that.

Here is a small part of what it contains:

The Muslim Brotherhood is leading the way for radical Muslims to infiltrate American society and government. Their goal is simple: control the United States and impose Shariah law.

THE BROTHERHOOD COMES TO AMERICA

In the mid-20th century, the Brotherhood began its campaign to infiltrate and impact the direction of the United States.

During the 1960s, the Brotherhood began sending vast numbers of students to American universities.

In 1973, with massive Saudi funding, they formed the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT), an investment vehicle that enabled them to acquire 300 mosques and schools in the United States.

In 1987, Hamas, the Palestinian wing of the Brothers with the stated goal of destroying Israel, was founded and largely funded by American Muslims.

In 1990, the Brotherhood formed the American Muslim Council (AMC) with Abdurahman Alamoudi as its boss and the new capo di tutti of the entire syndicate.

Then in 1994, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) was founded.

In 1980, there were 481 officially recognized Mosques in the United States. Today, there are 1,209, with an estimated 80 percent of those funded and controlled by Saudi Arabia, where the official religion is virulently anti-Western Wahhabi Islam.

Sperry and Gaubatz’s "Muslim Mafia" exposes the Muslim Brotherhood’s activities in America using declassified FBI documents, FBI agent interviews, transcripts of telephone wire taps and thousands of internal documents smuggled out of CAIR headquarters by Gaubatz’s son, Chris Gaubatz, who posed as an American convert to Islam and was hired by CAIR. They demonstrate that the Brotherhood is now a worldwide central clearinghouse for virtually all Sunni terrorist groups, is operating inside U.S. mosques across the country and is in complete control of CAIR and its myriad subsidiaries.

And while the House of Saud attempts to portray itself as a loyal U.S. trading partner, the authors prove that it is actually financing and partnering with the Brotherhood, that it is actively undermining our national security, and that it controls CAIR and at least 46 other supposedly moderate Muslim front groups in the United States, along with countless other subsidiary shell companies. And for the first time, they expose the Brotherhood’s five-phase plan for dominating America:

• Phase I: Establish an elite Muslim Leadership and raise Islamicist consciousness in the community;

• Phase II: Create Islamic institutions that the leadership can control and form autonomous Muslim enclaves;

• Phase III: Infiltrate America’s political and social institutions forming a shadow state; escalate conversions; manipulate mass media to remove language offensive to Islam;

• Phase IV: Open hostile public confrontation over U.S. policies, riot, make militant demands for special rights and accommodations;

• Phase V: Wage final conflict and overthrow (jihad).

According to Sperry and Gaubatz, the consensus among counterterrorism officials is that the North American Brotherhood is already in Phase III.

"Muslim Mafia" contains many depictions of American imams openly espousing treason. For example, American Muslim cleric Zaid Shakir, was secretly recorded giving a lecture in the San Francisco area advising his audience of fellow Muslim Americans to follow the strategy of the prophet when he fled to Medina and accumulated power first before waging violent jihad. Shakir is a regular speaker at CAIR-sponsored events, where he has referred to the Brotherhood’s aforementioned plan to overthrow America by saying, "If we put a nationwide infrastructure in place and marshaled our resources, we’d take over this country in a very short time."

 Again, I urge you to read every word of this piece.  There is much, much more there. 

Ignorance is one of the greatest assets the enemies of western civilization can have.  Let's not be part of their assets.

Ken Berwitz

From Reuters (among other sources):

Egyptian opposition forces have agreed to support opposition figure Mohamed ElBaradei to negotiate with the government, a leading member of the Muslim Brotherhood said on Sunday.

"Political groups support ElBaradei to negotiate with the regime," Essam el-Eryan told Al Jazeera television.

What does it tell you about the nobel peace prize, when a terrorist group, committed to Muslim conquest through jihad, accepts one of its most recent winners (2005) as a spokesperson?  

Does it tell you that the Muslim brotherhood thinks of him as a man of peace?  Or does it tell you that the nobel prize has devolved into valuelessness?

Then again, there probably are people who did not realize the valuelessness of the nobel peace prize after it was handed to career mass murderer yasir arafat, or after it was handed to Barack Obama - after less than one year in office, with no accomplishments of any kind in any peaceful endeavor.  They might think this makes sense too. 

I hope, for their own sake, that there aren't many.

Ken Berwitz

Excerpted from an Associated Press article,  published in the Laredo Morning Times, which I just saw at freerepublic.com:

MONTERREY, Mexico — The police chief and all 38 police officers of a northeastern Mexican town have quit following a series of drug cartel attacks, including the decapitation of two of their colleagues.

Soldiers, state and federal police had been deployed to patrol General Teran, a town along a notorious drug-smuggling route to the U.S. border, said Mayor Ramon Villagomez.

The police quit after the discovery Wednesday of the mutilated bodies of two officers who had been kidnapped by gunmen two days earlier.

The killings followed three attacks on the police headquarters since December. Gunmen hurled grenades and sprayed the building with machine-gun fire.

The drug-related murders are rampant. Mexico cannot stop them.

And the Obama administration's Department of Justice, under the disgraceful toady eric holder, would rather sue Arizona then try to secure our borders there, or in Texas, New Mexico and California..

Get ready.  Because, since there is no effort to prevent this from moving north of the border to the USA, there is no reason it won't happen here, and soon. 

How many will die?  Your guess is as good as mine. 

The 2012 elections cannot come fast enough.

Ken Berwitz

A couple of weeks ago I blogged my outrage that, at that time, 222 different entities - companies and, of course, unions (a protected species under Barack Obama) were being given waivers so that they didn't have to take ObamaCare. 

At that time I asked why anyone would want to avoid this program, given that it is touted as providing superb care at lower cost.  Would you turn down superb care at lower cost?

Well, since I blogged about those 222 waivers, the actual number has grown....make that exploded.  The total has more than tripled -- and, so far as I know, it is still growing.

Excerpted from Dr. Milton R. Wolf's article in Friday's Washington Times:

If you would like to know what the White House really thinks of Obamacare, there’s an easy way. Look past its press releases. Ignore its promises. Forget its talking points. Instead, simply witness for yourself the outrageous way the White House protects its best friends from Obamacare.

Last year, we learned that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) had granted 111 waivers to protect a lucky few from the onerous regulations of the new national health care overhaul. That number quickly and quietly climbed to 222, and last week we learned that the number of Obamacare privileged escapes has skyrocketed to 733.

Among the fortunate is a who’s who list of unions, businesses and even several cities and four states (Massachusetts, New Jersey, Ohio and Tennessee) but none of the friends of Barack feature as prominently as the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).

How can you get your own free pass from Obamacare? Maybe you can just donate $27 million to President Obama‘s campaign efforts. That’s what Andy Stern did as president of SEIU in 2008. He has been the most frequent guest at Mr. Obama‘s White House.

Let me ask the question again:  why would anyone want to avoid this program, given that it is touted as providing superb care at lower cost.  Would you turn down superb care at lower cost?

We both know the answer, don't we?  It is that ObamaCare is an overpriced, subpar disaster.  That is why FOB's (Friends of Barack) are begging for - and being given - privileged dispensation, while the rest of us are stuck with it.

I challenge anyone who seriously believes ObamaCare is a superior, low-cost system, to provide any other explanation. 

C'mon.  Make my day.

Ken Berwitz

Earlier this morning I blogged about a stupid mistake Chris Matthews made - i.e. telling viewers, on Friday's "Hardball" show, that the Panama Canal is in Egypt.  I pointed out that, since Matthews loves to insult Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin for their real (and sometimes imagined) missteps, he richly deserved to be nailed for it.

But on the theory that Mr. Matthews prefers to attack people other than himself for their mistakes, I have a new source of material that I'm sure he will jump all over.

Excerpted from Abby Phillip's blog at politico.com:

Hit with a tough question about his administration’s policy in Afghanistan and Iraq on Thursday, President Obama made a muddled mess out of his plans for withdrawing troops from the region.

Obama swapped “Iraq” for “Afghanistan” when he answered a question on YouTube about whether he still believes soldiers need to die in the wars there.

“As I said, we will be out of Afghanistan by the end of this year,” Obama said, a fairly significant misstatement of his administration’s Afghanistan policy, which doesn’t call for a troop withdrawal until 2014.

Go get'im, Chris. 

Be sure to call President Obama a bubblehead, a screamer and a near nutcase, like you did Ms. Bachmann. 

And don't forget to note that he is an ignoramus who doesn't know anything, the way you so often characterize Ms. Palin.

It's too bad no one asked Mr. Obama where the troops will be redeployed after leaving Afghanistan.  Maybe Chris could have suggested that they be sent to Egypt, to guard the Panama canal......

Ken Berwitz

Want to see an amazing Homer Simpson double?

Then click here.  And be forewarned:  it has a sexual component (sort of).

Anyone who doesn't laugh out loud after looking at this, must have had a sense-of-humorectomy.

Ken Berwitz

The problem with someone tossing non-stop insults about the intelligence of others, is if  that person makes a stupid mistake he/she will be nailed for it big-time.  And rightfully so.

Enter Chris Matthews.

Matthews, in a never-ending effort to be more viciously, offensively insulting that keith olbermann (he'll never make it) has been skewering Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin for months, and (in Palin's case) years.  Neither woman can say a thing that isn't judged and judged negatively.  Even when they don't say or do anything (a la Ms. Palin and the Arizona shooting) Matthews' mouth is flapping out the pejoratives.

With this in mind, here is a partial transcript of Matthews "Hardball" show on Friday, which I read at Noel Sheppard's blog for newsbusters.org.  His stupid, funny as hell, mistake is in bold print:

CHRIS MATTHEWS, HOST: You know, the great thing about Egypt is it’s its own country. It was always there before there was an America or Britain or anything, there has been an Egypt. It’s like China. It’s a real country. It wasn’t just carved off the map or out of the map by the Europeans, like so many African and third world countries have.

It’s got a real rooted history. It’s not just an Arab country. It was a country long before it was an Arab country -- long before Islam, there was an Egypt. Will it see itself in this moment of chaos as joining a greater Islamic world or is holding to its national identity?

AMB. MARC GINSBERG, FMR. U.S. AMBASSADOR TO MOROCCO (via telephone)GINSBERG: There’s no doubt that the Egyptians view themselves as the center of culture in the Arab and the Muslim world and the center of Islamic learning. I studied there. I used to take classes at the al-Azhar University, which is considered to be the pre-eminent Islamic institution in the Muslim world, Chris.

MATTHEWS: Right.

GINSBERG: And the fact is that there’s enormous pride going back to the history of the pharaohs. The Egyptians embrace their ancient culture. But they’re very dissatisfied with their current regime.

 MATTHEWS: Well, let me ask you about the prospects we’re looking at as an American. We’re looking at the map of the world right now and where Egypt sits in the world. It’s so strategically located. It has, of course, the Nile River. It has, of course, the Panama Canal.

The Panama Canal is in Egypt?

How the hell did that happen?  Did they move the Suez Canal to Panama?

Matthews, of course, made a mistake.  A stupid, obvious mistake.  Just like we all do.  Just like I do very often in this blog, which is why I find myself frequently going back and fixing what I have written.

But Chris Matthews has no room for error here.  If Michele Bachmann is a bubble head, a screamer and a near nut-case for her (not entirely untrue) comments about the founding fathers fighting against slavery (some did), then what is Matthews for placing the Panama Canal in Egypt?

Maybe he thinks the country's head of state is Hosni Noriega too.

The moral of this story is very clear.  It has something to do with living in a glass house.  I bet you know it already.

Ken Berwitz

The previous blog featured a commentary by Elliott Abrams, writing for the Washington Post.  This one features a commentary by Aluf Benn, writing for the (usually leftward) Israeli Newspaper Ha'aretz.

Here is the first part of Mr. Benn's piece.  See what you think:

Jimmy Carter will go down in American history as "the president who lost Iran," which during his term went from being a major strategic ally of the United States to being the revolutionary Islamic Republic. Barack Obama will be remembered as the president who "lost" Turkey, Lebanon and Egypt, and during whose tenure America's alliances in the Middle East crumbled.

 

The superficial circumstances are similar. In both cases, a United States in financial crisis and after failed wars loses global influence under a leftist president whose good intentions are interpreted abroad as expressions of weakness. The results are reflected in the fall of regimes that were dependent on their relationship with Washington for survival, or in a change in their orientation, as with Ankara.

 

America's general weakness clearly affects its friends. But unlike Carter, who preached human rights even when it hurt allies, Obama sat on the fence and exercised caution. He neither embraced despised leaders nor evangelized for political freedom, for fear of undermining stability.

 

Obama began his presidency with trips to Turkey, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and in speeches in Ankara and Cairo tried to forge new ties between the United States and the Muslim world. His message to Muslims was "I am one of you," and he backed it by quoting from the Koran. President Hosni Mubarak did not join him on the stage at Cairo University, and Obama did not mention his host. But he did not imitate his hated predecessor, President George W. Bush, with blunt calls for democracy and freedom.

 

Obama apparently believed the main problem of the Middle East was the Israeli occupation, and focused his policy on demanding the suspension of construction in the settlements and on the abortive attempt to renew the peace talks. That failure led him to back off from the peace process in favor of concentrating on heading off an Israeli-Iranian war.

Translation:  jimmy carter, feckless and failed as he was, at least talked about human rights.  Barack Obama, feckless and failed as he has turned out to be, didn't even do that - until Iran's freedom movement was crushed and Egypt's unrest grew into a revolution that is likely to force Hosni Mubarak out of office in a matter of days - maybe even today. 

And whose fault is this?  Sadly, it is ours. 

We elected a Chicago machine politician, with no qualifications to be President. And we handed him huge majorities in both houses of congress so that he, and his administration consisting almost entirely of left wing academics and political wonks without real world experience, could  push through as much of their agenda.as possible. 

Did we finally wake up?  Well, after two years of this fun and games, voters used the mid-term elections to blow Mr. Obama's congressional majority to smithereens.  Republicans are now solidly in control of the house.  In the senate, a 59-41 senate majority has shrunk to 53-47.  And Republicans now hold a solid majority of both governorships and state houses.

Will the revolution-in-progress in Egypt, which can have huge implications for the Middle East and the rest of the world, finally wake Mr. Obama up?  Maybe yes and maybe no.

We better hope for a yes.

Ken Berwitz

How it must gall the Obama lovers and Bush haters (very often one and the same) that Obama had it wrong about Egypt - and other Arab countries under the yoke of repression - while Bush had it right.

Elliott Abrams has written a terrific commentary about the events in Egypt and how they bear on President Obama's overall "philosophy" (if you can call it that) in today's Washington Post.  I urge you to click on the link I've provided and read every word.  But, for the moment, consider this excerpt:

All these developments seem to come as a surprise to the Obama administration, which dismissed Bush's "freedom agenda" as overly ideological and meant essentially to defend the invasion of Iraq. But as Bush's support for the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon and for a democratic Palestinian state showed, he was defending self-government, not the use of force. Consider what Bush said in that 2003 speech, which marked the 20th anniversary of the National Endowment for Democracy, an institution established by President Ronald Reagan precisely to support the expansion of freedom.

"Sixty years of Western nations excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East did nothing to make us safe - because in the long run, stability cannot be purchased at the expense of liberty," Bush said. "As long as the Middle East remains a place where freedom does not flourish, it will remain a place of stagnation, resentment and violence ready for export."

This spirit did not always animate U.S. diplomacy in the Bush administration; plenty of officials found it unrealistic and had to be prodded or overruled to follow the president's lead. But the revolt in Tunisia, the gigantic wave of demonstrations in Egypt and the more recent marches in Yemen all make clear that Bush had it right - and that the Obama administration's abandonment of this mind-set is nothing short of a tragedy.

 

U.S. officials talked to Mubarak plenty in 2009 and 2010, and even talked to the far more repressive President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, but they talked about their goals for Israeli-Palestinian peace and ignored the police states outside the doors of those presidential palaces. When the Iranian regime stole the June 2009 elections and people went to the streets, the Obama administration feared that speaking out in their support might jeopardize the nuclear negotiations. The "reset" sought with Russia has been with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, not the Russian people suffering his increasingly despotic and lawless rule.

 

This has been the greatest failure of policy and imagination in the administration's approach: Looking at the world map, it sees states and their rulers, but has forgotten the millions of people suffering under and beginning to rebel against those rulers. "Engagement" has not been the problem, but rather the administration's insistence on engaging with regimes rather than with the people trying to survive under them.

When we think about foreign policy - not the knee-jerk diplomatic reaction and quick fixes, but the bigger picture - it is necessary to avoid two huge mistakes:  underestimating President Bush and overestimating President Obama.

As Mr. Abrams so clearly points out, President Bush had it right.  And he wasn't afraid to say it.  By contrast, after spending two years sitting on a fence and collecting splinters in his rump, President Obama, from a position behind rather than ahead of the curve, has voiced the kinds of clichéd platitudes that carry no weight and command no respect.  The kind that, for decades, have atrophied the United Nations.  No wonder Mr. Obama has such regard for it.

When it comes to speaking of freedom in the Middle East, and the consequences of withholding it, George Bush gave us truth and vision.  Barack Obama is giving us meaningless blather.  Plain and simple.

Ken Berwitz

First an excerpt from a January 26 blog at huffingtonpost.com (the bold print is mine):

The St. Louis, Mo., university plans the week each year "to start an open sexual dialogue, encourage students to experiment with sexual viewpoints that differ from their own and to provide wide-reaching sexual education," according to StudLife, the student paper. Other guests have included famed TV doctor and "Loveline" host Dr. Drew.

Bristol Palin, now 20, was notably put in the spotlight during the 2008 presidential campaign for becoming pregnant at the age of 18. Since giving birth to Tripp, she has partnered with anti-teen pregnancy campaign the Candies Foundation, and even filmed a few ads for the group.

While the politically-charged nature of the selection has caused some minor turbulence on campus, one of the organizers behind the event explained to StudLife that her presence would help round out an annual happening that is often criticized for being one-sided.

Minor turbulence?  Support for Ms. Palin?  Could whoever wrote that blog for the huffington post really believe that a school like Washington University would allow someone from the dreaded Palin family into its mind-protected environment without a fight?

Now let's look at an excerpt from a January 28  blog at politicsdaily.com (again, the bold print is mine):

Bristol Palin will not be speaking about abstinence at Washington University in St. Louis next month.The university said in an e-mailed statement,

"The student group that invited Bristol Palin...has mutually agreed with her not to proceed with a contract regarding Palin's participation in a panel discussion at Washington University on Feb. 7."

The university's Student Health Advisory Committee invited Palin, who became a single mother at 18 and is now a spokeswoman for the prevention of teen pregnancy, to speak on abstinence during Washington University's student Sexual Responsibility Week. That week will focus on creating an open sexual dialogue on campus.

Students started a protest via Facebook to halt Palin's appearance, which would have been paid for with student-generated funds. It had been reported that she would receive between $15,000 and $30,000 to speak.

A Facebook group called "Keep Bristol Palin out of the sex discussion at Washington University" said, "It's not about conservative or liberal, it's about not wasting our money on people who don't matter...especially people who are only famous for being the teenage pregnant daughter of a politician. That is not a credential -- it's a gimmick. So reach across the aisle -- and stand up and say something."

Yep, it's not political.  It's only about keeping as famous an unwed mother as there is, who has "seen the light" and is now the national spokesperson for an abstinence organization, the hell off campus.  She'd just be a waste of money.

One of our sons got what we think was an excellent education at Washington University.  And, he did so despite the school's rampant political correctness and its base of student activists who try hard - and often succeed in their efforts - to intellectually cleanse anything but the leftward side of things. 

How proud they must be.  They made Washington University safe from Bristol Palin.  What a great triumph.

Ken Berwitz

I take no credit for that description.  I wish I could, but I can't.  It comes to us from newsbusters.org's Jack Coleman, whose latest blog details another of the ongoing instances in which Ms. Maddow seems to make it up as she goes along, secure in the knowledge that her hard-left message is reaching a great many people in her audience who won't care, as long as they get their daily dose of political red meat.

I'll give you the beginning of Mr. Coleman's blog - then click here to see the rest:

As an example of what she sees as the resurgence of wedge issues, Maddow said this on her MSNBC show last night –

The culture war era conspiracy theories about black helicopters and a one-world government secretly pursued by America's elites, that stuff is back from the culture war eras too. The new Republican head of the House Foreign Affairs Committee convened the first hearing of that committee this week. What's the topic? Get the US out of the UN!

To back up Maddow's hypercaffeinated claim (she tends to talk in italics), an article titled "House Republicans' next target: the United Nations" from Foreign Policy magazine was shown on the screen. Awkwardly absent from the actual article was any mention of what Maddow claimed.

Coleman then proceeds to take Maddow's claim apart, by doing nothing other than showing what actually was in the article.

Somewhere in TV limbo, keith olbermann must be smiling broadly, knowing that. even though he is not there to do it, the rest of MSNBC's on-air personalities are keeping the hard left, "Facts, we don't need no steenking facts", flame burning brightly.

I wonder how broadly the new owners of NBC over at Comcast are smiling.......

Ken Berwitz

The entertainment industry will never forgive a politician for being conservative.  But will always forgive a sex-crazed drug addict for ruining his life and the lives of people around him.

Which brings us straight to charlie sheen.

Read this excerpt from an article in today's New York Post and see just what we're dealing with:

CBS announced today that one of its top shows, "Two and a Half Men," is on hiatus as the series' star, actor Charlie Sheen, entered rehab, one day after he was hospitalized following an allegedly drug-fueled bender with porn stars at his LA home, TMZ reported.

 

Sheen, 45, "voluntarily entered an undisclosed rehabilitation center" on Friday, his publicist said in a statement.

 

"He is most grateful to all who have expressed their concern," the statement added.

 

"Due to Charlie Sheen’s decision to enter a rehabilitation center, CBS, Warner Bros. Television and executive producer Chuck Lorre are placing 'Two and a Half Men' on production hiatus," according to a statement from CBS, Warner Bros. Television and executive producer Chuck Lorre.

 

"We are profoundly concerned for his health and well-being, and support his decision," the statement added.

 

Sheen, in a text message to Radar Online's senior executive editor Dylan Howard, spoke for the first time since he was rushed to a Los Angeles hospital.

 

"I'm fine," he said. "People don't seem to get it...Guy can't have a great time and do his job also?"

Yeah, ok.  It was voluntary.  It was his decision.  And anyway, can't a guy have a great time and do his job also?

That word "job" has plenty of relevance here.  Do you have any idea how many people's jobs go away when a show is put on hiatus?  There are set designers and script supervisors and caterers and wardrobe people and......just read the credits at the end of a "Two and A Half Men" episode and count them up.  If they are not working, or not working as much, they have charlie sheen to thank for it.

For years, this talented actor, but pathetic excuse for a man, has been on a crusade to damage or destroy everyone and everything around him.  Just months ago he grotesquely embarrassed his ex-wife and children by having a wild porn-fest and room-trashing in a New York hotel right across the hall from where they were sleeping.  And now this.

But, we are told, everything is just fine.  charlie has made a decision to go to rehab.  He's completely in control, you see.

My advice to sheen?  Never say one good word about George Bush, Sarah Palin or Rudy Giuliani.  The Hollywood Gods can put up with just so much.

Ken Berwitz

Egypt is in turmoil.  Revolution is in the air.  It is hard to tell who will prevail:  Mubarak, the freedom protesters or the Muslim brotherhood lunatics.

So what does our President have to say about this?

Excerpted from the lead article at cnn.com:

"I just spoke to him after his speech," Obama said, "and told him he has a responsibility to give meaning to those words, to take concrete steps and actions that deliver on that promise. Violence will not address the grievances of the Egyptian people. Suppressing ideas never succeeds in making them go away.

 

"This moment of volatility has to be turned into a moment of promise," Obama said.

 

The U.S. president repeated his administration's call for the Egyptian government to restore access to the internet and cell phone service and urged "concrete steps that advance the rights of the Egyptian people."

 

Obama's remarks, delivered from State Dining Room, were the strongest yet from the United States. "There must be reform," he said, "political, social and economic reforms that meet the aspirations of the Egyptian people.

 

"In the absence of these reforms," he said, "grievances have built up over time.

 

"The United States will continue to stand up for the rights of the Egyptian people and work with their government in pursuit of a future that is more just, more free and more hopeful," he concluded.

I admit it; I don't know what the right words would be.  But I do know that reciting what amounts to a middle-school-quality oral report on civic responsibility - 100% clichés and 0% value - might as well not have been said.

Sometimes silence really is golden.  And, in this case, it would have been far preferable, compared to voicing meaningless platitudes in the middle of a political upheaval.  All that does is make us look weak and irrelevant.

Ken Berwitz

During (and after) the debate on ObamaCare, were President Obama and his people lying about the costs of Medicare and whether people could actually hold onto their existing coverage if they wanted?

Of course they were.  We have talked about this many times.  But the lies keep coming anyway.

Excerpted from an article at the Associated Press:

Two of the central promises of President Barack Obama's health care overhaul law are unlikely to be fulfilled, Medicare's independent economic expert told Congress on Wednesday.

 

The landmark legislation probably won't hold costs down, and it won't let everybody keep their current health insurance if they like it, Chief Actuary Richard Foster told the House Budget Committee. His office is responsible for independent long-range cost estimates.

 

Foster's assessment came a day after Obama in his State of the Union message told lawmakers that he's open to improvements in the law, but unwilling to rehash the health care debate of the past two years. Republicans want to repeal the landmark legislation that provides coverage to more than 30 million people now uninsured, but lack the votes.

How can anyone in his or her right mind believe that adding 30 - 50 million new patients (depending on which administration official is talking), including a disproportionate number who cannot pay and/or have pre-existing conditions which will be extremely expensive to treat, can possibly keep costs down?  You would have to be a human potato to buy this BS.

And why would anyone believe a company offering excellent benefits would retain its current insurance policy, when ObamaCare is structured in a way that will drive such plans out of existence?  Why do you think hundreds of companies - and, of course unions - have begged for, and gotten, waivers so that they can continue to provide their current insurance plans?  Because there isn't a problem keeping them under ObamaCare?

We have been lied to in the past about ObamaCare.  We are being lied to now about ObamaCare.  And we will continue to be lied to about ObamaCare as long as enough of our wonderful "neutral" media allow the lies to go unchallenged.

I applaud the Associated Press for publishing this article.  Now I'll wait for the networks and the major newspapers to do the same. 

Sadly, that is likely to be a very long wait.

Ken Berwitz

Matthew Boyle, writing for dailycaller.com, has a blog today about an apparent "feud" between Ben Smith of politico.com and the Fox network.

First, a little housekeeping:  as you either know, or can easily see by looking to your right on this screen (maybe scrolling up or down a little), I provide readers with three sets of links:  10 "to the left", 10 "to the right" and four that I characterize as "in the middle" - one of which is politico.com. 

Truth be told, politico.com leans left, but not hard left.  And, for better or worse, in media this is, sort of, middle ground.

That said, here is an excerpt of Mr. Boyle's blog.  See what you make of it:

On Tuesday, Smith wrote a blog post praising Esquire magazine’s recent profile of Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes, a piece entitled, “Why does Roger Ailes Hate America?” “If you haven’t checked it out,” Smith enthused, “a must-read.”

The next morning, Doocy struck back, reading on air some of the comments posted beneath Smith’s item on Politico. “Another hit piece by left wing extremist trash masquerading as official journalists in America,” read one. “Wow, Ben, you have some free time this afternoon obviously and you’re not using it to write another smear piece on Palin,” said another.

Doocy also referred to Smith’s blog post as a “column,” something that seems to have struck a nerve with Smith, who immediately responded. “I stay out of opinion journalism, but must in my life have written something harsher about someone somewhere, without provoking a news outlet to risk what’s left of its reputation by reading anonymous blog comments on the air,” Smith wrote.

Without sourcing anyone from Fox News, or in fact anyone at all, Smith also suggested that Doocy had been ordered by management to attack him on the air.

The exchange was not without context. Politico has repeatedly relied on the discredited leftwing advocacy group Media Matters for America as a source for negative pieces about Fox News in recent months, including a story that alleged Fox executives told editorial staff to avoid the term “public option” in talks about Obamacare, and another that claimed the network’s management “urged climate skepticism” in coverage of global warming.

Let's think about this:

-First, politico.com's Ben Smith enthusiastically endorses a hit piece on Fox network's Chairman Roger Ailes;

-Next, Fox's Steve Doocy reads several comments critical of Smith's piece, which he gathered not from people on the street or a Tea Party rally, but from politico.com's own web site;

-Smith's reaction is to directly insult Fox News in its entirety, and charge - absent any evidence - that Doocy was told to say what he said;

-This, of course, is before we talk about politico.com using mediamatters.org as a source of neutral information.  Simply stated, mediamatters.org is about as unbiased about Fox as hamas is about Israel.

What strikes me most is the arrogance that Smith displays.  He seems to think that when he endorses a hit piece on Fox as a "must-read" it is perfecty fair game, but when someone from Fox reads a few comments that are critical of what he wrote, it is an inexcusable breach of decorum, deserving of a quick, nasty insult.

The funniest part? When Smith says "I stay out of opinion journalism".  Yeah, ok.  Sure, Ben.

Can you say thin-skinned?  Can you say elitist?  Can you say hypocrite? Mr. Smith seems to have hit for the trifecta.

Ken Berwitz

First, some recent history:

-On January 19th Chris Matthews, who hosts a show on the NBC-owned MSBNC, showed a clip of Michele Bachmann voicing a reasonable opinion - one that Matthews disagreed with - in a perfectly normal tone.  He then called her "a screamer, and in many cases pretty close to a nut case."

-On Monday, Matthews called Ms. Bachmann (who is a lawyer and, with her husband, runs a hugely successful health care enterprise) "a balloon head”.  Three different times.

-Matthews' compatriots on MSNBC have been attacking and insulting Michele Bachmann for months and months.  And they have been attacking and insulting Sarah Palin far longer and far worse; for two and a half years, non-stop.

-Illustratively, for over a week after the Arizona shootings, The Today show did daily features tying Sarah Palin to the shooter, jared lee loughner.  Their M.O. was to first state that there is no actual evidence to connect Ms. Palin with loughner -- and then to make the connection anyway, usually, by pretending that a 10 month old map Ms. Palin put out, with crosshairs on congressional districts she thought Republicans might be able to win, included Gabrielle Giffords' district. 

-The fact that there is no evidence loughner ever even saw this map, and that crosshairs and bullseyes have been used countless times by politicians over the years?  Irrelevant’n’immaterial.

With the above in mind……

This morning The Today show put up a clip of Sarah Palin pointing out that President Obama used the term WTF, meaning "win the future", and commenting that she thought the acronym fit a lot of what he said, apparently because it is more commonly used to mean "what the fuck?" (which she, of course, did not actually say).  In both in words and visuals, Today asked "Is this the end of civility"?

Remarkably, the very next segment consisted of Meredith Viera interviewing Lawrence O'Donnell, a far left host from MSNBC, about the Tea Party movement. 

Earlier in the week, O'Donnell's show, "The Last Word", featured Meghan McCain, whose only apparent qualification to be on TV is biological (and as a big plus for our wonderful "neutral" media, she is to the left of her father, Senator John McCain).  During her interview, McCain sneeringly referred to Michele Bachmann as "the poor man's Sarah Palin".  That was clearly meant as a personal insult to both Ms. Bachmann and Ms. Palin.  And O'Donnell didn't say a word in protest. 

Nor did Meredith Viera, fresh from attacking Sarah Palin for supposed incivility, ask O'Donnell why he allowed it without any challenge (keep in mind that Palin didn't name-call anyone).

How does the Today Show have the nerve to comment on "the end of civility"?  Today, and NBC, and its low-end alter ego, MSNBC, have yet to start civility.

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

Ken Berwitz

Why is President Obama indifferent to the struggles of freedom-loving people throughout the Muslim world?  Why does he look the other way?

Excerpted from an editorial just published at the Investors Business Daily web site:

A second wave of democratic revolutions has swept Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen to a new future and won't stop there. So where are President Obama and the United States?

The long-ruling tyrants being ousted out in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen and beyond are all post-colonial big-government socialists whose bureaucracies extend into every aspect of human life.

Unlike the leftist unrest in Europe, where the fight is over who gets government spoils, Tunisians and Egyptians seem to want to be free of overbearing government altogether.

Three things are at work here. First, President Bush's dream of setting off a democratic revolution by destroying Iraq's iron dictatorship continues to fire public imaginations in the Middle East.

It's no longer accepted that Muslim states are incompatible with democracy. There really was a victory in Iraq. It's still giving hope.

Second, the massive Tea Party protests in the U.S. calling for smaller government are influencing events beyond our borders.

New Tea Party-like groups against big government are forming from Moscow to Buenos Aires, any place where people can organize. The same middle class folks seen at Tea Parties — always derided by entrenched elites — are in the streets of Tunis and Cairo.

Third, social networking, from Facebook to YouTube to Twitter, has enabled people to put their own stamp onto what the establishment media presents and share it with thousands of "friends."

From there, it doesn't take long for the virtual world to make the leap to the real one. 2008's huge demonstration against FARC terrorists by Colombians demonstrated the power of technology. Tunisia, Egypt and Yemen are now picking up the torch.

We would have liked to have put the landmark election of Barack Obama as fourth on that list, but the president's lukewarm response to the new wave of democracy breaking out in north Africa is underwhelming.

"I condemn and deplore the use of violence against citizens peacefully voicing their opinion in Tunisia, and I applaud the courage and dignity of the Tunisian people," the White House said in a 181-word statement on Jan. 14, the last time comment was made.

It's the same dreary lip service to democracy that President Obama made when Iran's young people marched in the streets last year that, in the end, amounted to nothing.

If the protesters in these countries think President Obama is going to lift a finger or strain a vocal cord on their behalf, they are tragically mistaken.  This is the same Barack Obama who, in the summer of 2009, virtually ignored hundreds of thousands of Iranians marching through the streets of Tehran to protest their repressive, fraudulently elected "government" - even when they were being beaten and killed by ahmadinejad's thugs.  So why would he care about a few thousand Tunisians, Egyptians and Yemenis?

When do these people wise up?   When do they realize President Obama does not care about Muslims who yearn to be free of oppressive governments.  When do they realize he will only speak up and take a strong stand for truly important issues.

Like when Israel wants to build residential housing units for Jews in East Jerusalem.

Ken Berwitz

He's baaaa-a-a-a-aaack!

The Illinois Supreme court has just ruled that Rahm Emanuel must be placed on the Mayoral ballot.

Excerpted from an article just posted at the Chicago Tribune web site:

The Illinois Supreme Court ruled today that Rahm Emanuel can stay on the ballot for mayor of Chicago.

 

The decision comes without a moment to spare; early voting for the Feb. 22 city election begins Monday, Jan. 31.

You can read the opinion by clicking here.

 

A cheer went up at Emanuel's headquarters when the news came out. The candidate was preparing to leave for tonight's debate with the three other leading contenders. But first he stopped at the Clark and Lake "el" stop to greet voters.

 

He shook hands with a large smile on his face, slapping the backs of commuters and posing for photographs. Some slapped his back in return.

 

The high court's decision reverses a 2-1 Illinois Appeals Court decision Monday that ruled Emanuel ineligible on the grounds he did not meet the requirement of being a Chicago resident for a year before the election. Emanuel returned to Chicago last fall to run for mayor after serving as White House chief of staff to President Barack Obama

So let's see:

-First Rahm was on the ballot for sure;

-Then he was tossed off the ballot;.

-Then he was maybe on and maybe off, pending a decision by the Illinois Supremes;

-Now he's on again.

You can't say this race isn't entertaining.

I can't wait to hear the reaction from Carol Moseley Braun, who, I assure you, will make her opinion known in just about no time flat.

Man, Chicago really is a toddlin' town....

Ken Berwitz

Excerpted from an article by Sari Horwitz and David Nakamura in yesterday's Washington Post:

TUCSON - In the days and weeks before the shooting rampage in Tucson, Jared Lee Loughner surfed the Internet on his home computer in what investigators believe was preparation for his alleged assassination attempt, law enforcement sources familiar with the investigation said.

 

The suspect's focus on several Web sites - covering lethal injection, solitary confinement and political assassinations - could have dramatic implications as prosecutors build their case against him on federal murder charges that could carry the death penalty. They hope to use the computer information, along with notes seized in Loughner's home, to show that his acts were premeditated and that he knew right from wrong, the sources said.

How very interesting:  not only for what sites loughner visited, but for what sites he did not visit.

Do you see anything about loughner visiting Sarah Palin's web site?  Rush Limbaugh's web site?  Glenn Beck's web site?  The Tea Party web site?

Do you have any doubt whatsoever that, if he had done so, this article would not only be mentioning it, this article would be featuring it as a headline?

So last night, when the network news shows aired, and this morning, when the morning network shows aired, they were all quick to broadcast that loughner apparently had no interest at all in any of the people our wonderful "neutral" media tried to tie him to - right up to the day that he opened fire, killing and wounding all those people.

Right?

Remember, always, that these are the people who squeal like stuck pigs if you call them biased.

Ken Berwitz

mi·sog·y·nist (m -s j -n st). n. One who hates women. adj. Of or characterized by a hatred of women.

Is Chris Matthews a misogynist?  Or does he just hate powerful women?  Or does he just hate Republican women? 

Read this excerpt from Amy Siskind's piece at dailycaller.com and decide for yourself:

On the eve of the SOTU, Chris Matthews was back on familiar ground: demeaning women in power. Matthews’s latest target: Representative Michele Bachmann. In fact, Matthews got so wound up in his misogyny that he lost his composure and control. He referred to Representative Bachmann as a “balloon head” three times; referred to her as “this woman” five times (foregoing the proper salutation of Congresswoman or Representative), and just for good measure, used an alleged quote from Stephen Schmidt: “She doesn’t know anything.”

That’s in a span of three minutes. Honestly, how is this women-hatred tolerated by MSNBC without rebuke?

Matthews is one thing. He’s a known sexist pig. It’s not misogyny based on political party. Recall, Matthews referred to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as “She Devil,” “Nurse Ratched,” “Madame Defarge.” No, Matthews has a familiar pattern: he purposefully strikes out at any woman who is rising in power.

But Matthews is not alone. In recent years, we have had three women who expressed (or did not deny) an interest in holding the highest office in our land: Secretary Clinton, Governor Sarah Palin and Representative Bachmann. In each case, the media (largely the progressive media) has gone on a witch hunt to take them down.

My opinion?  If Matthews' ratings were as big as his mouth, maybe I could understand why MSNBC has allowed his nightly hate-filled, personally insulting and offensive diatribes against women (and just about everyone else who dares to disagree with him). 

But a) his ratings, while somewhat higher now then they have been in recent years, still stink compared to Fox, and b) in any event MSNBC - once it was taken over by Comcast - got rid of the at-least-as-offensive keith olbermann, whose ratings were significantly higher.

If ever a firing were in order, Matthews would seem to be a prime candidate.  I'd say it is a matter of time, and will happen about as soon as Comcast hires a suitable replacement (which, given the quality of Matthews' commentary these days, might be accomplished at the nearest bar).

Stay tuned....

Ken Berwitz

Usually the term "nightstick" conjures up an image of a solid wood device used as a weapon by police.  Not a rigid sex toy used as a weapon on police.

Interested?  Then keep reading.  This excerpt is from an article in today's New York Daily News:

An Illinois woman who was busted for threatening a cop with a sex toy is claiming self defense, saying the officer spooked her by walking into her bedroom. 

Carolee Bildsten, 56, was arrested when police said she attacked an officer with a "clear, rigid feminine pleasure device" in her apartment last November after he escorted her home while she was drunk.

The officer had found Bildsten lying in the grass near a crab shack in Gurnee, Ill., and confronted her after responding to a report that she had run out on her tab, according to police.

The officer drove Bildsten home because she said she had left her wallet there, police said. 

When they arrived at her pad, the woozy Bildsten said she was getting cash out of her dresser, but then she came at the cop with the sex toy. He managed to knock the toy away before cuffing her, according to the report.

This isn't the first time she's let her boozing lead to trouble. She was busted in September for drunken driving, according to The Smoking Gun website.

"I'm working on improving my life to avoid any further police encounters," she said.

Tell you what:  I bet there are a lot of guys, both in and out of the police department, who would love to spend some time with a drunken woman brandishing "a clear, rigid feminine pleasure device".  It might even cause them to quickly provide rigid feminine pleasure devices of their own.

But duty is duty.  So I congratulate the officer for his professionalism. 

And I hope he appreciates the fact that this article does not mention him by name - which most certainly will save him from the countless jokes and sarcasms of other members of the police force - not to mention his family, friends, neighbors, his dry cleaner, the guy who services his car, the checkout kids at the supermarket....etc. etc. etc. 

Ken Berwitz

'What are you doing tonight?' 'I dunno. What are you doing tonight?' The burlesque. Loew's Paradise. Miserable and lonely. Miserable and lonely and stupid! What am I, crazy or something? I got something good here. What am I hanging around with you guys for?  Marty, talking to Angie and his other friends. 

That is the first part of dialogue that was spoken at the end of the great 1955 movie "Marty", when Marty Piletti (played by Ernest Borgnine; his academy award role) suddenly realizes he has found the answer, even if his best friend Angie, and his Mother, can't understand it.  (FYI:  typing out the words does not do them justice.  You have to hear the way Mr. Borgnine puts it across.  This is one of the most touching moments in movie history.)

Unfortunately, there are a lot of Angies and Mrs. Pilettis out there; people who will find a way to assure you that a bad situation is just fine, and anything you can do to improve it is no good at all.

This leads me to the following excerpt from an article by Brett Zongker in today's Washington Examiner, about Republican speaker of the house John Boehner Independent Senator Joe Lieberman, and their quest to reinstitute the Washington DC voucher system (formally known as The DC Opportunity Scholarship Program) which was rescuing thousands of inner city children (almost all Black) from the horrific schools they were in and giving them a chance at life:

GOP House Speaker John Boehner and independent Sen. Joe Lieberman introduced legislation Wednesday to revive a school voucher program for District of Columbia students nearly two years after Congress began phasing it out.

In a statement Wednesday, Boehner said the D.C. program is a model that can work well in other cities and should be the starting point of any new bipartisan education reform legislation developed with President Barack Obama's administration.

"There's only one program in America where the federal government allows parents from lower-income families to choose the schools that are best for their children, and it's right here in D.C.," Boehner said. "If we're serious about bipartisan education reform, then this bipartisan education bill should be the starting point."

Democratic Washington Mayor Vincent Gray opposes the voucher program as an intrusion into local government. Through a spokeswoman, he said the city already has a popular public charter school system that provides parents a choice in education.

The group Americans United for Separation of Church and State blasted the legislation, saying it would increase the federal budget deficit by subsidizing religious schools.

The voucher program was created in 2004 as a five-year pilot program with support from then-Mayor Anthony Williams to give about 1,700 low-income students up to $7,500 annually as partial scholarships to cover private school tuition.

Boehner also helped create the original program, which started in D.C. because Congress has more control over the city than it does over states.

A three-year analysis released in 2009 by the Education Department found that D.C. students receiving vouchers made modest gains in reading but no measurable progress in math.

The legislation introduced Wednesday would increase the scholarship to $8,000 annually for elementary students and $12,000 for high school students.

Those amounts fall short of the $32,000-plus tuition at elite private institutions, such as Sidwell Friends School, where Obama's daughters are enrolled. Catholic school tuition ranges from $5,200 to more than $15,000. Many private schools award their own financial aid.

The teacher's union hates this voucher system, because when it shows that students improve, it also shows that the schools their members teach in are deficient.

The Mayor hates this voucher system, because he needs the powerful, moneyed teachers union to support him in the next election.

The President - who was instrumental in closing down this system - hates it for the same reason. 

The "Education Department", under the President who hates the voucher system has issued a "study" showing that motivated children in better schools are only marginally better off.  You'll pardon me if I'm a bit suspicious.

I wonder if the "Education Department" realizes that, if it is right and inner city Black children in Washington DC perform just as poorly in good schools as they do in bad schools, the problem must be the children themselves - i.e. they are not capable of learning.  Now there's a finding you will never see from the "Education Department", even though it clearly is what they are saying. 

Personally, I don't buy that premise for a second.  As I have said many times in this blog, being Black doesn't make someone anything but Black.  It certainly doesn't make a Black child less (or, for that matter, more) academically capable than any other child, when given a real chance to learn. 

Nope, I'll stick with my suspicions about the "study".

But if President Obama truly thinks a Washington D.C. public school education is so terrific that the voucher system is unnecessary, I urge him to prove it by pulling his daughters from the Sidwell Friends school they attend (at $32,000 a year for each of them) and sending them to the local public school.  (Don't hold your breath waiting for that to happen, folks). 

At the beginning of this blog, I showed you the first part of Marty's dialogue.  Here is the rest of it:

You don't like her. My mother don't like her. She's a dog. And I'm a fat, ugly man. Well, all I know is I had a good time last night. I'm gonna have a good time tonight. If we have enough good times together, I'm gonna get down on my knees. I'm gonna beg that girl to marry me....You don't like her? That's too bad." 

I can only hope that Rep. Boehner, Sen. Lieberman and a great many other people who truly care about giving inner city children a chance to blossom and excel, feel the same way when it comes to reinstating Washington DC's voucher system.

Ken Berwitz

Another foot and a half of snow outside my window. 

In January alone, New York City has had more than double the average snowfall for an entire winter - and the month isn't over yet.

Based on the number of degree days - which start every July 1, and therefore take into account the very hot summer we had -  this year is considerably colder than average.  

How lucky we are to have global warming!  

Heck, without it we might really have a lot of snow and cold weather, right? 

Ken Berwitz

It took a long time and more than enough outrages to finally wake him up, but Rep. Gary Ackerman, a strong supporter of Israel, has finally figured out that J Street is not a pro-Israel organization (to say the very least).

Excerpted from an article at foxnews.com :

A liberal Jewish congressman tore into the liberal Jewish lobbying firm J Street this week, saying the organization's "brains have fallen out" after it urged the Obama administration not to veto a proposed U.N. resolution condemning Israel. 

Rep. Gary Ackerman, D-N.Y., effectively cut ties with J Street, a group that raised campaign money for him last year, in a searing press release Tuesday. The tipping point was the group's call for the administration to clear the way for a Palestinian-backed proposal at the U.N. Security Council condemning Israel's settlement expansion. 

"I've come to the conclusion that J-Street is not an organization with which I wish to be associated," Ackerman said. 

J Street bills itself as the voice for "pro-Israel, pro-peace Americans," and is often critical of Israel's policies in the process. That hasn't stopped Ackerman from associating with the group before, but the organization's stance on the resolution triggered a harsh response. 

"The decision to endorse the Palestinian and Arab effort to condemn Israel in the U.N. Security Council is not the choice of a concerned friend trying to help. It is rather the befuddled choice of an organization so open-minded about what constitutes support for Israel that its brains have fallen out," he said. "America really does need a smart, credible, politically active organization that is as aggressively pro-peace as it is pro-Israel. Unfortunately, J-Street ain't it." 

Palestinian Arabs who hate Israel and wish it would disappear, have few more loyal, helpful friends than the people at J Street.  That has been shown time and time again. 

But there are many ostensibly pro-Israel Jews who, in reality, are far more committed to supporting left wing political ideology than the world's one and only Jewish state.  They are prime prospects for membership in this cancerous organization.

Albeit belatedly, Gary Ackerman – who is dead serious about his support of Israel - has come to a realization about J Street that many supposedly intelligent Jews will never allow themselves to even come close to. 

I congratulate Mr. Ackerman.  And I hope that his newfound reality sparks a similar movement among some of the other left-first/Israel-last types both, in and out of congress.

Ken Berwitz

I just got this from our dear friends Myra and Bob.  I hope you find it as funny as I do - even in its somewhat sanitized form:

One evening last week, my girlfriend and I were getting into bed. Well, the passion started to heat up, and just as we were about to "connect" with each other she said, 'Stop.  I don't feel like it, I just want you to hold me.'

I said, 'WHAT??!! What was that?!'

So she said the words that every guy on the planet dreads to hear...

'You're just not in touch with my emotional needs as a woman enough for me to satisfy your physical needs as a man.'

She responded to my puzzled look by saying, 'Can't you just love me for who I am and not what I do for you in the bedroom?'

Realizing that nothing was going to happen that night, I went to sleep..

The very next day I took the day off to spend time with her. We went out to a nice lunch and then went shopping at a big expensive department store. I walked around with her while she tried on several different very expensive outfits. She couldn't decide which one to take, so I told her we'd just buy them all. She wanted new shoes to compliment her new clothes, so I said, 'Lets get a pair for each outfit.'

We went on to the jewelry department where she picked out a pair of diamond earrings. Let me tell you... She was so excited. She must have thought I was one wave short of a shipwreck. I started to think she was testing me because she asked for a tennis bracelet when she doesn't even know how to play tennis.

I think I threw her for a loop when I said, 'That's fine, honey' She was almost delirious with satisfaction from all of the excitement. Smiling with excited anticipation, she finally said, 'I think I'm finished.  Let's go to the cashier.'

I could hardly contain myself when I blurted out, 'No honey, I don't feel like it.'

Her face just went completely blank as her jaw dropped with a baffled, 'WHAT?'

I then said, 'Honey! I just want you to HOLD this stuff for a while. You're just not in touch with my financial needs as a man enough for me to satisfy your shopping needs as a woman.'

And just when she had this look like she was going to kill me, I added, 'Why can't you just love me for who I am and not for the things I buy you?'

Apparently I'm not having sex tonight either... but at least she knows I can play the same game.

Ken Berwitz

I don't know much about Michael Bowers.  But I do know that he has compiled a voluminous album of hatred directed against Republicans and conservatives.

You can see it by clicking here:

Please take a look.  Bring a strong stomach with you. 

Try to come up with a fraction - even just a small fraction - of this kind of hatred from the right, especially Tea Party rallies. 

Then let's talk about  where the "heated political rhetoric" comes from.......

Ken Berwitz

After President Obama's State of the Union address, CBS anchorperson Katie Couric triumphantly reported that, according to the network's quickie poll, taken immediately after the state of the union address, a huge majority - over 90% - of viewers approved of Mr. Obama's message. 

Me?  I'm in the business of reality rather than fantasy.  So I would like to make a few comments about the poll:

-First off, it was conducted among 500 people.  That's it.  500 people.  On the CBS News web site this is characterized as both "nationally representative" and scientifically representative". 

That so?  Well, how many people were sampled in various subgroups?  Illustratively, how many people from the Midwest were in the sample?  Blacks?  Jews?  If it were representative, there would have been less than 100 Midwesterners, about 60-65 Blacks and maybe 25 Jews. 

You can find more Jews shopping at Zabar's on Broadway and 80th St. right now (Wednesday at about 1PM), and you will find more Black people eating at Sylvia's on Lenox Avenue in Harlem tonight, than that "nationally representative" sample provides.  And that's before we get to the many, many other population components that inherently have too few respondents to measure.

-Then, we have the question wording:  "In general, do you approve or disapprove of the proposals the President made in his speech tonight?" 

This is a very fair question and I have no problem with its wording.  My problem is that it is the slam dunk of slam dunks. 

The President proposed improving the economy, lowering unemployment and moving us forward on education.  How could you not approve of these things.  It literally was a "tee it up and hit it out of the park" question.  You might as well have asked Penn State students if they approved or disapproved of  what Joe Paterno said at a pre-season football pep rally.

-Finally, there are the disclaimers.  In the poll summary it says that Mr. Obama's 91% positive rating is "typical of the high support a president generally receives among people who choose to watch the state of the union", and that "As is often the case, those who watched the speech were more likely to be from the President's party". 

Tranlation:  The high number was entirely expected, in no small part because the poll was overloaded with Democrats.  Did Katie mention those facts?

So CBS, and the I-love-Obama crowd can crow over these findings.  Let them have their day.  But somehow I won't be as impressed.

Ken Berwitz

They say a picture is worth a thousand words.

Well, here is a picture of the Supreme Court endurin....er, listening intently to President Obama's State of the Union speech last night.  Please make special note of Justice Ginsberg in the front row, and Justice Sotomayor behind her:

I rest my case.

Ken Berwitz

These two paragraphs come from Lynn Sweet, writing in today's Chicago Sun-Times:

WASHINGTON--Chicago mayoral hopeful Carol Moseley Braun, a former senator and ambassador, hits Washington on Wednesday for fund-raisers for his campaign hosted by the Congressional Black Caucus and the National Organization for Women. This out-of-town travel comes after she criticized rival Rahm Emanuel for flying to Hollywood for a funder hosted by his superagent brother Ari. The Chicago Sun-Times Fran Spielman and Abdon M. Pallasch have the story.

Braun lags seriously behind in fund-raising. As of Dec. 31, Emanuel had raised $10.5 million (on top of $1.1 million left over from his House warchest) to $2.5 million for attorney Gery Chico, to $450,000 for Braun and $110,000 for City Clerk Miguel Del Valle.

No surprises there:

-Ms. Moseley Braun, who had no problem defining her Mayoral run in racial terms, is being helped along by the overtly racist Congressional Black Caucus - and, of course, the NOWEOWANRL:  The National Organization for Women Except for the Ones Who Are Not Reliably Left Wing;

-Ms. Moseley Braun is vying for out-of-town money after attacking Rahm Emanuel for...vying for out of town money;

-And - I admit I'm laughing about this - Lynn Sweet refers to Rahm Emanuel's "warchest".  How many deranged lunatics do you think she incited to shoot at one or another of the candidates?

-Plus, we are still waiting for the Illinois Supreme Court to tell us whether if Rahm Emanuel is even eligible to run. 

You can't say this race isn't entertaining.

Ken Berwitz

The following knee-slappers come to us as an excerpt from Paul Bond's article on Sarah Palin, at hollywoodreporter.com:

MSNBC vp primetime programming Bill Wolff maintains that his network covers Palin because she’s newsworthy. Period. End of story.

"She’s powerful and important, even if all you measure her by is her ability to raise money," he says. "She matters. Her blessing and her endorsement mean something.'

Wolff called it "nonsense" that MSNBC is driven by politics or even profits when it comes to how much airtime it devotes to Palin.

"MSNBC does not have a political agenda. The idea that we’re beholden to one side or the other is ridiculous," he says. "And if Sarah Palin is so good for business, why would we want to destroy her? We tell the truth. We hold up a mirror and say, 'This is what’s going on.' We’re not so crass to think that she’s good for business, therefore we'll talk about her."

Wolff is also executive producer of The Rachel Maddow Show, which ran 90 segments on Palin in 2009 and 99 in 2010, according to LexisNexis.

Do you need a moment to compose yourself?  Then take your time.  Catch your breath.  Laughing does that to people.

MSNBC is not driven by politics?  It does not have a political agenda?  This is a cable news venue with absolutely nothing in prime time (and almost all of daytime) but hard-left hosts.  Can you show me the balance in a lineup of Chris Matthews, Ed Schultz, Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O'Donnell - not to mention the just-departed keith olbermann?  That's not political? 

There's no agenda?  How does Wolff say it with a straight face?  Especially since he is the executive producer of The Rachel Maddow Show - which, as we all know, is a shining paradigm of evenhandedness and neutrality. 

And MSNBC is not driven by profits?  Surrrre.  It's just a public service. 

Heck, they don't even take advertising, do they?  Oh, they do?  Well maybe they don't charge for it?  Oh, they do? 

Gee.  I guess Mr. Wolff is just full of excrement.

This, folks is what these ivory tower elitists pump out at the little people, in the hope that we are all so dumb that we can't figure out how ridiculously dishonest they are. 

Uhhhhh......we can.

But at least we get a few laughs out of it.

Ken Berwitz

The New York Times loved President Obama's state of the union message.  That should be a death knell for this speech, even if you didn't hear a word of it.

Joe Scarborough, a former Republican house member who currently works for MSNBC and has no problem at all complimenting Democrats, called it "tepid".  Maybe that is because of how many times, during his one hour yawn-fest, Mr.Obama paused, expecting applause or even a standing ovation, and none was forthcoming.

In terms of substance, Mark Steyn (www.steynonline.com) has hit the nail on the head.  Here is what he had to say:

The "new Obama"? All I saw was a dull dissembler, inadequate to the charge history's given him. 2009 buzz word: "Stimulus." 2011 Clinton-era revival: "Investment". Either way, it means "massive government spending". On what? "Within 25 years, our goal is to give 80 per cent of Americans access to high-speed rail"?

Good grief, how can even the hackiest of Big Government hacks read that line with a straight face? Or think it has any meaningful contribution to make to the crisis we face? "Within 25 years"? There isn't going to be a 25 years if the spendaholics don't stop spending, and then cut it, drastically. Instead, President Blowhard tiptoes up to the edge of bold, decisive action:

Now, most of the cuts and savings I’ve proposed only address annual domestic spending, which represents a little more than 12 percent of our budget. To make further progress, we have to stop pretending that cutting this kind of spending alone will be enough. It won’t.

And then what does he propose? Nothing. This man looked the future in the eye, and kicked the can down the road. And, even in "discretionary" spending, he wants to blow even more dough even in areas where we're already spending more than anyone on the planet: In education, America spends more per pupil than anywhere except Luxembourg, which at least has something to show for it, and the President says it still isn't enough.

But at least it was "civil", and Republicans and Democrats sat next to each other, and some of them wore nice bipartisan ribbons... After all, what could be nicer than holding hands as the high-speed choo-choo plunges into the multi-trillion-dollar abyss?

If Ronald Reagan was The Great Communicator", Barack Obama is "The Grating Confusicator" -- because it is starting to get to me (and, obviously, many others) that, beyond slogans and sound bites, little of what he says makes any sense.

All in all?  A forgettable exercise in clichés and double-talk.

Ken Berwitz

A funny thing happened on the way to Barack Obama's re-election in 2012.

Well, if you are a Democrat, maybe it's not so funny.

Excerpted from Bob Unruh's article at wnd.com:

A plan in Arizona to require presidential candidates to prove their eligibility to occupy the Oval Office is approaching critical mass, even though it has just been introduced.

 

The proposal from state Rep. Judy Burges, who carried a similar plan that fell short last year only because of political maneuvering, was introduced yesterday with 16 members of the state Senate as co-sponsors.

 

It needs only 16 votes in the Senate to pass.

 

In the House, there are 25 co-sponsors, with the need for only 31 votes for passage, and Burges told WND that there were several chamber members who confirmed they support the plan and will vote for it, but simply didn't wish to be listed as co-sponsors.

 

The proposal, which also is being taken up in a number of other states, is highly specific and directly addresses the questions that have been raised by Barack Obama's occupancy of the White House. It says:

 

Within ten days after submittal of the names of the candidates, the national political party committee shall submit an affidavit of the presidential candidate in which the presidential candidate states the candidate's citizenship and age and shall append to the affidavit documents that prove that the candidate is a natural born citizen, prove the candidate's age and prove that the candidate meets the residency requirements for President of the United States as prescribed in article II, section 1, Constitution of the United States.

Can Barack Obama produce such proof?  Well, if Arizona passes this law - which appears highly likely - he's going to have to, or he won't be on the ballot there.

I don't know if it will happen, but I am picturing a bizarre spectacle of an army of Democrat lawyers challenging the constitutionality of forcing a presidential candidate to prove he meets the constitutional requirements to be President.

Won't that be fun?

And, if this passes in Arizona, is there any doubt that similar legislation will be floated in other states?  Or that some number of them will join Arizona in passing such a requirement?

This should have, and could have, been resolved one way or the other years ago.  The fact that Mr. Obama has never produced his real birth certificate has always suggested that there are one or more things on it he wants hidden from the public. 

Is it not reasonable to speculate that one such thing is his ineligibility to be President?  After all, he has also withheld college transcripts, student loan applications and anything else that might show any foreign source of funding for his education. 

Yes, there is a lot to think about here.  And I will report on the progress (or lack of same) for Arizona's eligibility legislation as it occurs.

Ken Berwitz

I'm not used to agreeing with Loretta Sanchez (D-CA).  But Ms. Sanchez's proposal that Gabrielle Giffords should be replaced on the House Armed Services committee until she has recovered and can resume her congressional duties, is perfectly reasonable

Here are the particulars, via an excerpt from Chris Moody's blog at dailycaller.com:

Behind closed doors, California Democratic Rep. Loretta Sanchez has proposed removing Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords from the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) until she recovers from injuries sustained after being shot in the head on Jan. 8 in Tucson, The Daily Caller has learned.

The proposal sparked an outrage, according to those in the room — including from those in Sanchez’s own party.

“It’s not appropriate,” Texas Democratic Rep. Silvestre Reyes told The Daily Caller, adding that there was outrage among some members in the room when Sanchez made the suggestion. “It’s bad for morale during her recovery period.”

Reyes and Rep. Adam Smith of California put up most of the fight against Sanchez, and helped squash the idea.

“From a woman who memorialized her cat, you’d think she’d show a little more compassion for a woman shot in the face,” said one GOP aide, referring to Sanchez’s 2010 Christmas card that paid tribute to her late cat, Gretzky.

Sanchez told her Democratic colleagues on the committee that every vote would be crucial, and since there was little indication Giffords would return soon, they should seek a replacement. 

What is the problem here?

Look, I am second to no one in my hope that Gabrielle Giffords makes a full recovery and is quickly able to function at 100% of her capabilities.

But it is undeniable that currently, and for at least the near future, Ms. Giffords cannot serve in the house.  And her absence leaves Democrats one vote short of where they should be. 

Why in the world does it insult or debase Ms. Giffords if, during her convalescence, she is replaced by a house member who can perform the committee's necessary duties?  I don't get it.

According to the article, Ms. Sanchez's Press Secretary, Caroline Hogan, called criticism of her proposal "ludicrous". 

She's right.  It is.

Ken Berwitz

My thanks to Noel Sheppard of newsbusters.org, whose blog has made me aware of the following "conversation" between ancestrally Jewish anti-Semite roseanne barr and half-Jewish half-wit chelsea handler who apparently has become something of a late-night star on E!:

The transcript:

CHELSEA HANDLER, HOST: And you're Jewish and Mormon, half-Jewish.

 BARR: Well, I'm all Jewish but my mother made us go to the Mormon Church so we lived in Salt Lake City so she wanted us to fit in. So we started going. We had to go hang, you know, we went to the Mormons and hung out and all my friends were Mormon. But I was, you know, both my parents are Jewish.

HANDLER: Okay, well it's better that you're full-blown Jew than half a Jew like me.

BARR: No, my kids are half-Jew. I couldn't wait to like breed with non-Jewish people. I just really I couldn't wait to, I couldn't wait to leave home, start eating pork, take birth control, and have, and have mixed children. And I did it all.

[Cheers and applause]

This is clever?  This is entertaining?  A self-loathing Jew who, in 2009, had herself made up to look like adolf hitler (complete with phony hitler moustache) and baked "burnt Jew cookies", and a half Jewish "comedian" who thinks it is funny to suggest she is ashamed of who she is?

And then, of course, we have the audience.  Why do people who attend a show that sinks this far into the sewer, think they are duty-bound to applaud whatever anyone says there?  You're an audience, folks, not a support group.  If it is sickening, it is sickening, even if you got a ticket to it.

As for me, if this anti-Semitic crap is considered humor, then do me a favor and just give me the straight "I hate you, you kike" stuff.  I'll punch your effing lights out, but at least I'll understand where you're coming from.

Ken Berwitz

Remember that very funny scene from "A League of Their Own", when Manager Jimmy Dugan (Tom Hanks) and Catcher Dotty Hinson (Geena Davis) are giving conflicting signs to the batter, Marla Hooch (Megan Cavanaugh).  Because of this, she keeps stepping up to the plate with one sign, then backing away because there's a new one, then stepping up to the plate again, then backing off, etc.

Well it seems that the Illinois courts are providing the Chicago Mayoral race with a similar scene.  Only this one is not a movie, it's for real.

-When Rahm Emanuel woke up yesterday morning, he was a candidate - actually, the leading candidate - in the race;

-When he went to bed he was out of the race - the victim of an appellate judge's ruling that he was no longer a resident of Chicago, thus could not legally run for Mayor; 

-Now, one day later, he seems to be back in.  But maybe not for long.

Excerpted from Jennifer Epstein's blog at politico.com:

The Illinois Supreme Court on Tuesday granted a stay requiring that Rahm Emanuel’s name to be kept on the Chicago mayoral ballot until the court makes a final ruling on whether the former White House chief of staff is eligible for the race.

 

“It is ordered that the emergency motion by petitioner Rahm Emanuel for stay pending appeal is allowed in part,” the court order said, noting that it was still weighing whether to grant Emanuel’s request for an expedited appeals process.

 

The stay stops the Chicago Board of Elections from beginning to print ballots without Emanuel’s name, something that the board said it was planning to begin doing on Tuesday.

 

“[I]f any ballots are printed while this Court is considering this case, the ballots should include the name of petitioner Rahm Emanuel as a candidate for Mayor of the City of Chicago,” the order said.

You can't say this race isn't entertaining.  I'll be sure to report the next "is he or isn't he" ruling when it comes along - which necessarily has to be in the very near future.

And for the record, in that movie scene Marla Hooch wound up whacking the ball over an outfielder's head.  I assume that Mr. Emanuel would like a similar result.

Ken Berwitz

Is it possible to simultaneously report that opposition to ObamaCare is jumping through the roof, but that Republicans are making a mistake if they try to either defund or repeal it? 

Well, if you're Jennifer Haberkorn of politico.com, it appears to be no problem at all.  Because that is what she appears to be doing in her blog today. 

Here is the beginning of Ms. Haberkorn's blog.  Please read it and then we'll talk about some additional findings, further down the page (and onto the second page, which means a lot of people won't even read them:

Public opposition to the health care reform law spiked to a record high in a new poll out today — but Americans don’t necessarily want Republicans to spend time trying to dismantle it.

 

Fifty percent of Americans have unfavorable views of the law, according to a joint survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Harvard School of Public Health. Opposition to the law jumped 9 percentage points from last month and is the highest since April, when Kaiser began asking the question every month.

 

At the same time, only 33 percent of respondents like the idea of defunding the legislation, and 62 percent disapprove.

 

The poll results show just how difficult a dance Republicans could have ahead of them: While the reform law isn’t popular, neither is their time-consuming and difficult plan to repeal it piece by piece.

 

“The public is frustrated with politics as usual and may be saying that defunding a law is not how government should work,” said Mollyann Brodie, senior vice president and director of the Kaiser Family Foundation’s public opinion and survey research group.

There you go.  People do not like ObamaCare - but, at the same time, they want it to stay intact.  So Republicans are really in for it.  Better to concentrate on something else.

Oh yeah?  Not so fast.

Here are a few little tidbits from further on, which, with all due deference to Ms. Haberkorn and Politco.com, just might have some relevance:

-Opposition to ObamaCare among independents has risen from 41% to 57%.  That is a major jump.  And it has taken place among the people who, because they do not identify with either party, will be most receptive to the party which best reflects their views.  Both Democrats and Republicans would move heaven and earth to get this segment moving in their direction on a wedge issue like ObamaCare.  Republicans are the ones getting it.  Is this a reason not to stick to their guns?

-Though the poll shows 33% in favor of defunding ObamaCare, it also shows 43% in favor of straight repeal.  In other words, the additional 10% don't feel defunding is aggressive enough.  Is this a reason for Republicans to back down?

-Over 3/4 of the entire sample (76%) oppose the fact that ObamaCare forces people to buy health insurance whether they want to or not.  Assuming that the 24% who approve of forced health care consist predominantly of Democrat partisans, it means that independents are hugely against this part of the legislation.  Is that a reason for Republicans to close shop and stop going up against ObamaCare?  To stop specifically singling out the forced partisipation part?

Bottom line:  Sorry, Ms. Haberkorn.  I respect your opinion, but if I were a Republican strategist I would be mining ObamaCare now and for the next two years.

A simple rule of national politics:  You don't drop issues that independents side with you on.  Not minor issues, certainly not major issues, and absolutely not wedge issues like ObamaCare.

Ken Berwitz

Suppose someone was robbing your house, right in front of you, and somehow missed a box filled with money.  Would you get it out, then hand it to them so they could finish the job?

With that in mind, here is the beginning of yesterday's Baltimore Sun editorial on giving illegal aliens in-state tuition breaks:

College bound, but undocumented

Our view: If you graduate from a Maryland school, you should be able to attend college at in-state tuition

Maryland spends, on average, a total of nearly $200,000 each to educate its students from kindergarten through grade 12. Obviously, the state has a lot invested in every one of them — and just as obviously, it would be folly to throw any of it away.

Yet that's precisely what the current rules regarding in-state college tuition rates for children of illegal immigrants seem designed to accomplish. While Maryland students who are U.S. citizens are automatically entitled to reduced rates at the state's public colleges and universities, those who aren't must pay out-of-state rates. In principle, the difference can amount to thousands of dollars a year, potentially putting college out of reach for many youngsters.

The issue is expected to be hotly debated in the Maryland General Assembly this year, where state Sen. Victor Ramirez is proposing to extend in-state tuition to the children of undocumented immigrants. Lawmakers need to ask themselves whether it truly makes sense — educational, economic or moral — to spend $200,000 educating a student without regard to immigration status, as required by federal law, then turn around and tell that same student he or she can't go to college.

What are they supposed to do with the expensive educations the state already has provided — become day-laborers, cooks and janitors?. 

Fascinating logic.  But I do have a few points to make:

-These are illegal aliens.  The state has not invested $200,000 in their education, the children, via their parents, have stolen $200,000 of education.   They had absolutely no right to any of it.  I do not blame the children; it is not their fault that their parents did this.  But that is what happened.

-Why does it logically follow that Maryland then reward the illegal aliens who stole $200,000 worth of education from the state, by a) allowing them to go to an in-state college at all (remember, every one of them displaces a legal student) and giving them a discount on the tuition? 

-What does Maryland say to a student who lives next door in Delaware and wants to go to the U. of Maryland?  You're a legal resident of the USA but you don't live in Maryland so you pay full tuition -- however, if you were an illegal resident of the USA who had no right to be in Maryland or anywhere else in the country, you would have been given a lower tuition rate? 

Who came up with this idea - the Mad Hatter or Daffy Duck?

-And that gratuitous comment about becoming day laborers, cooks and janitors is sickening.  Is that what they think Mexicans with a high school diploma are good for?  Apparently they do.  Whose prejudice is that - whose stereotype is that - besides the editorial staff at the Baltimore Sun? 

Please don't tell me that this is how people who are prejudiced against Mexicans think either, because it would be irrelevant to them.  Someone who sees Mexicans with high school diplomas as capable only of menial work is going to feel the same about Mexicans with college degrees.  Nope, this reflects the "thinking" of editorialists at The Sun, no one else.

-One final question:  If being a day laborer, cook or janitor is all a high school graduate can be, then wouldn't every legal resident who wanted to go to college, but was displaced by an illegal, wind up as one?  The only difference is that, if the Sun has its way, Maryland will financially subsidize illegals to escape those respectable, but low end, jobs. The legals they are displacing won't be as lucky.

The Baltimore Sun has been a venerable, old-school newspaper as long as I can remember.  But, if this is the product of its editorial staff's thinking, in the immortal words of Lou Costello, "It looks like the old school needs a new roof".

Ken Berwitz

Cindy Simpson, in her very interesting piece for American Thinker, raises the possibility that resurrecting the issue of President Obama's birth status is a "trial balloon" by media to see what happens, so that they know how to strategize his re-election in 2012. 

Personally, though I have very little regard for our wonderful "neutral" media when it comes to honest, evenhanded political reporting, I very much doubt this "grand conspiracy" theory (although I do think that, on a much smaller scale, there clearly are media personalities and venues working with each other to further a political agenda.  The "journolist" is an excellent example).

In any event, Ms. Simpson's commentary is a very good read, which I suggest you click here and see for yourself.  To whet your appetite I will give you two particularly evocative paragraphs:

A fascinating exercise is to go back and read all of the articles and blogs, both left and right, following this Hawaiian escapade.  And don't stop there: follow the entire birther debacle back to its roots over two years ago.  Refrain from a focus on just what has been written or spoken: note also the conservative blogs, politicians, pundits, and constitutional experts who have refrained from saying anything at all.

 

Note also that running parallel to this citizenship and eligibility debate -- closely related but interestingly never acknowledged outright -- is the "birthright citizenship" issue.  Supporters of the practice claim that the foreign citizenship status of a baby's parents should be ignored and that only one factor matters: location, location, location (in other words, the birth certificate).  The new Congress is poised to address the controversial policy, and when Newsweek magazine a few months ago included Obama in a list of famous American "anchor babies" in an article entitled "What's So Scary About an Anchor Baby?," the silence from both sides of the aisle was deafening.

The only way this issue can ever be resolved is through making Barack Obama's actual birth certificate (not the "certification of live birth" that Hawaii issued decades later, which is useless to proving his eligibility to be President) so that we all can see what it says. 

And, after all this time, even that probably wouldn't be convincing because, if it showed that Mr. Obama is 100% eligible, there would be suspicions that it was doctored ( i.e. "Why would they have waited all this time and paid all those lawyer's fees to prevent it from seeing the light of day if there was nothing to hide?  They must have fudged something on it")

Finally, if no such birth certificate exists - which may well be the case - maybe our "media" can stop defecating on the doubters long enough to wonder why.  Heck, a few of them might even ask a question or two of the people who said they saw it.

Ken Berwitz

"If abercrombie had just shut his big mouth......"

You have to believe Barack Obama and his people (along with a large majority of our wonderful "neutral" media) are either saying that out loud or very strongly thinking it.

Ever since neil abercrombie, the left wing tool and virulent Israel-hater who Hawaiians have unwisely elected to be their Governor, promised to put the issue of Mr. Obama's birth to rest by showing us proof, he has managed to do the exact opposite.  Now, even commentators who did not believe there was any issue about it are asking questions.

Talk about opening a pandora's box!

Excerpted from the latest article by Jerome Corsi at World Net Daily:

Former Hawaii elections clerk Tim Adams has signed an affidavit swearing he was told by his supervisors in Hawaii that no long-form, hospital-generated birth certificate existed for Barack Obama Jr. in Hawaii and that neither Queens Medical Center nor Kapi'olani Medical Center in Honolulu had any record of Obama having been born in their medical facilities.

 

Adams was employed at the City and County of Honolulu Elections Division from May 2008 through September 2008.

 

His position was senior elections clerk, overseeing a group of 50 to 60 employees responsible for verifying the identity of voters at the Absentee Ballot Office. It was in this capacity that Adams became aware of the search for Obama's birth-certificate records.

 

"During the course of my employment," Adams swears in the affidavit (viewable in full as part 1 and part 2), "I became aware that many requests were being made to the City and County of Honolulu Elections Division, the Hawaii Office of Elections, and the Hawaii Department of Health from around the country to obtain a copy of then-Senator Barack Obama's long-form, hospital-generated birth certificate."

 

As he inquired about the birth certificate, he says, his supervisors told him that the records were not on file at the Hawaii Department of Health.

 

"Senior officers in the City and County of Honolulu Elections Division told me on multiple occasions that no Hawaii long-form, hospital-generated birth certificate existed for Senator Obama in the Hawaii Department of Health," Adams' affidavit reads, "and there was no record that any such document had ever been on file in the Hawaii Department of Health or any other branch or department of the Hawaii government."

 

In a recorded telephone interview, Adams told WND that it was common knowledge among election officials where he worked that no long-form, hospital-generated birth certificate could be found at the Hawaii Department of Health.

 

"My supervisor came and told me, 'Of course, there's no birth certificate. What? You stupid,'" Adams said. "She usually spoke well, but in saying this she reverted to a Hawaiian dialect. I really didn't know how to respond to that. She said it and just walked off. She was quite a powerful lady."

 

Moreover, Adams was told that neither Queens Memorial Hospital nor Kapi'olani Medical Center had any records of Obama's birth at their medical facilities: "Senior officers in the City and County of Honolulu Elections Division further told me on multiple occasions that Hawaii State government officials had made inquires about Sen. Obama's birth records to officials at Queens Medical Center and Kapi'olani Medical Center in Honolulu and that neither hospital had any record of Senator Obama having been born there, even though Governor Abercrombie is now asserting and various Hawaii government officials continue to assert Barack Obama Jr. was born at Kapi'olani Medical Center on Aug. 4, 1961."

 

"We called the two hospitals in Honolulu: Queens and Kapi'olani," Adams stressed. "Neither of them have any records that Barack Obama was born there."

This issue was dead.  D-E-A-D.  And instead of leaving it that way abercrombie, in his infinite witlessdom, pushed it right into the spotlight - and has forced even confirmed skeptics to wonder about the true nature of Mr. Obama's birth.

And what about the reputation of Dr. Chiyome Fukino, Hawaii's Director of the Department of Health?  I wonder if any of our media will now start asking Ms. Fukino about her two statements, issued 8 months apart, both suggesting that she had personally looked at the long-form birth certificate which now appears not to exist.

To remind you, here are her two statements.

Original statement - October 2008:

"There have been numerous requests for Sen. Barack Hussein Obama’s official birth certificate. State law (Hawai‘i Revised Statutes §338-18) prohibits the release of a certified birth certificate to persons who do not have a tangible interest in the vital record"

 

"Therefore, I as Director of Health for the State of Hawai‘i, along with the Registrar of Vital Statistics who has statutory authority to oversee and maintain these type of vital records, have personally seen and verified that the Hawai‘i State Department of Health has Sen. Obama’s original birth certificate on record in accordance with state policies and procedures"

Second statement - July, 2009:

“I, Dr. Chiyome Fukino, director of the Hawai’i State Department of Health, have seen the original vital records maintained on file by the Hawai’i State Department of Health verifying Barrack Hussein Obama was born in Hawai’i and is a natural-born American citizen. I have nothing further to add to this statement or my original statement issued in October 2008 over eight months ago ... “

Uh, Dr. Fukino.....  What original birth certificate?   Which original vital records?

Is Tim Adams for real?  If so, is neil abercrombie an idiot?  Is Chiyome Fukino a liar?  And - far and away most importantly - is there any proof that Barack Obama is legally qualified to be President of the United States?

Maybe this time our media will start acting like professional journalists and demand answers.  I doubt it, but maybe.

Ken Berwitz

Sean Hannity (among others) likes to refer to Rahm Emanuel as "Dead Fish", because he is said to have once sent a dead fish to a pollster who was late in producing needed data, a la Luca Brasi in The Godfather (Sonny:  What the hell is this?"  Clemenza:  "It's a Sicilian message.  It means Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes"). 

But as of today, I think Mr. Emanuel has more in common with a dead atheist:

Definition of a dead atheist:  A guy all dressed up with nowhere to go.

Definition of Rahm Emanuel:  A guy all set up, with nowhere to run.

Rahm Emanuel is out of Chicago's mayoral race. 

Or is he?

Excerpted from an article at CBS-Chicago:

CHICAGO (CBS) – The Illinois Appellate Court has tossed mayoral front-runner Rahm Emanuel off the ballot, reversing the decision of a lower court.

The Appellate Court reached a 2-1 decision to remove Emanuel.

After the decision, Langdon Neal, chairman for the Chicago Board of Elections, said the ballots will now be printed without Emanuel’s name.

In response to the decision, Emanuel said he believes the people of Chicago “deserve the right” to pick whom they want for mayor, and that he believes the law is on his side.

“I think fundamentally, when a president asks you to serve the country, as his chief of staff, that’s part of serving your country, and I have no doubt that we will in the end prevail at this effort,” Emanuel said. “As my father used to say, nothing’s ever easy in life.”

Emanuel said he believes “the dissent opinion is pretty strong” and is a hopeful sign.

Illinois state law says a candidate for mayor is required to have lived in the municipality where he is running for at least one year prior to the election. But Emanuel’s team has argued that exceptions can be made for national service.

The court agreed that Emanuel’s reason for leaving Chicago constituted “business of the United States,” but argued that this still did not qualify him for the ballot.

Emanuel’s attorneys are expected to use Lampkin’s dissenting opinion to appeal the case to the Illinois Supreme Court.

As CBS 2 Chief Correspondent Jay Levine explains, the state Supreme Court can issue a stay in enforcing the order, which would keep Emanuel’s name on the ballot. Then the Supreme Court can decide whether it wants to hear the case.

A recent poll showed Emanuel leading the pack of mayoral candidates with 44 percent support, compared with 21 percent for Carol Moseley Braun, 16 percent for Gery Chico, 7 percent for Miguel del Valle, and 9 percent are undecided.

Emanuel has also received the support of heavy-hitters such as former President Bill Clinton.

You can't say Chicago's mayoral race isn't entertaining.

Rahm Emanuel has a ton of money and a commanding lead to run with.  But now, suddenly, he has nothing to run for.

Will Illinois' Supreme Court reverse the appellate decision and make Rahm a candidate again?  Can it happen in time for the ballots to be printed with his name on them?

Beats me. Why don't you just ask the next dead atheist you meet.

Ken Berwitz

Are you a big shot at the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) - the one that contributed tens of millions of dollars to get Barack Obama elected President?

No?  You're not?  Then when it comes to health care you are, as they say, S.O.L. - which, in sanitized fashion, means excrement out of luck.

Excerpted from an article at cnsnews.com:

(CNSNews.com) – Three local chapters of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), whose political action committee spent $27 million supporting Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential election, have received temporary waivers from a provision in the Obamacare law.

 

The three SEIU chapters include the Local 25 in Obama’s hometown of Chicago.

 

The waivers allow health insurance plans to limit how much they will spend on a policy holder’s medical coverage for a given year. Under the new health care law, however, such annual limits are phased out by the year 2014. (Under HHS regulations, annual limits can be no less than $750,000 for 2011, no less than $1.25 million in 2012 and no less than $2 million in 2013.)

 

The three SEIU locals, covering a total of 36,064 enrollees, are covered by the federal waivers, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.

 

So far, the Obama administration has issued waivers to 222 entities, including businesses, unions and charitable organizations. Of that total, 45 were labor organizations.

 

A total of 1,507,418 enrollees are now included in the waivers. More than one-third -- 512,315 – of the enrollees affected were insured by union health plans.

 

Neither SEIU Local 25 nor Local 1, nor the national organization responded to CNSNews.com’s request for comment.

 

The SEIU's Committee on Political Education made $27,829,845.91 in independent expenditures on Obama’s presidential campaign in 2008. SEIU-affiliated groups in Illinois have long supported Obama’s campaigns and endorsed him for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate in 2004. In 2008, the national union backed Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination.

But....but......ObamaCare is so terrific that these people must want it.  That waiver means they are being cheated of the great benefits, superb care and low cost services it provides.  Right? (Sorry for that sarcasm.  I couldn't help myself.)

If you should happen to come across anyone who still believes that ObamaCare is a desirable alternative to what we have now, please have them explain to you (and most definitely to me) why there are well over 200 companies and unions taking waivers.  Then have them explain why if only about 12% of the workforce belongs to unions, President Obama has bestowed about one third of all those waivers to union people -- who proactively asked for them and presumably are thrilled that they got them.

Heck, don't they want ObamaCare? (whoops, there's that sarcasm again).

Ken Berwitz

Today there was a terrorist attack on Domodedovo airport, Moscow's busiest.  So far, the count is 30 dead and 130 injured (both of which are sure to rise, probably substantially).

Here are excerpts from the New York Times online report:

MOSCOW — An explosion rocked an international terminal of Moscow’s busiest airport on Monday afternoon in what Russian officials described as an apparent terrorist attack. The Health Ministry reported that at least 30 people had been killed and 130 injured, according to Russian state media.

Russian news agencies, citing witnesses, said the airport’s halls were filled with so much smoke that it was difficult to count the dead. A video posted online showed bodies and luggage strewn across the smooth airport floor, barely visible under the clouds of thick smoke.

The blast occurred in the arrivals hall of Domodedovo airport, according to a spokeswoman. Investigators said the explosion occurred at 4:32 p.m. local time.

In televised remarks, the Russian president, Dmitri A. Medvedev, said: “At Domodedovo an explosion has occurred, and according to preliminary information it was a terrorist attack. There are dead and there are wounded.”

He admonished officials for their failure to prevent the attack, and ordered the police to boost security at all airports and on public transportation.

If investigators find that the explosion was the result of terrorism, it would be the first such attack to hit Moscow since March, when two suicide bombers detonated explosives on the city’s subway during rush hour. More than 40 people were killed in that attack, which was traced to two women from Dagestan who had ridden buses into the capital.

The rebel leader Doku Umarov took responsibility for the March attack. In 2009, Mr. Umarov revived a suicide battalion linked to the most notorious attacks of the last decade. In a video apparently made hours after the blast, Mr. Umarov said “the war will come to your streets, and you will feel it in your own lives and on your own skin.”

FYI - read all about doku umarov here.  And understand that he is a violent, murderous Muslim terrorist.

My heart goes out to the victims of this murderous attack on innocent people.

But, even as I extend condolences, my head is telling me that if it can happen there, it can happen here.

Who will prevent it?   eric holder - the Attorney General who is suing Arizona because he wants the border to be wide open and illegals to enter without a worry in the world?  Janet Napolitano - who can't even bring herself to use the term terrorism, sanitizing it to "man-made disasters"?

Moscow got theirs.  When is it our turn?  We are in danger.  Every day. 

And are we taking that danger seriously?  Let me repeat the names eric holder and Janet Napolitano.  You tell me.

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

Oh, one other thing:  You may notice that the Times article has a link for doku umarov (they capitalize his name, I don't). 

If you click on it you be led to a Times article about him.  It is 10 paragraphs long: 

-The first paragraph mentions that umarov is a proponent of "jihad", without citing any religious reference.

-In the sixth paragraph there is a passing reference to "Islamic insurgency". 

-In the 9th paragraph there is a reference to umarov declaring himself emir of the Caucusus State and intending to establish a shari'a law-based state independent of Russia.

At no time does the article specifically state that umarov is a Muslim.  

Unbelievable, but true.

Ken Berwitz

I just read a genuinely troubling article by Melanie Phillips, writing for London's Daily Mail.  It concerns what she characterizes as an epidemic of sex crimes committed upon young, usually underage, White women by Muslim men.  Ms. Phillips makes a number of claims and draws a number of conclusions about this seemingly undeniable fact.  Please read the following excerpts, then click here for the entire commentary, and see if you are as troubled by what she has to say as I am:

January 10, 2011

Sex slavery and Britain’s conspiracy of silence

Daily Mail, 10 January 2011

 

Not for the first time, Jack Straw has ignited a firestorm of controversy by expressing serious concerns about behaviour within the British Muslim community.

 

Mr Straw, whose Blackburn constituency is heavily populated by Muslims, spoke out after two British men of Pakistani descent were jailed last week for a series of rapes and sexual assaults on vulnerable young girls, whom they also groomed for sex with other gangs members or their relatives.

 

This was far from a one-off case. Police operations going back to 1996 have revealed a disturbingly similar pattern of collective abuse involving small groups of Muslim men committing a particular type of sexual crime.

 

This has typically involved abducting, raping or otherwise sexually attacking hundreds of mainly white girls aged 11 to 16, as well as enslaving them through alcohol and drugs and grooming them for sex.

 

Mr Straw said the reason was that some British Pakistani men regarded emotionally ‘vulnerable’ white girls as ‘easy meat’ whom they trapped through plying them with gifts and drugs.

 

The picture is certainly complicated. The overwhelming majority of people who are convicted in general of sex crimes — including sexual abuse within families — are white men.

 

Nevertheless, we do now know that most cases of gang-led, on-street grooming that have come to light involve British Muslim offenders and young white girls.

 

Most disturbingly, the police say that these convictions form only a small proportion of a ‘tidal wave’ of such crimes. Yet, until now, there has been a conspiracy of silence over this phenomenon.

 

Charities such as Barnardo’s won’t even discuss the cultural background of such criminals. The Home Office refuses to collect such statistics. And, of course, the Guardianistas condemn any such analysis as ‘racialising crime’.

 

You can see that this is not a racial but a religious animosity from the fact that, while the vast majority of the girls who are targeted are white, the victims include Sikhs and Hindus, too.

 

Back in 2007, The Hindu Forum Of Britain claimed that hundreds of Hindu and Sikh girls had been intimidated by Muslim men who took them on dates before terrorising them until they converted.

 

And the Sikh Media Monitoring group described ‘the deliberate and targeted sexual degradation of Sikh women purely because of their religion’ and how a minority of young Muslim men boasted about ‘seducing the Kaffir (unbeliever) women’.

 

One Muslim man was reported as saying that white girls are targeted by such men because ‘if they did it to a Muslim girl, they’d be shot’.

 

White girls also tend to be seen as sluts. Mohammed Shafiq, chief executive of the Ramadhan Foundation, a national Muslim youth organisation, says: ‘These people think that white girls have fewer morals and are less valuable than our girls.’

 

What seems to have taken place is therefore a tragic conflation of certain primitive, religiously based attitudes towards women and unbelievers — and the degraded way in which certain white girls behave.

 

Who can be surprised when even sex education materials in schools advise on oral sex and other sexual practices; teen-targeted magazines, clothing and popular culture are saturated by sexuality; and family life has often disintegrated into a procession of mum’s casual pick-ups and gross parental indifference, leaving young girls desperate for affection from any quarter?

 

The disgust felt by some Muslim youths at such sexually promiscuous girls can then feed into a more general hatred and hostility towards Britain and the West. Such youths form themselves into gangs bound by a common feeling of being outsiders united by a profound hostility to the society into which they were born.

 

The resulting conflict set up in the minds of these British Muslim boys sometimes creates a disgust that turns upon the ‘slags’ and ‘slappers’.

 

It is remarkable that, even though the obscenity of rape and the inviolable rights of women over their bodies are among the shibboleths of the age, feminists and other liberals are almost totally silent when Muslims violate these sacred codes.

 

Muslim women are often treated abominably within their communities. But to their suffering, feminists and other right-on liberals are almost totally silent. The only sound from that lobby is the cry of ‘racist’ or ‘bigot’ hurled at anyone who dares protest at such religious slavery.

 

In the past several years there have been similar reports of young Muslim men specializing in the abuse of Caucasian girls in northern Europe - specifically Sweden and Denmark - and France as well.  I have not heard about whether it is problematic in other countries, but - based on what I do know - would not be surprised if it is.

Does this mean that all Muslim men are hate-filled molestors and/or rapists?  No it does not.  Not even close.

But it does mean that this is a problem among a disproportionate number of young Muslim men that has to be addressed.  Which leads to a few questions:

-Is law enforcement - which, according to Ms. Phillips is well aware of the problem - doing everything it can to prevent this "tidal wave" of sexual abuse, or is there some kind of tacit agreement to look the other way? 

-Are social agencies not only looking the other way, but also rationalizing the problem, as Ms. Phillips suggests? 

-Are Muslim organizations addressing this problem and providing counseling or help-lines that work to prevent this from happening? 

-Or are they afraid to do what has to be done?  Do they fear repercussions from gangs of young Muslim men so much that they freeze into a state of  inactivity?

It seems to me that these are questions which should have been addressed a long time ago.  And every day they remain unaddressed is another day that things get worse. 

No matter how painful and dangerous and soul-searching the effort will be, there really is no time like the present.

Ken Berwitz

Matthew Boyle, writing for dailycaller.com, has written a blog which contains comments from four conservatives regarding keith olbermann's sudden swan song at MSNBC.  In case you haven't already seen them at the dailycaller site, here they are:

“I’m disappointed that Keith Olbermann has gone as I’d hoped to eventually be named worst person in the universe, which I assume he’d eventually get to. On the other hand, if they’d just run his show at night now with his empty chair, MSNBC would finally have a non-white face hosting a show. They’d still not be as diverse as the tea party, but it’d be a step in the right direction.”    Erick Erickson, Editor-in-Chief of RedState.com

 

“Now that ‘Smug’ of MSNBC’s Olbermann and Maddow ‘Smug & Smugger’ team is out, ‘Dissent is Patriotic’ (unless, of course, it’s conservative dissent) ‘progressive’ Americans will have to get their daily dose of nationally televised rage, elitism, hypocrisy, cognitive dissonance, one-sided ‘debate’and lack of accountability elsewhere. It is a tragedy that the leader of the ‘Stop the Heated Political Rhetoric’ team will not have the opportunity to fulfill the group’s sacred mission. In all seriousness, I blame Mr. Olbermann and his obscene political language for all future acts of violence in America and around the world.”  Andrew Breitbart, publisher of Big Journalism, Big Government and Big Hollywood

 

“I am so sad that Keith Olbermann got fired. I am worried that we won’t know who is the most horrible person in the world without his direction.  Oh, wait, there’s the ‘Ridiculist’ from Anderson Cooper, Whoopie Goldberg and Joy Behar on The View will walk out on a guest if they don’t approve of their opinion, whoever Howard Stern is being vicious about is another pointer, Chris Matthews let’s you know who’s horrible when they don’t make his thigh quiver………yeah, now that I think about it….we don’t have to miss Olbermann at all.  What a relief.”  Dr. Laura Schlessinger, talk radio host

 

“If one chooses to believe anonymously-sourced reports in the New York Times (always risky), Olbermann negotiated a parting of ways with NBCU like that of Conan O’Brien, who, it should be noted, walked away (exactly one year ago) with tens of millions of dollars in return for a vow of silence and an agreed-upon interval before returning to television. Purportedly, Olbermann’s agreement leaves him free to go on radio or the internet (perhaps starting a site to rival HuffPo financed with his newfound millions). In other words, it looks as though Keith has sold out his viewers in the name of greed, and may be hoping for the ‘obscene profits’ so frequently denounced on his former MSNBC show.”  Thomas Lifson, Editor, American Thinker

Can't you just feel the love?

Ken Berwitz

Excerpted from an article in yesterday's New York Daily News:

Fox has rejected a controversial Super Bowl ad from conservative comedy site JesusHatesObama.com, according to the site's creator.

Richard Belfry insists the proposed 30-second-ad, which depicts bobble-head versions of President Obama and a scowling Jesus, is just a joke.

"Do I really believe that Jesus hates Obama? Absolutely not," Belfry, a comedian based in L.A. who sells Jesus Hates Obama apparel on his site, told the Daily News.

The company admits on its site that it doesn't really hate Obama. Belfry insisted he was merely trying poke fun of the Obama Administration and to also sell his merchandise.

The site received an e-mail from Ruth Levenson, Fox's vice president for broadcast standards and practices earlier this month that said the commercial was "not acceptable to air on FOX."

The group then tried to appeal the decision, and that too was rejected.

In a word:  Good.

Is it really necessary to put up with obviously offensive crap like this on a Supebowl broadcast?

Richard Belfry is free to to promote his bobblehead dolls and frankly stupid, insulting message all he wants.  But Fox is free to have standards as well.  And this "advertisement", I am happy to say, is beneath them.

The obvious cliché to use here is that he has bats in his Belfry.  But I'd say he has butts there -- because, in my opinion, anyone who comes up with "JesusHatesObama.com is thinking (if you can call it that) exclusively with his rear end.

Ken Berwitz

There is a famous story (which, in recent years, has been disputed but I suspect it is true) about The New Yorker's film critic, Pauline Kael, supposedly saying, after Nixon's victory over McGovern in 1972:

"I don't know how Nixon won. No one I know voted for him."

Unfortunately, that level of media obtuseness and elitism appears to remain alive and well in 2011.

Excerpted from Brent Backer's blog at newsbusters.org:

On This Week, Christiane Amanpour fretted that though the New York Times has discredited the Tea Party’s rationale (“a new report today in the New York Times, they say that in fact TARP will cost maybe $28 billion to the taxpayer, instead of the $700 billion”), she told Republican Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas “you yourself have been facing, even though you’re a reliable conservative, Tea Party competition in Texas. Are they outflanking you?” Amanpour empathized that Tea Party activists “said that you personally signify everything that the Tea Party is fighting.” A flummoxed Amanpour wondered: “What on earth do they mean by that?”

Over on CBS's Face the Nation, Bob Schieffer, echoing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, asked Senator John McCain about a Senate vote to repeal ObamaCare: “Do you think...that that's a waste of time, that the time in the Senate could be better spent working on something that has a chance of passing?”

Amazing, isn't it? 

To these ivory tower elitists it is unfathomable that Tea Partiers are against politicians - whether Republican or Democrat - who they consider profligate spenders.  And it is a waste of time for Republicans to try repealing health care legislation that so many people do not want, and which is being challenged as unconstitutional by more than half the states in the country.

Are you surprised?  I doubt it.  I know I'm not. 

When do these people ever learn?

Ken Berwitz

Excerpted from an articale at cnn.com, and straight into the "you can't make this up" file:

"Our God is woman, our mission is protest, our weapons are bare breasts." It's the kind of political slogan that's bound to catch attention, particularly when it's dozens of topless women clutching campaign posters who are chanting it.

These are the women of Femen, Ukraine's topless female protest movement. Young women who believe that the best way to make their voice heard is through sheer bare-chested brazenness.

I don't know if this will make their voices heard, but it will certainly get them noticed. 

Or, as Bob Hope used to (almost) say, "thanks for the mammaries".

Anyway, this reminds me of a joke (what doesn't): 

A guy from Boston loses his job.  So he goes to the unemployment office and sees a listing for a gynecologist's assistant. 

The job description is "help each patient undress, check all parts of her body for bruises and marks, rub her breasts down completely with lotion, do the same for her private area, and position her for the examination.  Annual salary is $125,000.  If interested, report immediately to Newark, New Jersey".

The guy goes to a job counselor and says "I am very interested in this job.  But we're in Boston.  Why would I immediately have to go to Newark, New Jersey?".  And the counselor says "Because that's where the end of the line is right now".

Ken Berwitz

Jennifer Rubin, one of the (decidedly minority) right of center contributors to the Washington Post and Time Magazine, has interviewed former Attorney General Michael Mukasey and gotten his opinions of current AG eric holder.

He isn't giving holder what you would call rave reviews.

Here are a few excerpts from Ms. Rubin's piece.  See for yourself:

The Decline of the Justice Department

 

Former attorney general Michael Mukasey is not prone to hyperbole. He’s a former federal judge, a meticulous lawyer, and, as he proved in succeeding Alberto Gonzales, a skilled administrator who restored morale to a Justice Department demoralized by scandals (real or concocted). He is also obviously nonplussed by the performance of his successor, Attorney General Eric Holder. In a far-ranging interview, he candidly asserts that Holder’s conduct in several key respects has been “amazing.” That’s not meant as a compliment.

 

Mukasey, who presided over the trial of the 1993 World Trade Center bombers, is as experienced as any American jurist when it comes to the war on terror. It is therefore significant that he finds Holder’s handling of national security matters worrisome. In August 2009, Holder authorized the reinvestigation of CIA operatives who had employed enhanced interrogation techniques on terrorist detainees. It had the feel of a witch hunt: Career prosecutors who investigated the interrogators under the previous administration had concluded there was no basis for a criminal prosecution. A year and a half later, the Holder reinvestigation is still dragging on. “I have to believe that the effect on people involved in national security is devastating,” says Mukasey, “in part because the cases were closed before.” Imagine the impact on a CIA operative who is told, “ ‘There is no basis for prosecution.’ And then someone shows up and says, ‘Not so fast.’ ”

 

Mukasey, moreover, finds it “amazing” that Holder “conceded he didn’t read the [career] prosecutors’ memo” that recommended against prosecution. He remarks ruefully that “in a sense that is comforting” to CIA employees that there was not something troubling in the memo. But, of course, it is small consolation that the nation’s chief law enforcement officer doesn’t bother to read relevant documents before making a decision with long-term policy implications.

 

With regard to the New Black Panther party controversy, incoming House Judiciary chairman Lamar Smith has dispatched a letter to Holder demanding answers to questions and documents relating to political appointee Julie Fernandes’s instructions to civil rights attorneys not to pursue voter-intimidation cases or enforce provisions of federal law designed to prevent fraud against black defendants. Mukasey is flabbergasted that the attorney general would declare in a New York Times interview that in effect “there is nothing to see.” Mukasey says, “I can’t see how he would bring himself to say such a thing. There are investigations pending”—by the Justice Department’s inspector general and Office of Professional Responsibility. The case against the New Black Panthers for intimidating voters at a Philadelphia precinct in 2008 was already won when Holder’s team ordered the charges dropped; famed civil rights attorney Bartle Bull deemed it “the most blatant form of voter intimidation I’ve ever seen.” Says Mukasey, with a measure of indignation, “It seems to me you don’t whitewash such a thing.”

 

It is ironic, in retrospect, that the Obama administration two years ago entered office vowing to respect the work of career attorneys at the DOJ, to avoid politicization, and to oversee the impartial administration of justice. The closest we have come to the impartial administration of justice in recent years was under Mukasey’s tenure, when he eliminated White House meddling and allowed career attorneys to perform their jobs. No wonder he is dismayed with his successor’s performance.

Mr. Mukasey's critique is blunt, brutal --- and, sadly, right on target.

eric holder is a national disgrace.  It is perfectly clear to me that every day he presides over the Department of Justice is a day justice is compromised. 

Unfortunately, two other things are equally clear:  1) most of our wonderful "neutral" media are committed to ignoring holder's disgraceful performance, and 2) as long as holder does President Obama's bidding he is going to keep his job.

The 2012 elections cannot come fast enough.

Ken Berwitz

Most readers won't know who I'm talking about, but Betsy and Sean do - which is the important part.

Great wedding last night!!!  I doubt that I've ever seen two people enjoy their wedding celebration more - especially Betsy, who has one of the most expressive faces I have ever seen in my life and couldn't hide her joy if she tried.

The service was lovely.  Very moving and tasteful.

The band?  Tremendous.  The floor was packed all night.

And the food was great too, especially during the cocktail hour.  This is something I don't often say about weddings, but I'm saying it here.  The Valley Regency (Clifton, NJ) really did an exceptional job.

Have a fabulous Hawaiian honeymoon.  (A recommendation:  When you're in Maui, go to Mama's Fish House.  You'll love both the restaurant and the grounds.  Make sure you are there at sunset - the views are spectacular.) 

And, Sean:  Please don't forget to send me video of my son's speech at the rehearsal dinner.  Since you told me that he brought down the house (something Scott has a tendency to do with a microphone and maybe a little liquor in him),  We'd love to see and hear that for ourselves.

Ken Berwitz

As you may be aware, Dana Milbank, a reliably left wing commentator for the Washington Post (except for that one time he dared to disagree with keith olbermann on-air, and was banned from the show forevermore) has pledged not to write about Sarah Palin for the next month.

On Friday, Mr. Milbank's column whined that Ms. Palin has gotten far too much exposure, and cited specific numbers of times she has been spoken about from various other media venues and personalities to "prove" it - along with a plaintive cry for them to join him:

I call on Douthat (who has mentioned Palin in 21 of his Times columns since 2008, according to a Lexis-Nexis search, and in scores of blog posts) to join my moratorium -- thereby forming a bipartisan coalition of The Post and the Times. I challenge columnists Eugene Robinson (33 Palin mentions), Paul Krugman (14), Kathleen Parker (30) and Maureen Dowd (45) to do the same.

I also call on Keith Olbermann (345 shows mentioning Palin) and Rachel Maddow (183 shows) of MSNBC, as well as Sean Hannity (411 Palin segments) and Bill O'Reilly (664 segments) of Fox News, to take the pledge. Will Politico -- with 96 Palin items in the past month alone -- join this cause? Will the Huffington Post, which had 19 Palin mentions on a single day last week -- stand with me?

This is actually pretty funny in a way because, while that looks like an awful lot of Palin mentions from Fox's Hannity and O'Reilly, Mr. Milbank neglects to mention that she is a Fox News Contributor.  She works for the station.  So of course she is going to get ongoing visibility there.  That's like counting up the number of times NBC's White House correspondent, David Gregory, is on the Today Show and NBC Nightly News.

But Sarah Palin does not work for the Washington Post.  Or for MSNBC.  Or the networks.  When they put out their virtually daily hit pieces on Ms. Palin, it is because they are hopelessly dedicated to attacking her every way they can. 

This is especially true of the last two weeks, during which Sarah Palin, incredibly, was crucified by our wonderful "neutral" media for having a hand in jared lee loughner's shooting spree in Arizona, the one in which one of his personal targets, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, was shot - along with 13 others injured and 6 fatalities. 

Their "proof"?  A map, issued almost a year ago, which showed crosshairs on 20 congressional districts Ms. Palin thought Republicans could win.  The fact that there was no evidence loughner even knew about, let  alone saw, that map, that none of his writings or ravings ever mentioned Ms. Palin, and that he had it in for Giffords since 2007?  Not important.  That's Palin we're talking about.  Who cares.  It's open season.

And that, folks, gets us to the real issue here. 

Polls taken since the Arizona shooting and media's attempt to connect Ms. Palin with it have shown that a large majority of the public does not believe she had anything to do with loughner's actions.  In other words, after all the opprobrium piled on Ms. Palin during the past two and a half years (much of which has stuck), media finally jumped the shark.  People realize that this is not real reporting of real facts, it is a mass vendetta by a media hit squad intent on destroying her.

So all of a sudden Dana Milbank, certainly one of the people being rejected if those polls are accurate, is posturing that he will no longer mention her at all.  And he is trying to convince readers that this is not because they're up to here with the lies about her, it is because he is nobly backing off and taking the high ground. 

Yeah, that'll fly. 

And, even more bizarrely, the Washington Post, for whom Mr.Milbank toils, is trying to pull the same stunt. 

From Thomas Lifson at American Thinker:

Like an addict vowing to give up booze or heroin, Washington Post writer Dana Milbank is organizing readers  to vow to not read about Sarah Palin for the next month. Kristinn Taylor and Andreea Shea King write in Big Journalism:

The Post has picked up the call initiated this morning by Post columnist Dana Milbank, adding a Twitter link on the column page. The link generates a message to be sent from a Twitter member's page that reads, "I'm making February a Palin-free month. Will you join me?"

How sincere is the Washington Post about this?  Well, if you go to its web site right now, the line below its masthead shows what the paper considers "Hot Topics"  The second one is "Sarah Palin".  Click here and see for yourself (but do it fast:  when they realize they've been busted, they'll probably take it down).

It would be hard to overstate how ridiculous these people are making themselves. 

If I were Sarah Palin, I don't know which emotion would predominate right now:  outrage at the insane, 100% dishonest "connection" media have made between her and the Arizona shootings, or amusement at Milbank's call for a boycott by the media - after endlessly obsessing over her for two and a half years - when they find out that the public isn't buying their latest anti Palin BS (what coincidental timing!).

More on this in future blogs.

Ken Berwitz

Mainstream media have given some coverage to the subhuman monster named kermit b. gosnell, who is accused of killing 7 infants but almost certainly has killed many, many more.

Why is this not front page material everywhere?  Because gosnell ran an abortion mill in Philadelphia, and, among our wonderful "neutral" media, you're not supposed to sully the abortion industry, that's why.

Here is Michelle Malkin's introduction to her own column, which exposes in horrifically grim detail just how monstrous this "man", and his accomplices are:

The Philadelphia Horror: How mass murder gets a pass

By Michelle Malkin  •  January 21, 2011 12:00 AM

The “fetal material”-stuffed freezer at Philadelphia’s “Women’s Medical Society”

 

The mainstream news reports about Philadelphia’s serial baby-killer Kermit Gosnell and his abortion clinic death squad only scratch the surface of his barbaric enterprise. You must, must, must read the entire, graphic, 281-page grand jury report (embedded after my column below) to fully fathom the systematic execution of hundreds of (not just seven) healthy, living, breathing, squirming, viable babies — along with an untold number of mothers who may have lost their lives in his sick, grimy chamber of horrors as well. It is explicit. It is enraging. It will haunt you.

 

Ask yourself why you are not hearing about which root causes and whose rhetoric are to blame for this four-decades-long massacre — just the tip of a blood-soaked iceberg defended by the predators of Planned Parenthood. You know the answer: If it doesn’t help the Left criminalize conservatism, it’s not worth discussing.

 

From the conclusion of the grand jury report: “It is not our job to say who should be fired or demoted. We believe, however, that anyone responsible for permitting Gosnell to operate as he did should face strong disciplinary action up to and including termination. This includes not only the people who failed to do the inspecting, the prosecuting, and the protecting, but also those at the top who obviously tolerated, or even encouraged, the inaction. The Department of State literally licensed Gosnell’s criminally dangerous behavior. DOH gave its stamp of approval to his facility. These agencies do not deserve the public’s trust. The fate of Karnamaya Mongar and countless babies with severed spinal cords is proof that people at those departments were not doing their jobs. Those charged with protecting the public must do better.”

 

Over to you, eugenics-inspired, eco-freak Obama science czar John Holdren…

If this has not sickened you to the core of your being, the full column probably won't do it either.  But, on the assumption that most readers of this blog care about the death of hundreds of live children by these butchers, here is a link to Ms. Malkin's column.

Read it, then start to read the grand jury report she provides a link to.  And ask yourself just how compromised, our media must be to give the gosnell infanticide story essentially one-day-and-out coverage. 

Why are they not demanding answers from the agencies entrusted to protect the public, which allowed this monster to operate for decades?  Why are they not demanding an accounting from the people at those agencies who could have saved so many lives, but didn't bother? 

How can they call themselves journalists and ignore this?  How can they call themselves human beings and ignore this?

Ken Berwitz

Why is Jim DeMint afraid of gay people?  So afraid that he can't abide them being politically conservative and supporting the Republican Party?

From CNN:

(CNN) – Republican South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint is opting out of an appearance at this year's Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), making him the latest Republican to the criticize what some have seen as a pro-gay tilt to the prominent conference.

"With leading conservatives organizations not participating this year, Senator DeMint will not be attending. He hopes to attend a unified CPAC next year," DeMint spokesman Wesley Denton told CNN.

Conservative groups including the Heritage Foundation, Tony Perkins' Family Research Council and Brent Bozell's Media Research Center are boycotting the event over the inclusion of GOProud, a gay conservative group. Other conservatives are upset Indiana Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels was invited to speak. Daniels called for a "truce" on social issues while the country works through its economic problems.

But the list of attendees for the February event includes Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum.

I love that line about DeMint hoping to attend a unified CPAC next year.  How is that going to happen, since he is the one DE-unifying it.

Jim DeMint is straight?  Good for him.  He doesn't approve of the homosexual lifestyle?  Fine. Mr. DeMint is 100% entitled to feel any way he wants. That's his business.

But if DeMint wants to exclude homosexuals from CPAC because he doesn't approve of their lifestyle, that's not just his business anymore.  That's not just personal.  That is a demand that his intolerance and prejudice be shared by other members of the group.

Frankly, if I were among the powers that be at CPAC, I would be a lot more comfortable losing DeMint than GOProud.  GOProud isn't telling anyone how to think or act or live.  As political conservatives, all they want is to be part of the movement. 

By contrast, the DeMints of the world pretend to be politically conservative, but their idea of conservatism is insisting that others live the way they dictate, or be tossed out on their ears.  That sounds a lot more like the hugo chavez way than the conservative way.

So let DeMint boycott, and let him take Tony Perkins and Brent Bozell (who I usually think a great deal of but is dead wrong here) with him. 

My congratulations to Mr. Barbour, Mr. Daniels, Mr. Gingrich, Ms. Palin, Mr. Pawlenty, Mr. Romney, Mr. Santorum and all the other Republican luminaries who are proud to join GOProud at the CPAC convention - i.e. are acting like adults instead of whining children.  You elevate rather than derogate conservative principles by doing so.

Ken Berwitz

Here is the latest regarding neil abercrombie, the left wing tool and virulent Israel-hater who was elected Governor of Hawaii last November and, a month later, decided to put the wood to "birthers" by promising to provide definitive proof of Barack Obama's birth status.

From Fox News:

Pressure was mounting on Hawaii Governor Neil Abercrombie today amid increasing confusion over whether President Obama was born there.

Abercrombie said on Tuesday that an investigation had unearthed papers proving Obama was born in Hawaii in 1961.
He told Honolulu's Star-Advertiser: 'It actually exists in the archives, written down,' he said.

But it became apparent that what had been discovered was an unspecified listing or notation of Obama's birth that someone had made in the state archives and not a birth certificate.

Remember, this story was virtually dead.  Just about no one was talking about it anymore.  The Obama people had won in a knockout.....

until Mr. Obama's great friend, neil abercrombie, proactively pushed it to the front burner. 

And now that this genius is running away from his boastful pronouncement about baby Barack?  He looks like the boob of the century.  Barack Obama looks even worse.  And the so-called "birthers", who were largely consigned to the dustbin of presidential history, are suddenly on the high ground.

I don't know for sure, of course.  But I have to believe that there are an awful lot of people who used to think that questioning Mr. Obama's legal status to be President was nuts, but now are saying "wait a minute....how come the guy in charge where Obama claims to be born suddenly can't - or won't - show us the proof.  How come he's running from this at about 100MPH".

Way to go neil. 

I guess life was a lot easier when you were just voting left and defecating on Israel in the house of representatives, wasn't it?

Ken Berwitz

In today's New York Post, Jonah Goldberg has a genuinely excellent analysis of why a keynote of President Obama's efforts to improve our economy should be offshore (and ANWR) drilling for oil.

Here are some key excerpts, but you would do well to read it all by clicking here:

...the solution is right in front of Obama's face. To echo a chant from the 2008 GOP convention, "Drill, baby, drill!"

 

The objective case for developing our oil and gas wealth is pretty straightforward. With the exception of climate change, pretty much everything the Obama administration considers a major problem would be improved by opening the floodgates to exploration.

 

The deficit?  If America unlocked its oil and gas reserves, the government could take in an estimated $1 trillion to $2 trillion more revenue over the coming years. That's not counting the revenues from the stimulus of lower fuel and energy costs.

 

Trade imbalances? Domestic oil and gas is, by definition, not imported. The more we produce here, the less we import, or the more we can sell overseas.

 

Take a gander at North Dakota, where oil production is up 138 percent since 2008. The boom "has helped make its economy almost recession-proof," writes American Enterprise Institute economist Mark Perry. North Dakota's "jobless rate never exceeded 4.4 percent even during the Great Recession when the US rate hit 10.1 percent."

 

North Dakota, with a $1 billion surplus, and the lowest unemployment rate in the country, has more jobs today than it did when the recession started in 2007. Perversely, as AEI's Steve Hayward notes, if trends continue, North Dakota may well outproduce California and Alaska (it's already zoomed passed Oklahoma), not because California and Alaska are running out of oil, but because the feds keep it under lock and key.

 

Sure, the Democratic base and The New York Times would scream bloody murder. But for a guy trying to get re-elected, that's a bonus.

Does Goldberg make sense?  That's for President Obama (and you) to decide.

Me?  I am fully committed to the aggressive development of alternative energy.  I say that not as a throwoff comment, but with 100% sincerity.

However, I am realistic enough to understand that the time when our oil usage is so low that we don't need additional production is a good many years, probably decades, away.   And by stifling the exploitation of our own enormous resources, we not only destroy our economy, but make ourselves slaves to dictators in countries that hate our guts. 

Does that make sense?

Besides, if we are not drilling, others are.  They, not us, will be the source of new oil reserves and we will go that much further into the debt of those countries.

Enough of the PC.  It's time to act in our own self-interest.

As Mr. Goldberg (and others before him) so eloquently says, "drill, baby, drill".

Ken Berwitz

We still do not know the real reason that keith olbermann's "Countdown" show on MSNBC is suddenly no more  - though it would be very hard to believe that Comcast's takeover of NBC this week, and the possibility that it could not abide olbermann's vicious, offensive daily hate-fests, is not the key component.

If so, then it is hard to see how Chris Matthews can survive, since he has worked dilligently to become as vicious and hateful as olbermann on his worst day - plus, his ratings are abysmal compared to what olbermann was getting.

Case in point:  This "screen grab", which I just got from an article at hotairpundit.com, shows what Matthews considered an acceptable graphic for the beginning of Thursday's show:

A picture of the capital building - with its new Republican rather than Democrat majority - in crosshairs.  And the words "fire on the right".

If, tomorrow, someone as sick and deranged as jared lee loughner tries to shoot up the house of representatives, do you think Chris Matthews will take any responsibility (given his hatred of Republicans, maybe credit is a more appropriate word here)?

Two weeks of direct attacks on Sarah Palin for her year-old campaign map featuring crosshairs on winnable congressional districts - which there is absolutely no evidence loughner ever saw, let alone reacted to - and Matthews does this?  How jealous olbermann must be that he didn't think of it first, before he went bye-bye.

It seems to me that, if keith olbermann was dumped because Comcast did not like the partisan hate level of "Countdown", then there is a clock - a big clock - ticking for "Hardball", with the alarm about to go off.

And Chris Matthews certainly is helping to make that happen, isn't he?

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

UPDATE:  John  Hinderaker, at powerlineblog.com, points out that - for the moment, anyway - olbermann is being replaced by Lawrence O'Donnell, who is just as left wing and just as nasty.  That could mean Comcast is not changing the political tone of MSNBC, just getting rid of a pain in the butt.  Or (and this is my suspicion) it means that big changes are coming, the first of which is olbermann, and they had to utilize the "talent" already there to field an interim prime time lineup. 

Time will tell.

Ken Berwitz

keith olbermann's tenure at MSNBC ended abruptly tonight, and without explanation.

I'm sure by tomorrow we'll know a lot more about why he is gone and who pulled the plug.

Ken Berwitz

Just in case you were wondering, here are the latest ratings - from Nielsen via drudgereport.com:

FOXNEWS O'REILLY 2,918,000
FOXNEWS HANNITY 2,079,000
FOXNEWS BAIER 1,940,000
FOXNEWS SHEP 1,786,000
FOXNEWS BECK 1,780,000
FOXNEWS GRETA 1,460,000
MSNBC OLBERMANN 1,106,000
CNN PIERS 1,025,000
MSNBC MADDOW 976,000
MSNBC O'DONNELL 855,000
MSNBC SCHULTZ 760,000
CNN COOPER 740,000
MSNBC HARDBALL 700,000

So what do we see here:

-Fox News Channel still predominates.  It not only wins every time slot, but its lowest rated show has more viewers than anyone else's highest rated show.  And by plenty;

-O'Reilly still has about triple the viewership of keith olberstilstkin;

-CNN's new guy, Piers Morgan, who started with over 2 million viewers on Monday, has lost half of them already.  In less than one week;

-Chris Matthews is the lowest rated show in prime time.  Even Ed Schultz has more viewers now.

In short, things are about as you would expect. 

Ken Berwitz

Here is Charles Krauthammer's opinion about uncivil discourse, from last night's edition of "Special Report" on Fox News Channel:

Look, I think it's a bogus issue that was concocted, particularly after the Tucson shooting. It's a continuation, what we heard from Cohen and Jackson Lee is a continuation, of the liberal hypocrisy on this.

The worst in uncivil discourse that we have had in the last decade occurred in the Bush years, when the President was vilified, attacked, he was demonized, compared to Nazis. He was called Hitler. There was an article in the New Republic, a leading liberal magazine, which began, it was by an editor, "I hate George Bush. There I've said it" closed quote.

Howard Dean, a not insignificant Democrat, the former head of the Democratic National Committee, said openly, "I hate Republicans and everything they stand for." That is literally hate speech. I do not remember the Times or the mainstream media all of a sudden wagging a finger and pulling a chin about the rise of uncivil discourse at the time. So I don't take any of this seriously.

There was an attempt by liberals, an obscene attempt, to link conservatives with the Tucson shooting through this accusation of civil discourse, and I'm not surprised that uncivil discourse is quite prominent on the Left as we saw today.

I have nothing to add.

Ken Berwitz

Sometimes, in books and fairy tales, there are stories of extreme ugliness eventually becoming extreme beauty.  

But the story of Carlina White is not from a book or a fairy tale.  It is 100% real. 

Excerpted from an article in today's Daily News:

Twenty-three years after being snatched as an infant, the victim of a hospital kidnapping cracked the cold case herself when doubts about her bogus "mom" led her home.

Carlina White - just 19 days old when her late-night abduction by a phony nurse stunned the city - was reunited last weekend with her overjoyed biological mother, father and other relatives.

"I'm overwhelmed. I'm just happy. It's like a movie; it's all brand new to me," White told the Daily News Wednesday night as she arrived at LaGuardia Airport for the second reunion with her birth mom.

"Is it really happening?" her incredulous mom, Joy White, wondered after decades of prayers were answered. "I always dreamed this.

It was a stunning and unexpected resolution to one of the NYPD's most frustrating cases: a kidnapper casually carrying an infant out of Harlem Hospital and into the wind.

The last time Joy White and her father, Carl Tyson, laid eyes on their chubby-cheeked child, Carlina was just 21 inches long, weighed 8 pounds and had a fever of 104. It was Aug. 4, 1987 - and it wasn't until Jan. 4, 2011, that their now 23-year-old baby girl was able to let them know she was safe.

"I feel like I don't know who I am!" she told staffers at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in a heartbreaking call around Christmas.

Center officials, long familiar with the White case, launched an investigation that confirmed Carlina's suspicions.

"This young woman gets all the credit," said center President Ernie Allen. "She felt it. Now she could have been just wrong - but in this case, we were able to help her get to the truth."

The NYPD sent detectives to collect DNA swabs from Carlina and her anxious parents, eventually leading to the improbable reunion Joy White always believed would happen one day.

Just as Carlina didn't need a DNA test to know something wasn't right with her "mother," her birth parents didn't need one to know the beautiful young woman was their missing child.

"I already knew in my heart that this was my daughter," said Tyson, who was 22 when he last saw his daughter. "All I could do was shed tears."

Joy White - who kept a framed picture of her infant daughter on her dresser all these years - screamed with delight when she first saw photos of her grownup girl Jan. 4.

"As soon as I saw those pictures, I said, 'That's my daughter,' " she said yesterday at her Bronx home, clutching her photo of infant Carlina. "I saw myself in her."

The DNA matches came back on Tuesday night to the delight of all. By then, White and Tyson had met the young woman they still call Carlina. She flew up last weekend from Atlanta, bringing her daughter, Samani.

An aunt, Lisa White-Heatley, 47, said she and her relatives prepared a feast of curried chicken, macaroni and cheese, lasagna and oxtail to welcome Carlina back into the fold.
"It wasn't awkward. There was a connection right away. We loved her right away," the aunt said of the reunion.

"We ate and talked and got to know each other... I feel great," she said.

Joy White said meeting her granddaughter for the first time was a bonus.

"I can sleep! I can definitely sleep now because this has been on my mind for so many years," said Joy White.

I remember this story from when it happened.  And as a father and grandfather, I can't even begin to imagine the despair Carlina's mother must have gone through.  News shows have, for the past two days, run the 23 year old file footage of Ms.White after little Carlina was abducted.  Distraught does not even begin to describe her.  It was heart-wrenching.

But the new footage, showing this young woman and mother reunited with her real family?  It is as joyous as you will ever see. I only wish I could have been there.

Let's hope that the person, or persons, guilty of kidnapping Carlina White from her family are arrested, tried, convicted and sentenced to the maximum extent of the law.  It will be fully earned and well deserved.

As for Carlina's true family?  I have seen her mother, father and other family members on TV and they seem like lovely, caring people. 

How lucky they are to have found each other and reunited after all this time!  I wish them a lifetime of happiness together. 

Ken Berwitz

In its apparently neverending quest to put out films meant to thrill and elevate the left, Hollywood has recently given us "Fair Game" and "Casino Jack"

"Fair Game", starring Sean Penn, is a love song to joe wilson and valerie plame, who have spent years assuring us all that they are victims of the right wing.  This claim is based on the premise that plame was "outed" as a covert CIA agent by the Bush administration, after wilson wrote an op-ed in the New York Times claiming that he found no evidence that saddam hussein was trying to buy "yellowcake" uranium in Niger.  (Never mind that richard armitage - no friend of the Bush administration - admitted he was the one who "outed" her, that joe wilson's claim was a lie, and that valerie plame was about as covert as Lady Gaga).

"Casino Jack", starring Kevin Spacey, is the Hollywood version of Jack Abramoff's wheeling and dealing as a lobbyist who, among other things, specialized in getting Indian tribes casino licenses.

These movies have everything Hollywood loves:  Academy-award winning stars and a safely leftward plot line.  Isn't that what the country is clamoring for?  How could either of them possibly fail?

Well, here's how:

-"Fair Game" was released almost a quarter of a year ago (11 weeks).  It has been in as many as 460 theaters nationwide.  And in that time it has managed to amass all of $9 million dollars in domestic gross receipts.  Add another $11 million international, and you still don't even get to the production budget of $22 million.  Factor in all the post-production costs, and that little matter of theaters getting 45% of the receipts (at least domestically), and you have a box office bomb.  A turkey.  A dud with a thud.

-"Casino Jack" was released a little over a month ago (32 days).  Its widest exposure was 60 theaters.  Based, I assume, on its, er, popularity with the public, instead of expanding to more theaters, "Casino Jack" has contracted to just 7 nationwide.  Maybe the fact that its gross receipts are an absolutely disastrous $637,744 - with a production budget of $12.5 million - has something to do with that contraction. 

And it's not like leftward movies that bomb is anything new.  For years, Hollywood put out movies attacking the USA and our troops in Iraq.  "Redacted", "In the Valley of Elah", "Rendition", "Lions for Lambs" -- money losers all.   

My favorite of the bunch is "Redacted", directed by Brian de Palma and bankrolled (I am laughing as I type this) by Mark Cuban, a leftist internet mayven with an ego that rivals Donald Trump, Chris Matthews and Ted Baxter combined.  "Redacted" hauled in a grand total of $782,102 worldwide - almost all of it foreign.  Domestically, this turkey of all turkeys managed to bring home all of $65,388. 

There is a lesson in here somewhere.  One that Hollywood seems utterly incapable of learning.  

Maybe one day it will catch up to the curve.  But, pretty obviously, that day has not yet come.

Ken Berwitz

Excerpted from an article at france24.com:

In a purported audio tape aired on Al Jazeera television on Friday, al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden warned French President Nicolas Sarkozy that his refusal to withdraw troops from Afghanista was a "green light" to kill French hostages.

By FRANCE 24 (text)

 

In a message specifically targeting France, al Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden warned that Paris would pay a “high price” for its policies and that the fate of French hostages would depend on the pullout of French troops from “Muslim lands”, in a purported audiotape broadcast on Arabic news network Al Jazeera on Friday.

Why is osama bin laden still at large?

Didn't then-candidate Barack Obama campaign that then-President Bush was a failure for not going after him effectively and that he should have been captured a long time ago?  Didn't a great many of our wonderful "neutral" media back Mr. Obama up on that charge?

Well, it is now two years into Barack Obama's presidency.  Can you tell me the last time you have read, or heard, anything from those same media demanding answers from Mr. Obama as to why osama bin laden is still out there?  Can you remember that far back?

And, yes, these are the same people who squeal like stuck pigs if you call them biased.

Ken Berwitz

Leslie Gelb, writing for thedailybeast.com, has written an excellent analysis of the US-China summit, which you should read in its entirety.  But this one paragraph sums things up very well:

This U.S.-China summit was a test of the balance of power between the two superpowers. President Barack Obama and President Hu Jintao were well aware of the summit stakes. Obama’s strategy was to push as hard as he could, and he did. He needed Chinese concessions for a successful summit. Hu’s strategy was to resist as hard as he could, and he did, because all he wanted was a summit that did not fail. The Chinese side won this test of wills and power for two reasons. First, they had the easier bargaining position: All they had to do was hold the line, while Washington had to gain concessions. Second, Hu was in a far stronger position overall because China’s economy continues to grow in double digits, while the American economy remains troubled.

I don't know how this could have been said better.

We are in a subordinate position to China.  That is a fact.  And the reason is that our economy, which is what counts to China (and pretty much everyone else), is a basket case. 

So let's tax "the rich" (also known as "the producers" and "the business owners" and "the job creators") some more.  And let's keep spending to run up the debt even more.  Maybe we can try another "stimulus" - which resulted in unemployment going from 8,1% to 10.2%, then settling into the mid-9's, where it is now.  And what a fine time to effectively nationalize health care. 

It seems crystal-clear that the problem is one of philosophy and direction.  Until that is changed, we will remain subordinate to China.

The 2010 elections were a start.  Maybe 2012 will be the dealmaker. 

We can hope, can't we?

Ken Berwitz

Why is the economy sputtering so badly?  And is Barack Obama the man who can do something about it?

These two issues are addressed very well in a Washington Times editorial today, which you can read by clicking here.  But one paragraph, which I am posting below, really does encapsulate one of the root issues beautifully:

Mr. Obama has yet to realize that he is the problem. The president has no demonstrated business sense. He has never been involved with business either personally or professionally and has no idea how wealth is created. His intellectual instincts and career background tell him that government is the solution to all of life's problems, and if the economy is sputtering, it must be because of insufficient federal intervention.

Yes.  Exactly. 

And another equally important issue, which is partially alluded to in the editorial but should be featured more prominently, is that virtually no one in this administration has any background in "the real world". 

Mr. Obama's appointments are vastly more from academia and politics than from the production of goods and services - you know, the place where capitalism is practiced, companies expand only if they are profitable, and there isn't a printing press in the back room spewing out money.

If you want to know why, even with a trillion dollar "stimulus package" we continue to falter and flounder, maybe these are the key reasons.

Ken Berwitz

I just watched about three minutes of Hardball, during which Chris Matthews accused Joe Lieberman of being "a man of the right" - which, to "absolutely nonpartisan" Matthews (his self-definition, not mine I assure you) is about the worst crime you can commit.

For the record, if you go to the invaluable web site, Project Vote Smart, and look at the ratings various leftward and rightward interest groups give Mr. Lieberman, you will find that: .

-The American Conservative Union's most recent rating for Lieberman is 20% - which means he votes the conservative side just one out of every five times.

-By contrast, the liberal/left Americans for Democratic Action gives him a rating of 95%.

-Pro-choice NARAL and Planned Parenthood both rate him 100%.

-The National Taxpayer Union, committed to lower taxes, rates him 10%.

-The NAACP rates him 90%

-The National Educational Association (NEA), which gives letter ratings, rates him an A.

-Labor unions uniformly rate him between 80 and 100

And there is more.  Use the link I've provided and read the ratings for yourself.

That, to the enormously self-impressed Chris Matthews is "a man of the right"?  Maybe he also thinks Fidel Castro is not a man of the left, just a misunderstood centrist.

How said that Matthews has gone from being a useful commentator to a thoroughly partisan, ridiculous blowhard.

Ken Berwitz

For the second time, George Clooney has contracted Malaria while on a humanitarian mission to a horrible place.

Excerpted from Christina Everett's piece in  today's Daily News:

George Clooney's recent humanitarian trip didn't end as smoothly as one would have hoped.

CNN host Piers Morgan took to Twitter on Thursday to say the actor contracted malaria following his recent trip to Sudan. This is said to be Clooney's second bout with the disease.

The actor was "taking medication, but feeling rough," added Morgan.

A rep for the actor confirms the report, telling the Daily News, "George is completely over the malaria he contracted while in the Sudan during the first week in January."

According to Clooney, "This illustrates how with proper medication, the most lethal condition in Africa can be reduced to bad ten days instead of a death sentence."

Clooney was in Sudan in December to work with Google and the UN on a human rights project that combines satellite imagery analysis and field reports to prevent a new war from occurring in the troubled country.

George Clooney and I usually do not see eye to eye when it comes to politics.  But there is no denying that his efforts to make the world a better, healthier, safer place are sincere.  And he puts his own life on the line in the course of pursuing these estimable goals.

I am thrilled that Mr. Clooney is reported to have had a full recovery.  And I hope it doesn't deter him from further humanitarian efforts in the future.  

Ken Berwitz

If ever there was a man who needed to just shut up, it is Walter Dupnik, the sheriff of Pima County, Arizona.  And now, albeit 12 days too late, he has finally done so.

Excerpted from Caroline May's article at dailycaller.com:

The Pima County Sheriff’s Department has gone silent, refusing to give the media further information on the Jan. 8 Giffords assassination attempt that killed six and wounded 14.

 

In a brief yet firm press release, the sheriff’s public information officer, Deputy Jason Ogan, states: “Until further notice, due to a controversy between the Sheriff’s Department and the County Attorney’s office, no further information reference the Jan. 8, 2011 shooting will be released.”

 

Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik has come under fire in recent days for his highly opinionated announcements, which have pointed to conservative talking heads, such as Rush Limbaugh, as a reason for the attack.

 

I don't know why Dupnik is now a shut upnik.  But I would like to think that it is because the county Attorney's office sat him down and said...

"Are you an idiot?  Are you brain dead?  By opening that big fat mouth and blaming the shooting on talk radio and Republican politicians, you gave the guy who did the shooting a ready-made defense.  'Hey, it wasn't my fault.  Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin made me do it.  Just ask the sheriff'

"Because you put your partisan politics and love of notoriety ahead of your professional responsibilities, this guy could wind up spending a couple of years in a mental health facility and then walk out free and clear.

"Why did you do it, Walt?  Is there something wrong with you?  Did your mother drop you on your head as a child?  Several times?  Hard?  You didn't know a thing about jared lee loughner's motives.  You hadn't investigated a thing about the case.  But you were giving your opinion to anyone with a microphone. 

I will give you this much:  If you intended to eff things up completely, all I can say is 'mission accomplished'. 

"Since you've managed to get us into this situation, and screwed everything up royally, can you, just maybe, put a sock in it until you actually do conduct the investigation and know what the hell you're talking about? 

In case you're unfamiliar with the word, it is I-N-V-E-S-T-I-G-A-T-I-O-N.  Try to become acquainted with it before your term as sheriff runs out

"Until then, I have a request of you.  One simple, basic request.  Will you finally, at long last, stop shooting off at the mouth?  You will?  Gee, thanks Walt.  Now have your public information officer issue a statement.  And, for god sake, don't take any questions"

Ken Berwitz

I was just emailed an excellent column by Andrew Cline of American Spectator, regarding the Arizona shootings.

I will post the first part below.  Click here to read it all:

A member of Congress is shot by a lunatic gunman, and all of a sudden you can't say "crosshairs" on CNN. Not to make light of a tragedy, but had Rep. Giffords been hit in the face with a whipped cream pie, would the Food Network have to go off the air?

What the Tucson shootings reveal about our political culture is its gross opportunism, not its violent imagery. Six people died in an attack on a freely elected member of our republican government, and the left decided that the appropriate response was to rip the nation apart by blaming the tragedy on the right in general and Sarah Palin in particular.

The gravity of the situation on that awful Saturday was perfectly obvious. This nation survives because we check our guns at the ballot box. We have agreed to settle our political disagreements with felt-tip pens and touch screen machines, not weaponry. Giffords' shooting raised the specter of that agreement unraveling. This wasn't a presidential assassination, an assault on the human symbol of American power. It was a hit on a rank-and-file representative, her staff, and her constituents. The target could have been any one of us. If this were the tip of a domestic political movement, it could, conceivably, portend civil war.

Yet with this raw national wound still fresh, the left reached for the biggest bag of salt it could find. Civility? It was nowhere to be found among the chorus of "progressives" shrieking, "Sarah Palin did it!" And when they were proven wrong -- when it was revealed that the suspected shooter never watched political TV, never listened to talk radio, and was a mentally disturbed loner with no detectable political ideology -- they fell silent without apology. Except for the ones who continue to debase themselves by brazenly, shamelessly spreading the lie.

The only apology America got was from CNN anchor John King, who semi-apologized this week for a guest's use of the term "crosshairs" in a political context. "We're trying, we're trying to get away from that language," King said. Why?

King's own CNN reported a week earlier (on Jan. 11), "There's no evidence the heated political environment played any role in the shooting spree that left Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in critical condition and killed six others…"

If CNN itself reported that there is no link between political rhetoric and the shooting, then why would CNN avoid using generic military terminology when discussing politics?

Thank you, Andrew, for this intelligent, logical analysis.  Would that others - a lot of others - were able to see things as clearly.

Ken Berwitz

Is there a more inept man in congress than Harry Reid?  How can we have a senate majority leader who makes us cringe every time he opens his mouth?

President Obama is hosting China's "President" (as if there were a free election of some kind) Hu Jintau.  And, because China buys our debt he is already at an extreme disadvantage - "hat in hand" as the cliché goes.

So what does hapless Harry Reid say about Jintau at this crucial moment?

 “I am going to go back to Washington and meet with the President of China. He is a dictator. He can do a lot of things through the form of government they have. Maybe I shouldn’t have said dictator, but they have a different type of government then we have, and that is an understatement”

Unebelievable.  Make that triple unbelievable.

Look, I am not challenging the accuracy of the description.  There is no doubt that Hu Jintau is a dictator.  That is not the point.

The point is that Jintau is here specifically for the purpose of working with us on issues of state, and to attack the man at this time, in this way, can have no result except damaging the negotiations, maybe stopping them in their tracks.

Illustratively, Vladimir Putin (not Valerie:  thanks Zeke) is a balding, sour-looking man who made a fool of himself by trying to sing an American pop song, "Blueberry Hill", in English last month.  If he came here to discuss the relationship between Russia and the USA would it help things for Reid to characterize him that way? 

And maybe the next time Saudi Arabia's head of state comes to town Reid can say that his robes and headdress make him look like something out of the 10th century - then see what that does for the Middle East oil situation.

Let me end by noting that, last November, Nevadans again inflicted Hapless Harry on us, and that Democrats have again made sure that he is the voice of the senate.  Great job guys.

Oh, and a special mention to Nevada Republicans who, in the senate primary, rejected Sue Lowden and Danny Tarkanian, either of whom would almost certainly have defeated Reid, in favor of Sharron Angle.  This is just as much your fault as theirs.

Ken Berwitz

Last night I put up a blog about how vicious and personally insulting Chris Matthews was on Hardball.  I cited his dishonest, offensive characterization of Michele Bachmann, noted that there was more incivility later on in the show, and promised to watch again so I could accurately report on it.

I don't want to go too much further with this because a) Matthews has sunk so low he is less and less worth talking about at all, b) his show is, and always has been very low rated so not that many people even care and c) since in recent times he has become something of a keith olbermann wannabe when it comes to viciously offensive commentary, there is so much of it that individual examples don't really mean that much.

But, because I promised, I'll give you one more.

First the setup:  After showing footage of an interview with Dick Cheney in which he mentioned possible Republican presidential candidates, Matthews smirked out that Cheney didn't mention Sarah Palin, as if that meant he was running from her.  I don't know what Cheney's opinion of Palin is, but a) he didn't mention Mitt Romney either, and when the interviewer asked about Romney specifically Cheney said he liked him very much as a candidate, and b) Cheney made a point of saying there were others and apologizing for not mentioning them all by name.

Using Matthews' "logic", therefore, Cheney must be against Mitt Romney as a candidate, even though he says he likes him very much as one.  Why?  Because, as with Sarah Palin, he did not specifically mention Romney by name.   In other words, Matthews’ “logic” is ridiculous.

Then there was a panel discussion between Matthews, leftward Mark Halperin of Time magazine and leftward Joan Walsh of Salon (now there's diversity for you). 

The first thing Matthews asked Walsh was whether Sarah Palin had become "a scarecrow", scaring people away from the right's terrain.  Lovely. 

But that wasn't insulting enough for Matthews.  So, with that smirk which is more and more his signature expression, he made sure to add in that he would have called her a dodo bird...but that would be too mean. 

Got it?  It was too mean to say, so he found a way to say it anyway.  

Once upon a time I respected Chris Matthews as a very smart, very glib guy who could turn a phrase with the best of them. 

But that was then.  Now, sadly, Chris Matthews acts as though he is in a contest to become the single most impossible jerk on cable news.  And he's gaining ground just about every day.

Ken Berwitz

I am a New Jersey Nets fan.

For months I have been treated to (bombarded with is more like it) the daily ups and downs of a supposed trade that the Nets would be making for the Denver Nuggets' terrific scorer (but not a lot else) named Carmelo Anthony.  The Nets were far and away the best team to trade Anthony to, because they have the players, and draft picks, that would make the most sense for Denver. 

But Denver demanded more and more, and Anthony clearly didn't want to go to the Nets, so it dragged on.  And on.  And on.

About the 20th time I read or heard a story that Anthony either was or was not interested in being a Net and this player or that player would or would not be included in a deal for him, I lost interest. 

And that was about 1000 stories ago. 

Yesterday Net owner Mikhail Prokhorov called off this farce.  As reported at www.espn.com:

Russian owner Mikhail Prokhorov delivered the bombshell to the media on Wednesday night as he made his opening statement after traveling to the United States for what he thought would be a chance to finish the deal to bring Carmelo Anthony to the Nets from the Denver Nuggets.

"I'm not happy with the way ... this deal has gone until now," Prokhorov said. "It has taken too long. It has been played out in public and it certainly has taken a toll on the players and I believe that it has cost us several games. I think management did a great job, but there comes a time when the price is simply too expensive. I'm instructing our team to walk away from the deal."

Good.

Let the Nuggets compile their mediocre record with Anthony and then watch him leave for free agency, which means they get nothing for him.  Or, let them concoct a trade, with a team that could not offer them close to what the Nets had on the table. 

Meanwhile, the Nets will keep their starting point guard, their #1 draft pick from last year, and all the draft picks they would have handed over to Denver for Carmelo Anthony.  They can use these assets to build a young team, or to trade for one or more alternative NBA players; players who just might actually want to play on the Nets.  Either way, they have nowhere to go but up.

No thanks, Denver.  Keep the unwilling Mr. Anthony.  As they say in poker, we'll play these.

Ken Berwitz

I was simultaneously on the phone and channel surfing during the time I watched bits and pieces of Chris Matthews' Hardball show tonight.  So I can't do it justice in this blog.

But I am DVD'ing a repeat of the show which airs early tomorrow morning, so I can report about what an unbelievably vicious, nasty, personally insulting pigfest he put on. 

How dare Matthews talk about civility when his mouth is filled with that much undiluted venom.

More on this at some point tomorrow, after I can shuffle through the entire show.

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

UPDATE:  I don't even have to wait for the DVD.  Matthews was so disgusting that Geoffrey Dickens of newsbusters.org already has put up a blog about it.  Here is a transcript of  just one tiny portion, during which Matthews provides his wit and wisdom about Michele Bachmann.

First a clip of Bachmann speaking on the house floor:

REP. MICHELE BACHMANN: This is not symbolic. This is why we were sent here, and we will not stop until we repeal a president and put a president in the position of the White House who will repeal this bill, until we repeal the current Senate, put in a Senate that will listen to the American people and repeal this bill.

Then Matthews' comment about what she said, while interviewing Rep. Bobby Schilling:

MATTHEWS: Is that the use of the - I've never seen the floor used like this. I mean I worked on the Hill, you're a member, elected member. I've never seen politicians come on and say their purpose in life is to say their purpose is to end someone's political career. To defeat another politician. Isn't there any minimal, minimal civility left? That somebody like Bachmann - well first of all she's there. She was elected. Nobody can do anything about that. But there she is saying her purpose in life, right now, is to eliminate a presidency. Do you think that's good politics? To just talk like that?

Finally, another Matthews comment about Bachmann, to that noted paradigm of civility, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz:

MATTHEWS: This is more in the question area of tone and what happened with your friend, Congresswoman Giffords, and she's still recovering and we're praying for her to make it, and she's been showing good signs. Let me ask you this. This kind of talk from Michele Bachmann. I don't know why she's allowed to be an extremist, and everybody is coaxing on the Right, Republicans saying the President should move to the center and be reasonable and moderate, where she's allowed to be out there as a screamer, and in many cases pretty close to a nut case. This kind of talk. She's standing on the floor of the House, her job is to enact legislation, and yet there she is standing there saying her goal in life is to eliminate a presidency. That's how she talks? Is that what you do on the floor of the Congress now? You talk about eliminating somebody else's political career? I thought there was some deference about these things.

So we have Ms. Bachmann saying - not screaming, that was a Matthews lie - that she and her counterparts will not stop until they "repeal" President Obama and the Democrat majority senate.  In other words, she would like to see Republicans in charge who, she thinks, more closely represent what the American people want. 

This is a problem?  To who?  Well, to Chris Matthews. 

In Matthews' world, this is beneath even minimal civility, she's an extremist, she's a screamer (that lie again) and pretty close to a nut case.

There, folks, is civility; Chris Matthews-style and, more generally MSNBC-style.

God only knows what Schultz and olbermann and the rest of those civil hosts at MSNBC are saying.  I guess we'll find out tomorrow.

Ken Berwitz

If you still think that Sarah Palin's depiction of "crosshairs" in a campaign map last year incited jared lee loughren to open fire in Arizona, you're probably beyond hope. 

But, on the theory that most people either have never bought into this idioticum, or initially thought it might be true but now are having second thoughts, here is some more ammunition for you.

The following, compiled by The Washington Examiner's Byron York for his latest column, all came from CNN within the past 6 weeks:

-"Palin's moose-hunting episode on her reality show enraged People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, and now, she's square in the crosshairs of big time Hollywood producer, Aaron Sorkin," reported A.J. Hammer of CNN's Headline News on December 8.

-"Companies like MasterCard are in the crosshairs for cutting ties with WikiLeaks," said CNN Kiran Chetry in a December 9 report.

-"Thousands of people living in areas that are in the crosshairs have been told to evacuate," Chetry said in a December 21 report on flooding in California.

-"He's in their crosshairs," said a guest in a December 21 CNN discussion of suspects in a missing-person case.

-"This will be the first time your food will be actually in the crosshairs of the FDA," business reporter Christine Romans said on December 22.

-"The U.S. commander in the East has Haqqani in his crosshairs," CNN's Barbara Starr reported on December 28, referring to an Afghan warlord.

-"We know that health care reform is in the crosshairs again," CNN's Joe Johns reported on January 3.

Let me say it again:  Th term "crosshairs" was nothing with nothing before the media decided to pin jared lee loughren's shooting spree on Sarah Palin.  And, in a few months, it will be nothing with nothing again. 

But, for the moment, media have to pretend "crosshairs" is terrible -- because it is part of the phony meme they concocted to attack Sarah Palin and they're stuck with it.

How pathetic.

Ken Berwitz

The following was said on the house floor today, during a debate on repealing ObamaCare (click on this link to hear it for yourself):

“They say it’s a government takeover of health care.  A big lie, just like Goebbels.  You say it enough, you repeat the lie, you repeat the lie, you repeat the lie, and eventually, people believe it. Like blood libel. That's the same kind of thing.  The Germans said enough about the Jews and the people believed it and you had the Holocaust”

This disgusting statement not only invokes the term "blood libel", but compares house members who consider ObamaCare a government takeover to nazis. 

The "man" who spoke those words?  Steve Cohen, the far left Democrat house member from Memphis, Tennessee. 

I will wait for our wonderful "neutral" media to take Cohen apart the way they took Palin apart.

But, based on media's track record, I think I better bring a sleeping bag, and lots of food.  Like enough for eternity............

Ken Berwitz

With ObamaCare kicking in, Reuters conducted a survey of almost 3000 doctors across the 50 states, to see what kind of affect they expected it to have. 

You can read the entire survey by clicking here.  But I'd like to show you a few highlights:

-When asked for an overall evaluation, 18% said health care would improve, 17% said it would stay the same and 65% - that's almost two thirds - said it would deteriorate.  Among those who feel it will change one way or the other, 78% say it will deteriorate to 22% who think it will improve.   Not good.

-About three quarters (74%) feel it will make their reimbursements unfair --- which, logically, will drive older doctors out of practice and inhibit younger people from going into medicine.  Not good.

-Regarding how patients will make out, 57% say there will be a negative impact, 27% say positive and 15% say no change.  Not good.

Assuming these findings accurately reflect the medical profession, doctors are obviously very negative toward ObamaCare.  As are patients, since most polls (unless they play with the wording to get a different result) favor repeal.

Maybe that's why a majority of states (as of yesterday it was 26 out of 50) are suing the federal government to stop ObamaCare in its tracks. 

One last point, which bears directly on the political dynamic of this issue:  Which population segments do you think are most likely to buck this trend and support ObamaCare?  Is it not logical that the group would be comprised disproportionately of leftists and people who expect to get free or almost-free health care on the backs of everyone else? 

If this is true (and how could it not be?), there is virtually no political downside for Republicans to stick with their opposition to ObamaCare.  The vast majority of people who oppose their position will never vote for them anyway. 

By contrast, Democrats up for re-election next year - unless they are in eminently safe districts/states - are going to have to think long and hard about how many votes will be lost if they support ObamaCare, won't they?

Keep your eyes on this issue.  And don't expect it to go away any time soon.

Ken Berwitz

Brent Bozell has written a superb column detailing how the same media which spent over a week inventing non-existent ways that Sarah Palin was responsible for jared lee loughner shooting Gabrielle Giffords and other Arizonans, then virtually buried an overt threat against a Tea Party member by one of loughner's victims (who, in reality, was only slightly injured).

You can - and should - read Mr. Bozell's entire column by clicking here, but I will show you just a few excerpts below:

One of Jared Loughner's shooting victims was a local leftist activist, James Eric Fuller, who last week was invited to ABC's taping of "An American Conversation." There, in front of all the cameras, he interrupted a local tea party activist by uttering what should be considered in this atmosphere to be a blood-curdling threat: "You're dead!" Police considered these words serious enough to have him removed and involuntarily committed to a mental institution.

The very same media outlets that had spent seven days pounding conservatives with no evidence didn't find this threat worth more than a perfunctory mention, an asterisk. The same people who turned the words "You lie!" from Rep. Joe Wilson to Obama into a week-long scandal for conservatives now heard a man proclaim "You're dead!" to a tea party activist at a national news taping -- and they yawned.

So let's look at the coverage. The first responsibility to report this was ABC's, since they invited this crank to their special episode of "This Week" with Christiane Amanpour. ABC did a big story previewing their "healing" event on "World News Saturday." At first, they pretended that no one made a death threat, and no one was dragged away by police. Anchor David Muir, who co-hosted the town hall meeting, declared, "Wasn't it something to see this community together? ... They want consensus." Amanpour agreed: "Today we saw them wanting to carry on an honest dialogue ... but a reasonable and rational one."

Just after that delusional dual act of self-congratulation, Muir reported the opposite. In "another note tonight," he reported, "James Fuller, who was shot twice last week, took offense at what another audience member was saying, and mumbled what seemed to be a threat."

At least CBS let Humphries explain it the next night: "He booed me while I was talking, you know, very loudly. He turned around, and then he took a picture of me and said that 'You're dead.'"

ABC mentioned Fuller's outburst on Sunday's "Good Morning America" and "World News," but only in passing. CBS aired just a snippet on Sunday night. NBC hasn't mentioned it...

And, yes, these are the same people who squeal like stuck pigs if you call them biased.

How can anyone believe a word they say?

Ken Berwitz

neil abercrombie, the left wing tool and virulently anti-Israel dipstick (that's the diplomatic way of putting it), was elected Governor of Hawaii, and took office last month.

Almost immediately, he went public with an unasked-for quest to "prove" that Barack Obama was born in Hawaii.  The 72 year old abercrombie stated that he knew Barack Obama's parents, that he knew Barack Obama himself "from the time he was born" (a claim that he has since more or less retracted) and promised to find a way of showing the original long-form birth certificate, which would "prove" all the doubters wrong.

At that time I, and others, questioned the logic behind abercrombie's out-of-nowhere promise to prove Mr. Obama's birth status.  I found it utterly inexplicable, given that a) few people are interested in the issue anymore and b) other than a small number of conservative individuals and groups, no one is pursuing it.  Whether rightly or wrongly, Mr. Obama is President, period.  I asked why abercrombie would open such a pandora's box.

Evidently some pretty important Democrats were asking the same question.  Because all of a sudden he was not talking about it.  Not one word.  And - not surprisingly - our wonderful "neutral" media, in their unending state of complicity, were not asking why someone so eager to make this a front burner topic had summarily clammed up about it.

Now, a month later, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser's political columnist, Richard Borreca, conducted an interview with abercrombie.  And he asked him about the birth certificate issue:

Q: You stirred up quite a controversy with your comments regarding birthers and your plans to release more information regarding President Barack Obama's birth certificate. How is that coming?

A: I got a letter from someone the other day who was genuinely concerned about it; it is not all just political agenda. They were talking on Olelo last night about this; it has a political implication for 2012 that we simply cannot have.

(Abercrombie said there is a recording of the birth in the State Archives and he wants to use that.)

It was actually written I am told, this is what our investigation is showing, it actually exists in the archives, written down ...

...What I can do, and all I have ever said, is that I am going to see to it as governor that I can verify to anyone who is honest about it that this is the case.

If there is a political agenda then there is nothing I can do about that, nor can the president.

Forgetting the fact that abercrombie is lying about what he said last month, can you even figure out what his new story means?  Is this as indecipherable a pile of BS to you as it is to me?

Bottom line:  not only has abercrombie forced the birth certificate issue right back to the front burner, but he now is backtracking in a way that might (and should) make reasonable people suspect that he has either been advised, or seen with his own eyes, that the birth certificate presents a major problem to Barack Obama.

I'm going to try being kind here, and reject the urge to call neil abercrombie a lying moron.  I will, instead, try to find a nicer way of communicating how I feel about him.  

Give me a few decades to come up with one.

Ken Berwitz

www.townhall.com has put together a group of political cartoons from today and years past.  There are quite a few of them, some of which I like, some of which I don't. 

Here are a few that you might be interested in.

Chip Bok

Ken Berwitz

On January 3 I blogged about the Chicago Mayoral Minefield, and how it would inevitably be a race-based campaign.  Here are a couple of excerpts:

Is this going to be a racially tinged campaign?  Given the fact that, for overtly race-based reasons (read the excerpt below) a slew of major Black politicians have immediately come to her side, it is hard to imagine anything but.

And does this have the potential to create major racial tensions in Chicago?  The answer is eminently obvious.  Excerpted from an article in today's Chicago Tribune:

"The realities are that when our community comes together, as the song says, ain't no stopping us now," said Davis, who quit the race on New Year's Eve, just days after saying he was in it to win.

Given that there are also a number of lesser candidates, it is doubtful that either of these two can get the 50% or more of the vote necessary to win outright.  The greatest likelihood is that there will be a runoff between Mr. Emanuel and Ms. Moseley Braun.

So let the games begin.  Let's have the three-ring circus of a Black President's White (and Jewish) former chief of staff being opposed by a Black former U.S. Senator with the preponderance of Black support behind her -- in the city of jeremiah wright and louis farrakhan.

And who will Barack Obama support??????  That is a helluva question, isn't it?

Was I right about this?  Well, read the following excerpt from an article in today's Chicago Tribune and decide for yourself:

Mayoral candidate Carol Moseley Braun this morning sharply attacked former President Bill Clinton's endorsement of Rahm Emanuel, calling it "a betrayal to the people who were most loyal to him."

"President Bill Clinton does not live or vote in Chicago," said a statement issued by her campaign. "He's an outsider parachuting in to support another outsider.  For him to come on the day following Dr. Martin Luther King's birthday to insert himself in the middle of a mayoral race, when the majority of the population and mayoral candidates are African American and Latino, is a betrayal of the people who were most loyal to him.  It's a mistake."

Her comments echoed earlier remarks by Rep. Danny Davis, a former mayoral candidate, who had contended Clinton risked jeopardizing his standing with the African-American community by endorsing Emanuel, who at one time was a senior adviser to Clinton.

Translation:  If Bill Clinton endorses Rahm Emanuel for Mayor, it is an affront to Black and Latino people, because he should only support someone who is Black or Latino, and to support a White, Jewish candidate is a betrayal of Blacks and Latinos (presumably because a White Jew will not represent them properly). 

That racial enough for you?  That racist enough for you?

Suppose the colors were reversed.  Suppose that a White Jewish candidate issued a statement saying that the endorsement of a Black or Latino betrayed White people.  The howls from media would be immediate and deafening.  That candidate would be out of the race by dinnertime.  And would deserve to be. 

But don't expect any serious retraction from Ms. Moseley Braun.  You might - might - hear a partial one (something along the lines that she should have worded it differently) but the message embodied in that statement will remain intact.

And don't expect any major condemnation of Moseley Braun's overt racism on the network news or any of the MSNBC shows tonight, or in the New York Times or on the network morning shows tomorrow.  The most you'll get - if anything at all - is a partial disclaimer about the wording being inappropriate.  That's it.  For all too many of these hypocrites, anti-racist fervor is reserved only for Whites and/or conservatives.

I'll continue to keep an eye on the Chicago Mayoral race.  Because, as ugly as this is, it is bound to get even uglier.

And I'm still waiting to find out who, if anyone, President Obama will endorse.

Ken Berwitz

In olden days a petard was a small explosive.  To be "hoist by your own petard" meant that it exploded while you were planting it and you literally were hoisted in the air (probably without as many body parts as you started with).

Today, the term "hoist by your own petard" is a bit more figurative, and means that you are busted; but by a situation of your own making, so you have no one to blame but yourself.

With that in mind read this little bit of transcript from John King's show on CNN:

"Before we go to break, I want to make a quick point. We were having a discussion about the Chicago mayoral race. My friend Andy Shaw used the term 'in the crosshairs' in talking about the candidates. We're trying, we're trying to get away from that language. Andy is a good friend, he's covered politics for a long time, but we're trying to get away from that kind of language."

A point of order, John (I will call King by his first name because we met, albeit briefly, at CNN headquarters a few years ago):  If CNN and the rest of its kindred media spirits had not made a huge deal out of Sarah Palin's map of congressional districts with "crosshairs" on it, you would not have had to be apologizing for Andy Shaw's perfectly acceptable language. 

Nobody gave a rat's rear about use of the term "crosshairs" - or, for that matter, "targeting", "in the line of fire", "war room" or any other such expression -  until a week and a half ago, when our wonderful "neutral" media decided to concoct a connection between Sarah Palin's map and the Arizona shooter, jared lee loughner.  If you guys had not pulled this phony connection out of your collective rear ends, there would be nothing to apologize for.

But since media have created a climate of intolerance for such metaphors out of whole cloth, they are stuck with the consequences.  So John King has to apologize for Andy Shaw saying something that would have been just fine two weeks ago, and will be just fine again in a few months when the BS attack on Ms.Palin dies down.

Enjoy the hoist, John.  You and your pals have a helluva petard to work with.

Ken Berwitz

Here are the first two paragraphs of Chris Matthews' article in today's Washington Post:

A vigorous debate over the role of government is always at the heart of our democracy. Since the shootings in Arizona, however, many have said that our partisan ferocity is unhealthy.

So it seems like a good time to reflect on Ronald Reagan and Tip O'Neill. It would serve us well to understand how these very different politicians managed to temper their philosophical divide with a public, and sometimes personal, cordiality.

And here is Jonah Goldberg of National Review making Matthews look absolutely ridiculous:

Matthews seems to forget or gloss over the fact that the “tone” of public discourse in the 1980s was just as bad as today.  For example, here’s a public comment from O’Neill about Reagan that seems not to be in Matthews’s archive:  “The evil is in the White House at the present time.  And that evil is a man who has no care and no concern for the working class of America and the future generations of America, and who likes to ride a horse. He’s cold.  He’s mean. He’s got ice water for blood.”

That’s just a warm up. Democratic Congressman William Clay of Missouri charged that Reagan was “trying to replace the Bill of Rights with fascist precepts lifted verbatim from Mein Kampf.”  Who can forget the desperate Jimmy Carter charging that Reagan was engaging in “stirrings of hate” in the 1980s campaign.  Los Angeles Times cartoonist Paul Conrad drew a panel depicting Reagan plotting a fascist putsch in a darkened Munich beer hall.   Harry Stein (nowadays a conservative convert) wrote in Esquire that the voters who supported Reagan were like the “good Germans” in “Hitler’s Germany.”  In The Nation, Alan Wolfe wrote: “[T]he United States has embarked on a course so deeply reactionary, so negative and mean-spirited, so chauvinistic and self-deceptive that our times may soon rival the McCarthy era.”

There are some people in this world who, if given a chance to talk smart, or long and loud, talk long and loud every time.

Matthews did not used to be one of them.  But he is now.

Pathetic.

Ken Berwitz

Sargent Shriver, the first Director of the Peace Corps under John F. Kennedy and eventually the key social-policy mover and shaker for President Lyndon Johnson, died today at the age of 95.  He had been in ill health for some time and, sadly, was a victim of Alzheimer's disease.

Apart from the Peace Corps, Mr. Shriver was probably best known as a brother in law of JFK and RFK - and eventually the father in law of California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.  But that is terribly unfair. 

Mr. Shriver served the USA honorably in WWII and was a very successful businessman as well.  In his public life, Shriver was a major force for racial fairness and equality - a real one, not a just-for-show political one. 

On a less elevated note, Mr. Shriver became George McGovern's Vice Presidential nominee in 1972, after Sen. Thomas Eagleton had to drop out and a number of others refused the "honor".  The McGovern/Shriver ticket lost 49 of 50 states to Richard Nixon/Agnew (but they did have the last laugh, didn't they?). 

People this sincere, capable and productive do not come along very often.  We should celebrate their existence and mourn their passing - as I do with Sargent Shriver. 

May he rest in peace.

Ken Berwitz

Robert Bentley is the new Governor of Alabama.  And he has managed to make an intolerant fool of himself already.

Excerpted from an article by David White at al.com:

MONTGOMERY -- Gov.-elect Robert Bentley in a speech at a Baptist church this afternoon said he plans to be the governor of all Alabamians and be color-blind, but he also said people who aren't ''saved" Christians aren't his brothers and sisters.
   
  Bentley told a big crowd at Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church, where the late civil rights leader Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. once was pastor, that he believed it was important for Alabamians ''that we love and care for each other."
   
  ''I was elected as a Republican candidate. But once I became governor ... I became the governor of all the people. I intend to live up to that. I am color blind," Bentley said in a short speech given about an hour after he took the oath of office as governor.
   
  Then Bentley, who for years has been a deacon at First Baptist Church in Tuscaloosa, gave what sounded like an altar call.
   
  "There may be some people here today who do not have living within them the Holy Spirit," Bentley said. ''But if you have been adopted in God's family like I have, and like you have if you're a Christian and if you're saved, and the Holy Spirit lives within you just like the Holy Spirit lives within me, then you know what that makes? It makes you and me brothers. And it makes you and me brother and sister."
   
  Bentley added, ''Now I will have to say that, if we don't have the same daddy, we're not brothers and sisters. So anybody here today who has not accepted Jesus Christ as their savior, I'm telling you, you're not my brother and you're not my sister, and I want to be your brother."

Brilliant.  Just brilliant.

Bentley is the elected Republican Governor of the state, so he's the Governor of all the people and they're all his brothers and sisters -- except, of course, if they do not share his religious beliefs, in which case they are not part of the family.  Outcasts.  But, presumably, if they would just convert to his religion and believe what he believes, they can be his brother and sister that second.

How lucky for the non-Christians of Alabama!!!

Tell you what:  I'm not converting to Robert Bentley's religion.  Even if I decide to move to Alabama.

I already have a brother and sister.  I love them both.  But if I wanted another brother, about the last one I would pick is an intolerant jerk who doesn't know how to separate his personal beliefs from his public pronouncements as a state Governor.

In the old-country language of my religion we have a couple of words for people like Bentley.  "Schmuck" and "putz" come to mind.  But as a proud American, I think I'll just stick with the more domestically traditional "asshole".

Ken Berwitz

This is for the geniuses - very especially among Democrat officeholders and campaign operatives - who still attack Sarah Palin for her congressional map with opponents in crosshairs, as if she invented the genre:

It is directly from the Democratic Leadership Conference (DLC) "Blueprint Magazine", December 13, 2004:

The heartland strategy begins by choosing likely targets for Democratic gains. Let's go to the map:

Likely Targets?

Behind enemy lines?

Ripe Targets?

Tell me again about Sarah Palin........

Ken Berwitz

Isn't it enough that President Obama has given the Chinese an opportunity to lend us additional trillions of dollars?  Isn't it enough that he is honoring Chinese communist leader Hu Jintao with a lavish, damn-the-cost dinner?  Does he have to bow to him as well?

Lavish is bad enough.  Does HE have to be slavish too?

Will our wonderful "neutral" media criticize him for being so obsequious?  Will the Congressional Black Caucus call him an Uncle Tom?

Yeah, sure.  Count on it.

Ken Berwitz

Nobody knows what specific issues will define the 2012 election.  Nobody knows what will happen between now and then and how it will move the political debate.

But, as things now stand, it seems to me that two concepts of fiscal responsibility simultaneously being tried right now - one in New Jersey and the other in Illinois - may be a significant - maybe even the single most significant - campaign issue at that time.

Here are the particulars, which come to us via the first part of an excellent article by Jon Ward at dailycaller.com:

State governments are beginning to choose one of two directions to dig out of deep budget deficits, and the resulting clash of visions between raising taxes or cutting spending has some conservatives salivating at the contrast between liberal and conservative philosophies of how to create economic growth.

 

“The test has been run many times. Texas is growing, California and [New York] are shrinking. How many times do we need to get liberals to recognize that jobs and industry goes to low tax environments?” said Allan Meltzer, a leading free market economist at Carnegie Mellon University. “Why do you think the South boomed while the North declined?”

 

Now it is Illinois that is raising taxes and New Jersey that is in the midst of a tough multi-year austerity plan, which has gained Republican Governor Chris Christie acclaim from conservatives across the country.

 

“I don’t think there’s a national figure that I’ve looked at since Ronald Reagan and said, ‘You know what? That’s the type of leader I want,’” said Joe Scarborough, host of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” last week.

 

Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn, a Democrat, has become the face of the liberal approach, signing a 66 percent income tax increase into law on Thursday.

Notably, Governor Christie put his positions right out in front of New Jerseyans and argued them in the public arena.  By contrast, Governor Quinn, utilizing his Democratic majority in the state senate, passed the 67% income tax increase in the dead of night, with virtually no debate and virtually no time for the public to react.  It was done before they knew what hit them.

Why do you suppose Governor Quinn did this?  Because he thought the people of Illinois would like more taxes? 

Well, the voters have two years to see whether Governor Christie's attack on New Jersey's impossibly bloated budget is more, or less, successful than Governor Quinn's move to fund continued spending by taxing already-overtaxed Illinoisans even more. 

Want to take bets on this one?

Ken Berwitz

CNN released a new poll yesterday, in which 59% of the sample feels Sarah Palin bears little or no responsibility for the Arizona shootings, and 35% feels she should be blamed.

Assuming the data are accurate, I have a mixed reaction to these findings.

On the one hand, I am elated that, after a relentless week-plus of being told that Sarah Palin all but pulled the trigger -preceded by two and a half years of relentlessly negative, often flat-out hateful "reporting" about her - most people are not buying this absolute BS. 

It is a measure of how little regard our wonderful "neutral" media are now held in that so many of us see right through it - and a major-league wakeup call to the media that they are destroying themselves more effectively than any of their enemies could.

But, on the other hand, 35% of the public does buy in.  Even though the only "evidence" media can come up with is a year old political map showing crosshair targets on 20 congressional districts, one of which is Ms. Giffords'. 

How sad.  What gullibility.

Even sadder is the fact that media have worked so diligently to bury two major facts that debunk this theme:

-Although loughner’s deranged lunacy seems clearly to be the main reason for his actions, his facebook ravings and the comments about him from friends and acquaintances, make it clear that what political beliefs he did have were leftward, not rightward.  I doubt you will find many 9/11 “truthers” and lovers of The Communist Manifesto” among Sarah Palin supporters or Tea Party adherents;

-And, according to the Washington Post (which printed this story last week and then ignored it just like the rest of their media pals), loughner’s youtube list had one song and one song only:  “Bodies”, by a group called “Drowning Pool”.  

Click here for the video and you will immediately understand why this depraved, sick garbage would have had 1000 times more impact on loughner than some obscure political map from Sarah Palin – a map there is no evidence that he ever saw from a person there is no evidence he had any interest in.

I have one question for the 35% who are being led by the nose:  If Sarah Palin’s political map was what caused loughner to shoot, and Gabrielle Giffords was the only person there who was on that map, why didn’t he stop shooting after hitting her, or continue shooting Giffords only?  Why did he then turn the gun on everyone around her, including a 9 year old child?

I’ll wait for an answer…..

Ken Berwitz

Sorry for not blogging yesterday....

....but not really, since the day was spent with our son, daughter in law and spectacularly terrific grandchildren. 

To us, nothing takes precedence over family,  And I hope you can say the same.

Ken Berwitz

After a week of intensely condemnatory features on TV and in the press, about how "heated rhetoric" from conservative radio and TV hosts somehow caused jared lee loughner to open fire in Arizona, I thought you might be interested in the comments of two left wing radio "personalities" which these same media somehow overlooked.

They come to us from Brian Maloney, at radioequalizer.blogspot.com:

MIKE MALLOY (Thursday 13 Jan 2011 - Hour One - 02:55): Every time one of these right-wing weasels uh uses me - and my twenty-five cent radio program - it's just amazing! You guys really have to reach! - see, I provide cover for everybody else on the liberal left. Um, but every time it happens, it's usually the same clowns, most of whom - most of whom had their email addys blocked - but it's so much fun to read the vile hatred of these Christian white males. Every single one is a Christian white male.

MALLOY (07:44): Rush Limbaugh, straight shooter. Way to go, pig man! Way to go! Choke on your neck fat, you rancid, filthy right-wing freak! Straight shooter, mmm-hmmm!


RANDI RHODES (33:04): She's become Ann Coulter without the androgyny! OH - Sarah Palin is the female Ann Coulter! Yes! Yes! Yes! Can't she just go kill a caribou or something? I mean, you know, take Ted Nugent and kill things! Animals!

RHODES (34:47): So Glenn Beck has now become Sesame Street for potential assassins! 

At the end of his blog, Brian asks whether anyone has heard anything similar to this on the right - like wishing a liberal chokes to death, for example.  I have not, and I'll bet body parts that you haven't either.

But our wonderful "neutral" media, which virtually ignores the love jared lee loughner has for the song "Bodies" by Drowning Pool, (the one song he put on his youtube list) and, instead, obsesses on the utterly ridiculous premise that loughner was influenced by Sarah Palin's map of contested congressional districts, ignores this too.

Their dishonesty would be breathtaking .... if it weren't so typical.

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

Ken Berwitz

Ron Reagan is the son of President Ronald Reagan.  He has carved out a very modest, marginal niche as a political commentator - based, it would seem, almost entirely on his father's name.

Michael Reagan is the son of President Ronald Reagan.  He is a highly successful talk show host and columnist.

Ron Reagan wrote (I assume he did the writing) a book about his father.  It is doubtful many people would buy such a book unless it had some shocking revelation. 

Well, Ron gave them one.  He is claiming - 22 years after the fact - that, in his opinion, dad had the beginnings of Alzheimer's toward the end of his presidency.  I suppose this medical insight comes from his extensive schooling in....er, ballet dancing.

Anyway, brother Michael is not happy with what brother Ron wrote.  And here, via an excerpt from James Hohmann's article at politico.com, is how he has expressed his unhappiness:

Ronald Reagan’s conservative son called his liberal half-brother “an embarrassment” Saturday for speculating in a new memoir that their father suffered from Alzheimer’s disease while president.

 

“Ron, my brother was an embarrassment to his father when he was alive and today he became an embarrassment to his mother,” Michael Reagan posted on Twitter.

 

 “My brother seems to want [to] sell out his father to sell books,” he added in another tweet.

 

The sibling tension bubbles over just three weeks before Ronald Reagan’s 100th birthday, which will kick off a year of events to honor the 40th president.

 

In “My Father at 100,” Ron Reagan recalls early warning signs of his father losing his mental faculties. “The question,” he writes, “of whether my father suffered from the beginning stages of Alzheimer’s while in office more or less answers itself.”

Call me a hopeless pessimist, but I do not think this has brought Ron and Michael closer.

I have a feeling the subsequent back-and-forth between these two is going to be a whole lot more interesting than Ron Reagan's book.  I await the next salvo.

Ken Berwitz

Ken Berwitz

After a week of lies about how "heated rhetoric" impelled jared lee loughner, the Arizona shooter, to kill and injure 20 people, we now have an instance in which such rhetoric really did affect someone.

Unfortunately for the angry left, which so desperately wants this to reference the Sarah Palin/Tea Party crowd, it does not.  In fact, it is one of theirs,

Read this transcript from Geraldo Rivera's show last night, and see for yourself:

GERALDO RIVERA: This is a Fox News alert. Despite Mr. Obama’s appeal to our better angels, there was a very public death threat today in Tucson that prompted police action. Ironically, it came from a hard-core liberal. At a town hall meeting packed with eyewitnesses, concerned citizens and a member of Congress, Eric Fuller, a well-known left-wing activist, took a close-up photo of the local Tea Party spokesman Trent Humphries. Then Fuller said, “You're dead.” He was promptly arrested. Before I get to my exclusive interview with Jeb Bush, for more on what went down in Tucson today, Jason Ogan, a deputy for the Pima County sheriff's department, joins us live alongside a familiar face, or at least a familiar hairdo, Steven Caits, friend of the alleged mass murderer Jared Loughner. Steven was at today's town hall meeting. Tell us what happened. Tell us what was said and what you saw, Steven.

STEVEN CAITS, FRIEND OF JARED LEE LOUGHNER: Well, when the representative from the Tea Party stood up to speak and he announced that he was from the Tea Party, Eric turned around with his camera. Eric was in the front row and the Tea Party spokesman was in the fourth row. Eric turned around with his camera, took the picture of the guy from the Tea Party, and said, “You're dead,” like you had said.

RIVERA: And did he mean it? I mean, did it sound to you like a death threat, Steven?

CAITS: It sounded, it sounded like "You're dead." I mean, it didn't sound like a joke at all. Throughout the rest of the time that…

RIVERA: Had he been a pain in the butt during this, during this town hall meeting? Had this guy, had he really interfered with what was going on?

CAITS: People, people seemed pretty shocked at what he had said. There’s, there’s lots of whispers and there was someone next to me that had turned to Eric and said, “You know, now is not the time. This isn't appropriate. You need to sit down and be quiet. This isn't, this isn’t the time or place for this.” And he kept saying things like that whenever Eric would boo or, or make an interrupting noise at whatever the man from the Tea Party was saying.

Eric Fuller, a "hard-core liberal", was slightly injured in the shooting.  Since then, he has tried to use the media attention his injury generated as a means of indicting the right.  But that has not worked out; the public isn't buying it.  So, like some kind of deranged Rumpelstiltskin wannabe, he has gotten angrier and angrier.  And now he has made a death threat.  A real one.

Should we blame only Fuller's left wing bent for this theat?  Nope. 

How about our wonderful "neutral" media, which so heavily pushed the false claim that the right had something to do with loughner's actions?  Did they drive him over the edge?

Did heated rhetoric from the same media which so self-righteously and dishonestly accused Sarah Palin of involvement with the loughner shooting impel Eric Fuller to make a death threat against Trent Humphries?  

Think about it.

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

UPDATE:  I love the way Jim Treacher of the Daily Caller characterized what happened:

Apparently, Eric Fuller wanted the news to be able to write an honest headline with both “Tea Party” and “death threat” in it.

 

After a solid week of diligent effort, our friends in the liberal media finally got what they wanted: a mentally unbalanced man, clearly influenced by uncivil rhetoric regarding the Tea Party, lashed out at a political opponent. Unfortunately for them, it was their rhetoric. The target of the death threat was someone they unfairly maligned. Will our moral, ethical, and intellectual superiors in the media accept responsibility?

Well said!

Ken Berwitz

Did Israel, in conjunction with the USA, test and strengthen the "Stuxnet" worm that seems to have stopped Isran's nuclear weapon program in its tracks (at least for the short term)?

These rumors have been floating around for weeks.  And, in today's New York Times, there is an article by William J. Broad, John Markoff and David E. Sanger which seems to confirm it.  Here are the first few paragraphs:

The Dimona complex in the Negev desert is famous as the heavily guarded heart of Israel’s never-acknowledged nuclear arms program, where neat rows of factories make atomic fuel for the arsenal.

Over the past two years, according to intelligence and military experts familiar with its operations, Dimona has taken on a new, equally secret role — as a critical testing ground in a joint American and Israeli effort to undermine Iran’s efforts to make a bomb of its own.

Behind Dimona’s barbed wire, the experts say, Israel has spun nuclear centrifuges virtually identical to Iran’s at Natanz, where Iranian scientists are struggling to enrich uranium. They say Dimona tested the effectiveness of the Stuxnet computer worm, a destructive program that appears to have wiped out roughly a fifth of Iran’s nuclear centrifuges and helped delay, though not destroy, Tehran’s ability to make its first nuclear arms.

“To check out the worm, you have to know the machines,” said an American expert on nuclear intelligence. “The reason the worm has been effective is that the Israelis tried it out.”

Though American and Israeli officials refuse to talk publicly about what goes on at Dimona, the operations there, as well as related efforts in the United States, are among the newest and strongest clues suggesting that the virus was designed as an American-Israeli project to sabotage the Iranian program.

In recent days, the retiring chief of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency, Meir Dagan, and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton separately announced that they believed Iran’s efforts had been set back by several years. Mrs. Clinton cited American-led sanctions, which have hurt Iran’s ability to buy components and do business around the world.

The gruff Mr. Dagan, whose organization has been accused by Iran of being behind the deaths of several Iranian scientists, told the Israeli Knesset in recent days that Iran had run into technological difficulties that could delay a bomb until 2015. That represented a sharp reversal from Israel’s long-held argument that Iran was on the cusp of success.

The biggest single factor in putting time on the nuclear clock appears to be Stuxnet, the most sophisticated cyberweapon ever deployed.

In interviews over the past three months in the United States and Europe, experts who have picked apart the computer worm describe it as far more complex — and ingenious — than anything they had imagined when it began circulating around the world, unexplained, in mid-2009.

My reaction?  Exactly the same one I had on November 28th of last year, when I wrote:

As you may be aware, a computer virus, called "Stuxnet", recently has done incalculable damage to the Iran nuclear program.  This virus may (we hope) be saving the countries mentioned above from having to deal with nuclear Iran for an extended period of time.

Who virused Iran's nuclear program?  The USA?  Israel?  One or more Arab countries?  Someone else - maybe an internal faction among the many Iranians who despise what its government is doing and long for its demise?  We don't know - yet.

But whoever it is, let's thank them for what they've done.  Let's also hope that, if and when Iran overcomes Stuxnet, there will be a significant strategy in place to deal with its nuclear threat.

Nothing important at stake here; just the future of the world as we know it.

That still goes, 100%. 

How can anyone blame Israel, which Iran has specifically threatened to "wipe off the map", for attempting to prevent its leaders from acquiring the means to do so?

And if the USA has worked with Israel to accomplish this goal?  Congratulations to us, and to the current administration.  I hope it is true and hope the effort continues.

Ken Berwitz

Did Barack Obama make a stirring, nonpartisan speech at the Arizona pep rall..er, somber memorial last week?  Or did he self-promote - an activity he is no stranger to?

Byron York has written a very interesting column on this subject for the Washington Examiner.  I urge you to read it all.  But, in the interest of brevity I am excerpting the last few paragraphs below:

By the time he spoke in Tucson, Obama had let four days pass while some of the angriest voices in the media -- his supporters -- either blamed Republicans directly for the killings or blamed the GOP for creating the atmosphere in which the violence took place.  During those four days, the president could have cooled the conversation by urging everyone to avoid jumping to conclusions, as he did the day after the November 2009 massacre at Ft. Hood, Texas.  But he didn't.  Only after Loughner's insanity had been indisputably established did Obama concede that politics was not to blame for the shooting.

By then, however, the president's supporters had tied the killings to the issue of political rhetoric.  In Tucson, Obama played good cop to their bad cop by assuring everyone that rhetoric had not motivated the violence.  But he still brought up the topic because, he said, it had "been discussed in recent days."  Of course, it would not have been discussed in recent days had his supporters not made so many unfair accusations.

Some Democratic strategists hope Obama can capitalize on Tucson the way Bill Clinton capitalized on Oklahoma City.  Perhaps he'll be able to, and perhaps he won't.  But he's already trying.

A lot has been written about how Mr. Obama rose above politics in his speech - much of it by his detractors.   And, on the surface, the words themselves largely bear out this conclusion.