Ken Berwitz

Excerpted from Liz Blaine's article at newsrealblog.com - and be sure to click on each link so you'll know the claim is real:

Tobin is only the most recent in a tumult of violent reactions beginning to take shape across the nation. A FreedomWorks activist was assaulted by union thugs, Former Massachusetts Congressional Candidate Marty Lamb was knocked to the ground by union thugs, a union member attacked and injured a Tea Party activist at a MoveOn.org-organized rally, while families of congressional members in Wisconsin are being threatened and harrassed.

Now grow old waiting for our wonderful "neutral" media to show any of this, or the many (not just a few) signs equating Wisconsin Governor Walker to hitler, mussolini, Mubarak, etc. and calling for him to be killed.

They may think they're journalists.  They may have jobs that are supposed to be held by journalists.  But they are not journalists at all.  They are propagandists and advocates, who suppress news on behalf of the side they favor.

They shame real journalists ------ and themselves.

Ken Berwitz

If you think all that is keeping the Wisconsin 14 from coming back to their jobs in Madison is altruism and principles.....

....think a bit harder.  It's $$$$$

The (usually Democrat-sympathetic, but still professionally journalistic) Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel uncovered this information, excerpted from an article by reporters Daniel Bice and Ben Poston :

Missing senators rely heavily on union campaign dollars

Feb. 28, 2011 12:20 p.m.  

 

The 14 Wisconsin Democratic senators who fled to Illinois share more than just political sympathy with the public employees and unions targeted by Gov. Scott Walker's budget-repair bill.

The Senate Democrats count on those in the public sector as a key funding source for their campaigns.

In fact, one out of every five dollars raised by those Democratic senators in the past two election cycles came from public employees, such as teachers and firefighters, and their unions, a Journal Sentinel analysis of campaign records shows.

What does this tell you? 

How many of these candidates would be able to win the next primary if one-fifth of their entire campaign chests, and the, er, quality of aggressive union support we've seen in Madison for the past several weeks, went to a different Democrat? 

In other words, the real reason Democrats are hiding out is very likely not the survival of public sector unions, but their own survival - also known as pure self interest.

I'm shocked.  In fact I haven't been so shocked since the sun rose this morning.

My congratulations to the Journal-Sentinel for showing so many of the other media venues what real news reporters do:  report. 

I doubt they'll learn much from you, but my congratulations anyway.

Ken Berwitz

Rarely does a columnist capture the essence of a problem as well as Nile Gardiner captures the essence of Barack Obama's weakness on foreign policy. 

Here are three paragraphs from Mr. Gardiner's latest column for the London Daily Telegraph.  They are right on the money:

The débacle of Washington’s handling of the Libya issue is symbolic of a wider problem at the heart of the Obama administration’s foreign policy. The fact that it took ten days and at least a thousand dead on the streets of Libya’s cities before President Obama finally mustered the courage to call for Muammar “mad dog” Gaddafi to step down is highly embarrassing for the world’s only superpower, and emblematic of a deer-in-the-headlights approach to world leadership. Washington seems incapable of decisive decision-making on foreign policy at the moment, a far cry from the days when it swept entire regimes from power, and defeated America’s enemies with deep-seated conviction and an unshakeable drive for victory.

Just a few years ago the United States was genuinely feared on the world stage, and dictatorial regimes, strategic adversaries and state sponsors of terror trod carefully in the face of the world’s most powerful nation. Now Washington appears weak, rudderless and frequently confused in its approach. From Tehran to Tripoli, the Obama administration has been pathetically slow to lead, and afraid to condemn acts of state-sponsored repression and violence. When protesters took to the streets to demonstrate against the Islamist dictatorship in Iran in 2009, the brutal repression that greeted them was hardly a blip on Barack Obama’s teleprompter screen, barely meriting a response from a largely silent presidency.

In contrast to Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, President Obama fails to see the United States as an exceptional nation, with a unique role in leading the free world and standing up to tyranny. In his speeches abroad he has frequently found fault with his own country, rather than projecting confidence in American greatness. From Cairo to Strasbourg he has adopted an apologetic tone rather than demonstrating faith in America as a shining city upon a hill, a beacon of freedom and liberty. A leader who lacks pride in his own nation’s historic role as a great liberator simply cannot project strength abroad. 

Not much to add, is there?

Thank you, Mr. Gardiner, for laying this out so plainly.

The 2012 elections cannot come fast enough.

Ken Berwitz

Are the Wisconsin 14 - i.e. Wisconsin's Democrat senators who bugged out of the state rather than (gasp!) subject itself to the Republican majority voters elected last November, going to lose the state $165 million dollars?

Read this excerpt from a report by David Bailey of Reuters (and numerous other sources):  you be the judge:

Wisconsin's Republican Gov. Scott Walker said on Monday that absent senate Democrats have 24 hours to return and vote on a measure to reduce the power of public sector unions or the state will miss out on opportunity to refinance its debt.

"Now they have one day to return to work before the state loses out on the chance to refinance debt, saving taxpayers $165 million this fiscal year," Walker's spokesman Cullen Werwie said in a statement.

"Failure to return to work and cast their votes will lead to more painful and aggressive spending cuts in the very near future," the statement said.

Walker's budget proposal has sparked nationwide protests from labor unions who fear it could be a harbinger of things to come in other states. To balance the state's budget, Walker wants to require public sector employees to pay more for pensions and health care, and to strip their unions of bargaining rights except for wages up to the rate of inflation.

The measure has passed the state Assembly but is stalled in the Senate because the 14 Democrats have fled the state to avoid a vote.

Under Walker's proposal, Wisconsin's general obligation bonds would be restructured and that would push debt service payments due by March 15 into future years to save the current state budget $165 million. The deadline is because it takes a couple of weeks for the state to prepare to go to the bond market and implement the refinancing before the payment is due on March 15

Some people think the only implication of the 14 AWOL Democrats is that unions won't lose some of what they have (which, to some, is way too much).  But, as you can see, there are other fiscal issues that will be affected as well.  Big ones.

I don't claim to be any expert on debt refinancing, to say the least.  I don't know if there are alternatives to making today's deadline.  But if there are not, it is a disaster for Wisconsin and a self-inflicted dagger in the heart for its Democratic officeholders.

Simply stated, if Wisconsin's Democrats think they will be making friends and getting new voters by causing a $165 million dollar hit on the already-brutalized budget, they not only are out of Wisconsin, they are out of their minds.

Ken Berwitz

Since Libya has been on, and continues to this moment to be on, the United Nations Human Rights Council, I would not want readers to think it is alone in its attitude towards human rights within its own borders. 

From Anne-Marie Garcia and Paul Haven's article for the Associated Press:

Cuba stepped up its campaign against the island's small dissident community on Sunday, with pro-government demonstrators screaming insults at the "Ladies in White" opposition group a day after state-television aired a program denouncing them as agents of Washington.

About 100 pro-government demonstrators surrounded the Ladies as they marched in Havana's Vedado neighborhood, shouting slogans like "Down with the Worms!" and "This Street Belongs to Fidel!" as well as some sexually offensive slogans.

The Ladies, mostly middle-aged wives and mothers of political prisoners jailed in a 2003 sweep against intellectuals and opposition figures, wore sweat shirts bearing the image of Orlando Zapata Tamayo, a political prisoner who died last year after an 83-day hunger strike.

Ahhhh, yes.  Another United Nations Human Rights Council member setting an example for the world.

Not to repeat myself, but......The UN is a perfect name for this organization.  It is  UNrealistic, UNethical, UNmoved by and UNconcerned about the suffering of humanity, and UNbelievably useless.

Ken Berwitz

Every Wisconsin state senator remains in hiding - all 14 of them, presumably out of state - and make bigger and bigger fools of themselves every day that goes by.

This being the case, I thought you might be interested in what one of the 38 Democratic assemblypeople - the ones who haven't fled the state (yet), is up to.

From News Radio 620 AM, Milwaukee, we have this:

  GORDON HINTZ: "YOU ARE F'N DEAD!"

Story Published: Feb 28, 2011

Last week, we heard thatState Rep. Gordon Hintz (D-Oshkosh) had been busted in a prostitution sting.

State Rep. Gordon Hintz was issued a municipal citation in Appleton earlier this month for violating a city sexual misconduct ordinance.

Appleton police said the citation was issued Feb. 10 in conjunction with an ongoing investigation of Heavenly Touch Massage Parlor, 342 W. Wisconsin Ave., in Appleton. Police searched the business and a nearby residence in the 1300 block of North Division Street Jan. 28, after investigators had staked out the properties for several days after receiving a tip.

**

Last Friday.... after the Assembly voted to engross the Budget Repair Bill, Hintz turned to a female colleague, Rep. Michelle Litjens and said: "You are F***king dead!"

 New tone, indeed. Will he be held accountable?

Do I have to tell you that Michelle Litjens is a Republican?  I didn't think so.

Y'know, maybe that Democrat idea about leaving the state isn't so bad after all.......

Ken Berwitz

Eleanor Clift's question, yesterday, on The McLaoughlin Group: 

“Since when does Scott Walker represent the people?

My answer (and yours, too, I'll bet):

Since he WON THE ELECTION, you ignorant, arrogant, owned-and-operated subsidiary of the left. 

That clear enough?

Ken Berwitz

To paraphrase that song, now there's Willie, but no more Mickey and the Duke".

Edwin "Duke" Snider, one of the three great New York centerfielders of the 50's - every one a hall of famer - died yesterday in Los Angeles at the age of 84.  The family attributed his death to natural causes.

Snider played 18 years in the big leagues, batting .295 lifetime with 407 home runs (and one five year stretch when he hit over 40 every year).  He was a 7 time all-star. 

He was also the last remaining regular position player of those great Brooklyn Dodger teams that won so many pennants from the mid-1940's to the mid-1950's, but always seemed to lose the world series to the Yankees - except for 1955, that is.  In that series, The Duke was a major reason for Brooklyn's success, batting .320, with 4 home runs and 7 rbi's.   

Snider had some tax difficulties after his playing days which, I suppose, should be mentioned here.  But they in no way detracted from his greatness on the field. 

Now he can rejoin Jackie Robinson, Roy Campanella, Pee Wee Reese (all hall of famers too), Gil Hodges (who ought to be one), Junior Gilliam, Billy Cox, and Carl Furillo - not in Ebbets Field, but in a different Field Of Dreams. 

May Duke Snider, and all the others, rest in peace.

Ken Berwitz

I was involved in other things (family-related, happy to say) and wound up not watching much of the Oscars last night.

But I was pleased that The King's Speech won best picture/director/actor (and my disappointment that Geoffrey Rush did not win best supporting actor was somewhat ameliorated by how much Christian Bale, who won for "The Fighter", also deserved it).

Melissa Leo, a genuinely talented performer, won best supporting actress for "The Fighter" - and also won for most intense publicity campaign to get the oscar, most phony, contrived acceptance speech and most clumsily intentional use of the word "fuck" during that speech. 

I hope for Leo's sake this is one of those "what was I thinking" moments that she will regret later on - but I doubt it, and - given her acting talent - would doubt it even if she said so.  Of the other nominees, I was rooting for Leo's fellow (or lady, I suppose) cast member, Amy Adams.  But in my heart of hearts, my real preference was for Barbara Hershey to win for her superlative performance as her mother - impossible because, unfairly, she wasn't even nominated.

And Natalie Portman was unarguably the best actress for her work in "Black Swan". 

Ken Berwitz

Noy Alooshe.  Remember that name. 

He is an Israeli musician who has put some of moammar qaddafi's ranting to music.  The resulting video, called the "Zenga Zenga" song, not only is entertaining, not only makes qaddafi look like the deranged nutcake he is, but, it has been written, is a huge hit with Arab audiences.

I don't know if that's true, but anything that Israel can do which entertains the Arab world (other than be annihilated, of course), must really be something.

Want to see it?

Then CLICK HERE.  And be sure to dance along.

Ken Berwitz

Maybe the reason that the union thugs in Wisconsin hate Fox News so much is that, unlike the other networks, Fox is declining to propagandize on their behalf, and is reporting what actually is happening.

Here is the latest example:

Ken Berwitz

Debra Saunders is the San Francisco Chronicle's Jeff Jacoby - i.e. a rare non-leftward voice at the paper.

She has written a very entertaining, very worthwhile column on the Wisconsin situation.  Please read it all by clicking here:  Or, you can read this excerpt - which gives you a great idea of where she is coming from.  Please pay special attention to the last paragraph, which I've put in bold print, because it almost certainly is the single most important reason for the unions' actions:

If you've followed the drama, you've seen the signs comparing the governor to Hitler and ousted Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak. Speaking at a labor rally in Boston, Rep. Michael Capuano, D-Mass., said that sometimes it's necessary to "get a little bloody." And you know about the teachers who skipped school - and forced schools to close - in order to protest those lawmakers who weren't playing hooky.

 

Many of the players have not been a credit to their cause - which may explain why union leaders, who initially balked at Walker's compensation cuts, budged. They understood that the public wasn't buying the argument that their resistance was not about money.

 

Now, they say, the fight is over something bigger than money - and now they're right.

 

"This is all about power," Democratic pollster Paul Maslin told me from his Madison, Wis., home. "This is all about busting the unions, this is all about (Walker) giving himself national prominence." As far as Maslin is concerned, Walker has crossed the Rubicon.

 

If Walker's move simply were about balancing the budget, his critics now argue, he would cut a deal and move on.

Conservative Milwaukee talk-show host Charlie Sykes agreed. When I asked him if Wisconsin Republicans are trying to turn off the spigot of political donations from public-employee unions, Sykes answered, "Absolutely."

 

Badger State Democrats fled Madison, Sykes added, because "they see this as a real threat to the mother lode of campaign cash. The left is going to have to raise money the old-fashioned way, voluntarily."

There is it is.  The real crux of the issue.  Power and money.  Isn't it always?

Should the public sector unions have as much power as they do, or should they be reined in?  Should untold millions of union members' dues go to support one party virtually 100% of the time, or should the many, many union members who do not support Democrats have their money used differently?

Wisconsin is a microcosm of what is going to happen all over the country - what already is happening in other states with more to come. 

Watch this one closely.  The implications are huge.

Ken Berwitz

Last year my wife and I saw "Taken", a film starring Liam Neeson as a super-stud whose daughter is taken overseas to be used as a sex slave.  In it, Neeson is able to find out anything and kill or otherwise neutralize anyone who stands in his way, no matter how many of them there are or how many shots they get at him or how impossible his situation is.  It was silly fun and probably a terrific payday for Mr. Neeson.  Ok, fair enough.

But we just saw his latest film, "Unknown" last night.  And, in it he also is a super-stud, able to find out anything and kill or otherwise neutralize anyone who stands in his way, no matter how many of them there are or how many shots they get at him or how impossible his situation is.  Plus, he is able to walk out of a hospital after being in a coma for four days without any diminution of his physical skills, only a very convenient loss of memory (I won't tell you the implications, because if you haven't seen "Unknown" but intend to, it would ruin the movie).

This is the same Liam Neeson who was nominated for (and should have won) the academy award for Schindler's list.

Jack Nicholson has been doing this kind of crap for years - i.e. sleepwalking through movies that do not challenge his acting ability and taking the money.  I wish Liam Neeson wouldn't follow suit so quickly; Nicholson is going to be 74 years old this year, Neeson is only 59. 

Mr. Neeson:  can we please have a few more years of acting excellence before you go to pasture? 

Thanks.

Ken Berwitz

It isn’t easy subverting democracy.  Life is really tough.  People who want you to do the job you were elected, and are paid, to do may come looking for you and demanding that you actually do it.

Heck, let’s just throw a banquet for the 14 poor unfortunates who are in hiding somewhere in Illinois rather than sitting in the Wisconsin state senate chamber doing their jobs. 

I mean, how can you blame them?  The people elected a Republican Governor and Republican majorities in both statehouses:  that is called democracy. 

So the only thing they can do to get their way is to flee the state, thus denying those elected Republicans a quorum to pass legislation the Democrat minority doesn’t want:  that is called subverting democracy.

So how are our wonderful “neutral” media treating this subversion of democracy?  Well, here is the latest example - an article by John Lundy of the Duluth News Tribune, which I will show a few excerpts of – with my comments in blue.  See what you think.

Bob Jauch was here.

The Democratic state senator from Poplar and the rest of the 14 senators who escaped from Wisconsin spent parts of several days last week in this charming northern Illinois town of 22,000 where the movie “Groundhog Day” was filmed.  Escaped?  They weren’t in jail; they were supposed to be doing the people’s business as elected state senators.  Sorry Mr. Lundy, but don’t make this sound like 14 poor little innocent waifs.  That is an intentional distortion.

That movie, in which Bill Murray’s character was stuck in a single day, resonates with Jauch, who has been stuck for more than a week on an unplanned odyssey in his native state.

“It is the same thing,” Jauch said in an interview on Friday morning in a motel room in suburban Chicago. “You take the same precautions. You look in the rear-view mirror. You wonder who’s watching you.”  What are you afraid of?  That someone from Wisconsin will see where you are and demand you return to your state and allow democracy to take its course?  Poor baby.

But why be so evasive? When asked what he’s afraid of, Jauch doesn’t flinch.

“Those Tea Party folks are very harassing,” Jauch said, in an interview conducted under the agreement that the specific location wouldn’t be revealed. “They’re very intimidating. They’re in your face. They don’t care about anything that goes on in Wisconsin, and they’re very disruptive.”  Oh, I see.  It isn’t that you’re a fugitive from the democratic process.  It is some kind of tea party plot.  Very credible.  Congratulations, you win the 2011 Joe Isuzu award for the most transparent BS of the year, and we’re not even out of February.

So the senators meet in one location, sleep in other locations and meet with media in still other locations. Invariably, the Tea Party catches up with them, and they switch to new locations.  Nice propagandizing, Mr. Lundy.  Do you really think anyone is going to buy the premise that the only people who want these fugitives from democracy back in Wisconsin are Tea Partiers?  You must have no respect for your readers at all, to treat them this disdainfully.

It’s happening fast. On Thursday, I was originally driving from Duluth to Marengo, Ill., to meet with Jauch there. While I was en route, he called and changed the destination to Libertyville, a Chicago suburb. When I was about 50 miles west of Milwaukee, he called again and said their cover had been blown in Libertyville, and they were scattering. He told me to head south to Woodstock.

When I finally got to Woodstock, 400 miles southeast of Jauch’s home in Poplar, Jauch and the other senators weren’t there.

But they had been. Earlier on Thursday they were meeting in what Jauch called their “safe house,” an upscale home in Woodstock, when a reporter from the Northwest Herald of McHenry County, Ill., knocked on the door. Safe house?  What the hell is that supposed to mean?  Don’t romanticize the Wisconsin 14 into some kind of put-upon idealists the authorities are chasing, they are the exact antithesis of idealism.

The reporter, Rodger Sherman, is a Northwestern University student from New York who has worked as an intern for the newspaper since January.

At the house, the first person Sherman saw claimed to be director of a Wisconsin choral group whose members had come to his home to practice. But no one was fooled, and the state senators hurriedly moved on.  Liars.

 “They need to make the difficult decisions they were elected to do, and they need to do it in the state where they were elected to it,” Narusis said. “For better or worse, their party lost the election. It was a fair election. They need to honor the election.”  I’ll stop here, because this is the first part of the article that makes any sense. 

Let’s remember that John Lundy’s piece is only the tip of the iceberg.  I’m still waiting for the networks to show those signs equating Wisconsin Governor Walker to hitler, mussolini, Mubarak, etc., and the ones that call for him to be killed and have crosshairs on his face.  And, while we’re at it, the thuggery of union goons against people who disagree with them, which I’ve chronicled in several blogs over the past week.

The lesson here - which we learn again and again and again - is that if you’re going to do this sort of thing, it’s good to be on the left.  It means never having to explain yourself.

So Wisconsin’s Democrat senate members, and union thugs can continue their behaviors unabated, secure in the knowledge that most mainstream media are happy to run interference for them.

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

Ken Berwitz

Almost two weeks ago I sent this email to Lifetime Networks concerning it's announcement about how "thrilled" President Nancy Dubuc was to land roseanne barr for a Hawaii-based reality show:

My name is Ken Berwitz.  I write a political blog (www.hopelesslypartisan.com). 

 

I would like to know why roseanne barr has been given a show on Lifetime, in view of her rich history of making hateful comments about groups of people and individuals - with a special hatred reserved for Jews (please read my blog (http://partisan.blogs.hopelesslypartisan.com/item_9529.htm) and see for yourself).

 

Thanks in advance for your response - which I will post for my readers if/when it is received.

I have never gotten any response from Lifetime Networks.  Not even a canned one.

I will recontact the network this week, list out some of barr's hate comments and put the picture in as an attachment.  That way no network personnel will have to sully themselves by reading my blog entry. 

We'll see if that yields some kind of a reaction.  I, of course, will let you know one way or the other.

Ken Berwitz

Finally!  An opening in President Obama's busy schedule!

President Obama has told the Libyan lunatic, moammar qaddafi, that he has to go.  He somehow fit it in between last week's Motown bash at the White House and tomorrow's performance by Gladys Knight (I don't know if the Pips are going to make it).

-When the people uprose, Mr. Obama said nothing. 

-When the army started defecting, Mr. Obama said nothing. 

-When the protesters started taking over cities (including Benghazi, Libya's second largest), Mr. Obama said nothing. 

-When qaddafi ordered his air force to bomb protesters, Mr. Obama said nothing.  

-When, for almost a week, qaddafi had what is left of his army loyalists, along with mercenaries and anyone else he could find to shoot a gun randomly kill Libyan citizens in the street, President Obama said nothing.

But now that qaddafi is holed up in Tripoli, and even part of that city has been taken by the protesters?  Now President Obama has found his voice. 

How reassuring that we have such a decisive, action-oriented man in the White House.  Right on the cutting edge. 

What's he going to do next?  Demand a breakup of the USSR?

Ken Berwitz

Are we coming back to our senses, regarding oil exploration?

Are enough members of congress now realizing that it is insane to continue allowing foreign countries which hate our guts to hold dominion over our energy needs?

Maybe.

Excerpted from Andrew Restuccia and Ben Geman's article at thehill.com:

The Libyan uprising and triple-digit oil prices are reinvigorating GOP-led attacks on White House offshore drilling policies — a collision that will burst into public view next week on Capitol Hill.

With gas prices rising, Republicans have seized on the crises to ramp up calls for the Obama administration to begin issuing the first deepwater drilling permits since last year’s BP spill, and to speed up shallow-water permitting.

A top Interior Department official said Friday that the agency is “quite close” to resuming issuance of deepwater permits, but it’s unlikely the agency will act aggressively enough on drilling to defuse GOP attacks.

Rep. Doc Hastings (R-Wash.) — chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee that will host Salazar Thursday — has scheduled several hearings on offshore drilling in coming weeks. A spokesman told The Hill earlier this week that the Libyan turmoil “will be a strong backdrop” to the sessions.

More broadly, Republicans and pro-drilling Democrats are citing the unrest to revive calls for new or wider drilling. Sen. Lisa Murkowksi (R-Alaska) on Thursday cited the Middle East and North Africa turmoil in a speech in which she vowed to “throw some elbows” to win the oil industry wider access to federal lands and waters in Alaska.

One expert said the new oil shocks will test whether the divided Congress can find common ground on energy.

“The Middle East unrest portends long-term uncertainty for much of the world’s oil supply,” said Paul Bledsoe, a senior adviser to the Bipartisan Policy Center, a think tank that works on energy policy.

“Chronic anxiety about Middle Eastern oil supplies may turn out to be a test of whether this divided Congress can act in a bipartisan way on anything,” Bledsoe said.  

As mentioned in previous blogs, I strongly support the development of alternative energy sources.  But however desirable they are, they cannot make an appreciable dent for years and years to come.  Meanwhile, we send untold billions (trillions) of dollars to governments that hate us and our culture.  Governments that, for all we know, will be deposed and replaced by successors who might very well hate us even more.  And they control our destiny.

This insanity has got to stop.  We have huge reserves of oil offshore, at ANWR and in shale deposits in the midwest.   It is time to go after them, full-bore  (literally). 

My guess is that even an announcement that we are doing so will drop oil prices - as long as the oil-producing world sees that we really mean it. 

Every day we wait is another day of dependency and another day of spiraling deficits. 

Congress and the President have to act.  Now.

Ken Berwitz

moammar qaddafi is a deranged nutcake, almost certainly on drugs, who is thoroughly self-destructive and perfectly willing to hurt everyone around him in the course of indulging his personal wants and needs.

Sound like anyone in the cast (or, should I say former cast) of "Two and a Half Men"?

Here, excerpted from Mark Cina's article at Hollywood Reporter, is the latest news about charlie sheen:

Charlie Sheen has launched another crude attack against his bosses at CBS and Warner Bros following Thursday's announcement that the remaining season of Two and a Half Men has been scrapped.

"These guys are just a couple AA Nazis and really just blunt hypocrites," said Sheen, referring to producers Chuck Lorre and Lee Aronsohn. 

 

He said his relationship with CBS Corp. president and CEO Leslie Moonves is done. Confirming a previous THR report, Sheen said Moonves visited him at home and asked him to seek treatment. "He rolled into my house and he made a man-to-man request, and I honored it," Sheen said. "And I asked for a couple of things, and he's not honoring that. We're pretty much done … unless he's got a really good excuse for a guy who lives in the middle of the truth."

 

"Defeat is not an option," he added. "They picked a fight with the wrong guy… they are in absolute breach. I expressed an opinion and I got the First Amendment behind me….

 

"I put $5 bill in the studio's pocket, I put half-a-bill in Chuck's pocket, and this is the thanks I get?" he went on.

 

He also said he was in talks with HBO to do a show. Sheen said the show would be "something beyond this drivel, this pukefest that everyone worships. I'm like, 'Wow, that was another bad joke.' " (HBO has denied talks with Sheen.) 

If moammar qaddafi were a Hollywood actor, he could have said that.  He'd have no problem ranting out lunacy like that, taking 100% credit for the success of a show so many other people have a part in, then killing that show, thus taking the cast and crew's livelihood from them.   

But, then again, Hollywood doesn't need moammar qaddafi.  Why re-invent the wheel? 

It has its own qaddafi already.

Ken Berwitz

Yesterday, I blogged about New York Times reporter Eric Lipton using what appeared to be a made-up "quote" by Tim Phillips, a spokesperson for Charles and David Koch (who Democrats and the left wing - often one and the same - are trying to turn into their latest bogeymen).  The specific "quote" relates to the Wisconsin union protests, and reads as follows:

Even before the new governor was sworn in last month, executives from the Koch-backed group had worked behind the scenes to try to encourage a union showdown, Mr. Phillips said in an interview on Monday.

Mr Philips denies ever having said this, and told John Hinderaker of www.powerlineblog.com that:

"...in the interview Lipton tried to get him to say something along the lines of "Even before the new governor was sworn in last month, executives from the Koch-backed group had worked behind the scenes to try to encourage a union showdown," but that he did not say this because it isn't true."

Hinderaker emailed Lipton to ask him for some kind of evidence that Phillips made the statement in his article, and suggested that his readers do as well.  So I took him up on it and did so.

Well, though I haven't gotten a response - not yet, anyway - Mr. Hinderaker has.  You can read his entire blog about this response, and I urge you to do just that.  But here is his bottom line:

I think Lipton stands convicted of exactly the conduct Phillips suggested. He wanted to write a story about how an organization supported by the Koch brothers was secretly fomenting a "showdown" with Wisconsin's unions. Phillips wouldn't tell him that because it wasn't true, but Lipton wrote the story that way anyway, because without it he had nothing newsworthy.

Eric Lipton and the New York Times owe Tim Phillips, Americans For Progress and Charles and David Koch an apology, and they owe their readers a correction.

I again urge you to use the link I've provided to read John's blog and see for yourself how far-fetched, stretched, and wretched (ok, that last one doesn't rhyme, but it looks like it rhymes) Mr. Lipton's basis for that "quote" is.  Then join me in marvelling at the standards (what a strange use of the word!) the New York Times currently has in place.

What happened to the Times?  Will it ever regain its standing as a great newspaper again?  Can it?

Ken Berwitz

Excerpted from Hans Bader's excellent piece at the Washington Examiner:

“A lie can make it half way around the world before the truth has time to put its boots on” – like a false statistic recently disseminated by supporters of Wisconsin’s government-employee unions.  Despite being debunked by PolitiFact, it has since been widely repeated in multiple letters to the editor, and it remains uncorrected on the web sites of publications like The Economist.

On Wednesday, PolitiFact debunked the claim by Wisconsin union supporters that Virginia, which bans collective bargaining in state agencies, ranks 44th in the nation in ACT/SAT scores, compared to Wisconsin ranking 2nd.  For example, it noted that in 2009, Virginia ranked 22nd in ACT scores, while Wisconsin ranked 13th.  As PolitiFact notes, this claim was originally disseminated by the Wisconsin Democratic Party, which has now retracted it. 

(Although PolitiFact didn’t note this, in 2010, Virginia actually beat Wisconsin in ACT scores, with Virginia ranked 12th and Wisconsin ranked 17th.  Unlike Wisconsin, Virginia is a right-to-work state that bars forcing employees to pay union dues.  Collective bargaining with government employee unions is currently mandated in Wisconsin, but banned in Virginia).

Mr. Bader goes on to say that "respectable" sites have picked up this fraudulent, BS "statistic", assuming it must be true.  But now, he expects (and I fully concur) the leftward sites, MSNBC, maybe the network news shows, etc. etc. etc. will be reporting it as fact.

My personal take on this is that it could very well have been a planned sequence by the Wisconsin Democrat Party.  The thinking?  "We'll put out something completely fraudulent, we know from experience that if we issue it most of the media will dutifully, complicitly, pass it along -- and then we can retract it...after it gets out there and is indelibly imprinted in people's minds.  Mission accomplished"

Heck, it has worked before, hasn't it?  If you go to the well and there's still water, you keep going to the well.

And the truth?  Who cares.  This is more important.

Ken Berwitz

As a candidate, President Obama said this about the Patriot Act (straight from "Obama's Plan To Defeat Terrorism, page 6):

• Revise the PATRIOT Act. Barack Obama believes that we must provide law

enforcement the tools it needs to investigate, disrupt, and capture terrorists, but he

also believes we need real oversight to avoid jeopardizing the rights and ideals of all

Americans. There is no reason we cannot fight terrorism while maintaining our civil

liberties. Unfortunately, the current administration has abused the powers given to it

by the PATRIOT Act. A March 2007 Justice Department audit found the FBI

improperly and, in some cases, illegally used the PATRIOT Act to secretly obtain

personal information about American citizens. As president, Barack Obama would

revisit the PATRIOT Act to ensure that there is real and robust oversight of tools like

National Security Letters, sneak-and-peek searches, and the use of the material

Today, from Pete Kasperowicz of www.thehill.com:.

President Obama on Friday signed into law a bill that extends three Patriot Act surveillance authorities until late May.

Obama signed the "FISA Sunsets Extension Act of 2011," which refers to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Surveillance authorities under that act were extended in part by amending the USA Patriot Improvement and Reauthorization Act.

With Obama's signature, the ability of the United States to access business records, conduct roving wiretaps and monitor individual terrorists is maintained until May 27. The administration has said it supports a longer extension, and the Senate next week will begin working on a three-year extension.

The issue is no longer whether President Obama tells the truth or keeps his promises.  He doesn't.  Guantanamo is still open too, isn't it?

The issue is when, if ever, media go after him for doing what - if it had been President Bush - they would be jumping all over with angry editorials and condemnatory features.

In the tank is in the tank.  And a great many of our wonderful "neutral" media are in the tank for Barack Obama. 

Ken Berwitz

The New York Times' lead editorial today, about proposed legislation to stop tax dollars from flowing into the coffers of Planned Parenthood, is a classic example of why it is so hard to believe what is in this paper anymore.

Here are the key excerpts:

The budget bill pushed through the House last Saturday included the defunding of Planned Parenthood and myriad other cuts detrimental to women. It’s not likely to pass unchanged, but the urge to compromise may take a toll on these programs. And once the current skirmishing is over, House Republicans are likely to use any legislative vehicle at hand to continue the attack.

An amendment offered by Representative Mike Pence, Republican of Indiana, would bar any financing of Planned Parenthood. A recent sting operation by an anti-abortion group uncovered an errant employee, who was promptly fired. That hardly warrants taking aim at an irreplaceable network of clinics, which uses no federal dollars in providing needed abortion care. It serves one in five American women at some point in her lifetime.  

A recent sting operation uncovered "an errant employee, who was promptly fired"?  What a fraudulent statement!  Live Action, the anti-abortion group The Times declines to mention by name (which would make it easier for readers to check), conducted the same sting operation in FIVE DIFFERENT CLINICS IN TWO STATES, and GOT ESSENTIALLY THE SAME ANSWER EVERY TIME. 

That's not an "errant employee", that is a policy. 

Here is Live Action's description of what happened, complete with links so that you can see the video footage of each incident.  And please note that the organization claims this is far from the first such evidence it has uncovered about Planned Parenthood:

Findings in these Virginia videos:

• Falls Church – Abortions for underage girls from other countries only require a photo ID.

Planned Parenthood staffer: “We don’t necessarily look at the legal status, like I said. Abortion appointments do require photo ID. It’s nothing as far as records. It’s just photo ID that’s ever going to be required.”

• Roanoke – Birth control and STD testing for underage prostitutes is no problem

Planned Parenthood staffer: “From the age of 12 up, for birth control, you can just come in and do that. You don’t have to have a parent, OK?”

Planned Parenthood staffer discussing STD testing: “And the thing is, see this is the thing a lot of people don’t know that. . .Right, through the Health Department.  And so, they’ll uh, they’ll track it. And they’re discreet.  They’re confidential.  They, you know, don’t tell people what’s going on, because – frankly – it’s nobody’s business.”

• Charlottesville – Birth control and testing for STDs and pregnancy for underage girls with no questions asked.

Planned Parenthood staffer: “Anybody here can help you. Everything here is confidential. We can’t give any information out.”

Access videos at:

• Richmond, Virginia Planned Parenthood Full Video
• Falls Church, Virginia Planned Parenthood Full Video
• Roanoke, Virginia Planned Parenthood Full Video
• Charlottesville, Virginia Planned Parenthood Full Video

Read letter to Attorney General Cuccinelli here.

Live Action has previously released more than a dozen hidden camera videos from ten states. This body of visual evidence shows several alarming patterns of illegal Planned Parenthood activities including cover-up of sexual abuse of minors, the skirting of parental consent laws, citing unscientific and fabricated medical information to manipulate women to have abortions, and Planned Parenthood’s willingness to accept donations earmarked to abort African-American babies

Could the Times' characterization of "one errant employee" be more dishonest?  How?

But that's not all.  In addition, the Times somehow forgets to mention that Planned Parenthood came out looking so bad after this series of "stings" that it pledged to retrain its employees.  You don't do that because of one "errant employee", you do that because you got busted.

Here is an excerpt from the blog, posted on February 8th, by newser.com (among numerous other sources), describing Planned Parenthood's reaction.  Please pay special attention to the last part, which I have put in bold print:

Planned Parenthood plans to retrain thousands of its staffers in the coming weeks, in the wake of the release of an ACORN-esque sting video that showed an employee offering advice to a fake pimp on how to skirt rules to get medical care and abortions for underage prostitutes. Planned Parenthood insists it already trains its employees to obey the law, but “We’re doing this to reassure the public that we take these reporting requirements seriously,” one VP tells the New York Times.

Got that?  Planned Parenthood told the New York Times it was retraining its employees by the thousands.  But the Times decided to keep its readers nice and ignorant, by not mentioning it at all..

The New York Times used to be a great newspaper.  These days, it increasingly comes across as something you use to wrap fish or line parrot cages with, and maybe to cut into 4 1/2 inch square perforated sheets for more personal use.

Sadly, about the last thing it is usable for is learning the truth about any issue the Times' editors have a partisan position on.

Ken Berwitz

In a previous blog I discussed the fact that Libya (along with Sudan, Mauritania, Cuba and Saudi Arabia, among others) is on the United Nations' Human Rights Council

You can stop right there, and know pretty much everything you need to know about the UN.

But what is this organization doing now that Libya's head of state is busy paying mercenaries and what few troops remain loyal to him to kill his own people in the streets?  And how is the United States, under Barack Obama reacting?

Excerpted from Neal Boortz's blog:

Now up until 2009, the United States refused to be a part of any of this Human Rights Council (we were kicked off of the last commission). But the great Community Organizer thought it would be a wise idea to reserve the Bush boycott and join the new Human Rights Council in 2009, saying the U.S. could most effectively push it to improve by being a member. Yeah ... right. So now we have a chance to test that theory.

So what is the Human Rights Council doing about the fact that one of its member nations, at the direction of a crazy dictator, is killing its citizens in cold blood? They've sent word to Quadaffi that "Killing your people is bad. Stop it. Stern letter to follow." Yup ... the Human Rights Council is going to call a special session to draft a letter. Wow, sounds pretty ruthless, eh? And fear not, my friends! Libya will get to keep its seat on the United Nations Human Right Council as there hasn't been one call for it to be kicked off the council.

Keep in mind that this is the same Human Rights Commission that Barack Obama submitted a report to about Arizona and its efforts to secure the border and enforce federal immigration policy on the state level.

The UN is a perfect name for this organization.  It is  UNrealistic, UNethical, UNmoved by the suffering of humanity and UNbelievably useless.

But that is no problem to this administration, is it?  Not only are we making no demands that the UN take decisive action against the murderous madman qaddafi, we aren't even asking for Libya to be removed from the Human Rights Council. 

Heck, under Barack Obama we apparently think the UN is so terrific that, while it is doing such a bangup job around the world, in places like Sudan, Rwanda and now Libya,  it should solve our domestic problems as well.

The 2012 election cannot come fast enough.

Ken Berwitz

I'll make this one short and sweet:

How come media were happy to jump all over Tea Party protesters last year, when Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats accused them of "astroturfing" (i.e. organized, not grass-roots)....

....but now, as the clearly organized, orchestrated protests go on every day in Wisconsin, Indiana and a growing number of other cities, we don't hear a thing about "astroturfing"? 

Their lack of professionalism and integrity is appalling.  No wonder fewer and fewer people believe them anymore.

Ken Berwitz

If you are into major egocentrism and unsurpassed self-image, you will love the following excerpt from a blog by Molly Ball of politico.com:

The Democratic National Committee wanted to honor Nancy Pelosi Thursday -- but its praise wasn't good enough for the House minority leader.

When the DNC's Resolutions Committee brought up a resolution commemorating Pelosi's years as speaker of the House, Pelosi's daughter sought to alter the proposal at her mother's behest, adding some of the accomplishments that the elder Pelosi felt the committee had overlooked.

"I have some friendly amendments," said Christine Pelosi, a political strategist, at the committee's session during the DNC Winter Meeting at the Marriott Wardman Park hotel Thursday afternoon. She is a member of the committee.

Too bad this wasn't open to the 60+ Democrat house candidates, most of them incumbents, who lost their seats last November, in no small part due to Ms. Pelosi's stewardship, the comments she made and the positions she took.  

I'll just bet they'd have added a few amendments of their own.

Ken Berwitz

Just how biased are our mainstream media?

Well, read these excerpts from Matthew Philbin's blog at newsbusters.org, and see for yourself:

NBC Still Ignoring Planned Parenthood Sting, Despite House Vote to Defund

On Feb. 1, pro-life activist group Live Action released a video covertly filmed at a New Jersey Planned Parenthood office. The footage documented a Planned Parenthood employee giving advice to a man posing as a pimp about obtaining abortions and birth control for the underage foreign prostitutes he traffics.

Within two days, Fox and CNN, along with The New York Times, The Washington Post and other print outlets, had reported on the story. Not so for ABC, CBS and NBC. In fact, it wasn't until Feb. 8 - a week after the story broke - that CBS finally reported on the video. In that report, chief legal correspondent Jan Crawford called the video "troubling," but CBS was sure to include a statement from Planned Parenthood calling Live Action "an extreme group." ABC and NBC, on the other hand, remained mum.

Within 10 days, the networks were given another chance to inform their viewers that an employee of Planned Parenthood, which receives $363 million annually from taxpayers, had knowingly aided what she thought was a human sex trafficker.

ABC became the second of the three networks that eventually bowed to reality and reported on Live Action's video, however NBC news has yet to even mention the subject.

Fascinating, isn't it?  Could coverage of this story possibly be more grudging?  If so, how?

Could the networks possibly be more clear about which side they favor?  If so, how?

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

Ken Berwitz

Libya is in flames.  Egypt could soon have a shari'a law government.  Iranian warships are passing through the Suez canal.  Unions are mounting angry, sometimes violent protests in Wisconsin and other places around the country.  Unemployment still sits at 9%.  The national debt continues to grow at an unsustainable pace.

And what is President Obama doing these days? 

Excerpted from an article at the Associated Press:

The White House reverberated like a long-ago basement sound studio in Detroit on Thursday as the likes of John Legend, Seal, Jamie Foxx, Nick Jonas and Sheryl Crowe channeled their inner Motown before Michelle and Barack Obama. Musical pioneers Smokey Robinson and Stevie Wonder joined in for the celebration of all things Motown.

Foxx, Seal, Legend and Jonas launched the East Room concert celebrating the Motown sound with a high-energy medley in which the four took turns as backup dancers, complete with some smooth dance moves to the likes of "Get Ready,""The Way You Do the Things You Do,""Can't Get Next to You" and "Ain't Too Proud to Beg."

Several days ago,  after a week of uprisings in Libya went on without a peep from President Obama, newly-installed Press Secretary Jay Carney explained it away by telling the press that Mr. Obama had a "scheduling conflict"

Well, evidently, throwing a big, gala bash, and dancing to the Motown beat on the taxpayers' dollars, was no scheduling problem at all.  

You can draw your own conclusions.

Ken Berwitz

I just read a fascinating blog by John Hinderaker at powerlineblog.com.  In it, he tells us that, on Monday, New York Times writer Eric Lipton quoted Tim Phillips, a spokesperson for conservative industrialists Charles and David Koch.  One specific "quote" (which, interestingly, Mr. Lipton does not put in quotation marks) is as follows:

Even before the new governor was sworn in last month, executives from the Koch-backed group had worked behind the scenes to try to encourage a union showdown, Mr. Phillips said in an interview on Monday.

But did Phillips actually say this?  According to Mr. Hinderaker, he emailed Lipton last night and asked what record, if any, he had of this comment (you can read the email, and Hinderaker's entire blog, by clicking here):

To date, Mr. Lipton has not responded to my inquiry. In the meantime, I have interviewed Tim Phillips. He adamantly contends that he did not make the statement attributed to him by Eric Lipton. He says that Lipton read back to him several quotes to verify their accuracy, but this statement was not one of them. He says, further, that in the interview Lipton tried to get him to say something along the lines of "Even before the new governor was sworn in last month, executives from the Koch-backed group had worked behind the scenes to try to encourage a union showdown," but that he did not say this because it isn't true.

In fairness, Eric Lipton presumably has a lot more to do than sitting by the computer waiting for emails to respond to.  It is entirely possible that his lack of response is nothing other than the fact that he hasn't had time to do so.  And, yes, it is also possible that he has seen the email and won't answer it.  No way to know for sure.

But at the end of his blog Hinderaker suggested that other people might want to contact Lipton and ask as well.  So I decided to do so.  Here is what I just emailed him (complete with one typo - arrgghhh):

Mr. Lipton;

 

Like John Hinderaker of www.powerlineblog.com, I write a political blog (www.hopelesslypartisan.com). 

 

I have read Mr. Hinderaker's piece regarding your claim that "Even before the new governor was sworn in last month, executives from the Koch-backed group had worked behind the scenes to try to encourage a union showdown, Mr. Phillips said in an interview on Monday."

 

According to Hinderaker, Mr. Phillips categorically denies saying this or anything like it.

 

My question is simple and basic:  Do you have any record, written or recorded, of this statement being made? 

 

If so, please provide it and I will immediately put it up on my blog, so that readers will know you Mr. Hinderaker's suspicions are unfounded and you are on the up and up. 

 

If not, please tell me what basis you have for claiming Mr. Phillips made this statement and I will put that up, along with my opinion (based on the information you provide) about its credibility.

 

 

Thanks in advance for your attention.

 

 

 

Ken Berwitz

I'll let you know if I hear back and, if so, what Mr. Lipton says.

Ken Berwitz

Here, in just a few paragraphs within his superlative column in today's Washington Post, is Charles Krauthammer's explanation of Wisconsin:

In the private sector, the capitalist knows that when he negotiates with the union, if he gives away the store, he loses his shirt. In the public sector, the politicians who approve any deal have none of their own money at stake. On the contrary, the more favorably they dispose of union demands, the more likely they are to be the beneficiary of union largesse in the next election. It’s the perfect cozy setup.

To redress these perverse incentives that benefit both negotiating parties at the expense of the taxpayer, Walker’s bill would restrict future government-union negotiations to wages only. Excluded from negotiations would be benefits, the more easily hidden sweeteners that come due long after the politicians who negotiated them have left. The bill would also require that unions be recertified every year and that dues be voluntary.

Recognizing this threat to union power, the Democratic party is pouring money and fury into the fight. Private unions have shrunk to less than 7 percent of the working population. The Democrats’ strength lies in government workers, who now constitute a majority of union members and provide massive support to the party. For them, Wisconsin represents a dangerous contagion.

Hence the import of the current moment — its blinding clarity. Here stand the Democrats, avatars of reactionary liberalism, desperately trying to hang onto the gains of their glory years — from unsustainable federal entitlements for the elderly enacted when life expectancy was 62 to the massive promissory notes issued to government unions when state coffers were full and no one was looking.

Thank you Mr. Krauthammer.  You really are a great columnist.

Ken Berwitz

Michelle Malkin has written a superb column, in which she outlines the "civility" of the left in graphic detail.  Please use the link I just provided to read it all; but here is a taste:

Barack Obama's new era of civility was over before it began. You wouldn't know it from reading The New York Times, watching Katie Couric or listening to the Democratic manners police. But America has been overrun by foul-mouthed, fist-clenching wildebeests.

The trendy new epithet among Big Labor organizers who've been camping out at the Madison, Wis., Capitol building for more than a week to block GOP Gov. Scott Walker's budget reform bill: "Koch whore." Classy, huh? It's a reference to the reviled Koch brothers, David and Charles, who have used their energy-industry wealth to support limited-government activism. A left-wing agitator based in Buffalo who impersonated Koch in a prank phone call this week used the slur to headline his "gonzo journalism" report. (If a right-leaning activist had perpetrated such a stunt, he'd be labeled a radical, stalking fraudster. But that's par for the media's double-standards course.)

The 20-minute phone call undermined the grand Koch conspiracy by exposing that Walker didn't know Koch at all. No matter. "Koch whore" is the new "Halliburton whore." The Captains of Civility are sticking to it. And the sanctimonious "No Labels" crowd is missing in action -- just like Wisconsin's Fleebagger Democrats.

Sexual vulgarity is a common theme in the left's self-styled "solidarity" movement. Among the Madison pro-union signs the national media chose not to show you: "Buttholes for Billionaires" (complete with a photo of Walker's head placed in the middle of a graphic photo of someone's posterior) and "If teabaggers are as hot as their Fox News anchors, then I'm here for the gang bang!!!"

There is a lot to be outraged about:

-There is the disgusting, ongoing filth that is being disgorged by these people;

-There is the virtually complete burial of what is going on by our wonderful "neutral" media.  Illustratively, The Today Show has het to do a feature on the numerous hate signs carried by union members, students and left wing activists in Wisconsin - after doing daily features on the very few such signs they found at "Tea Party" rallies across the country (some of which were clearly planted by opponents of the Tea Party movement).  And, yes, these are the same media which, after forgoing their professionalism and integrity on behalf of the side they favor, will squeal like stuck pigs if you call them biased;

-And there is the utter silence from Democrats - The President, Vice President, senate and house leadership, and down the line about the filth being spewed in Wisconsin - presumably because, as has become umistakably clear, the people spewing this filth currently have ownership of the Democrat Party.

All in all, a truly sick, dispiriting show.  

Maybe someday there will be an even playing field.  But, as is clear, that day has not yet come. 

Ken Berwitz

They are both very talented actors.  They are both whacked out nutcakes.  And they both have a problem with Jews.

Here is charlie sheen's imitation of mel gibson (or maybe gibson was imitating sheen), excerpted from an article by Nellie Andreeva at deadline.com:

UPDATED: As Two And A Half Men star Charlie Sheen's erratic behavior escalated today in a series of verbal assaults on the show's creator-executive producer Chuck Lorre, the sitcom's network and studio did the only thing they could in the situation: pull the plug.  But they only did it for this season. (Two and a Half Men was scheduled to resume production on Monday for 4 more episodes). So the door is left open for a possible ninth season. "Based on the totality of Charlie Sheen’s statements, conduct and condition, CBS and Warner Bros TV have decided to discontinue production of Two and a Half Men for the remainder of the season," the two companies said in a statement.

The question now is should Two And A Half Men continue? Could the damage done over the past few weeks ever be repaired. And most importantly, will Sheen come back from the brink?

The production shutdown decision was a dramatic ending to a really fascinating day in which Hollywood witnessed a star's self-destruction. First, in a bizarre rant on The Alex Jones radio show this morning, Sheen called Lorre a "charlatan" and a "turd" and would only refer to him by his "real name, Chaim Levine." "Chaim, last time I checked, I spent close to the last decade effortlessly and magically converting your tin cans into pure gold," said Sheen, responding to a tongue-in-cheek vanity card Lorre recently posted on Men that ended with "If Charlie Sheen outlives me, I'm gonna be really pissed."

Things escalated in the afternoon when Sheen, currently vacationing in the Bahamas with a girlfriend, ex-wife and a porn star, reached out to TMZ. "I violently hate Chaim Levine," Sheen said. "He's a stupid, stupid little man and a p**sy punk that I'd never want to be like. That's me being polite."

UPDATE: It turns out Charlie Sheen was not done for the day. The actor continued his down-spiral following the announcement of the Men production shutdown. In an open letter via TMZ, Sheen called Lorre  a "s contaminated little maggot" and "earthworm." "I wish him nothing but pain in his silly travels." "I urge all my beautiful and loyal fans who embraced this show for almost a decade to walk with me side-by-side as we march up the steps of justice to right this unconscionable wrong," he said. Sheen has been vocal about his displeasure with WBTV and CBS' decision to shut down production on the show in January so he can undergo treatment and had hinted that he may take legal action. He previously retained leading Hollywood litigator Marty Singer and threatened to sue the studio if they stopped production without a cause.

Lorre, CBS and WBTV have ruled out continuing the show without Sheen. So did we just see the series finale? 

FYI:  Chuck Lorre's real name is Charles Levine, not Chaim (that, evidently, is sheen's way of making for-definite-sure you know he is Jewish).  And, since Lorre's other credits include the hit shows Grace Under Fire, Cybill, Dharma & Greg and The Big Bang Theory, I think it would be fair to say that he didn't need charlie sheen to make a splash in this industry.

I saw a clip of sheen's father, the just-as-leftward Martin Sheen, on TV last night in which he tried to convince us that his son has a disease, "like cancer". 

Maybe I'd lie like that too on behalf of one of my own sons - fortunately I have never had to do so for either of them and never expect to.  But that doesn't change the fact that it is a lie.

Martin Sheen's kid is a disgusting, bigoted, out of control sack of manure who uses his Hollywood credentials to live like a pig and - until now - usually get away with it....but maybe not this time and maybe not any more.

Period, end of story.

Ken Berwitz

Here is another example of "civility", brought to you by the side that so much of our wonderful "neutral" media will not report on.  It comes to us from michelle malkin's blog:

The hits keep on coming. Here’s another fine specimen of Big Labor civility:

 

At AFSCME’s “solidarity” rally in Providence, Rhode Island on Tuesday, a cameraman was accosted by a fuming pro-union protester. The cameraman had his back to the goon, who appears to accost him unprovoked. The goon screams:

“I’ll f**k you in the ass, you faggot!”

 

His shouting escalates and other union supporters try to intervene as he threatened the cameraman, but he continues to foam at the mouth.

 

The “solidarity” mob finally starts chanting “Hey, hey, ho, ho, union-busting’s got to go” to drown out the goon’s snit fit. He yells that he will “follow you out of here.”

 

The eruption starts at 7:32 in this video.

 

 

The cameraman who was accosted in the video is Adam Cole. He works for “We the People of Rhode Island,” a public access TV show in Rhode Island. Another witness and citizen journalist at the rally who had a video camera, Randy Swanson of Oathkeepers-Rhode Island, filmed the confrontation. Swanson tells me that criminal charges against the union supporter are pending — and that Providence Capitol Police, Providence Police Department and Rhode Island State Police are investigating other incidents that also occurred that day involving belligerent union supporters.

Don't expect to see this on the network news, folks.  Wrong side.  It doesn't count.

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

Ken Berwitz

Marc Siegel is an associate professor of medicine, Medical Director of Doctor Radio at NYU Langone Medical Center and a Fox News Medical Contributor.  He also cares deeply about the ethics of his profession.

That being the case, it is hardly surprising that he has some choice words for the "doctors" in Wisconsin who handed out fake sick-notes like so much confetti, for political purposes. 

Dr. Siegel has written a scathing criticism of those doctors and what their actions say about the medical profession.  You can read it by clicking here (please do) - but let me give you a few key excerpts:

The University of Wisconsin School of Medicine is investigating the disturbing and disgraceful writing of fake sick notes by some of its doctors to excuse teachers who decided to bail from their jobs. It is the right call. But an investigation is not enough. The state Medical Examining Board of the Department of Regulation and Licensing needs to reprimand these doctors and, in some cases, consider handing down suspension.

I take my professional license seriously. I am bound by ethics as well as HIPAA to conduct a secret exchange with my patient. This exchange takes place in my office or in the hospital behind closed doors. It does not take place on the street with a stranger. When I interact with a patient,

A doctor's signature on a sick form is in the same category as his signature to a prescription. In the case of the fake note, he is prescribing rest or several days off to someone he doesn't know as a form of political protest

Unfortunately, in service professions like medicine or teaching, once you cross the uncrossable line and use fraud for self promotion, you send a message to the public of no confidence. I wouldn't trust one of these striking teachers with a real student any more than I would trust one of these doctors with a real patient.

And it's not just a question of licensure; it's also a question of basic ethics and integrity.

I'd say Dr. Siegel has hit the nail on the head.  How about you?

Ken Berwitz

I have written quite a bit about President Obama "Chavezing" the United States, by summarily doing things that exceed his legal authority. But this time he has gone a step further, and brought Chavezing the USA to a new level.  A new low.

The President has informed us that he, and his disgraceful, toady, sock puppet of an Attorney General, have decided the Defense Of Marriage Act (DOMA) - an act he himself supported, let's not forget - is unconstitutional.  And, therefore, since they have decided this, they will no longer defend it in court.

That surpasses anything else this man has done.  It goes beyond any damage he has already inflicted on the country.  This is the exercise of dictatorial power and he should be impeached for it.

I do not say this lightly.  I am not joking or being sarcastic.  An elected US President who overtly disregards the laws he is sworn to uphold has no place in the Oval Office.

Regular readers of this blog know that I am strongly and unalterably in support of gay rights, including the right to marry (whether it is called a marriage, a civil union or anything else).  That still stands 100%. 

But we have a legislative branch that passed DOMA.  And a judicial branch that can, after the fact, determine if any or all of it is constitutional.  It is up to them to deal with this law.

The President does not - repeat, DOES NOT - have the legal power to ignore it and to instruct his (100% complicit, brown-nosing) AG to do the same.

That is what tinhorn despots do.  Not elected US Presidents.  It is an impossible outrage and it cannot hold.

If any member of congress decides to institute impeachment proceedings for Barack Obama over this illegal power grab, he/she will have my full support.

Ken Berwitz

God how this must have killed her.

Andrea Mitchell, the uber-pompous, leftward Democat partisan, get herself an interview with Donald Rumsfeld.  It is crystal-clear by her initial demeanor and the way she worded her first few questions that Mitchell thought he would be easy pickings - like shooting fish in a barrel.

Well, that's not the way it worked out.  Not at all.  Not even close. Rumsfeld took her apart and made mincemeat out of every left wing talking point she threw at him.  She came out looking like an ignorant, uninformed fool.

Here, from Scott Johnson's blog at powerlineblog.com,  is a video of the first part of this interview (it continues on, but you'll see more than enough to understand the basis for my comments). 

I urge you to click on the link, watch, and then wonder if any interviewer could be so wrong so many times in so many ways.

What a lesson Rumsfeld gave Mitchell!  Her stale, BS talking points might wow 'em at the huffington post, daily kos and MSNBC, but - to say the very least - they don't work very well on someone who knows what he's talking about.

Ken Berwitz

Libya has been blowing up for a week.  It is engaged in a bloody, murderous civil war between most Libyans and the minority of troops and people still loyal to qaddafi  - a minority, let's remember, with access to Libya's armed forces and most significant military assets.

And while this has gone on - not a peep out of our President. 

As of yesterday, according to his new (and, apparenly, equally useless) Press Secretary, Jay Carney, the statement was held up, in part, by a "scheduling confict". 

Wouldn't you just love to know what was more important than this; what held up a statement by the President of the United States regarding a situation which - given that he has worked so hard to make sure we remain oil-dependent on places like Libya - could have huge ramifications for our country?  I bet we'll never know, because I'll bet our wonderful "neutral" media will never ask such an embarrassing question and demand that it be answered directly.

But, late though it is, here is Mr. Obama's hard-hitting reaction to the crisis in Libya:

“The entire world is watching, and we will coordinate our assistance and accountability measures with the international community.  To that end, Secretary Clinton and I have asked Bill Burns, our Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs, to make several stops in Europe and the region to intensify our consultations with allies and partners about the situation in Libya.”

Wow and double wow.  I'll bet qaddafi crapped his pants when he heard that.

I know that you already know my feeling about the fecklessness of a comment like this; its absolute lack of any value or any reason for qaddafi do care about it.  So I will end this blog by quoting a letter to the editor in today's New York Times (they sometimes print one that makes sense, and today's the day):

To the Editor:

You call Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi a “butcher” but then propose that the United Nations should initiate “a thorough investigation” regarding purported “crimes against humanity” and “re-impose a ban on all arms sales to Libya.”

Now how do an investigation and a new embargo stop Colonel Qaddafi from continuing to slaughter his own people? Answer: they don’t.

What needs to be done (as a start) is to launch an attack on Libya’s airfields and show the Qaddafi regime that the wholesale slaughter of civilians is unacceptable to the world community. Of course, this won’t happen, as armchair diplomats will continue to talk about the dangers of intervention while innocents die.

Outrage that is not backed up by force is meaningless.

Steven Morris
East Hampton, N.Y., Feb. 23, 2011

I couldn't have said it better.

Oh, one other thing:  Libya remains on the United Nations HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL.  That's right.  It is still a member in good standing.

Anyone who thinks the United Nations is willing or able to do a thing about Libya needs to see a doctor who specializes in lobotomy reversals.

Ken Berwitz

If you're going to lie - repeatedly - it is good to sneer.  Because a sneer might make people less likely to question your honesty - even if it should be questioned.

That, evidently, is why Rachel Maddow has become something of an expert at curling her lip.

Noel Shepphard, of newsbusters.org, has written a blog about Maddow's appearance on Tuesday's Jay Leno show, in which she makes a number of comments about how many of the large-donor contributions are given to Democrats and Republicans.  Noel takes Ms. Maddow's "staggering amount of nonsense" apart, claim by claim, and shows her up as either one of the most ignorant people on cable news, or one of the most dishonest. 

Personally, I have never thought of Rachel Maddow as ignorant.  That should tell you where I come out.

You can read the entire blog - and it is an abdolute devastation of Maddow's credibility - by clicking here. 

When you do, you will find, among other things that Maddow claims 7 of the 10 biggest donors last year gave primarily to Republicans.  According to www.opensecrets.com, the truth is that just 1 of the 10 biggest donors did. 

And from there on, just about everything else Maddow said was full of beans - or, more accurately, what comes out of you after you eat beans.

Noel ends his blog by saying:

Add it all up, and apart from her out and out lie concerning 2010's top ten, there was not a shred of validity in anything Maddow said in the video and transcript above.

As this is now becoming a habit of Maddow's, one has to seriously wonder if the folks at MSNBC are going to do anything about this, or if bald-faced lying is now acceptable on this so-called cable news channel.

That's one hell of a good question.

Any answers, Comcast?

Ken Berwitz

For years I have blogged that, as committed as I am to alternative energy sources, I understand that they will not prevail for many years -- so we must driill offshore, at ANWR, and utilize our massive shale oil resources, or we will be at the mercy of people in volatile places who hate our guts.

But, for all these years, Democrats - most notably the current occupant of the White House - have done everything possible to prevent that drilling.

Well, now that the Middle East is exploding, with oil skyrocketing to $100 a barrel (and don't doubt that it can go a lot higher), my question, in four parts, is.....

How do you feel about Democrats preventing us from exploiting our oil resources all these years?  Are you happy about it?  Are you less happy about it now then you were, say, last month?  Do you think you'll be even less happy about it in the future?

The 2012 elections cannot come fast enough.

Ken Berwitz

A San Franciscan named Lloyd Schofield is circulating a petition which, if it gets enough signatures (and I'm about 100% certain it will) would ban circumcisions in the city.

I'm sure this will sit wonderfully with the doctors who recommend circumcision for sanitary reasons.  But it will be of even more interest to San Francisco's Jewish population, given that, under Jewish law, boys are circumcised when they are 8 days old.

In fairness, Mr. Schofield is not demanding a complete ban.  He says that once the child is 18 and can legally make up his own mind, he can be circumcised any time he wants.

If this passes, I would assume it will also apply to vaccinations, for exactly the same reason -- i.e. forgetting health issues, how dare a parent let some greedy doctor stick needles into the child for money.  Leave that precious body alone!

The irony is remarkable, isn't it?  In the third trimester it is legal for women to "abort" their children - abortion in that case being a euphemism for killing a live child in the womb - sometimes while the child is actually being born. 

But 8 days later?  Circumcise a child and be fined and jailed.  That's a terrible crime.

After all, babies have rights, don't they?

Ken Berwitz

I have a question.  Given that:

-Libya has hundreds, maybe a thousand or more dead,

-it teeters on the brink of a horrific civil war,

-qaddafi has ordered what is left of the troops still obeying him to continue killing civilians and sabotage the country's oil fields

-and oil prices are going through the roof,

When does President Obama SAY SOMETHING?

Ken Berwitz

Can you believe what those Republicans in Wisconsin are doing now?

In Wisconsin, spending legislation require a quorum of 20 or more state senators.  There are 19 Republicans and 14 Democrats in the state senate; therefore, without them, no spending legislation can go forward.  So every Democrat - 14 out of 14 - has fled the state to prevent a vote on (Republican) Governor Walker's budget bill. 

-With them, the Republican majority will almost certainly prevail (that is called Democracy, since Wisconsin voters elected the Republican majority to office). 

-Without them, there cannot be a vote on the budget because the minumum of 20 senators will not be in attendance (that is called anarchy, because it is a deliberate attempt to thwart the democratic process).

But this is not where the story ends.  Since non-spending legislation does not require a quorum of 20, there is an entire legislative agenda that can be moved on without those Democrats present.  And one bill, which was proposed last month and now is being moved forward, will establish a requirement that Wisconsin citizens to show a valid photo ID before being allowed to vote.

This has Democrats, and their lackeys in the media, up in arms.  The sentiment appears to be "Imagine the nerve of those bastards, expecting people to show they have a legal right to vote.  Imagine the nerve of expecting the same proof  that is necessary for paying a $10 supermarket bill with a check, or getting a senior admission price at the local movie theater.  How dare they!  This is racist.  This is partisan!  this is.......(the other claims vary by person)"

(I dare anyone to explain to me what is anti-Black or partisan in any way about being asked to produce an ID before voting.  I'll wait for an answer.)

MSNBC, of course, is going bat-excrement over this.  Illustratively, on Rachel Maddow's show last night she cried that voter ID's would make it harder for Democrats to vote.  I swear, she said that.  Here are her exact words:

"Registering new voters has long been a great source of Democratic electoral strength. Why is that? Because young voters and people who haven't voted before do tend to vote Democratic. So, if Republicans can make it really hard to register to vote, they can take away one of the ways that Democrats win in elections. If you make it harder to register to vote, you make it harder for Democrats to win elections."

Ken Berwitz

For Democrats, this is a recurring theme.  Find an individual or group.  Then relentlessly attack, making him/her/them into bogeymen, through an intense, orchestrated tidal wave of planned attacks, and then watch the ever-complicit mainstream media follow suit. 

The latest Democrat bogeymen?  The Koch brothers, David and Charles, who oversee a multi-billion dollar diversified corporation and who (gasp) are Republican/conservatives.

For months now Democrats have been hammering away at the Koch brothers.  And one after another, those nice "neutral" folks in our mainstream media have been regurgitating everything Democrats have fed to them. 

Interestingly - maybe tellingly - even after all this time, the attacks on David and Charles Koch have not gotten very far in the general population.  Maybe enough of the public has finally wised up to the Democrat bogeyman routine to render it less effective than it used to be.  But that doesn't mean they aren't still trying. 

John Hinderaker at powerlineblog.com has a terrific, fact-filled story on just how hard Democrats are working to demonize the Kochs, just how fraudulent some of their efforts are, and just how immaterial that fraudulence is to so much of our wonderful "neutral" media.  John's piece is well worth reading in its entirety.  But, to whet your appetite, here are the first few paragraphs:

 

It is tempting to wonder whether at some point in the last few months, the Left held a meeting and decided to try to demonize Charles and David Koch, their company, Koch Enterprises, and the non-profit organizations that they support. Almost overnight, Koch Enterprises went from being one of the most successful and respected companies in America to the focus of a concentrated campaign of hate, the likes of which we haven't seen in quite a while. Maybe someday history will record where the meeting was held, what rationale was advanced for trying to demonize the Koch brothers, and what the vote was on the motion. Maybe someday we will find out who sent the memo to left-wing news outlets like the New York Times, giving them their new assignment. For now, we can only observe that the Left's campaign against the Kochs is suddenly a top priority.

 

Yesterday, the Times ran an article by Eric Lipton titled, Billionaire Brothers' Money Plays Role in Wisconsin Dispute. Lipton's theme was that events in Wisconsin are, somehow, all about Charles and David Koch, who live in Wichita, not Madison or Milwaukee, and have never until now been viewed as significant players in Wisconsin politics. Lipton writes:

 

Among the thousands of demonstrators who jammed the Wisconsin State Capitol grounds this weekend was a well-financed advocate from Washington who was there to voice praise for cutting state spending by slashing union benefits and bargaining rights.

 

The visitor, Tim Phillips, the president of Americans for Prosperity, told a large group of counterprotesters who had gathered Saturday at one edge of what otherwise was a mostly union crowd that the cuts were not only necessary, but they also represented the start of a much-needed nationwide move to slash public-sector union benefits. ...

 

What Mr. Phillips did not mention was that his Virginia-based nonprofit group ... was created and financed in part by the secretive billionaire brothers Charles G. and David H. Koch.

 

State records also show that Koch Industries, their energy and consumer products conglomerate based in Wichita, Kan., was one of the biggest contributors to the election campaign of Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, a Republican who has championed the proposed cuts.

 

Lipton leaves that claim hanging, and never tells his readers how much the Koch PAC contributed to Walker's campaign. In fact, the total was $43,000. That was out of more than $11 million that Walker raised, and $37.4 million that was spent, altogether, on the 2010 race for Governor of Wisconsin. Which means that people associated with Koch Industries contributed a whopping one-tenth of one percent of what was spent on last year's election. So why is the Times running scare headlines about the "Billionaire Brothers' Money?"

Next we have this curious statement:

 

How pathetic is this?

But use the link I've provided, continue reading, and you'll find out that it is just the beginning.  There is plenty more in the pathetic category, I assure you - including the chart John puts up showing how much more money - dramatically more money - was contributed by special interest groups in bed with Democrats.  That, by itself, makes hi bog a worthwhile read.

John ends with this:

Well, the New York Times is an arm of the Democratic Party, so that isn't surprising. Nevertheless, the kind of rampant dishonesty we see from Eric Lipton still has the power to shock.

Truer words were never written.

Ken Berwitz

This latest example of Democratic "civility comes to us from Rep. Michael Capuano (D-MA) who, yesterday, spoke in support of the Wisconsin protesters by saying:

“I’m proud to be here with people who understand that it’s more than just sending an email to get you going. Every once and awhile you need to get out on the streets and get a little bloody when necessary”

Count on our wonderful "neutral" media to roundly condemn Rep. Capuano's call to violence --- about three days after moammar qaddafi leaves Libya to become a concierge at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem.

Ken Berwitz

When does President Obama have something to say about Libya?

Lee Smith, writing for the Weekly Standard, would like to know - and has written an excellent commentary on Mr. Obama's silence.

Here are a few excerpts:

After almost a week of escalating violent reprisals against protestors and soldiers who have joined the anti-regime forces, Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi and his sons have yet to quell the uprisings—and the White House has yet to take a public stand. Last night, Secretary Clinton released a statement, and pathetic as it was, it’s more than the president has offered—a president who has spent considerable energy burnishing his image for the Muslim and Arab public.

 

The Obama administration would do well to exercise some moral clarity regarding a man whose personal demeanor has long symbolized the most repressively autocratic and obscurantist features of Arab political culture—a man who reportedly has now, among other things, dispatched his air force to put down the people he rules. The White House’s silence is perhaps explained by the idea that a public statement will do more harm than good.

 

The same is true of the White House’s decision to keep its support of Iranian protestors muted, for fear that the Islamic Republic might turn even more vicious. This policy seems to be a result of the Obama White House buying into the “kiss of death” fallacy. This line of thinking holds that since the U.S. is so hated in the Middle East, American support for any political cause in the region can only backfire by undermining the cause.

 

The thesis is absurd on the face of it: if it were really true, then Washington would have an instrument so powerful that it could bring down adversarial regimes with a mere whisper. After all, a public statement to the effect that Washington considered President X a dear friend and would do anything in its power to keep him enthroned for the rest of his life and ensure the succession of his progeny until the world ended would presumably send the Muslim and Arab masses to the streets until they had President X’s head on a stake. But the “kiss of death” thesis has no basis in reality; it is merely a political tool that Democratic operatives in the U.S. media used against Bush. However, since Obama’s anything-but-Bush foreign policy is based on the same principle underlying the “kiss of death” fallacy, it is no surprise that the administration believes in its veracity, and this is why it is now tongue-tied.

 

U.S. support does not undermine a cause; when it is a factor at all, it lends prestige to it. In any case, neither Qaddafi nor the opposition is waving Old Glory. It is a Libyan affair, a Libyan conflict fought over Libyan issues, with the power to rule Libya in the balance. The White House’s task is to shape events in Libya to suit U.S. interests—and silence doesn’t cut it.

Silence can be golden.  But it can also be a way to avoid saying the right thing, the thing that has to be said.  It seems all too clear that the Obamateurs running our foreign policy are behind door #2.

Lucky for moammar qaddafi that he didn't support Israel building residential housing units in its capital city.  Then he'd have heard something about it..

Ken Berwitz

Here is a quick lesson in how to talk like an absolute imbecile.

Chris Matthews, today, describing Sarah Palin:

“She’s like Muammar Qaddafi – she just doesn’t know the world around her. “If she starts showing up with an umbrella and starts saying, ‘I’m here, I’m not there.’ Well, I don’t think she is as bad as him. I’m not going to go that far.”

Lesson over.

Ken Berwitz

For sheer stupidity this one is going to be hard to beat.

Excerpted from an article at Fox News:

Airline Apologizes To Jewish Customers

Updated: Tuesday, 22 Feb 2011, 8:41 AM EST
Published : Tuesday, 22 Feb 2011, 8:13 AM EST

LONDON - UK budget airline easyJet apologized Tuesday to Jewish customers after the only food choices served on a flight from Israel were ham melts and bacon baguettes.

Passengers who follow the faith's ban on eating pork were forced to go hungry for the four-and-a-half hour journey from Tel Aviv to London.

The airline introduced the route in November, proudly promising that in-flight menus would feature kosher food that met Jewish dietary laws.

So Victor Kaufman, 25, was stunned when cabin crew announced the meal choices on his flight last weekend.

"It was a little insensitive. I think they need a lesson or two on cultural awareness if they expand their routes into the Middle East. It is not just Jewish passengers who do not eat pork but Muslim ones, too. I couldn't eat anything," the trainee accountant said.

The level of ignorance and/or stupidity necessary for this to happen is staggering.

Gee, maybe they'll make it up to their kosher passengers by offering them a nice butter-cooked steak.....

Ken Berwitz

Apparently watching Wisconsin Democrats make fools of themselves has made Indiana Democrats quite envious.  Because they have decided to emulate them.

It seems the Republican-majority Indiana house is promoting a bill that would, under most circumstances, prohibit the payment of union dues from being a condition of employment.  And because Democrats are so completely beholden, thus owned and operated by, the unions, almost all have fled the state so that there are too few remaining members to bring it to a vote.  In other words, Democrats would rather desert their state than stay, debate the bill , and allow it to come to a vote. 

I will say this about Indiana Democrats as I said it about Wisconsin Democrats.  They are solidifying their favorability with unions, students and hard leftists.  They are alienating most others. 

This will insure that a huge amount of union dollars will go almost exclusively to the campaigns of Democrats.  The unions will do everything they can to keep Democrats in office. 

Is that enough to overcome the number of voters who feel they are subverting democracy by stopping the democratic process?  You tell me.

e's a thought that should put a shudder into this bunch:  What if Republican offered legislation that required the union to donate only the amount of dues its members voted they could - in secret ballots?   In other words, it would prevent them from using members' dues as their own political piggybank.

I bet that would get them back to their seats.

Ken Berwitz

Do media have a double standard when it comes to displays of hate?

Well, read these excerpts from Rich Noyes' blog at newsbusters.org and decide for yourself.

Last March, as thousands protested on Capitol Hill in the days before the passage of ObamaCare, CBS’s Nancy Cordes slammed it as “a weekend filled with incivility,” while World News anchor Diane Sawyer painted the Tea Party as a violent gang, with “protesters roaming Washington, some of them increasingly emotional, yelling slurs and epithets.” In August 2009, ABC anchor Charles Gibson complained how “protesters brought pictures of President Obama with a Hitler-style mustache to a town hall meeting,” failing to mention that the signs were produced by Lyndon LaRouche’s wacky fringe movement, not the Tea Party or conservatives.

Over the past several days, the liberal demonstrations in Wisconsin (bolstered by the national Democratic Party and President Obama’s Organizing for America group) have included signs just as inflammatory as the ones that bothered the networks during the health care debate, including several showing Governor Scott Walker as Adolph Hitler. Others have likened Walker to Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin (“Scott Stalin”) and recently deposed Egyptian autocrat Hosni Mubarak (“Walker = Mubarak”).

 Another protest sign drew a cross-hairs over a picture of Governor Walker’s head, with the caption “Don’t Retreat, Reload; Repeal Walker” — an obvious parallel to a Facebook map posted by Sarah Palin last year, although that much-criticized graphic placed the target sights on maps of congressional districts, not any politician’s face.

Yet none of these signs in the hands of liberal protesters have drawn the slightest complaint from network journalists. MRC analysts examined all 53 ABC, CBS and NBC morning and evening news stories, segments and anchor briefs on the Wisconsin protests from Thursday, February 17 (when they first drew major national coverage) through Monday, February 21. While eight of the 53 stories (15%) visually displayed one or more of the signs described above, none elicited a single remark from the network correspondents.

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

Ken Berwitz

This could not have happened if the 14 Democrats of Wisconsin's state senate were attending to the duties they were voted into office to perform.  It could not have happened if they had not decided to abscond, every one of them.

But since they all left the state rather than deal with the Republican majority elected by voters, it not only happened, it happened easily and quickly.

Excerpted from an article at the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel:

Panel backs voter ID; Democrat not allowed to vote by phone

 

By Patrick Marley of the Journal Sentinel

Feb. 22, 2011 2:56 p.m.

 

Madison — Republicans on a state Senate committee approved a bill Tuesday to require voters to show ID at the polls, in their latest effort to entice Democrats to end their boycott of Senate proceedings.

The committee made significant changes to the bill in a meeting that included a bizarre element. Sen. Jon Erpenbach (D-Middleton) participated in the meeting by phone, but Sen. Mary Lazich (R-New Berlin), the committee chairwoman, refused to let him vote because he and the 13 other Senate Democrats left the state Thursday.

Senators routinely participate in committee meetings by phone and are allowed to debate, offer amendments and vote on measures. But Lazich said she wasn't allowing Erpenbach to vote because he had an invalid reasons for being absent.

"I won't extend courtesies for unethical behavior," Lazich told Erpenbach.

"Do you want the headline to be, 'Republicans won't let Democrats vote,' even though we've allowed that many, many times?" Erpenbach said.

Erpenbach's name was not called as the clerk took the roll, but he repeatedly yelled, "No!" over the speakerphone. The committee's three Republicans voted for the bill.

The bill could go before the Senate on Thursday, though leaders have not yet decided when they would vote on it.

The bill requiring photo ID includes spending and would require 20 senators to be present. But Lazich said an amendment is being drafted to take the spending elements out so that it could pass even if Democrats continue their boycott.

Omigod!  Voters will have to prove they have a legal right to vote?  The NERVE of those Republicans.

And who knows what other legislation might get moved along if Democrats stay out?  Quite a bit, I suspect.  Why not?  No one is stopping them from performing their duties except themselves.  This is 100% self-inflicted.

I will end by giving you my impression of a Wisconsin state senate Democrat's possible reaction:

"Oops.  This isn't working out the way we thought.  The Republicans were supposed to cave in, and they didn't.  Now what are we going to do?

"We can continue to stay outside the state, but that means we're away from our homes and loved ones.  Of course they could leave the state too and join us; heck, with the teachers pretending they're sick it won't be like junior is missing any school.  But that would make us look even worse than we already do. 

"Or we can go back to the state and do our jobs.  But that would mean the Republican majority would be hanging over us.  That's not fair!  Aren't Democrats supposed to always be in charge? 

"Damn those voters!  We'll show them.  We'll just stop doing our jobs!  We'll sit it out and do nothing!  We'll....er, wait a minute.  Isn't that what we're doing already?  

Uhhh....Never mind."

Ken Berwitz

Suppose a poll was conducted among Wisconsin voters to find out how they felt regarding Republican Governor Walker's budget proposals and the Democrats and unions who oppose them.  Suppose further that the poll was conducted by an openly Republican research company and paid for by two groups openly supportive of Governor Walker's budget proposals.   I have two questions:

1) Would you have any doubt whatsoever that the poll would favor Governor Walker's side?

2) Would you be very suspicious of the results?

On the theory that you are reasonably competent and reasonably sane, I will assume the answer to both questions is "yes".

With that in mind, please note that the Democrat-leaning politico.com has just relased a poll by the Democratic polling firm of Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research, which was sponsored by the AFL-CIO (labor union), Change To Win (made up of a number of unions) and the NEA (teachers' union). 

And guess what:  It shows that the people strongly support the Democrats and the unions over Governor Walker.

If you are still reasonably competent and reasonably sane, I will assume that those two questions I asked earlier continue to have the same answer.

Oh, one other thing:  President Obama's "passion index" (i.e. the people who strongly support him minus the people who strongly oppose him) was -9% last Thursday, when he spoke out in favor of the union side of this issue, with 28% strongly approving of him and 37% strongly disapproving. 

As of this morning, after five days of the Wisconsin story dominating domestic politics, his passion index is now at -20%, with 21% strongly approving and 41% strongly disapproving.

Does that look like Mr. Obama is on the most popular side of this issue to you?  I didn't think so.

Ken Berwitz

As you may already know, the four Americans who were kidnapped along with their yacht by Somali pirates, were killed today.  And - after all the Americans were killed - we killed or captured the pirates.

Will that bring back the four innocent lives that were lost:  Phyllis Macay, Robert Riggle, Jean Adam and Scott Adam?   No it will not.

WHY DID WE NOT DEAL WITH THIS SITUATION A LONG TIME AGO?

Here are my words, verbatim, from April, 2009 - which I have blogged a number of times since, including just last month:

Another day has passed without the USA acting against Somalian thugs/terrorists/pirates. 

But the thugs/terrorists/pirates remain in full operation. How long before they take another one of our ships?  And what do you think they will do with a US crew?

Every day this is allowed to continue is a day that every American crew member on every ship is at mortal risk.

Are we planning to act against them where it counts - i.e. where their boats are docked?  Or are we waiting for Americans to join the nationals of so many other countries and become hostages - or be killed outright, which is specifically what is being threatened?

Are we waiting for the rest of the world to act?  Are we waiting for the UN?  What have they done through all the Somalian hijackings so far, besides nothing?  What will they do if an American crew is taken, besides nothing?

The time is now.  Right now. 

Send in our planes.  Send in our troops.  Not to the cities, but to the ports and contiguous areas around them.

Wipe these bastards out.  blow up every ship that cannot 100% prove it is not engaged in the pirate/thug/terrorism trade.  Put them the hell out of business.

And when the countries whose people are being held hostage tell us that we're doing the wrong thing?  Respond, firmly and decisively, that it is their unwillingness to act which caused the hostage situation, not our actions to protect US interests.  Tell them that if we don't stop this right now, there will be more hostages, not less.  It has to stop, and the sooner the better.

Then let them cry and moan about it.  That, apparently, is the extent of what they are willing to do.

This cannot go on any longer.  Period.

The sad truth is that this was inevitable.  As Obama & Co. looked the other way, hoping against hope that we'd somehow be lucky, four lives have been lost - innocent lives that there was no reason to lose at all.

And, for the record, there are now hundreds more innocents being held by these subhuman thieves and murderers then when I wrote those words.

When is this administration going to act - with or without international approval?  When is it going to protect the lives of our citizens (and other countries' citizens in the bargain)?

What the HELL is Barack Obama waiting for.  Another kidnapping?  More deaths?

The time was then, and the Obama administration did nothing.  This massacre is a direct result of that inaction.

And the time is now. 

I don't want to hear a lament, or a eulogy.  I want this nest of thieves and murderers wiped out.  Period.

I hope you feel the same way.

Ken Berwitz

This is not a prediction.  It is a speculation.

Libya is hopelessly in turmoil, and qadaffi is using the rapidly dwindling military still loyal to him to fire on his own people. 

For these reasons, I am speculating that one of two things will happen within the next few days, maybe even today:

-qaddafi will flee (who will take him in - I can only hope that it won't be the hopelessly overmatched amateurs Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton) or...

-given the massive military and government defections, and his mass murdering of Libyan civilians, one or more of qaddafi's "protectors" - i.e. the military troops, armed to the teeth, who are paid handsomely to shield him from harm - will turn those weapons on him instead, and blow him to the special place waiting for him in hell.  Further, it would not surprise me in the least if his sack of manure son will be killed the same way.

And if these events come to pass?  I will not lose one second's sleep over it. 

Will you?  Will anyone?

Ken Berwitz

Another day, another AWOL performance by the 14 Democrats in Wisconsin's state senate - who, presumably, will return to the state at a time of their choosing, irrespective of the fact that they are legally in session right now, as they have been since they absconded.

But, while these Democrats hide out in Illinois and who knows where else, their cohorts in the state assembly plan to inflict their own attack on the Democratic process. 

According to an Associated Press report, Democrats in Wisconsin's state assembly will deluge the body with over 100 amendments to the legislation they are preventing passage of - presumably to tie things up long enough so that the people (other than union thugs, college student-robots and assorted far leftists) will rise up and demand either a compromise or that the legislation be dropped altogether.  

Will it work?

Well, can we remember that this is the same state which voted in a Republican Governor and Republican majorities in both statehouses just 3 1/2 months ago?  Does it strike you as likely in any way that those voters - and maybe a lot of people who voted Democrat as well - are happy about this attempt to subvert the Democratic process?

I could be very wrong about this, but it seems to me that what Democrats are actually doing is solidifying two groups:  union/student-robot/far leftist and yellow dog Democrats in their favor, and mostly everyone else against them.

Count the two groups up.  See which one is larger.  Then you may agree with me that this (sub)version of Democracy is a) not working and b) turning a purple state red for the near future.

Congratulations, guys.  Great job.  You've really made a difference.

Ken Berwitz

These cartoons come to us from Phil Hands - who usually is a reliably liberal/leftward cartoonist for the Wisconsin State Journal.

But, despite his personal political leanings, Mr. Hands knows full well which side currently is worthy of ridicule in his state:

Very funny.  And very insightful too.

Ken Berwitz

I inflicted Chris Matthews' "Hardball on myself for a few minutes just now.  He conducted "interviews" with a Wisconsin Democrat, sitting serenely in a quiet room somewhere in Illinois presenting his side, and with a Wisconsin Republican trying to make himself heard over the union protesters who were all around him shouting him down as he spoke.

And, unless Matthews made mention of it at the very beginning before I tuned in, he conducted the entire interview without even one reference to the amazingly unfair circumstances the Republican (who acquitted himself quite well, it should be noted) was subjected to.

And, yes, there was no doubt that Matthews was siding with the Democrat.  What a shock.

Pathetic beyond belief.   Or, put another way, business as usual for Matthews and MSNBC.

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

UPDATE:  Noel Sheppard of newsbusters.org has put up a terrific blog which points out how the Republican, whose name is Glenn Grothman, blewMatthews away by answering Matthews' whiney sarcastic town with actual facts.  Click on the link I've provided and you will see that Sheppard provides copious reference to show that Grothman rather than Matthews had things right.  He ends with this:

Either the "Hardball" host and his staff are completely incompetent and are incapable of identifying what is clearly available on the internet, or they are intentionally misinforming their viewers in order to show support for the protesters in Madison.

Whatever the answer, the higher-ups at MSNBC should be doing something about this blatant negligence if they want their network to be in any way taken seriously.

To the Comcast people now running MSNBC:  That is good advice.  Do yourselves a favor and think about it.

Ken Berwitz

In 2008, Barack Obama was elected President of the United States, with huge majorities in both houses of congress to grease the skids for his agenda.

Now, over two years later - and less than two years until the next election - how is the electorate reacting to their performance?

From a poll released by Gallup today:

And before assuming that this is just another little thousand-sample-size pop poll, please note that....

These results are based on Gallup Daily tracking, and include interviews with more than 350,000 Americans each year since 2008. In 2010, Gallup interviewed at least 1,000 adults in every state but North Dakota as well as the District of Columbia.

You see data like these, and you wonder not just if Barack Obama can be re-elected, you wonder if Democrats will even renominate him.

Put yourself in the shoes of a congressperson representing a formerly blue state which is now either competitive ("purple" as they say) or even red.  These are the cards Mr. Obama and the Democratic leadership are handing you.  Do you really want to play them?

The leadup to 2012 is going to be a very interesting time. 

Ken Berwitz

When is racial discrimination acceptable? 

Here is your answer, via the following press release - the one-week-old press release from the Center for Equal Opportunity (www.ceousa.org).  The press release media did not cover, and I only learned of today at www.freerepublic.com.  Please pay special attention to the paragraph I've put in bold print:

(Columbus, OH) A new study released today by the Center for Equal Opportunity documents evidence of significant discrimination based on race and ethnicity in undergraduate admissions at Ohio State University and Miami University. African Americans and, to a lesser extent, Latinos were given preferences over whites and, again to a lesser extent, Asians.

 The study is based on data supplied by the universities themselves. The study was prepared by Dr. Althea Nagai, a research fellow at CEO, and can be viewed on the organization’s website, www.ceousa.org. The executive summary of the study is attached.

CEO president Roger Clegg will answer questions about the study when it is formally released at a press conference Monday at 10:00 a.m. at Ohio State University in Columbus (in the Student-Alumni Council Room of the Ohio Union building). The address is 1739 North High Street, Columbus, Ohio 43210.

The odds ratio favoring African Americans over whites was 10-to-1 or 8-to-1 at Miami (depending on whether the ACT or SAT was used along with high school grades and other factors), and nearly 8-to-1 or over 3-to-1 at Ohio State (again, depending on whether the ACT or SAT was used).  The black-white gap in median SAT scores varied from 110 to 160 points at the two schools, the ACT gap was consistently 4 (which translates into an even larger gap), and there were gaps in high-school grades as well.

CEO chairman Linda Chavez noted:  “The study shows that many, many students are rejected in favor of students with lower test scores and grades, and the reason is that they have the wrong skin color or their ancestors came from the wrong countries.”  She added that significantly fewer African Americans are likely to graduate than whites and Asians.  “You aren’t doing someone a favor if you admit him to a school and then he doesn’t graduate.”

Roger Clegg added:  “The discrimination becomes more pronounced among students with lower standardized tests scores and grades.  For example, at Miami more than eight out of ten African Americans with ACT scores and GPAs at the 25^th percentile of black admittees were admitted, versus half of Hispanics, four out of ten Asians, and fewer than one out of three whites with those credentials.  At OSU, more than seven out of ten blacks with these credentials were admitted, versus fewer than two out of ten whites.”

 The Center for Equal Opportunity is a nonprofit research and educational organization that studies issues related to civil rights, bilingual education, and immigration and assimilation nationwide.

A few questions for Ohio State, Miami, and the many other universities which engage in this odious, racist practice:

-Why is it wrong to discriminate against non-Whites, but perfectly fine to discriminate in favor of them?

-Why would it be a surprise that students who attend a college they have gotten into by leapfrogging over more qualified applicants, will wind up performing poorly and be more likely than other students to drop out? 

And when do universities (among other entities) realize that discrimination is wrong regardless of which color is being discriminated against? 

Ever?

Ken Berwitz

Jamie Weinstein, writing for dailycaller.com, has an excellent analysis of the latest instance where President Obama, with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton obsequiously marching in step behind him, has sabotaged Israel.

Excerpted from Mr. Weinstein's piece: 

Last week at the United Nations Security Council, America reluctantly vetoed a resolution attacking Israeli settlement expansion as illegal and an obstacle to peace that was pushed by Arab countries. But the American veto only came after the Palestinians rejected a compromise “presidential statement” that America was willing to support which would have lambasted Israeli settlements as illegitimate.

America’s incomprehensible handling of the situation highlighted once again the Obama administration’s amateurish foreign policy. What follows are three major takeaways from the whole affair.

Takeaway No. 1: Obama showed a willingness to attack Israel at the U.N.

Many supporters of Israel were disturbed when Foreign Policy magazine reported last week that the United States had apparently informed Arab governments about its willingness to support a “compromise” Security Council “presidential statement” declaring that the Council “does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlement activity, which is a serious obstacle to the peace process.”

Takeaway No. 2: Kissing up to unsavory regimes while kicking friends fails again

There have been many examples of the Obama administration kicking traditional American allies with the hope of winning favor from unsavory regimes that aren’t traditional friends of the U.S. Recently, for instance, it was reported that the Obama administration provided British nuclear secrets to the Russians in order to win support for the START treaty.

But this strategy has been a miserable failure and last week’s U.N. situation once again demonstrated why. Even though the Obama administration ultimately vetoed the resolution, they alienated Israel by showing a willingness to bash them at the United Nations – something America rarely does at the disgustingly anti-Israel international body as a matter of decency and self-respect. Plus, even though the U.S vetoed the resolution, American U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice did deliver a shockingly harsh condemnation of the Jewish state at the Security Council meeting.

Takeaway No. 3: Obama fiddles with inconsequential resolution while the Middle East burns

Finally, what is perhaps most stunning of all is the wasted time and energy the Obama administration expended on this issue when the Middle East was burning. While revolutions are upending the old order in the Middle East, President Obama and his administration spent an outlandish amount of time negotiating a resolution that was totally meaningless in practice.

Forget a 3:00 a.m. call, Obama can’t even seem to handle a 3:00 p.m. call. It’s time for the administration to get its foreign policy act together.

As impressed as I am with Mr. Weinstein's analysis, I have to admonish him for that last sentence - because it assumes Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and the rest of what I will most charitably call the administration's foreign policy brain trust are capable of getting a foreign policy act together. 

What, exactly, has indicated there is any such capability?  Where are the foreign policy successes?  Can you find any?  Show them to me.

This administration is a foreign policy catastrophe, which seems to be operating under the bizzaro-world delusion that it makes sense to pull our enemies up by their bootstraps while kicking our friends (Israel being just one example) squarely in the ass.

The 2012 elections cannot come fast enough.

Ken Berwitz

The latest from Libya's fluid (to say the least) situation.

-Reports indicate that the death toll - i.e. the killing inflicted by the (rapidly dwindling) armed forces still loyal to qaddafi' - has climbed to over 400 protesters.  That number is sure to rise further;

-Protesters may have taken over the major city of Benghazi;

-Those unconfirmed reports that moammar qaddafi had left the country, which then were then denied?  Now there are new reports that he has fled Tripoli - to who knows where, maybe in and maybe out of Libya;

-The justice minister has resigned over what he calls an excess of violence against the Libyan people.  Or, put another way, this scumbag, who was working for qaddafi until now, is trying to save his own skin. 

Keep watching.  Events are unfolding at lightning speed.

Ken Berwitz

One of hotair.com contributor Ed Morrissey's readers, "Tim R",  took some pictures of the union protest signs in Wisconsin on Saturday.

Here there are (by all means go to Mr. Morrissey's blog to see his commentary about them - it is well worth your while).

Now where are those poignant, plaintive cries for civility and an end to "heated political rhetoric" from our wonderful "neutral" media?  Where are they from those Democrats we heard from after the Gabrielle Giffords shooting? 

It certainly seems as though such concerns end at the point where criticism would be aimed at people who contribute to Democrats, doesn't it? 

What frauds these people are.

Ken Berwitz

Who owes more to the union thugs engaging in anarchy in Wisconsin than Democrats?

According to sometimes conservative/sometimes not Joe Scarborough on MSNBC's "Morning Joe", unions contributed something like $200 million dollars to elect Democrats last year and virtually nothing to Republicans.

Let me say it again, in case you think it must have been a typo:  unions contributed something like $200 million dollars to elect Democrats last year and virtually nothing to Republicans.  That incredible amount of partisanship is real.

This was acknowledged by the other members of the panel - liberal/left guest Mark Halperin and undisputed by liberal/left Mika Brzezinski, liberal/left Mike Barnicle and liberal/left Charles Blow (like I said, this is MSNBC), 

And it is why, when Halperin was asked why President Obama chimed in his support of the unions, he responded that Democrats are so beholden to the unions that the President has to line up on their side.  Even if, in reality, they are joining the 14 disgraces-on-legs otherwise known as Wisconsin's Democrat state senators, in doing everything they can to prevent democracy from taking place.

I then watched a piece on Fox & Friends in which one of the show's producers asked a "doctor" (who knows if she really was one) for a sick note.  The answer was yes, of course, without any examination or anything other than that request.  The producer said she would be out there until Tuesday or Wednesday and the "doctor" happily started writing the sick note for that time period.  This was followed by footage of a protester with a smirky grin, assuring us that the sickness were real, because when you protest so much your voice hurts and there is a lot of stress.

Meanwhile, the schools of Milwaukee are shut down for almost a week - and counting - while these wonderful dedicated teachers screw democracy and screw their students and screw the parents who may not even be able to go to work if their children are not in school.  The reason?  Because, in their wonderful, dedicated way, they will screw anyone and anything to get and keep as much as they can. 

Who will ever again believe that these people are dedicated to teaching?  We can all see what they're really dedicated to.

So the Wisconsin exercise in anarchy continues.  And the newly elected Republican Governor hangs tough.

Ironically, if the public supports this stand against public employee unions, it is going to do more for Republicans in general and Governor Walker in particular than 100 campaign rallies and 1000 TV ads could ever do.

I wonder how the unions feel about that?

Oh, one other thing:  Have you noticed the dearth of polling on this issue by our wonderful "neutral" media?  You would have expected a rash of them, wouldn't you?  But try and find one.

The only poll I have seen this morning that might tell me what effect it is having, is Rasmussen research's daily Presidential tracking study.  Since Mr. Obama took his stand with the unions, the percent of people strongly supporting him has dropped from 28% to 23%, while the percent strongly opposing him has risen from 37% to 41%.  That is a doubling of his negative "passion index" (the difference between "strongly support" and "strongly oppose") from -9% to -18% in less than a week.

Does that give you any inkling of which side the public is on here?  Does it explain why mainstream media have avoided conducting (or have conducted and avoided publishing) any polls on this issue? 

You tell me.

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

UPDATE:  Finally one poll.  From Rasmussen.  And the results are exactly what I (and maybe you) would have assumed:

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 48% of Likely U.S. Voters agree more with the Republican governor in his dispute with union workers. Thirty-eight percent (38%) agree more with the unionized public employees, while 14% are undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

Do yourself a favor and use the link I've provided to read Rasmussen's entire analysis. It is a real eye-opener (except for the media venues which intend to keep their eyes closed no matter what.  I wonder how many will even report these numbers tonight and tomorrow morning).

Also, keep in mind that these data were collected on February 18 and 19, before the ugliest part of the protests - the signs, the phony doctor's notes, the continued bug-out of Democratic legislators, etc. - was made public by the blogosphere (and precious few media venues).  I have no doubt people are even more negative now.

Ken Berwitz

Apprently those unconfirmed reports that Libya's ruling subhuman scumbag, moammar al-qaddafi, fled to either Venezuela or London are untrue.  He is still in Libya, killing his own people to try to stay in power.

Excerpted from a report at msnbc.com:

TRIPOLI — A central government building in the Libyan capital Tripoli was on fire Monday, a Reuters reporter said, in the latest sign that the revolt against Moammar Gadhafi is gathering strength.

 

"I can see the People's Hall is on fire, there are firefighters there trying to put it out," the reporter said. The building is where the General People's Congress, or parliament, meets when it is in session in Tripoli.

 

Early Monday, protesters also took over the office of two of the multiple state-run satellite news channels, witnesses said.

 

Human Rights Watch said Monday that the estimated death toll from four days of protests had risen to at least 233, citing hospital sources.

 

In Benghazi, staff at Al Jalaa hospital said they recorded 50 dead Sunday, while the 7 October hospital reported another 10 dead the same day, giving a total of 60 killed in Benghazi Sunday. Human Rights Watch said it had been unable to contact two other hospitals in Benghazi.

 

The anti-government protests broke out in Tripoli for the first time Sunday, following days of unrest in the city of Benghazi.

 

Thousands of protesters clashed with Gadhafi supporters in and around the central Green Square. Gunfire rang out in the night and police used tear gas to disperse demonstrators, some of whom threw stones at Gadhafi billboards.

 

Witnesses reported snipers opening fire on crowds trying to seize the square, and Gadhafi supporters speeding through in vehicles, shooting and running over protesters.

 

In response, Gadhafi's son Saif al-Islam Gadhafi appeared on national television in an attempt both to threaten and calm people.

"Our spirits are high and the leader Moammar Gadhafi is leading the battle in Tripoli, and we are behind him as is the Libyan army," he said. "We will keep fighting until the last man standing, even to the last woman standing ... We will not leave Libya to the Italians or the Turks."

How telling. 

Big, brave moammar qadaffi is nowhere to be seen.  But his equally despicable son is assuring the Libyan people that he and his father will continue to kill them - kill them all, if necessary - to keep power.  Men, women, who cares?

These two sacks of manure better be packing and packing fast.  The people of Libya are taking their country back.  And even if they want fundamentalist Islamic rule, a) how different will that be from what they already have and b) in any event, it will be without the murderer/oppressor qadaffi.

And whatever of the army remains loyal to him?  After the qadaffis, they will be the most despised people in the country.  The hundreds (eventually, maybe thousands) of deaths they are inflicting on their own people will be avenged.  You can count on it.

The bloodshed is far from over.

Ken Berwitz

Sheikh yusuf al-quradawi made a triumphant return to Egypt this weekend, drawing something like 1,000,000 people in and around Tahrir Square

Much like khomeini's return to Iran, after the Shah was overthrown.  How'd that turn out?

Discover The Networks has a comprehensive dossier on al-quradawi, which you can (and most certainly should) read by clicking here.

You will find that he is virulently anti-west, anti-USA, anti-Israel and anti-Jews. 

Here are a few "highlights" of his background:

• Qatar-based Muslim scholar who supports Palestinian suicide bombings
• Prolific author
• Has issued numerous fatwas supporting Islamic extremism and denouncing Israel and the U.S.

Based in Qatar, Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi is one of the most influential clerics in Sunni Islam. He currently serves as president of the European Council for Fatwa and Research (ECFW), and is a highly influential spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood. Qaradawi has twice (in 1976 and 2004) turned down opportunities to serve as the Brotherhood’s highest-ranking leader. His preference, he explains, is to avoid tying himself to "any movement which might constrain my actions, even if this is the Muslim Brotherhood under whose umbrella I grew and which I so defended."

From 1998-2000, Qaradawi was a board of directors member with the Islamic Society of Boston, whose founder and first president was Abdurahman Alamoudi -- an avid supporter of Hamas and Hezbollah, now incarcerated on terrorism-related charges.

As of 1999, Qaradawi was one of the largest shareholders in Al Taqwa Bank, a Bahamas-based financial institution which the U.S. Treasury Department designated as a terrorist financier (with ties to al Qaeda) in 2001. He also served on the bank's Sharia Board, which oversaw the institution's adherence to Islamic law.

One of Qaradawi's foremost passions is his deep and unwavering hatred for, and distrust of, the Jewish people. He has unambiguously justified Palestinian suicide bombings as legitimate responses to alleged “Zionist” aggression and occupation. In 2004 he told BBC television, "Allah Almighty is just; through his infinite wisdom he has given the weak a weapon the strong do not have, and that is their ability to turn their bodies into bombs as Palestinians do."

Also in April 2004, Qaradawi issued a fatwa declaring a Muslim boycott of American- and Israeli-made products. “To buy their goods is to support tyranny, oppression and aggression,” he wrote. “Buying goods from them will strengthen them; our duty is to make them as weak as we can.”

That same year, Qaradawi expressed support for the anti-U.S. insurgency in Iraq, endorsing the kidnapping and murder of American civilians there. Announcing a fatwa at the Egyptian Journalists' Union convention in Cairo, he stated:

 

"All of the Americans in Iraq are combatants, there is no difference between civilians and soldiers, and one should fight them, since the American civilians came to Iraq in order to serve the occupation. The abduction and killing of Americans in Iraq is a [religious] obligation so as to cause them to leave Iraq immediately."

 

During the 2006 Israel-Lebanon war, Qaradawi declared that Muslims were obliged to support the terrorist group Hezbollah in its combat operations against Israel.

In a 2007 interview, Qaradawi said: "It is obligatory on all Muslims to resist any possible attack the U.S. might launch against Iran. The U.S. is an enemy of Islam that has already declared war on Islam under the disguise of war on terrorism and provides Israel with unlimited support."

 

In a January 2009 speech that aired on Al Jazeera, Qaradawi said:

"Throughout history, Allah has imposed upon the [Jews] people who would punish them for their corruption. The last punishment was carried out by Hitler. By means of all the things he did to them - even though they exaggerated this issue - he managed to put them in their place. This was divine punishment for them. Allah willing, the next time will be at the hands of the believers."

Based on the deliriously happy welcome he received, is it out of the question that al-qaradawi will take the reins of government in Egypt?  Or at the very least become one of its most influential people?

Still think Mubarak was so bad? 

Sometimes bad is the best thing you have.

Ken Berwitz

In Libya:

-First there were protests. 

-Then there were bigger protests. 

-Then qadaffi had his troops fire on the protesters. 

-Then when the protests continued and intensified qadaffi had snipers shooting into the crowds. There are estimates of 200 dead or more (I'm betting those are well below the real number.

-Then qadaffi's son told the country that they were making a big mistake and risking a civil war - a war qaddafi's actions had already started.

-Then there were reports of army units defecting and joining the protesters.

-Now there are unconfirmed reports that qadaffi has fled the country.  Maybe to Venezuela or maybe to London.

With Egypt, we still don't know what kind of government will eventuate and whether it will be better than - or maybe a lot worse than - the Hosni Mubarak regime.

With Libya?  The two key issues are a potential civil war (the son, Seif al-Islam qaddafi did have a point) and the possible (though improbable) damage his overthrow might wreak on the oil market.  Other than those, I can't come up with any downside. 

Let qadaffi live with his pal hugo chavez.  Let him live with Venezuelans.  With Martians.  With Trafalmadorians. 

Or maybe, if he is in London, he can move on to Glasgow and get asylum from the cowards in Scotland's government who handed him the Lockerbie mass murderer to get his oil.  Though I doubt it will happen, I hope whatever new Libyan government comes into power will negate that deal immediately.

Just keep him the hell out of Libya.  He has ruined that country for decades too long.

Ken Berwitz

Want to see how low the Wisconsin teachers/protesters are sinking? 

Here's your answer.  No commentary necessary:

.

Ken Berwitz

Joe Klein, most recently of Time Magazine, has about as strong a set of leftward credentials as you will find in mainstream media. 

So when he writes about how unions have acquired far too much power which they use to make wholly unreasonable demands, it is worth paying some attention.

Here are excerpts from his latest column for Time.  Read them and try to find anything you disagree with:

Revolutions everywhere--in the middle east, in the middle west. But there is a difference: in the middle east, the protesters are marching for democracy; in the middle west, they're protesting against it. I mean, Isn't it, well, a bit ironic that the protesters in Madison, blocking the state senate chamber, are chanting "Freedom, Democracy, Union" while trying to prevent a vote?

An election was held in Wisconsin last November. The Republicans won. In a democracy, there are consequences to elections and no one, not even the public employees unions, are exempt from that. There are no guarantees that labor contracts, including contracts governing the most basic rights of unions, can't be renegotiated, or terminated for that matter. We hold elections to decide those basic parameters. And it seems to me that Governor Scott Walker's basic requests are modest ones--asking public employees to contribute more to their pension and health care plans, though still far less than most private sector employees do. He is also trying to limit the unions' abilities to negotiate work rules--and this is crucial when it comes to the more efficient operation of government in a difficult time.

There are other parts of the column I disagree with (this is Joe Klein, let's remember).  But what you just read is dead-on correct.

Will there be other defections from the usually-reliable hard left?  Maybe yes and maybe no.  But this is one of them, and it is an important one.

Thank you, Mr. Klein, for the honesty and the common sense.

Ken Berwitz

Remember when Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats referred to the Tea Party rallies as being “astroturfed” (i.e. not at all spontaneous or everyday, but orchestrated by organized groups)?  Remember how sinister and shadowy that was portrayed as being?

To many of us, the Tea Partiers appeared to consist predominantly of everyday people who were carrying hand-made signs describing their dissatisfaction with government, mostly with government spending.  But “astroturf” was the Democratic Party line.

And do you remember how much of our media dutifully, compliantly picked up on the “astroturf” meme and recited it on behalf of their Democratic masters as if there were no issue that it was true?

Well, the protests in Madison, Wisconsin have gone on for something like a week now.  And they have predominantly been organized by unions – both in and out of the state - and student groups (the U. of Wisconsin is in Madison).  They are about as “astroturfed” as they can be.  

Have you heard a word about “astroturfing" in the media yet?  

Me neither.  It must be on the waiting line with footage of all those signs calling Governor Walker “hitler”, “mussolini” “mubarak” and showing crosshairs on his face.  No rush to show the shee...er, people stuff like that, no rush at all.

And while were on the subject, here are a couple of other things I doubt you’ve seen or heard much reporting on.  The first comes to us via excerpts from the www.mediatrackers.com web site:

“Sick” Teachers Force Milwaukee Public Schools To Close

On Friday, the Milwaukee Public School District was forced to close the doors of all its 184 schools after more than 600 teachers called in “sick” in order to travel to Madison to engage in protests against Governor Walker’s Budget Repair Bill. The Milwaukee Public School District is the largest school district in Wisconsin with over 82,000 students and 184 schools.

The average salary of a Milwaukee Public School District teacher is $56,095 according to the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction. Including benefits, the average compensation package for Milwaukee teachers is $86,297 per year.

If these 600 Milwaukee teachers are not docked pay, it could cost taxpayers nearly $186,983.32 to pay teachers to attend protests in Madison on Friday.

According to Census Bureau estimates, nearly 33% of of all children in the Milwaukee Public School system live in poverty. Essential services occur during the school day such as the administration of medicine and guaranteed meals.

Are the taxpayers really going to subsidize schoolteachers for walking out?  My guess is that, yes, they are.

And what about that average compensation package for Milwaukee teachers?  Do you think that a salary and benefits package of $86,297 should be enough for them to foot a tiny fraction of their health coverage and pension – like just about everyone else does?

Oh, one other thing:  That compensation package actually may be a great deal higher.  The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction uses the $86,297 figure.  But here, from video footage provided by maciverinstitute.com, is what Deborah Wegner, Manager of Financial Planning for the city of Milwaukee, says:

“The average teacher salary for fiscal year 11 will remain at the fiscal 10 rate of $56,500…..the cost of a teacher, plus benefits, will be $100,005 in fiscal 11, while in fiscal 10 the cost was $95,316 with benefits”

Maybe it’s just me, but whether it is $86K or $100K a year, I don’t see these teachers going broke if they have to kick in a tiny fraction of the cost for their benefits.

How about you?

Now:  when do media start reporting any of this?

Ken Berwitz

Dan Gainor of the Media Research Center (MRC) has written a superb column which lays out, in plain language, a) just how completely the Obama/Democrat "stimulus package" has failed and b) just how completely our wonderful "neutral" media have failed to report it.

I urge you to read Mr. Gainor's entire piece by clicking here.  But, for the meanwhile, let me give you its first few paragraphs:

Politicians will promise just about anything to get elected. They might offer a chicken in every pot or even vow to end wars in places like Iraq or Afghanistan. That's just marketing. But once they get elected, we expect them to be honest.

Or at least we used to. Not any longer. Not since the $787 billion stimulus bill passed in 2010. Now, two years after it was signed into law on Feb. 17, it's easy to see why we've given up on political honesty. As Rep. Joe Wilson said to President Obama: "You lie."

He wasn't kidding.

The whole premise of the need for such an incredibly huge spending bill was jobs. As The New York Times explained it on Oct. 22, 2009, "the Obama administration's forecast at the start of the year, which predicted that unemployment would not climb much above 8 percent." That should earn Obama a spot in the Liar's Hall of Fame.

Now in 2011, unemployment isn't even close to 8 percent and it went as high as 10.1 percent. Unemployment has been over 9 percent since May of 2009, a 21-month stretch of pain for millions of Americans. And even though we've had some big drops in the number in the last two months, no one on the left or right believes them.

Yet you've hardly ever heard the media tell you about Obama's failed stimulus plan. That's right, failed. If you promise the largest spending bill in history is needed to keep unemployment below 8 percent and the jobless rate spends 21 months at 9 percent or higher, then you failed. Big time.

You probably didn't know that. That's because ABC, CBS, and NBC mentioned that promise just nine times in nearly two years of stimulus coverage. The remaining 98 percent of the time, Obama's disastrous overspending was ignored.

Unbelievable? 

Nope.  Just what our wonderful "neutral" media have devolved into; shills for the Democratic Party with less and less concern for what the actual truth is.  How sad. 

But things are as they are.  And that is why, despite the fact that many people still rely on mainstream media for their news, more and more either reject them altogether or balance their information with what can be found from alternative sources - like this one, for example.

The more perspectives we get on the news, the less likely we are to be led like good little sheep by ideologues posing as journalists.  And that, folks, is the best news of this entire blog.

Ken Berwitz

As the protests in Madison, Wisconsin continue, and escalate, President Obama has made a point of coming down squarely in favor of the union position. 

Excerpted from an article by Brady Dennis and Peter Wallsten in ysterday's Washington Post:

MADISON, WIS. - President Obama thrust himself and his political operation this week into Wisconsin's broiling budget battle, mobilizing opposition Thursday to a Republican bill that would curb public-worker benefits and planning similar protests in other state capitals.

 

Obama accused Scott Walker, the state's new Republican governor, of unleashing an "assault" on unions in pushing emergency legislation that would change future collective-bargaining agreements that affect most public employees, including teachers.

 

The president's political machine worked in close coordination Thursday with state and national union officials to get thousands of protesters to gather in Madison and to plan similar demonstrations in other state capitals.

 

Their efforts began to spread, as thousands of labor supporters turned out for a hearing in Columbus, Ohio, to protest a measure from Gov. John Kasich (R) that would cut collective-bargaining rights.

 

By the end of the day, Democratic Party officials were organizing additional demonstrations in Ohio and Indiana, where an effort is underway to trim benefits for public workers. Some union activists predicted similar protests in Missouri, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

 

Under Walker's plan, most public workers - excluding police, firefighters and state troopers - would have to pay half of their pension costs and at least 12 percent of their health-care costs. They would lose bargaining rights for anything other than pay. Walker, who took office last month, says the emergency measure would save $300 million over the next two years to help close a $3.6 billion budget gap.

 

"Some of what I've heard coming out of Wisconsin, where they're just making it harder for public employees to collectively bargain generally, seems like more of an assault on unions," Obama told a Milwaukee television reporter on Thursday, taking the unusual step of inviting a local TV station into the White House for a sit-down interview. "I think everybody's got to make some adjustments, but I think it's also important to recognize that public employees make enormous contributions to our states and our citizens."

From a purely political perspective, this may or may not make sense. 

-On the upside, it can solidify President Obama's standing with union members.  While he owns the leadership of major unions (or, more exactly, they own him), Mr. Obama loses a lot of the union rank and file on election day.  His stand in Wisconsin could generate higher union support for him, which could be the difference in several large states.

-But on the downside, union members comprise only a small percentage of the overall work force.  If Mr. Obama is perceived as kowtowing to unions and giving them goodies while the rest of us suffer, he stands to lose a lot more than he gains.

I understand that the urge to play politics with this situation must be irrestistible to Mr. Obama.  But I wonder if he realizes just how much he is risking to do it.

Well, that's for him to worry about.  We'll keep a close watch and see how things play out.

Ken Berwitz

There has been more coverage of Carmelo Anthony's on-again/off-again trade to the New Jersey Nets than it deserves. 

Like about 100 times more.

For god sake, he's a @&#%$@ ing BASKETBALL PLAYER.  Not even a very good one, beyond his (admittedly stellar) offensive talents. 

Besides, as a New Jersey Nets fan (more or less) I can't help thinking that the Nets are going to be bridesmaids again on this one.  Anthony wants to play for the Knicks.  When the Nets' owner said he was out of the trade talks last year he should have stuck to his guns.  Now, either he'll just look bad again, or he'll "win" a player who doesn't want to be there, at a hugely ridiculous cost in players and draft picks. 

In any event, there are more important things to worry about then how many tens of millions some sports mogul is going to hand Carmelo Anthony for running around in his underwear putting a big round ball into a bigger round hole.

Enough already.

Ken Berwitz

After days of  Democrats, unionistas, university students and left wing activists (yeah, I know there's a lot of redundancy there)descending on Madison, Wisconsin to protest Governor Scott Walker's budget proposals, Tea Partiers and, presumably, other members of the right are going to counterdemonstrate.

Excerpted from an article by Matthew Boyle of the Daily Caller:

Tea Party leaders are organizing a counter-rally in Madison, Wisc. to support newly elected Republican Gov. Scott Walker against the labor unions that have been protesting his proposed budget cuts all week. Conservative media guru Andrew Breitbart, possible 2012 presidential candidate Herman Cain and other notables are en route to Madison for the counter-rally, scheduled to begin at noon central time on Saturday.

 

Walker is pushing a new budget that would eliminate some collective bargaining privileges for public sector employees, which he says has been a long time coming. Wisconsin’s Democratic state senators fled on Thursday to thwart a vote on the measure. There are 19 Republican senators, and while they hold the majority, 20 senators total are required for a vote. So the budget cannot pass until the GOP gets one more senator on board.

 

Public sector unions, led by the Democratic National Committee’s lobbying and campaign arm, “Organizing for America,” have descended on the state’s capitol in an effort to keep Walker’s budget from being approved. Big-name union bosses such as AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka have bussed in union folks from around the country to support the cause, and Jesse Jackson appeared in Madison as well. Several public schools throughout the state have closed down due to teachers calling in sick to protest.

 

Saturday’s counter-rally is the first of many likely counter-attacks from Tea Partiers.

 

Breitbart told The Daily Caller he’s not sure what he’ll see when he arrives in Wisconsin, but expects it will be “the same familiar faces” that back other left-wing movements.

 

“I’m expecting hostility because dissent is no longer patriotic in Obama’s America,” Breitbart said.

What will happen?  Will the presence of other voices result in hate rhetoric?  Violence? 

Well, the hate rhetoric has already been there.  I (and many others) have blogged about the equating of Governor Walker with hitler, mussolini and mubarak among others.  I've shown the footage of a sign with Governor Walker in crosshairs (funny how that didn't upset almost any of our wonderful "neutral" media - the same media which accused Sarah Palin of complicity in the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords because of an electoral map she had issued almost a year before with crosshairs on Ms. Giffords' district).

And if there are clashes, who will be blamed?  Is there any doubt that it will be the Tea Partiers?  After all, they will have showed up after the left wing demonstrators, didn't they?  What right do they have to counter those demonstrations.

Ok, there are the speculations.  Now let's wait and see exactly how it plays out in the real world, and in the media coverage.

Don't expect those two to be the same.

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

UPDATE:  Just a few minutes after posting this blog, I saw a Today show report on the protests.  It had footage of many signs being held by the protesters.  Not one of the hate signs was shown, and not one mention was made that there were hate signs.

This is not the coverage of a neutral media venue.  This is the coverage of an advocacy group - which, sad to say, NBC joins all too many of our other media in being a part of.

They disgrace journalism.

Ken Berwitz

Three days ago I sent this email to Lifetime Networks, concerning its selection of roseanne barr to star in a Hawaii-based reality show:

My name is Ken Berwitz.  I write a political blog (www.hopelesslypartisan.com). 

 

I would like to know why roseanne barr has been given a show on Lifetime, in view of her rich history of making hateful comments about groups of people and individuals - with a special hatred reserved for Jews (please read my blog (http://partisan.blogs.hopelesslypartisan.com/item_9529.htm) and see for yourself).

 

Thanks in advance for your response - which I will post for my readers if/when it is received.

The link I provided shows a number of hate comments by barr, along with a picture of her, made up to look like adolf hitler, baking "burnt Jew cookies" (this was not a photoshop, this was 100% real).  In my opinion roseanne barr is a sick degenerate who, if she were conservative instead of far-left, would never get a shot at any show on any network ever.

I am still waiting for a reply of some kind from Lifetime.  My guess is that I won't be getting one.

I'll give it a couple more days, then decide how to proceed.

Ken Berwitz

As Wisconsin's Democrativc legislators hide outside the state, rather than engage in the duties they are sworn, and paid, to perform, this email is being sent out by Guy Cecil, Executive Director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC):

Dear XXX,

 I’ve been watching what’s going on in Wisconsin, and it’s just one more example of how extreme Republicans have gotten. In Washington, rather than ask the wealthy to pay their fair share, the GOP is trying to balance our national budget on the backs of those who can least afford it. Now in Wisconsin, they’re launching an attack on teachers, prison guards and other public employees – the very workers who educate our children and keep all of us safe. They’re trying to strip away most of their collective bargaining rights and greatly increase the cost of their health care.

It’s unfair, and it must stop.

This is just the start of Republicans showing their true colors. Democrats are fighting back, but they need to know that we’ve got their back.

Click here to sign our petition. Let Democrats in Wisconsin know that we stand with them against the extreme antics of the GOP.

Republicans are far out of the mainstream, and when they target the very people who teach our children and keep our communities safe, we must speak out as Democrats, and as Americans. Thanks for adding your voice.

Sincerely,

Guy Cecil

That's facinating, isn't it?  Wisconsin Democrats are doing a collective bin laden - they are hiding in the hopes that they won't be found - and Cecil is calling Republicans extreme?

But wait.  What is Mr. Cecil's answer to the huge budget shortfall Governor Walker is trying to address?  Why tax "the rich" of course.  Don't spend less, god forbid.  Don't ease unions out of some of the provisions of their fat, perk-laden contracts.  Just take it from those rich guys.  Yeah, that's the ticket.  That's the "fair" way to do it. 

I wonder if the Cecils of the world ever think about why those "rich people" establish primary residence in states with lower taxation?  Why businesses move to those states?  Why they invest their money overseas instead of here?  Could his brilliant idea of "tax 'em some more, they've got the dough" possibly have something to do with this?  How much tax money do you suppose that philosophy will lose the state of Wisconsin? 

One other thing.  Winsconsin has just elected a Republican Governor, it has a 19-14 Republican majority in the state senate and it has a 57-38 Republican majority in the state assembly.  Based on that information, which party do you think most Wisconsin voters consider to be in the mainstream?  Republicans?  Or Democrats (assuming anyone can find them)?

As noted in the previous blog, even the usually Democrat-favoring Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel thinks Democrats are acting like.....well, here's the headline of their editorial:

The Dems' tantrum

In a snit, Senate Democrats run and hide - making a mockery of the democratic process.

Bottom line:  If anyone is being extreme and operating outside of the mainstream here, it is Democrats.

Not even a nice Try, Mr. Cecil. 

Ken Berwitz

Here is the (usually reliably Democrat) Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel's editorial, published yesterday, about Democratic legislators who have bugged out of the state of Wisconsin rather than vote on Governor Walker's proposed "budget repair bill":

The Dems' tantrum

In a snit, Senate Democrats run and hide - making a mockery of the democratic process.

Feb. 17, 2011 |

Democrats in the state Senate threw a temper tantrum Thursday - essentially they took their ball and went home.

Actually, they didn't go home. They apparently went to Illinois, just out of reach of their obligations.

By boycotting an expected vote on Gov. Scott Walker's budget repair bill, they were able to prevent action on the measure. Twenty senators are required for a quorum; the Republicans have only 19.

The Walker plan is deeply divisive. We're not supportive of some aspects of the bill, either, including those that will make it nearly impossible for unions to negotiate. And we think that police and firefighter unions should not be excluded as they are now. But public worker benefits need to be reined in, and Walker is right to target them.

State Sen. Lena Taylor (D-Milwaukee), apparently with plenty of time on her hands Thursday afternoon, posted on her Facebook page, "brb," slang for "be right back." Too bad she and her colleagues weren't.

One leading Democrat - Obama was his name, as we recall - put it well after winning the White House in 2008: "Elections have consequences," he told Republicans at the time. Indeed they do. The Democrats' childish prank mocks the democratic process.

Meanwhile, some Wisconsin teachers decided to make a mockery of their own profession by penalizing their students after an irresponsible call to action by Mary Bell, the chief of the state teachers union.

"On Thursday and Friday, we are asking Wisconsinites to come to Madison," Bell, president of the Wisconsin Education Association Council, said Wednesday. She then claimed disingenuously that she wasn't telling the union's 98,000 teachers to walk off their jobs.

Unfortunately, that's what many of them did. There were no classes in Madison schools. Port Washington High School had to close. The same was true at other schools around the state. Do these teachers care more about their jobs than their kids? We wonder.

Both Senate Democrats and teachers should get over their snits and get back to work.

Excellent.  Absolutely excellent.

I don't have a thing to add.  The MJS has said it all.

Ken Berwitz

So how is that hopey-changey thing going in Egypt's Tahrir Square?

Excerpted from Charles Levinson's piece in today's Wall Street Journal.  Please pay special attention to the paragraphs I have put in bold print:

CAIRO—Egypt's youth activists and opposition leaders are beginning to jockey for position, jousting over their revolutionary credentials and firing off accusations of going soft on the military, as the camaraderie that united them at the height of the uprising is replaced by rough-and-tumble politics.

Wael Ghonim, the Google Inc. marketing executive whose online activism was a critical rallying point for activists, has come under withering attacks from fellow activists for comments that some activists felt undermined their cause.

When Mr. Ghonim called on protesters to go home after President Hosni Mubarak ceded some power but refused to step down, many activists were outraged at what they perceived as premature surrender. Mr. Ghonim didn't respond to requests to comment.

After activists met Sunday with two generals on the council that is now running the country, Mr. Ghonim said on his Facebook page, "I trust in the Egyptian army." Others at the meeting said they needed more evidence of the military's commitment to democracy.

Three Facebook pages devoted to trashing Mr. Ghonim have gone online in the past few days. They have titles such as "Ghonim Traitor," and already have over 40,000 members.

"He's a good man, but I think he keeps saying things that aren't very politically savvy or strategic," said Ahmed Maher, a longtime friend of Mr. Ghonim and a member of the Revolutionary Youth Alliance.

After protesters of all stripes achieved perhaps the one goal that united them—the ouster of President Mubarak—grudges and rumor have joined substantive debates. Some youth followers of opposition leader Mohamed ElBaradei have split amid disagreements over, among other things, how deferential to be to the military, and who has a right to claim a role in toppling Mr. Mubarak.

"It's all changing so fast, movements and parties are being born and disappearing and dividing and uniting and changing faster than anyone can keep track of it all," said Sally Sami, an activist with the Cairo Institute for Human Rights.

Tahrir Square has been filled with a sea of Egyptians for three weeks - first demanding the resignation of Hosni Mubarak, then "celebrating" when it happened.  And for three weeks our wonderful "neutral" media have done little but extol this, as if it were some kind of guarantee that Egypt would become a free, democratic state.

Well, where are the guarantees now?  Who is going to emerge on top?  What will the new government do about Egypt's relationship with the USA?  What will the new government do about Egypt's 30 year peace with Israel?  Will Egypt be heavily influenced, or even run completely, by the Muslim brotherhood - a fundamentalist group that (despite James Clapper's imbecilic mouthings) is fully committed to jihad? 

And when do mainstream media start talking about the fractiousness Mr. Levinson (and just a few others) are describing, which might blow the so-called Egyptian "celebration" into an intense, violent civil war? 

No one knows what will happen next.  But remember;  however bad he was, there are worse situations than a Hosni Mubarak government.  Lots worse.

It is long past time for media to start taking them into account.

Ken Berwitz

This is not a question and answer, it is a comment and answer.

Read them both and see which one (if either) makes more sense to you:

Comment - President Obama, via the following excerpt from Katrina Trinko's blog for National Review:

Admitting that he hasn’t “followed exactly what’s happening with the Wisconsin budget,” Obama nonetheless slammed limiting collective bargaining during an interview with a Wisconsin radio station yesterday.

“Some of what I’ve heard coming out of Wisconsin, where you’re just making it harder for public employees to collectively bargain, generally seems like more of an assault on unions,” said the president.

Answer: - Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, via the following excerpt from MJ Lee's blog at politico.com:

Republican Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, confronted with thousands of protesters outside of the state capitol in Madison, says “it would be wise for the president” to stay out of his state’s business.

“I think we’re focused on balancing our budget,” Walker said on Fox News Friday morning. “It would be wise for the president and others in Washington to focus on balancing their budget, which they are a long ways from doing.”

Your call.......

Ken Berwitz

I don't know why my sister sent me this reminder of "the good old days" this morning.  It might have something to do with the fact that, since I'm 65 today, she thought it would alleviate any depression I might have over this dubious little chronological milestone (believe me, there isn't any to alleviate).  

But regardless of her reason, the fact remains that it is a terrific, funny, nostalgic piece -- one that I think you'll like as much as I do, no matter which side of the age divide you are on.  So here it is:

When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were. When they were growing up; what with walking twenty-five miles to school every morning.... Uphill.. Barefoot... BOTH ways...yadda, yadda, yadda

And I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way in hell I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on my kids about how hard I had it and how easy they've got it!

But now that I'm over the ripe old age of forty, I can't help but look around and notice the youth of today. You've got it so easy!  I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in a damn Utopia!  And I hate to say it, but you kids today, you don't know how good you've got it!

1) I mean, when I was a kid we didn't have the Internet.  If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the damn library and look it up ourselves, in the card catalog!!

2) There was no email!!  We had to actually write somebody a letter - with a pen!  Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox, and it would take like a week to get there!  Stamps were 10 cents!

3) Child Protective Services didn't care if our parents beat us.  As a matter of fact, the parents of all my friends also had permission to kick our ass! Nowhere was safe!

4) There were no MP3's or Napsters or iTunes!  If you wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the record store and shoplift it yourself!

5) Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio, and the DJ would usually talk over the beginning and @#*% it all up!  There were no CD players!  We had tape decks in our car.  We'd play our favorite tape and "eject" it when finished, and then the tape would come undone rendering it useless.  Cause, hey, that's how we rolled, Baby!  Dig?

6) We didn't have fancy crap like Call Waiting!  If you were on the phone and somebody else called, they got a busy signal, that's it!

7) There weren't any freakin' cell phones either. If you left the house, you just didn't make a damn call or receive one. You actually had to be out of touch with your "friends". OH MY GOSH !!!  Think of the horror... not being in touch with someone 24/7!!!  And then there's TEXTING.  Yeah, right.  Please!  You kids have no idea how annoying you are.

8) And we didn't have fancy Caller ID either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was!  It could be your school, your parents, your boss, your bookie, your drug dealer, the collection agent... you just didn't know!!!  You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!

9) We didn't have any fancy PlayStation or Xbox video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics!  We had the Atari 2600!  With games like 'Space Invaders' and 'Asteroids'.  Your screen guy was a little square!  You actually had to use your imagination!!!  And there were no multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen.. Forever!  And you could never win.  The game just kept getting harder and harder and faster and faster until you died!  Just like LIFE!

10) You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on! You were screwed when it came to channel surfing!  You had to get off your ass and walk over to the TV to change the channel!!!  NO REMOTES!!!  Oh, no, what's the world coming to?!?!

11) There was no Cartoon Network either! You could only get cartoons on Saturday Morning.  Do you hear what I'm saying? We had to wait ALL WEEK for cartoons, you spoiled little rat-bastards!

12) And we didn't have microwaves.  If we wanted to heat something up, we had to use the stove!  Imagine that!


13) And our parents told us to stay outside and play... all day long.  Oh, no, no electronics to soothe and comfort.  And if you came back inside... you were doing chores!

14) And car seats - oh, please!  Mom threw you in the back seat and you hung on.  If you were lucky, you got the "safety arm" across the chest at the last moment if she had to stop suddenly, and if your head hit the dashboard, well that was your fault for calling "shot gun" in the first place!

See!  That's exactly what I'm talking about! You kids today have got it too easy. You're spoiled rotten!  You guys wouldn't have lasted five minutes back in 1970   or any time before!

Regards,
The Over 40 Crowd

Ken Berwitz

Congratulations to the house of representatives which, today, added language that would end Czarist rule in the United States of America.

Here are the particulars, excerpted from an article by Robin Bravender at politico.com:

Republicans successfully added an amendment to the continuing resolution that would leave President Barack Obama’s senior advisers on policy issues including health care, energy and others out of a job.

 

The vote was 249-179.

 

Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) offered the amendment that blocks funding for various policy advisers to combat what he called “a very disturbing proliferation of czars” under Obama.

 

“These unappointed, unaccountable people who are literally running a shadow government, heading up these little fiefdoms that nobody can really seem to identify where they are or what they’re doing,” Scalise said Thursday. “But we do know that they’re wielding vast amounts of power.”

 

Scalise got 13 Democrats to vote for his amendment and it wasn't just the usual Blue Dogs: Dan Boren (Okla.), Ben Chandler (Ky.), Jerry Costello (Ill.), Henry Cuellar and Gene Green of Texas, Peter DeFazio (Ore.), Jim Matheson (Utah), Ed Pastor (Ariz.), Nick Rahall (W.Va.), Mike Ross (Ark.), and North Carolina's Heath Shuler, Mike McIntyre and Larry Kissell.

 

One Republican - Wisconsin's Reid Ribble - voted no.

Were there "Czars" in previous administrations?  Yes there were, and more than a few of them. 

But has the Obama administration pushed this far beyond where the others had gone, to the point where it seems that the "Czars" have turned into a shadow government, accountable to no one but the guy who hired them?  Yes again.

The article does not indicate whether this has to go to the senate and President Obama's desk.  I sort of assume it does. 

And, if so, what will happen then?  Will it wind up law?  That remains to be seen. 

But I hope it does. 

Ken Berwitz

Here is another in the ongoing series of hatred that would be 100% intolerable if it came from the right, but is 100% acceptable when it comes from the left.

This installment involves the union protests in Madison, Wisconsin over newly elected Governor Walker's legislative proposals.

The Wisconsin Republican Party has put together a 1:34 montage of Democrats and hard-leftists (sometimes both) decrying "heated rhetoric" and hate speech, with footage of some of the signs being held by protesters. 

You can see the video by clicking here. 

And while you're waiting for it to load, look at this picture, which was taken by Ann Althouse of althouse.blogspot.com.  Think of it as an appetizer before the main course, since you'll see a lot more just like it in the video.

We watched the Today show yesterday and today.  It did major stories on the protests both days.  But not one word about the overt hatred in those signs. 

Remember:  When the Tea Party movement was starting up, Today (along with its bosom buddies at CBS and ABC and CNN and especially MSNBC) were quick to compile a small number of hate signs from various rallies (several of which, it turned out, were held by left wing plants) and use them to define the entire group. 

Well here is sign after sign at one rally in one place with overt, vile hatred - and not one word about it from the Today people.** 

In other words, if you you rely on Today for your news (and many people do), you have no idea about the hate component at these rallies.  That is why I say that Today (and so many other media venues) do not provide news, they provide propaganda that lead viewers to the side they favor.

They are not journalists.  Maybe they used to be, but not any more.  They shame the profession.

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

** I am more than a little amused to report, however, that their report did show footage of  someone carrying a sign that said "The choads must go".  I strongly suspect the geniuses at Today are unaware that this is a street insult - i.e. a "choad" is a penis that is wider than it is long.  

Ken Berwitz

Lara Logan is not Jewish.  But the crazed mob at Tahrir Square decided she must be. So, as they beat her and sexually assaulted her, they screamed "JEW!  JEW!".

Virtually no mainstream media have covered this aspect of Ms. Logan's horrible ordeal.  Why?  As I asked The Today Show yesterday, after they ignored this part of the story:

-First and foremost, why did you not tell your viewers that this attack was, at least in part, based on the (incorrect) premise that Lara Logan was Jewish?  Would that have opened viewers to the possibility that at least some of these jubilant protesters are Jew haters who want Mubarak out because he enforced peaceful coexistence with Israel?  Would that have ruined your three week investment in the story line that all Egyptians want is freedom and democracy and there's nothing else to it?

I didn't know it at the time, but even Logan's network, CBS, sat on this for days.  Here is an excerpt from Michael Graham's column on the attack which describes the network's uncleansable shame:

“[60 Minutes] correspondent Lara Logan was repeatedly sexually assaulted by thugs yelling, ‘Jew! Jew!’ as she covered the chaotic fall of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Cairo’s main square Friday.”

Powerful reporting on an important story. Two problems: It didn’t run until yesterday, and CBS didn’t run it. The quote is from the New York Post. And it was The Wall Street Journal that reported “the separation and assault lasted roughly 20 to 30 minutes.”

But CBS? They sat on their own story. For five days, as reporters reveled amid giddy celebrations in Tahrir Square, and as President Obama praised President Obama’s handling of the Egyptian crisis, CBS reported nothing.

Only when other media had the story did CBS break the news that its own chief foreign correspondent was the victim of “a brutal and sustained sexual assault.”

Five days of silence — not even “60 Minutes” coverage of the Egypt story. No mention of the “mob of more than 200 people whipped into frenzy” who attacked their own reporter.

How is that not news?

Some women journalists, like WGBH’s Callie Crossley, complain that CBS should never have reported the story, that Logan should be treated like a rape victim in the United States. But I’m with liberal columnist Richard Cohen of The Washington Post:

“The sexual assault of a woman in the middle of a public square is a story  . . .  particularly because the crowd in Tahrir Square was almost invariably characterized as friendly and out for nothing but democracy,” Cohen wrote.

Watching the same complicit media we all saw, Cohen notes most journalists covered the mobs “as if they were reporting from Times Square on New Year’s Eve, stopping only at putting on a party hat.”

Even CBS’s own statement said Logan was “covering the jubilation” and was attacked “amidst the celebration.”

Having 200 “good guys” gang assault a female reporter while screaming “Jew! Jew!” doesn’t fit the narrative. Is that why CBS sat on the story?

Or is it the cultural issue? A rape in a bar is a sex crime. But a pack of political protesters who rape a “Jew” in public is a story about culture.

These "journalists" are utterly without honor.  Or morals.  Or professionalism.  Or personal integrity.

Even worse, they are relied upon by millions and millions of people for the news. 

Do they provide news?  No they do not.  They take the news and send it through their PC filter so that we, the public, do not get reality, only their propagandized garbage.

Maybe what happened in Egypt will finally put a dent in this sickening culture of PC at all costs.  Maybe the newly victimized Ms. Logan, or some of the other "journalists" who had the crap beaten out of them, will find it more important to report the truth, rather than their network's party line.

If so, that would be one thin sliver of light in a dark cloud.  And, to that tiny extent, the ordeal that Lara Logan went through will not have been in vain.

Ken Berwitz

Democrats in Wisconsin are trying to seal their credentials with teachers and unions (as if they needed to) by, literally, hiding rather than doing their duty in the state legislature.

Sounds bizarre, doesn't it?  But I'm not kidding.  Read these excerpts from an article by Jason Stein, Patrick Marley and Steve Schultze of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel and see for yourself:

Madison — Law enforcement officers are searching for Democratic senators boycotting a Senate vote on Gov. Scott Walker's budget-repair plan Thursday in an attempt to bring the lawmakers to the floor to allow Republicans to act on the bill.

One Democratic senator said that he believed most of the members of his caucus have gone to another state to prevent enough lawmakers from being present in the Senate to take a final vote on the controversial measure.

In a telephone interview, Senate Minority Leader Mark Miller (D-Monona) said he was upholding the rights of workers and the democratic process. He declined to give his location but acknowledged that at least one other Democrat was with him. He said that law enforcement would be able to compel him and his members to the Senate floor if they are located in Wisconsin.

"I can tell you this - we're not all in one place," Miller said. "This is a watershed moment unlike any that we have experienced in our political lifetimes.  We are . . . The people have shown that the government has gone too far prepared to do what is necessary to make sure that this bill gets the consideration it needs."

Republicans control the Senate 19-14, meaning they can lose only two votes and still pass the bill if all Democrats oppose it. Some Republicans have shown reluctance about the bill, though so far none have said publicly that they will vote against it.

On a 12-4 party-line vote Wednesday, the Joint Finance Committee added new civil-service protections for local government employees and kept cuts to public worker benefits. The budget committee began debating the bill at 7:45 p.m. Wednesday, after Republicans spent hours behind closed doors crafting the changes.

The changes the committee adopted would require all local governments to create civil-service systems similar to the one for the state. It would also allow limited-term employees to keep their benefits. Some limited-term employees have worked for the state for years, and the original version of the bill would have taken away all their health care coverage and retirement benefits.

The changes did not appease the thousands of teachers and state workers who have filled the Capitol for two days.

They booed loudly Wednesday day as they learned the bill still would take away their union rights as they watched the committee proceedings on televisions mounted in the Capitol Rotunda.

"I think it's disgusting," said John Bausch, a Darlington music teacher in elementary and middle school.

"This is not what Wisconsin is all about. We've had collective bargaining for (50) years and to throw it all out without our say is a disgrace."

In an interview with WTMJ-TV (Channel 4), President Barack Obama said public workers have to be prepared to make concessions but that he thought Walker's plan was unduly harsh on unions.

Major elements of the budget-repair bill remain in place. It would require most public workers to pay half their pension costs - typically 5.8% of pay for state workers - and at least 12% of their health care costs. It applies to most state and local employees but does not apply to police, firefighters and state troopers, who would continue to bargain for their benefits.

 Walker is proposing harsh solutions for extreme problems.  Maybe he is right and maybe he is wrong in doing so.  But here's something that isn't a "maybe" - he was voted Governor by the people of Wisconsin, and every state legislator was voted into office as well.  These legislators have a duty to behave responsibly.  That does not include going into hiding so that the state's legislative agenda cannot be pursued.   

Wisconsin voters gave the state a Republican Governor and a Republican majority in the state senate.  This wasn't some coup d'etat, it was the will of the people.  By hiding, like third graders playing a schoolyard game, senate Democrats are subverting their sworn duty.

It's time to grow up.  And this bunch has a great deal of growing up to do.

Ken Berwitz

What are "Derivatives"?  Here is a very good technical explanation from (of all places) Wikipedia:

In finance, a derivative is a financial instrument (or, more simply, an agreement between two parties) that has a value, based on the expected future price movements of the asset to which it is linked—called the underlying asset—^[1] such as a share or a currency. There are many kinds of derivatives, with the most common being swaps, futures, and options. Derivatives are a form of alternative investment.

A derivative is not a stand-alone asset, since it has no value of its own. However, more common types of derivatives have been traded on markets before their expiration date as if they were assets.

That's a little dry, isn't it. 

But not to worry:  my sister just sent me a more real-world explanation of Derivatives and how they work which might be a bit easier to follow.  Here it is:

How to understand the Credit Crisis!

*Understanding Derivatives*   * -  A  Primer*

Heidi is the proprietor of a bar in Chicago

She realizes that virtually all of her customers are unemployed alcoholics, and, as such, can no longer afford to patronize her bar.

To solve this problem, she comes up with a new marketing plan that allows her customers to drink now, but pay later.

Heidi keeps track of the drinks consumed on a ledger (thereby granting the customers' loans).

Word gets around about Heidi's "drink now, pay later" marketing strategy and, as a result, increasing numbers of customers flood into Heidi's bar.Soon she has the largest sales volume for any bar in Chicago.

By providing her customers freedom from immediate payment demands, Heidi gets no resistance when, at regular intervals, she substantially increases her prices for wine and beer, the most consumed beverages.

Consequently, Heidi's gross sales volume increases massively.

A young and dynamic vice-president at the local bank recognizes that these customer debts constitute valuable future assets and increases Heidi's borrowing limit.

He sees no reason for any undue concern, since he has the debts of the unemployed alcoholics as collateral!!!

At the bank's corporate headquarters, expert traders figure a way to make huge commissions, and transform these customer loans into DRINKBONDS.

These "securities" then are bundled and traded on international securities markets.

Naive investors don't really understand that the securities being sold to them as "AA" "Secured Bonds" really are debts of unemployed alcoholics. Nevertheless, the bond prices continuously climb!!!, and the securities soon become the hottest-selling items for some of the nation's leading brokerage houses.

One day, even though the bond prices still are climbing, a risk manager at the original local bank decides that the time has come to demand payment on the debts incurred by the drinkers at Heidi's bar. He so informs Heidi.

Heidi then demands payment from her alcoholic patrons, but being unemployed alcoholics they cannot pay back their drinking debts.

Since Heidi cannot fulfill her loan obligations she is forced into bankruptcy. The bar closes and Heidi's 11 employees lose their jobs.

Overnight, DRINKBOND prices drop by 90%.

The collapsed bond asset value des troys the bank's liquidity and prevents it from issuing new loans, thus freezing credit and economic activity in the community.

The suppliers of Heidi's bar had granted her generous payment extensions and had invested their firms' pension funds in the BOND securities.

They find they are now faced with having to write off her bad debt and with losing over 90% of the presumed value of the bonds.

Her wine supplier also claims bankruptcy, closing the doors on a family business that had endured for three generations, her beer supplier is taken over by a competitor, who immediately closes the local plant and lays off 150 workers.

Fortunately though, the bank, the brokerage houses and their respective executives are saved and bailed out by a multibillion dollar no-strings attached cash infusion from the government.

The funds required for this bailout are obtained by new taxes levied on employed, middle-class, nondrinkers who have never been in Heidi's bar.

Now do you understand?

I don't often root for my sister to be wrong.  But, in this case, I am rooting very hard.

Unfortunately, however, I think she's pretty much got it.

Ken Berwitz

Today is the 2nd anniversary of the so-called "stimulus package, which was enacted on February 17th 2009.

To remind you, the "stimulus package", initially described as costing about $782 billion dollars, was going to revive the economy.  It was going to stop unemployment - then at 8.1% -in its tracks.  Millions and millions of jobs would be created (days later that promise was changed to saved or created - which made it entirely unquantifiable).  President Obama was going to rescue us from the depredations of the Bush years.

So how are we doing? 

Here's a lot of your answer, excerpted from an article by Bob Willis at bloomberg.com:

The cost of living in the U.S. climbed more than forecast in January, led by higher prices for food and fuel that may be starting to filter through to other goods and services.

The consumer-price index increased 0.4 percent for a second month, exceeding the 0.3 percent median estimate of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News, figures from the Labor Department showed today in Washington. The so-called core rate, which excludes volatile food and fuel costs, rose 0.2 percent, the biggest gain since October 2009.

“You’re going to see more companies that attempt to pass through” higher costs, said Tom Porcelli, chief U.S. economist at RBC Capital Markets Corp. in New York, who correctly forecast the gain in core prices. “How successful they are depends on the economic backdrop. We’re looking at a slightly firmer inflation backdrop.”

Another Labor Department report showed more Americans than projected filed first-time claims for unemployment insurance last week, a sign the improvement in the labor market will take time to develop.

Applications for jobless benefits increased by 25,000 to 410,000 in the week ended Feb. 12, exceeding the 400,000 median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg. The total number of people receiving unemployment insurance was little changed, while those collecting extended payments decreased.

Energy costs increased 2.1 percent in January from a month earlier, and rose 7.3 percent for the prior 12 months, today’s report showed. Food prices rose 0.5 percent last month, the biggest gain since September 2008, and were up 1.8 percent for the 12-month period.

Core inflation was boosted by a 1 percent increase in the cost of clothing, the most since February 2009, and a 2.2 percent rise in airline fares.

Let's also add in the fact that after the "stimulus package" was enacted, unemployment jumped to 10.2%, then dropped down to the mid 9's for over a year, and is currently at 9.0% - largely because of the number of people so discouraged that they no longer look for work.

Taken as a whole, these facts indicate an economy in near-disastrous shape.  Instead of recovering, we are either holding our depressed status or regressing. 

Now:  who is to blame? 

Bush?  He hasn't been President for over 2 years and, in any event, Mr. Obama certainly knew the condition of the economy when he told us the "stimulus package" was going to turn things around.  Nope, not Bush.

Republicans?  They were consigned to the back of the bus, at the back of the bus line.  They did not write one word of the "stimulus package", because, in President Obama's own words, "We won".  Nope, not Republicans.

Who does that leave?  Do you need me to tell you?  I don't think so.

The 2012 elections cannot come fast enough.

Ken Berwitz

Timothy Pigford was a struggling Black farmer who claimed that he was denied monetary support by the government (specifically the United States Dairy Association - USDA) because he was Black.  Mr. Pigford contended that White farmers in similar situations got loans, one after the other, but he and fellow Black farmers were shut out.

Mr. Pigford spent a great many years, and lost just about everything he had, pursuing a lawsuit against the USDA to be compensated for what he considered its discriminatory practices.  The first question is, did he have a legitimate complaint?

The answer is yes.  Timothy Pigford was right. The facts, as they have been presented, make it unquestionably clear that he and other Black farmers were discriminated against.  The government lost - and should have lost - this case.  It was forced - and should have been forced  - to fairly compensate the affected Black farmers.

But there is a problem. 

Somewhere down the line, the Pigford lawsuit became a cash cow for anyone and everyone who could figure out some way to get in on the goodies while they were being given out. 

Daniel Foster of National Review has written an excellent analysis of Pigford's history, and how it grew to be the monstrous, corrupt money pay-out machine is now is.  You can read Mr. Foster's entire piece by clicking here -- and if you don't you will really be missing something.

But, for the purposes of this blog, here is a key excerpt.  Please pay special attention to the parts I've put in bold print:

The “Pigford class” — the range of individuals eligible to claim settlement money — originally was defined as

all African-American farmers who (1) farmed between January 1, 1983, and Feb. 21, 1997; and (2) applied, during that time period, for participation in a federal farm program with USDA, and as a direct result of a determination by USDA in response to said application, believed that they were discriminated against on the basis of race, and filed a written discrimination complaint with USDA in that time period.

Both sides acknowledged that the class size wasn’t likely to exceed 2,500. But the seeds of abuse were already sown. 

What followed was a feeding frenzy of claimants egged on by fee-seeking tractor-chasers. The original 400 members of the Pigford class had swelled to 14,000, and a total of $1.25 billion had been paid out. The largest single settlement — some $13,000,000 — went to a communal farm in Georgia called New Communities, Inc., headed by Charles Sherrod and his wife, Shirley, who would be hired by the USDA, where she would gain a measure of notoriety, just three days after she received her settlement.

Even after the deadline for submission passed in 1999, claims kept — and to this day, keep — pouring in, such that the number of claimants now stands at nearly 100,000. But there is a curious thing: A 1997 agricultural census found only 18,500 black farmers nationwide, and even the most liberal third-party estimates suggest that there never were more than about 33,000 at any point during the period of eligibility between 1981 and 1996. Even if you accept as sound the decree’s reasoning that persons are entitled to compensation for “attempting to farm,” the numbers force the conclusion that for every black farmer actually working the land there were four or five who’d been prevented from speeding the plow.

Interesting, wouldn't you say? 

If Mr. Foster is correct, at absolute minimum, 2/3 of all Pigford claims are fraudulent - and almost certainly a great many more than that.

In other words, Pigford went from being a wholly justifiable lawsuit to a cash cow for scam artists - even not-very-clever ones (how clever do you have to be to cheat the government)? 

And the single biggest milkers of this cash cow?  Shirley Sherrod and her husband.  That's right, Shirley Sherrod - the former USDA official who is suing Andrew Breitbart because he put up an NAACP tape of her comments at one of their meetings.  She contends that the comments were taken out of context. 

Are you kidding me?  Even if Sherrod is 100% correct about the context, there is nothing to sue about.  The clip was not doctored in any way, it was abbreviated.  If everyone who thought their comments were taken  out of context sued, we would have no mainstream media.  They'd all be broke; every one of them.  (Hmmmm, let me think about that.....)

Personally, I assume that the sherrod lawsuit was filed in the hope of getting a quick settlement.  Because I am certain that if, at any point in the proceedings, Sherrod and her husband are required to explain why and how they got that $13,000,000 Pigford money, they will kill this lawsuit faster than D-Con kills a cockroach.

Now, when do the investigations of fraud by the Pigford claimants - including the Sherrods - start?  The twelfth of never, or afterwards?

Ken Berwitz

It is now about 7:50AM.  We have had The Today Show on from its start (7:00).

As it did yesterday, Today ran a major story on Lara Logan, the CBS reporter who was beaten and sexually asaulted in Cairo by a throng of people screaming "JEW! JEW!" as it happened.

And as it did yesterday, Today did not tell viewers a thing about the chanting of  "JEW! JEW!".  Not one word. 

If you are a Today viewer who relies on the show for news, you still have no idea that anti-Semitism was any part of the attack.

Also, I blogged yesterday about a commissioner in Dallas, john wiley price, who told people who questioned his actions at a hearing that "All of you are White.  Go go to hell".

No story on that either.

Keep 'em ignorant and you own 'em.  Tell 'em what you want 'em to know and that's all they will know.

Thomas Jefferson said "The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers".  If he were alive today, he would be saying that about The Today Show. 

Ken Berwitz

The following news comes to us via an excerpt from Colum Lynch's article at turtlebay.foreignpolicy.com:

In sharp reversal, U.S. agrees to rebuke Israel in Security Council

The U.S. informed Arab governments Friday that it will support a U.N. Security Council statement reaffirming that the 15-nation body "does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlement activity," a move aimed at avoiding the prospect of having to veto a stronger Palestinian resolution calling the settlements illegal.

But the Palestinian's rejected the American offer following a meeting late Wednesdy of Arab representativs and said it is planning to press for a vote on its resolution Friday, according officials familar with the issue.  The decision to reject the American offer raised the prospects that the Obama adminstration may cast its first ever veto in the U.N. Security Council. 

Will the USA veto this resolution?  Maybe yes and maybe no (under Obama, I'm betting no).  But is the USA willing to appease the Arab states, whose interest is not in ending settlements but in ending the state of Israel?  Emphatically yes.

I saw Mr. Lynch's article at www.freerepublic.com.  And one of the commenters, "2ndDivisionVet", posted these cartoons in answer.  I'd say they do an excellent job:

The 2012 elections cannot come fast enough.

Ken Berwitz

Sometimes you wonder what alternate universe these guys come from.

Haley Barbour, Governor of Mississippi and former head of the RNC, has just ended any chance of becoming his party's nominee for President (if he had a chance in the first place), by refusing to speak out against a proposed state license plate honoring nathan bedford forrest, the confederate officer and KKKer whose forces massacred Black soldiers (almost 200 - or over 300, depending on which account you read) while they were trying to surrender at Fort Pillow, Tennessee (April, 1864)..

Excerpted from a blog by Kasie Hunt at politico.com:

In the latest racially charged incident in his home state, Haley Barbour on Tuesday drew fire when he refused to condemn a proposal honoring a Ku Klux Klan leader and Confederate general on a state license plate.

"I don't go around denouncing people. That's not going to happen," Barbour, who is considering a run for the White House in 2012, said when asked about the plate, the Associated Press reported. "I know there's not a chance it'll become law".

The state NAACP has denounced the proposal from the Mississippi Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans to honor Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, who went on to become an early leader of the KKK.

Forrest , a Tennessee native, is revered by some as a military genius and despised by others for leading an 1864 massacre of black Union troops at Fort Pillow, Tenn. Forrest was a Ku Klux Klan grand wizard in Tennessee after the war.

"I don't go around denouncing people"?  That's supposed to be an answer?

How about hitler, Haley?  How about bin laden?  How about ahmadinejad?  Can you find anyone to denounce there?  Would you decline to speak out if someone proposed honoring any of those three with a state license plate, on the grounds that "...there's not a chance it'll become law"?

This, let's remember, is just a month or two after Barbour hallucinated about how good racial relations were when he was growing up in Yazoo City, MS - especially how those nice folks at the White Citizens Council subtlely worked to integrate the schools (I said he was hallucinating, didn't I?)

Bye-bye Haley.  The Presidential Barbour shop is now closed. 

And good riddance.

Ken Berwitz

If you weren't worried about the Muslim brotherhood until now, it is officially time to do so. 

Why?  Because jimmy carter, who is serially wrong about everything, has told us not to.

Excerpted from an article in today's Houston Chronicle :

Carter: Muslim Brotherhood nothing to fear

Former President Jimmy Carter told an Austin audience Tuesday evening that he expects Egypt to hold elections in September and that he doesn't worry about the Muslim Brotherhood wielding inordinate influence.

"I've known members of the Muslim Brotherhood," he told an audience at the Lyndon B. Johnson Library. "They're not anything to be afraid of."

The 39th president and Nobel Prize winner said he believes the Muslim Brotherhood is likely to form a political party, but polls suggest their support is only about 15 percent. "There's no possibility at all that they would prevail," he said. He said he expects to see "a secular, non-religious government."

Let me remind you of the Muslim brotherhood "mission statement" (not my interpretation; its own words):

“Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. The Qur’an is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of allah is our hope.”

You sure do have a point, jimmy.  What could we possibly have to worry about?

Remember, folks:  this man was President of the United States..............

Ken Berwitz

Can we agree that a White official who made that statement to Blacks would be fired in about two seconds flat?  Should be fired in about two seconds flat?  Good; I knew we'd agree.

But this blog is not about a White official who made that statement to Blacks.  I only put it up to get your attention (how'd I do?)

In fact, this blog is about a Black official who made that statement to Whites.

Excerpted from an article by Kent Chapline and Bud Gillett of CBS-TV11, Dallas/Fort Worth:

Tuesday’s Dallas County Commissioner’s Court meeting erupted into an argument between Commissioner John Wiley Price and a citizen, ending with Price repeatedly telling several citizens to “go to hell.”

The exchange started during the public speaking portion of the meeting, which happens after the commissioners have gone through their weekly agenda.

Six citizens addressed the court. All of them talked about the recent controversial departure of county Elections Administrator Bruce Sherbet.  Sherbet, who was the Elections Administrator for 24 years, said he felt Price and Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins forced him out.

The last public speaker at Tuesday’s meeting, Jeff Turner, began by stating that he would refer to “a certain member of the court” — Price — as “the Chief Mulllah of Dallas County.”

Court rules state that public speakers may not address individual commissioners by name.

As Turner spoke, he continued to call Price “Chief Mulllah.” Price interrupted Turner several times, yelling at him, “don’t call me Chief Mulllah” and “call me by my name.”

Jeff Turner explains why he called Price “Chief Mullah.”

The New Oxford American Dictionary defines “mullah” as “a Muslim learned in Islamic theology and sacred law.”

Turner continued speaking, ignoring Price’s ongoing interruptions.

At that point, Jenkins adjourned the meeting.

As Price stood to leave, he looked at Turner and the five other citizens who addressed the court. Price said to them, “All of you are white.  Go to hell!”

Price repeated “go to hell” three more times. An unknown member of the audience said, “You should be ashamed!”

“I’m not ashamed!” Price answered. “I’m not ashamed! Go to hell!”

Later in the blog (which can be read in its entirety by clicking here) Price makes the incredible claim that he was called a Chief Moolah, not Mullah, that Chief Moolah is an insult aimed at Italians, and now it is a code word for "nigger". 

Honest, Price really said it.  See for yourself:

"...one of the speakers shot off a racial slur. “Chief Moolah” has its roots in a slang that was used against Italian immigrants and was later used by the same to defame or discredit African Americans. The speaker continued to use terms like “tribal” and his intent to make race an issue was obvious. “Nigger” is “Nigger,” spoken overtly or incognito."

I am two days short of being 65 years old, and have followed politics for at least 50 of those 65 years.  At no time in those years have I ever heard of or read the term "Chief Moolah" in any context, whether Italian or Black. 

But even if Price were correct and the last speaker did insult him racially, what does that have to do with the other five speakers, who Price also attacked on the basis of their skin color?

John Wiley Price should summarily be fired.  He has no business being in any position of governmental authority.

But will he be fired? 

We'll see.

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

UPDATE:  I didn't realize it at the time, but this is the same ignoramus who thinks that terms like "black hole" and devil's food cake" are racist too.

Excerpted from a Fox News article (among many other sources), July 11, 2008 :

What do "black hole," "angel food cake," and "devil's food cake" have in common?

They're all racist terms, says a Dallas County, Texas, official.

A county commissioners' meeting this week over traffic tickets turned into a tense discussion over race when one commissioner said the county's collections office was like a certain astronomical phenomenon.

"It sounds like Central Collections has become a black hole," Commissioner Kenneth Mayfield, who is white, said during the Monday meeting.

One black official demanded an apology, and Commissioner John Wiley Price, who also is black, said that type of language is unacceptable.

At the meeting, Mayfield said he intended his comments to be taken in the context of the scientific meaning, and became upset that he was being misunderstood.

In astronomy, the term black hole refers to a star that has collapsed upon itself, creating something so dense and small that it does not have any physical properties besides a gravitational force so great that even light cannot escape its pull.

Later, Price told MyFOXdfw.com that he believed it and other terms were racist.

"So if it's 'angel food cake,' it's white. If it's 'devil's food cake,' it's black. If you're the 'black sheep of the family,' then you gotta be bad, you know. 'White sheep,' you're okay. You know?" Price said.

Could John WIley Price be more ignorant?  Could he be more unsuited to public office? 

By the way, I googled "Chief Moolah Italian" - and I gave up after several pages with nothing but what came out of Price's ignorant, racist mouth.

Ken Berwitz

So how is that hopey changey thing going in Iran?

Here's a heads-up (and you know where), excerpted from an article at Agence Presse France:

TEHRAN (AFP) – Iran's regime said it called a rally in Tehran for Friday to express "hatred" against the opposition movement, as its two key leaders launched fresh anti-government tirades despite demands they be hanged.

 

Wednesday's call for the mass rally came as clashes erupted between regime backers and "apparent" supporters of the opposition at a funeral attended by thousands in Tehran of a student killed in anti-government protests of Monday.

 

"The noble people of Tehran will take to Enghelab Square after Friday prayers with their solid and informed presence," the Islamic Propagation Coordination Council, which organises regime-backed programmes, said Wednesday.

 

It said those joining the rally will "scream out their hatred, wrath and disgust against the savage crimes and evil movements of sedition leaders, their Monafeghin (hypocrites) and their monarchist allies."

Lovely.  A hatred rally, called by Iranian "leaders" who, apparently, have become increasingly fearful that they may be the next Mubaraks.

As for the opposition leaders:

Opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi have been in the firing line since they called a rally on Monday in support of Arab uprisings but which quickly turned into anti-government demonstrations and ended in clashes that left two people dead and several wounded.

 

Both are under de facto house arrest and Karoubi's son, Hossein, said Wednesday, in a statement on his father's Sahamnews.org website, that "security forces are currently occupying my house... after breaking into the building...they are searching my and my family's personal belongings."

There was a lot wrong with Egypt's Hosni Mubarak, but he also provided at least some semblance of friendship with the USA (not much, but in the Arab Middle East even a small amount is a lot).   When he resigned we lost something.

By contrast, if the current "leadership" of Iran should fall, we lose nothing and potentially gain enormously.

This may cause you to wonder why, when Iranians took to the streets by the hundreds of thousands in summer, 2009, President Obama made a point of looking the other way, saying he did not want to meddle in another country's affairs - but when Egyptians took to the streets against a head of state who at least worked with us some of the time, Mr. Obama was cheerleading them on all the way.

Does President Obama support our enemies and oppose our friends?  If not, why is he acting this way?

I (and, I suspect, a lot of others) would like to know.

Ken Berwitz

Every day seems to bring a new example of the disconnect between what is actually happening in Egypt and what our wonderful "neutral" media are reporting about it.

Arguably the single most egregious of them all, is how mainstream media have virtually ignored the imbecilic comments made by our Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper.  Clapper characterized the Muslim brotherhood - which may well find itself in a position of power in a new Egyptian government -  as a "largely secular" group which has "eschewed violence".  

If Clapper were the DNI under George Bush, the condemnations would have descended like Niagara Falls, and the calls for his resignation would have been loud, clear and unending until he was gone.  But this is Mr. Obama's selection.  So they look the other way and this impossibly ignorant official remains in office.

And now we have the half-story being reported about CBS News reporter Lara Logan.

I watched (or, more exactly, had inflicted on me) the Today Show this morning.  It reported CBS's statement that Ms. Logan was separated from her crew by a "dangerous element" among the people in Tahrir Square, then subjected to sustained sexual assaults and a brutal beating.  On its own, Today also reported that media were an ongoing target there, by "security forces and pro-Mubarak people".

What a neat way of tying this horrific incident in a bow and presenting it so the meme we have been spoon-fed for weeks - that Egyptians were protesting for nothing other than freedom and democracy - is completely undamaged.  Hey, it wasn't any of them, it was a "dangerous element", and all those security people and pro-mubarak thugs. 

Here, however, is a part of the story that Today withheld from its viewers.  It comes to us via excerpts from an article in this morning's New York Post.  Please pay special attention to the part I've put in bold print:

 

"60 Minutes" correspondent Lara Logan was repeatedly sexually assaulted by thugs yelling, "Jew! Jew!" as she covered the chaotic fall of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Cairo's main square Friday, CBS and sources said yesterday.

 

"Logan was covering the jubilation . . . when she and her team and their security were surrounded by a dangerous element amidst the celebration," CBS said in a statement. "It was a mob of more than 200 people whipped into a frenzy.

CBS

"In the crush of the mob, [Logan] was separated from her crew. She was surrounded and suffered a brutal and sustained sexual assault and beating before being saved by a group of women and an estimated 20 Egyptian soldiers.

 

"She reconnected with the CBS team, returned to her hotel and returned to the United States on the first flight the next morning," the network added. "She is currently in the hospital recovering."

 

A network source told The Post that her attackers were screaming, "Jew! Jew!" during the assault. And the day before, Logan had told Esquire.com that Egyptian soldiers hassling her and her crew had accused them of "being Israeli spies." Logan is not Jewish.

 

In Friday's attack, she was separated from her colleagues and attacked for between 20 to 30 minutes, The Wall Street Journal said.

 

Her injuries were described to The Post as "serious."

 

But after she was assaulted, Logan went back to her hotel, and within two hours -- sometime late Friday and into early Saturday -- was flown out of Cairo on a chartered network jet, sources said.

 

She wasn't taken to a hospital in Egypt because the network didn't trust local security there, sources said.

And neither CBS nor Logan reported the crime to Egyptian authorities because they felt they couldn't trust them, either, the sources said. "The way things are there now, they would have ended up arresting her again," one source said.

I have a few questions for the Today show (and other media which are reporting this the same way):

-First and foremost, why did you not tell your viewers that this attack was, at least in part, based on the (incorrect) premise that Lara Logan was Jewish?  Would that have opened viewers to the possibility that at least some of these jubilant protesters are Jew haters who want Mubarak out because he enforced peaceful coexistence with Israel?  Would that have ruined your three week investment in the story line that all Egyptians want is freedom and democracy and there's nothing else to it?

-What exactly is the definition of a "dangerous element" within the protests?  Is that to say there were a few dangerous people there who found an opportunity to commit rape and assault?  Or is the "dangerous element" a significant part of the protests - a part that might wind up being in the future new government of Egypt?  Why is there no story on that?  Would it have ruined your three week investment in the story line that all Egyptians want is freedom and democracy and there's nothing else to it?

-What proof do you have that the attacks on other members of the USA media were made only by security people and Mubarak partisans?  Do you have any evidence to support this claim, which was stated in passing as if it were settled knowledge?  Or are you stating this as fact, without evidence to back it up, so as not to ruin your three week investment in the story line that all Egyptians want is freedom and democracy and there's nothing else to it? 

-Why do you think that, in this post-Mubarak time, CBS did not trust the Egyptian authorities and feared that they would have arrested Ms. Logan, the victim?  Because all Egyptians want is freedom and democracy and there's nothing else to it?

This, folks, is what happens when media decide not to neutrally, dispassionately cover a story, but rather to editorialize on it as they go.  By doing the latter, they have a stake in events, which can either prove them right or wrong.  And no one likes to be wrong.

I write a lot about journalism's lack of professionalism and integrity.  It is incidents like this that cause me to do so.

To Ms. Logan - my heart goes out to you.  I hope you can somehow get past this ugly attack and go on with your personal and professional life. 

To the "journalists" who used Ms. Logan's ordeal as nothing other than a chance to push the story line they committed themselves to weeks ago?  You need to start thinking, long and hard, about who and what you are.

Ken Berwitz

Earlier today I blogged about the fact that roseanne barr, as sick and hate-filled a human being as you are ever likely to find, has been given her own show on Lifetime.

I decided to contact the network, advise them of what barr has become, and ask why they are rewarding her with a TV show.

Here is my email, verbatim (Lifetime sets a limit of 500 characters, so I had to be very brief):

My name is Ken Berwitz.  I write a political blog (www.hopelesslypartisan.com). 

 

I would like to know why roseanne barr has been given a show on Lifetime, in view of her rich history of making hateful comments about groups of people and individuals - with a special hatred reserved for Jews (please read my blog (http://partisan.blogs.hopelesslypartisan.com/item_9529.htm) and see for yourself).

 

Thanks in advance for your response - which I will post for my readers if/when it is received.

As promised, if/when a response is forthcoming I will put it up for you to see.

Ken Berwitz

Did you read anything about the Obama budget - the one that is supposed to cut waste and put us on a path to fiscal health?

The more you know about this utterly fraudulent display of cynical gamesmanship, the more you realize that we are being taken to the cleaners again by those wonderful folks who told us the "stimulus package" would stop unemployment at 8%, and create millions of jobs by the end of 2010.

The Wall Street Journal isn't buying this sham budget, not at all.  Here are a couple of key excerpts from today's editorial:

This was supposed to be the moment we were all waiting for. After three years of historic deficits that have added almost $4.5 trillion to the national debt, President Obama was finally going to get serious about fiscal discipline. Instead, what landed on Congress's doorstep on Monday was a White House budget that increases deficits above the spending baseline for the next two years. Hosni Mubarak was more in touch with reality last Thursday night.

 

The White House actually touts as tight-fisted a budget proposing a record $1.645 trillion deficit for fiscal 2011, due largely to a new surge in spending to 25.3% of GDP. That's more spending than in any year since 1945.

Federal debt held by the public—the kind we have to pay back—will rise to 75.1% in 2012, which is the highest since 1951 and more than double what it was as recently as 2007.

 

No wonder the commission's Democratic co-chairman, Erskine Bowles, said Monday that this budget goes "nowhere near where they will have to go to resolve our fiscal nightmare." And he's an ally.

 

How unserious is this budget? Although the White House trumpets $2.18 trillion in deficit reduction over the next decade, those savings are so far off in the magical "out years" that you can barely see them from here.

 

From hard experience, we know that what matters are the cuts and reforms a White House is willing to make now. The Obama budget doesn't cut a penny from the deficit in the last seven months of fiscal 2011. Over the next three years—through 2013—the spending reductions in this budget add up to a paltry $20 billion net, out of a projected $3.5 trillion deficit. That's a 0.57% reduction in red ink and less than what the feds spend every two days.

 

This will go down as canny politics in Washington, as the President lies in wait to ambush Republicans when they propose their real spending cuts. Then he hopes he can cut them to ribbons on his way to re-election. That may be the White House game plan, but we wonder if the politics will play out that way. The American people also want a President to lead, and this budget is so transparently cynical it may help Republicans make their case that if they don't lead, no one will.

Some fiscal discipline this is. 

Will the voting public be smart enough to see through the Obama flim-flama --- and the supporting role provided by so many of our wonderful "neutral" media in pretending that it makes any sense?

I guess we'll find out, won't we?

Ken Berwitz

If you are a media personality who hates, make sure you hate from the left.  That way, it won't cost you a cent. 

Want proof?

First let's note that Lifetime Networks just gave roseanne barr her own show, via these excerpts from the insidetv.ew.com web site:

The Barr is back: Roseanne Barr is returning to TV in a new Lifetime docu-series as she sets out to — believe it or not — run a macadamia nut farm in Hawaii.

The program will follow Barr as she runs a 40-acre nut farm on Hawaii’s Big Island along with her writer-musician boyfriend Johnny Argent and her son, Jake.

“Roseanne Barr is an undeniable force of nature and the idea of following her in this unique premise excited us from the get-go,” said Nancy Dubuc, Lifetime president and GM. “Roseanne is funny and brutally-honest, and our audience will relate to her decision to go on this adventure and create an entirely new life for herself. We are thrilled she will make her long-awaited return to television on Lifetime.”

Isn't it wonderful that Lifetime's President/GM, Nancy Dubuc, gushes about how funny and honest barr is and how thrilled Lifetime is to get her.

Well, Nancy, here are just a few of the many, many roseanne barr quotes that might give you a different perspective on how "funny" barr really is:

-November, 2008, speaking about Black voters in California, who voted overwhelmingly for Proposition 8:   "They showed themselves every inch as bigoted and ignorant as their white christian right wing counterpartners who voted for mccain-palin and bush-cheney"

 

-January, 2011, speaking about Sarah Palin:  “I hate Sarah Palin, I’d slap her”

 

-May, 2007, speaking about Israel:  ”I hate Israel too much to host The View”

 

-February 11th, on her blog (which also viciously attacks Jews):  The Ruling Classes are less than one percent of the world's population, yet through their control of trade routes upon the Open Seas, the ungodly pirates that they are, control 99% of the world's resources, and move them through the world by water. They kill dispassionately and by stealing the wealth of entire communities and classes. After being arrested and tried by a Judicial system NOT heavily weighted in their favor (as now), they shall face a fate more horrifying than death (to them). These greedy moral derelicts will be forced to actually pay back the money they stole, every single plundered dime!!

 

Without Bullshit, the Twin Towers of Patriarchy, Warmongering-Piracy and Woman Hating-Pedophilia will collapse under their own weight. 

And then we have this proud moment from last year, when the Jewish-born barr displayed her humorous side by having herself made up to look like adolf hitler, and baking what she called "burnt Jew cookies":

Uh Nancy?  Still think roseanne barr is "funny"?  Still "thrilled" to get her? 

I'd love a statement about this from Ms. Dubuc and/or the other executives at Lifetime.  Wouldn't you?

Ken Berwitz

Dennis Prager, just returned from a trip to Vietnam, has written an excellent, thought-provoking column about what we did there, and how it has been distorted, contorted, mangled and lied about.

This column is a must - read it all.  But here are the last few paragraphs - see if they ring true to you:

America fights to liberate countries, not to rule over them. It was the Vietnamese Communist Party, not America, that was interested in controlling the Vietnamese people. But the lie was spread so widely and so effectively that most of the world -- except American supporters of the war and the Vietnamese boat people and other Vietnamese who yearned for liberty -- believed that America was fighting for tin, tungsten and the wholly fictitious "American empire" while the Vietnamese communists were fighting for Vietnamese freedom.

I went to the "Vietnam War Remnants Museum" -- the Communist Party's three-floor exhibit of anti-American photos. Nothing surprised me -- not the absence of a single word critical of the communist North Vietnamese or of the Viet Cong; not a word about the widespread threats on the lives of anyone who did not fight for the communists; not a word about those who risked their lives to escape by boat, preferring to risk dying by drowning, being eaten by sharks or being tortured or gang-raped by pirates, rather than to live under the communists who "liberated" South Vietnam.

Equally unsurprising is that there is little difference between the history of the Vietnam War as told by the Communist Party of Vietnam and what just about any college student will be told in just about any college by just about any professor in America, Europe, Asia or Latin America.

I will end with the subject with which I began -- the Vietnamese. It is impossible to visit Vietnam and not be impressed by the people. I hope I live to see the day when the people of Vietnam, freed from the communist lies that still permeate their daily lives, understand that every Vietnamese death in the war against America was a wasted life, one more of the 140 million human sacrifices on the altar of the most bloodthirsty false god in history: communism.

Personally, I do not agree completely with Mr. Prager.  I supported the war in Vietnam for years, then started getting a queasy sense that the high purpose Mr. Prager speaks of was getting lost in the effort to somehow show we were "winning" something.  I got the awful feeling that a lot of our soldiers died needlessly for reasons unrelated to the ideals Mr. Prager speaks of. 

(FYI:  before anyone asks "If you supported the war in Vietnam, why didn't you enlist"......the answer is that I did.  I enlisted in the Air Force in May of 1963, just as combat operations were moving forward - a four year hitch.  I was rejected, believe it or not, because I had psoriasis.  Years later, in the draft lottery, my birthday, February 18th, came up #292.  That was pretty much that).

What I do agree with Dennis Prager on, is that the USA was not then about "imperialism" any more than it is now.  In a part of the column I have not excerpted, Mr. Prager points to Korea to make this point.  He could also have pointed to Iraq, Grenada, and other places where we have fought and died so that others could be freer than they were.  The "boat people", and the killing fields of Cambodia, were what happened when we walked away and left the people to communism's tender mercies.

Going back to Dennis Prager's central point, the simple truth is that Vietnam's current success is not because of communism.  Vietnam's success is because of the areas in which its government has rejected communism.

That is a lesson that Cuba, after 50 years of hell under castro, is finally learning. 

It is also a lesson that the people of Venezuela, under hugo chavez, are learning, but from the opposite direction.  God help them.

Ken Berwitz

What the %$@#&^% happened at Newsweek?  Did someone get its new ownership drunk?   

Newsweek's latest addition, the remarkably accomplished Niall Ferguson, has a bit of a problem with the way Mr. Obama and his people are handling foreign policy - especially Egypt.  See if you can find the subtle indications of his dissatisfaction in the following excerpts from his first column:

The wave Obama just missed—again—is the revolutionary wave of Middle Eastern democracy. It has surged through the region twice since he was elected: once in Iran in the summer of 2009, the second time right across North Africa, from Tunisia all the way down the Red Sea to Yemen. But the swell has been biggest in Egypt, the Middle East’s most populous country.

In the case of Iran, he did nothing, and the thugs of the Islamic Republic ruthlessly crushed the demonstrations. This time around, in Egypt, it was worse. He did both—some days exhorting Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to leave, other days drawing back and recommending an “orderly transition.”

The result has been a foreign-policy debacle. The president has alienated everybody: not only Mubarak’s cronies in the military, but also the youthful crowds in the streets of Cairo. Whoever ultimately wins, Obama loses. And the alienation doesn’t end there. America’s two closest friends in the region—Israel and Saudi Arabia—are both disgusted. The Saudis, who dread all manifestations of revolution, are appalled at Washington’s failure to resolutely prop up Mubarak. The Israelis, meanwhile, are dismayed by the administration’s apparent cluelessness.

Last week, while other commentators ran around