Nov 01 2008
An interesting report here about the Obama campaign dumping reporters not willing to be “useful idiots”. Much more at the link, but first check the cartoon below.
The Drudge Report is running a story about three newspapers having been kicked off the Obama campaign plane for the last 72 hours of the race— the Dallas Morning News, the NY Post, and the Washington Times, all of which endorsed McCain on their editorial pages.
Oct 23 2008
The main stream media continues to pursue its “Obama the victim” narrative, portrying him as the victim of hate in some unusual way, and consulting only left-leaning organizations and think-tanks to confirm its thesis. Of course, if they actually did due diligence and interviewed both sides equally, and compared actual research from both sides, they would discover that there is… no story! Can’t have that, and the election isn’t quite in the bag for Obama yet, and so:
An ugly line has been crossed in this presidential campaign, one in which some people don’t mind calling Barack Obama a dangerous Muslim, a terrorist and worse.
And this is somehow worse than the term Bushitler? Let’s just add up the Hitler references to Bush, and compare numbers. But, of course, that would require real research and reporting, and we can’t expect that, can we? Just count the lawyers and reporters parachuted into Alaska to defame Palin, and compare the numbers to those who have really investigated Obama’s past and alliances, and you’ll get the idea.
“To me, this all feels much worse than we’ve seen in some time,” said Kathryn Kolbert , the president of People for the American Way , which monitors political speech.
Well, yes, because this time it’s YOUR guy on the receiving end of the very kind of hatred that People for the American Way and its allies have stirred up against Bush and Republicans. Except that it isn’t, for the simple reason that no mainstream Republican organization, conservative outlet, commentator or website has used the kind of language being reported here. Rather, it’s a very small fringe of over-the-top extremists, and the Left would love to paint the entire Right as that extreme… but it just won’t wash.
Experts agree on the reasons: Obama, the Democratic nominee, is different from any other major presidential candidate in history in many ways, and people often don’t accept such change gracefully.
Come on, just say it. Obama is black, and we all know those wascally weepublicans are wacists. Oh, and by the way: which “experts”? This is journalism school mumbo-jumbo for “this is what I think, and if I phrase it this way I can pretend it’s straight news”.
Continue reading “Get out of the kitchen”
Oct 16 2008
A new documentary film has been made about another film, “The Path to 9/11“, a TV two part mini-series on events leading up to the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks. The new film is called “Blocking ‘The Path to 9/11‘ “, and was made by commentator John Ziegler, author of the book “The Death of Free Speech“. The new film is about the pressure put on ABC to cancel the film, and on the film-makers of “The Path to 9/11” to change the film to remove the most damaging references to politicians, especially the Clintons and Democrats. There is no record of pressure being applied by the Bush administration to cancel or change the film, despite certain unflattering aspects of the portrayal of Condi Rice and others in “The Path to 9/11”.
Click the link below to see the trailer, etc.
Continue reading “Censorship of “The Path to 9/11” TV miniseries: new film tells the story”
Oct 07 2008
Patterico documents how the L.A. Times Cuts Out McCain’s Remarks About Economy, Then Quotes Barack Obama Saying McCain is Scared to Talk About the Economy
Go read it.
If the mainstream media is your main source of information, you’re probably poorly informed.
Oct 06 2008
Now, Obama’s campaign is claiming he didn’t know that William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn were terrorists, unrepentant ones, during all the years when Obama worked with Ayers, sent foundation money in Ayers’ direction, when Ayers’ helped Obama kick off his political career, etc.
Powerline has this to say about the likelihood that Obama “didn’t know”.
This strikes me as a rather stunning development. Obama appears to be admitting that if he knew about Ayers’ terrorist history, and the fact that he still takes pride in that history and despises America, it would be an error in judgment to form a close association with him.
But it is inconceivable that Barack Obama knew Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn well enough to kick off his first political campaign in their living room, but didn’t know that Ayers and Dohrn were Communists who led the Weatherman faction of SDS, urged young people to “kill your parents,” carried out approximately 30 bombings, including New York City’s police headquarters, the Capitol and the Pentagon, celebrated the Charles Manson murders, spent years living underground to avoid criminal prosecution, and continued to express their lifelong hatred for the United States in books, magazine articles, and public speeches. This is rather like a person claiming that he had worked closely with Arnold Schwarzenegger for years, but had no idea that he was once a bodybuilder and movie actor. Ayers’ and Dohrn’s radical past is their only claim to fame.
There must be a great many people who can attest that Obama was well aware of Ayers’ and Dohrn’s history. It will be interesting to see whether any of them are willing to blow the whistle on Obama’s latest evasion.
But there are also other problems with this incredible assertion:
1) The Ayers association has been a big topic among those opposing Obama for over a year. Why, exactly, is it only NOW that we’re being told Obama didn’t know? We’re supposed to think that the campaign just noticed, this week, that Obama’s relationship with Ayers is a problem? Why didn’t Obama say so when he was asked about this in the primary campaign debates with Hillary Clinton?
2) Even if one accepted the impossible assumption of Obamian ignorance about Ayers’ past, what does this say about the KINDS of people with whom Obama works? Ayers has NEVER hidden his past: indeed, he celebrates it, and specifically refers to it often as a badge of honor, verifying his pedigree as an authentic supporter of the radically LEFT causes he supports, and with which he and Obama were involved. That means Obama’s ability to assess people is very weak, at a minimum, a charge strengthened by his pretended shock that Rev. Wright just surprised him with his hate-speech, after all those years of attending his church, being married by him, having his babies blessed by him, etc.
3) When the Obama campaign (inevitably) retracts this silly assertion, will the campaign pay a price for lying desperately to try to blunt the charges about Obama’s terrorist connections? Probably not, because the main stream media, snorkeling around in the tank for Obama, will simply not cover it, write editorials about the questions it raises, etc.
UPDATE: One more thought: even if we take a face value the argument that Obama didn’t know about Ayers’ terrorist past and unrepentant present, when Obama was working most closely with him on “education foundations”, Ayers was kicking off Obama’s political career in his home, etc., it is impossible to believe that those advising Obama at the time did not know, either. Why wouldn’t they have told Obama? Hard to think of a reason, unless it is that they knew Obama wouldn’t care.
Oct 05 2008
I should probably stop quoting Mr. Bidinotto so much, but his analysis is simply dead on target. After reviewing the history of the current financial meltdown (that’s what happens when you play with something as radioactive as cheap financing for bad credit risks with a short half-life in the name of equality), he opines:
Now, what’s Congress’s answer to all of this?
To nationalize the bad loans — thus formalizing the taxpayers’ obligation to underwrite the rampant irresponsibility that led to this mess in the first place.
The welfare state established the basic moral principle we now see in all its ugliness: that responsible taxpayers are to be sacrificial servants of the irresponsible — that they are to buffer the irresponsible from the destructive consequences of their actions, by absorbing that damage themselves.
But now, we are adding the following amendment to this premise of moral cannibalism: that the greater and more destructive the irrationality caused by others, the more immediate and pressing is the taxpayers’ moral duty to absorb the harm onto themselves.
Continue reading “Capitalism tried and found guilty for the crimes of socialists”
Oct 04 2008
Continuing to demonstrate the inability to just give the news without editorializing, Yahoo news leads with this.
Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin accused Democratic candidate Barack Obama on Saturday of “palling around with terrorists,” in the latest sign the campaign is turning increasingly nasty.
Just a question: if Obama has actually “paled around with terrorists”, is it a sign the campaign is “turning increasingly nasty” to point that out?
Not until the sixth paragraph do we get anything about the nature of Obama’s relationship to the terrorist Bill Ayers: (the earlier ones are all devoted to he said/she said type reporting)
Palin cited a New York Times story on Saturday that examined Obama’s relationship with Bill Ayers, a former member of the Vietnam-era militant Weather Underground organization who is now a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. The Times concluded they were not close.
Ah, the NYTimes, that bastion of Olympian fairness, has decided Obama is not “close” to Ayers, a self-admitted terrorist and bomber. Apparently, the NYTimes thinks you aren’t “close” to someone unless you share a toothbrush or something.
Just a question, for the reader: do YOU even know someone who knows someone who knows a terrorist?
I didn’t think so. Here’s paragraph NINE of the story:
Obama served with Ayers on the board of a foundation in Chicago, and has said he was only eight-years-old when the Weather Underground committed its best-known bombing. He has also noted that former President Bill Clinton pardoned two members of the group during the last days of his presidency.
Clinton also pardoned some Puerto Rican terrorists and Marc Rich. This is a recommendation?
This is not simple “guilt by association”. It isn’t like they both went to Denny’s at the same time and happened to be placed at adjacent tables. Obama and Ayers served on boards together, were associates who worked together for “education initiatives” in Chicago, etc. Obama chose to continue his association with Ayers, and the first campaign kickoff for Obama was at Ayers’ house.
In the following video, Obama wants us to believe that Clinton is worse for having pardoned Weather Underground terrorists than Obama is for having associated with Ayers, one of the terrorists who WASN’T pardoned, but got off on a technicality because the FBI botched the investigation. Ayers: “Guilty as sin and free as a bird.”
Try to understand this. Even Obama admits knowing Ayers was a terrorist, an unrepentant one, and tries to pass off his relationship as “being on a board together”, and minimizes Ayers’ evil behavior as “something that happened 40 years ago”, as if evil done 40 years ago and not repented for is less evil, and his association with the perpetrator less suspect. In fact, they worked closely on that board, and in other organizations, and Ayers was a prime supporter launching his political career.
The “40 years ago” approach is masking something that is revealed by changing a couple of details, in a sort of thought experiment. What if Ayers had been a virulent racist, enthusiastic member of the KKK, burning crosses on lawns of black people, beating them when possible, encouraging lynchings, and the like? What if he was now unrepentant about it, and said, “We didn’t do enough.”? Would Obama pass it off as “something that happened 40 years ago” and essentially ignore it?
You know the answer, and so do I. The only reason the “40 year ago” excuse works in his mind is because he doesn’t think having been a terrorist bomber and killer of police is all that bad. So since it happened way back there somewhere, we can just sort of ignore it.
Except that we can’t. And if you can…. well, I have some words for your judgment that I can’t really commit to print right now.
As for the quality of reporting in the article referenced above, it’s just more evidence that the media is morally blind, dumb and deaf, and totally in the tank for Obama. Imagine if McCain had that racist friend just suggested in the “thought experiment” above. Would the NYTimes conclude “they weren’t that close”?
Hah.
UPDATE: To no one’s particular surprise, Stanley Kurz has done an excellent job covering this entire matter, and gives his analysis of the NYTimes “reporting” here.
UPDATE: In the meantime, Tom Brokaw wants us to believe that unrepentant terrorist Ayers, who recently said, “We didn’t do enough,” is really just a “school reformer”. Maybe Brokaw means that Ayers should be in “reform school for terrorists”, but somehow I doubt it.
Oct 01 2008
As has been pointed out before, it ain’t rocket science, and here’s an unusually succinct statement of the problem, and incisive commentary on the bailout.
The bursting of the housing bubble — which in turn precipitated the collapse of the financial and credit house of cards — is entirely government-made. Point fingers where you will, but I point mine at those congressmen and administrations that sought to win popular support by turning the Federal Reserve System, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac into public reservoirs of easy credit and home loans, available even to the riskiest and most credit-unworthy of borrowers. For years, the federales have artificially lowered interest rates and opened the loan spigots for institutional borrowers which — under inducements and even statutory pressures — opened their credit spigots, in turn, for just about any and every would-be homeowner. The usual tests of credit-worthiness that typically govern lending practices in a free, competitive marketplace were recklessly abandoned — sometimes under “moral” claim that rigorously screening prospective borrowers is “discriminatory.” So, lending has become increasingly indiscriminate, especially in the sub-prime, adjustable-rate-mortgage market.
Here’s a little more history, for those who need it, on the road up to the current problems.
Continue reading “Why the Bubble Burst: bumped, with refreshed links”
Oct 01 2008
In an alternate universe, Mitt Romney is the Presidential candidate for the Republican party. His vice-presidential candidate, Sarah Palin, will be debating Joe Biden exactly once. The moderator of the debate will be Hugh Hewitt, author of A Mormon in the White House?: 10 Things Every American Should Know about Mitt Romney.
The main stream media makes no objection to the selection of the moderator, knowing that Hugh Hewitt is a professional journalist who can put aside his own self-interest in selling books, and his own obvious political commitments, for the sake of journalistic objectivity in moderating the debate.
(suddenly jerking awake)
Man, that WAS a pipe dream.
