Current Events - September 22, 2013

American Banana Republic

The decay of a free society doesn’t happen overnight, but we’re getting there.

By Mark Steyn
‘This is the United States of America,” declared President Obama to the burghers of Liberty, Mo., on Friday. “We’re not some banana republic.”

He was talking about the Annual Raising of the Debt Ceiling, which glorious American tradition seems to come round earlier every year. “This is not a deadbeat nation,” President Obama continued. “We don’t run out on our tab.” True. But we don’t pay it off either. We just keep running it up, ever higher. And every time the bartender says, “Mebbe you’ve had enough, pal,” we protest, “Jush another couple trillion for the road. Set ’em up, Joe.” And he gives you that look that kinda says he wishes you’d run out on your tab back when it was $23.68.

Still, Obama is right. We’re not a banana republic, if only because the debt of banana republics is denominated in a currency other than their own — i.e., the U.S. dollar. When you’re the guys who print the global currency, you can run up debts undreamt of by your average generalissimo. As Obama explained in another of his recent speeches, “Raising the debt ceiling, which has been done over a hundred times, does not increase our debt.” I won’t even pretend to know what he and his speechwriters meant by that one, but the fact that raising the debt ceiling “has been done over a hundred times” does suggest that spending more than it takes in is now a permanent feature of American government. And no one has plans to do anything about it. Which is certainly banana republic-esque.

Is all this spending necessary? Every day, the foot-of-page-37 news stories reveal government programs it would never occur to your dimestore caudillo to blow money on. On Thursday, it was the Food and Drug Administration blowing just shy of $200 grand to find out whether its Twitter and Facebook presence is “well-received.” A fifth of a million dollars isn’t even a rounding error in most departmental budgets, so nobody cares. But the FDA is one of those sclerotic American institutions that has near to entirely seized up. In October 1920, it occurred to an Ontario doctor called Frederick Banting that insulin might be isolated and purified and used to treat diabetes; by January 1923, Eli Lilly & Co were selling insulin to American pharmacies: A little over two years from concept to market. Now the FDA adds at least half-a-decade to the process, and your chances of making it through are far slimmer: As recently as the late Nineties, they were approving 157 new drugs per half-decade. Today it’s less than half that.

But they’ve got $182,000 to splash around on finding out whether people really like them on Facebook, or they’re just saying that. So they’ve given the dough to a company run by Dan Beckmann, a former “new media aide” to President Obama. That has the whiff of the banana republic about it, too.

The National Parks Service, which I had carelessly assumed was the service responsible for running national parks, has been making videos on Muslim women’s rights: “Islam gave women a whole bunch of rights that Western women acquired later in the 19th and 20th centuries, and we’ve had these rights since the seventh century,” explains a lady from AnNur Islamic School in Schenectady at the National Park Service website, nps.gov. Fascinating stuff, no doubt. But what’s it to do with national parks? Maybe the rangers could pay Dan Beckmann a quarter-million bucks to look into whether the National Parks’ Islamic outreach is using social media as effectively as it might.

Where do you go to get a piece of this action? As the old saying goes, bank robbers rob banks because that’s where the money is. But the smart guys rob taxpayers because that’s where the big money is. According to the Census Bureau’s latest “American Community Survey,” between 2000 and 2012 the nation’s median household income dropped 6.6 percent. Yet in the District of Columbia median household income rose 23.3 percent. According to a 2010 survey, seven of the nation’s ten wealthiest counties are in the Washington commuter belt. Many capital cities have prosperous suburbs — London, Paris, Rome — because those cities are also the capitals of enterprise, finance, and showbiz. But Washington does nothing but government, and it gets richer even as Americans get poorer. That’s very banana republic, too: Proximity to state power is now the best way to make money. Once upon a time Americans found fast-running brooks and there built mills to access the water that kept the wheels turning. But today the ambitious man finds a big money-no-object bureaucracy that likes to splash the cash around and there builds his lobbying group or consultancy or social media optimization strategy group.

The CEO of Panera Bread, as some kind of do-gooder awareness-raising shtick, is currently attempting to live on food stamps, and not finding it easy. But being dependent on government handouts isn’t supposed to be easy. Instead of trying life at the bottom, why doesn’t he try life in the middle? In 2012, the top 10 percent were taking home 50.4 percent of the nation’s income. That’s an all-time record, beating out the 49 percent they were taking just before the 1929 market crash. With government redistributing more money than ever before, we’ve mysteriously wound up with greater income inequality than ever before. Across the country, “middle-class” Americans have accumulated a trillion dollars in college debt in order to live a less comfortable life than their high-school-educated parents and grandparents did in the Fifties and Sixties. That’s banana republic, too: no middle class, but only a government elite and its cronies, and a big dysfunctional mass underneath, with very little social mobility between the two.

Like to change that? Maybe advocate for less government spending? Hey, Lois Lerner’s IRS has got an audit with your name on it. The tax collectors of the United States treat you differently according to your political beliefs. That’s pure banana republic, but no one seems to mind very much. This week it emerged that senior Treasury officials, up to and including Turbotax Timmy Geithner, knew what was going on at least as early as spring 2012. But no one seems to mind very much. In the words of an insouciant headline writer at Government Executive, “the magazine for senior federal bureaucrats” (seriously), back in May:
“The Vast Majority of IRS Employees Aren’t Corrupt”

So, if the vast majority aren’t, what proportion is corrupt? Thirty-eight percent? Thirty-three? Twenty-seven? And that’s the good news? The IRS is not only institutionally corrupt, it’s corrupt in the service of one political party. That’s Banana Republic 101.

What comes next? Government officials present in Benghazi during last year’s slaughter have been warned not to make themselves available to congressional inquiry. CNN obtained one e-mail spelling out the stakes to CIA employees: “You don’t jeopardize yourself, you jeopardize your family as well.”

“That’s all very ominous,” wrote my colleague Jonah Goldberg the other day, perhaps a little too airily for my taste. I’d rank it somewhere north of “ominous.”  

“Banana republic” is an American coinage — by O. Henry, a century ago, for a series of stories set in the fictional tropical polity of Anchuria. But a banana republic doesn’t happen overnight; it’s a sensibility, and it’s difficult to mark the precise point at which a free society decays into something less respectable. Pace Obama, ever swelling debt, contracts for cronies, a self-enriching bureaucracy, a shrinking middle class preyed on by corrupt tax collectors, and thuggish threats against anyone who disagrees with you put you pretty far down the banana-strewn path.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/359148/american-banana-republic-mark-steyn 

Whose spending is it?

As with the debt ceiling crisis in 2011, as this one hoves into view, President Obama is using a somewhat startling argument:

[Raising the debt ceiling] "...says you (sic) got to pay the bills that you've already racked up, Congress."

Hmmm....That is an interesting formulation.  Of course, it is the despair of all Republicans and conservatives that our guys either cannot or will not make an argument in the public forum.  Whatever else you can say about the president, he is making his case in public.


But it is an interesting case.  Congress' bills (meaning debts)?  Well, technically that is true. 


But the argument is "Mr. President, we thought that we were acquiescing, however reluctantly, to your spending levels, your spending programs, your priorities.  While as Republicans we did not agree with them, we were acquiescing to them in the spirit of compromise, in respect to your office, and as part of making a republican government of separated powers work.  However, if this is our spending and these are our debts then we will take charge.  The first thing to do is to cut total spending by the federal government for fiscal 2014 by 10%."


Or some such.  We have not had a president who has been so unwilling to take any responsibility for his actions, his programs, his administration.  Because of the nature of politics, politicians are frivolous with the truth when running for office and they are not generally held too closely to what they say as candidates. 


But once in office, they have a record.  In President Obama's case, for instance, it was a key part of his philosophy that America had been too aggressive, too dominant in world affairs and that he was going to redress that.  Which he proceeded to do with his apology tour in the Middle East in 2009. 


But when Romney called him on it in the debates, far from defending it, he denied it!  Same with oil production.  Obama is a greenie and thinks that the future belongs to renewables.  He used the BP runaway well in the Gulf of Mexico to cancel most drilling permits for American companies there.  His administration has issued few, if any, permits for drilling on government land.  But when Romney called him on it in the debates, he bragged about the increase in oil production during his administration, all of which occurred despite, not because of, his administration.

And now with our spending which leads to our increased debt.  Suddenly, this is not his spending, his debt increase, it is Congress'!  If that is the case, Congress, meaning the House, should seize the day and remake spending for fiscal 2014. 

 http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2013/09/whose_spending_is_it.html#ixzz2fdJItMxA

PK'S NOTE: Does this statement bother anyone else?  In this country, if you work hard, YOU CAN ACHIEVE ANYTHING, not just, oh boy, into the "middle class."

Obama to Black Leaders: America Must Become Country ‘Where Anyone Who Works Hard Can Earn Their Way Into the Middle Class’

President Barack Obama said Saturday that the American value of working hard to get ahead has “slipped out of reach” for many in the United States over the last three decades, but especially in communities with large black populations.

“We must make this country a place where anyone who works hard can earn their way into the middle class,” Obama said in a keynote address to the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s annual awards dinner. “And until we do, we can’t let up and we can’t rest.”

Obama added that America must “offer new ladders of opportunity for anyone willing to climb them” in his speech to his most ardent supporters packed into a cavernous ballroom at Washington’s convention center.

Obama acknowledged progress made since 1963, but said there was more to be done. He spoke of work needed to reduce a black unemployment rate that is twice that of whites, increase the minimum wage and provide health care and education for all.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/09/21/obama-to-black-leaders-america-must-become-country-where-anyone-who-works-hard-can-earn-their-way-into-the-middle-class/

One Weird Trick to Expose the Truth About ObamaCare

There's every reason to believe that ObamaCare will ruin America's fine health care system; weaken our already shaky economy; cause more people to go without health insurance; and is widely unpopular.
Even though most citizens seem quite uncertain of all its provisions, surveys repeatedly show that it is unpopular and grows more unpopular as the time for implementation of more of its provisions nears. And the law opens the door for -- completely foreseeable -- widespread abuse, some of which is already starting.
It passed without a single Republican vote. It is the Democrats' baby and remains so because the party's leaders refuse to acknowledge the need to substantially amend it. Probably because the same people who passed it without reading it, still haven't bothered. But also because it includes enormous giveaways to themselves, the Democrats' favorite constituencies, and donors while punishing those not within that growing class. (The drafters accidentally forgot to add labor unions to the list of exempted cronies, but now that AFL-CIO President Trumka bellowed about it, the Administration seems to be working behind the scenes to correct that oversight.)
Investors Business Daily lists some of the already apparent flaws in the law:

IBD has been cataloguing businesses, public institutions and local governments that have cut jobs or worker hours specifically citing ObamaCare. That list now exceeds 250.
Other companies are cutting benefits for part-time workers, spouses, early retirees or their entire workforce, because of ObamaCare. Every one of those workers has a good reason to want the law killed.
On top of this, the public may be noticing the growing pile of ObamaCare's broken promises. Among them:

• Family premiums haven't gone down by $2,500 annually, as Obama repeatedly said they would. They've gone up $2,976.

• Workers are increasingly finding that they can't keep the health plans they like, despite Obama's pledge that they can.

• ObamaCare is adding to federal budget deficits, as IBD recently reported, even though Obama claimed it would cut red ink.

• The law is hurting small businesses, not helping them.

The public even might have noticed that Obama himself has shown the law to be seriously flawed.
According to the Congressional Research Service, he repealed, changed, or delayed pieces of ObamaCare 19 times. That includes the employer mandate, the verification rules, the limit on out-of-pocket costs, and the ability for workers at small companies to have a choice of plans in the exchanges.
None of this has anything to do with Republican propaganda.
Neither is Obama's oft-repeated claim true that Republicans have no alternative to ObamaCare. This week, conservative lawmakers introduced a package of reforms they've long advocated that would cut health costs, make insurance more affordable, and protect those with pre-existing conditions.
The public's dislike of ObamaCare is real, and it is well-deserved. Now it's up to Republicans to seize on this and stop the law before it can live down to their expectations.

Democrats believe that as the Republicans hold a majority only in the House of Representatives they have not much more power than they did when the Democrats pulled a number of tricks, relying on their majority in both Houses of Congress to ram this bill down our throats. Their friends in the press are already tooling up their arguments why a Republican refusal to fund a "clean continuing resolution" to keep the U.S. debt rolling and the government in operation would be all the Republicans fault and would cost them dearly as it did when Newt Gingrich led a rebellion years ago.
In truth, the Republicans have not many options. On Friday they played their first card: they passed an ObamaCare-free continuing resolution to keep the government going.

House Republicans passed their stopgap funding bill Friday to keep government open while terminating the new health care law, setting up a final showdown next week with Senate Democrats and President Obama who have firmly rejected the GOP approach.
The 230-189 vote, which split almost exactly along party lines, is the precursor to the big action next week, when the Democratic majority in the Senate is expected to strip out the health care provisions and send the bill back to the House -- where Republicans will have to decide whether they can accept it at that point.
All sides are racing to beat a Sept. 30 deadline, which is when current funding for the federal government runs out. The new measure would fund the government through Dec. 15, essentially at last year's levels, and would leave the budget sequester cuts in place.

Senator Reid is expected to play his first move. He will send back to the House their bill from which the Senate will excise the language defunding ObamaCare. Some have suggested that the Republicans can mount a filibuster in the senate to stop Reid, but that doesn't seem likely given the Senate rules as Senator Cruz, a major ObamaCare opponent has cautioned.
Roll Call explains the parliamentary tap dance at Reid's disposal: 

If the House sends over the continuing resolution to keep the government running past Sept. 30 as currently envisioned, there's a procedural method by which Reid could hold a debate limiting vote on the bill before stripping out the House language that would defund the 2010 health care law.
That means at the point Democrats need GOP votes to overcome a filibuster threat, any Republican senator casting a "yes" vote on a motion to invoke cloture, and thus limiting debate, will still be voting on a bill that would cut off money for ObamaCare.
After cloture is invoked with at least 60 votes, any pending amendments that are germane to the underlying measure (such as one to strike part of the text) automatically get votes at the end of 30 hours of debate -- with simple majority thresholds for adoption. ["Rule XXII] [snip] At that point, the vote to pass the bill and send it back to the House would only need Democratic votes. Both Cruz and Lee have said that the real fight would take place when the amended bill returns to the House.
"There is a difference between a vote and a victory, and we have to remember that this will not be either won or lost with a single legislative volley from one side of the Capitol to the other," Lee said on Fox News. "This, like so many other legislative debates, might well take several volleys between House and Senate."
Of course, each volley takes time and moves the calendar closer to the start of the new fiscal year on Oct. 1. If Congress doesn't pass something to keep the government funded before then, a shutdown will ensue.

When the bill returns to the House it will go to a conference committee of Senate and House members to work out the difference. At that point my suggestion (which I titled "one weird trick" because advertisers claim it gets readers' attention and I want yours) is to insist that (a) all exemptions from the coverage of the act, including House and Senate members and staff, favored donors, and other cronies be scrapped. We are all covered or none are; and (b) given the huge amounts of fraud already rampant within the Medicare, Medicaid, and food stamp entitlement programs, no subsidies will be given out absent proof of identity and income verification. (The government will be relying on the "honor system" for income representations and about 2 weeks from launch cannot still put in place a computer system to correctly calculate subsidies.)
If the Democrats refuse to agree to these provisos, it seems to me the public debate -- if the Republicans can muster any sort of decent response -- is not evil Republicans shutting down the government but rather, the Democrats are so committed to increase fraud and favoritism to their supporters and donors that THEY'D shut down the government to keep that graft and privilege alive.
Democrats already suffered a credibility loss when earlier they claimed the sequester would limit critical services. It didn't. In fact, it didn't even cut out utterly stupid government waste like the National Park Services' paying for three videos promoting the notion that Islam advances women's rights. One might suspect that someone was being paid off for campaign services (a common payoff scheme), or perhaps that the widespread sprinkling of Moslem Brotherhood officials in the federal apparatus extends to the Park Service, but in any event, using federal funds to promote a religion seems -- well -- not kosher. But the videos are there. See for yourself. You paid for them. 

 http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/09/one_weird_trick_to_expose_the_truth_about_obamacare.html#ixzz2fdMrNV8w

A Government Database about our Sex Lives: Gee, What Could Go Wrong?

I’ve shared several videos that make the case against Obamacare. 

Here’s one narrated by a Dutch woman warning that America shouldn’t repeat the mistakes of European government-run healthcare. 

Here’s one from Reason TV about how free markets produce lower healthcare costs. 

Here’s one explaining the need to deal with the government-caused third-party-payer crisis. 

And I had to reluctantly admit that even one of Karl Rove’s group produced an effective video on Obamacare harming young people. 

I think all of those videos are well done and contain critical information, but I suspect the humor in this clever video may change even more minds. Or at least it will be more widely watched. 




Fortunately, the creepy Uncle Sam is only symbolic at this stage. While Obama probably would prefer a single-payer system like the one in the United Kingdom, where doctors and other medical personnel actually are government bureaucrats, the immediate danger is that Obamacare will turn health care professionals into agents of the government. 

And the politicians will then direct doctors and others to collect information that the government shouldn’t possess. 

If you think I’m exaggerating, read some of the chilling details from Betsy McCaughey’s recent New York Post op-ed.

‘Are you sexually active? If so, with one partner, multiple partners or same-sex partners?” Be ready to answer those questions and more the next time you go to the doctor, whether it’s the dermatologist or the cardiologist and no matter if the questions are unrelated to why you’re seeking medical help. And you can thank the Obama health law. …The president’s “reforms” aim to turn doctors into government agents, pressuring them financially to ask questions they consider inappropriate and unnecessary, and to violate their Hippocratic Oath to keep patients’ records confidential. …Dr. Richard Amerling, a nephrologist and associate professor at Albert Einstein Medical College, explains that your medical record should be “a story created by you and your doctor solely for your treatment and benefit.” But the new requirements are turning it “into an interrogation, and the data will not be confidential.”

I don’t like the idea of government bureaucrats having my private information, but what’s probably most worrisome about this Obama Administration scheme is that the data won’t be confidential. 

As McCaughey writes, it’s just a matter of time before hackers or incompetent bureaucrats make that information public.

Patients need to defend their own privacy by refusing to answer the intrusive social-history questions. …Are such precautions paranoid? Hardly. WikiLeaker Bradley Manning showed how incompetent the government is at keeping its own secrets; incidents where various agencies accidentally disclose personal data like Social Security numbers are legion.

Do you want details about your sex life put at risk of disclosure? That’s what this issue is all about, not to mention the fact that what we do behind closed doors is none of the government’s business. 

And I’m sure you’ll be delighted to know it’s not just data about your sex life that will be available for bureaucrats and identity thieves. 

Here’s what Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah recently wrote.

Individuals signing up are required to provide personal information such as Social Security numbers, tax returns and household income information that will be entered into the Federal Data Services Hub (Data Hub) — a new information sharing network that allows other state and federal agencies, including the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Department of Homeland Security, to verify a person’s information. The problem? …Last month the department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (HHS-OIG) issued a report saying the federal government had failed to meet multiple deadlines for testing operations and reporting data security vulnerabilities involved with the Data Hub. …The repercussions of opening the exchanges with an unproven security system could be devastating, putting the personal and financial records of millions of Americans at the fingertips of data thieves. Other government certified systems have already proven to be less than reliable in protecting personal information. Look no further than the accidental release by the IRS this past July of thousands of taxpayer Social Security numbers on its website. …we can’t stand on the sidelines and let the Administration potentially expose the personal data of millions of Americans to more fraud.

By the way, everything written by McCaughey and Hatch also helps to explain why we should resist privacy-destroying schemes such as the Internet sales tax cartel being pushed by greedy politicians. I know I wouldn’t want all my online purchases in a database where state and local bureaucrats would be able to snoop for details. 

And we also should oppose international tax harmonization schemes that are predicated on governments all over the world collecting and sharing private information about our finances. That kind of data would be a gold mine for hackers and identity thieves, not to mention there are huge risks of making that information available to corrupt, incompetent , and venal governments. 

The common theme is that we shouldn’t let government have more information about us, particularly when the politicians want that data to pursue bad tax policy or bad health policy. 

http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/danieljmitchell/2013/09/22/a-government-database-about-our-sex-lives-gee-what-could-go-wrong-n1706471/page/full

'Funny or Die' Gears Up to Sell ObamaCare to Young People

We sure have come a long way from the rebellious Hollywood of the 1960s and 70s; the Hollywood that railed against The Man and conformity, and preached to a generation of young people about the idea of  liberty and individualism.  In just a few generations the guardians of Hollywood have gone from Easy Riders to "Funny or Die" sell-outs eager to propagandize for Big Government, all in an effort to dupe young people into paying for health insurance they do not need:

Wedged into the blotter on Mike Farah's desk at the Funny or Die studios in Hollywood is an index card with a list — wrangling talent, polishing scripts and arranging shoots — long enough to keep the comedy website executive fully occupied. But these tasks are part of a different quest: the campaign to ensure the success of President Obama's healthcare law.

While the GOP-led House passed a spending bill Friday that would strip federal funding for the Affordable Care Act and force a confrontation with the Senate that could shut down the government, Farah and his team were developing as many as 20 projects involving the healthcare law. The first will go live on Sept. 30, the day before Americans are supposed to be able to enroll in the new health insurance marketplaces.

Young, healthy people are the biggest dupes in this wealth redistribution hustle that has been disguised as a health care plan. Without the young and healthy paying for premiums they don't need, the whole Ponzi scheme collapses. 

But rather than warn young people; rather than fight for their freedom and rights and educate them, Funny or Die is gearing up to sell them out to The Collective. 

Hollywood used to be great. 

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Hollywood/2013/09/21/funny-or-die-gears-up-sell-obamacare-to-young-people

Does the Obama team think that all Hispanics crossed The Rio Grande?

The Obama White House has a PhD on "pandering" to Hispanics. 

They don't have results.    For example, they didn't propose immigration reform when the Democrats controlled the Congress.  They won't explain the lousy unemployment in Hispanic districts or their opposition to reforms in public education.

But they are good at pandering or distracting. 

September is Hispanic Heritage Month and the White House wasted no time to tell you what they think of Hispanics living in the US. 

My friend Jorge Ponce, a fellow Cuban American and contributor to Babalu Blog, brought this to my attention:

"This year's White House Proclamation to commemorate National Hispanic Heritage Month includes the following language:    
 "Whether our ancestors crossed the Atlantic in 1790 or the Rio Grande in 1970 ..."  
What are they talking about?
Just on September 17, 2013, we celebrated the 226th anniversary of our Framers' signing of the U.S. Constitution in 1787.   
So, how could our ancestors have crossed the Atlantic in 1790? Were the Framers of the U.S. Constitutions extraterrestrial aliens?
Don't tell me someone messed up the Hispanic Proclamation!!    
In addition, are Hispanics considered only those who crossed the Rio Grande? What about all those others Hispanics who came from Cuba, Puerto Rico, and other countries in the Caribbean, Central and South America, and Spain? 
I'm confused. Didn't our ancestors come over from Spain in 1492? Moreover, we celebrated a very important event in the history of our Nation in April 2013 -- the 500th anniversary of Don Juan Ponce de Leon's landing in Florida.
I would think that this important feat would have been mentioned in this year's proclamation.  
I think that someone needs to take a crash course immediately in the history of Hispanics. But, more importantly, I think that someone should show more respect to Hispanics and to the contributions that they have made to our Nation." (Jorge Ponce)

Yes, The Obama administration needs a history lesson.  However, this is not a case of historical ignorance or White House staffers who did not take a history class.  It is political pandering, or a way of earning points with Mexican Americans who voted for change and got nothing or "nada."

How much longer will the Obama administration continue to treat Hispanics with so little respect?  The answer is that they will continue as long as Hispanics buy into "el culto" or the cult of personality.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2013/09/does_the_obama_team_think_that_all_hispanics_crossed_the_rio_grande.html#ixzz2fdIkdlJ7

Just Wait Until You See How Apple’s New Operating System Lists Jerusalem

The new operating system that Apple rolled out last week has a feature unrelated to technology that may surprise some users. A Blaze tipster informed us that the new world clock options on the iOS 7 list Jerusalem without a country.

We checked and that does appear to be the case. See this screenshot:

(Source: ios7 via TheBlaze)

While other cities that start with the letter J are paired with their home country, such as Jakarta, Indonesia and Johannesburg, South Africa, Jerusalem is listed alone, without denoting Israel, for which it is its capital. Palestinians also claim Jerusalem as their capital.

Of the other cities on the time zone settings offered by Apple that this reporter reviewed , every other city appears with a home country besides three exceptions.  The other outliers besides Jerusalem are Taipei and Vatican City which also appear alone.

While TheBlaze has not yet received a response from Apple’s media relations department as to why Jerusalem is listed without a country, past similar actions by other entities have been motivated by Middle East politics.

Most notably, the State Department continues to refuse to denote Israel as the place of birth on the passports of U.S. citizens who were born in Jerusalem. A federal appeals court in July ruled in favor of the State Department in the case of Zivitofsky v. the Secretary of State. The parents of eleven-year-old Menachem Zivitofsky, a U.S. citizen born in Jerusalem, took the U.S. government to court after being denied a request to name “Israel” as the birthplace of their son. By contrast, Americans born in other cities like Tel Aviv do receive the Israel designation on their passports.

In 2000, the Anti-Defamation League criticized CNN.com for listing on its weather map Jerusalem without a country designation. When CNN later corrected the map, placing Jerusalem in Israel, it also added a qualifying political explanation on its weather map, writing “The status of Jerusalem, the seat of Israel government, is the most contentious issue in the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. Palestinian and Arab leaders consider part of Jerusalem the capital of the prospective Palestinian state.” It appears that today, CNN.com lists Jerusalem as in Israel with no asterisk or explanation.

Last year, the website for the London Olympics placed Jerusalem in Palestine, leaving Israel with no capital. The official website later reversed course and noted Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. “It’s a shame a nonpolitical body makes the most absurd political statements,” a Foreign Ministry spokesperson commented to the Times of Israel at the time.

TheBlaze emailed Apple’s media relations department and will update this story if a representative responds.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/09/22/just-wait-until-you-see-how-apples-new-operating-system-lists-jerusalem/

National Park Service Produces Videos Praising Islam's Contributions To Women's Rights

Another example of your hard-earned tax dollars at work! Apparently, the National Park Service has a ton of money lying around and thought that maybe producing some pro-Islam videos might further their mission to provide national parks to Americans.

Seems legit.

So they hired a media person to visit the AnNur Islamic School in Schenectady, NY and got the real truth about Islam. Which may surprise you.

From the first part of the 3 videos at the 4:45 mark:

People think that Islam oppresses women and there’s no equality, but they’re wrong – there’s equity… 7th century A.D. Islam gave women the right to be involved in politics, the right to earn and keep her own money. Islam gave women the right to work outside of the home, Islam gave women the right to own property, Islam gave women the right to divorce, Islam gave women the right to choose who she marries. Islam gave women a whole bunch of rights that Western women acquired later in the 19th and 20th centuries and we’ve had these rights since the 7th century A.D. and it’s just not acknowledged worldwide.

It’s fantastic that the National Park Service is out there using taxpayer dollars to correct the false record against Muslims, such as the “moderate” Muslim Brotherhood’s scathing backlash against the UN’s Declaration on Women’s Rights. Or Muslim states’ objection to “gay rights” at a UN human rights forum – we wouldn’t want these countries to be confused with Vladimir Putin’s Russia, for Allah’s sake!

And if you happen to be Muslim, it not like there’s anything wrong with that. Ok then....

...Well thank goodness the National Park Service is doing the job that no one else will – defend the history of Islam’s contributions to Women’s liberation!

http://www.ijreview.com/2013/09/80143-national-park-service-produces-videos-praising-islams-contributions-womens-rights 

CAIR collects millions from foreign donors thanks to non-profit shell game

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) conceals donations from overseas through a series of shell organizations, according to documents from court actions involving the Muslim advocacy group.

Since its founding in 1994, CAIR has presented itself to American Muslims and the media as a single organization centered on American concerns. But it shows a different face to the IRS, with multiple corporate entities that conceal the large financial donations that come to CAIR from Middle East sources.

As a registered lobbying group, CAIR is required to report to the IRS contributions over $5,000. Its shifting 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) branches, however, make it possible to collect millions of dollars from oil-rich Muslim nations without disclosure. Documents show CAIR has received millions of dollars in overseas contributions and tens of millions in pledges from overseas.

CAIR’s convoluted structure and funding machinations are dizzying. Today, the original Council on American Islamic Relations doesn’t exist at all. In June 2013, CAIR changed its name to the nondescriptly named Washington Trust Foundation, Inc. (WTF).

“Plentiful legal evidence, acquired in the course of a lawsuit—plus CAIR’s own official filing documents to the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs (DCRA) and IRS—make clear that CAIR has engaged in a thinly-disguised money laundering operation,” David Reaboi, vice president for strategic communications at the Center for Security Policy, told The Daily Caller.

“In addition to violating its 501(c)(3) regulations, CAIR’s undisclosed and hidden foreign donations amount to violation of the Foreign Agent Registration Act as well,” Reaboi continued.

CAIR formed in 1994 by filing with the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs (DCRA) and soon after obtained 501(c)(4) status from the IRS as a non-profit lobbying organization.

The year before, the organization’s two founders — current Executive Director Nihad Awad and Omar Ahmad — were captured on FBI wiretaps of high-level Hamas leaders, discussing the need for a public relations effort supporting that group. On the recorded meetings and phone calls, the terrorist group was referred to, in code, as “Samah,” as the participants made covert efforts to fund and promote its activities in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip to the tune of millions of dollars.

At the time, both CAIR founders Awad and Ahmad served in leadership positions in a key piece of the Muslim Brotherhood’s network in the United States, the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP), which was founded by Hamas political director Mousa Abu Marzook before he was deported from the United States.

In 2008 both the IAP and CAIR founder Ahmad were designated unindicted co-conspirators in the largest terrorism funding trial in American history, US vs. Holy Land Foundation.

CAIR and other Islamic groups sought unsuccessfully to petition the government to clear its name. In 2009, U.S. District Court Judge Jorge Solis rejected their appeal and maintained their status as unindicted coconspirators, noting, “the government has produced ample evidence to establish the associations of CAIR…with NAIT [North American Islamic Trust], the Islamic Association for Palestine, and with Hamas.”

Despite the group’s ties to Hamas and its court-documented origins as part the Muslim Brotherhood’s network in America, CAIR officials — including Awad, its communications director Ibrahim Hooper, and others — have appeared in media, been praised by politicians and continued to claim to represent the American Muslim community.

This last claim may ring hollow, though, as CAIR’s fundraising practices are constructed in a way that makes it impossible to trace large donations from overseas, including from foreign governments.

While behaving and referring to itself as a single organization, CAIR has taken advantage of the lack of donor reporting requirements for its de-listed 501(c)(4) non-profit to collect funds from large donors who remain anonymous, then depositing the funds into its 501(c)(3) entity. This practice is referred to in the federal criminal statutes as “laundering” of funds.

When foreign funds are laundered into a US political non-profit this way, it runs afoul of the Foreign Agent Registration Act, a 1938 statute requiring “persons acting as agents of foreign principals in a political or quasi-political capacity to make periodic public disclosure of their relationship with the foreign principal.” Similarly, it is illegal under US law to shift funds from overseas in order not to report to the IRS.

More than a decade after CAIR obtained a 501(c)(4) certification from the IRS, it created CAIR-Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization to offer tax deductions to its American donors in 2005. CAIR-Foundation obtained 501(c)(3) status from the IRS in 2007.

The original 501(c)(4) CAIR then formally changed its name to CAIR-Action Network, Inc. The group never made this name change public, and its representatives have never referred to it as such.

Although CAIR-Foundation had obtained its 501(c)(3) status in 2007, it never filed required IRS 990 forms through 2008-2010, and was subsequently de-listed in 2011.

When attempting to get reinstated as a non-profit with the IRS, CAIR admitted the close relationship between the two groups:

“CAIR Action Network and CAIR Foundation have overlapping boards,” the 2013 reinstatement document reads. “CAIR Action Network donates office space to CAIR Foundation at no cost to CAIR Foundation. The Council on American-Islamic Relations Action Network, Inc. (‘CAIR Action Network’), with which CAIR Foundation is closely connected, owns various trademarks related to the name CAIR and Council on American-Islamic Relations. The Organization has a license to use those trademarks from CAIR Action Network. The Organization does not pay any fee or royalty to CAIR Action Network for these licenses.”

The original 1994 CAIR (now CAIR-Action Network) maintained only one website, which listed itself as a 501(c)(3) at the bottom of page. It made no distinction between its lobbying and non-profit arms. In this way, it was able to solicit funds both transparently and non-transparently.

Under IRS regulations, an organization may have 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) related entities, but it must maintain a wall between the two. This is accomplished by establishing separate bank accounts, board of directors, bookkeeping, and payroll. CAIR, though, had none of these.

International donors, like the government of Qatar, have made donations to “CAIR.” CAIR deposits such donations into whatever bank account it chooses: its own non-reporting lobbying account or CAIR Foundation’s 501(c)(3) charitable tax deductible bank account. CAIR can then move the money to CAIR Foundation with no reporting requirements.

“According to both the letter and spirit of the law, this is illegal as CAIR is avoiding disclosure of foreign sources of funding to a 501(c)3 (CAIR-F),” Reaboi explained to TheDC.

The nature of the non-profit scheme is so convoluted even CAIR’s leadership is confused. Under oath in a lawsuit deposition, Awad, the organization’s executive director, described CAIR’s two organizations as one and the same, was unable to make a distinction between the two and even misrepresented his own role in the group. Awad states that he’s “not privy to the exact distinction between the various organizations.”

Q. Now, we talked a little bit earlier about CAIR Action Network and CAIR Foundation, correct?
Awad: Yes.
Q. And you had some idea about the distinction between those two entities. Would you tell me what you understand to be the difference between those two entities?
Awad: No, I cannot tell you exactly.
Q. Do you serve in any official capacity for CAIR Action Network?
Awad: I think I’m a board member.
Q. A board member.  Are you executive director or an officer of that company?
Awad:  I’m executive director of CAIR Foundation.
Q. So you serve as the executive director of CAIR Inc. and of CAIR Foundation?
Awad: CAIR Foundation.
Q. Did you not testify earlier that you serve as the executive director of CAIR Inc.?
Awad: No, I said CAIR Foundation.
Q. Okay. So again, looking—
Awad: I told you that—are you done?
Q. Please.
Awad: The names have changed over the years. And I’m not privy to the exact distinction between the various organizations. I serve in my capacity as executive director of CAIR Foundation.  And I have a good understanding of what this organization is.
Q. I didn’t hear the last part.
Awad: I have a good idea of that organization, what that represents, and my capacity in that organization.
Q. I direct your attention again to the first page of CSP Depo Exhibit 5. And we are talking about the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Inc. Form 1120 2010 filing. Do you see that?
Awad: This one?
Q. Yes.
Awad: Yes.
Q. And I asked you if you were the executive director of this organization. And your answer was yes. Is your answer now that you are not the executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations Inc.?
Awad: Okay. I think you’re confusing me.

CAIR’s claim to represent American Muslims is contradicted by its falling membership and donations. While the group claimed “some 50,000 members” in 2007, the Washington Times showed that CAIR’s membership plummeted from a 2000 high of 29,000 to only 1,700 in 2006.  Based on its IRS 990s from 2004 to 2006, CAIR’s reported membership revenue from American Muslims plunged from $119,029 in 2004 to $41,383 in 2006. This accounts for only 1 percent of the group’s funding from that year.

Even as its grassroots base continued to erode, CAIR’s revenue was increasing. The website CAIRObservatory chronicles its significant contributions from foreign donors, embassies and governments.

For years, CAIR has made conflicting statements about its overseas sources of funding. In a press release issued after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, it asserted: “We do not support directly or indirectly or receive support from any overseas group or government.”

By January 2009, however, CAIR claimed, “there is nothing criminal or immoral about accepting donations from foreign nationals… The U.S. government, corporations and non-profit organizations routinely receive money from foreign nationals.”

According to an attachment to the foundation’s Form 1023, the government of Qatar has given  $405,000 over a 5 year period. This figure doesn’t include the foreign money that could come in through the lobbying arm, CAIR-AN, which has given $1,080,000 during that same period. These donors include:

Embassy of the UAE – $219,563
Kingdom Holding Company, Saudi Arabia – $199,980
National Bank of Fujairah, UAE – $100,000
Red Crescent, Abu Dhabi, UAE – $99,985
Bin Hammodah Properties, Abu Dhabi UAE – $44,985

Although the group has sometimes drawn congressional scrutiny, successive presidential administrations have stopped short of moving against CAIR.

In June of 2011, Rep. Frank Wolf, a Virginia Republican, asked the IRS to investigate whether CAIR has received or solicited funds from foreign governments.

Wolf was especially concerned about CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad’s letter to Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, which solicited money and praised the dictator. Wolf also asked the IRS if it is aware that Awad tried to solicit funds from Sudanese President Omar Hassan Bashir, who has been indicted internationally as a war criminal.

The IRS did not do an investigation.

According to the documents, CAIR received at least $2,792,203 in contributions, income and money from foreign principals in the form of 11 distinct transactions, including a $2,106,251 mortgage loan from a foreign principal for CAIR’s Washington, D.C. headquarters and at least $54,500,000 in pledges from foreign principals.

CAIR has met and coordinated with foreign principals on at least 35 occasions and engaged in more than 100 political influence operations on behalf of foreign principals in the United States.

CAIR did not respond to requests for comment.

  http://dailycaller.com/2013/09/21/cair-collects-millions-from-foreign-donors-thanks-to-non-profit-shell-game/#ixzz2fdfP0NAE

Who Is Al Shabaab? Here Is A Look At The Al Qaeda Linked Group Claiming Responsibility For The Attack On The Kenyan Mall

The Somali Islamist militant group al Shabaab has claimed responsibility for the attack on a shopping mall in Kenya’s capital killing at least 59, showing it can still strike back despite coming under pressure in Somalia from offensives by African troops, including Kenyans.

Here is a look at the al Shabaab group.

* AL SHABAAB WAGING WAR IN SOMALIA:

- The toppling by warlords of military dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991 plunged the Horn of Africa nation into anarchy, allowing al Shabaab, which means “Youth” or “Boys” in Arabic, to seize control of large areas of south and central Somalia.

- Al Shabaab’s militia was part of Somalia’s Islamic Courts Union movement that pushed U.S.-backed warlords out of the capital Mogadishu in June 2006 and ruled for six months before Somali and Ethiopian forces ousted the movement.

- Five years on, in August 2011, al Shabaab began pulling its fighters out of Mogadishu. In September 2012, African peacekeepers pushed the group out of the port of Kismayu.

- Although the rebels have still struck back repeatedly with bombs and attacks, their retreat from Mogadishu and Kismayu signalled they could not defeat militarily a government backed by foreign firepower. Ethiopian, Kenyan and African peacekeeping (AMISOM) troops have advanced and taken rebel strongholds.

- Al Qaeda said in early 2012 that al Shabaab had joined its ranks and the group has resorted to guerrilla-style hit-and-run attacks against AMISOM troops. At least 3,000 African peacekeepers have been killed in Somalia since 2007, the United Nations says.

* MAJOR ATTACKS IN SOMALIA AND NEIGHBOURING STATES:

- A suicide bomber killed four government ministers and 19 others on Dec. 3, 2009 at a graduation ceremony for medical students in Mogadishu.

- In July 2010, al Shabaab staged a bomb attack in Kampala that killed 79 people who were watching the soccer World Cup final. The strike, its first on foreign soil, was to avenge Uganda’s participation in the African peacekeeping force.

- Two attacks on a Nairobi bus station and a bar killed one person and wounded more than 20 in late October 2011.

- Kenya blamed al Shabaab for grenade attacks that killed at least six people at a Nairobi bus station on March 10, 2012.

- Somali sports officials were among six people killed in April 2012 in an al Shabaab suicide bombing in Mogadishu.

- Suicide bombers hit the Mogadishu hotel where newly elected President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud was on Sept 12, 2012, killing eight people. Mohamud was unhurt. Eight days later, suicide bombers killed at least 15 people in a restaurant.

- In April 2013, al Shabaab militants killed at least 30 people in a wave of coordinated attacks in the Somali capital.

- In July, the group claimed a car bomb attack on the Turkish mission in Mogadishu that killed three people. A Sept 7 attack on a packed restaurant killed at least 15 people. (Reporting by David Cutler, London Editorial Reference Unit; Editing by Pascal Fletcher and Pravin Char)

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/09/22/who-is-al-shabaab-here-is-a-look-at-the-al-qaeda-linked-group-claiming-responsibility-for-the-attack-on-the-kenyan-mall/

Islamic Terror in Kenya? Not According to the BBC

While a horrified world watches the images coming out of Kenya in the aftermath of the massacre at a Nairobi mall perpetrated by Islamic fundamentalists, another less bloody but just as morally reprehensible atrocity unfolded online: the sickeningly biased coverage of the attack produced by some mainstream media outlets determined to provide cover for the jihadists.

The BBC’s lead story this afternoon was almost a study in journalistic malfeasance: an archetypal example of how left-leaning Western journalists will violate their own consciences — and the basic principles of reporting — in their relentless quest to hide the truth.

Such bias happens every day, and complaints about it happen just as often, but the sheer volume and speed of partisan reporting makes it difficult to highlight a single example. Even so, let’s pause for just a moment and dissect this typical specimen of ideological media spin.

The article under discussion can be found here — at least for now. Since media outlets often delete articles which they later find embarrassing, I can’t guarantee it will be online forever, so to preserve the evidence I took a screenshot, which you can see here.

Sections of the screenshot are pasted in below as illustrations.

How the BBC Intentionally Obfuscates the Facts
In traditional reporting, all the vital information in any news story should be featured right at the beginning, in an article’s three key elements:

• The headline
• The lede
• The nut graf

Everyone knows what a “headline” is, but the other two terms are journalists’ lingo:

The “lede” in any story is generally defined as its first sentence. In a human interest feature story it’s allowable for the lede to be an anecdote or amusing observation — but in a hardcore news article like this the lede is always supposed to summarize the germane facts of the story. (The headline, of course, should be a condensed version of the lede.)

The “nut graf,” which is short for “nutshell paragraph,” is a single paragraph which gives all relevant information in a further elaboration of the lede. As expected, in news reporting the “nut graf” is always supposed to be the first paragraph of any story (although in feature journalism, which is not what we’re discussing here, the nut graf can appear later in the story).

So, what are the essential pieces of information about today’s Kenya incident? Most everyone (including the perpetrators) would agree that:

Islamic fundamentalist terrorists purposely targeted an exclusive mall in Nairobi frequented by non-Muslims in order to massacre infidels.

So: How does the BBC communicate this information to its readers in its headline? Behold:


Right off the bat, even in the headline itself, the BBC commits a litany of egregious and inexcusable journalistic errors.

The first and most obvious blunder is the missing subject. Who did what? Well, according the the BBC, an entity called a “shoot-out” committed mass murder in Nairobi. Note how there are no human actors in the headline. It wasn’t people who killed 11, it was an inanimate and leaderless “shoot-out” that killed 11.

This is a basic grammatical snafu which even freshmen journalism students quickly learn to avoid. But not the BBC, apparently.

On a second, more subtle, level, use of the word “shoot-out” implies that there were two equal combatants involved, and that therefore blame can be spread around to everyone. But as we know, it wasn’t at first a “shoot-out” — it was a group of terrorists massacring unarmed non-Muslims. (Only much later, after police arrived, did it devolve into a shoot-out.)

Since the BBC has been one of the world’s leading media outlets for nearly a century, and in previous generations set the global standard for news-writing guidelines, they have absolutely no excuse for writing a headline like that — they can’t claim “We’re new at this kind of thing” or “We’re just bloggers — cut us some slack.” No. The BBC literally wrote the book on how to write proper headlines. And if they write a poor headline like this, it must be on purpose.

Before we get to the “Why?” part of the analysis, let’s continue on to the BBC’s lede and nut graf. Surely they conveyed the crucial information the world needed to know — right? Hmmmmm:


Neither the lede, nor the nut graf, nor the two subsequent paragraphs mention terrorism, Islamic fundamentalism, the reason for the attack, that non-Muslims were targeted, nor any other of the truly germane facts about the incident.

Instead, a bizarre and inaccurate outlier quote about the attackers being “armed criminals” is highlighted. Why? There can be no other explanation other than the BBC is trying to obfuscate the facts.

Studies have shown that most news consumers only read the headline; the few that continue on to the body of the story only read the first paragraph or two. Only a small percentage of news consumers get further than that into the full text of the article. And it is this key detail that the BBC is relying on. They purposely suppress the crucial information from appearing in the headline, in the lede, and in the nut grafs, knowing full well that most people will stop reading after that point.

Right around this stage in the article the BBC changes gears, and having successfuly hidden the truth from the majority of its readers, it enters into what might be termed “cover our ass” mode, in which little by little, in inverse order of importance, they leak out the actual facts, so that if their deception is later noted and criticized, they can claim that they did reveal the truth, albeit later in the report.

Thus, the subsequent paragraphs once again fail to mention Islam or terrorism, but start flirting with the facts:


Here, we finally get the terms “Al Qaeda” and “Al-Shabab” and “Arabic,” but stop short of actually describing the ideology or motivation for the attack.

Then, predictably, there is a photo interrupting the narrative, which the BBC editors assume will drive away the few remaining readers, and only after this interruption, in the eighth paragraph, is the only important fact revealed:


In traditional news style, an article is supposed to be structured as a metaphorical “pyramid” of information, with the most important facts stated as concisely as possible at the very top, and with each sentence more details and more elaboration are added.

But in the postmodern BBC “biased reporting style guide,” the pyramid is intentionally inverted, such that the details you want to obscure are hidden so far down in the article that no one will notice them. The only reason to include these details at all is so that, if later criticized, you can truthfully claim that you reported “all the facts.”

The rest of the BBC article confirms this inverted structure, as much later they finally get around to mentioning the word “terrorism.”

Why?

The real question remains unanswered: Why would the BBC (and innumerable other politically correct media outlets) purposely engage in bad journalism? One must assume that the atheist or nominally Christian BBC reporters in their London offices have no desire to live in a world controlled by Islamic law, nor are they themselves bloodthirsty killers, nor are they members of terrorist organizations. Why then would they go to so such lengths, on a daily basis, to provide cover for Islamic terrorists trying to bully the world into submission through brutality and bloodshed?

One can only speculate. One likely answer is fear: They’re afraid that if they make Muslim terrorists “look bad,” then the infidel reporters (or their offices) will be targeted. But I think the answer is a bit more complicated: The progressive worldview promoted by the BBC and their ilk rests on the notion that first-world nations are oppressors and third-world people are victims, and any incident — such as this one — which undermines this hypothesis must be suppressed. Thus, any time Islamic fundamentalists commit an act of violence, the Western politically correct media does its best to ignore, shrug off or (as we see here) intentionally misreport what happens.

And the next time someone asks for evidence of media bias, send them a link to this essay
.
[Note: Like all news Web sites, the BBC is constantly updated, so that by the time you read this essay, the lead article on the BBC will likely have changed to a new one with fresh information, emerging new details, etc. Obviously it would be impossible to analyze each variant of their lead article as it appears; all this essay purports to do is freeze a moment in the ever-shifting news stream and dissect the bias of that moment.]

 http://pjmedia.com/zombie/2013/09/21/islamic-terror-in-kenya-not-according-to-the-bbc/?singlepage=true

American Leftists Journey to Syria in Support of Assad: The Strange Case of Ramsey Clark

If you want to understand how so many Communists and fellow travelers could defend Stalin’s bloodthirsty tyranny in the 1930s, ’40s, and ’50s, look no further than the behavior of a section of the self-proclaimed anti-war Left today. Global Research, a division of International Answer, reported yesterday that former Attorney General Ramsey Clark (1967-69) is now in Syria, where he is leading a delegation in support of the regime of Bashar al-Assad.

Joining him on the trip is former six-term member of Congress from Atlanta, Georgia, the virulently pro-Arab and anti-Israel Cynthia McKinney. (Her father blamed the loss of her ongressional seat on the Jews, who, he claimed, “bought everybody.”)

Also along for the trip were Dedon Kamathi of the All African People’s Revolutionary Party and the left-wing Pacifica Radio, and Johnny Achi of Arab Americans for Syria.

They are sponsored by the revolutionary socialist group International Answer, which ran anti-war rallies during the Bush-era Iraq War. Organizer Sara Flounders, who wrote the report and is accompanying the group, reported: “If anything, support [in Syria] for the government is much stronger now.”

Flounders and the group also praised the legion of gullible Western volunteers, who have flooded to Syria to willingly serve as human shields for Assad. They positioned themselves in areas they thought likely to be targeted by bombs. Calling the action “Over Our Dead Bodies,” they formed an encampment in 50 tents in the Mout Qassioun area of Damascus. “Democracy,” proclaimed organizer Ogarit Dandash, “will not come with American weapons.”

Not that they want democracy. Unless, perhaps, it’s the “people’s democracies” imposed on Eastern Europe by Stalin at the end of the second World War.

BuzzFeed reported that McKinney praised the Assad regime on her Facebook page for its socially progressive policies:

I am in Syria now with former Attorney General Ramsey Clark, where residents enjoy free education and free healthcare. … Visited a Damascus hospital, the Grand Mufti, a school that has been turned into residences for Internally Displaced Persons. Ended the Day with Ogarit Dandash who founded “Over Our Dead Bodies,” a group of young people who climbed atop Mount Qasioun and dared U.S. bombs to target them. They are still there in defiant resistance to any war against Syria. Mount Qasioun should be the site of a peace party, not bombing strikes.

Just like with Cuba, free health care and free education for the loyal portion of the Alawite minority trump the over 100,000 civilians killed by Assad in the past few years. What are their deaths compared to the joy of establishing socialism? Stalin, after all, killed millions in his valiant attempt to create the communist future. 
Now, with Assad, Clark and McKinney feel they once again have a chance to start off where Stalin failed.

To be fair, I should point out that Clark’s views are even too much for some on the Left. Writing in Salon, Ian Williams pointed out a few years ago that “Clark has become the tool of left-wing cultists who defend Slobodan Milosevic, Saddam Hussein, and Rwandan torturers as anti-imperialist heroes.”

In his interesting profile, Williams also puts his finger on why so many of his leftist comrades are reluctant to criticize Clark:

Many liberals and leftists cut Clark a considerable degree of slack. For a start he is almost the only person the American left has had in high public office since World War II, even if it was a retrospective success, since his long march leftward only began afterward. His views as the former attorney general are listened to with a respect that would be accorded to few others with such eccentric opinions. As a revered spokesman of the left, he is a perfect symbol for its near-impotence in American politics today.

To put it another way, they may think Clark is cuckoo, but since he was one of their own who actually held high office, they do not want to publicly attack him. You never know, after all, when something they support will be attacked and they might need Clark to jump in and come to their defense.

As for McKinney, she supported Muamaar Gaddafi during the Obama administration’s actions to topple his regime, and appeared on Libyan state TV in defense of the ruler.

Like Vladimir Putin, the Answer Coalition — a front group for a Trotskyist split known as the Workers World Party — has argued that the chemical warfare used in Syria came from rebel forces, not from Bashar al-Assad: “It seems clear that the Assad regime did not carry out this chemical attack,” said WWP spokesman Caleb Maupin.

Have no doubt about the morality of Ramsey Clark. Ian Williams nails it:

In Grenada he went to advise Bernard Coard, the murderer of Prime Minister Maurice Bishop. Other clients include Radovan Karadzic, the indicted Bosnian Serbian war criminal whom he defended in a New York civil suit brought by Bosnian rape victims, and the Rwandan pastor who is accused of telling Tutsis to hide in his church and then summoning Hutus to massacre them, and then leading killing squads.

All this is done in the name of anti-imperialism, and a desire to build the perfect utopian socialist society. Clark’s absurdity is more notable because of the monsters he chooses to support, but his actions define the very nature of the revolutionary socialist perspective: all is justifiable when done on behalf of the desire to create the perfect society, in which all conflict ends and people live in peace and harmony. As they say, “you can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs.”

Conservatives know that the human condition is flawed, that there can be no perfect society built by men according to schemes dreamed up from the likes of Karl Marx and the other “scientific socialists.” The only religion Clark likes — you guessed it — is Islam. As he puts it: “[Islam] is probably the most compelling spiritual and moral force on earth today.”

Outside, of course, of Marxism-Leninism, the philosophy of the Workers World Party.

Whenever atrocities and murders are waged by self-proclaimed warriors for “the people,” be they undertaken by communists or radical Islamists, you can be sure Ramsey Clark and his fellow defenders of the masses will come to their defense.

http://pjmedia.com/ronradosh/2013/09/20/american-leftists-journey-to-syria-in-support-of-assad-the-strange-case-of-ramsey-clark/?singlepage=true

Prison Inmates Collecting Millions in Unemployment Cash

 In many states, the inmates themselves are expected to report their new residence in prison, which would stop the payments.

 Overpayments in the unemployment insurance system cost taxpayers billions of dollars every year, including millions of dollars in benefits going to convicts in prisons across the nation, according to a House panel.

The House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Human Resources held a hearing focusing on ways to “end cash for convicts” and improve the integrity of the unemployment insurance system.

Rep. Dave Reichert (R-Wash.), the subcommittee’s chairman, said reports from several states suggest that millions of dollars have been paid wrongly to individuals who are not able and available for work because they are incarcerated.

“New Jersey, there were 20,000 inmates who collected over $24 million. In Illinois, another $2 million was misspent this way. Millions more were wasted in South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Wisconsin,” Reichert said. “It is an injustice that the tax dollars of law-abiding citizens are paying for these benefit checks for people who have broken the law and simply should not qualify for these benefits.”

Reichert, a former sheriff, introduced a bill in July that aims to block states from paying unemployment benefits to prisoners. The Permanently Ending Receipt by Prisoners (PERP) Act would also instruct states to use currently available prison data to make sure they are not paying benefits to inmates.

Reichert said some improper payments are being made to prisoners because in many states, the inmates themselves are expected to report their new residence in prison, which would stop the payments. Not surprisingly, said Reichert, few inmates volunteer to stop collecting these checks.

The UI program’s emphasis on expediting delivery of the checks before verifying that they are going to the right person has been one of the main problems driving this issue. Better use of data systems could prevent these sorts of improper payments from being made, Reichert said.

Pennsylvania’s secretary of labor, Julia Hearthway, said her state has stopped more than 4,000 unemployment compensation claims during the year’s first quarter by using a checking system designed to stop inmates in county and state prisons from receiving unemployment benefits.

Hearthway explained that when a new inmate enters a prison, the system automatically compares the person’s information with unemployment compensation rolls maintained by the state’s Department of Labor. If a match is found and verified, the individual is removed from active unemployment compensation benefits status.

The system is projected to bring savings of more than $100 million this year. The Pennsylvania Department of Labor bases its savings estimates by calculating the average duration of an unemployment compensation claim and average weekly benefit with the number of stopped claims.

The department is also cracking down on unemployment compensation fraud by using software to block claims using foreign Internet Protocol addresses and foreign area codes, said Hearthway. Nearly 4,000 foreign IP addresses were blocked during the first six months of this year.

Hearthway said Pennsylvania has two provisions that prevent people from collecting benefits while incarcerated. One is the broader federal requirement that a person must be ready and available to work, and the other is the state’s explicit ban on incarcerated individuals from enrolling in the benefits program.

The benefit payments to convicts are only one small aspect of the broader issue of improper UI payments.
“The total cost of abuse in this system that can go to those folks that really need it is $58 billion,” Reichert said. “That’s the total amount of UI improper payments over the last five years.”

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the improper payment rate in fiscal year 2012 for unemployment insurance benefits was 11.4 percent, or $10.3 billion out of $90.2 billion.

The federal-state UI program, created in part by the Social Security Act of 1935, is administered under state law based on federal requirements. The program provides temporary, partial compensation for lost earnings of eligible individuals who become unemployed.

Applicants of UI benefits must have earned at least a certain amount in wages or have worked a certain number of weeks to be eligible. In addition, these individuals must be available for and able to work, and actively search for work.

Most of the overpaid funds end up in the hands of three types of people: those who continue to file claims even though they have returned to work, those who are not actively searching for a job, those who were fired or quit voluntarily.

The UI overpayment typically results from an administrative error.

“Most of the overpayments in the UI system are for reasons of non-fault. Either because there was agency error, employer error, or claimant error,” said Sharon Dietrich, a managing attorney for Philadelphia-based Community Legal Services.

Dietrich said that fewer than one out of four overpayments were found to be fraudulent. She said unemployment compensation fraud cannot be tolerated, but urged that it be examined in the context of overpayments of benefits.

“Sometimes, there is a tendency to conflate fraud with overpayments, the latter of which are all circumstances in which people received UI benefits for which they were later determined to be ineligible. In the vast majority of cases, these overpayments are ‘non-fraud,’ meaning that the worker was not intentionally trying to defraud the system,” Dietrich said.

She said overpayments cover all situations where people receive unemployment compensation benefits for which they are later determined to be ineligible.

Dietrich also noted that overpayment of unemployment compensation benefits is on the rise because of inadequate federal funding for state programs, which leaves administrators and staffers overburdened.
Valerie Melvin, an official at the Government Accountability Office, said that state agencies rely on outdated information technology systems to collect and process the tax revenue that funds the UI program, determine eligibility, and administer benefits.

“The majority of the states’ existing systems for UI operations were developed in the 1970s and 80s. Although some agencies have performed upgrades throughout the years, many systems are reported to be outdated, costly, and difficult to support, and incapable of efficiently handling workload demands,” Melvin said.

Dietrich urged the panel to put an emphasis on improving criminal justice system databases so the information used to identify incarcerated persons is up to date and reliable. Nevertheless, she said there are more significant ways to avoid or reduce UI overpayments.

“While I understand the outrage around people who are incarcerated collecting benefits, clearly this is a small subset of claims that are found to be fraudulent, much less overall overpayment numbers,” she said.

http://pjmedia.com/blog/prison-inmates-collecting-millions-in-unemployment-cash/?singlepage=true

A Martyr Is a Terrible Thing to Waste

It is impossible to overestimate the importance of Matthew Shepard’s murder to the modern gay movement. From the first reports of his brutal attack down to the present day, Shepard’s death stands as the hagiographic moment.

The day of his death is remembered each year as a kind of feast day, similar to the days celebrated by Catholics for their great saints. His name is intoned in story and song. 

This hagiography began even before he was dead, even as he lay in a coma for five days after Aaron McKinney jammed a gun butt so deep into his skull that his brainstem was exposed. 

Within a few days, Shepard’s friends began circulating the story that resonates with millions all over the world even today. He was lured to his torture and death by two all-too-regular Joes who all-too-regularly hated gays and killed Matthew--indeed, crucified him on a fence--for no other reason than he was gay.

Matthew Shepard was the perfect victim. Like Christ, he was not of this world, not of the Laramie world anyway. He was educated in far away Switzerland and spoke several languages, including Arabic. He dreamed of being a diplomat. He was kind to everyone, even those who harassed him. And he was achingly handsometousled blond hair, slight of frame, and delicately chiseled. He was sent to Laramie--to each of us and to the world--to teach us lessons, lessons he teaches even now. 

It is clear that Matthew was brutally murdered and clear also that his killers got what they deserved. They will never breathe free air again. They will die in prison and no one will mind. 

But a new book out by award winning gay journalist Stephen Jiminez tells a markedly different story than the hagiography. After several years and one hundred interviews, Jiminez tells a story that should have been plain to even the most biased eyes; Shepard knew his killers, did drugs and sold drugs with them, and was killed over a drug dispute. What is new in the book is that he also had sex with them. This, of course, would contradict the notion that he died for his homosexuality. 

But the gay movement had been longing for a gay face, a sympathetic face that the country would rally around. Shortly after he died, the editorial board of the New York Times wrote, “For homosexuals, the key to winning acceptance and respect has been to make themselves familiar, visible and known. Yet in almost 30 years of struggle to repeal state sodomy laws and win equal protection under law, the modern gay rights movement has never achieved a recognizable public face. Now, in a victim, a young man who wanted to be a diplomat, it has been given one [emphasis added]."

It was the New York Times that drove this story. Certainly the gay movement latched onto it, but the New York Times drives elites, particularly elite media. They were all over it from the very beginning. 

Four days after the attack and before Shepard died, the Times’ James Brooke published a story that asserted in the lede that Matthew was gay and in the third paragraph established his attack as a hate crime. Most of this first news story in the Times was about Shepard’s gayness. 

Brooke filed a second story two days later, while Matthew was still alive, about candle-light vigils in Wyoming and how Laramie had a history of homophobia; a billboard had been defaced five years earlier to encourage people to “Shoot a gay or two.” 

The next day, Brooke filed another story about Shepard’s death, saying, “In places from Denver to the University of Maryland, people turned out to mourn the soft-spoken 21 year old who became an overnight symbol of deadly violence against gay people…”

The same day, the Times ran an unsigned editorial comparing Shepard’s death to the lynching of blacks and that his murder “may do much to dispel the stubborn belief in some quarters that homosexuals are not discriminated against. They are. Hatred can kill.” 

Over the next few weeks, Times columnist Frank Rich went hammer and tongs after conservative Christians, who he targeted as the reason Shepard was killed. In particular, he went after the Family Research Council, which had been running television advertising encouraging gays to reconsider their way of life; or, as Rich described it, a campaign “to demonize gay people for political gain in this election year.” 

Time Magazine was a big deal in those days, and their cover story for the week of October 19^th was huge. Headlined “That’s Not a Scarecrow,” the Time story ran on the cover and garnered global attention. The short Time story also fingered the religious right for the attack on Shepard. 

The religious imagery began almost immediately. Shepard was left dangling on a fence, still alive, just like Christ on the cross. A long Vanity Fair piece from the following spring was entitled “The Crucifixion of Matthew Shepard.” At his funeral, Reverend Royce W. Brown compared the fence Matthew was tied to with the cross of Christ: ''There is an image that comes to mind when I reflect on Matt on that wooden cross rail fence. I replace that image with that of another man hung upon a cross. When I concentrate on that man, I can release the bitterness inside.'' A pastor in Kirkland, Washington actually gave a sermon called, “Matthew Shepard Died for Our Sins.” 

Such comparisons became so universal that a writer for Harper’s Magazine rejected the “quasi-religious characterizations of Matthew’s passion, death, and resurrection as patron saint of hate-crime legislation”
Shepard became not just a saint, he was manipulated to be a tool. He was instrumentalized to castigate opponents of the gay agenda and to advance federal and state hate-crimes legislation. We were told endlessly that Wyoming and many other states, along with the federal government, did not protect homosexuals from such hate-crimes. 

Even before Shepard died, President Bill Clinton used his attack to advance federal legislation. “I was deeply grieved by the act of violence perpetrated against Matthew Shepard," Clinton said. "There is nothing more important to this country than our standing together against intolerance, prejudice and violent bigotry.” Take that Family Research Council. When a federal hate crimes bill was later signed by President Obama, it was named for Matthew Shepard. 

And not just in politics, the gods of popular culture have lauded Shepard. Elton John sang to raise money for the Matthew Shepard Foundation. Lady Gaga sang John Lennon’s "Imagine" and rewrote the lyrics to include, “Imagine there’s no Heaven, it’s easy if you try, no hell below us, and only Matthew in the sky [emphasis added]."The Laramie Project, one of three made-for-TV movies about his life and death, is now a road show. It will appear in Washington, D.C. in the coming days.

Jiminez’s book utterly changes the narrative, not just about Shepard’s life but also his death. Will these new revelations in any way change the cult of Matthew? They ought to, but they probably won’t. What will likely happen is that the gay establishment will castigate Jiminez, and the business of St. Matthew Shepard Inc. will continue unabated. 

But the inconvenient facts remain. Matthew was not killed by gay bias, gay hatred, or by the religious right. He was killed by a sometimes sex partner who wanted his drugs. This was known at the time and ignored. And why not? After all, a martyr would be a terrible thing to waste.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2013/09/18/A-Martyr-Is-a-Terrible-Thing-to-Waste

Madison Elementary School Teacher Who Hates Scott Walker Publishes Her Young Students' Anti-Walker Drawings. And Then Demands That No One Talks About It Without Her Permission.

According to this, elementary school teacher Kati Walsh published some of her students' artwork on her personal blog, back in July.  She claimed, in this particular blog post, that, "For you those of you who don’t know me very well, I just want to make it clear that I did not talk about MY personal opinion of Scott Walker with these kids. I made it clear that it is important for everyone to feel comfortable expressing their own opinions through art. I did clearly state that I love our public schools and think it’s important for them to have a good public education. This should not be a controversial statement."

The reason she wrote that is because the artwork she posted on her blog included pictures that kindergartners through 2nd grade kids drew pictures of Scott Walker in jail.  And Kati says the kids just decided to do that all on their own.

She said, "One student said something to the effect of ‘Scott Walker wants to close all the public schools’… So the rest of the class started drawing their own cartoons and they turned very political. They have very strong feelings about Scott Walker.”

Mm hmm.

She also said she published the drawings because she thought it was “an amazing teaching moment.”
I'm guessing the backlash she'll likely receive over this will be an amazing teaching moment as well.

According to the sourcelink, "Walsh has been politically active since Wisconsin’s controversial public-sector collective bargaining reforms, known as Act 10, were unveiled in 2011. She signed the recall petition in the 2012 campaign against Walker, gathered signatures for the recall and participated in the strikes at the state Capitol and in Chicago — a show of solidarity with the striking  Chicago Teachers' Union."
According to her twitter history, this isn't the first time that her students have drawn controversial political pictures.  She's got quite a history of it as you can see right here.

But here's my favorite part of the story.  Kati Walsh said to the Wisconsin Reporter (the sourcelink) that they could not write about her without her permission.  She said, "You do not have permission to publish anything about me, my classroom or my blog before I see it first.” 

The Wisconsin Reporter included that quote in their column, along with a comment that said Kati Walsh apparently doesn't understand the concept of a free press. And when I read that she had the audacity to suggest that people could only write about her with her permission, well, that made me want to write about her even more.  Without permission.

Hey Kati - FYI - if you have a website that doesn't require a password or other special authorization to see it, then guess what!  Regular people like us can view it, and talk about it, and talk about you, and we can tell our readers that we think your insistence that 5-7 year olds came up with these drawing ideas all on their own is absurd.  And we can do all of that without your permission.

Welcome to the internet, Kati.  Let's hope you have a nice "amazing teaching moment" from this. 

http://chicksontheright.com/posts/item/24743-madison-elementary-school-teacher-who-hates-scott-walker-publishes-her-young-students-anti-walker-drawings-and-then-demands-that-no-one-talks-about-it-without-her-permission-ha-ha-ha-ha

Parent manhandled by security for asking question about Common Core

Bryan Preston at PJ Tatler has the shocking story of a parent from Towson Maryland trying to ask a question about the new Common Core standards being roughed up by a security guard (who it turns out was an off duty cop) and arrested.

First, the story from Fox News:

A father in Towson, Maryland, was forcefully ejected from a local town hall forum for asking the wrong question.
Robert Small had concerns over the Common Core education initiative, feeling that it was dumbing down the curriculum in his local school district.
"My question is, how does lowering America's educational standards prepare kids for community college?" asked Small, before soon being approached by a security guard - who was also an off-duty cop - and being dragged away from his seat.
The outspoken father then implored the crowd to take action. "Don't stand for this," said Small. "You're sitting here like cowards. You have questions!"
Apparently, Small didn't follow the proper protocol of submitting his question in writing ahead of the meeting, which is why he was taken outside, and eventually arrested.
Small now faces jail time for the incident, or a fine of up to $2,500.

The reason given for Small's ouster is bogus - that he didn't submit a question in writing. Whoever was running the meeting refused to let Small get his question asked without being interrupted. It was outrageous to watch (video here) as Small would start his question, be rudely interrupted, and then have to start over again. Small, agitated and beginning to shout because of the interruptions, then became a target. Of course, this gave the impression that he was monopolizing question time, which was probably why someone asked the security guard to handle the situation - a security guard who's actions only inflamed the situation.

Bryan Preston:

At about the 2:50 mark, the rent-a-cop apparently shoves Mr. Small through a closed gymnasium door. If anyone in the situation committed assault, it was the rent-a-cop.
Mr. Small wasn't doing anything wrong or illegal. He was doing what every parent should do, in being involved in his children's education. But apparently being involved doesn't include being informed.
The security guard, who is reportedly a police officer who was working at the meeting in his off-duty time, needs to be investigated. Was race a factor in his decision to first manhandle an innocent father and then charge that father with crimes? Did he inform Mr. Small that he is a police officer? He apparently did not in the recorded sequence above.
The administrators who led the meeting need to be investigated. How was the meeting security trained? What were they told to look and listen for? Why were they only addressing edited and softball questions? What are they so intent to hide that they had security try to humiliate a father and ruin his life with criminal charges?

To be accurate, the cop was apparently wearing his badge around his neck and showed it to Small twice. Still, for the authorities to employ police power to silence a citizen is chilling.
As the Obama era moves forward, there appears - anecdotally anyway - to be less and less acountability for officials at every level of government. Citizens are not expected - or allowed - to ask tough questions of anyone - from local school officials on up to the president. It's a worrying trend that needs to be reversed or fundamental liberties will be lost.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2013/09/parent_manhandled_by_security_for_asking_question_about_common_core.html#ixzz2fdIODGeu

Socialist Magazine Joins Chicago Teacher's Union in Campaign for ‘Neo-Liberal’ Education

 Jacobin—a quarterly magazine that prides itself on providing, “socialist perspectives on politics, economics, and culture”—has found its ideological soul mate: the Chicago Teacher’s Union. 

The partnership is raising money to create a ‘Class Action’ booklet that promotes neo-liberal education reform. Their goal is to distribute the booklets throughout major cities in the United States, including Chicago, New York and Newark. 

Jacobin recently sent out an email to its readership, in an effort to raise $7,500 for the creation and distribution of the booklet. Here are some highlights:

I’m happy to announce that Jacobin magazine and the Chicago Teachers Union's CORE Caucus will be producing a color booklet, "Class Action," on neoliberal education reform.
Since the beginning, Jacobin has paid special attention to the struggle of public workers against austerity. With so much of the education reform movement's impetus coming from liberals, communities resisting the push have been left with few allies.

Education "reformers" like Michelle Rhee and Joel Klein rhetorically connect standards and accountability to egalitarianism, using liberal language to advocate for a radically conservative reform agenda which consists of union breaking, “merit” pay, and sometimes budget cuts for schools.

With the inspiring 2012 Chicago Teachers Union strike, we saw signs of what can happen when teachers and their allies unite to resist this agenda and present visions of an alternative.

The e-mail does not go on to ‘present visions of an alternative,’ for education reform. In fact, there is not a single mention of how neo-liberal education reform will benefit students; which is surprising, given the 2012 National Assessment of Educational Progress concluded that only 21% of Chicago public school students are proficient in reading and 20% are proficient in mathematics. 

Instead the e-mail focuses on the ‘struggles’ of unionized teachers who, in Chicago, are taking in an average of $76,000 a year--“the highest average salary of any city in the nation.”
The teacher’s unions and far left are struggling to find ‘allies’ because even Democrats are realizing that poor, underprivileged children are suffering from failing education policies designed to ensure high wages and alluring pensions for public workers. 

The teacher’s union is consistently campaigning for policies that benefit their income, but very rarely are they so obvious about their goals. Liberal-leaners would do well to look into the ‘Class Action’ campaign, as it quite accurately defines the true nature of the unions. 

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/kateandrews/2013/09/22/liberal-magazine-joins-chicago-teachers-union-in-campaign-for-neoliberal-education-n1706300

Media Dereliction

How important is the media? How much damage can result when they don't fulfill their responsibilities? The press is the only private institution the founding fathers included in the Constitution. Obviously they recognized its importance.
If the media had fulfilled its critically important duties, Barack Obama would not have been elected or reelected president. The media is not motivated by professionalism and integrity but rather by fear, prejudice, guilt, and bias.
The mainstream media has a kind of inverted colorblindness. Their form of colorblindness causes them to see nothing but color. More specifically, it means they cannot see anything but a person's skin color.
The foremost beneficiary of their malady is Barack Obama. He is president today because the media and many voters could not see anything but the color of his skin.
They are the polar opposite of Martin Luther King's character-not-skin-color dream. Making race such a huge issue is itself a kind of racism. Overreaction to a problem often does far more damage than the problem itself. The amount of racial guilt in America is way out of proportion with the amount of racism that actually exists.
The media were so taken with the historical significance of "the first black president" that nothing else mattered to them. Obama became the most unexamined presidential candidate in history. We have paid, and will continue to pay a huge price for their blindness.
Just days before Obama was elected in 2008, Tom Brokaw was the guest on the Charlie Rose show. Their conversation included the following exchange:

Rose: I don't know what Barack Obama's world view is.
Brokaw: No, I don't either.
Rose: I don't know where he really sees where China is.
Brokaw: We don't know a lot about Barack Obama and the universe of his thinking about foreign policy.
Rose: I don't really know. And do we know anything about the people who are advising him?
Brokaw: Yeah, it's an interesting question.
Rose: What do we know about the heroes of Barack Obama?
Brokaw: There's a lot about him we don't know.

This admission by two prominent representatives of the media is stunning for at least two reasons. The first stunner is how anyone at their level could be so atrociously derelict in their professional responsibilities. The second is that they were so casual and nonchalant in admitting what they hadn't done. Obviously their attitude was so common among the crowd they run with that they were totally oblivious as to how bad they sounded. They sounded like innocent bystanders watching one of the most disastrous media breakdowns in the history of the country.
Why are so many in and out of the media still in deep denial about how grossly incompetent Obama is? The media is totally invested in the outcome of the Obama presidency. Their identification with his success destroys their objectivity and judgment. They have melded their identities with Obama's and that has resulted in their becoming pathetic sycophants. They got Obama elected and now they have prostituted themselves by covering for his incompetence.
Current events are evaluated by the media not by how they will affect the country, but rather by how they will affect Obama. His importance has been raised above all else. Nothing else matters. That's sick.
Liberals live in fear of anyone thinking they're racists. That fear makes those in the media unable to do their jobs. It paralyzes them. When we have a liberal black president they become frozen in place. Consequently, we no longer have a free press, but rather a paralyzed press.
The Hollywood left was one of the most vocal and vociferous opponents of the Iraq war. They have said almost nothing about Obama's military threats against Syria. When asked about that difference the Hollywood left makes lame excuses such as their organized protests wouldn't have any effect anyway.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, "Another reason some Hollywood progressives have been reticent to speak out against the war in Syria, according to Ed Asner, is fear of being called a racist. 'A lot of people don't want to feel anti-black by being opposed to Obama,' he said." So it's okay to sell out your principles if standing up for them would make you feel uncomfortable? Pathetic.
The race obsession raises the question, why is race so overwhelmingly important to liberals? I've never heard any of them explain why Obama's skin color is so important. Electing a black person as president was supposed to reduce and ameliorate racism. Has it? Why, exactly, did they think it would? When they decided to make their big investment in Obama they apparently did not think through what they were doing.
For whatever reason liberals have intense racial guilt. How do you spell guilt relief? Support and vote for a black candidate for president. It was a get-out-of-guilt-jail-free card.
America is not the most racist nation in the world, but it seems to be the most race-conscious and race-obsessed nation. Is it healthy to make race so monumentally important? Is that how we get past judging a person by the color of his skin?
Barack Obama is the ultimate and most disastrous application of "affirmative action." Just as affirmative action in college admissions results in tragic mismatches for minority students, Obama is a colossal mismatch for the White House.
Affirmative action is institutionalized racism, just as much as Jim Crow laws and South African apartheid were racist. In regard to the amount of damage done there is no measurable difference among these variations of institutionalized racism. The main difference is that affirmative action is clothed in the garb of pious good intentions. Once again, for liberals it's feelings that matter most.
Obama was a liberals' dream come true. Being black, however, was not his most important entry ticket. Liberals haven't the least bit of tolerance for conservative black politicians. They hate black conservatives more than they hate white conservatives, which is another manifestation of their focus on skin color.
If Obama had been a competent, successful president it conceivably would have reduced prejudice against blacks. To have a positive impact you not only need to be black (or female or gay), you also need to be competent. There is an abundance of competent blacks. Barack Obama just doesn't happen to be one of them.
If electing a black as president means that we can't criticize that president, will we ever want to do so again? Not necessarily. If a black conservative is elected president, the liberal media will not be the least reluctant to criticize him or her. In fact, they will do everything in their power to rip him or her apart.
Barack Obama is having a negative, not positive, impact on the U.S. and the world. He has no love lost for the country he leads. That's not good. He wants to see the country he leads decline, not progress. Sad to say, we're stuck with him and his administration for three and a third more years. It's going to be a test for America's fundamental strength. In the meantime don't expect the media to come to our rescue.

 http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/09/media_dereliction.html#ixzz2fdKbvaDV

MSNBC.com revamp bills itself as ‘what progressives have been waiting for’

 n a move that will surprise precisely no one, MSNBC.com’s webpage revamp tosses aside claims of objectivity and bills itself as “what progressives have been waiting for.”

Visitors to MSNBC.com on Saturday will see a new splash page at the opening of the website give them two choices: one “for breaking news and reporting from NBC News” and one — one the right side, ironically — for “a sneak peek at the new msnbc.com,” described as “what progressives have been waiting for.”


  The latter strongly suggests MSNBC.com will be becoming a hub for progressive ideology and abandoning any semblance of objectivity. If visitors select the “sneak peek,” they are offered the opportunity to sign up their email address to be notified when the new site is launched where they’ll be able “explore” issues, watch video, “join in the conversation with the progressive community” and “speak out and make your voice heard.” (RELATED: MSNBC hits 7-year low, lags behind Fox, CNN)

Then visitors are directed to a page featuring MSNBC programming at the top with a number of articles that would be of interest to an obviously left-leaning visitor.


A year ago, NBC News promoted MSNBC regular Richard Wolffe to the Vice President & Executive Editor of MSNBC.com and announced the site would be re-launching sometime this year.

 http://dailycaller.com/2013/09/21/msnbc-com-revamp-bills-itself-as-what-progressives-have-been-waiting-for/#ixzz2fdbDTqck

Hillary Clinton Security Confiscates Audience Phones During Speech

Hillary Clinton’s security personnel are already gearing up for her 2016 presidential run.

Clinton discreetly gave a speech to travel agents convention on Sept. 19, where she failed to mention safety concerns abroad. She did however, answer a question about what it would take for the U.S. to elect its first female president.

“Well, it’ll take a crazy person!” Clinton said to a laughing crowd.

At that time, Andrew Rothberg, an audience member and writer for Grey Matters Magazine, a publication in Boca Raton, Fla., took a snapshot of Clinton at the podium. His cell phone was then confiscated and security deleted the photo.

“I wanted to take pictures for my girls; I have four girls,” Rothberg said. “I think Hilary Clinton, who is probably running for president in 2016 would want all the publicity she could get and I think it’s kind of ironic they would take the camera away,” he added.

Do you think Clinton’s security personnel should have the right to confiscate cell phones? Is this in preparation for her 2016 presidential campaign?

http://americanoverlook.com/hillary-clinton-security-confiscates-audience-phones-during-speech/104255