The New York Times: "All the news that fits our slant"

Ahhh...how the great Grey Lady has fallen. Having fully ignored the Van Jones controversy until he was ousted, the New York Times has once again showed why the "paper of record" is full of scratches and has become totally unplayable. (BTW, the AP omits that the "derogatory" comment he called Republicans was "a--holes.")

Most recently, the expose' of the corrupt ACORN organization, long known to be the political equivalent of La Cosa Nostra, (like here, here, here, here, and here) was exposed to be a fundamentally, and systemically, scam-riddled political operation. So? Well, it's even more illegal when it's done with government money. Who did this great public service of exposing this racketeering? The Times? The Washington Post of Woodward and Bernstein fame? No, they are busy sliming the 20-something messengers. The renowned CBS 60 Minutes? Nope, too busy trying to help Obama pass health care.

Nope. A 20 year-old intern and a 25-year old self-made undercover filmmaker blew the lid off this scandal when videos were released for several days on Andrew Breitbart's Big Government website showing several ACORN offices only too happy to help the pimp and his prostitute find subsidized housing and tax help for setting up there "business" of using underage illegal immigrants as sex slaves.

In the old days, when the press had at least a fig leaf of impartiality, these two would be heralded as heroes of journalism and get at least some buzz for possible Pulitzer prizes. As a side note, it's probably appropriate that the most cherished prize in journalism is named for one of the inventors of Yellow Journalism. Pulitzer and William Randolph Heart are considered by some historians to have engineered the war against Spain, considered by many of today's radical history professors as one of America's most embarrassingly imperial actions since becoming a major player on the world stage. Think of it as equivalent to the Lester Maddox Diversity Award, or the Kanye West School for Etiquette.

Today, we save this honor for those for people who go after vice-presidential nominees who we want to portray as spendthrifts even when the media knows the narrative has been a false and misleading one. Yea, who's the spendthrift now?

The NY Times ombudsman had the unenviable task of explaining yet another instance where Times readers not only didn't know about a story until much of it was pretty well-covered by talk radio and Fox News, but then had to make excuses for why they missed yet another story of corruption from Obama-related people/organizations. (Obama was an attorney for ACORN and has kept close ties to the organization)

Powerline blog has my favorite coverage of this ludicrous excuse of "insufficient tuned-in-ness"

The ombudsman, Clark Hoyt, quotes a journalism expert who says that in today's media environment, "[e]ven the suspicion of a bias is a problem all by itself.

Powerline's Scott Johnson then drops this classic line:

To say that the New York Times is suspected of liberal bias is like saying that Ted Bundy was suspected of being an unsuitable prom date.

You got that right.

In spite of mainstream media efforts to ignore, ACORN scandal goes viral

Jay Leno does ACORN...the end is near for this criminal organization.

Hat Tip to Andrew Breitbart's fabulous new website that broke this story...

www.biggovernment.com

And to James O'Keefe III and Hannah Giles...who should get Pulitzers for taking them down.

I won't hold my breath...

Barack Obama: Friend of our enemies, enemy of our friends

Obama in Prague in April:

So let me be clear: Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile activity poses a real threat, not just to the United States, but to Iran's neighbors and our allies. The Czech Republic and Poland have been courageous in agreeing to host a defense against these missiles. As long as the threat from Iran persists, we will go forward with a missile defense system that is cost-effective and proven. (Applause.) If the Iranian threat is eliminated, we will have a stronger basis for security, and the driving force for missile defense construction in Europe will be removed. (Applause.)

In the news today:

President Obama dismayed America's allies in Europe and angered his political opponents at home today when he formally ditched plans to set up a missile defence shield in Poland and the Czech Republic.

The former Czech prime minister, Mirek Topolanek, said: "This is not good news for the Czech state, for Czech freedom and independence. It puts us in a position wherein we are not firmly anchored in terms of partnership, security and alliance, and that's a certain threat."

Also:

Experts at the world's top atomic watchdog are in agreement that Tehran has the ability to make a nuclear bomb and is on the way to developing a missile system able to carry an atomic warhead, according to a secret report seen by The Associated Press.

And:

A spokeswoman at the Polish Ministry of Defense also said the program had been suspended.

"This is catastrophic for Poland," said the spokeswoman, who declined to be named in line with ministry policy.

I'm speechless.

Oh yea, Mr. Sensitivity announced this on the 70th Anniversary of the Soviet Invasion of Poland...which led to massacres like the Katyn Forest slaughter.

Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
-- George Santayana

9/12 in (of all places) Los Angeles

Hat tip to Steve Vernon and RJ Thomas at Andrew Breitbart's great website Big Hollywood.

The guy is doing truly patriotic work. I will soon post about his incredible revelations regarding ACORN's rampant corruption.

Coach

Eight years later...

As I have for the last several years, I showed my history classes the short documentary "Twin Towers." While the title suggests it's all about the WTC-9/11 event, it's actually not.

It was originally going to be about the people who work in the NYC Emergency Services Unit. These people take on the tougher assignments like SWAT functions, but also tasks like water and suicide-attempt rescues, building collapses, etc. As you can imagine, they were front and center on 9/11 trying to get people out of the WTC complex and lost 14 of their 34 person unit; a devastating blow to some of the Big Apple's finest.

I show it because it will easily fit inside a normal class period and because it is apolitical. It really doesn't even identify the hijackers at all. And most of the end of the film focuses on the devastating impact on the men and families of the unit, and particularly on one family, whose other son, a FDNY fireman, also died on 9/11.

The title comes from a suggestion by a reporter at the time who referred to the two brothers as "the twin towers." The film won the 2003 Oscar for documentary short, but I wonder if it would even get nominated today. We have dropped 9/11 down the memory hole. I wasn't going to show it to my senior classes but they had heard that my juniors had seen it and many of them were so young they had never seen much footage of the attacks.

Some say we avoid broadcasting the images because we don't want to whip up hatred against Muslims; others say it is because the event was used by Bush to justify a illegal war. All I can say is that those who started this war have not quit it. You don't stop until the enemy if completely defeated. I believe this government cannot wait to find a way to quit the war. Ignoring the threat allowed 9/11 to happen in the first place. Why do our leaders REFUSE to learn from history?

The attitude of some of the public, and arguably the US government, towards those who declared war on us that day is despairingly different from American determination in the years immediately after 9/11. Col. Ralph Peters article in today's New York Post is one of the best I have seen. A military man, he knows too well that many of his brothers-in-arms will pay the price for the dance we are doing with our enemies and the damage in trust this is doing to our relationship with our historic friends such as England, Israel, and Japan. It's under the surface now, but they know they are being told, "You're on your own, we are too busy trying to get our population under the control of socialism to help you anymore."

Iran has just told us to go intercourse ourselves regarding their nuclear program, indicating that the President's apology tour did not bear the fruit he had hoped for. Isn't this why Obama was reticent to criticize the Iranian government's crackdown on it's huge public protests last summer? I can see that went well...

Meanwhile, our other "buddies", like Russia and China are treating the USA with distain. And why shouldn't they? We are racking up the national credit card to prop up our labor unions and pay off campaign "community organizers". Meanwhile, on the foreign scene, our national penitence act has reaped derision, not adulation.

It does no good for those of us who stood in astonishment watching a leader painfully ignorant of history as his Appeasement Tour 2009 unfolded to simply whine about what is happening. Some of us must act before we lose our country.

I am grateful to the patriots who are in Washington today speaking up against the intentional bankrupting of the nation that the Democratic Party has instituted this year. These American citizens are using their 1st Amendment rights of peaceable assembly to put their elected representatives on notice. Congressmen and senators: ignore them at your peril; this is a MUCH bigger deal than 1994.

The policies the president is supporting will mandate a permanent dependent class reliant on government paper to keep their heads above water. After having done it to the lower classes in American society with the New Deal legislation and the Great Society socialist wealth transfer, the middle-class is now in the Statist sniperscope through "single-payer health insurance reform"; a phrase as truthful as "peaceloving government of the People's Democratic Republic of Korea". They just gave us the same finger the Iranians did.

It will be sad if Americans are unable to pressure the Democrats in Congress to reject this government theft of wealth by preventing a "reform" bill on 17% of the American economy. I suppose I will be someday telling my children what it was like before Chairman Barry "remade" America so it would work more smoothly...with none of that bothersome dissent that he finds so distasteful.

He called it "bickering"...our founders called it things like "protected speech", "dissent", and "democracy."

Today, he said this about the "bickerers":

This is when the special interests and the insurance companies and the folks who want to kill reform fight back with everything they’ve got. This is when they spread all kinds of rumors to scare and intimidate the American people. This is what they always do.

Divide and smear...divide and smear...Nice work Mr. Hope and Change. Your Alinsky methods are doomed.

Mr. Obama...it breaks my heart to have to say it, but you are a impugning an important interest group. They're called TAXPAYERS. This may work in Chicago...I pray it doesn't work for the rest of us.

It's time to stand up, America...or lose your liberties.

Coach

The Reality of "Health Insurance Reform"

It's been a while since I have posted, but there has been a lot of murkiness on the socialized medicine debate.

Why is this such a contentious issue? And more importantly, where did all this sudden opposition come from? Was it ginned up, or "astroturfed"? (This is a term for phony "grassroots" organizing. Astroturfed events are supposed to look like they came from a groundswell of public outrage, but is actually manufactured by well-organized political entities. David Axelrod, Obama's campaign manager proudly claimed the coining of the phrase...and admitting, after the election, that he was a very skillful user of the strategy.

So it should come as no surprise that the White House has attributed the contentious town hall meetings to astroturfing by conservative organizations, Republican operatives, or rabid talk radio personalities.

Michael Barone's latest in the NY Post truly hits the nail on the head by once again citing the reality of the numbers when it comes down to the basic ideological breakdown of the American voting public.

Read it here...and be informed.

More later,

Coach

An America Worth Keeping

There have been times in recent months when I began to despair for the morale of our land and the willingness of it's people to value the cost of freedom.

I fear no more. This video comes by way of Powerline blog and is 12 minutes that every citizen should be able to spare. It's not a professional video by any stretch of the imagination, but it's powerful because of what it depicts. A notice went in a local paper in suburban Atlanta that one of it's citizens, SSgt John C. Beale, a veteran of Desert Storm who had re-upped as a National Guard member, had been killed in Afghanistan. The paper noted his route from the airport to the cemetery in the short piece.

What you see here is the America I was worried had disappeared. The musical lyrics from the songs chosen are appropriate for the moment. Please watch the entire clip to the end...and look at the people who turned out. I am sure they are of many backgrounds and political persuasions...but they are ALL AMERICANS.

Keep a kleenex handy...but trust me...it's a good thing.

Barack Obama's Hope and Change

By the time I want to retire, I hope I have some change left...

Hat tip to Powerline blog

Nancy Pelosi vs. the CIA

I would imagine that most of the people who follow this blog have been up on the controversy of Nancy Pelosi and the CIA. It seems the Speaker has taken the stand that she didn't know that waterboarding was part of the Enhanced Interrogation Techniques (EIT) being used by the CIA in getting the other planned attacks on the USA in the wake of 9/11.

We captured a treasure-trove of Al-Qaeda's top operatives months after the attacks and some of the highest operatives even boasted that BIGGER events were to come shortly.

Many of us forget the climate of the times. If you had asked most Americans, within the first year of the attacks, "do you think we will go into 2009 without a follow-up attack in the USA" probably 85-90% would have responded "NO!"

And there was good reason for that pessimism. In fact, there were several follow-up attempts that have escaped most American's consciousness. Richard "Shoe Bomber" Reid was stopped mid-attempt, as were other plots like a multi-plane attempt to blow up planes mid-flight coming back from the UK.

Three Gitmo prisoners, two directly involved in the 9/11 plot, and another involved in the Cole bombing (remember that Clinton era attack?) were waterboarded. That's right. At one time or another, several hundred prisoners have been held at Guantanamo Bay and only THREE were considered to have such important information that it would require coercive action.

Let's leave aside whether this was "legal" or not for now. There as many positions on that these days as we have lawyers in the country (a lot).

What has been debated lately is this question: "What did Nancy know, and when did she know it?"

Beside the obvious Howard Baker-Watergate analogy here, it is important to remember that Mrs. Pelosi was NOT Speaker of the House at the time but was a key part of the Democratic house leadership. It's even more important to realize that because she was part of the opposition, it was MOST important for people like her to be briefed because the Republican leadership knew that having the support of the minority would protect them from criticism at that critical time right after the 9/11 attacks.

Again, let's remember the mood of the times. Few were questioning things like "how rough should we be on these guys?" The times right after the attacks was more like "how did this happen and why didn't we know?" And of course, most importantly, "how can we prevent this in the future?"

The CIA's EIT regimen was strongly monitored by both the Congressional Intelligence committees and the White House. I would imagine if there had been attacks, some of those who yell "torture" would be yelling "I thought you conservatives were supposed to keep us safe!"

Regardless, Pelosi has been saying, with varying emphasis and clarifications, that she was NOT briefed about the USAGE of EIT. She put an exclamation mark on it by slandering both the Bush Administration (expected) and the CIA (foolhardy) for being serial liars.

Wow. Mark Twain once said, "Never pick a fight with a man who buys ink by the barrel" when referring to arguing with the press. Nancy has accused people who monitor conversations, take great notes, and perhaps even have her phone tapped!

Dumb.

To put an exclamation on this whole incident, Jim Geraghty at National Review Online sent a message to Gene Poteat, President of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers. Don't think that they are not keeping in "close touch" with some of their "old buddies" in government. The present officers are part of the executive branch of the US Government. The CIA exists to serve the president. That doesn't prevent some of them from selectively leaking information to suit their own agenda if it conflicts with their ultimate boss, Barack Obama. They sure did a number on Bush, leaking all sorts of doubts about the invasion of Iraq, before and after the event.

Here is what Poteat said to Geraghty, in response:

Those CIA officers chosen to brief the Congress, and especially the intelligence committees, are very senior, experienced officers, who well know the reputation and future of the CIA, as well as their own jobs, are on the line should they be perceived as not telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Such restrictions, however, do not apply to members of the Congress when they then appear before the public.

As Chris Farley said famously in Tommy Boy: "That's gonna leave a mark!"

President Obama seems more inclined to insert himself in all kinds of areas that past presidents have not. Ask former GM President Rick Wagoner!

But I don't think Obama will stop the CIA from defending itself. Nancy has made life more difficult for him lately. And she has been acting like a Queen Bee. As far as Obama is concerned, there is only one royal family in Washington.

Update: Is there a revolt against the Federal Government's abuse of power?

First the banks, then the auto industry, what area of American business is next? In the previous post, I talked about Obama's alleged bullying of investment firms who didn't want to go along with his strong-armed tactics to force acceptance of certain aspects of the Chrysler bankruptcy that would violate their fiduciary responsibility to their investors.

It's always easy to see the justification for the President's actions if you demonize financial people as "selfish, and not willing to sacrifice" like the rest of the investors. That's not an honest read on what is going on here. The others accepted his terms BECAUSE THEY HAD TO. THEY HAD ACCEPTED TARP MONEY. Some accepted because they needed it, others because they were told "take it, or else." But the hedge funds and other investment entities had followed the rules and bought Chrysler bonds expecting that the US Government would follow the law.

I'll say it right now. Barack Obama has violated his Constitutional oath. He is NOT following the law of the land. He is making his own. "I won" is his response to the financial people he "negotiated" with and now investors will pay the price. Because his goal all along was NOT to save GM or Chrysler, but to protect the United Auto Workers, who had worked hard to get him elected, and their pensioners. Now, you can expect more federal money to "bailout" GM and Chrysler over the next months and years. But only if those companies produce more unprofitable "green" cars and give up their profitable "ungreen" cars like SUVs and muscle cars.

Who died and made him king? He was elected president, but I don't see in http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.articleii.html where he gets this kind of power over business. This story continues to percolate today, but it will get nowhere because his personal popularity remains high as does his fawning treatment from the star-struck press. The public is unaware of what the president is up to. So sad. Fixing this is going to be expensive.

At least some states are willing to take on the federal juggernaut. First, you had some governors who were willing to say, "thanks, but we don't like the strings attached" to some of the stimulus money. Now, aware that acquiescence will lead to subservience, Oklahoma's legislature has taken a position that it will not give up it's sovereignty to the US government. Tennessee has taken a similar action.

What are they talking about?

This is why it is SOOO important that Americans understand the rule book for this country that governs ALL men, including the president.

The 10th Amendment to the Constitution, ratified in 1790, and written by James Madison says this:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

As I have said often on this blog, over the last 70 years, since the American people gave unprecedented power to the federal government, FDR, and the Congress during the Great Depression, the federal government has taken powers away from the people and the states and exercised that power in the way they see fit. Here is a website formed by some who are watching this state sovereignty movement. Amity Shlaes, author of a much praised book reassessing the government's actions during the Great Depression, catalogs the jihad against those critical of Obama's power grab here.

Now you have a government in Washington completely controlled by one party. Republicans are spectators, not even allowed in certain key meetings to formulate laws, and Obama feels protected from scrutiny and criticism by the press, and thus the public. When polls ask people if they like the president, a strong majority says "yes!" When they are polled about his policies, without attaching them to him, they reject them. So why does he remain popular? BECAUSE THE MEDIA HAS KEPT THE PUBLIC IGNORANT

And you had better not attack him or them. Or they will "Palin" you...like we "Palined" Limbaugh, Joe the Plumber, Governor Sanford, Governor Jindal, and Miss California. Who said the Republicans had the monopoly on McCarthyism. Or the president will sic the White House Press Corps on you, as alleged in the Chrysler case.

So, what happens next? In a truly two-party system, with a truly "watchdog" press, this would the subject of hot debate. Instead, we will be told, "hey, we are tough on Obama, look at what we said about his wife's expensive tennis shoes!"

Meanwhile, new restrictions on banks that took TARP money is designed to keep them from paying it back, thereby staying under the federal gov'ts thumb. If you pay it back, then you can't be covered by FDIC insurance. Wait a minute! These banks paid into the federal government's FDIC fund with payment of insurance premiums! Do you think any private insurance company would be allowed to get away with that kind of bait and switch? Why should the USG be allowed to do that?!

Frankly, I don't think that the Obama administration will allow even that concession to stand. THEY DON'T WANT TO LET THE BANKS GO BACK TO FINANCIAL INDEPENDENCE. They would not have been able to get the Chrysler deal go forward except they had the banks in their control. And they still have to do the SAME KIND OF DEAL with GM. You watch. So, in the end, I think they won't let them off that easily.

The internet has changed things more than even the internet-savvy left-wing blogs realize.

It won't happen, because it is a political act, but abuse of power is an impeachable offense. Obama should be very careful about going forward with his war on American capitalism.