Category Archives: Political polemics

RANDOM THOTS ANALYIZES NPR’s RESPONSE

Alicia Shepard is the ombudsman for NPR. Writing in her official capacity for the network she said “Williams is controversial among NPR listeners because of his long-standing contract with Fox News, which he had before he joined NPR.”. Shepard wrote that back in 2009. The issue has been brewing for quite some time.

Please note it is “because of his contract”. The idea that any one of the elite of NPR has no more sense of decency than to walk into the Fox News building turns their stomach. The fact that he is providing balance to Fox probably angers them more.

Yesterday Shepard penned NPR’s response to the Williams dismissal. We start with the headline.

“NPR’s Firing of Juan Williams was poorly handled”

They should have fired him in a different manner?

“Juan Williams, once again got himself into trouble.”

Once again? You never told us about the first time. Got himself in trouble? Yes, I guess he did that by not quitting breaking his contract with Fox when he took the job at NPR.

“While on Fox, he shows his politically correct submissive Pro Fox bigotry for a few dollars more.”

Shepard did not say this directly. It is from a listener, the only listener she chose to quote out of the 6,800 response she said were received. Then she quotes the same listener further.

“NPR must take a stand against this bigotry and tell Williams he must choose NPR’s code [or] go to join the racist bigoted fearmongerers (sic) of Fox.”

The quotes were given without qualification or comment. Missing was any hint of that phrase we often hear to the effect that the views expressed are not necessarily those of the management. To the contrary, they are consistent with the views of the management. The listener quoted was Mohamed Khodr.

“It is not about race. It’s also not about free speech, as some have charged. Nor is it about an alleged attempt by NPR to stifle conservative views.”

Of course it’s not.

NPR REVEALS JUST HOW BIASED THEY ARE

Audacity beyond hope

Juan Williams was not fired by NPR for what he said; he was fired for where he said it. Previously. NPR tried to put an end to Mara Liasson’s appearances on Brett Baer’s program. Ms Liasson is NPR’s top political correspondent. There was no issue with anything she said. NPR just didn’t want their image tainted by the appearance of one of their own on the Fox channel and asked her to reconsider her appearances. She reconsidered. She still appears. By not succumbing to the intimidation, Ms. Liasson has shown herself to be an honorable proponent of the Left.

NPR Chief Executive Officer Vivian Schiller blurted out her heart with “[Williams] views should stay between himself and his psychiatrist!”. Later her head, being more pragmatic, apologized “for my thoughtless remark..” Thoughtless maybe, revealing to be sure.

NPR was the last of the media to feign neutral objectivity. But now they have outted themselves. Juan Williams, like Joe Lieberman in the past, is feeling the wrath and the intolerance of the people whose views he has been championing. In its march to the left the Democratic party has left these two honorable men standing alone.

LIFE UNDER BUSH

If you don’t miss him yet, you should.

Back in March, Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke said personal income is in decline. If you are a Democrat you probably think it is still less of a decline than during the Bush years. Here is the Bush record.

PER CAPITA INCOME

The law that enacted the Bush tax cuts was the Jobs and Growth Act of 2003. If you are a Democrat you know revenues declined, they had to, but you don’t know by how much. Here is the Bush record.

TAX REVENUES CLIMB AFTER TAX RATES ARE CUT

Those tax cuts shifted the distribution of the burden between the rich and not rich, (not between the rich and the poor because the poor pay nothing). If you are a Democrat you believe the burden was lessened on the rich. In fact it was increased by 4%. Here is the Bush record.

TAX BURDEN SHIFT

You may have heard that under Bush government spending reached their all time high. That is both true and lamentable. If you are a Democrat you dismiss the relevant fact that revenues also reached their all time high.

If you are a Republican you know that Clinton’s surplus came by way of the dot com bubble. If you are a Democrat you fail to consider it was Bush was had to deal with the burst.

Click the graphs for a clear and enlarged image.

RADICAL IN CHIEF II

Stanley Kurtz has done his homework. The copious notes attest to that. The Left will hate this book. They will do best to ignore it because it is beyond refute.

The message is two fold. The first is Obama is a Socialist, capital S. The second message is cause for even greater concern. It’s the message of stealth, gradualism and determination; first and foremost is stealth.

“The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism, but under the name of liberalism they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program until one day America will be a socialist nation without ever knowing how it happened.”
– Norman Thomas, the once perennial presidential candidate of the American Socialist Party

The hope is the nation will not awake to the reality until it is too late. Obama’s strength is his stealth. Without it, the highest office he could have attained is State Senator within the Illinois government.

Kurtz concludes the book,

“From his teenage years under the mentorship of Frank Marshall Davis, to his socialist days at Occidental College, to his life-transforming encounters at New York’s Socialist Scholars Conferences, to his immersion in the stealthily socialist community organizing networks of Chicago, Barack Obama has lived in a thoroughly socialist world.”

and

“In sum, the fears of Obama’s harshest critics are justified. The president of the United States is a socialist.”

MATTHEWS IS AN IDIOT

You have heard Matthews remarks that if the Chilean miners were tea party types they would have killed each other. It’s old news, but I can’t help but add my comment.

Chris Matthews does not know the difference between the pride and satisfaction that comes with being self reliant and the act of killing your co-workers to be the first one on the elevator. The poor man has no concept of self reliance as people helping people without reliance on the government.

FRUIT FROM THE OBAMA TREE

“By their fruit shall ye know them.”

Herewith are some fruits by which a reasonable judgment can be made.

Where there are apples, there's an apple tree.

 

From a UK newspaper, the Telegraph
“No leader in American history has gone to greater lengths than Barack Obama to make amends for his own country. From condemnation of American “arrogance” in a speech in Strasbourg to acknowledging U.S. “mistakes” before millions of Muslims on Arab television, Obama has rarely missed an opportunity to apologize for the actions of the American people. “
[In another example he chose to tell the Chinese people, at a Town Hall style meeting in China, that it’s not uncommon in America for men to fail to support their women.]

From Barack Obama’s chosen spiritual leader for 20 years
“God damn America ! “ “America lies!” America is guilty of genocide of black people.
This is the message of the man Barack Obama has admired above all others, a man he “could never disown”, the man whom Obama has said shaped his life more than any other.
Rev Wright’s Liberation Theology was twice condemned by the Pope for its Marxist foundation.

From Obama’s community organizing co-activist
“I only regret we did not do even more bombing” of American institutions (paraphrased)

From Michelle Obama
Upon the nomination of her husband, “I have never been proud of America, until now”
On another occasion, speaking to children in a school
“America is downright mean”.
Does Barack agree with his wife’s sentiments? He hasn’t explicitly said so, but his words and actions are consistent with the views she expressed.

From the Russian newspaper PRAVDA
Commenting in the Spring of 2009, “like the breaking of a great dam, the American decent into Marxism is happening with breath taking speed.”
Whatever one may say about PRAVDA, they know Marxism when they see it.

From Barack Obama
During his campaign Obama was asked by a 7 year old girl why he wanted to be President. He answered by expressing dismay at the thought of his children having to grow up in America as it is.

More pieces that form the picture
Despite a family argument 2 or 3 hundred years ago Americans feel a special affinity for the British. Britain is the prime element of the American heritage. However, Obama has shown contempt in many ways for this perennial friend and our most loyal ally. For one example, he had the bust of Winston Churchill that stood in the White House, removed and sent back to Great Britain. Quietly removing it to storage would be one thing but sending a gift from a sovereign nation back its giver as Obama did, could hardly be interpreted as anything but a deliberate insult.

In juxtaposition, Obama thanks Hugo Chavez for his gift of a book condemning America. There is no record of his returning the book. Nor is there is any record of his being critical of Chavez’s anti American screed.

Obama accepts without condemnation the display of a Che Guevara poster prominently displayed in a local campaign office.

Obama launched his first political campaign from the very home of the afore referenced Bill Ayers, a man who, not too many years ago told the New York Times “the notion of the United States as a just and fair and decent place makes me want to puke.”

About New Orleans, Obama declared“ we had to realize that we were no longer the America we had hoped to be”. and this comment ” But here’s the good news: America was ashamed and shocked.”

When a white police officer has an issue with a black man in Boston, Obama presumes it is another white police officer harassing a black man and immediately condemns the officer. When a muslim kills 14 people while yelling “Allahu Akbar” he intones us not to jump to conclusions. These responses are reflective of a view of America as a land where blacks are oppressed and Islamic killers are unfairly judged.

In the matter of Honduras Obama sided with America’s adversary rather than support the people of that democratic nation who sought through their legal system to remove a tyrant, a Chavez acolyte.

“American exceptionalism”. is a term is attributed to Alexis de Tocqueville who claimed that the then-50-year-old United States held a special place among nations, because it was a country of immigrants and the first modern democracy. When Obama was asked if he believed in American exceptionalism, he answered in the negative.

Opinion
Obama seems to delight in prostrating America before its critics and rivals, especially on foreign soil. He appears to believe America is an arrogant, oppressive, unjust nation and the source of much of the world’s ills. He believes he can transform America from what he deems it to be into what he believes it should be. Obama described his ascendancy to the Presidency as being “what the world has been waiting for” and as the moment when “the oceans will cease to rise and our planet begin to heal”. His vision is of a new and better world, a world risen from the ashes of America.

AYERS, OBAMA and the CHICAGO ANNENBERG CHALLENGE

From the Wall Street Journal, Sept 23, 2008
Obama and Ayers Pushed Radicalism On Schools By Stanley Kurtz

 

BILL AYERS

 

Despite having authored two autobiographies, Barack Obama has never written about his most important executive experience. From 1995 to 1999, he led an education foundation called the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC), and remained on the board until 2001. The group poured more than $100 million into the hands of community organizers and radical education activists.

The CAC was the brainchild of Bill Ayers, a founder of the Weather Underground in the 1960s. Among other feats, Mr. Ayers and his cohorts bombed the Pentagon, and he has never expressed regret for his actions. Barack Obama’s first run for the Illinois State Senate was launched at a 1995 gathering at Mr. Ayers’s home.

The Obama campaign has struggled to downplay that association. Last April, Sen. Obama dismissed Mr. Ayers as just “a guy who lives in my neighborhood,” and “not somebody who I exchange ideas with on a regular basis.” Yet documents in the CAC archives make clear that Mr. Ayers and Mr. Obama were partners in the CAC. Those archives are housed in the Richard J. Daley Library at the University of Illinois at Chicago and I’ve recently spent days looking through them.

The Chicago Annenberg Challenge was created ostensibly to improve Chicago’s public schools. The funding came from a national education initiative by Ambassador Walter Annenberg. In early 1995, Mr. Obama was appointed the first chairman of the board, which handled fiscal matters. Mr. Ayers co-chaired the foundation’s other key body, the “Collaborative,” which shaped education policy.

The CAC’s basic functioning has long been known, because its annual reports, evaluations and some board minutes were public. But the Daley archive contains additional board minutes, the Collaborative minutes, and documentation on the groups that CAC funded and rejected. The Daley archives show that Mr. Obama and Mr. Ayers worked as a team to advance the CAC agenda.

Click here to read the full article.

DRILLING MORATORIUM ENDED?

John Hofmeister of Citizens for Affordable Energy was interviewed on the CNBC business channel. It is essential viewing but we are unable to embed it. So here’s a link.

Hofmeister makes many good points. Just to give you a sample he says the moratorium dictate may be lifted but there will be no commitment on the part of drillers until they know what the law is or will be. Even the regulatory authorities are still in the dark and unlikely to issue any permits for months. When the permits are finally issued, virtually every one will be hindered by lawsuits from environmentalist factions.

There is more. Click the link and watch the interview.

 

OBAMACARE IS WORKING AS PLANNED

In Connecticut, Aetna Insurance petitioned the State regulators to allow a 24.7% rate increase to cover the increased cost of providing coverage under Obamacare. They were granted a 14.2% increase for large group plans and an 18% increase for small group plans. Similar rate hikes are being granted in other states. Facing this magnitude of cost increase several companies have announced they will no longer be providing health coverage for their workers. These employees will end up on the government plan by default. This is Obamacare working as planned.

The squeeze is on. Insurers need to raise prices for survival, employers need to control costs to remain internationally competitive. The pragmatic solution for business is to default to single payer government coverage. For insurance companies the path to survival is to diversify away from providing health care coverage. In time, at the end of the struggle the government plan will be the only man left standing. Pelosi, et al, knew this consequence was built into the bill. Whatever else was there didn’t much matter.

MORTGAGE FORECLOSURES

The Washington Post reports the Obama administration was aware of widespread irregularities at the banks but chose to allow it to continue in order not to hamper implementation of their plan to give a break to people who had gotten in over their heads and were in default on their mortgages. The program goes by the ungainly name of The House Affordable Modification Plan.

With the banks already understaffed for handling the avalanche of mortgages needing workout or foreclosure, a nearly impossible task was made utterly impossible to be properly processed.

It is another case of making a bad situation worse by interfering with the free market process. What follows is the parties responsible for the problem blame it on the free market system which neither the government nor large segments of the population understand very well.

The dot com bubble and burst was pure free market in both the wealth created that caused the surplus for which the Democrats credit Clinton and in the collapse of the bubble that led to a brief recession. The mortgage crisis, on the other hand was entirely government sponsored, albeit with some help from the private sector, the Federal Reserve and of course the Government National Mortgage Association (GNMA aka Ginnie Mae) and the Federal National Mortgage Association (FNMA aka Fannie Mae).

Government is not the solution to the problem. Government is the problem.