This blog is mainly about the spectacular train wreck at The Sacramento Bee and its parent company, the McClatchy Company. But I also post about current events, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, politics, anything else that grabs my attention. Take a look around this blog, hope you enjoy it.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Tuesday September 8 -- Got news or an update?
If you have news or an update, leave it in comments. . . .
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9/11 Truther Van Jones Was Arianna Huffington’s Political Director (CanadaFreePress)
Arianna Huffington’s liberal gossip site the Huffington Post has been vigorously defending green jobs czar and 9/11 “truther” Van Jones.
It turns out that Jones was Huffington’s grassroots political director when she ran for governor in the 2003 recall election. In fact, Jones, a self-described “communist,” thought Huffington was so wonderful he was part of the effort to draft her to run for office.
SF Chronicle: Obama Knew About Van Jones' Radical Background in Advance (NewsBusters)
There is a charge floating around out there that President Barack Obama knew in advance about the radical background of Van Jones before appointing him as his "green jobs czar."
So where is this charge coming from? Glenn Beck? Nope. Fox News?
Nope. This revelatory charge was made on the pages of the liberal San Francisco Chronicle in an article on the Jones resignation written by Joe Garofoli:
The middle-of-the-night resignation Sunday of longtime Bay Area activist Van Jones as a White House environmental adviser left many progressives angry at the Obama administration for buckling to conservative criticism of Jones' controversial past comments and actions.
...Supporters say the administration surely knew his background when they appointed Jones, the first African American to write a best-selling environmental book, as special adviser for green jobs at the White House Council on Environmental Quality.
In fact, agents interviewed at least one of his former supervisors in San Francisco - Eva Paterson - when the FBI vetted his appointment.
White House source: We never asked Van Jones to fill out the vetting questionnaire (Hot Air)
I don’t believe them. Or rather, I don’t believe that this is some innocent blind spot in the vetting process.
An administration official said special advisers to the president, or czars, are not required to fill out the questionnaire that runs 7 pages and contains 63 questions.
The entire questionnaire, the official said, is reserved for appointees who must win Senate confirmation…
Question 61 reads as follows:
“Have you had any association with any person, group or business venture that could be used - even unfairly - to impugn or attack your character and qualifications for government service?”…
An administration official said Jones never hid his controversial associations or remarks from the White House.
“It wouldn’t be fair to characterize him as being dishonest or hiding his comments or his positions,” the official said. “It’s just fair to say that he didn’t go through the most rigorous vetting process.”
Obama Got What He Wanted in Van Jones ("UNVETTED APPOINTEE") (newsmax)
The Obama White House is blaming inadequate vettting for the misguided appointment of environmental adviser Van Jones.
But while the White House undoubtedly missed some of Jones’ repugnant statements, it would be hard to imagine hiring anyone who has been in public life without knowing his reputation.
Moreover, Jones’ statements are tame compared with those of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., whom Obama considered a mentor for 20 years.
Jones, who became an adviser to the White House Council on Environmental Quality in March, resigned late Saturday after generating mounting criticism during the past week.
Known by the unofficial title of Green Jobs Czar, he issued apologies for calling Republicans a**holes during a videotaped address in February and for signing a petition in 2004 supporting the “9/11 truther” movement, which intimates that the Bush administration may have been involved in the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks.
During the 1990s, Jones described himself as a Communist and worked with a group dedicated to Marxist and Leninist philosophies. He has blamed “white polluters and white environmentalists” for “steering poison” to minority communities.
In 2005, he drew a distinction between white and black youths involved in shooting incidents by referencing the 1999 Columbine High School massacre. -SNIP-
To be appointed to a White House job, candidates are screened by the Secret Service for arrest records and outstanding arrest warrants.
The FBI verifies an applicant’s background and checks on whether he has ever been a member of a terrorist group, for example.
But none of these reviews addresses political statements, which White House staff should check.
Valerie Jarrett, one of Obama’s closest advisers, has acknowledged recruiting Jones.
The White House shouldn't expect the furor over Special Advisor for Green Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation at the White House Council on Environmental Quality Van Jones to go away just because he's resigned, says a former Obama Administration transition team member, because "the same problems that they created with Jones's hiring are there for others and they don't seem to care about the political damage these people may inflict."
According to several White House sources, Jones was hired for his "green jobs czar" positions over concerns raised by the White House Counsel's Office, after Jones's background materials came back with several of what were termed "inconsistencies" in the Standard Form 86 Questionnaire for National Security Positions.
Lessons of the Van Jones Affair: Democrats Are Comfortable With Communists, Racists and Anti-Semites (NewsReal Blog)
There is no more mystery about Van Jones. He was a passionate defender of cop-killer Mumia Abu Jamal, a self-satisfied and described "Communist," a supporter of the destruction of the Jewish state, and a promoter of the theory that the Katrina tragedy was a white racist plot, and so forth.
That's okay with Democratic chairman Howard Dean, and Obama's Environmental Quality Council head Nancy Sutley.
This should surprise no one. The recent heads of the black caucus in the House -- part of the 120 member "progressive caucus" -- have all been Castro-loving racists -- Maxine Waters and Barbara Lee to name two off the top of my head.
Diane Watson is probably next. The Democratic Party today is a "popular front" organization (to pluck an appropriate term from the 1930s when liberals and Stalinists lined up together as well).
There are no scoundrels, America haters, racists -- that Democrats won't assimlate. One of the more obnoxious racists and crooks in public life -- Charlie Rangel -- is still chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee because Nancy Pelosi can't remove him so strong is his support in her party.
WHITE HOUSE CAUGHT IN LIE *OR* SECURITY RISK (Take your pick);
In a classic "damned if they did, damned if they didn't" situation developing with respect to White House hiring practices of disgraced and resigned White House Green Jobs Czar VAN JONES, through the magic and wonder of the internet and its archiving functions, the White House today has been caught in either a BIG LIE or a major scandal regarding the actual status of it's hiring practices.
In contradiction to it's stated policy initially indicated in President-elect Obama's post-election days and through the transition.
From their site, archived: "If you apply for a position now, you will not need to apply again after January 20th. Applications submitted now to the Obama-Biden Transition Project will be retained and considered by the Office of Presidential Personnel after President-Elect Obama takes office.
Application Process: Please complete and submit the on-line Expression of Interest Form below. Within a few days, you will receive an email with a link to a more complete on-line application. Upon submitting your full on-line application you will receive an e-mail acknowledgment.
If and when you are considered for a specific position, you will be asked to fill out additional forms, including financial disclosures, and be subject to other reviews which may include FBI background checks."
The policy in question is that the White House stated during transition that it would require extensive forms to be filled out for many government appointees. A number of news articles and blog notes at the time wrote on this story, some mentioning how applicants were scurrying to provide all the details required to work in the White House.
Victims' kin cheer as Bam 9/11 nut quits (NY POST)
Relatives of 9/11 victims cheered the resignation of Van Jones.
Said Debra Burlingame: "He's not fit to be a dog catcher. He's a hate-monger," referring to Jones calling Republicans "a-holes" and for signing a petition that said Pres Bush allowed 9/11 attacks.
Her brother died in the plane that crashed into the Pentagon. Retired firefighter Lee Ielpi applauded the resignation:
"His comments foster doubt and suspicion." His firefighter son was killed at the WTC.
Most Major News Outlets Largely Ignore Van Jones Controversy FOXNEWS
Most of the major news outlets, like The New York Times and The Washington Post, ignored the swelling heat surrounding former White House environmental adviser Van Jones and the videos surfacing of his controversial statements.
CBS News became the first of the three broadcast networks on Friday to note the controversy, but ABC's "World News" and "NBC Nightly News" again failed to report the story.
After Jones' midnight resignation over the weekend, all three networks aired the story on their Sunday evening newscasts.
The Washington Post offered its first story on Saturday yet The New York Times' print edition didn't publish its first story until Monday -- a story that appeared on the front page, under the fold.
Democratic strategist Julian Epstein defended the media, saying they strive to provide balanced reporting and that their "passing coverage" was similar to their reports on the controversy surrounding Sen. John McCain's religious adviser last year during his presidential bid.
"I think some of the media is guilty of not covering things that are occurring on the right," he told FOX News.
"Other parts of the media are guilty of not covering things adequately that are occurring on the left. I think every news organization has to strive to be balanced on this."
Van Jones: Does the New York Times know what a Truther Is? (Slate)
Amazingly, many New York Times print readers still don't know why Van Jones resigned!
Here's how the paper's John Broder describes his situation:
The adviser, Van Jones, a controversial and charismatic community organizer and "green jobs" advocate from the San Francisco Bay Area, signed a petition in 2004 questioning whether the Bush administration had allowed the terrorist attacks of September 2001 to provide a pretext for war in the Middle East.
Reading that, would you realize the petition was a Truther petition?
You might think Jones simply made the standard argument that Bush shouldn't have used 9/11 to help gin up the Iraq War--as opposed to suggesting that Bush "may indeed have deliberately allowed 9/11 to happen, perhaps as a pretext for war," which is what the petition actually said
Van Jones Not The Only 9/11 Truther In Obama's Presidential Circle
The chattering classes are asking how someone with Van Jones' background was able to get appointed to a high ranking position in the Obama administration.
The answer is easy, Obama had someone just like him at a high level of his presidential campaign from its beginning in early 2007 right through the November 2008 election.
Code Pink co-founder Jodie Evans, a California comrade of Jones, served as a member of Obama's finance team as a bundler, fundraising event host and was a maxed-out donor.
She is also a 9/11 Truther who signed the same 9/11 conspiracy petition in 2004 that Van Jones did.
Evans also shares Jones' anti-American, pro-terrorist, radical environmental communist politics.
They served together on the board of the Rainforest Action Network in the mid-2000s.
CNN’s David Gergen on Van Jones: ‘Sad to See a Man of Good Work Get So Little Credit’
“It’s a sad day to see a man of good work get so little credit,” CNN senior political analyst David Gergen regretted about Van Jones on Monday’s Anderson Cooper 360, complaining about the coverage of the Obama “green jobs” czar who resigned late Saturday night after his radical views were exposed:
“I mean, there’s no balance to understanding just how many good things he’s done.”
Jones signed a petition which charged Bush administration officials “may indeed have deliberately allowed 9/11 to happen, perhaps as a pretext for war,” described himself as a “communist,” compared George W. Bush to a crack user, called Republicans “assholes” and made other incendiary race-based remarks, but Gergen saw a saint:
“As he left Yale Law School, instead of going to a lucrative job, went out and worked with ex-prisoners, tried to create green jobs for them, has been featured in Time magazine, gotten all sorts of award for it.”
CNN's Brazile Defends Jones: 'Let Me Just Say to Conservatives There's Nothing Wrong with Liberals'
The evidence is in on Van Jones. He's and admitted communist, signed a petition supporting 9/11 conspiracy theories and has called Republicans a series of vulgar names, and according to Democratic strategist Donna Brazile - there's nothing wrong with that.
Brazile, a CNN regular, appeared on CNN's Sept. 7 "The Situation Room," and reacted to Jones' Sept. 5 late-night resignation.
Is it time yet to start calling Obama a Communist now?
From the very beginning of the Age of Obama, we have been told by our Leftist betters that we must not DARE call him a socialist/communist, and we have dutifully obeyed.
It seems that the only reason we are not allowed to call him that is because it would be detrimental to his political ambitions, not because it's not true.
So do we have the courage to call a Communist a Communist?
Do we have the courage to always precede his name with the word "Communist," as in "Communist President Barack Obama,"
Bam vs. Democracy: A hug for Chavez and Castro (NY Post)
PRESIDENT Obama's State Department waited until the cusp of Labor Day weekend before publicly backing Latin America's dictators in their assault on democracy.
Our thug-worshipping diplomats figured they'd slip it by us. With the nation focused on barbecues and the beach, they announced that, if Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez's client, Manuel Zelaya, isn't returned to power in Honduras, the United States won't recognize the results of that country's upcoming free elections.
Why was former president Zelaya driven from his would-be throne in Tegucigalpa?
He tried to subvert Honduras' Constitution and set himself up as president-for-life.
In June, the elected legislators and the Honduran Supreme Court had enough. As Zelaya aligned with Chavez, the Castro regime, Nicaraguan caudillo Daniel Ortega and other extreme leftists, the Honduran government gave the would-be dictator the boot.
Acting under legal orders, the army peacefully arrested Zelaya and shipped him out of the country. No murders, no Chavez-style imprisonments.
It was not a military coup. An elected congress and interim president, not a general, run the country today.
But the Obama administration has decided that this "violation" is so dreadful that we won't even recognize future free elections in Honduras.
Well, President Obama's taste in elections is finicky:
* He'll recognize the utterly bogus results of Afghanistan's corrupt election.
* He initially blessed the results of Iran's rigged election. (He was for it before he was against it.)
* He hasn't spoken one word of criticism as Chavez continues to strangle Venezuelan democracy.
* He hasn't questioned the divisive, racist politics of Presidente Evo Morales in Bolivia.
VENICE (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a fierce critic of U.S. foreign policy who once called George W. Bush "the devil," said on Monday he hoped to be able to work more closely with President Barack Obama.
The leftist 55-year-old leader added in an interview in Italy that despite the global economic crisis and signs of a slowdown in growth in Venezuela, he did not expect his country to fall into recession.
Chavez was in Venice for the world premiere of "South of the Border," director Oliver Stone's sympathetic portrait of a leader he says has championed the poor and who has been unfairly demonized by the U.S. media.
"I have no reason to call him (Obama) the devil, and I hope that I am right," Chavez told reporters in Venice.
Today, President Barack H. Obama appointed yet another “czar”, making the announcement at an AFL-CIO Laborious Day picnic in Cincinnati today;
Ron Bloom will make the 33rd Obamic Czar, counting Van Jones, who just resigned but will surely be replaced with a less explosive (but every bit as Marxist) appointee, and after Obama taps someone else to fill Bloom’s old position as Car Czar.
Debt Be Not Proud: The Sorry Tale of America’s Out-of-control Spending (The American)
How did the richest country in the history of the world get into a position where its debt is spiraling out of control?
At the end of fiscal 2008, which came on September 30 of last year, the American national debt stood at $9.6 trillion.
That sum is, perhaps, quite beyond the imagining of most people. It is, after all, 250 million times the average per capita income.
Even the total fortunes of the entire Forbes 400 list add up to less than 15 percent of it. To use a journalistic measure that dates back to the late 18th century—when the British national debt had become a major political issue in that country—if you laid 9.6 trillion silver dollars end to end, they would reach to the sun and back, with enough left over to wrap around the Earth more than 1,700 times.
Switzerland Topples US as Most Competitive Economy (CNBC)
Switzerland knocked the United States off the position as the world's most competitive economy as the crash of the U.S. banking system left it more exposed to some long-standing weaknesses, a report said on Tuesday.
The World Economic Forum's global competitiveness report 2009/2010 showed economies with a large focus on financial services such as the U.S., Britain or Iceland were the losers of the crisis.
The U.S. as the world's largest economy lost last year's strong lead, slipping to number two for the first time since the introduction of the index in its current form in 2004.
"We have been expecting for some time that it may lose its top-position. There are a number of imbalances that have been building up," said Jennifer Blanke, Head of the WEF's Global Competitiveness Network.
On September 3, Vice President Joe Biden said: "The Recovery Act is doing more, faster and more efficiently and more effectively than most people expected."
In July, U.S. President Barack Obama told CNN that his $787 billion stimulus package is "working exactly as we had anticipated…" Well then, perhaps they anticipated driving legal Hispanic immigrants out of the workforce because this group, along with the lesser-educated in general, is very clearly the hardest hit.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) unemployment among (legal or counted) Hispanics in August was 13.0%. That is up 60.5% from August 2008 and 20% since February of this year. But this rate masks the real job losses as a result of the recession. (more)
Unemployment Rate Remains Disproportionately Higher for African-Americans (AFRO)
Unemployment and job loss figures released for August 2009 by the U.S. Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics did not hold any promise for economic recovery reaching American households soon.
While the number of jobs lost in August was down – a sign pointed to as evidence the recession is turning around – there was an increase in the number of people claiming unemployment.
That figure jumped to 9.7 percent for all workers, up .3 percent from July and the highest level recorded in more than two decades. The August bump was driven by increases in the jobless rates for adult men, Whites and Hispanics, but unemployment rates for African-Americans grew faster than those for the subgroups of adult men and Whites.
Obama tells Ohio gathering recovery plan working (phillyBurbs.com)
President Barack Obama told thousands of cheering union members and activists gathered at Cincinnati's Coney Island park Monday that his economic recovery plan is working.
"We're on the road to recovery, Ohio, don't let anybody tell you otherwise," said Obama, who took the stage as the sky cleared following a morning that threatened rain.
The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Monday shows that 28% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President.
Forty-one percent (41%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -13 (see trends). Sixty percent (60%) now believe the President is at least as ethical as most politicians.
On health care reform, 83% say that proof of citizenship should be required before anyone can receive government subsidies.
Tired doctors urged to beat fatigue with caffeine (Courrier Mail)
SIX cups of coffee - that's the State Government antidote to sleep-deprived doctors killing and harming their patients in a haze of exhaustion.
The astonishing remedy forms part of Queensland Health's new doctor fatigue policy, currently being rolled out in public hospitals.
The Courier-Mail yesterday reported the confessions of junior surgeons and medics whose exhaustion-induced errors had killed or hurt patients during "on-call" shifts of 30 to 80 hours.
But a guidelines document underpinning QH's Fatigue Risk Management System claims "solutions such as 'we need more staff' might not be achievable or effective in managing a fatigue risk."
Barack Obama health plan looking sick and sorry (The Australian)
BARACK Obama's ambitious push for a government-run health insurance scheme to cover many millions of uninsured Americans looks dead in the water.
The US President's chief promoters have been signalling a significant retreat from the key domestic policy of his first term, just days before Mr Obama addresses a joint session of the US congress tomorrow to argue his case for reform.
After weeks of contention about where Mr Obama stands, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs declared yesterday: "I'm sure he will draw some lines in the sand."
Reasons Why the Government Doesn’t Deserve Our Trust on Health Care (MSMB)
....[T]he agenda has been the same now for over 60 years regarding the agenda of the Democrat party. Their agenda doesn’t change.
Nothing changes. Just their selling points do. The Democrat party calls itself progressive, yet they are pushing the same thing now that it pushed for, and was rejected 60, 40, and even 15 years ago.
It is the same old thing that has been pushed for 60 years, and now, we are going through another round.
The only thing is different this time, is that it is a little more fierce in that now death (via euthanasia, and suicide) is in the mainstream.
In this piece, I am going to reveal to you some inside secrets that the powers that be, and the media protecting them would never tell you, and that people who work for hospitals have probably never thought to tell you, since they have no obligation to do so.
ObamaCare's brave new world: Disabled just won't make it to birth (NY Post)
Sarah Palin ignited a political firestorm when she worried that "death panels" would deny end-of-life treatment to her son with Down syndrome.
In fact, ObamaCare would more likely see to it that people like Trig never even make it out of the womb.
The outlook for children found to have disabilities in utero is bleak now -- because the medical-ethics establishment has spent decades pushing for their abortion.
Thanks to advances in prenatal testing, it's now far easier to detect conditions like cystic fibrosis and spina bifida -- and our "best and brightest" overwhelmingly counsel parents to destroy the unborn child.
It's estimated that about 90 percent of American babies with Down Syndrome are now aborted. We're clearly on our way to the systematic elimination of "imperfect" people.
And President Obama's "health-care reform" would get us there faster, by vastly expanding the government's influence over private health-care decisions. Even without accounting for "the public option," the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the Dems' health-care scheme would cause the number of non-elderly Americans relying on government for health care to spike from 40 million to 73 million.
To offset this massive growth in government outlays, President Obama has pledged that bureaucrats will "bend the cost curve" by setting coverage rules and determining physician fees -- for everyone, even those not getting treated on the government's dime.
With finite resources, government has every incentive to keep heavy consumers of health care off the public insurance rolls. And it isn't hard to see where an unborn baby with a disability will land on the government's priority list.
Obama Refers to a Child in His Speech That Would Have Been Killed Off by His Health Care Advisor (EconomicPolicyJournal.com)
...I’m thinking about Andoni Schultz, from Los Altos, California, who’s fought brain cancer since he was three....Brain cancer at three?
This kid would have been six feet under if one of Obama's healthcare gurus had his way.
Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, has already been appointed to two key positions:
health-policy adviser at the Office of Management and Budget and a member of the Federal Council on Comparative Effectiveness Research...
So what's Ezekiel's take on three year-olds with brain cancer?
Bury them.
In the Lancet, Jan. 31, 2009, edition Ezekiel and co-authors presented a "complete lives system" for the allocation of very scarce resources. In his own words:
"When implemented, the complete lives system produces a priority curve on which individuals aged roughly 15 and 40 years get the most substantial chance, whereas the youngest and oldest people get changes that are attenuated
...Adolescents have received substantial education and parental care, investments that will be wasted without a complete life.
Infants, by contrast, have not yet received these investments
... As the legal philosopher Ronald Dworkin argues, 'It is terrible when an infant dies, but worse, most people think, when a three-year-old dies and worse still when an adolescent does,' this argument is supported by empirical surveys."...
What Did You Expect When You Asked for Change? (Examiner)
Parents do not trust the Educator-in-Chief and his "comrades."
You can take Obama from the radicals in Chicago. But you can't take the Chicago radicalism out of Obama.
On Tuesday the President of the United States will speak to school children across the nation in a television address.
A large number of parents will keep their children home in the belief that this is an inappropriate use of the bully pulpit.
But what did they expect from a community organizer whose playbook is Rules for Radicals by Saul Alinsky? (To understand Rules for Radicals, see my previous op-ed.)
Barack Obama is a relentless self-promoter who requires hours of face time to feed his narcissism.
He has had more prime-time news conferences aired in his first seven months in office and more images on front pages of magazines than most modern presidents have had in four years.
In trying to ram his agenda down American’s throats, he plays the front man. Never mind that the expensive, overreaching bills recently enacted by Congress are not his own, they fit nicely into his vision for a changed America.
Channeling Billy Mays, Obama merely pitches the product. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that Obama views us as rubes willing to pay a dime to see the freak show providing the pitch is properly delivered.
It’s no surprise that grown ups across the nations are becoming leery. So let’s get the kids on board.
Gibbs: Opponents of Obama starting 'Animal House food fight' (The Hill)
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs blasted the president's critics today for questioning the propriety of Obama's speech to schoolchildren.
"It's a sad state of affairs that many in this country politically would rather start an 'Animal House' food fight rather than inspire kids to stay in school, to work hard, to engage parents to stay involved and to ensure that the millions of teachers that are making great sacrifices continue to be the best in the world," Gibbs told reporters on Monday.
Obama & TOTUS wants your kids! Some Broward Co. teachers say they have never heard of problems with a president speaking at schools. Of course they didn't research that, they must not know how, it took all of three minutes. They even said to not watch Obama speak is un-Anerican. Good little Marxists.
----- When Bush spoke to students, Democrats investigated, held hearings By: Byron York
Chief Political Correspondent
The controversy over President Obama's speech to the nation's schoolchildren will likely be over shortly after Obama speaks today at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia. But when President George H.W. Bush delivered a similar speech on October 1, 1991, from Alice Deal Junior High School in Washington DC, the controversy was just beginning. Democrats, then the majority party in Congress, not only denounced Bush's speech -- they also ordered the General Accounting Office to investigate its production and later summoned top Bush administration officials to Capitol Hill http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/
As a college student back in the stone ages, one bumper sticker I always saw plenty of when attending Republican events said “CBS is Rather Biased.”
Well, it wasn’t the stone ages, but it was during the Reagan years, which now seems in so many ways ages ago.
The point is that conservatives have complained about media bias for decades.
An egregious example of media bias just played out in the Van Jones story – one I believe highlights a major shift in the mainstream media.
First though, a bit of background is worth considering.
Conservatives have not only complained about media bias, but for many years have attempted to achieve balance in the mainstream media in various ways.
Watchdog groups like Brent Bozell’s Media Research Center have identified, tracked and catalogued liberal media bias hoping to shame those in the mainstream media into at least attempting the appearance of balance.
Alternative media have emerged to do some of the reporting those in the mainstream media have refused to do, at times even forcing those traditional news outlets to cover the stories themselves.
Ayers to defile Purdue University (American Thinker)
William Ayers will appear at Purdue University on September 24th as a panelist about urban schools as part of the first annual Cummings-Perrucci Annual Lecture on Race, Class, and Gender Equality.
Ayers will hit the campus in West Lafayette, Indiana, according to a story in today’s Lafayette Journal & Courier under the curious headline “Ex-radical to attend forum at Purdue.” Ex-radical?
According to the story, some groups are already organizing protests against Ayers and the university.
Political Science professor Harry Targ – who was singled out in David Horowitz’s book as one of America’s most dangerous academics – takes his cue from the Obama playbook to downplay the protests and further cloud the murky past, saying it is “foolish” to make a political issue out of the Arers appearance:
Now that White House "Green Jobs Czar" Van Jones has resigned, what's next?
Inevitably, the American mainstream media - ABC, NBC, CBS, the New York Times, the Washington Post, Time, Newsweek, et al - must be held to account for sitting on the sidelines as this major story kept building without them, went viral on YouTube, and then became so large that a key appointee of President Obama was forced to step down.
But with their decision to ignore the Jones story, they may have actually done Mr. Obama far more harm than good:
Who vetted this guy? How did he get past the FBI? What did he say, and how did he answer the infamous seven-page questionnaire that all Obama appointees were required to fill out? Inquiring Freedom of Information Act minds want to know.
For most people in this country, the resignation was the first they had heard of Van Jones.
For this sin of journalistic omission, there's institutional media blame.
Bias is too tame a word for the utter shamelessness on display:
Only Republican scandals - real and imagined - matter.
And it's not just those the Democratic-Media Complex dub as "mobs" or "tea baggers" that are taking notice.
Diminishing audience and evaporating subscribership reflect widespread consumer dissatisfaction. Eventually, the money will run out. But until then, the growing alternative media of Internet and talk radio and a burgeoning mass of justifiably angry Americans will make every effort to expose the sham that is mainstream journalism.
Obviously, it's not that the Jones story wasn't newsworthy. His racist rants, his radical background and his membership in a 9/11 "truther" group made for heavy-rotation YouTube viewing that would have immediately destroyed other mere mortals if the shoe were on the right - or white - foot.
Compounding the problem, the Jones narrative hurts Mr. Obama because it underlines how the mainstream media helped elect the president by glorifying him instead of vetting him.
When Bush spoke to students, Democrats investigated, held hearings (Washington Examiner)
The controversy over President Obama's speech to the nation's schoolchildren will likely be over shortly after Obama speaks today at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia.
But when President George H.W. Bush delivered a similar speech on October 1, 1991, from Alice Deal Junior High School in Washington DC, the controversy was just beginning. Democrats, then the majority party in Congress, not only denounced Bush's speech -- they also ordered the General Accounting Office to investigate its production and later summoned top Bush administration officials to Capitol Hill for an extensive hearing on the issue.
Unlike the Obama speech, in 1991 most of the controversy came after, not before, the president's school appearance. The day after Bush spoke, the Washington Post published a front-page story suggesting the speech was carefully staged for the president's political benefit.
"The White House turned a Northwest Washington junior high classroom into a television studio and its students into props," the Post reported.
With the Post article in hand, Democrats pounced. "The Department of Education should not be producing paid political advertising for the president, it should be helping us to produce smarter students," said Richard Gephardt, then the House Majority Leader.
"And the president should be doing more about education than saying, 'Lights, camera, action.'"
Job outlook hits worst-ever level Employers' hiring plans at lowest point in Manpower survey's history Hiring plans for the upcoming fourth quarter dropped to their lowest level in the history of Manpower's Employment Outlook Survey, which started in 1962.
A net -3% of employers said they'll hire in the fourth quarter, down from -2% in the third quarter, on a seasonally adjusted basis, according to the Milwaukee-based firm's survey of more than 28,000 employers.
Before this year, the survey's previous low point was a net 1% hiring outlook for the third quarter of 1982.
Why did the press ignore the Van Jones scandal? (Washington Examiner)
On March 13, 2008, ABC News broke the story that Barack Obama's longtime pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, had made a number of incendiary statements from the pulpit of Obama's church in Chicago.
The most inflammatory of those remarks was Wright's notorious "God damn America" sermon.
The news set off a media firestorm. "God damn America" was in the papers, magazines, the Internet, television, radio. It was everywhere, except one place: the news pages of America's most powerful newspaper, the New York Times. In the days, weeks, and months following the ABC report, the Times' news pages repeatedly failed to inform its readers that Wright had ever uttered those infamous words.
Obama's liars just keep rolling along. --- Obama Nominee Omitted Ties To Biotech
Washington Times Jim McElhatton President Obama's nominee at the Department of Homeland Security overseeing bioterrorism defense has served as a key adviser for a lobbying group funded by the pharmaceutical industry that has asked the government to spend more money for anthrax vaccines and biodefense research.
Scrappleface: Obama Googles 'Van Jones,' 'public option,' learns both are socialist (Examiner)
Just a day after White House "green jobs czar" Van Jones resigned amid controversy over his radical views, the Obama administration said it had discovered a new vetting tool called "Google" that also revealed that the president's "public option" health insurance proposal may be socialist as well.
"You just type a few words into this rectangle," said White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, "Click a button and information suddenly appears on your computer screen.
When we did that, we were shocked to learn that Van was a socialist, and that the keystone of the president's health reform plan probably is too."
The president will reportedly reconsider his commitment to the public option before addressing a joint session of Congress later this week.
"It turns out that socialism is a political theory advocating state ownership of industry," said Mr. Gibbs.
"And no matter how you spin it, having the government run a health insurance plan that competes with private firms constitutes state ownership of industry.
If we keep going down this slippery slope, the subsidized public option will drive private companies out of business, making the government corporation the dominant provider."
The spokesman said such a scenario would undercut the president's desire to improve American health care through "choice and competition."
"When the state intervenes in the market," Mr. Gibbs said, "The incentive for competition decreases because private firms have a much higher cost structure, and must even pay taxes to support their government-run competitor.
If President Obama had known about this Google thing nine months ago, we could have saved ourselves a lot of heartache."
The president reportedly likes the Google concept so much, that he's asked his closest advisers to draft a plan to create "an official presidential version of Google that would give folks a low cost option for all their information needs."
Krauthammer Drops Jeremiah Wright Bomb Says Van Jones' Lunacy "Is a Reflection of the Boss"
FOX News All Star Charles Krauthammer compared communist-Truther Van Jones to Obama's pastor and mentor Rev Jeremiah Wright tonight on Special Report.
It's a reflection of the boss. The boss also had a history before he became a candidate of being around and friends with the likes of Jeremiah Wright and William Ayers. The liberals scolded us last year on how irrelevant all that is and how it's a smear campaign against Obama.
But, if you live in that environment and you find nothing inherently wrong with that kind of radicalism.
Then a Van Jones will show up. You'll watch him years and years and you'll think this guy is perfectly mainstream.
I just called the Congressional toll free number: 800-828-0498 and the first thing that I heard was a recorded message urging the caller to contact their Congress Critter to ask them to pass health care reform bill. I then received the operator and asked her about the message. I was advised that the message was paid for by lobbyist. Is this supposed to be done with our tax payer money? @FreeRepublic
...Switzerland knocked the United States off the position as the world's most competitive economy as the crash of the U.S. banking system left it more exposed to some long-standing weaknesses,...
And Switzerland has universal health care. Wonder how the far right crazies will spin this.
How Does the Obama Administration Screen Appointees? They Don’t PATTERICO
Earlier today I asked “How Does the Obama Administration Screen Appointees?”
This evening Fox News’ Major Garrett gives us the answer — The Administration doesn’t vet the Czars:
“Van Jones, the Obama green jobs czar who resigned shortly after midnight Sunday, did not fill out the exhaustive questionnaire White House officials required of every Cabinet-level secretary and deputy-secretary position.
An administration official said special advisers to the president, or czars, are not required to fill out the questionnaire that runs 7 pages and contains 63 questions.
The entire questionnaire, the official said, is reserved for appointees who must win Senate confirmation.”
At least Brownie was confirmed by the Senate.
The article also quotes a 911Truth.org official who confirms Jones intended to sign their petition, and concludes with this juicy tidbit:
“An administration official said Jones never hid his controversial associations or remarks from the White House.
“It wouldn’t be fair to characterize him as being dishonest or hiding his comments or his positions,” the official said. “It’s just fair to say that he didn’t go through the most rigorous vetting process.”
So the Obama Administration knew about Jones’ beliefs but didn’t care? Or even agreed with him? That’s good to know.
L.A. Times Did Not Report Van Jones’s Trutherism Until He Resigned PATTERICO
Mickey Kaus notes that the New York Times reported the Van Jones controversy for the first time in an article about Van Jones’s resignation — leaving readers wondering: where did that come from?
The L.A. Times did the same thing.
Jones had all kinds of issues, but what ultimately did him in was his signature on a Truther petition.
As Mickey says: He signed a Truther petition. Bye.
Like readers of the New York Times, readers of the Los Angeles Times were blindsided by the revelations about Jones, including his signing a Truther petititon, which they learned about for the first time in the story reporting his resignation.
A search of the paper’s archives since August 1 reveals exactly one story mentioning Van Jones before his resignation: an August 25 story titled Glenn Beck blasts boycott group’s co-founder.
The article focuses on Beck and the boycott and portrays Beck’s criticism as defensive lashing out; the only facts reported about Jones are these:
Beck said Jones was twice arrested for political protests and has described himself as a “rowdy black nationalist.”
That’s it.
Readers were told nothing else. As the paper told us in reporting the resignation, until Jones resigned, the firestorm had “raged almost entirely on conservative talk shows and websites.”
The revelation about Jones’s Truther leanings came out in the L.A. Times only when he resigned.
Many legitimate news stories are relegated exclusively to conservative media.
But that doesn’t mean they aren’t legitimate stories. It just means that you can’t learn everything you need to know by reading traditional Big Media.
You have to read conservative media too. You have to read conservative blogs, or you won’t have any idea what’s going on.
President Obama’s payoffs to Big Labor - Michelle Malkin has the list of Obama’s payoffs to the unions, and it is unbelievable in scope. Talk about the “sneaky bastards” taking over, the thugs in high places is beyond scary. Socialism has more that a foot in the door. Wake up and smell the stink!
A crucial week for Obama's teleprompter (The Washington Times)
This is a big week for the president's teleprompter. He's first taking it across the Potomac for a speech urging schoolchildren to wash their hands, study hard and stay in school.
Good advice for everyone, no doubt, and maybe the advice will stimulate the sale of soap to people who really need it. Politicians particularly should take to heart a presidential admonition to keep their hands clean. Who can argue with that?
Democrats everywhere are looking for places where the applause will be at least polite, with no yelling, screaming and waving of hands.
SNIP
Nobody wants what the president is selling, insofar as anybody can figure out exactly what he's selling. The magic elixir may be the president himself, and lately nobody's buying that, either.
Rarely have Americans spoken up with such bold energy and ferocious power, organized by amateurs in the grass roots disdainful of both parties, and the fright was more than enough to make congressmen wet their pants, many of them twice....
Charge parents for public school MARXISTS LOVE TO CHARGE AND TAX YOU TWICE (Atlanta Journal Constitution)
With states across the country facing huge budget deficits and potential devastating cuts to services, the time has come to start charging parents tuition for their children’s public school education.
If parents of the 47 million students in the United States who attend kindergarten through 12th grade were billed $360 per child per year — that’s $2 a day for each of the 180 days of instruction — nearly $17 billion would be generated.
State-Run Media Hid Commie-Truther Van Jones Controversy From American Public (GatewayPundit)
FOX News host Bret Baier highlighted on Monday's Grapevine segment how the state-run media ignored the Van Jones controversy and hid it from the American public.
If you depend on the print version of the NY Times to bring you breaking news, you would not have read about the Van Jones controversy until 36 hours after his walk of shame from the White House.
The democrat-media complex shamefully omitted the story from their reports last week:
The resignation of President Obama's green jobs "czar," Van Jones, might have come as a shock if you do not watch cable news.
In fact, the "big three" evening newscasts and two of the nation's most-prominent newspapers barely covered the story.
There was no mention of Jones by CBS, NBC, ABC, the Washington Post or the New York Times on Wednesday -- the night Jones' first issued an apology for past statements. The same was true on Thursday, although a Washington Post blog picked up the story.
That night Jones again apologized for a slew of old remarks and the signing of that petition that alleged the Bush administration was behind the 9/11 attacks.
ABC and NBC failed to cover the story on Friday after that, although CBS finally did. There was no mention from the "big three" evening newscasts or the Times print edition Saturday.
But the New York Times blog finally addressed the story as did the print edition of the Post.
On Sunday, the morning after Jones' middle-of-the-night resignation — it was too late for the papers -- but the three evening newscasts did file reports.
The New York Times print edition finally ran its first mention of the story today (Monday) on the lower-half of the front page.
Byron York explains why the press ignored the Van Jones scandal today at the Washington Examiner.
Why does Obama need so many czars? Fox News is raising the question about the remaining Obama czars. Who they are, how they were vetted, why Zero needs them, what are we paying for them? You know, pesky little questions like that. The liberal MSM has egg on its face for ignoring the Van Jones story. It remains to be seen if they learned the truth will be known without them. If ever a group wrote their own death sentence, the MSM did by using their biased non-reporting, and thinking they are necessary to the new media.
Anchorage Daily News chief executive officer has left, moving on to greener pastures. If anybody knew the state of ADN he did. There was something about rats "leaving a burning ship"?
“Zu Vill Vatch, Kinder” Broward County Public Schools: On Tuesday, September 8, 2009, ... Obama's plan to speak to schoolchildren has some South Florida parents hopping mad ... House Democrats criticized Bush for the 1991 speech and accused the ... infidelsparadise.com/?p=14402
You will watch Obama because I said so! Contradictory signals in Broward County. Any mention of God out, except if Obama says it.
One school district requiring students to watch President Obama's speech is Broward County, Florida, a county in which Obama won a reported 350,000 votes in the presidential election. [This is a county in which the Pledge of Allegiance and prayers are reportedly "optional" in their public schools] Maybe because they both involve God. Who knows? But let me get this straight: Students don't have to pledge their allegiance to our country, but they do have to watch the president who leads it? That seems contradictory.
And for those of you in the Broward County School District, you might want to know in advance that President Obama plans to end his speech by asking God to bless you and our country. http://www.individual.com/story.php?story=106466105
Why did Obama push his agenda onto schoolchildren? One pundit offered that Obama could have given his speech in the evening, and parents and children could have watched the speech together. The answer is that no one would watch it, he had to be use the same thuggish tactics he has used from the beginning to get elected. Broward County is the only county in the nation that made the speech mandatory. That says a lot about them, and their comrade Notter.
The jig is up, even the school speech bypassed elected officials. By pushing the Obama school speech upon school administrators, the US Department of Education bypassed the local school boards, the elected officials. Contacting the school borads would have been the usual procedure. This forced worksheets propaganda was not only planned, the WH was behind the plan. Bypassing accepted procedures, like czars that do not have to be vetted is unacceptable? A pattern is becoming clear, and it is up to patriots to stop this socialist behavior now!
-EXCLUSIVE: Obama nominee omitted ties to biotech- Washington Times Jim McElhatton
President Obama's nominee at the Department of Homeland Security overseeing bioterrorism defense has served as a key adviser for a lobbying group funded by the pharmaceutical industry that has asked the government to spend more money for anthrax vaccines and biodefense research. But Dr. Tara O'Toole, whose confirmation as undersecretary of science and technology is pending, never reported her involvement with the lobbying group called the Alliance for Biosecurity in a recent government ethics filing. The alliance has spent more than $500,000 lobbying Congress and federal agencies -- including Homeland Security -- since 2005, congressional records show.
Whoa, Trigger--The latest gimmick to disguise a health-care 'public option.'
Wall Street Journal President Obama has decided that another oration will rejuvenate his health-care agenda—despite having given 27 speeches entirely on health care, and another 92 in which it figured prominently. We'll see how tomorrow night's Congressional appeal works out, but the important maneuvers are taking place in the cloak rooms, as the White House tries to staple together a majority. The latest political gimmick is the notion of a "trigger" for the public option: A new government program for the middle class would only come on line if private insurance companies fail to meet certain benchmarks, such as lowering overall health spending...
Out of Gas: Congress Raids the Highway Trust Fund Coburn Oversight | Coburn and McCain
Senators Tom Coburn, M.D. and John McCain released a report on $78 billion from the Highway Trust Fund not being spent on bridges or roads. “Out of Gas: Congress Raids the Highway Trust Fund for Pet Projects While Bridges and Roads Crumble” includes an analysis of a newly published GAO study the two Senators requested to determine how Congress is spending Highway Trust Fund receipts.
A radio caller said that President Bush tried to abolish the U.S. Department of Education . Saying it was redundant, and the states should handle education on state and local levels. This Obama national lesson plans caper may have been their payback after all these years. This is something for journalists to investigate: What did it cost taxpayers for the Department of Education to force these lesson plans on every school in the nation?
If these leftist public schools are so great, why are so many students opting out? Why are students doing so poorly? Why does it cost so much for so little true education? It could be that union teachers and the liberal agenda are not doing so well? The unions fight school vouchers that would make the public schools compete for students, because they know they could no longer force themselves upon parents and students. The public schools have become a colossal failure. Every year US students fall behind other countries. The greatness of the United States falls right before our very eyes.
Gallup Poll released today shows only 37 percent support Obamacare and a huge majority say how their representatives vote will affect who they vote for in 2010 elections. It's the kiss of death for Dems who vote with Obama.
...The public schools have become a colossal failure. Every year US students fall behind other countries...
Uh ... I think you'll find that in many other wealthy industrialized countries, the public schools are much more under the control of the central government than here -- especially in matters of curriculum. MW's right wingers would have a fit if that kind of control was suggested here.
The truth about homeschooled children. The liberal media never admits that homeschooled children pass curriculum achievement tests with flying colors. They also loath to report that homeschooled children not only do well, but win the national spelling bees. The leftists try to paint homeschooled children as oddballs, nonsocial, and other lies, but when the people see them on national TV, they see well mannered, serious youngsters, that are well schooled. The truth seeps out without the leftist media, and they just can’t stand it. The MSM is on the ropes with the exception of Fox News. Ain’t that a kick in their heads?
The unions have bastardized education just as they have everything they have touched. As the taxpayers bailout the auto industry due to union demands, states can’t pay their forced demands by school teachers and state workers face the same end. Only leftists in compete denial won’t acknowledge how corrupted the public school systems have become. The unions have co-opted the schools using the teachers, making it a national system already, and a failing one at that.
Tom Brokaw said Sunday that the internet is an open sewer of misinformation. That is too funny coming from anyone from NBC. He was citing the flurry of information that brought Van Jones down. The one thing Brokaw didn’t admit was that the bloggers and Glenn Beck were right. How did that little fact escape him?
The Provocateur -Mike Volpe The biggest winner from the whole Van Jones affair is Glenn Beck. After all, it was Beck that lead the charge against Van Jones. Beck was ahead of this story from the beginning, but it was this latest week that he put Jones in his own crosshairs. ----- Who’s next? I’m fired up and ready to go. Eradicating the “sneaky bastards” is our patriotic duty.
73 comments:
9/11 Truther Van Jones Was Arianna Huffington’s Political Director
(CanadaFreePress)
Arianna Huffington’s liberal gossip site the Huffington Post has been vigorously defending green jobs czar and 9/11 “truther” Van Jones.
It turns out that Jones was Huffington’s grassroots political director when she ran for governor in the 2003 recall election. In fact, Jones, a self-described “communist,” thought Huffington was so wonderful he was part of the effort to draft her to run for office.
SF Chronicle: Obama Knew About Van Jones' Radical Background in Advance (NewsBusters)
There is a charge floating around out there that President Barack Obama knew in advance about the radical background of Van Jones before appointing him as his "green jobs czar."
So where is this charge coming from? Glenn Beck? Nope. Fox News?
Nope. This revelatory charge was made on the pages of the liberal San Francisco Chronicle in an article on the Jones resignation written by Joe Garofoli:
The middle-of-the-night resignation Sunday of longtime Bay Area activist Van Jones as a White House environmental adviser left many progressives angry at the Obama administration for buckling to conservative criticism of Jones' controversial past comments and actions.
...Supporters say the administration surely knew his background when they appointed Jones, the first African American to write a best-selling environmental book, as special adviser for green jobs at the White House Council on Environmental Quality.
In fact, agents interviewed at least one of his former supervisors in San Francisco - Eva Paterson - when the FBI vetted his appointment.
White House source: We never asked Van Jones to fill out the vetting questionnaire (Hot Air)
I don’t believe them. Or rather, I don’t believe that this is some innocent blind spot in the vetting process.
An administration official said special advisers to the president, or czars, are not required to fill out the questionnaire that runs 7 pages and contains 63 questions.
The entire questionnaire, the official said, is reserved for appointees who must win Senate confirmation…
Question 61 reads as follows:
“Have you had any association with any person, group or business venture that could be used - even unfairly - to impugn or attack your character and qualifications for government service?”…
An administration official said Jones never hid his controversial associations or remarks from the White House.
“It wouldn’t be fair to characterize him as being dishonest or hiding his comments or his positions,” the official said. “It’s just fair to say that he didn’t go through the most rigorous vetting process.”
Obama Got What He Wanted in Van Jones ("UNVETTED APPOINTEE") (newsmax)
The Obama White House is blaming inadequate vettting for the misguided appointment of environmental adviser Van Jones.
But while the White House undoubtedly missed some of Jones’ repugnant statements, it would be hard to imagine hiring anyone who has been in public life without knowing his reputation.
Moreover, Jones’ statements are tame compared with those of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., whom Obama considered a mentor for 20 years.
Jones, who became an adviser to the White House Council on Environmental Quality in March, resigned late Saturday after generating mounting criticism during the past week.
Known by the unofficial title of Green Jobs Czar, he issued apologies for calling Republicans a**holes during a videotaped address in February and for signing a petition in 2004 supporting the “9/11 truther” movement, which intimates that the Bush administration may have been involved in the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks.
During the 1990s, Jones described himself as a Communist and worked with a group dedicated to Marxist and Leninist philosophies. He has blamed “white polluters and white environmentalists” for “steering poison” to minority communities.
In 2005, he drew a distinction between white and black youths involved in shooting incidents by referencing the 1999 Columbine High School massacre.
-SNIP-
To be appointed to a White House job, candidates are screened by the Secret Service for arrest records and outstanding arrest warrants.
The FBI verifies an applicant’s background and checks on whether he has ever been a member of a terrorist group, for example.
But none of these reviews addresses political statements, which White House staff should check.
Valerie Jarrett, one of Obama’s closest advisers, has acknowledged recruiting Jones.
Valerie Jarrett's Show (American Spectator)
The White House shouldn't expect the furor over Special Advisor for Green Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation at the White House Council on Environmental Quality Van Jones to go away just because he's resigned, says a former Obama Administration transition team member, because "the same problems that they created with Jones's hiring are there for others and they don't seem to care about the political damage these people may inflict."
According to several White House sources, Jones was hired for his "green jobs czar" positions over concerns raised by the White House Counsel's Office, after Jones's background materials came back with several of what were termed "inconsistencies" in the Standard Form 86 Questionnaire for National Security Positions.
Lessons of the Van Jones Affair: Democrats Are Comfortable With Communists, Racists and Anti-Semites (NewsReal Blog)
There is no more mystery about Van Jones. He was a passionate defender of cop-killer Mumia Abu Jamal, a self-satisfied and described "Communist," a supporter of the destruction of the Jewish state, and a promoter of the theory that the Katrina tragedy was a white racist plot, and so forth.
That's okay with Democratic chairman Howard Dean, and Obama's Environmental Quality Council head Nancy Sutley.
This should surprise no one. The recent heads of the black caucus in the House -- part of the 120 member "progressive caucus" -- have all been Castro-loving racists -- Maxine Waters and Barbara Lee to name two off the top of my head.
Diane Watson is probably next. The Democratic Party today is a "popular front" organization (to pluck an appropriate term from the 1930s when liberals and Stalinists lined up together as well).
There are no scoundrels, America haters, racists -- that Democrats won't assimlate. One of the more obnoxious racists and crooks in public life -- Charlie Rangel -- is still chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee because Nancy Pelosi can't remove him so strong is his support in her party.
WHITE HOUSE CAUGHT IN LIE *OR* SECURITY RISK (Take your pick);
In a classic "damned if they did, damned if they didn't" situation developing with respect to White House hiring practices of disgraced and resigned White House Green Jobs Czar VAN JONES, through the magic and wonder of the internet and its archiving functions, the White House today has been caught in either a BIG LIE or a major scandal regarding the actual status of it's hiring practices.
In contradiction to it's stated policy initially indicated in President-elect Obama's post-election days and through the transition.
From their site, archived: "If you apply for a position now, you will not need to apply again after January 20th. Applications submitted now to the Obama-Biden Transition Project will be retained and considered by the Office of Presidential Personnel after President-Elect Obama takes office.
Application Process: Please complete and submit the on-line Expression of Interest Form below. Within a few days, you will receive an email with a link to a more complete on-line application. Upon submitting your full on-line application you will receive an e-mail acknowledgment.
If and when you are considered for a specific position, you will be asked to fill out additional forms, including financial disclosures, and be subject to other reviews which may include FBI background checks."
The policy in question is that the White House stated during transition that it would require extensive forms to be filled out for many government appointees. A number of news articles and blog notes at the time wrote on this story, some mentioning how applicants were scurrying to provide all the details required to work in the White House.
Victims' kin cheer as Bam 9/11 nut quits (NY POST)
Relatives of 9/11 victims cheered the resignation of Van Jones.
Said Debra Burlingame: "He's not fit to be a dog catcher. He's a hate-monger," referring to Jones calling Republicans "a-holes" and for signing a petition that said Pres Bush allowed 9/11 attacks.
Her brother died in the plane that crashed into the Pentagon. Retired firefighter Lee Ielpi applauded the resignation:
"His comments foster doubt and suspicion." His firefighter son was killed at the WTC.
Most Major News Outlets Largely Ignore Van Jones Controversy FOXNEWS
Most of the major news outlets, like The New York Times and The Washington Post, ignored the swelling heat surrounding former White House environmental adviser Van Jones and the videos surfacing of his controversial statements.
CBS News became the first of the three broadcast networks on Friday to note the controversy, but ABC's "World News" and "NBC Nightly News" again failed to report the story.
After Jones' midnight resignation over the weekend, all three networks aired the story on their Sunday evening newscasts.
The Washington Post offered its first story on Saturday yet The New York Times' print edition didn't publish its first story until Monday -- a story that appeared on the front page, under the fold.
Democratic strategist Julian Epstein defended the media, saying they strive to provide balanced reporting and that their "passing coverage" was similar to their reports on the controversy surrounding Sen. John McCain's religious adviser last year during his presidential bid.
"I think some of the media is guilty of not covering things that are occurring on the right," he told FOX News.
"Other parts of the media are guilty of not covering things adequately that are occurring on the left. I think every news organization has to strive to be balanced on this."
Van Jones: Does the New York Times know what a Truther Is? (Slate)
Amazingly, many New York Times print readers still don't know why Van Jones resigned!
Here's how the paper's John Broder describes his situation:
The adviser, Van Jones, a controversial and charismatic community organizer and "green jobs" advocate from the San Francisco Bay Area, signed a petition in 2004 questioning whether the Bush administration had allowed the terrorist attacks of September 2001 to provide a pretext for war in the Middle East.
Reading that, would you realize the petition was a Truther petition?
You might think Jones simply made the standard argument that Bush shouldn't have used 9/11 to help gin up the Iraq War--as opposed to suggesting that Bush "may indeed have deliberately allowed 9/11 to happen, perhaps as a pretext for war," which is what the petition actually said
Van Jones Not The Only 9/11 Truther In Obama's Presidential Circle
The chattering classes are asking how someone with Van Jones' background was able to get appointed to a high ranking position in the Obama administration.
The answer is easy, Obama had someone just like him at a high level of his presidential campaign from its beginning in early 2007 right through the November 2008 election.
Code Pink co-founder Jodie Evans, a California comrade of Jones, served as a member of Obama's finance team as a bundler, fundraising event host and was a maxed-out donor.
She is also a 9/11 Truther who signed the same 9/11 conspiracy petition in 2004 that Van Jones did.
Evans also shares Jones' anti-American, pro-terrorist, radical environmental communist politics.
They served together on the board of the Rainforest Action Network in the mid-2000s.
CNN’s David Gergen on Van Jones: ‘Sad to See a Man of Good Work Get So Little Credit’
“It’s a sad day to see a man of good work get so little credit,” CNN senior political analyst David Gergen regretted about Van Jones on Monday’s Anderson Cooper 360, complaining about the coverage of the Obama “green jobs” czar who resigned late Saturday night after his radical views were exposed:
“I mean, there’s no balance to understanding just how many good things he’s done.”
Jones signed a petition which charged Bush administration officials “may indeed have deliberately allowed 9/11 to happen, perhaps as a pretext for war,” described himself as a “communist,” compared George W. Bush to a crack user, called Republicans “assholes” and made other incendiary race-based remarks, but Gergen saw a saint:
“As he left Yale Law School, instead of going to a lucrative job, went out and worked with ex-prisoners, tried to create green jobs for them, has been featured in Time magazine, gotten all sorts of award for it.”
CNN's Brazile Defends Jones: 'Let Me Just Say to Conservatives There's Nothing Wrong with Liberals'
The evidence is in on Van Jones. He's and admitted communist, signed a petition supporting 9/11 conspiracy theories and has called Republicans a series of vulgar names, and according to Democratic strategist Donna Brazile - there's nothing wrong with that.
Brazile, a CNN regular, appeared on CNN's Sept. 7 "The Situation Room," and reacted to Jones' Sept. 5 late-night resignation.
Van Jones was "swift-boated!"
San Francisco Chronicle
"He was swift-boated," said Medea Benjamin, a co-founder of the anti-war group Code Pink and a San Franciscan who has known Jones for 15 years.
Is it time yet to start calling Obama a Communist now?
From the very beginning of the Age of Obama, we have been told by our Leftist betters that we must not DARE call him a socialist/communist, and we have dutifully obeyed.
It seems that the only reason we are not allowed to call him that is because it would be detrimental to his political ambitions, not because it's not true.
So do we have the courage to call a Communist a Communist?
Do we have the courage to always precede his name with the word "Communist," as in "Communist President Barack Obama,"
Bam vs. Democracy: A hug for Chavez and Castro (NY Post)
PRESIDENT Obama's State Department waited until the cusp of Labor Day weekend before publicly backing Latin America's dictators in their assault on democracy.
Our thug-worshipping diplomats figured they'd slip it by us. With the nation focused on barbecues and the beach, they announced that, if Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez's client, Manuel Zelaya, isn't returned to power in Honduras, the United States won't recognize the results of that country's upcoming free elections.
Why was former president Zelaya driven from his would-be throne in Tegucigalpa?
He tried to subvert Honduras' Constitution and set himself up as president-for-life.
In June, the elected legislators and the Honduran Supreme Court had enough. As Zelaya aligned with Chavez, the Castro regime, Nicaraguan caudillo Daniel Ortega and other extreme leftists, the Honduran government gave the would-be dictator the boot.
Acting under legal orders, the army peacefully arrested Zelaya and shipped him out of the country. No murders, no Chavez-style imprisonments.
It was not a military coup. An elected congress and interim president, not a general, run the country today.
But the Obama administration has decided that this "violation" is so dreadful that we won't even recognize future free elections in Honduras.
Well, President Obama's taste in elections is finicky:
* He'll recognize the utterly bogus results of Afghanistan's corrupt election.
* He initially blessed the results of Iran's rigged election. (He was for it before he was against it.)
* He hasn't spoken one word of criticism as Chavez continues to strangle Venezuelan democracy.
* He hasn't questioned the divisive, racist politics of Presidente Evo Morales in Bolivia.
Venezuela's Chavez says hopes can work with Obama
VENICE (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a fierce critic of U.S. foreign policy who once called George W. Bush "the devil," said on Monday he hoped to be able to work more closely with President Barack Obama.
The leftist 55-year-old leader added in an interview in Italy that despite the global economic crisis and signs of a slowdown in growth in Venezuela, he did not expect his country to fall into recession.
Chavez was in Venice for the world premiere of "South of the Border," director Oliver Stone's sympathetic portrait of a leader he says has championed the poor and who has been unfairly demonized by the U.S. media.
"I have no reason to call him (Obama) the devil, and I hope that I am right," Chavez told reporters in Venice.
Marxist Venezuelan Leader Hugo Chavez On Obama: "We Have to Help Him" (Gateway Pundit)
Hugo Chavez "With Obama we can talk, we are almost from the same generation, one can't deny that Obama is different (from Bush).
He's intelligent, he has good intentions and we have to help him."
Is Obama Forming a “Shadow Government?” (Hot Air)
Today, President Barack H. Obama appointed yet another “czar”, making the announcement at an AFL-CIO Laborious Day picnic in Cincinnati today;
Ron Bloom will make the 33rd Obamic Czar, counting Van Jones, who just resigned but will surely be replaced with a less explosive (but every bit as Marxist) appointee, and after Obama taps someone else to fill Bloom’s old position as Car Czar.
Debt Be Not Proud: The Sorry Tale of America’s Out-of-control Spending (The American)
How did the richest country in the history of the world get into a position where its debt is spiraling out of control?
At the end of fiscal 2008, which came on September 30 of last year, the American national debt stood at $9.6 trillion.
That sum is, perhaps, quite beyond the imagining of most people. It is, after all, 250 million times the average per capita income.
Even the total fortunes of the entire Forbes 400 list add up to less than 15 percent of it. To use a journalistic measure that dates back to the late 18th century—when the British national debt had become a major political issue in that country—if you laid 9.6 trillion silver dollars end to end, they would reach to the sun and back, with enough left over to wrap around the Earth more than 1,700 times.
Switzerland Topples US as Most Competitive Economy (CNBC)
Switzerland knocked the United States off the position as the world's most competitive economy as the crash of the U.S. banking system left it more exposed to some long-standing weaknesses, a report said on Tuesday.
The World Economic Forum's global competitiveness report 2009/2010 showed economies with a large focus on financial services such as the U.S., Britain or Iceland were the losers of the crisis.
The U.S. as the world's largest economy lost last year's strong lead, slipping to number two for the first time since the introduction of the index in its current form in 2004.
"We have been expecting for some time that it may lose its top-position. There are a number of imbalances that have been building up," said Jennifer Blanke, Head of the WEF's Global Competitiveness Network.
Under Obamanomics, Hispanics Hit Hardest
On September 3, Vice President Joe Biden said: "The Recovery Act is doing more, faster and more efficiently and more effectively than most people expected."
In July, U.S. President Barack Obama told CNN that his $787 billion stimulus package is "working exactly as we had anticipated…" Well then, perhaps they anticipated driving legal Hispanic immigrants out of the workforce because this group, along with the lesser-educated in general, is very clearly the hardest hit.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) unemployment among (legal or counted) Hispanics in August was 13.0%. That is up 60.5% from August 2008 and 20% since February of this year. But this rate masks the real job losses as a result of the recession. (more)
Unemployment Rate Remains Disproportionately Higher for African-Americans (AFRO)
Unemployment and job loss figures released for August 2009 by the U.S. Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics did not hold any promise for economic recovery reaching American households soon.
While the number of jobs lost in August was down – a sign pointed to as evidence the recession is turning around – there was an increase in the number of people claiming unemployment.
That figure jumped to 9.7 percent for all workers, up .3 percent from July and the highest level recorded in more than two decades.
The August bump was driven by increases in the jobless rates for adult men, Whites and Hispanics, but unemployment rates for African-Americans grew faster than those for the subgroups of adult men and Whites.
Obama tells Ohio gathering recovery plan working (phillyBurbs.com)
President Barack Obama told thousands of cheering union members and activists gathered at Cincinnati's Coney Island park Monday that his economic recovery plan is working.
"We're on the road to recovery, Ohio, don't let anybody tell you otherwise," said Obama, who took the stage as the sky cleared following a morning that threatened rain.
Rasmussen Daily Presidential Tracking Poll (-13)
The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Monday shows that 28% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President.
Forty-one percent (41%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -13 (see trends). Sixty percent (60%) now believe the President is at least as ethical as most politicians.
On health care reform, 83% say that proof of citizenship should be required before anyone can receive government subsidies.
Tired doctors urged to beat fatigue with caffeine (Courrier Mail)
SIX cups of coffee - that's the State Government antidote to sleep-deprived doctors killing and harming their patients in a haze of exhaustion.
The astonishing remedy forms part of Queensland Health's new doctor fatigue policy, currently being rolled out in public hospitals.
The Courier-Mail yesterday reported the confessions of junior surgeons and medics whose exhaustion-induced errors had killed or hurt patients during "on-call" shifts of 30 to 80 hours.
But a guidelines document underpinning QH's Fatigue Risk Management System claims "solutions such as 'we need more staff' might not be achievable or effective in managing a fatigue risk."
Barack Obama health plan looking sick and sorry (The Australian)
BARACK Obama's ambitious push for a government-run health insurance scheme to cover many millions of uninsured Americans looks dead in the water.
The US President's chief promoters have been signalling a significant retreat from the key domestic policy of his first term, just days before Mr Obama addresses a joint session of the US congress tomorrow to argue his case for reform.
After weeks of contention about where Mr Obama stands, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs declared yesterday: "I'm sure he will draw some lines in the sand."
Reasons Why the Government Doesn’t Deserve Our Trust on Health Care (MSMB)
....[T]he agenda has been the same now for over 60 years regarding the agenda of the Democrat party. Their agenda doesn’t change.
Nothing changes. Just their selling points do. The Democrat party calls itself progressive, yet they are pushing the same thing now that it pushed for, and was rejected 60, 40, and even 15 years ago.
It is the same old thing that has been pushed for 60 years, and now, we are going through another round.
The only thing is different this time, is that it is a little more fierce in that now death (via euthanasia, and suicide) is in the mainstream.
In this piece, I am going to reveal to you some inside secrets that the powers that be, and the media protecting them would never tell you, and that people who work for hospitals have probably never thought to tell you, since they have no obligation to do so.
ObamaCare's brave new world: Disabled just won't make it to birth (NY Post)
Sarah Palin ignited a political firestorm when she worried that "death panels" would deny end-of-life treatment to her son with Down syndrome.
In fact, ObamaCare would more likely see to it that people like Trig never even make it out of the womb.
The outlook for children found to have disabilities in utero is bleak now -- because the medical-ethics establishment has spent decades pushing for their abortion.
Thanks to advances in prenatal testing, it's now far easier to detect conditions like cystic fibrosis and spina bifida -- and our "best and brightest" overwhelmingly counsel parents to destroy the unborn child.
It's estimated that about 90 percent of American babies with Down Syndrome are now aborted.
We're clearly on our way to the systematic elimination of "imperfect" people.
And President Obama's "health-care reform" would get us there faster, by vastly expanding the government's influence over private health-care decisions.
Even without accounting for "the public option," the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the Dems' health-care scheme would cause the number of non-elderly Americans relying on government for health care to spike from 40 million to 73 million.
To offset this massive growth in government outlays, President Obama has pledged that bureaucrats will "bend the cost curve" by setting coverage rules and determining physician fees -- for everyone, even those not getting treated on the government's dime.
With finite resources, government has every incentive to keep heavy consumers of health care off the public insurance rolls. And it isn't hard to see where an unborn baby with a disability will land on the government's priority list.
Obama Refers to a Child in His Speech That Would Have Been Killed Off by His Health Care Advisor
(EconomicPolicyJournal.com)
...I’m thinking about Andoni Schultz, from Los Altos, California, who’s fought brain cancer since he was three....Brain cancer at three?
This kid would have been six feet under if one of Obama's healthcare gurus had his way.
Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, has already been appointed to two key positions:
health-policy adviser at the Office of Management and Budget and a member of the Federal Council on Comparative Effectiveness Research...
So what's Ezekiel's take on three year-olds with brain cancer?
Bury them.
In the Lancet, Jan. 31, 2009, edition Ezekiel and co-authors presented a "complete lives system" for the allocation of very scarce resources. In his own words:
"When implemented, the complete lives system produces a priority curve on which individuals aged roughly 15 and 40 years get the most substantial chance, whereas the youngest and oldest people get changes that are attenuated
...Adolescents have received substantial education and parental care, investments that will be wasted without a complete life.
Infants, by contrast, have not yet received these investments
... As the legal philosopher Ronald Dworkin argues, 'It is terrible when an infant dies, but worse, most people think, when a three-year-old dies and worse still when an adolescent does,' this argument is supported by empirical surveys."...
What Did You Expect When You Asked for Change? (Examiner)
Parents do not trust the Educator-in-Chief and his "comrades."
You can take Obama from the radicals in Chicago. But you can't take the Chicago radicalism out of Obama.
On Tuesday the President of the United States will speak to school children across the nation in a television address.
A large number of parents will keep their children home in the belief that this is an inappropriate use of the bully pulpit.
But what did they expect from a community organizer whose playbook is Rules for Radicals by Saul Alinsky? (To understand Rules for Radicals, see my previous op-ed.)
Barack Obama is a relentless self-promoter who requires hours of face time to feed his narcissism.
He has had more prime-time news conferences aired in his first seven months in office and more images on front pages of magazines than most modern presidents have had in four years.
In trying to ram his agenda down American’s throats, he plays the front man. Never mind that the expensive, overreaching bills recently enacted by Congress are not his own, they fit nicely into his vision for a changed America.
Channeling Billy Mays, Obama merely pitches the product.
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that Obama views us as rubes willing to pay a dime to see the freak show providing the pitch is properly delivered.
It’s no surprise that grown ups across the nations are becoming leery. So let’s get the kids on board.
Gibbs: Opponents of Obama starting 'Animal House food fight'
(The Hill)
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs blasted the president's critics today for questioning the propriety of Obama's speech to schoolchildren.
"It's a sad state of affairs that many in this country politically would rather start an 'Animal House' food fight rather than inspire kids to stay in school, to work hard, to engage parents to stay involved and to ensure that the millions of teachers that are making great sacrifices continue to be the best in the world," Gibbs told reporters on Monday.
Obama & TOTUS wants your kids!
Some Broward Co. teachers say they have never heard of problems with a president speaking at schools. Of course they didn't research that, they must not know how, it took all of three minutes. They even said to not watch Obama speak is un-Anerican.
Good little Marxists.
-----
When Bush spoke to students, Democrats investigated, held hearings
By: Byron York
Chief Political Correspondent
The controversy over President Obama's speech to the nation's schoolchildren will likely be over shortly after Obama speaks today at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia. But when President George H.W. Bush delivered a similar speech on October 1, 1991, from Alice Deal Junior High School in Washington DC, the controversy was just beginning. Democrats, then the majority party in Congress, not only denounced Bush's speech -- they also ordered the General Accounting Office to investigate its production and later summoned top Bush administration officials to Capitol Hill http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/
Becoming the Mainstream Media (Townhall.com)
As a college student back in the stone ages, one bumper sticker I always saw plenty of when attending Republican events said “CBS is Rather Biased.”
Well, it wasn’t the stone ages, but it was during the Reagan years, which now seems in so many ways ages ago.
The point is that conservatives have complained about media bias for decades.
An egregious example of media bias just played out in the Van Jones story – one I believe highlights a major shift in the mainstream media.
First though, a bit of background is worth considering.
Conservatives have not only complained about media bias, but for many years have attempted to achieve balance in the mainstream media in various ways.
Watchdog groups like Brent Bozell’s Media Research Center have identified, tracked and catalogued liberal media bias hoping to shame those in the mainstream media into at least attempting the appearance of balance.
Alternative media have emerged to do some of the reporting those in the mainstream media have refused to do, at times even forcing those traditional news outlets to cover the stories themselves.
Ayers to defile Purdue University (American Thinker)
William Ayers will appear at Purdue University on September 24th as a panelist about urban schools as part of the first annual Cummings-Perrucci Annual Lecture on Race, Class, and Gender Equality.
Ayers will hit the campus in West Lafayette, Indiana, according to a story in today’s Lafayette Journal & Courier under the curious headline “Ex-radical to attend forum at Purdue.” Ex-radical?
According to the story, some groups are already organizing protests against Ayers and the university.
Political Science professor Harry Targ – who was singled out in David Horowitz’s book as one of America’s most dangerous academics – takes his cue from the Obama playbook to downplay the protests and further cloud the murky past, saying it is “foolish” to make a political issue out of the Arers appearance:
BREITBART: Couric should look in mirror
Now that White House "Green Jobs Czar" Van Jones has resigned, what's next?
Inevitably, the American mainstream media - ABC, NBC, CBS, the New York Times, the Washington Post, Time, Newsweek, et al - must be held to account for sitting on the sidelines as this major story kept building without them, went viral on YouTube, and then became so large that a key appointee of President Obama was forced to step down.
But with their decision to ignore the Jones story, they may have actually done Mr. Obama far more harm than good:
Who vetted this guy? How did he get past the FBI? What did he say, and how did he answer the infamous seven-page questionnaire that all Obama appointees were required to fill out? Inquiring Freedom of Information Act minds want to know.
For most people in this country, the resignation was the first they had heard of Van Jones.
For this sin of journalistic omission, there's institutional media blame.
Bias is too tame a word for the utter shamelessness on display:
Only Republican scandals - real and imagined - matter.
And it's not just those the Democratic-Media Complex dub as "mobs" or "tea baggers" that are taking notice.
Diminishing audience and evaporating subscribership reflect widespread consumer dissatisfaction. Eventually, the money will run out.
But until then, the growing alternative media of Internet and talk radio and a burgeoning mass of justifiably angry Americans will make every effort to expose the sham that is mainstream journalism.
Obviously, it's not that the Jones story wasn't newsworthy. His racist rants, his radical background and his membership in a 9/11 "truther" group made for heavy-rotation YouTube viewing that would have immediately destroyed other mere mortals if the shoe were on the right - or white - foot.
Compounding the problem, the Jones narrative hurts Mr. Obama because it underlines how the mainstream media helped elect the president by glorifying him instead of vetting him.
When Bush spoke to students, Democrats investigated, held hearings (Washington Examiner)
The controversy over President Obama's speech to the nation's schoolchildren will likely be over shortly after Obama speaks today at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia.
But when President George H.W. Bush delivered a similar speech on October 1, 1991, from Alice Deal Junior High School in Washington DC, the controversy was just beginning. Democrats, then the majority party in Congress, not only denounced Bush's speech -- they also ordered the General Accounting Office to investigate its production and later summoned top Bush administration officials to Capitol Hill for an extensive hearing on the issue.
Unlike the Obama speech, in 1991 most of the controversy came after, not before, the president's school appearance. The day after Bush spoke, the Washington Post published a front-page story suggesting the speech was carefully staged for the president's political benefit.
"The White House turned a Northwest Washington junior high classroom into a television studio and its students into props," the Post reported.
With the Post article in hand, Democrats pounced. "The Department of Education should not be producing paid political advertising for the president, it should be helping us to produce smarter students," said Richard Gephardt, then the House Majority Leader.
"And the president should be doing more about education than saying, 'Lights, camera, action.'"
Hiring Plans Drop to Record Low (Market Watch)
Job outlook hits worst-ever level
Employers' hiring plans at lowest point in Manpower survey's history
Hiring plans for the upcoming fourth quarter dropped to their lowest level in the history of Manpower's Employment Outlook Survey, which started in 1962.
A net -3% of employers said they'll hire in the fourth quarter, down from -2% in the third quarter, on a seasonally adjusted basis, according to the Milwaukee-based firm's survey of more than 28,000 employers.
Before this year, the survey's previous low point was a net 1% hiring outlook for the third quarter of 1982.
Why did the press ignore the Van Jones scandal? (Washington Examiner)
On March 13, 2008, ABC News broke the story that Barack Obama's longtime pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, had made a number of incendiary statements from the pulpit of Obama's church in Chicago.
The most inflammatory of those remarks was Wright's notorious "God damn America" sermon.
The news set off a media firestorm. "God damn America" was in the papers, magazines, the Internet, television, radio. It was everywhere, except one place: the news pages of America's most powerful newspaper, the New York Times. In the days, weeks, and months following the ABC report, the Times' news pages repeatedly failed to inform its readers that Wright had ever uttered those infamous words.
Obama's liars just keep rolling along.
---
Obama Nominee Omitted Ties To Biotech
Washington Times
Jim McElhatton
President Obama's nominee at the Department of Homeland Security overseeing bioterrorism defense has served as a key adviser for a lobbying group funded by the pharmaceutical industry that has asked the government to spend more money for anthrax vaccines and biodefense research.
Scrappleface: Obama Googles 'Van Jones,' 'public option,' learns both are socialist (Examiner)
Just a day after White House "green jobs czar" Van Jones resigned amid controversy over his radical views, the Obama administration said it had discovered a new vetting tool called "Google" that also revealed that the president's "public option" health insurance proposal may be socialist as well.
"You just type a few words into this rectangle," said White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, "Click a button and information suddenly appears on your computer screen.
When we did that, we were shocked to learn that Van was a socialist, and that the keystone of the president's health reform plan probably is too."
The president will reportedly reconsider his commitment to the public option before addressing a joint session of Congress later this week.
"It turns out that socialism is a political theory advocating state ownership of industry," said Mr. Gibbs.
"And no matter how you spin it, having the government run a health insurance plan that competes with private firms constitutes state ownership of industry.
If we keep going down this slippery slope, the subsidized public option will drive private companies out of business, making the government corporation the dominant provider."
The spokesman said such a scenario would undercut the president's desire to improve American health care through "choice and competition."
"When the state intervenes in the market," Mr. Gibbs said, "The incentive for competition decreases because private firms have a much higher cost structure, and must even pay taxes to support their government-run competitor.
If President Obama had known about this Google thing nine months ago, we could have saved ourselves a lot of heartache."
The president reportedly likes the Google concept so much, that he's asked his closest advisers to draft a plan to create "an official presidential version of Google that would give folks a low cost option for all their information needs."
Krauthammer Drops Jeremiah Wright Bomb Says Van Jones' Lunacy "Is a Reflection of the Boss"
FOX News All Star Charles Krauthammer compared communist-Truther Van Jones to Obama's pastor and mentor Rev Jeremiah Wright tonight on Special Report.
It's a reflection of the boss. The boss also had a history before he became a candidate of being around and friends with the likes of Jeremiah Wright and William Ayers. The liberals scolded us last year on how irrelevant all that is and how it's a smear campaign against Obama.
But, if you live in that environment and you find nothing inherently wrong with that kind of radicalism.
Then a Van Jones will show up. You'll watch him years and years and you'll think this guy is perfectly mainstream.
Congress Toll Free Number??????
I just called the Congressional toll free number: 800-828-0498 and the first thing that I heard was a recorded message urging the caller to contact their Congress Critter to ask them to pass health care reform bill. I then received the operator and asked her about the message. I was advised that the message was paid for by lobbyist. Is this supposed to be done with our tax payer money?
@FreeRepublic
...Switzerland knocked the United States off the position as the world's most competitive economy as the crash of the U.S. banking system left it more exposed to some long-standing weaknesses,...
And Switzerland has universal health care. Wonder how the far right crazies will spin this.
How Does the Obama Administration Screen Appointees? They Don’t
PATTERICO
Earlier today I asked “How Does the Obama Administration Screen Appointees?”
This evening Fox News’ Major Garrett gives us the answer — The Administration doesn’t vet the Czars:
“Van Jones, the Obama green jobs czar who resigned shortly after midnight Sunday, did not fill out the exhaustive questionnaire White House officials required of every Cabinet-level secretary and deputy-secretary position.
An administration official said special advisers to the president, or czars, are not required to fill out the questionnaire that runs 7 pages and contains 63 questions.
The entire questionnaire, the official said, is reserved for appointees who must win Senate confirmation.”
At least Brownie was confirmed by the Senate.
The article also quotes a 911Truth.org official who confirms Jones intended to sign their petition, and concludes with this juicy tidbit:
“An administration official said Jones never hid his controversial associations or remarks from the White House.
“It wouldn’t be fair to characterize him as being dishonest or hiding his comments or his positions,” the official said. “It’s just fair to say that he didn’t go through the most rigorous vetting process.”
So the Obama Administration knew about Jones’ beliefs but didn’t care? Or even agreed with him? That’s good to know.
L.A. Times Did Not Report Van Jones’s Trutherism Until He Resigned PATTERICO
Mickey Kaus notes that the New York Times reported the Van Jones controversy for the first time in an article about Van Jones’s resignation — leaving readers wondering: where did that come from?
The L.A. Times did the same thing.
Jones had all kinds of issues, but what ultimately did him in was his signature on a Truther petition.
As Mickey says: He signed a Truther petition. Bye.
Like readers of the New York Times, readers of the Los Angeles Times were blindsided by the revelations about Jones, including his signing a Truther petititon, which they learned about for the first time in the story reporting his resignation.
A search of the paper’s archives since August 1 reveals exactly one story mentioning Van Jones before his resignation: an August 25 story titled Glenn Beck blasts boycott group’s co-founder.
The article focuses on Beck and the boycott and portrays Beck’s criticism as defensive lashing out; the only facts reported about Jones are these:
Beck said Jones was twice arrested for political protests and has described himself as a “rowdy black nationalist.”
That’s it.
Readers were told nothing else. As the paper told us in reporting the resignation, until Jones resigned, the firestorm had “raged almost entirely on conservative talk shows and websites.”
The revelation about Jones’s Truther leanings came out in the L.A. Times only when he resigned.
Many legitimate news stories are relegated exclusively to conservative media.
But that doesn’t mean they aren’t legitimate stories. It just means that you can’t learn everything you need to know by reading traditional Big Media.
You have to read conservative media too. You have to read conservative blogs, or you won’t have any idea what’s going on.
President Obama’s payoffs to Big Labor - Michelle Malkin has the list of Obama’s payoffs to the unions, and it is unbelievable in scope. Talk about the “sneaky bastards” taking over, the thugs in high places is beyond scary. Socialism has more that a foot in the door.
Wake up and smell the stink!
A crucial week for Obama's teleprompter (The Washington Times)
This is a big week for the president's teleprompter. He's first taking it across the Potomac for a speech urging schoolchildren to wash their hands, study hard and stay in school.
Good advice for everyone, no doubt, and maybe the advice will stimulate the sale of soap to people who really need it. Politicians particularly should take to heart a presidential admonition to keep their hands clean. Who can argue with that?
Democrats everywhere are looking for places where the applause will be at least polite, with no yelling, screaming and waving of hands.
SNIP
Nobody wants what the president is selling, insofar as anybody can figure out exactly what he's selling. The magic elixir may be the president himself, and lately nobody's buying that, either.
Rarely have Americans spoken up with such bold energy and ferocious power, organized by amateurs in the grass roots disdainful of both parties, and the fright was more than enough to make congressmen wet their pants, many of them twice....
Charge parents for public school
MARXISTS LOVE TO CHARGE AND TAX YOU TWICE (Atlanta Journal Constitution)
With states across the country facing huge budget deficits and potential devastating cuts to services, the time has come to start charging parents tuition for their children’s public school education.
If parents of the 47 million students in the United States who attend kindergarten through 12th grade were billed $360 per child per year — that’s $2 a day for each of the 180 days of instruction — nearly $17 billion would be generated.
State-Run Media Hid Commie-Truther Van Jones Controversy From American Public (GatewayPundit)
FOX News host Bret Baier highlighted on Monday's Grapevine segment how the state-run media ignored the Van Jones controversy and hid it from the American public.
If you depend on the print version of the NY Times to bring you breaking news, you would not have read about the Van Jones controversy until 36 hours after his walk of shame from the White House.
The democrat-media complex shamefully omitted the story from their reports last week:
The resignation of President Obama's green jobs "czar," Van Jones, might have come as a shock if you do not watch cable news.
In fact, the "big three" evening newscasts and two of the nation's most-prominent newspapers barely covered the story.
There was no mention of Jones by CBS, NBC, ABC, the Washington Post or the New York Times on Wednesday -- the night Jones' first issued an apology for past statements. The same was true on Thursday, although a Washington Post blog picked up the story.
That night Jones again apologized for a slew of old remarks and the signing of that petition that alleged the Bush administration was behind the 9/11 attacks.
ABC and NBC failed to cover the story on Friday after that, although CBS finally did. There was no mention from the "big three" evening newscasts or the Times print edition Saturday.
But the New York Times blog finally addressed the story as did the print edition of the Post.
On Sunday, the morning after Jones' middle-of-the-night resignation — it was too late for the papers -- but the three evening newscasts did file reports.
The New York Times print edition finally ran its first mention of the story today (Monday) on the lower-half of the front page.
Byron York explains why the press ignored the Van Jones scandal today at the Washington Examiner.
Why does Obama need so many czars?
Fox News is raising the question about the remaining Obama czars. Who they are, how they were vetted, why Zero needs them, what are we paying for them? You know, pesky little questions like that. The liberal MSM has egg on its face for ignoring the Van Jones story. It remains to be seen if they learned the truth will be known without them. If ever a group wrote their own death sentence, the MSM did by using their biased non-reporting, and thinking they are necessary to the new media.
Anchorage Daily News chief executive officer has left, moving on to greener pastures. If anybody knew the state of ADN he did. There was something about rats "leaving a burning ship"?
...Democrats everywhere are looking for places where the applause will be at least polite, with no yelling, screaming and waving of hands...
As Bush did -- only prescreened friendly audiences admitted.
“Zu Vill Vatch, Kinder” Broward County Public Schools: On Tuesday, September 8, 2009, ... Obama's plan to speak to schoolchildren has some South Florida parents hopping mad ... House Democrats criticized Bush for the 1991 speech and accused the ...
infidelsparadise.com/?p=14402
You will watch Obama because I said so! Contradictory signals in Broward County. Any mention of God out, except if Obama says it.
One school district requiring students to watch President Obama's speech is Broward County, Florida, a county in which Obama won a reported 350,000 votes in the presidential election. [This is a county in which the Pledge of Allegiance and prayers are reportedly "optional" in their public schools] Maybe because they both involve God. Who knows? But let me get this straight: Students don't have to pledge their allegiance to our country, but they do have to watch the president who leads it? That seems contradictory.
And for those of you in the Broward County School District, you might want to know in advance that President Obama plans to end his speech by asking God to bless you and our country.
http://www.individual.com/story.php?story=106466105
Why did Obama push his agenda onto schoolchildren? One pundit offered that Obama could have given his speech in the evening, and parents and children could have watched the speech together. The answer is that no one would watch it, he had to be use the same thuggish tactics he has used from the beginning to get elected. Broward County is the only county in the nation that made the speech mandatory. That says a lot about them, and their comrade Notter.
The mainstream can continue to print and broadcast their leftist agenda, which is why Fox News ratings are soaring. Keep up the censorship MSM!
We're paying the salaries and perks of these phony czars, which makes me hopping mad!
The jig is up, even the school speech bypassed elected officials.
By pushing the Obama school speech upon school administrators, the US Department of Education bypassed the local school boards, the elected officials. Contacting the school borads would have been the usual procedure. This forced worksheets propaganda was not only planned, the WH was behind the plan. Bypassing accepted procedures, like czars that do not have to be vetted is unacceptable? A pattern is becoming clear, and it is up to patriots to stop this socialist behavior now!
-EXCLUSIVE: Obama nominee omitted ties to biotech-
Washington Times Jim McElhatton
President Obama's nominee at the Department of Homeland Security overseeing bioterrorism defense has served as a key adviser for a lobbying group funded by the pharmaceutical industry that has asked the government to spend more money for anthrax vaccines and biodefense research. But Dr. Tara O'Toole, whose confirmation as undersecretary of science and technology is pending, never reported her involvement with the lobbying group called the Alliance for Biosecurity in a recent government ethics filing. The alliance has spent more than $500,000 lobbying Congress and federal agencies -- including Homeland Security -- since 2005, congressional records show.
Whoa, Trigger--The latest gimmick to disguise a health-care 'public option.'
Wall Street Journal
President Obama has decided that another oration will rejuvenate his health-care agenda—despite having given 27 speeches entirely on health care, and another 92 in which it figured prominently. We'll see how tomorrow night's Congressional appeal works out, but the important maneuvers are taking place in the cloak rooms, as the White House tries to staple together a majority. The latest political gimmick is the notion of a "trigger" for the public option: A new government program for the middle class would only come on line if private insurance companies fail to meet certain benchmarks, such as lowering overall health spending...
Out of Gas: Congress Raids the Highway Trust Fund
Coburn Oversight | Coburn and McCain
Senators Tom Coburn, M.D. and John McCain released a report on $78 billion from the Highway Trust Fund not being spent on bridges or roads. “Out of Gas: Congress Raids the Highway Trust Fund for Pet Projects While Bridges and Roads Crumble” includes an analysis of a newly published GAO study the two Senators requested to determine how Congress is spending Highway Trust Fund receipts.
(Excerpt) Read more at coburn.senate.gov ...
A radio caller said that President Bush tried to abolish the U.S. Department of Education .
Saying it was redundant, and the states should handle education on state and local levels. This Obama national lesson plans caper may have been their payback after all these years. This is something for journalists to investigate: What did it cost taxpayers for the Department of Education to force these lesson plans on every school in the nation?
If these leftist public schools are so great, why are so many students opting out? Why are students doing so poorly? Why does it cost so much for so little true education? It could be that union teachers and the liberal agenda are not doing so well? The unions fight school vouchers that would make the public schools compete for students, because they know they could no longer force themselves upon parents and students. The public schools have become a colossal failure. Every year US students fall behind other countries. The greatness of the United States falls right before our very eyes.
The answer to public schools: home schooling.
Gallup Poll released today shows only 37 percent support Obamacare and a huge majority say how their representatives vote will affect who they vote for in 2010 elections. It's the kiss of death for Dems who vote with Obama.
The busiest person in
Washington DC is TOTUS!
Bwhahahahaha
...The public schools have become a colossal failure. Every year US students fall behind other countries...
Uh ... I think you'll find that in many other wealthy industrialized countries, the public schools are much more under the control of the central government than here -- especially in matters of curriculum. MW's right wingers would have a fit if that kind of control was suggested here.
The truth about homeschooled children.
The liberal media never admits that homeschooled children pass curriculum achievement tests with flying colors. They also loath to report that homeschooled children not only do well, but win the national spelling bees. The leftists try to paint homeschooled children as oddballs, nonsocial, and other lies, but when the people see them on national TV, they see well mannered, serious youngsters, that are well schooled. The truth seeps out without the leftist media, and they just can’t stand it. The MSM is on the ropes with the exception of Fox News.
Ain’t that a kick in their heads?
The unions have bastardized education just as they have everything they have touched. As the taxpayers bailout the auto industry due to union demands, states can’t pay their forced demands by school teachers and state workers face the same end. Only leftists in compete denial won’t acknowledge how corrupted the public school systems have become. The unions have co-opted the schools using the teachers, making it a national system already, and a failing one at that.
Tom Brokaw said Sunday that the internet is an open sewer of misinformation. That is too funny coming from anyone from NBC. He was citing the flurry of information that brought Van Jones down. The one thing Brokaw didn’t admit was that the bloggers and Glenn Beck were right.
How did that little fact escape him?
“Hey weasels, cram it down our throats in 2009-
We’ll stick is up you’re A$$ in 2010”
Eagles Up!
Glenn Beck's Moment Has Arrived
The Provocateur -Mike Volpe
The biggest winner from the whole Van Jones affair is Glenn Beck. After all, it was Beck that lead the charge against Van Jones. Beck was ahead of this story from the beginning, but it was this latest week that he put Jones in his own crosshairs.
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Who’s next? I’m fired up and ready to go. Eradicating the “sneaky bastards” is our patriotic duty.
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