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.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Sunday November 15 -- Got news or an update?
If you have news or an update, leave it in comments. . . .
22 comments:
Anonymous
said...
OBAMA LIED: FATHER A VIOLENT DRUNK, “DREAMS OF MY VIOLENT DRUNKARD FATHER” (thelastcrusade.org) Obama lied? Now there is a surprise! Once again, the truth comes from a British source.
Our alcoholic father beat me, says Barack Obama's half brother, Mark As the US President arrives in China, Barack Obama's half brother reveals that when he was a child their father was a violent drunk (Telegraph & News Sources)
On the eve of his older sibling's first-ever visit to China, Mark Okoth Obama Ndesandjo has emerged from the shadows to reveal the disturbing truth about the late Barack Obama Sr, his and President Obama's father.
Last week, Mr Ndesandjo published an autobiographical novel, Nairobi to Shenzhen: A Tale of Love In The East.
It paints a shocking picture of his abusive and alcoholic father, one that is at odds with the man portrayed in Dreams From My Father, President Obama's best-selling 1995 memoir.
Howard Kurtz: Glenn Beck Dominating Conversation Without Mainstream Media (Politics Daily)
In his column in Monday's paper, Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz observes that Fox News personality Glenn Beck is dominating the media conversation -
- even to the point of forcing a White House official to resign -- without a bit of help from newspapers, television or other mainstream news sources. "It has become a familiar chain reaction:
Talk-show hosts whip up a noisy controversy, which hits higher decibels as it spreads to the establishment media, which costs some unfortunate soul his job," Kurtz writes.
"But now the middleman -- the journalistic gatekeepers of yore --may no longer be necessary."
Kurtz notes that White House green jobs advisor Van Jones, who Beck had relentlessly attacked for his profane comments and conspiracy-theorist past, resigned before the New York Times had run a single story on the conflict.
Neither had there been any mention of the story on any of the network newscasts. Beck's ratings have soared to 2.25 million viewers for his 5 p.m. weekday slot in the Fox News lineup, despite losing multiple advertisers over his routinely over-the-top commentary.
He deflects criticism by describing himself as a former "dirtbag" and a "clown," but at least this time, he beat the mainstream press to a serious story.
New York Times Managing Editor Jill Abramson said her newspaper was "a beat behind" on the Van Jones story, and that "we should have been paying closer attention."
Acorn....
Anita Dunn....
The list will keep growing the MSM has given up all semblance of Journalism.
The Fourth estate has proven itself to be the impotent puppets of the liberals and the dimocRATS.
Instead of hold them to a set of standards they raise the bar for Conservatives and Repulicans and give the others a pass.
Nixon was brought down by his own hubris, but also by solid investigative journalism by Woodward and Bernstien. Same with Gary Hart.
But now it was the National Enquirer that showed John Edwards pecadillos, and talk radio and Matt Drudge that brought out the infamous "Blue Dress" against Bill Clinton, as well as Castle Grande, whitewater etc.....
SF Chronicle to print on high-quality glossy paper (AP)
SAN FRANCISCO — The San Francisco Chronicle says it will become the first newspaper in the nation to print on high-quality glossy paper.
Can making the progressive bias of the paper look better and more well presented change the fact that people don't want to read the content? Or is this what they mean by “polishing a turd”?
Glossy paper used to be referred to as ‘clay coated’. Historically it has been FAR more expensive than newsprint, especially post-consumer newsprint. And newsprint is one of the highest operating costs of a newspaper. This has to be for marketing purposes, not CFO-driven.
Maybe they’re figuring up market advertisers will be more likely to pay for space on glossy paper.
This definitely seems like a move towards the boutique market and away from being a daily for the masses, which I guess makes sense when the masses are abandoning the Chronicle’s.
What’s really bad is the most traffic they get * 19.6% runonce.msn.com * comes from fresh installs of Windows or Internet Explorer. * 19.6% runonce.msn.com * is the default page that loads the very first time.
MSLSD the home of the Communist Moonbats. No one else reads them.
Flashback : NYT blasts Clinton for … almost bowing to Akihito (Hot Air)
It’s worth posting again, not just because Obama pulled another boneheaded protocol violation and bowed to an emperor, but in this case bowed to the same emperor with whom Bill Clinton almost committed the same protocol violation.
Douglas Jehr, in a 1994 New York Times report, made it clear that had Clinton actually executed a full bow, it would have destroyed a precedent dating to the founding of the Republic:
NYT Flashback 1994: No, It Wasn't a Bow-Bow (Clinton admonished for bow to Japanese Emperor)NY Times DOUGLAS JEHL
"IF I see another king, I think I shall bite him," Teddy Roosevelt once growled. Offered that opportunity with the Japanese equivalent last week, Bill Clinton turned out to have had quite something else in mind.
It wasn't a bow, exactly. But Mr. Clinton came close. He inclined his head and shoulders forward, he pressed his hands together.
It lasted no longer than a snapshot, but the image on the South Lawn was indelible: an obsequent President, and the Emperor of Japan.
Canadians still bow to England's Queen; so do Australians. Americans shake hands. If not to stand eye-to-eye with royalty, what else were 1776 and all that about?
But Mr. Clinton, alas, is not the only one since George Washington who has seemed not quite to know what to make of monarchs.
Flashback : Obama pretty happy about KSM getting a “full military trial” (Hot Air)
Did this guy actually have the brass balls to warn people about turning the Fort Hood trial into “political theater”, the morning after he granted Khaled Sheikh Mohammed a jihadist megaphone in New York City?
Daniel Pearl's dad is sickened by Obama's 9/11 trial decision (NYPost)
The father of slain Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl slammed the Obama administration's decision to hold a public trial for admitted 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed -- who boasted of killing his son in Pakistan.
Judea Pearl said he was "sick to the stomach" when he heard that the Justice Department decided to prosecute Mohammed in Manhattan federal court.
"I don't want to hear every morning in the papers what KSM did," Pearl told The Post last night. "Danny was killed once. Now he will be killed 10 times a day. Leave him alone."
His son's beheading in 2002 was caught on a gruesome video that shocked the world.
"The 21st century saw three shocks," Pearl said. "The first was 9/11. The second was the killing of my son. And the third was the shock today."
The reporter's outraged father, a UCLA professor, said a public trial would allow the admitted mass murderer to "boast about his cruelty" and encourage other terrorists to inflict harm.
Pearl said the prosecution of Mohammed should be done in closed session to avoid giving terrorists a platform.
Key 9/11 Suspect to Be Tried in New York (Sweetness-Light)
Shaikh Mohammed, the self-described mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, and four other men accused in the plot will be prosecuted in federal court in New York City, a federal law enforcement official said early on Friday.
Isn’t it odd?
At this very moment we’re being told that Mr. Hasan can’t get a fair military trial in the Ft. Hood area because there would be just too much prejudice.
And yet New York City is seen as a suitable venue for trying a man who is accused of masterminding the death of 3,000 New Yorkers.
Notice too how the New York Times does not even deign to explicitly mention that Mr. Mohammed and his four accomplices are going to enjoy a civilian trial.
The Times merely notes that they will be tried in “federal court” before they quickly move on to stress that the Cole detainees will be tried before a “military commission.”
Perhaps they are hoping no one will notice.
Still, remember how Harry Reid assured us back in May of 2009 that terrorists would never be held in this country?
Mr. Reid said:[P]art of what we don’t want is them be put in prisons in the United States. We don’t want them around the United States.
And speaking of lies, isn’t it amazing the amount of mendacity the New York Times can fit into just one paragraph?
Documents have shown that the CIA used waterboarding — a controlled drowning technique — against Mr. Mohammed 183 times in March 2003. Mr. Nashiri is one of two other detainees known to have been waterboarded before the Bush administration shut down the program, which high-level officials had approved after the Justice Department wrote legal memorandums arguing that the president, as commander-in-chief, could authorize interrogators to bypass anti-torture laws.
As we have noted often before, these so-called ‘documents’ are ambiguous at best. And Mr. Mohammed himself has claimed to have been water-boarded a total of five times.
Moreover, not only would it have been preposterous to have waterboarded Mr. Mohammed at least six times a day for a solid month, it would serve as definitive proof that waterboarding is a) not dangerous and, b) ineffective.
As for the legal memorandums, it is simply a bold faced lie to claim they argued that the President could authorize by-passing anti-torture laws. The memos rightly claimed that waterboarding was not torture under any accepted legal definition of the term.
But the New York Times will say anything to protect their terrorist heroes.
Indeed, we expect to see them hawking ‘Free MSM’ t-shirts any day now.
PRESIDENT OBAMA was too busy to attend the celebrations in Germany this week marking the fall of the Berlin Wall 20 years ago.
But he did appear by video, delivering a few brief and bloodless remarks about how the wall was “a painful barrier between family and friends’’ that symbolized “a system that denied people the freedoms that should be the right of every human being.’’
He referred to “tyranny,’’ but never identified the tyrants - he never uttered the words “Soviet Union’’ or “communism,’’ for example.
He said nothing about the men and women who died trying to cross the wall. Nor did he mention Harry Truman or Ronald Reagan - or even Mikhail Gorbachev.
He did, however, talk about Barack Obama.
“Few would have foreseen,’’ declared the president, “that a united Germany would be led by a woman from [the former East German state of] Brandenburg or that their American ally would be led by a man of African descent. But human destiny is what human beings make of it.’’
As presidential rhetoric goes, this was hardly a match for “Ich bin ein Berliner,’’ still less another “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.’’
But as a specimen of presidential narcissism, it is hard to beat.
Obama couldn’t be troubled to visit Berlin to commemorate a momentous milestone in the history of human liberty.
But he was glad to explain to those who were there why reflections on that milestone should inspire appreciation for the self-made “destiny’’ of his own rise to power.
Was there ever a president as deeply enamored of himself as Barack Obama?
CMS: House health bill will hike costs $289B [discredits Democrats’ assertions will lower costs]The Hill
The House-approved healthcare overhaul would raise the costs of healthcare by $289 billion over the next 10 years, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan, independent Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).
The long-awaited report sent to lawmakers late Friday by the Department of Health and Human Services should serve as a "stark warning to every Republican, Democrat and Independent worried about the future of this nation," Ways and Means ranking member Dave Camp (R-Mich.) said in a statement on Saturday.
Though House Republicans pressed to have this analysis completed before the lower chamber voted on the Democrats' sweeping healthcare reform bill last week, it was not ready until late Friday.
Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) highlighted the report on Saturday in a written statement. "This report once again discredits Democrats’ assertions that their $1.3 trillion government takeover of health care will lower costs, and it confirms that this bill violates President Obama’s promise to ‘bend the cost curve.’
It’s now beyond dispute that their bill will raise costs, which is exactly what the American people don’t want."
Republicans predicted that if the CMS numbers were available last Saturday when the House voted on Speaker Nancy Pelosi's healthcare bill, the slim majority that supported the measure 220-215 could have been reversed.
“This report confirms what virtually every independent expert has been saying: Speaker Pelosi’s health care bill will increase costs, not decrease them. I hope my colleagues in the Senate heed CMS’ findings and refuse to rush ahead until any bill under consideration can be certified to actually reduce health care costs," Camp said.
MassHealth Cuts Proposed $300 Million (Get ready for ObamaCare !) boston.com
More than a million low-income Massachusetts residents covered by Medicaid will be required to pay more for doctor visits and receive prior approval for some medications under a plan announced today by the Patrick administration to begin to close a $307 million shortfall in the state's MassHealth program.
(UK) Hospitals treat Alzheimer’s patients so badly 'one in three carers complain' (The Telegraph UK)
Even greater numbers of relatives and friends said they wanted to complain but had not, a new report by the Alzheimer’s Society shows.
The figures are released just days after an independent review warned that 1,800 dementia patients are being killed every year by controversial ‘chemical cosh’ drugs given to keep them quiet.
Carers told the charity of sufferers left to sit in their own urine and nurses who complained that they had too many patients to look after.
The report also heard of patients going hungry because they were not helped to eat or drink and many were generally treated with a lack of basic dignity and respect.
One carer said that when nurses were asked for help with cleaning her mother they responded “that’s someone else’s job”.
The charity said that the situation was a “disgrace”.
The study also found that almost eight in 10 carers, 77 per cent, were dissatisfied with the quality of dementia care in hospitals.
Govt: Medicare Paid $47 Billion in Suspect Claims (AP)
The government paid more than $47 billion in questionable Medicare claims including medical treatment showing little relation to a patient's condition, wasting taxpayer dollars at a rate nearly three times the previous year.
Excerpts of a new federal report, obtained by The Associated Press, show a dramatic increase in improper payments in the $440 billion Medicare program that has been cited by government auditors as a high risk for fraud and waste for 20 years.
It's not clear whether Medicare fraud is actually worsening. Much of the increase in the last year is attributed to a change in the Health and Human Services Department's methodology that imposes stricter documentation requirements and includes more improper payments — part of a data-collection effort being ordered government-wide by President Barack Obama next week to promote "honest budgeting" and accurate statistics.
Still, the fiscal 2009 financial report — covering the first few months of the Obama administration — highlights the challenges ahead for a government that is seeking in part to pay for its proposed health care overhaul by cracking down on Medicare fraud.
Only Middle-Class Taxpayers Will be Put In Jail For Not Buying Obamacare Insurance!
Only the middle-class taxpayers will face jail for not buying Obamacare insurance.
The rich, no problem. Even if they never use the low quality doctors who would love it, the rich would pay the price as just another government inconvenience/tax
The poor, no problem there, either. The government (us taxpayers) will pay for it for them. The proposed law specifies that.
How could the poor be put into jail when it's the taxpayers who are legally responsible for paying their medical bills?
After all, we're legally required to pay their for food (food stamps); housing (section 8 and HUD); cars (cash for clunkers); even their utilities (the famous "Obama Money".)
Maybe if a poor person refuses to pay for Obamacare, a middle class person will go to jail for them too!
No Party ID on ABC for Imprisoned Jefferson; CBS Skips Sentencing(Newsbusters)
Former Congressman William Jefferson, the New Orleans Democrat with bribery cash hidden in his freezer, was sentenced Friday to 13 years in prison, the longest-ever for a Member of Congress on a corruption charge --
Yet the CBS Evening News didn't utter a word about it, just as that newscast ignored his August conviction, while ABC's World News didn't bother to mention his party affiliation.
NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams noted Jefferson's party in this short item: “Former Louisiana Democratic Congressman William Jefferson made headlines a while back when the FBI found $90,000 in cash hidden in his freezer. Today, he was sentenced to 13 years in prison for taking bribes.”
ABC's Charles Gibson, however, the MRC's Brad Wilmouth noticed, failed to identify Jefferson as a Democrat: “Former Louisiana Congressman William Jefferson has been sentenced to 13 years in prison for his conviction on federal bribery charges.
Authorities found $90,000 wrapped in foil in Jefferson’s freezer, part of the half million dollars prosecutors say he received for using his influence to broker business deals in Africa.”
Calif-ornery (California is stealing from its residents) The Tribune-Review, Pittsburgh, Pa.
On Nov. 1, the government of the state of California began withholding from workers' paychecks 10 percent more than what it had been withholding.
The Los Angeles Times described this move -- prompted by California's fiscal calamity -- as "a forced, interest-free loan" from taxpayers to the government.
The Times explained to its California readers that "You'll be repaid any extra withholding in April. Those who would receive a refund anyway will receive a larger one, and those who owe taxes will owe less."
The ostensible purpose of withholding is to better ensure that taxpayers actually pay the taxes they owe. Governments fear that without withholding, too many taxpayers won't have enough to pay their full tax bills.
Regardless of the merits or demerits of this justification for withholding, California's government is now using withholding for a quite different purpose: to extract a forced loan.
Put more plainly, California's government has become a blatant thief.
Schwarzenegger: This year's budget gap may hit $7 billion
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger estimated Monday that California's budget will fall out of balance by $5 billion to $7 billion this fiscal year, on top of a $7.4 billion gap already projected for 2010-11.
If true, state leaders would confront at least a $12.4 billion to $14.4 billion problem when Schwarzenegger releases his budget in January.
California currently has an $84.6 billion general fund budget.
Socialists arrive in Evanston for national convention (The Democrat Party had a convention this weekend?) Chicago Tribune
Marching to a different drummer who perennially draws dreamers and dissenters to Chicago, the Democratic Socialists of America came to town Friday -- or at least close. Their three-day national convention was held at an Evanston hotel.
The faithful still display the passion of predecessors who made Chicago the birthplace of working-class politics.
WASHINGTON — In the official record of the historic House debate on overhauling health care, the speeches of many lawmakers echo with similarities. Often, that was no accident.
Statements by more than a dozen lawmakers were ghostwritten, in whole or in part, by Washington lobbyists working for Genentech, one of the world’s largest biotechnology companies.
full story: www.nytimes.com/2009/11/15/us/politics/15health.html?_r=1&hp
22 comments:
OBAMA LIED: FATHER A VIOLENT DRUNK, “DREAMS OF MY VIOLENT DRUNKARD FATHER” (thelastcrusade.org) Obama lied? Now there is a surprise! Once again, the truth comes from a British source.
Our alcoholic father beat me, says Barack Obama's half brother, Mark
As the US President arrives in China, Barack Obama's half brother reveals that when he was a child their father was a violent drunk
(Telegraph & News Sources)
On the eve of his older sibling's first-ever visit to China, Mark Okoth Obama Ndesandjo has emerged from the shadows to reveal the disturbing truth about the late Barack Obama Sr, his and President Obama's father.
Last week, Mr Ndesandjo published an autobiographical novel, Nairobi to Shenzhen: A Tale of Love In The East.
It paints a shocking picture of his abusive and alcoholic father, one that is at odds with the man portrayed in Dreams From My Father, President Obama's best-selling 1995 memoir.
Howard Kurtz: Glenn Beck Dominating Conversation Without Mainstream Media (Politics Daily)
In his column in Monday's paper, Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz observes that Fox News personality Glenn Beck is dominating the media conversation -
- even to the point of forcing a White House official to resign -- without a bit of help from newspapers, television or other mainstream news sources. "It has become a familiar chain reaction:
Talk-show hosts whip up a noisy controversy, which hits higher decibels as it spreads to the establishment media, which costs some unfortunate soul his job," Kurtz writes.
"But now the middleman -- the journalistic gatekeepers of yore --may no longer be necessary."
Kurtz notes that White House green jobs advisor Van Jones, who Beck had relentlessly attacked for his profane comments and conspiracy-theorist past, resigned before the New York Times had run a single story on the conflict.
Neither had there been any mention of the story on any of the network newscasts. Beck's ratings have soared to 2.25 million viewers for his 5 p.m. weekday slot in the Fox News lineup, despite losing multiple advertisers over his routinely over-the-top commentary.
He deflects criticism by describing himself as a former "dirtbag" and a "clown," but at least this time, he beat the mainstream press to a serious story.
New York Times Managing Editor Jill Abramson said her newspaper was "a beat behind" on the Van Jones story, and that "we should have been paying closer attention."
Acorn....
Anita Dunn....
The list will keep growing the MSM has given up all semblance of Journalism.
The Fourth estate has proven itself to be the impotent puppets of the liberals and the dimocRATS.
Instead of hold them to a set of standards they raise the bar for Conservatives and Repulicans and give the others a pass.
Nixon was brought down by his own hubris, but also by solid investigative journalism by Woodward and Bernstien. Same with Gary Hart.
But now it was the National Enquirer that showed John Edwards pecadillos, and talk radio and Matt Drudge that brought out the infamous "Blue Dress" against Bill Clinton, as well as Castle Grande, whitewater etc.....
SF Chronicle to print on high-quality glossy paper (AP)
SAN FRANCISCO — The San Francisco Chronicle says it will become the first newspaper in the nation to print on high-quality glossy paper.
Can making the progressive bias of the paper look better and more well presented change the fact that people don't want to read the content? Or is this what they mean by “polishing a turd”?
Glossy paper used to be referred to as ‘clay coated’. Historically it has been FAR more expensive than newsprint, especially post-consumer newsprint. And newsprint is one of the highest operating costs of a newspaper. This has to be for marketing purposes, not CFO-driven.
Maybe they’re figuring up market advertisers will be more likely to pay for space on glossy paper.
This definitely seems like a move towards the boutique market and away from being a daily for the masses, which I guess makes sense when the masses are abandoning the Chronicle’s.
MSNBC barely registers with online news readers (Alexa MSN statistics)
Where people go on Msn.com:
* 19.6% runonce.msn.com
* 19.1% msn.com
* 5.8% fr.msn.com
* 5.1% jp.msn.com
* 4.6% search.msn.com
* 4.1% br.msn.com
* 3.5% prodigy.msn.com
* 3.0% msnbc.msn.com
What’s really bad is the most traffic they get * 19.6% runonce.msn.com * comes from fresh installs of Windows or Internet Explorer. * 19.6% runonce.msn.com * is the default page that loads the very first time.
MSLSD the home of the Communist Moonbats. No one else reads them.
Foxnews.com - traffic rank in US: 38
MSNBC.com - traffic rank in US: 2,643
How many Heads of State bowed to Akihito? (Hint..only 0ne)
http://domania.us/Oaccess/OBAMA/O-JapanBow.gif ^
Flashback : NYT blasts Clinton for … almost bowing to Akihito (Hot Air)
It’s worth posting again, not just because Obama pulled another boneheaded protocol violation and bowed to an emperor, but in this case bowed to the same emperor with whom Bill Clinton almost committed the same protocol violation.
Douglas Jehr, in a 1994 New York Times report, made it clear that had Clinton actually executed a full bow, it would have destroyed a precedent dating to the founding of the Republic:
NYT Flashback 1994: No, It Wasn't a Bow-Bow (Clinton admonished for bow to Japanese Emperor)NY Times DOUGLAS JEHL
"IF I see another king, I think I shall bite him," Teddy Roosevelt once growled. Offered that opportunity with the Japanese equivalent last week, Bill Clinton turned out to have had quite something else in mind.
It wasn't a bow, exactly. But Mr. Clinton came close. He inclined his head and shoulders forward, he pressed his hands together.
It lasted no longer than a snapshot, but the image on the South Lawn was indelible: an obsequent President, and the Emperor of Japan.
Canadians still bow to England's Queen; so do Australians. Americans shake hands. If not to stand eye-to-eye with royalty, what else were 1776 and all that about?
But Mr. Clinton, alas, is not the only one since George Washington who has seemed not quite to know what to make of monarchs.
Flashback : Obama pretty happy about KSM getting a “full military trial” (Hot Air)
Did this guy actually have the brass balls to warn people about turning the Fort Hood trial into “political theater”, the morning after he granted Khaled Sheikh Mohammed a jihadist megaphone in New York City?
Daniel Pearl's dad is sickened by Obama's 9/11 trial decision (NYPost)
The father of slain Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl slammed the Obama administration's decision to hold a public trial for admitted 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed -- who boasted of killing his son in Pakistan.
Judea Pearl said he was "sick to the stomach" when he heard that the Justice Department decided to prosecute Mohammed in Manhattan federal court.
"I don't want to hear every morning in the papers what KSM did," Pearl told The Post last night. "Danny was killed once. Now he will be killed 10 times a day. Leave him alone."
His son's beheading in 2002 was caught on a gruesome video that shocked the world.
"The 21st century saw three shocks," Pearl said. "The first was 9/11. The second was the killing of my son. And the third was the shock today."
The reporter's outraged father, a UCLA professor, said a public trial would allow the admitted mass murderer to "boast about his cruelty" and encourage other terrorists to inflict harm.
Pearl said the prosecution of Mohammed should be done in closed session to avoid giving terrorists a platform.
Key 9/11 Suspect to Be Tried in New York (Sweetness-Light)
Shaikh Mohammed, the self-described mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, and four other men accused in the plot will be prosecuted in federal court in New York City, a federal law enforcement official said early on Friday.
Isn’t it odd?
At this very moment we’re being told that Mr. Hasan can’t get a fair military trial in the Ft. Hood area because there would be just too much prejudice.
And yet New York City is seen as a suitable venue for trying a man who is accused of masterminding the death of 3,000 New Yorkers.
Notice too how the New York Times does not even deign to explicitly mention that Mr. Mohammed and his four accomplices are going to enjoy a civilian trial.
The Times merely notes that they will be tried in “federal court” before they quickly move on to stress that the Cole detainees will be tried before a “military commission.”
Perhaps they are hoping no one will notice.
Still, remember how Harry Reid assured us back in May of 2009 that terrorists would never be held in this country?
Mr. Reid said:[P]art of what we don’t want is them be put in prisons in the United States. We don’t want them around the United States.
And speaking of lies, isn’t it amazing the amount of mendacity the New York Times can fit into just one paragraph?
Documents have shown that the CIA used waterboarding — a controlled drowning technique — against Mr. Mohammed 183 times in March 2003. Mr. Nashiri is one of two other detainees known to have been waterboarded before the Bush administration shut down the program, which high-level officials had approved after the Justice Department wrote legal memorandums arguing that the president, as commander-in-chief, could authorize interrogators to bypass anti-torture laws.
As we have noted often before, these so-called ‘documents’ are ambiguous at best. And Mr. Mohammed himself has claimed to have been water-boarded a total of five times.
Moreover, not only would it have been preposterous to have waterboarded Mr. Mohammed at least six times a day for a solid month, it would serve as definitive proof that waterboarding is a) not dangerous and, b) ineffective.
As for the legal memorandums, it is simply a bold faced lie to claim they argued that the President could authorize by-passing anti-torture laws. The memos rightly claimed that waterboarding was not torture under any accepted legal definition of the term.
But the New York Times will say anything to protect their terrorist heroes.
Indeed, we expect to see them hawking ‘Free MSM’ t-shirts any day now.
Obama’s swelling ego (Boston.com)
PRESIDENT OBAMA was too busy to attend the celebrations in Germany this week marking the fall of the Berlin Wall 20 years ago.
But he did appear by video, delivering a few brief and bloodless remarks about how the wall was “a painful barrier between family and friends’’ that symbolized “a system that denied people the freedoms that should be the right of every human being.’’
He referred to “tyranny,’’ but never identified the tyrants - he never uttered the words “Soviet Union’’ or “communism,’’ for example.
He said nothing about the men and women who died trying to cross the wall. Nor did he mention Harry Truman or Ronald Reagan - or even Mikhail Gorbachev.
He did, however, talk about Barack Obama.
“Few would have foreseen,’’ declared the president, “that a united Germany would be led by a woman from [the former East German state of] Brandenburg or that their American ally would be led by a man of African descent. But human destiny is what human beings make of it.’’
As presidential rhetoric goes, this was hardly a match for “Ich bin ein Berliner,’’ still less another “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.’’
But as a specimen of presidential narcissism, it is hard to beat.
Obama couldn’t be troubled to visit Berlin to commemorate a momentous milestone in the history of human liberty.
But he was glad to explain to those who were there why reflections on that milestone should inspire appreciation for the self-made “destiny’’ of his own rise to power.
Was there ever a president as deeply enamored of himself as Barack Obama?
CMS: House health bill will hike costs $289B [discredits Democrats’ assertions will lower costs]The Hill
The House-approved healthcare overhaul would raise the costs of healthcare by $289 billion over the next 10 years, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan, independent Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).
The long-awaited report sent to lawmakers late Friday by the Department of Health and Human Services should serve as a "stark warning to every Republican, Democrat and Independent worried about the future of this nation," Ways and Means ranking member Dave Camp (R-Mich.) said in a statement on Saturday.
Though House Republicans pressed to have this analysis completed before the lower chamber voted on the Democrats' sweeping healthcare reform bill last week, it was not ready until late Friday.
Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) highlighted the report on Saturday in a written statement. "This report once again discredits Democrats’ assertions that their $1.3 trillion government takeover of health care will lower costs, and it confirms that this bill violates President Obama’s promise to ‘bend the cost curve.’
It’s now beyond dispute that their bill will raise costs, which is exactly what the American people don’t want."
Republicans predicted that if the CMS numbers were available last Saturday when the House voted on Speaker Nancy Pelosi's healthcare bill, the slim majority that supported the measure 220-215 could have been reversed.
“This report confirms what virtually every independent expert has been saying: Speaker Pelosi’s health care bill will increase costs, not decrease them. I hope my colleagues in the Senate heed CMS’ findings and refuse to rush ahead until any bill under consideration can be certified to actually reduce health care costs," Camp said.
MassHealth Cuts Proposed $300 Million (Get ready for ObamaCare !)
boston.com
More than a million low-income Massachusetts residents covered by Medicaid will be required to pay more for doctor visits and receive prior approval for some medications under a plan announced today by the Patrick administration to begin to close a $307 million shortfall in the state's MassHealth program.
(UK) Hospitals treat Alzheimer’s patients so badly 'one in three carers complain' (The Telegraph UK)
Even greater numbers of relatives and friends said they wanted to complain but had not, a new report by the Alzheimer’s Society shows.
The figures are released just days after an independent review warned that 1,800 dementia patients are being killed every year by controversial ‘chemical cosh’ drugs given to keep them quiet.
Carers told the charity of sufferers left to sit in their own urine and nurses who complained that they had too many patients to look after.
The report also heard of patients going hungry because they were not helped to eat or drink and many were generally treated with a lack of basic dignity and respect.
One carer said that when nurses were asked for help with cleaning her mother they responded “that’s someone else’s job”.
The charity said that the situation was a “disgrace”.
The study also found that almost eight in 10 carers, 77 per cent, were dissatisfied with the quality of dementia care in hospitals.
Govt: Medicare Paid $47 Billion in Suspect Claims (AP)
The government paid more than $47 billion in questionable Medicare claims including medical treatment showing little relation to a patient's condition, wasting taxpayer dollars at a rate nearly three times the previous year.
Excerpts of a new federal report, obtained by The Associated Press, show a dramatic increase in improper payments in the $440 billion Medicare program that has been cited by government auditors as a high risk for fraud and waste for 20 years.
It's not clear whether Medicare fraud is actually worsening. Much of the increase in the last year is attributed to a change in the Health and Human Services Department's methodology that imposes stricter documentation requirements and includes more improper payments — part of a data-collection effort being ordered government-wide by President Barack Obama next week to promote "honest budgeting" and accurate statistics.
Still, the fiscal 2009 financial report — covering the first few months of the Obama administration — highlights the challenges ahead for a government that is seeking in part to pay for its proposed health care overhaul by cracking down on Medicare fraud.
Only Middle-Class Taxpayers Will be Put In Jail For Not Buying Obamacare Insurance!
Only the middle-class taxpayers will face jail for not buying Obamacare insurance.
The rich, no problem. Even if they never use the low quality doctors who would love it, the rich would pay the price as just another government inconvenience/tax
The poor, no problem there, either. The government (us taxpayers) will pay for it for them. The proposed law specifies that.
How could the poor be put into jail when it's the taxpayers who are legally responsible for paying their medical bills?
After all, we're legally required to pay their for food (food stamps); housing (section 8 and HUD); cars (cash for clunkers); even their utilities (the famous "Obama Money".)
Maybe if a poor person refuses to pay for Obamacare, a middle class person will go to jail for them too!
No Party ID on ABC for Imprisoned Jefferson; CBS Skips Sentencing(Newsbusters)
Former Congressman William Jefferson, the New Orleans Democrat with bribery cash hidden in his freezer, was sentenced Friday to 13 years in prison, the longest-ever for a Member of Congress on a corruption charge --
Yet the CBS Evening News didn't utter a word about it, just as that newscast ignored his August conviction, while ABC's World News didn't bother to mention his party affiliation.
NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams noted Jefferson's party in this short item: “Former Louisiana Democratic Congressman William Jefferson made headlines a while back when the FBI found $90,000 in cash hidden in his freezer. Today, he was sentenced to 13 years in prison for taking bribes.”
ABC's Charles Gibson, however, the MRC's Brad Wilmouth noticed, failed to identify Jefferson as a Democrat: “Former Louisiana Congressman William Jefferson has been sentenced to 13 years in prison for his conviction on federal bribery charges.
Authorities found $90,000 wrapped in foil in Jefferson’s freezer, part of the half million dollars prosecutors say he received for using his influence to broker business deals in Africa.”
Calif-ornery (California is stealing from its residents) The Tribune-Review, Pittsburgh, Pa.
On Nov. 1, the government of the state of California began withholding from workers' paychecks 10 percent more than what it had been withholding.
The Los Angeles Times described this move -- prompted by California's fiscal calamity -- as "a forced, interest-free loan" from taxpayers to the government.
The Times explained to its California readers that "You'll be repaid any extra withholding in April. Those who would receive a refund anyway will receive a larger one, and those who owe taxes will owe less."
The ostensible purpose of withholding is to better ensure that taxpayers actually pay the taxes they owe. Governments fear that without withholding, too many taxpayers won't have enough to pay their full tax bills.
Regardless of the merits or demerits of this justification for withholding, California's government is now using withholding for a quite different purpose: to extract a forced loan.
Put more plainly, California's government has become a blatant thief.
Schwarzenegger: This year's budget gap may hit $7 billion
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger estimated Monday that California's budget will fall out of balance by $5 billion to $7 billion this fiscal year, on top of a $7.4 billion gap already projected for 2010-11.
If true, state leaders would confront at least a $12.4 billion to $14.4 billion problem when Schwarzenegger releases his budget in January.
California currently has an $84.6 billion general fund budget.
Socialists arrive in Evanston for national convention (The Democrat Party had a convention this weekend?) Chicago Tribune
Marching to a different drummer who perennially draws dreamers and dissenters to Chicago, the Democratic Socialists of America came to town Friday -- or at least close. Their three-day national convention was held at an Evanston hotel.
The faithful still display the passion of predecessors who made Chicago the birthplace of working-class politics.
In House, Many Spoke With One Voice: Lobbyists’
WASHINGTON — In the official record of the historic House debate on overhauling health care, the speeches of many lawmakers echo with similarities. Often, that was no accident.
Statements by more than a dozen lawmakers were ghostwritten, in whole or in part, by Washington lobbyists working for Genentech, one of the world’s largest biotechnology companies.
full story: www.nytimes.com/2009/11/15/us/politics/15health.html?_r=1&hp
Post a Comment