The Pajamahadin: 11/01/2010

Tim Geithner: For Once, It's Not All Bush's Fault

Offering a status report on the economy, Secretary Geithner said that the economy is growing at about a rate of 2-2.5% but it’s still not very strong. The question is whether job growth will be enough. He acknowledged some risk of a double-dip recession, but said that was largely because Europe is currently “a mess.”

The New York Times' Situational Ethics

When the Climategate e-mails came to light, the New York Times refused to publish them because they had been obtained illegally. So, what about Wikileaks?

The New York Times has taken an admirable stand on the potentially-criminal release of diplomatic cables by the online "whistleblowers" at WikiLeaks. Said one Times reporter: "The documents appear to have been acquired illegally and contain all manner of private information and statements that were never intended for the public eye, so they won't be posted here."

Oh, wait. That wasn't in reference to the WikiLeaks documents. That was the Times's former environmental blogger Andy Revkin discussing the so-called ClimateGate emails. The Times has, in fact, posted a number of American diplomatic documents obtained illegally by WikiLeaks, and containing massive amounts of sensitive diplomatic communications.

As The Terror Threat Grew

Portland's ruling class worried about themselves.

"I was recently told by a media person that if something happens in this city, I'm toast."

So said Tom Potter, mayor of Portland, Oregon, on April 28, 2005 as he and the city council voted to bar Portland police from participating in one of the federal government's key anti-terrorism initiatives, the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force. In Portland's deep-blue precincts, there was intense opposition to the Bush administration's conduct of the war on terror; residents worried the task force might violate state anti-discrimination laws by targeting Muslims for their religious and political views. So city leaders forbade police from taking part in it.

Obama Sinks To 39% Approval

If this were George Bush, it would make the top of the hour news.

President Barack Obama's job approval rating has dropped to the lowest point of his Presidency at 39%, and in potential match-ups with Republicans in 2012, he trails Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush and Newt Gingrich and is just one point ahead of Sarah Palin.

Negotiating With An Imposter

We've been negotiating surrender with an imposter. Smart diplomacy.

“It’s not him,” said a Western diplomat in Kabul intimately involved in the discussions. “And we gave him a lot of money.”

American officials confirmed Monday that they had given up hope that the Afghan was Mr. Mansour, or even a member of the Taliban leadership.

NATO and Afghan officials said they held three meetings with the man, who traveled from in Pakistan, where Taliban leaders have taken refuge.

The fake Taliban leader even met with President Hamid Karzai, having been flown to Kabul on a NATO aircraft and ushered into the presidential palace, officials said.

The episode underscores the uncertain and even bizarre nature of the atmosphere in which Afghan and American leaders search for ways to bring the nine-year-old American-led war to an end. The leaders of the Taliban are believed to be hiding in Pakistan, possibly with the assistance of the Pakistani government, which receives billions of dollars in American aid.

Nausea Inducing Photo Spread Of The Century

Jane Fonda does a "steamy shoot." Personally, I prefer beauty and brains.

Obama Is Too Smart For Us

According to Joe Biden. And further, he explains that the problem is that Obama places too much faith in the American public.

[R]eporter Lisa DePaulo pressed Biden repeatedly on why President Obama isn’t connecting with the American public and is instead viewed as professorial and aloof. “So what is it?” asked DePaulo.

“I think what it is, is he’s so brilliant. He is an intellectual,” Biden said.

Also, Obama has a “blind faith” in the American public’s ability to understand the benefits of his policies. “[He says] ‘No. The American people get this. Just tell them. Just go out there and do the right thing’,” Biden said.

Biden went on to explain how Obama’s childhood shows he does, in fact, deeply understand the American public. “Look, think about the guy. This is an African American who had a Caucasian mother, raised in a Caucasian neighborhood by Caucasian grandparents. Talk about a guy who knows what it’s like. This is a guy who gets it,” Biden said.

As for not getting it, Joe Biden explains why he is so subdued and introverted himself.

Less importantly, but more hilariously, Biden revealed his dad failed utterly in imparting a key lesson on his young Pennsylvanian son.

“My dad used to have an expression. He used to say, ‘Joey, never complain and never explain’,” Biden said.

To summarize, Biden’s dad instructed his son to emulate a brooding, silent cowboy, and instead, we got a vice president infamous for word vomit.

Predatory Student Loans Not Contributing To Washington Economy

The good news is that Washington experienced a net gain of 5900 jobs in October. The bad news is that more than two thirds of those jobs were in the public sector. Admittedly, my formal training in economics is limited to about 8 units several decades ago, but I’m reasonably confident that a job market that creates two public sector jobs for every private sector job is not sustainable. It is the private sector that creates the wealth that provides sustenance for the public sector, and there is simply no way that a single private sector employee can generate enough wealth to support his own family and two others. The 5900 jobs “created” in October bring the 2010 total in Washington to 6000. That’s all. For the whole year.

October’s private sector job creation included 1500 professional and business services, 800 service jobs in the wholesale trade, 400 service jobs in information, 400 service jobs in the financial services sector and 300 jobs in retail sales. All of these jobs are in the service sector. No one was hiring “activists.”

Meanwhile, the manufacturing sector lost 400 jobs, as did transportation. Another 200 disappeared from the mining and logging industries as did 300 in hospitality and leisure.

So if you’re coming to Washington looking for a job, don’t plan on actually creating or building anything.

Another news story I read this last week noted that the few private sector jobs that our country is creating are mostly in low tax, right-to-work states, which certainly makes sense. Washington’s high tax, union dominated political climate recently drove Boeing to start construction of a new 787 assembly plant in South Carolina.

Even someone with my limited economic training can figure out that this is not going to last. If Washington is ever going to dig itself out of its economic hole, its ruling class will have to look past the interests of its traditional campaign contributors and power brokers and take difficult decisions.

Unfortunately higher education in this state (and in every other state for that matter) is not contributing as much as it could to economic vitality. For all of the hand wringing and political posturing dedicated to the problem of underwater mortgages, mortgages in which the principal balance exceeds the value of the property, higher education is creating a bubble of its own with underwater college degrees.

Universities are pouring out graduates with degrees in subjects that have little or no market value. And to get these worthless degrees the students have accumulated mountains of student loan debt which will weigh heavily on their own futures.

Mortgage lenders have become favorite targets of our ruling class for their supposed “predatory lending practices,” otherwise known as subprime mortgages. Subprime mortgages invited people with poor credit histories and lower incomes to purchase homes that they otherwise could not afford. This practice was forced upon lenders and was once touted by the same ruling class that now condemns it as a means to provide lower income people with an opportunity to accumulate equity. It worked until it collapsed under its own weight.

In its own way, higher education has engaged in its own predatory lending practices by encouraging student to incur heavy debt loads with the promise that a college degree will increase future earning potential sufficiently to make that loan a good investment. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. I recently stopped by a booth at an academic fair to pick up a recruiting brochure that was being handed out to prospective freshmen. It included a fanciful list of careers that this particular academic major supposedly prepared its graduates for. One of those jobs was as that of an “activist.” I don’t know that there are all that many jobs for professional troublemakers but I do know that the few that do exist don’t pay well and certainly do not contribute even one thin dime to wealth creation. It will take some time for an activist to pay off $50,000 or more in student loans. A recent New York Times article told the sad tale of a woman who accumulated $100,000 in student loan debt earning a degree in women's studies and is now discovering that her Bachelor’s degree is worth less than a high school diploma. Some investment.

Colleges and universities are not necessarily trade schools. But we do no one any favors by turning out graduates who won’t even be able to pay off their student loans.

Obama The Bi-Partisan?

Some Democrats see their party's problem as Barack Obama's bipartisanship. Huh? Surely it couldn't have anything to do with the Democrats forcing unpopular legislation down Americans throat by holding vote auctions for reluctant Democrats.

Several senators expressed the opinion that Obama needed to show more passion, while party liberals renewed their complaint that Obama should abandon the pretense of bipartisanship in the face of Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s intransigence and what they consider the Kentucky Republican’s blatantly political tactics aimed at making Obama a one-term president.

Others said Democratic leaders need to clearly spell out what they believe are the motivations behind the Republicans' positions: that they are beholden to special interests, who bankroll their campaigns.
If Democrats keep losing the message war, they worry, they will be wiped out in 2012.

Charlie Rangel To Be Censured

I don't know what is more ridiculous - that Charlie Rangel's crime only merit a scolding, or that only 23 representatives have had to suffer the punishment. I'd bet that at least half the House commits criminal offenses on a daily basis.

The Obamatons Want To Regulate Your Internet Content

What could go wrong? I mean, everything else they've touched has turned to gold.

Don't Make Roger Ailes Angry

You wouldn't like him when he's angry. But I do.

The onetime Republican strategist is a man of strong opinions, in case that wasn’t clear, and he also puts his money where his mouth is. When Juan Williams was fired by National Public Radio for remarks he made on Fox about fearing airplane passengers in Muslim garb, Ailes rushed to award him a three-year, $2 million contract.

“A guy who gets fired and humiliated in the press can lose a lot of confidence,” Ailes says. Calling Williams “a pure liberal,” Ailes says he wanted to compensate the pundit for his losses because he was “mad” and “I didn’t want him to have to call his wife and say we lost money.”

Then he turned his sights on NPR executives.

“They are, of course, Nazis. They have a kind of Nazi attitude. They are the left wing of Nazism. These guys don’t want any other point of view. They don’t even feel guilty using tax dollars to spout their propaganda. They are basically Air America with government funding to keep them alive.”

Thank Nancy

The Democratic National Committee is offering you the chance to thank Nancy Pelosi for all that she's done for America.

Just Another Brick In The Stonewall

Cracks are showing in the Obama/Holder Black Panther stonewall.

The Justice Department still hasn't explained its decision to drop most of its voter-intimidation case against violent Black Panthers 18 months ago. If the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights finally adopts its report on the controversy, the great lengths Justice officials have taken to avoid scrutiny will be exposed.

As the draft comes up for a vote on Friday, new findings from a Judicial Watch lawsuit will further eviscerate the lame excuses Justice has offered. Even in heavily redacted form, department e-mails unearthed last week show top political appointees not just vaguely reviewing and approving the decision to drop most of the case, but actually directing and editing court filings.

This contradicts the department's official story that the decisions were made by career attorneys who merely secured pro-forma approval from political superiors. The political interference alleged by Judicial Watch is part of a larger pattern. Much of the information included in the Civil Rights Commission draft - some of it first unearthed by The Washington Times - details evidence of a broader politicization of the Justice Department.

Obamaland

The week in review. Obama's TSA is feeling people up at airports. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood wants to jam cell phones. And Jay Rockefeller wants to repeal the First Amendment.

The Gift That Just Keeps Giving

The Democrats chose Nancy Pelosi to lead them as Minority Leader. Makes sense to me! Why shouldn't Democrats keep the same leadership that made them the minority party in the first place?

After weeks of uncertainty among Democrats over the future of House leadership, the party elected Nancy Pelosi as minority leader in a 150 to 43 vote. They also elected Maryland Rep. Steny Hoyer for whip and South Carolina Rep. James Clyburn as assistant leader.

North Carolina Rep. Health Shuler, leader of the fiscally conservative Blue Dog Coalition, who challenged Pelosi for the party’s top slot, acknowledged he did not have enough votes to win but led a small contingent of the party against Pelosi.

Fascist City Councilman Shuts Down Kid's Bake Sale

Plus, a chance to play "name that party."

Nancy Pelosi - The Gift That Just Keeps Giving

What would we do without her? Fortunately, we won't have to find out.

Pelosi is in no real danger of losing her job as leader of the Democratic Caucus, but she is being challenged by a diffuse set of critics, dozens of whom believe she should step aside after her party’s defeat, others who hope to strip her power to appoint loyalists to positions of influence within the caucus and still others who simply want more time to reflect on whether endorsing the same set of leaders is the best course of action for a defeated minority.

The Democratic fissures were laid bare Tuesday as various factions engaged in open warfare with one another, both in private discussions among lawmakers and in behind-the-scenes efforts to influence the outcome of the leadership elections and related votes on how to choose the party leader’s top lieutenants.

Pelosi and the old power brokers who led Democrats back into the majority four years ago are not conceding that they might be culpable in the party’s downfall.

How Politifact Bends Facts To Serve Democrats

Here's how Politifact uncovers the "truth:"

Here’s what Rand Paul said: “The average federal employee makes $120,000 a year. The average private employee makes $60,000 a year.”

Here are the facts: “Federal civil servants earned average pay and benefits of $123,049 in 2009 while private workers made $61,051 in total compensation, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. The data are the latest available.”

And so Politifact deems Rand Paul's assertion - false?

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/just-a-reminder-politifact-is-often-more-politics-than-facts-108512484.html#ixzz15Y4d7e1i

Democrats Proudly Defend Pork

Well, when your ideas can't sell themselves, bribery is your only course.

"I have an obligation to the people of Nevada to do what is important to Nevada, not what is important to some bureaucrat down here (in Washington) with green eyeshades," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said. "So I am not going, personally, going to back off of bringing stuff back to Nevada."

Housing Start "Unexpectedly" Weak

Let me check. Yep. Obama's still president. Harry Reid is still Senate Majority Leader. Until they're gone, we should expect nothing but bad economic news.

The last time starts were that low was in April 2009. In addition, housing starts in September were revised down to 588,000 from an original reading of 600,000. Economists surveyed by MarketWatch had expected housing starts in October to drop to an annual rate of 600,000 on a seasonally adjusted basis. Permits for new construction, viewed as a more accurate gauge of home building, rose 0.5% in October to an annualized rate of 547,000.

Obama's DOJ Still Doesn't Want Military To Vote

But now we have a House majority that cares.

Democrats Call For Dictatorship

We Shall Overcome - those troublesome voters.

Former President Bill Clinton’s chief of staff John Podesta, now the head of the Center for American Progress, called on President Obama to push forward with his agenda using federal agencies and executive branch power Tuesday, even though Democrats were dealt a blow in the recent midterm elections. Podesta said the American people want the president to move forward with his agenda.

“I think most of the conversation since the election has been about how President Obama adjusts to the new situation on Capitol Hill,” Podesta said. “While that’s an important conversation, it simply ignores the president’s ability to use all levels of his power and authority to move the country forward.”

George Soros Prefers Chinese Government To US

Democracy does tend to hobble fascism. I can see why Soros finds that frustrating.

"Today China has not only a more vigorous economy, but actually a better functioning government than the United States."

Guilty!

If only Charlie Rangel had taken Barack Hussein Obama's advice.

A House ethics subcommittee found Rep. Charlie Rangel, D-New York, guilty Monday on multiple violations of House rules.

Obama Goes Home

Somewhere other than the US, where people like weak US presidents. Reuters thinks he might be surprised.

If President Barack Obama is not yet convinced that his international star power has faded, his next round of transatlantic summitry should clear up any lingering doubts.

Obama's Asia Trip Was A Smashing Success

Once again, we're just not smart enough to understand it.

Strategy Versus Narrative

Barack Hussein Obama honestly believes that his midterm electoral rout is attributable to his our inability to understand his greatness, so he's trying to bring his narrative down to our level. He also seems to think that his failure to win the Afghan War is also a narrative failure.

“We have to assemble a coherent narrative . . . that everyone buys into,” said a senior administration official, one of several who discussed ongoing alliance negotiations on the condition of anonymity.

Circus Time

Rangel has both the facts and the law against him. The only path left to him is to drag the whole House of Representatives down to his level.

“It’s going to be a spectacle,” said Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a watchdog group. “It has lots of potential to be pathetic for Rangel and the committee...”

... Rangel is expected to defend himself during the trial, having parted ways with his legal defense team in October amid disputes over tactics and money. Rangel graduated from St. John’s Law School in 1960, but though he did stints as a private-practice lawyer and an assistant U.S. attorney before being elected to the House in 1970, he hasn’t practiced law for decades.
“If he’s representing himself, this is likely to be a bit of a circus,” said Robert Kelner, an ethics expert at the law firm Covington & Burling.

Why Does Keith Olbermann Still Have A Job?

Even his bosses are asking themselves that question.

From the moment Olbermann was found to have donated money to three Democratic candidates, there has been a deepening sense of anger and frustration among his colleagues, according to interviews with eight knowledgeable sources. These sources, who declined to be quoted by name because of the sensitivity of the situation, say that several of NBC’s front-line stars, including Tom Brokaw, have expressed concern to management that Olbermann has badly damaged MSNBC’s reputation for independence. (NBC and MSNBC executives declined to comment, and Olbermann declined to be interviewed.)

Network staffers use phrases like “scorched-earth policy” and “totally narcissistic response” to describe how Olbermann has dealt with criticism of his political donations. A recurring theme is that he has made it impossible for MSNBC to argue that it is journalistically different from Fox News, which has no prohibition against political donations by such commentators and talk-show hosts as Sean Hannity and Karl Rove. The word hypocrisy has frequently been aimed at Olbermann.

Keith Olbermann: The Wrath Of The Irrelevant

Keith Olbermann is not taking kindly to Ted Koppel's assertion that bathtub boy has contributed to the death of real news.

Ted Koppel on Sunday published an op-ed at the Washington Post wherein he claimed that opinionated television personalities like MSNBC's Keith Olbermann represent the death of real news.

The "Countdown" host apparently isn't taking this lying down for he tweeted the following Sunday evening:

FYI Special Comment tomorrow night: Koppel, False Equivalence, and his part in the real "death of news" [sic]

Windows Into Obama' Soul

The Politico has assembled a collection of Obamaisms that show us who he and his wife really are: Arrogant, leftist elitists.

“They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

“For the first time in my adult life,” Michelle Obama said early during the 2008 campaign, “I am proud of my country.”

“I think when you spread the wealth around,” Obama told him, “it’s good for everybody.”

“I do think at a certain point you’ve made enough money.”

“We don’t mind the Republicans joining us. They can come for the ride, but they gotta sit in back.”

"We’re going to punish our enemies and we’re gonna reward our friends."

Obama Can't Keep Even His Simplest Promises

Barack Hussein Obama promises that he would post all bill online for at least 5 days before signing so that Americans would have a chance to read them. So, how's he doing? Well, his score is actually lower than his approval ratings.

Obama Finally Takes Border Security Seriously

The Canadian border. Obama is spending $23 million to secure the Whitetail border crossing.

The crossing sees an average of only five travelers a day. The Canadian side of the border crossing is closing, so it will be a one-way street. With $1.5 million already spent on Whitetail, the project has stalled indefinitely. Meanwhile, we've heard there are some border problems to the south that might need addressing.

Ben Nelson (D-Nebraska) Trailing Badly

Two years out. But as we learned in Washington, California, Nevada and West Virginia, don't get cocky. Especially since two years is an eternity in politics.

A statewide poll commissioned by the Nebraska Republican Party offers good and bad news for U.S. Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb.

The bad news for Nelson: The senator could find himself the underdog if he decides to run in 2012, according to the poll.

The good: His approval ratings appear to be trending up.

The survey shows Nelson trailing Republican Attorney General Jon Bruning by 15 percentage points in a head-to-head hypothetical match up.

But the GOP poll also found Nelson's favorable rating at 50 percent - with an unfavorable rating of 43 percent.

His approval rating - in a GOP survey that looked at likely voters and, as such, emphasized Republicans - appears to have increased since January, when an Omaha World-Herald Poll of registered voters found that 42 percent approved of the Democrat shortly after he cast the deciding vote in favor of President Barack Obama's health-care law.

Obama Lied, Jobs Died

Barack Hussein Obama lied to justify his oil drilling ban. Do you remember when Obama promised us an administration that would be guided by truth and science?

The White House rewrote crucial sections of an Interior Department report to suggest an independent group of scientists and engineers supported a six-month ban on offshore oil drilling, the Interior inspector general says in a new report.

In the wee hours of the morning of May 27, a staff member to White House energy adviser Carol Browner sent two edited versions of the department report’s executive summary back to Interior. The language had been changed to insinuate the seven-member panel of outside experts – who reviewed a draft of various safety recommendations – endorsed the moratorium, according to the IG report obtained by POLITICO.

“The White House edit of the original DOI draft executive summary led to the implication that the moratorium recommendation had been peer-reviewed by the experts,” the IG report states, without judgment on whether the change was an intentional attempt to mislead the public.

John Murtha's One Last Slap At Taxpayers

A $150,000 bronze statue.

At a news conference Tuesday announcing plans for a 7-foot-tall statue of her husband, Joyce Murtha said he should be portrayed as serious but not stern.

"He would sometimes have a slight smile on his face," she said. The sculptor selected to execute the statue, Wayne Hyde of Bedford County, "has been given a lot of photographs" of the congressman, she said.

Tom Caulfield of Veteran Community Initiatives Inc. of Johnstown, one of the organizers, said the selection of the likeness and pose will involve a great deal of back and forth, with the last word likely coming from Joyce Murtha.

The statue will be erected in a parklet next to the Cambria County War Memorial Arena in Johnstown. The unveiling is slated for October 2011.

Sixty Five Seats?

There are still 9 undecided Congressional seats. Republicans lead in six. No wonder Nancy Pelosi wants to party like it's 2008.

Biden's Government Transparency Meeting Is "Closed Door"

The most irony-proof regime in history.

Joe's had some problems with promises recently. He assured everyone that last summer would be full of economic recovery. Which it wasn't. And Joe guaranteed that his Democratic Party would maintain majorities in both houses of Congress in last week's midterm election. Which it didn't.

Possibly the most important event of the vice president's day Tuesday is to meet at 2:15 with Earl Devaney. Everyone knows him as chairman of the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board -- the top guy monitoring the gazillion-dollar stimulus and the overdue economic recovery, and ensuring that the taxpayers financing same know all about it.

However, no one outside the room will know what goes on in that Biden-Devaney meeting. That's because the government meeting on government transparency has been closed.

Bernie Sanders Demonstrates How Essential First Amendment Is

He wants to use his power to prevent conservatives out of the news media.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said he would look to block a merger between NBC and Comcast, citing the decision last week by MSNBC to suspend liberal anchor Keith Olbermann.

Sanders said Comcast’s attempt to acquire NBC from General Electric would result in “another media giant run by a Republican supporter of George W. Bush.”

The Vermont senator, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, has loudly criticized MSNBC’s suspension of Olbermann last week for violating company policies when he donated to three Democratic candidates. The suspension was imposed Friday, and Olbermann will be back on the air Tuesday night.

Hitler Learns That The Republicans Have Taken The House

Don't Cross Sarah Palin

I don't see Sarah Palin as a viable presidential candidate yet, but she will be a formidable force within the Republican Party for some time to come. Ruling Class Republicans would do well to stay on her good side.

Critics contended that Ronald Reagan was nothing more than a third-rate Hollywood actor who lacked the intellectual depth and educational training to serve successfully as president. Now they say much the same about Sarah Palin.

Reagan jumped high over this low bar of expectations, leading an insurgent conservative movement into the White House. Already two years away from 2012, Mrs. Palin has become the "rock star" of conservatives and the Tea Party movement, drawing crowds far larger than Ronald Reagan ever dreamed of drawing at this stage in his career.

Mrs. Palin appeals to the very same people Reagan appealed to, including conservatives of several persuasions - economic, political, religious and social. She is the one person in the Republican Party who has burnished credentials in all spheres of the conservative coalition. Her every word commands center stage on television.

Would Life Without Chocolate Be Worth Living?

Guys would have to get the babes with their charm alone. The Earth might be left unpopulated.

The Independent in Britain has a startling report for chocolate lovers:

John Mason, executive director and founder of the Ghana-based Nature Conservation Research Council, has forecast that shortages in bulk production (of cocoa) in Africa will have a devastating effect: "In 20 years chocolate will be like caviar. It will become so rare and so expensive that the average Joe just won't be able to afford it."

The report explains that African farmers are abandoning their cocoa farms for other products that are easier to grow and easier to monetize. Palm oil, for example, is in greater demand because it's being used as biofuel. So, as the cocoa trees die out, farmers are planting something else.

Obama Lied: Americans Will Die

The Obama regime insists that no terrorists have crossed the US-Mexico border. They lied.

New York Times Ask Nancy Pelosi To Go Away

Democrats need someone who can convince Americans that Democrats aren't what they appear to be.

What they need is what Ms. Pelosi has been unable to provide: a clear and convincing voice to help Americans understand that Democratic policies are not bankrupting the country, advancing socialism or destroying freedom.

You gotta give it to the Times. Please tell what the Democrats are doing other than "bankrupting the country, advancing socialism or destroying freedom?" Oh yeah, now I remember. They're also pandering to Islam and undermining national security.

NPR Chief Denounces Calls For Defunding

As Republicans look for places to cut the budget, what better place to look than a taxpayer-funded left wing propagandist with no legitimate reason for existence?

Speaking at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Washington Sunday on the “Future of Journalism,” National Public Radio President and CEO Vivian Schiller said she takes calls for defunding NPR “very seriously,” while stressing how important government funding is for public broadcasting, especially for NPR’s member stations. She also recognized there’s a possibility that, with the new GOP majority in the House, those calls for defunding might be renewed.
“If defunding to public broadcasting were to occur, it would be devastating to public broadcasting. That’s a fact,” Schiller said.

Devastating for her and her cruddy network, but not for America. NPR contributes nothing that cannot be found in commercial radio. The only reason that NPR needs government funding is because its product is not good enough to survive in the marketplace.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2010/11/08/npr-chief-denounces-defunding-calls-in-speech-on-future-of-journalism/#ixzz14hMHsFOO

Racist Steny Hoyer Challenges James Clyburn

Queen Nancy wants to be minority leader. That leaves Steny Hoyer with only one choice - challenging James Clyburn for minority whip.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) is intensifying his push to capture the No. 2 post in the reshaped Democratic hierarchy, claiming new momentum in his clash with Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.).
“Hoyer is going to win,” a source close to the majority leader confidently told The Hill on Sunday.

Maxine Waters: The Sleaze Just Keeps Coming

Drip, drip, drip.

A lobbyist known as one of California's most successful power brokers while serving as a legislative leader in that state paid Rep. Maxine Waters' husband $15,000 in consulting fees at a time she was co-sponsoring legislation that would help save the real-estate finance business of one of the lobbyist's best-paying clients, records show.

I'm sure that pointing this out is racist.

Will The New Republican Majority Be Led By The Guys Who Made Them A Minority Party?

It will be interesting to see if the Republicans have learned anything. John Boehner's choices for committee chairmanships should tell us.

House Speaker-in-waiting John Boehner of Ohio is making critically important decisions this week that will go far toward determining whether his tenure as Nancy Pelosi's successor is marked by reform and progress or rebellion and lost opportunities. None of those decisions is more critical than who he backs as the new Republican committee chairmen in the House of Representatives. If he opts for a conventional approach that allows seniority to determine chairmanships, Boehner will seriously damage his credibility with voters who made crystal clear their demand for a new approach in Congress. Following tradition will also severely limit Boehner's ability to lead the freshman class, the group likely to have the greatest influence on the direction of the House in 2011.

Dingy Harry Reid Was Willing To Do Anything To Get Reelected

Including breaking the law.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid looked like toast a few days before the Nov. 2 election, trailing his Republican challenger Sharron Angle by three or more points in the campaign's concluding polls, according to RealClearPolitics. But when ballots were counted, Reid had somehow converted that deficit to a nearly six-point margin of victory. Most observers attributed the phenomenal success of Reid's last-ditch comeback to the Nevada Democratic Party's highly polished get-out-the-vote "ground game." But an internal e-mail from a Reid campaign operative to a Harrah's executive strongly suggests the Reid ground game depended at least in part on breaking the law.

Environmentalist Death Toll

Environmentalist wackos don't like being reminded of the number of people killed by their irrational, uninformed demands for organic and natural foods.

A Channel 4 documentary accusing the green movement of causing mass starvation in Africa by getting it wrong on genetically-modified food has been attacked as "malicious" and "ridiculous" by farm groups on the continent.

"What the Green Movement Got Wrong", broadcast this week, by the same channel that aired the hugely controversial "Great Climate Change Swindle" suggests that the Western green consensus against GM foods had impoverished the southern hemisphere.

"The programme suggests that were it not for the external pressure of northern environmental organisations, Africans would be happily eating genetically modified foods by now, and hunger would be a distant memory," said a statement from the African Biodiversity Network. "We oppose these ridiculous and malicious claims."

"The Most Arrogant Man He's Ever Met"

And the winner is: Barack Hussein Obama.

Bloomberg, according to Murdoch, “came back and said 'I never met in my life such an arrogant man'."

A spokesman for Bloomberg did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Murdoch – the Australian-born founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of News Corporation, which owns conservative media outlets ranging from Fox News Channel to the New York Post – is described by The Age as saying in the interview that President Obama “might make great speeches but doesn't get things done and doesn't listen to anybody.”

Emperor Obama And His Entourage

"Probably not since the days of the Pharaohs or the more ludicrous Roman Emperors has a head of state traveled in such pomp and expensive grandeur as the President of the United States of America."

China Criticizes Obama's Economic Backwardness

Socialism is so twentieth century.

Cui Tiankai, a deputy foreign minister and one of China’s lead negotiators at the G20, said on Friday that the US plan for limiting current account surpluses and deficits to 4 per cent of gross domestic product harked back “to the days of planned economies”.

Obama Demands Compromise, Refuses To Compromise

Irony alert: But Obama won't get it. The intellectually vain are irony-proof.

Days after Democrats received a self-described "shellacking" at the polls, President Obama called for an end to campaigning and an embrace of compromise.

But he signaled no willingness to bend on the first challenge likely to face him from a Republican House as he advocated the permanent extension of Bush-era tax cuts for families making less than $250,000 a year despite the GOP's resolve to extend the tax cuts for all income brackets.

Only Enduring Principles Will Cement An Enduring Victory

For two years now, Republicans have played the role of the dog that chases cars, in hot pursuit of a goal, but with no clear plan what to do once they attain it. But now they’ve caught it, or more accurately, it was handed to them, and now they have the burden of proving that they are worthy of the responsibility that the voters have assigned them. Up until now, the Republicans have profited primarily from their status as the default alternative to a Democratic Party that has given the voter every reason to turn them out.

And they don’t have a lot of time to present a plan. The landscape is not what it once was. It took 40 years of the Democratic Party’s arrogance and mismanagement to wear out the American people’s goodwill before they were thrown out of power in 1994. Republicans needed only 12 years to alienate America and return control to the Democrats. This time, the Democrats turned the trick in only four years. Clearly, Americans’ patience is not what it used to be.

One reason is that Americans have access to unfiltered information now. If we still lived in a world where Walter Cronkite and the New York Times held monopolistic control over information, there never would have been a Gingrich Revolution.

And this election should tell the Republicans what they need to do. After years of believing media advice that they needed to move toward the Democrats, the electorate demonstrated otherwise by tossing out moderates of both parties. On the day before the election a public opinion poll revealed that Nancy Pelosi’s job approval stood at 8%. Eight times that many disapproved of her work. Moderates rejected the Republicans in 2006 and 2008 because they failed to draw a significant distinction between themselves and the Democrats. Nancy Pelosi highlighted that distinction for them and independent voters rejected the Democrats’ vision.

The large majority of Americans have made it clear that they don’t want moderation. They want decisiveness. If Republicans are capable of learning, they could take lessons from what has worked. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell both won surprising victories by promising to govern conservatively. Both have grown in popularity by adhering to those promises. This is especially notable in New Jersey as that state is about as hostile to Republicans as any in the union.

If Republicans can demonstrate that they’ve learned their lessons and are willing to make the difficult choices necessary to steer America back on the right track, they are likely to be rewarded in 2012, because it’s unlikely that Democrats will be able to give Americans an affirmative reason to restore them to power.

Pennsylvania Governor Fast Eddie Rendell probably best summarized the fatal flaw in the Democratic Party on election morning as he predicted a better than expected result for the Democrats. He credited Barack Obama with appealing to the Democratic Party base to reinvigorate their enthusiasm.

Rendell identified the “heart and soul” of the Democratic base as “blacks, Latinos, gays and lesbians.”

The problem with having grievance politics as your strength is that even when you manage to win, your mandate is not the nationalization of one sixth of the economy, or an unprecedented intrusion of the federal government into every aspect of private life. You are only charged with retaliating against the dominant culture for the satisfaction of a few small slivers of the population.

Keeping that heart and soul enthusiastic also requires a constant refreshment of the culture of grievance. An outstanding example of just how difficult that cultivation has become can be found in columnist Eugene Robinson’s Election Day column in which he predictably exposed racism in the Republicans’ campaign battle cry: “Take back the government.”

Mr. Robinson inferred from this simple slogan that Republicans meant for white folks to take back the government from a black man. In fact the phrase is a call for a return to self government and away from the paternalistic path to serfdom that Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi sought to drive us down as though we were cattle.

Mr. Robinson could not possibly have found this slogan offensive if his grievance mentality had not overwhelmed his sense of irony and his long term memory. Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi used those identical words in 2008.

An appeal to tribal grievance will never be a match for a defense of liberty.

Other Than Everything, The Story Was Accurate

James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal daily produces his "Best of the Web" that includes a section titled "Other than that, the story was accurate," which points out a news story correction that largely invalidates a central thesis of the story. In this story at Think Progress, the correction points out that everything in the story is wrong.

UPDATED: We have been notified that Comcast has not yet officially taken over MSNBC/NBC Universal. Although Comcast has tentatively finalized a deal to purchase a majority stake in NBC, Comcast awaits final approval of the takeover from the Justice Department and from the Federal Communications Commission. A statement from Comcast reads: “The joint venture between Comcast and GE has not yet received regulatory approval. Comcast is not in any way involved with decisions made currently by NBC News.” However, once Comcast gains final approval from federal regulators to move forward, Comcast COO Steve Burke, a Bush fundraiser, will be placed at the helm of MSNBC and other NBC companies. Our original post inaccurately asserted that Comcast’s Burke was involved in the decision to fire Olbermann. We apologize for the error.

The Real Enduring Republican Victory

State legislatures. Now that the census is over, it's time to redraw Congressional districts. And the good guys have the pencil.

All those gains are hugely significant in redistricting. When the 2010 Census results are announced next month, the 435 House seats will be reapportioned to the states, and state officials will draw new district lines in each state. Nonpartisan commissions authorized by voters this year will do the job in (Democratic) California and (Republican) Florida, but in most states it's up to legislators and governors (although North Carolina's governor cannot veto redistricting bills).

Republicans look to have a bigger advantage in this redistricting cycle than they've ever had before. It appears that in the states that will have more than five districts (you can make only limited partisan difference in smaller states), Republicans will control redistricting in 13 states with a total of 165 House districts and Democrats will have control in only four states with a total of 40 districts. You can add Minnesota (seven or eiht districts) to the first list if the final count gives Republicans the governorship and New York (27 or 28 districts) to the second list if the final count gives Democrats the state Senate.

Obama's Unrepentent "Family Friend"

Bernardine Dohrn in 1969: “Dig it! First they killed those pigs and then they put a fork in pig Tate’s belly. Wild! Offing those rich pigs with their own forks and knives, and then eating a meal in the same room, far out! The Weathermen dig Charles Manson!”

Bernardine Dohrn today:

A Very Slow Learner

Margery Eagan required 30 years to figure out that Barney Frank is an asshole. No wonder Massachusetts keeps sending Democrats to Congress. Bay Staters are idiots.

After 30 years, Barney Frank finally lost my vote.

On election night, he lost my respect as well.

Frank’s road rage acceptance speech was an out-of-body experience.

There was the congressional king of anger, vituperation and vitriol lashing out at the Herald and Fox 25 for, in his words, “anger, vituperation . . . and vitriol.”

What, does he not own a mirror? Is he incapable of introspection? Has he never seen YouTube’s collection of his best TV hissy fits?

Barney seemed to have forgotten: He won. Big. And he was lucky he did.

Keith Olbermann Gone

Permanently?

Olbermann, who signed a four-year, $30 million contract extension in Nov. 2008, has left MSNBC once before.

In the late 1990′s, Olbermann had a program on MSNBC called “The Big Show.” In 1998, he left the network after protesting the incessant coverage of the Monica Lewinsky scandal. He ended up joining , of all places, Fox Sports. Olbermann was wooed back to MSNBC during the run-up to the Iraq War when MSNBC had a show called “Countdown: Iraq” hosted by Lester Holt. That show morphed into “Countdown with Keith Olbermann.”

Insiders we’ve talked to say Olbermann won’t be back. The question is whether he’ll leave or MSNBC keeps him off the air.

I'm surprised at what liberal news executives consider a firing offense. As a news anchor, Rick Sanchez was frequently wrong and always idiotic. But his job was secure until he complained that he was being held back professionally by a Jewish conspiracy that didn't like Cubans. It didn't matter that he had used his show to promote equally ridiculous and offensive conspiracy theories.

And now Keith Olbermann gets canned for donated to three Democratic campaign. What is MSNBC other than a 24 hours left wing Democrat campaign advertisement? Olbermann was okay when he called Michelle Malkin a "bag of meat." MSNBC had no problem with Olbermann's claim that Pat Tillman had been assassinated for opposing the Iraq War. MSNBC was perfectly comfortable with Olbermann's claim that former Vice President Dick Cheney directed a death squad out of his office.

None of these things are firing offenses. But donating to Democrats is. Who the hell does MSNBC think they're fooling? Are we supposed to believe that Keith Olbermann was unbiased until news of these donations came to light?

What Makes Obama So Arrogant?

One reason is that he surrounds himself with people like Valerie Jarrett.

In author David Remnick’s Obama biography, “The Bridge,” he quotes White House adviser and longtime friend Valerie Jarrett: “I think Barack knew that he had God-given talents that were extraordinary. He knows exactly how smart he is. ... He knows how perceptive he is. He knows what a good reader of people he is. And he knows that he has the ability — the extraordinary, uncanny ability — to take a thousand different perspectives, digest them and make sense out of them, and I think that he has never really been challenged intellectually. ... So, what I sensed in him was not just a restless spirit but somebody with such extraordinary talents that had to be really taxed in order for him to be happy. ... He’s been bored to death his whole life. He’s just too talented to do what ordinary people do.”

If Barack Hussein Obama doesn't believe that he's ever been challenged intellectually, it's because he lacks the humility to admit his failures even to himself. I've heard the man talk enough to have some appreciation of the depth and breadth of the man's ignorance. He has absolutely no idea of how much he doesn't know.

More Good News For Republicans

The gift that keeps on giving.
Nancy Pelosi plans to cling to as much power as she can and plans remain the face and voice of the Democratic Party.

Obama Needs A Good Mass Murder To Turn Things Around

Just as Clintonistas were disappointed that 9/11 occurred on Bush's watch and not Clinton's, Obamatons are hoping for an Oklahoma City bombing to revive Barack Hussein Obama. You'd think that Chris Matthews would be appalled, but he's right in there.

Americans Embrace Self-Government

Liberals believe that the American people to too simple to make decisions in their own best interests. Americans still have the power and the good sense to reject that.

Responding to Alter, George Mason University economist Don Boudreaux agreed that interest-group liberalism has indeed been leavened by idea-driven liberalism. Which is the problem.

"These ideas," Boudreaux says, "are almost exclusively about how other people should live their lives. These are ideas about how one group of people (the politically successful) should engineer everyone else's contracts, social relations, diets, habits, and even moral sentiments." Liberalism's ideas are "about replacing an unimaginably large multitude of diverse and competing ideas . . . with a relatively paltry set of 'Big Ideas' that are politically selected, centrally imposed, and enforced by government, not by the natural give, take and compromise of the everyday interactions of millions of people."

It's Official: AARP Screwed Its Membership

AARP sold out its membership for partisan politics and now seniors will have to cough up more money for health care insurance.

AARP's endorsement helped secure passage of President Barack Obama's health care overhaul. Now the seniors' lobby is telling its employees their insurance costs will rise partly as a result of the law.

Keith Olbermann Violates NBC's Ethical Standards

By donating to the campaigns of at least three Democratic candidates, Keith Olbermann violated NBC's ethical standards. I know what you're thinking: NBC has ethical standards?

MSNBC host Keith Olbermann made campaign contributions to two Arizona members of Congress and failed Kentucky Senate candidate Jack Conway ahead of Tuesday’s election — a potential violation of NBC’s ethics policies.

Olbermann, who acknowledged the contributions in a statement to POLITICO, made the maximum legal donations of $2,400 apiece to Conway and to Arizona Reps. Raul Grijalva and Gabrielle Giffords. He donated to the Arizona pair on Oct. 28 – the same day that Grijalva appeared as a guest on Olbermann’s “Countdown” show. Grijalva, a prominent liberal who was only declared a winner in his race Thursday night, was in a tight contest against tea party-backed candidate Ruth McClung when he appeared on Countdown – one of several appearances he made on the show.

NBC has a rule against employees contributing to political campaigns, and a wide range of news organizations prohibit political contributions – considering it a breach of journalistic independence to contribute to the candidates they cover.

Nancy Pelosi Not Planning To Go Quietly

Nancy Pelosi has a plan to ensure another Republican landslide in 2012. She's taking her 8% approval rating among swing voters and is planning to remain the face of the Democratic Party. Should be easy now that her party has been purged of its troublesome moderates.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi is seriously considering a bid for House minority leader, a campaign that could divide her decimated caucus.

Alan Grayson! The Voters Justed Your Ass Back To You!

What are you gonna do now?

“It’s quite possible that I’m going to Disney World,” Grayson told The Daily Caller in an interview Thursday. Grayson’s district covers Orlando, so he won’t need to travel far.

Over his two years in office, the New York native made headlines constantly for his antics, earning him the title of “America’s worst politician” in the pages of Newsweek from conservative writer George Will. Of his many notable moments, Grayson once asked Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate a Floridian for starting a website called MyCongressmanIsNuts.com; he crashed a local Republican meeting at a public restaurant knuckle dragging Neanderthals.” and accused them of spying on Obama supporters; and he called members of the GOP “

Republicans Made Obama A Lefty?

That's the incisive analysis from in inimitable (who would want to?) Chris Matthews.

Oh yeah! That's why Obama affiliated himself with ACORN, the SEIU, and National People's Action before he even became a politician. That's why he spent more than two decades soaking up Jeremiah Wright's anti-American rants. The Republicans made him do it.

How's That 40 Year Reign Working Out James?

Just saying.

Keith Olbermann Submits Unbeatable Candidate For The J. Gordon Coogler Award

For the worst book of 2010.

MSNBC host Keith Olbermann’s new book, “Pitchforks and Torches: The Worst of the Worst, From Beck, Bill, and Bush to Palin and Other Posturing Republicans,” has a lot in common with Olbermann’s daily television show: It’s built around the overwritten, overwrought meanderings of a smart but lazy man better known for anger than substance, who fancies himself an avenger for justice but is really just a thin-skinned tyrant in pundit’s clothing. Also, both feature hilarious images of Keith Olbermann’s face...

...Make no mistake: There is absolutely no “added value” in “Pitchforks and Torches.” There’s no introduction, no prologue, no preamble, no table of contents, no index, and no conclusion, afterward or post-script. Instead, Olbermann jumps right in. The first sentence in the book is “Number three: I could write a book–gate.” No, seriously, that’s it. Since that could have been written by a random word-generator operated by a sleepy chimpanzee, you might think you’re missing some context, but remember: That’s the first sentence, so there is no context yet. We’re all on the same page here. (Page 1. Try to keep up.)

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2010/11/04/thedc-review-keith-olbermanns-pitchforks-and-torches/#ixzz14Jt55Mtw

The Pajamahadin

Tuesday, November 30, 2010