Skip SOTU and Watch This

Rather than watch the State of the Union pack of lies tonight, you could listen to an honest man address some of our country’s big problems here:

Dr. Carson has been widely criticized for challenging Dear Leader.  Laura Ingraham made this observation about the criticism of Dr. Carson, “We can have celebrities talk about fracking and all sorts of political  issues…but the head of pediatric neurosurgery at one of the top hospitals in  the world” shouldn’t discuss healthcare.”

The Wall Street Journal Online adds to the healthcare discussion with this post:

Great Moments in Socialized Medicine “Shockingly bad care and inhumane treatment at a hospital in the Midlands led to hundreds of unnecessary deaths and stripped countless patients of their dignity and self-respect, according to a scathing report published on Wednesday,” reports the New York Times’s Sarah Lyall from London:

The report, which examined conditions at Stafford Hospital in Staffordshire over a 50-month period between 2005 and 2009, cites example after example of horrific treatment: patients left unbathed and lying in their own urine and excrement; patients left so thirsty that they drank water from vases; patients denied medication, pain relief and food by callous and overworked staff members; patients who contracted infections due to filthy conditions; and patients sent home to die after being given the wrong diagnoses.

We certainly hope the Times’s public editor sets Lyall straight. After all, as former Enron adviser Paul Krugman points out: “In Britain, the government itself runs the hospitals and employs the doctors. We’ve all heard scare stories about how that works in practice; these stories are false.”

What Difference Does It Make?

Benghazi

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta confirmed Thursday that, on the night of September 11, 2012,  Obama had no interested in the attack on the American Consulate in Benghazi.  Panetta informed Obama, at a regularly scheduled meeting, that an armed assault on the consulate, an act of war, had commenced just before their meeting.

Astonishingly, the Commander-in-Chief was not interested in this news.  Panetta testified that Obama had no further contact with him that evening.  Obama did not even contact him to see how things were going.  There is testimony that Hillary Clinton was similarly uninvolved.  Even for someone like me, who does not have a high opinion of Obama or Clinton, this callous incompetence is almost unbelievable.

As far as we know, the first serious involvement of Obama and Clinton in Benghazi was to concoct lies and alibis the next day, something they both do well.  Their adoring press was ready, as always, to help them with the cover-up.  A scandal that is 1000 times worse than Watergate was swept under the rug.  And Republicans, including Romney, were herded into submission.

The President knows that September 11 is a date when Osama’s Islamic warriors are especially likely to attack.  He knows that an armed attack on a diplomatic post is an act of war.  He knows that any response to the attack that involves U.S. forces crossing a country’s border requires Presidential approval.  And he could have known, if he cared, that brave Navy Seals were on the rooftop of the compound in Benghazi, fighting for their lives and begging for help.  The Seals were in radio contact with their superiors for most of the 7 hour ordeal.

But he didn’t care.  He did nothing.  He went to bed.  He went to a fundraiser in Vegas the next day.  This is stunning.  And the fact that both Obama and Hillary knew that the media would cover for them is equally stunning and disturbing.

Obama and Clinton both lied repeatedly about their actions and about the cause of the attack.  David Axelrod, the minister of propaganda, said, “when word of the attack came, the president was meeting with his top national security folks. He was talking to them well into the night. He was in touch with them during the day, as – during the next day as well. So, there is no question about the fact that he was focused on this.”

All B.S.. The President was focused on how to lie about this disaster and protect his chance for re-election.  The things that were truly important to him were how to hide the real unemployment figures, how to misrepresent the growth in the economy, how to sell the stories that Al Qaeda was dead and the Arab Spring was a good thing, how to destroy the character of the good man who was challenging his power.

Obama said Benghazi was “a bump in the road” and that voters would not pay much attention to it.  He was right.  We are still on his road, going downhill fast.

Media Groupies Out In The Open

power

The overwhelming media adulation for Hillary Clinton this week really brings into focus the fact that mainstream media is a branch of the Democrat party.  They don’t attempt to hide it much any more.  They are simply cheerleaders for leftists and consistent advocates of big government as the solution to all problems.

As the praise was piled higher and deeper for the phenomenal job Hillary has done as Secretary of State, I wondered what world they were living in.  Where, in the real world, are things better from Hillary’s efforts? Is the middle east better? Do we have better relationships with our enemies, or even with our allies?  One Senator at the Benghazi hearing did offer a concrete example of Her Greatness’s achievements –  The Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves.  Yes, indeed.

The facts  show repeated pleas for additional security in Benghazi as the danger and violence escalated.  The pleas were ignored.  On the night of 9-11, officials knew almost immediately that the attack was a planned assault and they knew there was no demonstration prior to the assault.  They crafted lies and a huge cover-up far more consequential than Watergate ever was.  With the media’s help, they successfully sold their lies.

The media act as defense attorneys for their friends and prosecuting attorneys for their enemies.  Their political allies are portrayed as smart, competent, good people; their enemies are stupid and bad.  News stories are filtered just that way.  And the facts don’t matter.

If there is economic destruction under a President’s policies, it is his fault if he is a conservative; someone else’s fault if he is a liberal.  The way economic news is reported is determined completely by who is in power.  A liberal leader with 8% unemployment, skyrocketing deficits, increasing poverty can be portrayed as a good man headed in the right direction.  A conservative with a much better record will be endlessly criticized.

Scaring the truth out of 3 terrorists by pouring water down their throat is reported as inexcusable torture if a conservative does it.  But, killing suspected terrorists with drone missiles, instead of interrogating them, is not so bad if liberals do it.  Guantanamo ceased being bad with the change of administrations.  Going to war with Libya without congressional approval was fine because a liberal did it. If you give government money to your contributor friends in business, massive amounts of money, it’s not a corruption story if you are a liberal.   If you secretly tell the Russian leader that you will be free to give him concessions after the election, it’s not selling out if you’re a Democrat, because you mean well.  And if you cheerlead the Muslim Brotherhood in the Arab Spring takeover…  well, you meant well there, too.

That’s the power of the (D).  KKK grand kleagle Senator Robert Byrd (D) was protected all his life from charges of racism.   Ted Kennedy (D) drove off a bridge and left a girlfriend to drown while he hurried home to plot a strategy for self protection. But self protection was easy – he is a Kennedy with a (D). The media worked hard and long to try to protect Bill Clinton (D) from his serial sexual predations and John Edwards (D) from his lies.  Barney Frank (D) played a major role in causing the sub-prime meltdown and he escaped unscathed.  And for black politicians (D), no level of corruption is taken seriously.  All that matters is that you support keeping black people on the Democrat Plantation.

But if your name is followed with (R), there are at least two strikes against you to begin with.  If you tap your foot in a bathroom stall, (Craig (R)), or kiss an unwilling girl (Packwood (R)) the media will cover the story intensely until you resign.  Clinton (D), can warn of Iraqs WMD’s, say “I guarantee you he will use the arsenal“, and pass the “Iraq Liberation Act” calling for regime change, but Bush (R) is a liar for agreeing. Congressmen (R) who sound the alarm about unsustainable spending and debt are called extremists and obstructionists.  This is actually true to some extent because they are trying to obstruct the path that leads to certain economic destruction, but the media faults them for exactly that effort.  And if you are a black leader (R) who has escaped the Democrat Plantation, the media will heap scorn upon you.

Obama and Hillary know that their failures will be hidden as much as their lackeys in the media can possibly hide them.  As liberals they are, by definition, good and right in the eyes of the media.  That is the narrative that they can count on.  There is incredible power and safety in the assurance of that false narrative.  This system works well for liberals, but not for our country.

A free country needs an adversarial press to question authority and hold those in power accountable for their actions.    In free societies, the press has an important role in countering the natural tendency of those in power to abuse their power.  It is more clear than ever that the mainstream media have abandoned that role and have joined forces with those in power.  They speak with one voice and have shared goals.  The media role now is to create and perpetuate myths that justify increasing the power of government.

SecondComing

Newsweek editor Evan Thomas was on Hardball with Chris Matthews after President Obama’s ’09 speech in Cairo.   Matthews had been having “tingles” up his leg from Obama’s greatness.   Thomas trumped the tingles by saying that Obama was “sort of a God”.   Thomas predicted that in the middle east, this new God would, “…bring all different sides together…  He’s the teacher. He is going to say, ‘now,  children, stop fighting and quarreling with each other.”

When Thomas’ childish view of middle east diplomacy was crushed by reality, did he change his view of Obama?  No.  The recent inauguration cover for Newsweek touts “The Second Coming”.  God lives!  The narrative is impervious to facts.messiah

John Dickerson, the political director of CBS News, made it clear last week that he stands ready to help Dear Leader any way he can.  He suggested to Dear Leader that he, “can only cement his legacy if he destroys the GOP. If he wants to transform American politics, he must go for the throat.”  Niccolo Machiavelli Dickerson will continue to do everything he can to destroy conservatives and advance the all powerful state.  You can count on it.   And he would shine Obama’s shoes, too.

The media groupies should be embarrassed by their behavior, but they do not appear to be.  They are in a bubble insulated from contrary opinions and all smugly certain that big government solutions are the only solutions.  This is not a trivial problem.  Even though we have alternative media, the Old Media are still a powerful force.  Obama would not be President without their help.  Not the first time and not this time.

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Just for fun, here are a couple of clips to demonstrate the intelligence of ‘news’ reporters.  Both clips are from MSNBC, the easiest place to find fools, but sadly not the only place.  In the first clip, the reporter is discussing the Easter Island stone statues with a scientist who has studied them.  The reporter, with a straight face, asks the scientist if she thinks the statues walked to their current location, or were put there by space aliens, or could they possibly have been put there by humans who lived on the island.  I have seen CNN’s Soledad O’Brien demonstrate similar levels of self-assured ignorance.

After Chris Matthews watched Bill Clinton speak at the Democrat convention last fall, he shared with viewers some fan-boy thoughts about Clinton.  He said, “I always figured that if Bill Clinton landed on Mars, he would know how to do it with them, he would know how to reproduce, he would know everything.”   Wondering if Bill Clinton would know how to have sex with Martians is just something Chris thinks about.

how_people_see_obama

Hypocrisy on Parade

Hypocrisy:   a feigning to be what one is not or to believe what one does not; especially the false assumption of an appearance of virtue.

It’s never difficult to write about the hypocrisy of liberals, it’s everywhere,  but there does seem to be a special abundance of it in view right now.

The Journal News in White Plains, New York, published the names and addresses of legal gun owners in certain counties …because these gun owners are sort of related to the Sandy Hook murders.  They have the same relationship to Sandy Hook as Sarah Palin had to the Gifford shooting in Arizona.  None at all.  Zero. Still, the Journal believed that the gun owners deserved some measure of public scorn for having legal weapons for self-defense.

Many of the gun-owners and many defenseless homeowners without guns were angry about this information being made public.  The Journal then hired armed guards because they felt threatened.  Why didn’t they just declare their building a gun-free zone.  That should take care of it, right?

Hollywood liberals created an anti-gun video to demonstrate how much they care and how much they hate violence.  They were as sanctimonious and self-righteous as we would expect them to be.  Since many of them make their living selling and glorifying violence, and enterprising citizen put together this superb and well deserved slam.

NBC’s David Gregory inadvertently demonstrated the ineffectiveness of gun laws by showing that illegal items are easily obtainable.  His showed an illegal large clip on television even after he knew it was against the law for him to possess it.  He also ridiculed the suggestion of the NRA President to consider more armed guards in schools.  But he sends his kids to a school with armed guards.

Liberals from many quarters heaped scorn on the NRA for suggesting more guards in schools.  But when Bill Clinton proposed the 60 million dollar “Cops in Schools” program in 2000, it was said to be a very thoughtful and caring idea.  Now it is a bizarre and crazy idea.  Hypocrites can have it both ways.

Al Gore occasionally leaves one of his mansions to jet somewhere and speak earnestly about the importance of having a small carbon footprint.  He also speaks about the importance of having wealthy people pay more in taxes.  It’s just the right thing to do, he says.

Mr. Gore was very busy at the end of 2012 wrapping up a deal that will put around 100 million dollars of oil related wealth into his fat bank account.  He sold his troubled cable network to Al-Jazeera.  Insiders said there was a herculean effort to complete the deal before the end of the year for the purpose of avoiding this year’s tax increases.  Nice work, con man.

It hardly seems possible that the man who has created more debt than any man in history and is actively seeking much more debt can hold a straight face while he speaks about his progress in reducing the debt, but President Obama can.  And he does.  His actions are the opposite of his words.  If he were Colonel Sanders, he could talk solemnly about his deep interest in protecting chickens.

Obamacare will reduce our national debt.  If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.  Your insurance premiums will go down.   If you are in the middle class, your taxes will not go up one dollar.  We will have a transparent administration.  You will always have several days to review major legislation before it is voted on.  I am a big fan of free enterprise.  Lobbyists will not get special favors from me.  I immediately gave the orders to do every single thing we could to help our people in Benghazi.  Yada, yada.

Did you notice that the evil Bush “tax cuts for the wealthy” have undergone a radical transformation by the hypocrites.  They are now very important tax benefits that Obama wants to provide for the middle class.  (In reality, Bush cut the lower and middle-income rates by a larger percentage than the upper rates, despite years of lies to the contrary.)

For liberals, saying the right thing is what matters.  You can drown women in your car or tell your female assault victim to “put some ice on that”, and still be a “champion for women” if you say the right things.

Haven’t we all had enough of phony politicians?  We need to call them out on every lie so that they see the game isn’t working any more.  It’s the right thing to do.

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Jess adds:

The seat occupied by the Democrat who held the longest filibuster in history to stop Eisenhower’s Civil Rights Act of 1957 is now occupied by the only African American in the US Senate… Appointed by the first minority female Governor. If you claim to believe in Civil Rights and aren’t celebrating right now, you are officially a hypocrite.

The NAACP, instead of celebrating, attacked Senator Scott.  No surprise, they only support blacks who remain on the Democrat Plantation.  You can see Scott’s classy response here.

 

About That Investigation…

The President has said that he has ordered a “very thorough” investigation of our Benghazi response.  He said that no one wants to get to the bottom of this more than he does.

Yesterday, the President’s press secretary, Jay Carney, was asked if the President was involved at all in the investigation.

 

 

Carney said:

“He has not participated in the investigation. He is anticipating results that show us exactly what happened and who is responsible and what lessons we can learn from it and ensure it never happens again. He expects the investigation to be rigorous.”

What did the President do on the night of September 11?  In the evening meeting in the situation room, what orders did he give?  What requests for help did he deny? Were heroes Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty still fighting for their lives when he went to bed?  Who invented the “demonstration that got out of hand” story?  Who asked Susan Rice, Jay Carney and others to repeat that absurd lie?  Who is managing the cover-up at this point?  Who is orchestrating the lies and deception?

Be honest, Jay.  The President does not need an investigation to know what he did.  He already knows “exactly what happened and who is responsible”.   And despite all the attempts by you and the other media lackeys to hide the truth, many Americans have a pretty good idea of who is responsible for this disaster.

It’s just one more thing that will motivate us to get to the polls on Tuesday. Just wait and see.

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Greta talks to an angry ex-Marine -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=gXb_QL-I1kw

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Karin McQuillan has a good summary of some of the more blatant Benghazi lies.  The following excerpt begins with a damning quote from Obama:

… the minute I found out what was happening, I gave three very clear directives. Number one, make sure that we are securing our personnel and doing whatever we need to. … I guarantee you that everyone in the state department, our military, the CIA, you name it, had number-one priority making sure that people were safe.

This is the blatant lie that condemns the liar.  The president says here that immediately, “the minute I found out what was happening,” he gave the order to the military, the CIA, to everyone, to secure our personnel in Benghazi and do “whatever we need to.”

Yet the undeniable fact is that nothing was done.  We know that the CIA security agent in Benghazi, Tyrone Woods, asked for permission to rescue Ambassador Stevens when Stevens was still alive and in the safe room.  Woods was told twice by the CIA to stand down.  He then disobeyed direct orders and rescued the survivors at the consulate, but it was too late for Stevens and Sean Smith.

Secretary of Defense Panetta tells us the military had gunships and Special Forces less than two hours away in Sicily but felt it was too “risky” to send in reinforcements or air cover.  It would have been normal military procedure to pre-position air cover and assets from Sicily to Benghazi, but Panetta says this was not done.  The air support and FAST platoons, we are told, were left in Sicily.  All the U.S. military did was send two unarmed drones to observe the battle.

So if President Obama is not lying about his directives, he is saying that the CIA and the Defense Department and our military chain of command disobeyed the direct order of our commander in chief to do everything in their power to rescue our people under attack in Benghazi.  And that as commander in chief, Obama did nothing in response to their dereliction of duty.

That doesn’t happen.  No one believes that; the president is lying.  He did not issue directives to the CIA, our military, and State to “secure our personnel” and “do whatever we need to do.”

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Note:  The image at the top was created by a military special ops group.  They posted it to Facebook and Facebook took it down.  They posted it again, and Facebook took it down again.  After a huge number of complaints, Facebook reversed their censorship.

Twitter also intervened to censor political speech.  Several hashtags about Benghazi and the cover-up were blocked.  It is very disturbing to see information managers like Facebook and Twitter intervening to censor political opinions.

It’s Not Like She Is Trying To Run For President…

The front page of CNN.com ran the following story this morning:

http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/23/living/ann-coulter-obama-tweet/index.html?hpt=hp_c2

Shock-commentator Ann Coulter used the r-word when describing Obama on Twitter.  Imagine that…  People like Ann Coulter, Bill Maher, and Chris Matthews keep their ratings high with provocative statements that go well beyond the bounds of what are socially acceptable levels of insensitivity, racism, and scathing sexism.  Though reprehensible, it is not like they are trying to run for public office…

Can you imagine someone like Romney or Obama making fun of people with special needs?  Just in case you can’t, it would look something like this:

How interesting that the press is running stories about how insensitive a right-wing commentator is, rather than how “people” on the public stage should be more cognizant of those with special needs.  Ms. Coulter should be honored that they hold her to a higher standard than they do the President of the United States.

Calmly, Comfortably and With Great Self Assurance

There is a scene in an old movie that is a perfect mataphor for much of modern politics.  The 1967 movie, “A Guide for the Married Man” , is a series of vignettes illustrating how a man can cheat on his wife without getting caught.  An important part of the story, of course, is how to lie effectively.  In the classic scene, Joey Bishop is in bed with another woman when his wife walks into the bedroom.  Watch the technic here…

You lie calmly and comfortably.  You lie with great self-assurance.  You deny reality.  Deny, deny, deny.

Sound familiar?  Do you know anyone whose name starts with O who is an absolute master of this technic?

I think of this scene quite often, in its political context, and assumed I was the only one who did.  I was wrong.  Dorothy Rabinowitz referenced the scene in her Sunday column in the Wall Street Journal.  Read it here.

Good Video on Media Bias…

No one can honestly dispute that the majority of the main stream press leans pretty hard left.  There are some notable exceptions such as Foxnews or the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal, but the majority are shills for the Democratic party.

Ten years ago in my grad student days at Columbia, I dated a woman who was attending the Pulitzer School of Journalism.  She described the environment at the journalism school as very hard left.  Though a self-labeled liberal Democrat, she said she felt like a right-winger during class discussions about politics.  She was unaware of any Republicans attending the school….

Indeed, polls among journalists show that the political skew is overwhelmingly left.  This is by no means a new phenomenon and for years it has been something that political candidates have had to plan for.  However, this election cycle has been something special.  For the first time, journalists are going a step beyond bias and are now actively abdicating their roles as news reporters if it helps Obama.  Here are some examples of “missed” reports that would end Republican presidencies:

  • Obama chooses The View over world leaders at the UN while our embassies burn
  • Bombing citizens with drones and re-labeling them as combatants to keep your numbers clean
  • Openly ignoring your own intelligence reports to publicly blame terrorist attacks on obscure youtube videos

It really is a dangerous line that the American press has crossed.  Former Democratic pollster and strategist Pat Caddell has a rant about it that is worth watching in its entirety:

Some Good News…

The uproar in the Middle East is not a reaction to U.S. foreign policy at all. It’s about a movie nobody saw. That’s all. Not only that, the U.S. is super-vigilant around the date of September 11. You can rest assured about that. Jay Carney has the details here:

Updated 9-16: I found a little more evidence that the current violent demonstrations could not be about U.S. foreign policy. They just couldn’t be because we have a different approach now that is working: