Here's Valerie Jarrett, senior advisor to President Barack Obama, speaking to CNN about Fox News:

I don't know how a clip could illustrated the dishonesty of politics any more than this clip does. When Jarrett is asked if Fox News is biased, she immediately answers "Of course they are biased. Of course they are." When CNN interviewer Campbell Brown follows up immediately by asking if MSNBC is also biased, Jarrett starts backtracking and deflecting, never answering the question (correct answer – Of course MSNBC is biased. Of course they are). Jarrett said, "Actually, I don't want to generalize all of Fox is biased or that another station is biased. I think what we want to do is look at it on a case-by-case basis. When we see a pattern of distortion, we're going to be honest about that pattern of distortion….We're actually calling everybody out. So this isn't anything that's simply directed at Fox. We just want the American people to have a really clear understanding."

Well, that's funny. I haven't heard the Obama administration call out any other network than Fox News. In fact, MSNBC's opinion show anchors were invited to the White House for a cozy little chat with Obama. Liar, liar, pants of fire, Ms. Jarrett.

And did you get a load of Jarrett saying on the video that the White House is "going to speak truth to power" ????? Um, correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure the White House IS THE POWER.

Valerie Jarrett admitted what this was really about. It's about health care reform, and the fact that Obama is having a difficult go of it. The majority of the American people are against it, and the majority of the American people are turning against Obama on the issues in general. It has become a disturbing trend of this administration to demonize anyone and everyone who gets in it's way. The insurance companies, the drug companies, the Chamber of Commerce, doctors, whomever. Obama even sank so low as to say doctors were cutting people's feet off for profit, for chrissakes. If you have to resort to demonizing people whose job is literally to save other people's lives, then you have a problem.

Politicians are professional liars by trade. You can choose to believe in the current bunch of liars if you wish, but I sure don't. You may think it's fine for the government to force all Americans to buy health insurance as a condition of residency, but I don't. I guess we better change that old saying about death and taxes to death, taxes, and health insurance. The current bunch of professional liars is also bankrupting the country faster than any other. This administration also seems more partisan than any other in memory. I don't hear Obama talk about a problem that he doesn't blame on someone else first. To hear Obama talk, it seems there was no America prior to George W. Bush, because all the problems seem to have originated from that one man.

And do any of you really believe that ObamaCare won't add one dime to the deficit ??? Really ??? Do you really believe Congress will cut $400-500 billion from Medicare to make that happen ? Really ???

If you are naive enough to believe that, check out this article on the "doctor fix" for Medicare, which would have added $247 billion to the deficit if the Republicans and thirteen Democrats hadn't voted it down. The Democrats tried to separate that $247 billion in debt out of ObamaCare and pass it as a standalone measure, so that ObamaCare "wouldn't add a dime to the deficit." (except for the $247 billion, of course).

Like I said, politicians are professional liars. The current group of liars isn't even particularly good at lying. It's just that the media has, to date, let them get away with it. It's time for that to stop. It's time for the press to be the ones speaking truth to power, as is their job. The White House is only speaking THEIR truth. That's not necessarily THE truth.

Earlier this week, I posted about the White House Enemies List, which consists mainly of Fox News and conservative talk radio. I assume ABC's Jake Tapper is also now on that list for daring to question the Great And Powerful Oz-bama team about bashing any media that isn't in Oz-bama's back pocket.

In that earlier post, my major complaint with Oz-bama's selective media bashing was this:

What really gets my goat about this is that Team Obama doesn't mind one bit when the media furiously spins things in Obama's favor. Everything the White House is saying about Fox News is true in reverse about MSNBC, who ceaselessly bashes the right, but no complaints from the administration about MSNBC's opinion journalism. No sir. They're perfectly fine with that. The White House is alright with opinion journalism when it represents the opinion of the White House.

Now it has come to light that not only is Oz-bama perfectly fine with HIS opinion journalists operating on news stations, he even calls them in for, let me make sure I quote this correctly, "two-and-a-half-hour off-the-record chats" to tell them what to say:

On Monday, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow were among several people who attended an off-the-record briefing with Pres. Obama at the White House. Sources tell us other attendees at the two-and-a-half hour chat included Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post, Maureen Dowd of the New York Times, Gwen Ifill of PBS and Gloria Borger of CNN. Perhaps not surprisingly, no one from Fox News was in the room.

Here's the full list of opinion journalist attendees at Oz-bama's "chat."

The White House has sent TVNewser the complete list of those who attended the off-the-record briefing Monday: Eugene Robinson, E.J. Dionne, Ron Brownstein, John Dickerson, Rachel Maddow, Frank Rich, Jerry Seib, Maureen Dowd, Keith Olbermann, Bob Herbert, Gloria Borger, and Gwen Ifill. Several members of the staff also attended.

The hypocrisy of the White House is off the charts. Notice that Oz-bama's off-the-record briefing with liberal opinion journalists came ONE DAY after Oz-bama's apparatchiks made the rounds demonizing Fox News on the sunday political talk shows. Team Oz-bama is so tuned in to MSNBC (the official White House news network), that it even e-mails corrections to MSNBC while it's talking heads are on-air. Un-be-liev-able. Meanwhile, Glenn Beck has been asking daily on his program for the White House to call and correct any errors Beck might be making. So far, nada.

On the heels of his "chat" with liberal opinion journalists, Oz-bama had this to say in an NBC exclusive interview, when asked if it was appropriate for the White House to determine what is or isn't a news organization:

"we are going to take media as it comes, and if media is operating basically as a talk radio format, that's one thing, and if it's operating as a news outlet, that's another. But it's not something I'm losing a lot of sleep over."

Sorry, Mr. President. That simply isn't credible. The man behind the curtain has been exposed. The President doesn't send out his flying monkeys to demonize one news outlet and then have two-and-a-half-hour meetings with friendly opinion media unless it's part of a media control strategy. If the prez wasn't losing sleep over Fox News, he could have spent that two-and-a-half-hours in more productive fashion…like, say, coming up with a strategy for the Afghanistan War or fixing the economy.

To prove further how much the White House DOESN'T "take the media as it comes," as if any further proof is needed, the White House tried to exclude Fox News from this week's interview with the Pay Czar, until the rest of the media objected. Even Oz-bama's media pals are objecting to his exclusionary tactics now, knowing what an outrageous and horrible precedent this would set:

Team Oz-bama. Creepier and creepier. Let's click our heels together three times and say "there's no place like America," where freedom of the press is considered a Constitutional right. I don't like this strange new land of Oz.

The Nixon administration is back. Team Obama has identified the enemies, and found most of them working for Fox News. First, White House communications director Anita Dunn opined that Fox News was "opinion journalism masquerading as news." I took Dunn's initial criticism with a grain of salt, because this is a woman also cited the mass murderer Mao Tse-Tung as one of "my favorite political philosophers." Dunn ain't gonna make it with anyone anyhow, but unfortunately, it has now become clear that Dunn wasn't just expressing her opinion. It has become clear that her words are part of the Nixon Obama administration's orchestrated attempt to marginalize and shut out a single media outlet, one that coincidentally happens to be more critical of the Obama administration than the rest. When asked about Dunn's comment, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said of Fox News, "I have watched many stories on that network that I have found not to be true." It would have been helpful if Gibbs named even one of those news stories, but he did not. On sunday, more White House officials joined the Team Obama 'Blackball Fox News' movement. White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel lectured CNN, telling it that President Obama does not want "the CNNs and the others in the world [to] basically be led in following Fox." White House senior advisor David Axelrod urged other media outlets not to recognize Fox News as a news organization, by telling ABC's George Stephanopoulos, "Other news organizations like yours ought not to treat them that way. We're not going to treat them that way."

The Obama administration's blackball of Fox started in August. As Chris Wallace of Fox News Sunday said on his show, "We wanted to ask Dunn about her criticism, but, as they've done every week since August, the White House refused to make any administration officials available to 'FOX News Sunday' to talk about this or anything else." The White House stopped making itself available to Fox News Sunday, (which, for the record, is not a right-wing show), after Wallace had the audacity to act like a journalist by fact-checking statements made by Tammy Duckworth, the assistant secretary of the Department of Veteran Affairs. Anita Dunn said fact-checking an administration official was "something I've never seen a Sunday show do." I can only assume Dunn never watched Meet The Press or any number of other sunday political shows in her entire Mao-worshipping life, because they fact-check politicians routinely. Tim Russert made a career out of it. Chris Wallace added, "They didn't say that our fact-checking was wrong. They just said that we had dared to fact-check."

Yes, how DARE Fox News question the great and powerful Obama administration. The last thing we need in this country are media outlets questioning the politicians in charge. What we need is a complacent and non-questioning media that blindly follows the party line disseminated by the Obamans. That's how Mao did it, and that's how almost every dictatorial government does it. They try to suppress and intimidate the media. Stalin, Castro, Chavez, and on down the line. It's standard operating procedure for practically every propaganda-spewing banana republic tyrant.

What really gets my goat about this is that Team Obama doesn't mind one bit when the media furiously spins things in Obama's favor. Everything the White House is saying about Fox News is true in reverse about MSNBC, who ceaselessly bashes the right, but no complaints from the administration about MSNBC's opinion journalism. No sir. They're perfectly fine with that. The White House is alright with opinion journalism when it represents the opinion of the White House.

Of course, the Duckworth fact-checking isn't really the issue. The Obama team isn't going to blackball an entire news organization over a couple statements by Wallace that contradict statements from a Veterans Affairs representative. The other phony excuse for blackballing Fox News is that they didn't carry one Obama speech (even though Obama has been on television more than any President in history, by far) . Democratic operative Terry Mcauliffe, who said he had spoken to White House officials, used that lame excuse on this week's Fox News Sunday program, but in fact, Fox News DID carry that Obama speech. It was the Fox network affiliate that didn't carry it. Mcauliffe also brought up Glenn Beck calling Obama a racist. I didn't like it when Beck said that, but think about this for a second. The left routinely calls people on the right racist, from the Tea Party protesters, to Rush Limbaugh (by attributing false quotes to Limbaugh), to a number of southern politicians, and on and on. Playing the race card is one of the left's standard political tactics. If it's reprehensible when Glenn Beck does it, it's reprehensible when liberals do it too, and liberals do it far, far, far more often. Even Obama did it. His operatives played the race card against both Bill and Hillary Clinton during the Democratic primaries. Obama spouted that "typical white person" remark, not to mention this almost universally ignored comment from Obama, "Are some voters not going to vote for me because I’m African-American ? Those are the same voters who probably wouldn’t vote for me because of my politics.” What is that, but Obama calling conservatives racists ??? And I'm not even going to go into Obama's Pastor, Reverend Wright, who Obama said was "like a member of my family" (until he became a political liability, after which Obama removed him from the family).

In retrospect, perhaps my Nixon administration reference is incorrect. Nixon had an enemies list, but I don't recall him or any other American president blackballing a major news organization before. I'm not saying it never happened. I'm just saying I don't remember it happening. This makes the Obama administration appear petty and small at best.

Oh, and guess who's NOT on the White House enemies list any longer ? The indicted war criminal Omar al-Bashir, the Sudanese leader who has engineered genocide and slavery in Darfur. Obama has dramatically softened his previous position on the Sudan. Maybe Fox News should slaughter huge numbers of people like al-Bashir or Mao to get Obama to push the reset button with them too. I don't know. I can't figure out the formula. The One pursues diplomatic relations with Iran and a genocidal beast, but those Fox News conservatives right here in America…nope, can't handle them. They must be blackballed.

The creepy factor with this administration continues to rise.

"For those who question the character and cause of my nation, I ask you to look at the concrete actions we have taken in just nine months." - President Barack Hussein Obama, narcissist, addressing the United Nations, September, 2009.

I'm sure glad Barry came along and fixed the character and cause of this nation after 232 years of American villainy, aren't you ? On the bright side, at least he didn't call pre-Obama America "The Great Satan." And our President spoke these words in front of an audience that included the likes of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Hugo Chavez, Moammar Gadhafi, and a slew of other human rights violators (many of whom are on the Orwellian UN Human Rights Council).
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"Since Americans can only be prodded into doing something with money, we need to tax crappy foods that make us sick like we do with cigarettes, and alcohol." - pot-smoking comedian Bill Maher, September, 2009.

Unbelievably, Maher calls himself a Libertarian. In reality, he's just another authoritarian left-winger. Someone should familiarize Maher with the words "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." It's none of Bill Maher's business who smokes, drinks, or eats what, which Maher would quickly realize if someone took his weed away. Maher's "libertarianism" extends only to his desire to get high. What a hypocrite.
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"Is capitalism a sin ?" - Leni Riefenstahl Award-winning, Castro-loving filmmaker Michael Moore, in a trailer from his forthcoming movie, Capitalism, A Love Story.

The answer from Moore's questionee is "yes," by the way, capitalism IS a sin. Hugo Chavez couldn't have said it better.
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"President Obama didn't make much news on his round of five Sunday talk shows … with one notable exception. The President revealed a great deal about his philosophy of government and how he defines a tax increase. It turns out the President thinks a health-care tax is not a tax if he thinks the tax is for your own good. … Mr. Obama was asked by [ABC] host George Stephanopoulos about the 'individual mandate.' Under Max Baucus's Senate bill that Mr. Obama supports, everyone would be required to buy health insurance or else pay a penalty as high as $3,800 a year. Mr. Stephanopoulos posed the obvious question about this kind of coercion when 'the government is forcing people to spend money, fining you if you don't [buy insurance]. … How is that not a tax?' 'Well, hold on a second, George,' Mr. Obama replied. 'Here's what's happening. You and I are both paying $900, on average — our families — in higher premiums because of uncompensated care. Now what I've said is that if you can't afford health insurance, you certainly shouldn't be punished for that. That's just piling on. If, on the other hand, we're giving tax credits, we've set up an exchange, you are now part of a big pool, we've driven down the costs, we've done everything we can and you actually can afford health insurance, but you've just decided, you know what, I want to take my chances. And then you get hit by a bus and you and I have to pay for the emergency room care, that's…' 'That may be,' Mr. Stephanopoulos responded, 'but it's still a tax increase.' (In fact, uncompensated care accounts for about only 2.2% of national health spending today, but that's another subject.) Mr. Obama: 'No. That's not true, George. The — for us to say that you've got to take a responsibility to get health insurance is absolutely not a tax increase. What it's saying is, is that we're not going to have other people carrying your burdens for you anymore…' In other words, like parents talking to their children, this levy — don't call it a tax — is for your own good. … Mr. Obama complains that 'My critics say everything is a tax increase,' as if that is his political problem. His real problem is that the individual mandate really is a tax, but the President doesn't want voters to think of it that way, because taxes are unpopular." –The Wall Street Journal, September, 2009.

Yes, of course, Obama's penalty for not having health insurance is a tax, no matter what he wants to call it. Obama probably wouldn't consider his cap-and-trade proposal a tax either, but that's exactly what it is. The creative subterfuge being engaged in by Democrats these days is to pass tax increases without calling them tax increases. Instead, they are called penalties, mandates, fees, carbon allowances, etc. Does this stuff actually fool anyone ? (except for liberals, that is). I hope not. Obama isn't "helping the little guy" one bit, in case anyone hasn't noticed (and the media sure hasn't). He's only raising the little guy's expenses, through both direct and indirect means. This brings to mind Ronald Reagan's quote about the most terrifying words in the english language – "I'm from the government, and I'm here to help."
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"We understand the gravity of the climate threat. We are determined to act. And we will meet our responsibility to future generations." - Barack Obama, speaking at the UN climate change conference, September, 2009.

"Responsibility to future generations," eh ? More than a tad ironic, coming from the President who is running up the debt faster than every other administration in history combined, thereby irresponsibly ruining the prospects of future generations.
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"It doesn't smell of sulfur here anymore. It smells of something else. It smells of hope." - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, addressing the UN, September, 2009.

The "sulfur" smell was Bush, whom Chavez called "the devil" at last year's UN meeting. The "hope" smell is Obama. It's sure nice that we've won over Chavez, don't you think ? Yes, he may be a tyrannical nut who nationalizes industries, shuts down opposition media, and puts opposition political figures in jail, but that's the socialist way. Because Chavez's version of "hope" would be hope of a worldwide socialist revolution, I wonder what it is he likes so much about Obama ??? I can agree with Chavez on this much – something smells alright.

During President Obama's latest health care reform campaign speech before a joint session of Congress, he pretended to throw a bone to Republicans with a weak call for "demonstration projects" on medical tort reform. Rather odd, when you consider such demonstration projects have already been done, and have been done for years.

"Whole states are demonstration projects," said Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas. "Texas passed tort reform in 2003 and … insurance premiums went down 30 percent. California passed tort reform and premiums went down 40 percent. Let's enact tort reform. Let's not just try that with demonstration projects. We already know it works. Let's put it into law." (link)

Tort reform with settlement caps has already been proven to be effective, both in decreasing the amounts of malpractice liability insurance paid by doctors (these are the premium decreases Rep. Smith is talking about), and in increasing the number of doctors in states with effective tort reform, particularly in areas of medical specialization. President Obama surely knows this, so holding out a carrot to Republicans by calling for demonstration projects is disingenuous. While the President is correct that tort reform is not a "silver bullet," we should be making all efforts to reduce the costs of health care, and this is one. Even if it only saves 5%, that's 5% less than we're paying now. It makes no sense not to pursue it if cost containment is the overarching goal, as the President says.
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After Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) improperly shouted out "you lie" at the President during the aforementioned Obama health care reform campaign speech, several Democrats and mainstream media members (but I repeat myself) saw it as Wilson genuinely disagreeing with the President about whether illegals would be covered under ObamaCare. Ah, I'm just kidding. They don't ever give Republicans credit for legitimate thoughts. What they really saw was what they always see when a right winger disagrees with the President – RACISM. That's the left's silver bullet.

Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA), said that people will put on "white hoods and ride through the countryside" if emerging racist attitudes, which he alleges are subtly supported by Rep. Wilson, are not rebuked. Wilson's racist attitudes were indeed subtle, because Wilson didn't say anything at all racist. In fact, rather than call Wilson's alleged racist attitudes subtle, why don't we call them what they really are – imaginary ? And how about we rebuke Hank Johnson for making the false accusation ? I won't hold my breath.

Deranged liberal N.Y. Times columnist Maureen Dowd said she heard "You lie, BOY" when Wilson made his remark. I suggest Ms. Dowd start immediately on a strong course of anti-psychotic medication, because she's having auditory hallucinations. I only hope Ms. Dowd's dog doesn't start telling her to kill people. The Son Of Sam had a big problem with that.

Liberal Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson, who suspects racism is behind nearly everything, said of the Wilson comment, "I suspect that Obama's race leads some of his critics to feel they have permission to deny him the legitimacy, stature and common courtesy that are any president's due. I can't prove this, however."

Yes, it IS hard to prove something when there's no evidence for it, Mr. Robinson, but I notice that doesn't stop you from making the accusation. Of course, no Democrats EVER questioned the legitimacy of the Bush presidency, except for every day for 8 straight years, and no Democrat EVER treated President Bush with disrespect (lol). Robinson went on to bemoan the fact that "there's no way to compel people to search their souls for traces of conscious or unconscious racial bias." See, Republicans are so racist that THEY DON'T EVEN KNOW IT. It's unconscious on their part, like so many of Eugene Robinson's columns.

Liberals see Rep. Joe Wilson, a white male, a Republican, and a southerner, and they just can't help themselves, they jump to the conclusion that he's a racist without the slightest evidence. There's a bias at work there alright, but it isn't coming from the Republicans. It's coming from the liberals.

While I'm on this subject, why do you think media outlets like MSNBC and CNN continually point out that most of the Tea Party protesters in D.C. last weekend were white ? Why does that even matter ? It only matters to them because they are dishonestly pushing a racist element to the protests. You'd never hear MSNBC imply racism over the fact that 96% of blacks voted for Obama, yet almost nightly you hear smirking MSNBC fools like Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow talking about how so very white the Tea Party and townhall protesters are. I have news for them. There's nothing wrong with being white, just as there's nothing wrong with being of any ethnic background. This is nothing but bottom feeding demagoguery from MSNBC, and it's shameful.

Btw, when is MSNBC going to get some black hosts ? Maybe we should give Olbermoron and Madcow a dose of their own medicine and kick them off the air for a little diversity. We can replace them with people who can actually think.

If all you've got is to call people racist, based upon nothing, you ain't got a thing. You're just an idiot. I'm sick of it. If you want to know who is holding this country back from getting beyond race, I just told you who. It's the very people who are obsessed with dividing us up along racial lines for political gain. This is 2009, not 1955. We've moved on, even if so many liberals have not.

Once again, I thought I was done with Obama's former Green Jobs Czar, Van Jones, but I HAVE to report this. Lord knows our media won't. It turns out that Mr. Jones is not only a 9/11 Truther, but he also thought that America DESERVED to be attacked on 9/11. Like Obama's 20-year pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Van Jones thought 9/11 was America's "chickens coming home to roost," (to quote Rev. Wright). On September 13, 2001, TWO DAYS after 9/11, Jones was a featured speaker at a rally in Oakland where he said the following, according to the far left website, Anti-War:

A recurring theme of the speakers [at the Oakland rally] was the brutal violence committed by or supported by the United States government on a daily basis. "The bombs the government drops in Iraq are the bombs that blew up in New York City," said Van Jones, director of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, who also warned against forthcoming violence by the Bush Administration. "The US cannot bomb its way out of this one. Safety at home requires justice abroad."

Un-freaking-believable.

Time for a little history. Those bombs the government dropped in Iraq, of which Van Jones spoke, were dropped by President Clinton, or possibly by Bush Sr., because Bush Jr's Iraq War didn't start until 2003. The previous war with Iraq, the Gulf War, was due to the fact that Saddam Hussein INVADED KUWAIT. I guess Van Jones slept through that. We removed Saddam from Kuwait, liberating that country. We left Saddam in power in Iraq, and setup a list of UN supported conditions as the terms of Saddam's surrender. Saddam violated virtually ALL those conditions in the subsequent years, resulting in 14 UN resolutions being directed against him. Saddam kicked out the UN weapons inspectors in 1998 before they had completed their work, against the UN's wishes, and six weeks later, President Clinton ordered strikes against Saddam's nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons sites. It must also be noted that Saddam USED his chemical weapons repeatedly. He used them against the Kurds and the Iranians, and targeted civilian populations. Saddam also launched SCUD missilies at Israel, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Iran, in addition to invading Kuwait. Saddam had a LONG history of violence, lots of it against his own people, and Saddam gave significant support to terrorist activity, all apparently unknown to the sleeping Van Jones. Saddam wasn't known as The Butcher Of Baghdad for nothing.

Yet, TWO DAYS after 9/11, here's Van "Oblivious" Jones, blaming America for the Al Qaeda attack, using Clinton's (or Bush Sr's) Iraq bombings as his justification and citing AMERICAN INJUSTICE, along with the rest of the lunkhead 'blame America' crowd at that Oakland rally, which was held to denounce AMERICAN violence and racism right after 9/11. I guess Oblivious Jones thought racist old America just liked to blow stuff up for no apparent reason. "It's Tueday, let's bomb Eye-Raq !! Yee-haw !!" What an idiot.

Are they putting drugs in the drinking water out there on the left coast, or what ? Those like Van Jones couldn't be more clueless. As they say, they couldn't find their butt with both hands.

So, when you hear our lying media denounce Glenn Beck for outing Van Jones, as they've done the past few days, especially over on MSLSD (The Propaganda People !), know how completely full of it they are. They are merely covering up the truth. Van Jones shouldn't have gotten close to the White House. Ever. And Obama should have to explain why he did.

(Note to liberals – before you start saying "Glenn Beck told you to say that," or something equally dumb, know that Glenn Beck has NEVER, to my knowledge, reported this).

1. Japanese officials were executed for waterboarding prisoners during World War II.

Wrong. Japanese officials were executed primarily for mass murder and for waging war against other countries. Torture was among the charges, and among the numerous torture charges was Japanese water torture (aka, water cure), not waterboarding. The two are not the same thing. Water torture involved putting a hose down a prisoner's throat and pumping water into him until his insides burst or nearly burst, often resulting in death. In addition, the Japanese usually executed the prisoners following water torture and/or other forms of torture. Even without water torture, those Japanese officials would have been executed.

2. Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge was pressured by the Bush White House to raise the terror alert level prior to the 2004 elections for political reasons.

This one is debunked by Tom Ridge himself, who said he was never pressured to change the terror alert level.

"There was no pressure at all. There was a judgment call on their part and on my part," Ridge, 64, a former Pennsylvania governor and an Erie native, told the [Erie-Times News] newspaper.

In addition, there was a threat made by Bin Laden prior to the 2004 election, which Ridge himself thought might be to disrupt our presidential elections, just as Al Qaeda bombed trains in Madrid three days before Spain's elections.

Not to mention that the terror alert level was NOT raised (and it probably SHOULD have been). The charge made for a nice phony left wing attack du jour, however.

3. George W. Bush is a chickenhawk who went into the Air National Guard to avoid going to Vietnam.

The truth is, Bush volunteered to go to Vietnam, but he didn't have enough flying hours, so other pilots were sent instead. In addition, CBS producer Mary Mapes, who did the phony partisan hit piece on Bush with anchorman Dan Rather, which was based upon forged documents, KNEW Bush had volunteered, but never mentioned it. Remember, the thrust of the CBS Rather/Mapes hit piece was that Bush was a coward who was trying to avoid combat. And it was THIS NEWS STORY that attempted to influence an election, coming shortly after the 2004 Republican convention.

4. The federal government is efficient.

This one doesn't really require an explanation, but what follows is a letter to the federal government from an irate citizen that has been making it's way around the internet. I have no idea if the letter is authentic, but it sure is funny, and it sure does illustrate exactly how efficient our federal government isn't. That would be the same federal government to whom we are about to hand over our entire health care system, not that anything could possibly go wrong there.

Warning – there is profanity.

Dear Sirs,

I’m in the process of renewing my passport, and still cannot believe this. How is it that Radio Shack has my address and telephone number and knows that I bought a cable t.v. from them back in 1987, and yet, the Federal Government is still asking me where I was born and on what date.

For gosh sakes, do you guys do this by hand? My birth date you have on my social security card, and it is on all the income tax forms I’ve filed for the past 30 years. It is on my health insurance card, my driver’s license, on the last eight damn passports I’ve had, on all those stupid customs declaration forms I’ve had to fill out before being allowed off the plane over the last 30 years, and all those insufferable census forms that are done at election times.

Would somebody please take note, once and for all, that my mother’s name is Maryanne, my father’s name is Robert and I’d be absolutely astounded if that ever changed between now and when I die!

I apologize, I’m really pissed off this morning. Between you an’ me, I’ve had enough of this bullshit! You send the application to my house, then you ask me for my address!

What is going on? You have a gang of Neanderthal asses workin’ there! Look at my damn picture. Do I look like Bin Laden? I don’t want to dig up Yasser Arafat, for crying out loud! I just want to go and park my ass on a sandy beach.

And would someone please tell me, why would you give a shit whether I plan on visiting a farm in the next 15 days? If I ever got the urge to do something weird to a chicken or a goat, believe you me, I’d sure as hell not want to tell anyone!

Well, I have to go now, ’cause I have to go to the other end of the city and get another blasted copy of my birth certificate, to the tune of $60. Would it be so complicated to have all the services in the same spot to assist in the issuance of a new passport the same day? Nooooo, that’d be to damn easy and maybe makes sense. You’d rather have us running all over the place like chickens with our heads cut off, then find some ass to confirm that it’s really me on the damn picture – you know, the one where we’re not allowed to smile (bureaucratic ignorant morons)! Hey, you know why we can’t smile? We’re totally pissed off!

Signed
An Irate Citizen.

P.S. Remember what I said above about the picture and getting someone to confirm that it’s me? Well, my family has been in this country since 1776, I have served in the military for something over 30 years and have had security clearances up the ying yang. However, I have to get someone ‘important’ to verify who I am – you know, someone like my doctor WHO WAS BORN AND RAISED IN INDIA!

Sincerely,
You Sure In The Hell Should Know Who.

At a townhall meeting, former Democratic National Committee (DNC) chair Howard Dean was asked why tort reform is not included in ObamaCare. Then an amazing thing happened. Dean came very close to telling the truth. I was stunned. The truth ? Did Dean get DNC clearance for that ? I hope he doesn't get flagged as an Obama enemy. Here's Dean's answer:

“Here is why tort reform is not in the bill. When you go to pass a really enormous bill like that the more stuff you put in, the more enemies you make, right? And the reason why tort reform is not in the bill is because the people who wrote it did not want to take on the trial lawyers in addition to everybody else they were taking on, and that is the plain and simple truth. Now, that’s the truth.”

Bingo. Tort reform is not included in ObamaCare because the Democrats don't want to take on the trial lawyers. The only thing Dean didn't reveal was WHY the Dems don't want to take on the trial lawyers. The reason is because the trial lawyers pay the Democrats not to take on the trial lawyers. The lawyers are big-time Democratic campaign donors, so the Dems are content to only demonize the insurance companies and the doctors in order to pass ObamaCare. Trial lawyers get a pass, even if it makes YOUR health care insurance more expensive.

Health care is a right, you know, and it's evil to profit from it. That's what the Dems keep telling us, anyway.
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Speaking of health care and flagging enemies, there is another right-wing nutjob spreading malicious myths about ObamaCare. No, not Palin. This time it's Representative Betty Markey, a Democrat from Colorado. Here's what Markey told a gathering of her constituents, from Coloradoan.com:

Some people, including Medicare recipients, will have to give up some current benefits to truly reform the nation's health-care system, Rep. Betsy Markey told a gathering of constituents in Fort Collins on Wednesday.

Markey has repeatedly said during the August congressional recess that Medicare spending needs to be reined in to help pay for reforming the broader health-care system.

"There's going to be some people who are going to have to give up some things, honestly, for all of this to work," Markey said at a Congress on Your Corner event at CSU. "But we have to do this because we're Americans."

Reduce Medicare benefits ? Uh, oh. That runs contrary to the official Dem health care narrative, which states that 47 million more people will be insured for less money than it costs now, and with absolutely no reductions in health care services or availability ever, ever, ever. Markey should be called down to Principal Obama's office real soon. Between Markey and Dean, a little too much inconvenient truth is leaking out. How's a President supposed to fundamentally transform America with such loose lips ? Did the weekly Democratic talking points memo get lost in the mail, or what ? Darn that government-run post office. The Dems should have used Federal Express instead.
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On the crazy right-wing extremist violence front, the windows were smashed out of the Denver Democratic Party headquarters, prompting Democratic officials to immediately cast blame on Obama health care opponents (the astroturf mob, aka, regular older American citizens). From the Colorado AP News:

Democratic leaders initially said that the window shattering was an act of political vandalism, possibly by opponents of health care reform…State Democratic Chairwoman Pat Waak continued to say that it was an act of vandalism prompted by the heated debate over President Barack Obama's health care reform…"I stand by my statement that I think there are people opposed to health care reform and there has been a lot of rhetoric that has prompted an atmosphere that I don't think is constructive," Waak said Wednesday. "It's such a polarizing issue. It shouldn't be."

It turns out that the vandalism was done by one Maurice Schwenkler. The problem is, Schwenkler isn't a right-winger. Schwenkler is a former Democratic campaigner and a gay rights transgender activist who opposed Obama's anti-gay rights positions. Schwenkler is a left-winger. Darn. The facts keep getting in the way of that liberal narrative about right-wing violence over health care townhall meetings. The official score is now……Left-wing acts of violence – 2, Right-wing acts of violence – 0.
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The lack of right-wing townhall violence doesn't stop liberals from whining about it, though. On wednesday night's Countdown With Keith Ubermoron on MSLSD, Olby named Congressman Wally Herger from California the Worst Person In The World when Herger called a man at a townhall meeting "a great American" after the man shouted out from the crowd that he was "a proud right-wing terrorist." The man is not a terrorist, of course. He's a veteran, and was openly mocking those on the left (like Olbermann) who describe townhall protesters using pejorative terms like "terrorists," a "mob," "racists," etc. Olbermann is either too stupid or too dishonest to acknowledge the difference. Btw, on the previous linked video, Olby also goes after Glenn Beck for tearing into Van Jones (an acknowledged communist and Obama's Green Jobs Czar). Olby said "Glenn Beck is crap," because Beck didn't divulge that Van Jones group, Color Of Change, is the group that is pressuring advertisers to drop Beck's show. In reality, it's Olbermann who is crap, because Beck has divulged that information, not to mention the fact that Beck went after Jones BEFORE Jones' group starting going after Beck, so Olby has his cause and effect reversed. Keith Olbermann IS the worst person in the world. Why anyone would watch Olbermann's dishonest crap show is the only thing that mystifies me (but I'd never try to pull his advertisers. That's crap too). In Olby's defense, of the three stories he brought up during his moronic Worst Person trilogy, he did get ONE factually correct, even though his snarky histrionics on that story were way overblown too. Seriously, liberal readers, do you watch that show ? If so, why ? All you are getting there is propaganda, half truths, and outright lies.

(Note to liberals – I'm not sticking up for Glenn Beck here. I'm sticking up for the facts. Note the difference. I thought Beck was wrong to call Obama a racist too, but he doesn't deserve to lose his show over it).

Do you believe our federal government is competent ? Do you think it's doing a good job of solving our problems ? Are we getting our money's worth ? Let's run through a checklist.

The government declared a war on poverty about 45 years ago. How'd that work out ? We may not have an exit strategy from Afghanistan yet, but you'd think we'd have one for the war on poverty after all these years. Nope.

What about the war on drugs ? We've put a lot of American citizens in prison on drug charges, giving us the highest incarceration rate in the world here in the land of the free, but drugs are still everywhere. If you want to find illegal drugs in America, you don't have to look very hard.

How about the problem of illegal immigration ? I bet you didn't know that the government fixed that problem back in 1986 with the Immigration Reform And Control Act. Listen to this excerpt from the signing statement from that Act, and tell me if it sounds at all familiar to any discussions of the issue we are having today:

In 1981 this administration asked the Congress to pass a comprehensive legislative package, including employer sanctions, other measures to increase enforcement of the immigration laws, and legalization. The act provides these three essential components. The employer sanctions program is the keystone and major element. It will remove the incentive for illegal immigration by eliminating the job opportunities which draw illegal aliens here. We have consistently supported a legalization program which is both generous to the alien and fair to the countless thousands of people throughout the world who seek legally to come to America. The legalization provisions in this act will go far to improve the lives of a class of individuals who now must hide in the shadows, without access to many of the benefits of a free and open society. Very soon many of these men and women will be able to step into the sunlight and, ultimately, if they choose, they may become Americans.

In 1986, we had approximately 2.7 million illegal immigrants. Now the estimate is around 13 million, and we're having the exact same discussions about illegal immigration that we had 23 years ago. Good job, government.

Maybe I'm being too harsh. Some of you might be thinking of all the super neato government programs that have been put in place to help us, like the Social Security ponzi scam, or Medicare, which is going broke. Plus, Social Security and Medicare comprise the lion's share of our unfunded liabilities, which, when added to our stated national debt of $11.7 trillion, make the real national debt around $56.4 trillion (note – the national debt figures are outdated as soon as they are printed because the debt is rising so fast. The real national debt might be over $58 trillion by now).

FYI – If you want to see the startling truth behind the U.S. economy, check out the U.S. Debt Clock. We are becoming a hollowed out shell of an economic power. It can't last. America, as it stands, is not sustainable (and our idiotic mainstream media wonders what all the protesting is about. "It must be racism," they say. Why do they call those media types "the elite" anyway ? They sound like a bunch of imbeciles to me).

Our government has done a bang up job of not eliminating poverty, drugs, and illegal immigration. It has also done a fine job of living beyond it's means and selling us down the river with massive debt that will destroy the hopes of future generations. It was also instrumental in creating the housing bubble that led to the current recession.

So, obviously, the correct path to follow now is to hand another 17% of our economy over to that same government to "fix" health care, right ? I mean, the government has such an excellent track record of solving economic problems (NOT). Much better than that miserable failure known as the free market (that made us the wealthiest country in the history of the world). After all, the free market has failed to rein in health care costs, right ? Wrong. The government has inserted itself into health care to such an extent that the free market isn't really functioning in health care. The government got into health care in a big way in 1965, and it's influence has grown ever since. This is also the same time period that health care costs have spiraled out of control.

I was listening to Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) yesterday on television talking about how there isn't enough competition among private health care insurers, how some states are dominated by only a few insurance companies. What Schumer didn't bother to mention was that insurers are limited by law from competing on a national level, across state lines. So, we have the government restricting private health insurance choice on the one hand, and then complaining that there isn't enough choice on the other hand. I don't know how some of these politicians peddle this nonsense with a straight face. Schumer, of course, wasn't advocating to open up competition on a national level among diverse insurance companies. No, because that would make sense. We can't have that. Instead, Schumer was advocating for a public health insurance option, where the government competes directly against the private sector, as if that's even possible. It isn't. Schumer kept saying that government competing with private industry is fine, as long as there's "a level playing field." Schumer said that with a straight face too, somehow. The idea that there could ever be a level playing field between the federal government and the private sector is absurd on it's face, as is Chuck Schumer. A private industry trying to compete with the federal government in health care insurance would be like trying to play a football game against a government team, where the government got to pick the players on both teams, got to pick the referees, got to change the rules of the game after every play, and made your team pay the expenses of it's team. There's little doubt who would win the game with such a "level playing field."

I'd have much more respect for the politicians peddling the public health care option if they'd just tell the truth about it. It's not about "keeping the insurance companies honest" any more than Medicare was about "giving Seniors a choice" in 1965. It's about government control. Don't lie to me and tell me anything different.

- One nice thing about Bill Clinton's presidency was that you could oppose his policies without being called a racist (mostly).

- People who think Bush went into Iraq to enrich Halliburton have no right to complain about the Birthers.

- When you go looking for "code words" for racism, aren't you just making stuff up ?

- When I talk about Obama's huge first year deficit ($1.8 trillion) on this blog, why do liberals always bring up Bush's deficits to excuse Obama's ? (Note to libs – By doing that, you aren't countering my argument. You are only making the argument that Obama is worse than Bush).

- Obama can offer health insurance to 30-45 million more people with health care reform, or he can reduce health care costs, but he can't do both at the same time.

- Obama's health care reform offers less choice, not more choice.

- Only Democrats think Rush Limbaugh is the head of the Republican party.

- Why is it that when liberals call conservatives racists nearly non-stop, nothing ever happens to those liberals, but when Glenn Beck calls Obama a racist one time, 20 advertisers are pressured into dropping their ads from Beck's show ?

- The only point being made by those people who are carrying guns outside events at which the President is speaking is that the gun carriers are oblivious morons.

- Is there any doubt at all that House Democrats are seeking the financial records of health insurance companies in order to demonize those companies ?

- Why is it okay for Congress to buy private jets with taxpayer dollars, but it's not okay for CEO's to fly private jets to Washington D.C. after being bailed out with taxpayer dollars ?

- Why would we want the federal government, an organization that is nearly $12 trillion in debt (and counting), to run our health care system, which represents 17% of our economy ?

- The "Obama is Hitler" signs must stop, because Obama is not like Hitler – he's much more like a combination of Saul Alinsky and P.T. Barnum. (Note to liberal media – that Obama-Hitler "I've Changed" sign you idiots at MSNBC, NBC, and CNN keep attributing to right wingers came from a Lyndon Larouche group, a communist group. Is even a tiny bit of journalistic integrity too much to ask ?)

- Speaking of Saul Alinsky, doesn't Obama's playbook seem awfully close to Alinsky's Rules For Radicals (pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it) ?

- MSNBC is such a biased organization that they actually edited out the fact that it was a black man who was carrying the AR-15 outside an Obama event, so MSNBC could peddle it's racist angle to the story.

- In the interesting political poll of the week, Gallup polling showed that conservatives outnumber liberals almost two to one when it comes to political ideology, yet Democrats have a sizeable lead over Republicans in party affiliation. (In other words, conservative doesn't always equate to Republican. I can identify with that).

- If you want to know why the health care public option was in, then it was out, then it was back in again….it's because up to 100 House Democrats said it better be back in again.

I don't know if the FCC had a Diversity Officer before, but they have one now. Here's a brief biography of Mark Lloyd, the newly appointed assoiciate general counsel and chief diversity officer at the Federal Communications Commission.

"Mr. Lloyd was most recently the Vice President for Strategic Initiatives at the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights/ Education Fund, where he oversaw media and telecom initiatives. Mr. Lloyd was also an adjunct professor of public policy at the Georgetown University Public Policy Institute, and from 2002-2004 a visiting scholar at MIT where he conducted research and taught communications policy. Previously Mr. Lloyd has been a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, the General Counsel of the Benton Foundation, and an attorney at Dow, Lohnes & Albertson. Before becoming a communications lawyer, Mr. Lloyd had a distinguished career as a broadcast journalist, including work at NBC and CNN." – FCC

As the FCC's chief diversity officer, Mark Lloyd's mission is to destroy conservative talk radio promote divergent viewpoints that represent the greater community. The fact that Lloyd himself is a liberal (senior fellow at the Soros-funded left-wing Center For American Progress) will in no way affect his mission, I'm sure. As we all know, liberals are the tolerant, open-minded people who are willing to listen to any and all liberal viewpoints.

Lloyd is focused on a serious problem with radio broadcasting – conservative talk radio is beating the pants off of liberal talk radio in the private sector. This is a BIG problem, unlike television, newspapers, movies, and college campuses, where liberals have a large media advantage. There is NO problem there, other than maybe how to get Fox News off the air. Lloyd isn't for a return to the Fairness Doctrine though, because, well, the Fairness Doctrine just wasn't effective enough. Conservative talk might still filter through. Lloyd has some better ideas, and like most liberal ideas, they center around punishing that nasty entity known as the "free market." In a 2007 article titled 'Forget The Fairness Doctrine,' Lloyd says the following:

The Center for American Progress late last month published a widely read report titled “The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio.” That report demonstrated the failure of the supposed “free market” regulation of the U.S. radio industry to address the public-interest needs of listeners. Our analysis revealed that conservative talk radio dominates the airwaves of our country—to the detriment of informed public discourse and the First Amendment.

There you go. Those damned Conservatives must be stopped. There's an "imbalance." It's a "detriment." And probably unconstitutional. Unlike newspapers, movies, television, and college campuses, where there is no problem. Lloyd goes on:

In our report, we call for ownership rules that we think will create greater local diversity of programming, news, and commentary. And we call for more localism by putting teeth into the licensing rules. But we do not call for a return to the Fairness Doctrine. Despite what we thought was fairly stark evidence of conservative bias, despite clear proposals to address that bias, Rush Limbaugh and other distortionists insisted that we were calling for a “return” of the Fairness Doctrine

See ? We have conservative "bias" in talk radio, unlike newspapers, television, movies, and college campuses (where we have liberal bias), and those conservative talk radio folks are "distortionists." They lied and said liberals wanted a return to the Fairness Doctrine (how that is supposed to be a lie, I have no idea. All kinds of liberals DID want a return to the Fairness Doctrine).

But as I said before, Lloyd has better ideas than the Fairness Doctrine. Here he is promoting one such idea, which is, file lawsuits to force conservative talk radio into submission:

Here’s the history that matters. In the late 1960s the United Church of Christ successfully challenged the Federal Communications Commission over the lack of local input in FCC decisions. A moderate Republican judge, Warren Burger, whom Nixon later appointed as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, sided with the church group. As a result of that ruling, a whole slew of rules were put in place to give local communities power in the licensing of broadcasters.

Yes, let's get liberal groups to sue and threaten the licenses of the conservative talk radio stations ! Lloyd expounds on that theme:

In their engagement in the licensing process many of those [suing threatening] groups cited the responsibility of the broadcaster to “afford reasonable opportunity for the discussion of conflicting views of issues of public importance…this core responsibility remains in the Communications Act today.”

Here's Lloyd's bestest idea of all – Make them pay:

The other part of our proposal that gets the dittoheads upset is our suggestion that the commercial radio station owners either play by the rules or pay. In other words, if they don’t want to be subject to local criticism of how they are meeting their license obligations, they should pay to support public broadcasters who will operate on behalf of the local community. Commercial broadcasters want to be trustees of public property but without responsibility.

Yeah, it's only those "dittoheads" who get all upset when you want commercial radio stations (aka, conservative talk radio) to fund public radio stations (aka, liberal talk radio). That's the ticket. Lloyd actually wants private conservative talk radio stations to fund their direct competition. Only a liberal mind could dream up something this perverse. This all happens under the mirage of promoting divergent opinions. Let's take a look at existing public broadcasting on political issues. As we all know, NPR plays it straight down the middle, politically speaking, as long as by "straight down the middle," you mean "promotes the liberal view."

Now for the piece de resistance. Guess how much Lloyd wants commercial radio stations to pay to fund their public radio station competition ? You're gonna love this. In his 2006 book, Prologue to a Farce: Communications and Democracy in America, Lloyd called for making private broadcasting companies pay licensing fees equal to their total operating costs to allow public broadcasting outlets to spend the same on their operations as the private companies do: Here's the communist Lloyd, from his book:

“The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) must be reformed along democratic lines and funded on a substantial level,” Lloyd wrote in his book. “Federal and regional broadcast operations and local stations should be funded at levels commensurate with or above those spending levels at which commercial operations are funded,” Lloyd wrote. “This funding should come from license fees charged to commercial broadcasters. Funding should not come from congressional appropriations. (link)

How many private conservative talk radio stations would choose to stay in business with such exorbitant fees ? I'm thinking – NONE. I'm also thinking that's the whole idea behind Lloyd's bs.

But our new Diversity Czar doesn't stop there. He also wants to dictate programming content as well:

“Local public broadcasters and regional and national communications operations should be required to encourage and broadcast diverse views and programs,” wrote Lloyd. “These programs should include coverage of all local, state and federal government meetings, as well as daily news and public issues programming. “In addition, educational programs for children and adults, and diverse, independent personal and cultural expression should be encouraged,” he wrote.

What's ostensibly crazy about Lloyd's crapola is, we have more divergent viewpoints being heard in our society than we ever have. With the rise of the internet and alternative media, cable television, etc., it's not difficult to find somebody somewhere catering to your particular political stripe. It's easier than in ever was. Mark Lloyd just doesn't like it that conservatives have carved out a niche for themselves on the radio. Think of all the radio stations on the air in your locality. How many of them are conservative talk radio ? One, maybe two out of dozens ? Yet, this is the BIG PROBLEM that Lloyd thinks we need to address ? Ridiculous. Mark Lloyd is disseminating disinformation. Mark Lloyd is just one more in a long line of double-talking, anti-free market, anti-free speech, pro-government control, pinhead bureaucrats who wants to censor any opinions he doesn't like. Because the liberal talk radio that Mark Lloyd wants has not succeeded on as big a scale as has conservative talk radio up until now, Lloyd wants to bully it into submission. Screw him and the horse he rode in on. He's a Nazi. This is all about censorship and nothing else. Have you ever heard a liberal like Lloyd complain about the imbalance of liberal college professors over conservative college professors at state-run universities ? Of course you haven't, and you never will. Those like Lloyd don't care about anything other than shutting up those conservatives. If they can't win in the open market of ideas, they want to close the market.

“Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends – life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government.” – Thomas Jefferson

Allow me to construct a hypothetical set of circumstances. Let's say our country was in the midst of a severe recession, that unemployment was rising rapidly as millions of jobs were being lost, that average people were having an increasingly difficult time getting by, that our industries were having a difficult time competing, that the value of the dollar was dropping, that we were up to our ears in debt……

Okay, that isn't hypothetical at all. That's what is actually happening.

Now, in response to this not-so-hypothetical set of crisis circumstances, what would you think of our government if it passed legislation that would bring about massive tax increases, that would make it even more difficult for our industries to compete, that would cause more job losses, that would raise energy costs dramatically, that would increase the price of practically every product consumers purchase, that would put the average person much further in the hole, and that wouldn't even provide the desired benefit of said legislation ???? (link)

I'd call that government destructive to the ends of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I'd want that government replaced for working against the interests of the American people. That's what I'm thinking today after the House of Representatives passed Cap-And-Trade legislation by a narrow vote of 219-212.

The Cap-and-Trade bill, also known as Waxman-Markey, also known as The American Clean Energy And Security Act, also known as the Let Them Eat Cake Act, is a 1,200 page monstrosity that nobody in the House had time to read, because the final version of the bill wasn't posted until the night before friday's vote, and a 300 page amendment was added at 3:00am on the day of the vote. I seem to remember President Obama saying something about having the most transparent administration EVAH !…….I guess Congress didn't get the memo on that, because they are operating like cat burglars in the dead of night.

Here's a quick rundown of the bad guys and the good guys in the House. The bad guys voting FOR the destruction of America included 211 Democrats and 8 Republicans. The good guys voting AGAINST destruction included 44 Democrats and 168 Republicans. You can find a complete vote tally here. I'd like to single out Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) for praise for standing against this bill. I've maligned Mr. Kucinich in the past, but I'm beginning to think I was wrong about him. He seems to be one of the few in the House who actually stands on his principles. That's noteworthy to me, even if I often disagree with him. The fact that 44 Democrats voted against this bill shows us that the Dems know Cap-And-Trade is a really bad idea, but lots of Democrats caved to pressure from the White House. El Presidente badly wants more control over all aspects of America, and this bill puts him in the express lane toward acquiring that control (but he believe in free markets ! lol).

"We've seen the example in Spain, it's a colossal mistake there, a political and an economic error. This could be the most colossal mistake ever made in the history of the United State Congress." – Congressman Steve King (R-IOWA).

I picked the above quote not only because a guy named King must be right, but because he mentioned Spain. What happened in Spain ?

Spain already implemented cap-and-trade, and has the most far-reaching renewable energy agenda in the European Union. The result ? Unemployment is at 18% in Spain (double the EU average), and there have been 2.2 jobs lost for every green job created. In addition, tons of subsidies are required for green energy initiatives to be competitive. The wind industry jobs created in Spain have come at a cost of $1.4 million PER JOB. (link)

Gee, who wouldn't want to emulate such "success" ???

But my favorite comment on the cap-and-trade legislation came from Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH), who when asked why he spent an hour reading portions of the bill aloud on the House floor, said, "Hey, people deserve to know what's in this pile of s–t." (link)

Even those who are in favor of restricting carbon emissions know that this cap-and-trade bill is, um, crap. Here's one such person, billionaire Warren Buffet of Berkshire Hathaway:

"I think if you get into the way it was written, it's a huge tax and there's no sense calling it anything else. I mean, it is a tax. And it's a fairly regressive tax. If we buy permits, essentially, at our utilities, that goes right into the bills of the utility customers, and an awful lot of people in Iowa, in Oregon, and Utah, and places where we are, very poor people are going to pay a lot more money for electricity. So I think that can be improved." (link)

Speaking of restricting carbon emissions, which is the stated purpose of cap-and-trade (all it's negative and destructive effects are just icing on the cake), exactly how much of an effect on global warming will this cap-and-trade bill have ? (for the sake of brevity, I'm assuming here that man-made carbon emissions are a significant cause of global warming, an assumption that is itself a source of controversy).

Washington Post writer Martin Feldstein lays it out in an article called Cap-And-Trade: All Cost, No Benefit.

The Congressional Budget Office recently estimated that the resulting increases in consumer prices needed to achieve a 15 percent CO2 reduction — slightly less than the Waxman-Markey target — would raise the cost of living of a typical household by $1,600 a year. Some expert studies estimate that the cost to households could be substantially higher. The future cost to the typical household would rise significantly as the government reduces the total allowable amount of CO2.

Americans should ask themselves whether this annual tax of $1,600-plus per family is justified by the very small resulting decline in global CO2. Since the U.S. share of global CO2 production is now less than 25 percent (and is projected to decline as China and other developing nations grow), a 15 percent fall in U.S. CO2 output would lower global CO2 output by less than 4 percent. Its impact on global warming would be virtually unnoticeable. The U.S. should wait until there is a global agreement on CO2 that includes China and India before committing to costly reductions in the United States.

Waxman-Markey will have NO EFFECT on global warming, but it will have the "benefit" of further destroying our country.

In spite of all this, there are many American corporations ready to jump on the green bandwagon and profit from the carbon credit trading frenzy that El Presidente is trying to unleash on us. You're even familiar with some of these corporations – AIG, General Motors, Goldman Sachs, General Electric…you know, the GOOD corporations that we've all come to know and love so much during the recession. They are ready to jump on the manufactured energy bubble and rake in the big bucks. That these same companies are all recipients of government bailouts is just a big old coincidence, I'm sure. Too bad Enron isn't around any longer. Those guys knew how to run an energy bubble. I bet most of you didn't even know that General Electric got a bailout. Somehow, that hasn't been mentioned by the mainstream media very much. Not only did GE get a bailout, they got a $139 billion bailout, second in size to AIG's bailout. Yet somehow, the enormous GE bailout hasn't been mentioned or condemned by major television networks like……NBC, nor by NBC's retarded cable stepchildren over at MSNBC (aka, The Obama Channel). I'm sure that has nothing to do with the fact that General Electric OWNS NBC, or the fact that GE is deeply in bed with the Obama administration. I'm sure that can't be it. Everyone knows MSNBC is a group of highly dedicated professional journalists who would never compromise their integrity or ideals for…….LOL. Oh, man. I can't finish this sentence. Sometime I even crack myself up.

But make sure you contact GE for all your carbon credit trading needs. They are primed and ready for all their cap-and-trade lobbying to start paying dividends.

As for you, America, I hope you like cake, because if you don't rise up and stop this Cap-And-Trade disaster in the Senate, cake is all you'll have left. And maybe some government cheese to go with it, if you're lucky.

Osama Bin Laden, the world's leading terrorist (or "freedom fighter," as Michael Moore would call him), has released a new tape, saying President Obama is sowing "new seeds of hatred and revenge against America." Apparently, Bin Laden's Dish Network package doesn't include MSNBC, or Bin Laden would know that everything changed the day Obama took office. We're closing Gitmo, have banned EIT's, are pulling out of Iraq, are apologizing to the world for our bad behavior in fighting terrorists, etc, etc.

Or maybe Bin Laden doesn't really care about any of that. It seems he doesn't.

On the tape, Bin Laden says President Obama is "walking the same road of his predecessors to build enmity against Muslims and increasing the number of fighters, and establishing more lasting wars."

Say what ? President Obama is INCREASING the number of terrorist fighters ???? Say it ain't so. Our liberal media has been telling us for years that it was Gitmo and Iraq that increased the number of terrorist fighters. Quick, somebody send Bin Laden a subscription to the New York Times, so he can be told what to think. Seriously. Just send the Times to Al Jazeera. I'm sure somebody there can ensure it gets forwarded to Bin Laden.

Another terrorist video, this one from terrorist recruiter Abdullah al-Nafisi, a Kuwaiti dissident and friend of Bin Laden, declares that Al Qaeda is looking to smuggle weapons of mass destruction across the Mexican border to inflict severe damage on America. Here's al-Nafisi:

"Four pounds of anthrax – in a suitcase this big [about 2 feet wide]- carried by a fighter through tunnels from Mexico into the U.S. are guaranteed to kill 330,000 Americans within a single hour if it is properly spread in population centers there," the recruiter said. "What a horrifying idea; 9/11 will be small change in comparison. Am I right? There is no need for airplanes, conspiracies, timings and so on. One person, with the courage to carry 4 pounds of anthrax, will go to the White House lawn, and will spread this 'confetti' all over them, and then we'll do these cries of joy. It will turn into a real celebration."

How do you feel about sealing the southern border now, liberals ? I hope you can at least stop saying the only reason for it is that GOP is so darned raaacist. Secured borders are a matter of national security. Period.

On the vigilante front, an anti-abortion extremist, Scott Roeder, was arrested for the murder of late-term abortion provider, Dr. George Tiller. Following this heinous act, President Obama immediately condemned it and announced that security would be enhanced at abortion clinics across the country. In response to Tiller's murder, liberals immediately blamed all conservatives and called for the removal of their free speech rights. Ubermoron Keith Olbermann blamed Bill O'Reilly and Fox News for Tiller's death, and said O'Reilly should be "quarantined." Fellow MSNBC'er Rachel Maddow called Tiller's death "terrorism," as did many other liberal groups. The favored phrase among liberals is to say conservative speech "foments violence" by opposing abortion. That's a complete bunch of crap (did liberals foment violence by opposing Bush ?), but that's what they are saying.

Two days after Tiller's murder, a young black man, a Muslim convert who opposed the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, who was anti-military and anti-American, attacked an Army recruiting center in Arkansas, killing one recruiter and wounding another. Following this heinous act, there was no immediate condemnation from President Obama. There was no tightening of security announced at Army recruiting centers. And there was no condemnation of all liberals by conservatives. Nor was there a call to end liberal free speech rights by conservatives. I bet Bill O'Reilly didn't blame it on Keith Olbermann either. I can't think of one conservative who said liberal speech "foments violence."

And that, my friends, is the difference between reasoned people and lunatics.

P.S. – Sorry I've been away for a few days, but I've been having some problems with my knee that prevent me from sitting down at the computer (you know you're getting old when it's tough to sit). I don't know if it's my "knee-jerk" reactions that caused the problem, but I should be back to normal pretty soon. As normal as I can be, anyway.

In my last post, I touched on the problem of our huge unfunded entitlement liabilities, primarily Social Security and Medicare. Yesterday, the Obama administration admitted the problem exists. Yippee ! This may not seem like such a big step forward, but it is. Remember, for years the Democrats in Congress denied there was any problem whatsoever. They kept saying SS and Medicare were in fine shape for decades. Little to worry about. As Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said in 2005:

“Today’s report confirms that the so-called Social Security crisis exists in only one place — the minds of Republicans. In reality, the program is on solid ground for decades to come.”

That Harry is such a kidder. Fellow kidder and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), said this in 2005:

"There is no Social Security crisis. We all agree that there is a problem down the road that we should address before it becomes a bigger problem.”

But Pelosi has taken no action on Social Security or Medicare since becoming House leader. None. She also helped shoot down all previous Republican attempts at reform.

The Associated Press reports on the Obama administrations response to a Trustee report detailing the dire financial straits of SS and Medicare:

Social Security and Medicare are fading even faster under the weight of the recession, heading for insolvency years sooner than previously expected, the government warned Tuesday. Social Security will start paying out more in benefits than it collects in taxes in 2016, a year sooner than projected last year, and the giant trust fund will be depleted by 2037, four years sooner, trustees reported.

Medicare is in even worse shape. The trustees said the program for hospital expenses will pay out more in benefits than it collects this year, just as it did for the first time in 2008. The trustees project that the Medicare fund will be depleted by 2017, two years earlier than the date projected in last year's report.

The Congressional Budget Office recently projected that Social Security will collect just $3 billion more in 2010 than it will pay out in benefits. A year ago, the CBO had projected that Social Security would have a much higher $86 billion cash surplus for the 2010 budget year, which begins Oct. 1.

Medicare's condition is more precarious.

The trust funds — which exist in paper form in a filing cabinet in Parkersburg, W.Va. — are bonds that are backed by the government's "full faith and credit" but not by any actual assets. That money has been spent over the years to fund other parts of government. To redeem the trust fund bonds, the government would have to borrow in public debt markets or raise taxes.

Did you catch that last part ? SS and Medicare are NOT BACKED BY ANY ACTUAL ASSETS, and funding them would require the government to BORROW MONEY OR RAISE TAXES. In other words, the government spent your trust funds. I've been trying to make people aware of this for years, and this has to be the first time in recorded history that our mainstream media has admitted the truth about our Ponzi scheme SS and Medicare "trust funds." Halellujah !!!

The first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem.

Of course, the AP is also admitting that our wonderful, compassionate politicians in Washington D.C. have been ripping us off for trillions and trillions of dollars for several decades, but I don't expect Obama or Congress to appoint any blue ribbon investigative panels or independent prosecutors to look into the matter anytime soon. We'd have to put a LOT of people in jail, and if we did put the deserving Congressers in jail for SS and Medicare fraud, well, let's just say the Democrats wouldn't be the majority party any longer.

Hate to say 'I told you so' to some of my more doubting readers, but I told you so. The federal government is worse than Enron and worse than Madoff. Far worse.

Here's Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner:

"The longer we wait to address the long-term solvency of Medicare and Social Security, the sooner those challenges will be upon us and the harder the options will be."

That's right, Tim. Btw, haven't Republicans been saying the same thing for years and years ? Yes, they have, including former President Bush.

The bottom line here is – get ready for massive tax increases. Massive. And lots of them.

The coup de grace of Democratic bs also came from Pelosi yesterday. Guess who San Fran Nan blames for the SS and Medicare crises she didn't think even existed previously ? If you said "Bush," you win a cigar. From cnsnews.com :

"The Trustee's reports reveal that, just as they left behind a record of recession, deficits and debt, the Bush administration's economic and fiscal mismanagement undermined the strength of Social Security and Medicare,” Pelosi said Tuesday in a news release. "The previous administration's shortsighted economic policies and fiscal recklessness have made the task of strengthening Social Security and Medicare for the future more difficult."

Un-be-liev-able. I better stop now, before I unleash a string of profanity aimed at our "esteemed" Speaker of the House. Is this woman genetically incapable of honesty ? She has no business leading the Democratic party in the House, or leading anything else, for that matter.

At the end of each fiscal year, the Treasury Department issues a financial report. The last such report was the 2008 Financial Report Of the United States Government. There is a link to the Citizens Guide version of the report here.

The stated 2008 deficit under President Bush was $454.8 billion. That was the largest budget deficit in American history in dollars, though President Obama's first year deficit of $1.8 trillion makes the 2008 deficit look like chump change by comparison. Every other projected Obama deficit over the next 10 years will also be larger than the 2008 largest deficit in history. Yet somehow, Obama's popularity ratings are still high. Go figure. Maybe bankruptcy is the new fiscal responsibility. I don't know. I don't get it.

But the American financial picture is much worse than those deficit numbers alone suggest. The real deficit in 2008 wasn't really $454.8 billion. It was actually much higher, because our federal government does it's accounting on a cash basis. Any debt obligations that are incurred, but have not yet paid, are treated as if they don't exist when it comes to the deficit. Those debts, however, do exist. In 2008, if you add in the debts accrued to pay federal employee and veterans benefits, the deficit balloons to over $1 trillion. If you add in all existing federal debt, we are in the red to the tune of $11 trillion. And if you add in all the accrued entitlement debts from Social Security, Medicare, and others, we are in the neighborhood of $55 trillion in the hole.

Now, imagine you are an incoming President looking at that 2008 financial report, and you can clearly see that America is on an unsustainable fiscal path. The report even states in plain English that America is on an unsustainable fiscal path. What would you do ? If your name is Barack Obama, you would….spend trillions more dollars, skyrocket the debt beyond all historical levels, permanently increase the cost of government, create an enormous new health care entitlement, and expand other entitlements. On top of that, you'd cut taxes for the middle class. In other words, if your name was Barack Obama, you'd do the most fiscally irresponsible thing imaginable. Because one definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, I'd say Barack Obama must be insane.

But most of the media talking heads and so-called journalists seem to think Obama is some kind of genius. They act as if he is fixing all that ails our country, even though Obama has taken an already unsustainable fiscal path and made it far more unsustainable, and he did it all in only 100 days. Therefore, most of the media must be insane too. Then the media acts like the Americans who are calling for fiscal responsibility, like the Tea Party protesters for instance, are the insane ones. The media is openly hostile to them. What gives ? What on earth has happened to our country ? It's like a mass delusion has replaced all common sense. Up has become down. Has partisan spin so replaced rational thought that we can't even add and subtract anymore ? We can't even see what is right in front of our faces ? It seems so. I can't think of another reasonable explanation.

To add insult to injury, the same folks who are putting America on course to crash and burn at warp speed say they are doing it because they are "compassionate." They are destroying the future because they "care" about the common man. Are you freaking kidding me ? Please STOP "caring" about me, oh "compassionate" ones, before all your "caring" and "compassion" leaves me penniless and shivering out on the street.

The federal government of the United States Of America is the most broke institution in the entire history of planet earth, bar none. That's what all the "caring" and "compassionate" do-gooders have brought us. We couldn't be worse off if we let the Enron executives out of jail to run this country. Bernie Madoff might as well become the next President.

Btw, the state and local governments are another $160 billion in the red for this year. The house of cards is collapsing, and our government doesn't seem to care, not one bit.

An old Temptations song had the lyric "Vote for me, and I'll set you free." That's what our politicians are doing, setting us free – from our money. The Temptations had it right. It's a ball of confusion. That's what the world is today.

Hey, hey.

Following are some news stories our esteemed mainstream media just can't manage to find time for, at least not when such pressing issues as whether or not Miss California, Carrie Prejean, has had a boob job are still under investigation. Prejean, the 21-year old liberal hate media target of the week, also had some racy Victoria's Secret modeling photos taken of her when she was 17, so it's perfectly understandable why the media missed the following stories. I imagine they are too busy working up a full-scale profile on the hypocrisy of the entire Christian movement after Miss California had the audacity to politely say she thought marriage should be between a man and a woman. Prejean is obviously worse than Hitler, and must be destroyed, along with that Sarah woman from Alaska. Those b's (or are they c's ?) better zip it, and go bake some cookies. This is the hope and change era, dammit. We can't have these dames going around offering their pretty little opinions, even when asked for them at a Miss USA pageant or a national Vice Presidential debate. It's not like they didn't know what they were SUPPOSED to say. If we don't put these gals in their place, before you know it, women will be running around giving all kinds of opinions about stuff, and not the always the RIGHT ones either. Who wants THAT kind of country ?

On to the news the media can't use.
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The Obama administration has decided not to release the photos from the Scare Force One New York flyover that terrified the residents of lower Manhattan. This sets an interesting standard of what constitutes classified or privileged information to the Obamans. The Bush "torture" memos – NO. The Iraq prisoner abuse photos – NO. Photos that might embarass the President – YES. It appears "the most open administration in history" is only open about OTHER administrations, not it's own.
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Multiple Chrysler creditors are saying the Obama administration engaged in political threats and intimidation to get the creditors to surrender their contractual rights as the Obama administration wants. From Business Insider:

Conversations with administration officials left them [Chrysler creditors] expecting that they would be politically targeted, two participants in the negotiations said.

Although the focus has so been on allegations that the White House threatened Perella Weinberg, sources familiar with the matter say that other firms felt they were threatened as well. None of the sources would agree to speak except on the condition of anonymity, citing fear of political repercussions.

The audacity of hope. The politics of fear. This is why the government shouldn't run businesses, and why government should be limited, as the Constitution intended. It looks like Obama's Chicago political machine training is coming in handy. Make 'em an offer they can't refuse. One creditor, who voted for Obama, called him "the most dangerous smooth talker on the planet – and I knew Kissinger."
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Recent polling suggests Americans don't believe in man-made global warming, despite the finest scare tactics the left and the media could muster up. A recent Rasmussen poll found that only 34% of Americans believe man is causing global warming. A Pew Research poll found that out of twenty important issues facing the country, global warming ranked dead last, the least important. I'd say maybe Al Gore should make another movie to protect his green investments, but Democrats are pressing forward with climate change legislation anyway. House Democrats say they'll have a bill ready by Memorial Day, and intend to pass it by year end.
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In the $3.5 trillion budget approved by Congress, President Obama's much hyped "tax cuts for 95% of Americans" end after NEXT YEAR. Y'all really didn't believe the hype, did you ? Notably, Bush's tax cuts for the lower and middle classes will be kept (I thought those were "tax cuts for the rich"). Also, the budget stops Republicans from blocking Obama's health care plans (but I'm sure they are blocking the GOP in a "bipartisan" and "inclusive" fashion).
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But I want to be fair to our media. Here is a great story MSNBC broke about Obama and Biden going to a burger joint in Virginia. It seems our Telemprompter-In-Chief and his Gaffemaster VP walked right up to the counter, ordered their own burgers, and waited until the burgers were done. End of story. Do I smelll a Pulitzer in the air for MSNBC ?????

The following chart illustrates what percentage of CO2 greenhouse gases are attributable to man:

The rest of the greenhouse gases consist mostly of water vapor (95%). Read the Global Warming Primer for more information. Also keep in mind that the proposed cap-and-trade system of taxation being proposed by Obama, which would cost trillions of dollars, aims to decrease that tiny dot of man-made CO2 in the above chart by only 15%. Color me skeptical as to the positive effects of cap-and-trade.
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Sen. Benjamin Cardin (D-MD) has introduced the Save The Liberal Media Act, er, I mean, the Newspaper Revitalization Act, which he says could help save the ailing newspaper industry. Cardin's press release stated, "The Newspaper Revitalization Act would allow newspapers to operate as non-profits, if they choose, under 501(c)(3) status for educational purposes, similar to public broadcasting. Under this arrangement, newspapers would not be allowed to make political endorsements, but they would be allowed to freely report on all issues, including political campaigns. Advertising and subscription revenue would be tax exempt and contributions to support coverage or operations could be tax deductible."

As most of you already know, the vast majority of newspapers and other mainstream media outlets lean left. The Dems don't want to lose their propaganda advantage.
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From the Here's Why The GOP Is Braindead files: Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Representative Joe Barton (R-TX) may soon have both houses of Congress taking up an issue of vital national security – the NCAA football championship system (BCS). The legislation would prohibit the NCAA from naming a national champion unless it follows whatever playoff system Congress dictates. Unbelievable. I don't know where Congress gets the idea it has the authority to regulate this, and I have even less idea why Congress thinks this deserves their attention. Maybe Hatch is mad that undefeated Utah didn't make the championship game last year. Whatever. This is just one more small sign that Capitol Hill is WAY out of control.
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The Big Lie: "…in this budget, we have to make the tough choices necessary to cut our deficit in half by the end of my first term, even under the most pessimistic estimates. At the end of the day, the best way to bring our deficit down in the long run is not with a budget that continues the very same policies that have led us to a narrow prosperity and massive debt. It's with a budget that leads to broad economic growth by moving from an era of borrow and spend to one where we save and invest." –President Barack Obama, who is moving America into the most massive crushing debt in history, faster than any presidential administration in history.

And, of course, when Obama says "invest," he means tax, borrow, and spend.
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Joke of the day: On a Saturday afternoon, in Washington, D.C., House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's aide visited the Cardinal of the Catholic cathedral. He told the Cardinal that Nancy Pelosi would be attending the next day's sermon, and he asked if the Cardinal would kindly point out Pelosi to the congregation and say a few words that would include calling Pelosi a saint. The Cardinal replied, "No. I don't really like the woman, and there are issues of conflict with the Catholic Church over certain of Pelosi's views." Pelosi's aide then said, "Look. I'll write a check here and now for a donation of $100,000 to your church if you'll just tell the congregation you see Pelosi as a saint."
The Cardinal thought about it and said, "Well, the church can use the money, so I'll work your request into tomorrow's sermon."
As Pelosi's aide promised, House Speaker Pelosi appeared for the Sunday sermon and seated herself prominently at the edge of the main aisle. And, during the sermon, as promised, the Cardinal pointed out that House Speaker Pelosi was present. Then the Cardinal went on to explain to the congregation — "While Speaker Pelosi's presence is probably an honor to some, she is not my favorite person. Some of her views are contrary to those of the church, and she tends to flip-flop on many other views. Nancy Pelosi is a petty, self-absorbed hypocrite, a thumb sucker, and a nit-wit. Nancy Pelosi is also a serial liar, a cheat, and a thief. Nancy Pelosi is the worst example of a Catholic I have ever personally witnessed. She married for money and is using it to lie to the American people. She also has a reputation for shirking her Representative obligations both in Washington, and in California. She simply is not to be trusted."
The Cardinal completed his view of Pelosi with, "But, when compared to Senators Ted Kennedy, Harry Reid, and John Kerry, House Speaker Pelosi is a saint."

“This is a mandate to get along, to get something done in a bipartisan way. This is not a mandate for a political party or an ideology.” – Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), when asked if tuesday's election results gave his party a mandate.

"…as we unify the American people. And I pledge again, as I did last night, that we will do so in a strong bipartisan way, with civility in our debate" – Speaker Of The House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), in a post-election press conference.

Here we have two of the most partisan members in Congress, calling, like Rodney King, for us all to just get along. This is literally the first time I can ever recall Harry Reid speaking in a manner other than the politics of the divisive partisan attack. Pelosi hasn't been much different. In Pelosi's newsconference, she used the words "unity" or "unifying" over and over again.

So what gives ? Why all the calls for unity and bipartisanship ? Have these two former attack dogs suddenly seen the light of brotherhood after all these years ? Not hardly. The answer is much simpler. It's because now, with the incoming Obama presidency, it's the Democratic agenda that Reid and Pelosi will be pushing through, and they want the congressional Republicans to go along with them. The Democrats didn't reach a filibuster-proof majority in tuesday's elections. They also know the Republicans WON'T go along with all the Dem plans, so they are setting the stage to call the GOP obstructionist when any Democratic measures fail to pass.

Reid/Pelosi aren't really calling for unity, they are calling for submission. They want the loyal opposition NOT to oppose them. That is an impossibility. There will be no unity, and there shouldn't be. The GOP can no more check their beliefs at the door than the Democrats did during the Bush presidency. What will exist is the same bitter partisan battles, but with a shift in the balance of power toward the Democrats. Unity is an utter illusion. The only way we could achieve unity is if we only had ONE political party, and I believe the word for that wouldn't be "unity", it would be "totalitarianism."

So spare me the faux Kumbayah stuff.

Here's a definition of "totalitarianism" from Wikipedia.

Totalitarianism (or totalitarian rule) is a concept used to describe political systems where a state regulates nearly every aspect of public and private life. Totalitarian regimes or movements maintain themselves in political power by means of an official all-embracing ideology and propaganda disseminated through the state-controlled mass media, a single party that controls the state, personality cults, control over the economy, regulation and restriction of free discussion and criticism, the use of mass surveillance, and widespread use of terror tactics. The term was applied to Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. A perfect example of a present-day Totalitarian state is North Korea.

I ask you, which political party most closely resembles the totalitarian model ? Which party thinks the state should regulate so many aspects of public and private life ? Which party is so skeptical of free markets ? Which party advocates more state control of mass media ? Which party desires more control over the economy ? The Democratic party, that's who. Run away from Democratic so-called "unity" as fast as you can, folks. Run toward liberty instead. That's the American way.

Speaking of controlling mass media, regulating private life, and controlling the economy, here's what Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said on FoxNews about the Fairness Doctrine (which would shut up all those Conservative talk radio voices), and the Employee Free Choice Act (which would eliminate the secret ballot in union voting):

“The very same people who don’t want the Fairness Doctrine want the FCC [Federal Communications Commission] to limit pornography on the air. I am for that… But you can’t say government hands off in one area to a commercial enterprise but you are allowed to intervene in another. That’s not consistent.”

WTF ? Talk radio is the same as pornography now ? Like hell it is. Far scarier is the notion promoted by Schumer that the government should regulate EVERYTHING, that the government should intervene in ALL COMMERCIAL ENTERPRISES. Like I said, run as fast as you can away from people like Chuck Schumer. Also note that the Fairness Doctrine would be applied only to radio, where the Right has an advantage. It wouldn't be applied to any mass media that favors the Left. What a coincidence, eh ? Totalitarians on the march.

On the Employee Free Choice Act, Schumer says we need it because only 6% of businesses are unionized. Say what ? Here, Schumer is saying we should take away the right of the secret ballot because American workers are choosing not to unionize. More freedom-killing from Schumer, this time because unions are a big-time Democratic special interest. I have nothing against unions, but I have a lot against removing essential rights, such as the secret ballot, in order to promote the paid-for Democratic political agenda.

Message for president-elect Barack Obama: If you really want to show the people you are the president for all Americans, as you said in your acceptance speech, you can start by killing the unamerican Fairness Doctrine and the Employee Free Choice Act. Otherwise, your words of inclusivity will be meaningless.

Time for a little economic straight talk. This week's headlines informed us that Exxon/Mobil made a record profit of $14.3 billion for the 3rd quarter of 2008. Barack Obama immediately added this tidbit to his campaign stump speech to illustrate the unfairness gap between the haves and the have-nots, and also to bash John McCain's tax plan. The Barack Obama's of the world get very upset when private companies make such large profits. They see it as E-V-I-L and G-R-E-E-D-Y. In ObamaWorld, the more money you rake in, the more evil and greedy you are (federal government excepted). What Obama and friends leave out of the equation is this – Exxon/Mobil also paid $11.3 billion in taxes for the 3rd quarter. Isn't that enough ? Isn't that too much ? That money funds those endless government programs Obama loves so much (Obama has proposed increasing spending on no less than 175 government initiatives. I wonder when he finds time to sleep). You see, in order for Obama to redistribute wealth, there must be wealth to begin with, and it's our private sector that creates it. With so many American businesses struggling and/or failing right now, why is Obama holding up for derision the one company that is doing the best ? The reason is, Democrats play class warfare games to get elected, but Obama should realize that killing the golden goose doesn't make for very smart economic policy. It's not like we'd be better off if all our companies were losing tons of money, as the automakers, banks, airlines, and many others are doing. Count me as one who wishes all our businesses were as successful as Exxon/Mobil. That would take care of 98% of America's problems right there. In order to help our businesses be successful, which in turn enables our citizens to become employed, successful, and prosperous themselves, it just might be a good idea to HELP the business sector rather than add ever more hurdles for it to overcome. That's why John McCain's tax/economic policy, which lowers the business tax rate, keeps the capital gains tax rate low to encourage investment, and enables American businesses to be more competitive, is a REAL GOOD idea, while Obama's tax/economic policy, which penalizes business success and adds new business burdens, is a REAL BAD idea, unless we as a nation have some sort of perverse death wish.

While I'm on the subject, let's explode another Obama falsehood, one that he's repeated about 100,000 times by now. McCain's tax/economic policy is NOT the same as George W. Bush's, not at all. Bush cut the individual income tax rates for 100% of us, like Obama is proposing for 95% of us. McCain is NOT proposing individual income tax rate cuts. What McCain is proposing is to cut the business tax rate from 35% (second highest in the entire world) to 25%. I only wish McCain was cutting that tax rate even lower to attract more new businesses and more new jobs to this country. The object of taxation isn't to centralize wealth in the hands of the federal government, it's to help the people. Nothing helps people more than jobs. No government entitlement even runs a close second to employment for promoting the general welfare.

All this brings me to the news item of the day. In Janurary 2008, Barack Obama described his energy policy as follows:

Let me sort of describe my overall policy. What I've said is that we would put a cap and trade system in place that is as aggressive, if not more aggressive, than anybody else's out there. I was the first to call for a 100% auction on the cap and trade system, which means that every unit of carbon or greenhouse gases emitted would be charged to the polluter. That will create a market in which whatever technologies are out there that are being presented, whatever power plants that are being built, that they would have to meet the rigors of that market and the ratcheted down caps that are being placed, imposed every year. So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can; it's just that it will bankrupt them because they're going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that's being emitted. That will also generate billions of dollars that we can invest in solar, wind, biodiesel and other alternative energy approaches. The only thing I've said with respect to coal, I haven't been some coal booster. What I have said is that for us to take coal off the table as a ideological matter as opposed to saying if technology allows us to use coal in a clean way, we should pursue it.

Obama plans to bankrupt the coal industry, by design. The coal industry supplies 70% of our electricity. Funny, the Messiah didn't mention his coal bankrupting plans when he was campaigning in coal mining states like Ohio, Pennsylvania, or West Virginia. He pretended to be a friend of coal then.

During the same interview, Obama went on to say, "under my plan, electricity rates will necessarily skyrocket".

And you folks thought Obama was a friend to the middle class. You won't think so when you get your utility bills during an Obama administration. Obama's plans for coal come from the same left wing environmental mindset that have restricted our domestic oil supply and stopped nuclear power, leaving us dependent on countries like Saudi Arabia. If you are naive enough to believe Obama when he says he isn't beholden to special interests, you better think again. The environmental lobby is one of those special interests. Barack Obama will hurt every person in this country to appease them, by his own admission.

Most amazing of all is, Obama said he planned to bankrupt the coal industry and send electricity prices soaring BACK IN JANUARY, yet we haven't heard a word about it until now, on the verge of the election. Millions of people have already voted, and I bet next to none of them knew about this.

Instead of getting substantive information from the media, information that could help us make an informed decision about who should be the next president, we get "hope and change", and we get questions like the ones that Leisa Zigman, a reporter for KSDK-TV in St. Louis, asked Obama during a recent interview:

1.) “Your presidential campaign may go down as the most organized in history. Yet the polls remain tight in Missouri. In the last seven days what else can you say to sway undecided and McCain-leaning Missouri voters?”
2.) “Today, Bob Clark, founder of Clayco Construction, sent a letter to his employees. In part it read, ‘Sometimes, but rarely, a person appears at the right time and the right place to transform ordinary people into thinkers and doers who can accomplish more than they ever thought they could. That truly is the definition of inspiration. Barack Obama has this quality. I have witnessed it personally many times.’ In 2004, Mr. Clark raised thousands for the Bush campaign, but for the past two years, he’s raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for your campaign. Please respond.”
3.) “Who has helped your campaign more: Missouri U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill or Oprah?”
4.) “What was it like when you were in St. Louis in front of 100,000 people? What were you thinking as you looked out from the Arch to the Old Court House and beyond?”
5.) “Many people are worried about your safety. What are your thoughts in light of the alleged skinhead plot?”

One only marvels at how the Messiah maintained his composure under such withering journalistic scrutiny.

Wake up, America. You only have one more day.

Today, I'm going to print a newspaper column by Orson Scott Card in it's entirety. Card is a Democrat, and is brutally honest about the sorry state of so-called journalism in this country. He says what I've been trying to say about our pathetic media, but he says it better than I could. Everybody should read this in order to discover how badly the mainstream media is misleading America.

Without further delay, here's Mr. Card.
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Would the Last Honest Reporter Please Turn On the Lights?
By Orson Scott Card

This article first appeared in The Rhinoceros Times of Greensboro, North Carolina, and is used here by permission.
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P.S. – On a related note, the Democrats, led by Henry Waxman (D-CA), have said they will begin Congressional investigations into the misdeeds of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac……on NOVEMBER 20th, 2008, AFTER THE ELECTIONS. How convenient for the Democrats. These are the people to whom you are about to hand unbridled power, America. Good luck with that. You'll need it.

The Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, Chris Dodd (D-CT), has NO idea how the mortgage crisis happened. I repeat, he is the CHAIRMAN OF THE SENATE BANKING COMMITTEE !!! Dodd says, "American taxpayers are angry and they demand to know how we arrived at this moment."

Well, Mr. Dodd, as CHAIRMAN OF THE SENATE BANKING COMMITTEE, you know damned well how the mortgage crisis happened, and the truth is slowly coming out. The mortgage crisis was created by Democrats like Chris Dodd, who repeatedly blocked regulation. Even former Democratic president Bill Clinton knows that, though I'm surprised he is admitting it. I'm always shocked when a Democrat tells the truth. It's a rare occurence. Most Dems are stonewalling for all they are worth. Here's President Clinton being interviewed on ABC:

CHRIS CUOMO, ABC NEWS: A little surprising for you to hear the Democrats saying, "This came out of nowhere, this is all about the Republicans. We had nothing to do with this." Nancy Pelosi saying it. She signed the '99 Gramm Bill. She knew what was going on with the SEC. They're all sophisticated people. Is that playing politics in this situation?

BILL CLINTON: Well, maybe everybody does that a little bit [lie, he means. Yes, the Dems certainly do that. Constantly]. I think the responsibility the Democrats have may rest more in resisting any efforts by Republicans in the Congress or by me when I was President to put some standards and tighten up a little on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Gosh, that sure doesn't square with the contention by Democrats and the pro-Obama mainstream media, who are so certain that it was those Bush deregulation policies of the last 8 years that caused the problem (a curious hypothesis, since the Bush administration didn't propose any deregulation of the financial industry during the last 8 years. The GOP only proposed REGULATION of the financial industry, and the Dems shot it down, every time).

The following exchange on Fox News sums up nicely how the mortgage crisis happened.

JIM ANGLE, CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, backed by the federal government, buy mortgage loans from the lenders who make them. But four years ago, both were in trouble over shoddy accounting. Fannie Mae Chief Franklin Raines, President Clinton's former budget director, was fired. To placate those in Congress who watched over them, Fannie and Freddie promised to do more to help poor people get mortgages. That led them to buy riskier and riskier home loans from private lenders creating incentives for everyone to make shakier loans.

PETER WALLISON, AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE: The problem is that they encouraged very bad mortgages to be made by banks and other institutions, because Fannie and Freddie would buy them.

ANGLE: Eventually, they bought trillions of dollars worth of mortgages, a substantial portion of them based on poor credit, then resold many of them to financial institutions who thought they were safe because the federal government was behind them.

PETER WALLISON, AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE: As a result of this appearance that they were backed by the government, people never paid very much attention to the assets they were acquiring or the risks they were taking.

ANGLE: And so shaky mortgages spread throughout the system. But in 2005, the Senate Banking Committee, then chaired by Republican Richard Shelby, tried to rein in the two organizations bypassing some strong new regulations.

WALLISON: Which would have prevented Fannie and Freddie from acquiring this bad — these bad mortgages. It actually gave a new regulator for Fannie and Freddie the kinds of powers that a bank regulator had.

ANGLE: All the Republicans voted for it. All the Democrats, including the current chairman, Senator Chris Dodd, voted against it, and that was after Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan had issued a stark warning to senators that Fannie and Freddie were playing with fire. Greenspan said without stronger regulations, "We increase the possibility of insolvency and crisis. Without restrictions on the size of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, we put at risk our ability to preserve safe and sound financial markets in the United States."

Guess how Democrats responded to the "strong new regulations" of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that Senator Shelby and other Republicans proposed ? They claimed everything over at Fannie and Freddie was just fine and dandy, they attacked the regulators, and they called Republicans racists for proposing the regulation, like they always do with any GOP legislation they don't like. Political correctness over sound policy, that's the Dem mantra. In the interests of fairness, some House Republicans also opposed the regulations, though the vast majority were for it. Virtually ALL Democrats opposed it, and that's why the regulations died.

When Barney Frank (D-MA) became the incoming Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee after the Dems won Congress in 2006, he said this at the National Press Club on December 11, 2006:

Now let me turn to housing — we have more to do yet in the deregulation. I’m just saying that one of the things that we did was to try and reduce the reporting requirement from the banks to the financial detectives. And far too much has to be reported now, in my judgment, of a routine nature. And the metaphor that I use is that we have told the law enforcement people to find a bunch of needles, and then we have set about building them a very big haystack. And we ought to thin that down so they can do a better job. One of the things that I want to stress to my liberal friends is that excessive regulation or ineffective regulation is bad for regulation. Regulation is very important. The market does need some corrections, but if you overdo it, then you weaken your case.

Yet, the Dems claim Bush was the deregulator of the mortgage industry. NOT. Barney Frank was against every attempt by Republicans to regulate Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, as was Chris Dodd, as was Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) over in the House, as were virtually all Democrats. Remember this when the lying scumbags try to blame this all on the Republicans. The Democrats protected Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac at every turn, and now we are all left holding that big bag of crap.

And guess who received the second most campaign contributions from Fannie and Freddie ? Mister Hope and Change himself, Barack Obama. Number one is Chris Dodd. They say if you want to know the truth about something, follow the money. Yes, indeed. That's all you have to do here.

Here's another interesting quote from Barney Frank, made in 2003 during Senate hearings about regulations of Fannie and Freddie that the Bush administration was calling for:

Some of the critics of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac say that the problem is is the federal government is obligated to bail-out people who might lose money in connection with them. I do not believe that we have any such obligation. And as we said that it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy based on people. So let me make it clear: I’m a strong supporter of the role that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac play in housing. But nobody who invested in them should come looking to me for a nickel, nor anybody else in the federal government.

Think of this when you hear Mr. Fwank making jokes about how the GOP killed the bailout deal the other day, and about how Fwank says the GOP put their hurt feelings above the good of the country. Fwank is full of it. He wouldn't tell the truth now to save his life, but he sure as heck will lie to save his job. Read many of Barney Fwank's statements about Fannie-Freddie here. It's enlightening.

Democrats know Sarah Palin is the least qualified Vice Presidential candidate in history. Her experience is limited to four years on the Wasilla, Alaska city council, eight years as mayor of Wasilla, two years on the Alaska Oil And Gas Conservation Commission, and nearly two years as governor of Alaska.

Outrageous. If McCain wasn't a computer illiterate, as a recent Obama ad points out, I'd send him an angry e-mail (then again, maybe the Obama people might have mentioned in that ad that McCain's war injuries make it very difficult for him to type at a keyboard. When McCain surfs the web, someone else does the typing for him. Funny how the Obama people left that part out).

Why, the last time an American Vice Presidential candidate had less experience than Palin is way, way, way back in…

2004, when John Kerry made John Edwards his Veep pick..

Edwards' entire political career consisted of less than one term in the US Senate at the time. Edwards had no executive experience, and no military or foreign policy experience either. John Edwards later became one of the big three frontrunners for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, and garnered more votes than a slew of more experienced candidates. The Dems went on to nominate the only guy they could find with less time in the Senate than Edwards himself, Barack Obama. So, you see, sometimes experience matters to the Dems and other times, not so much.

Do you all remember how the media attacked Edwards like a pack of wild dogs for his inexperience, how they launched a firestorm of criticism and rumors about him, how they descended on his hometown like Huns, trying to dig up every fact ever known about the man, no matter how trivial or irrelevant ?

No, I don't either, because they didn't do it. That sort of thing is reserved for Republicans.

Interestingly enough, ABC's Charlie Gibson interviewed John Edwards right after his Vice Presidential nomination was announced, just as he did with Palin. You can imagine the sort of tough questions Gibson asked of Edwards, just as he did with Palin. But you don't have to imagine anything, because here is a link to the Gibson interview with John Edwards. I print here every question Gibson asked, every statement Gibson made:

GIBSON: In the first half-hour, we talked about how direct were the attacks from the Republicans on the podium last night [at the 2004 Republican National Convention], directed at the Democratic ticket of John Kerry and John Edwards. A response this morning from John Edwards, the vice-presidential nominee of the Democratic Party. I talked with him a few moments ago.
GIBSON: Senator Edwards, they went at you hammer and tong last night from the podium here at this Republican Convention, saying the fundamental security of this country was at stake in this election, questioning John Kerry's ability to be commander in chief. I wonder how you felt as you listened.
GIBSON: Did it make you in any way second-guess the decision at the Democratic Convention not to mention George Bush from the podium so often, not to engage as directly?
GIBSON: You have used this line about two Americas and they have turned that from the podium night after night after night, saying, A, that there aren't two Americas, and, B, that what's really there are two of, two John Kerrys. And they get into this theme about John Kerry's conflicting votes on various issues. How are you going to answer that?
GIBSON: You speak with such equanimity this morning. Didn't they [the GOP] make you mad last night?
GIBSON: Did you get mad [at the GOP], though?
GIBSON: John Edwards, good to talk to you. Thanks very much.

Whew. One only wonders how Edwards didn't crack under such a withering attack. Of course, since Gibson was attacking the GOP, I guess it wasn't that difficult.

Any questions about how the mainstream media influences elections ?

If you still don't realize what's going on with the media in America, here are the questions Charlie Gibson asked Barack Obama during an interview three months ago. The Hot Air website accurately reported the gist of Gibson's questions to Obama as follows:

How does it feel to break a glass ceiling?
How does it feel to “win”?
How does your family feel about your “winning” breaking a glass ceiling?
Who will be your VP?
Should you choose Hillary Clinton as VP?
Will you accept public finance?
What issues is your campaign about?
Will you visit Iraq?
Will you debate McCain at a town hall?
What did you think of your competitor’s [Clinton] speech?

Pathetic. Sycophantic. Crap. And typical of how Obama has been treated by the MSM.

We don't have a mainstream media. We have a propaganda firm serving the interests of the Democratic party.

And FoxNews. The ones the rest of the mainstream media laughably criticize for being biased. If for nothing else, I commend FoxNews just for being off the Democratic media plantation.

As ABC's Charlie Gibson started interviewing Governor Sarah Palin (R-AL), asking her this series of questions:

"Governor, let me start by asking you a question that I asked John McCain about you, and it is really the central question. Can you look the country in the eye and say "I have the experience and I have the ability to be not just vice president, but perhaps president of the United States of America?""
and
"…didn't say to yourself, "Am I experienced enough? Am I ready? Do I know enough about international affairs? Do I — will I feel comfortable enough on the national stage to do this?""
and
"Didn't that take some hubris? [to run for VP]"
and
"When I asked John McCain about your national security credentials, he cited the fact that you have commanded the Alaskan National Guard and that Alaska is close to Russia. Are those sufficient credentials?"
and
"I'm just saying that national security is a whole lot more than energy".
and
"Did you ever travel outside the country prior to your trip to Kuwait and Germany last year?"
and
"Have you ever met a foreign head of state?"

I found myself wondering why no reporter EVER sat down with Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) and asked him these same questions during the 19 months of Obama's presidential campaign, when here they are asking Palin within 2 weeks of her VP nomination. Obama, with no executive experience, no governing experience, no management experience, no foreign policy experience prior to running for the presidency, no experience running any type of military outfit, indeed, no military experience of any kind, and none of the energy experience that Palin has either. Why didn't they ever ask him if HE had hubris, if he had the experience, if he had the qualifications, not just to be Vice President, but to be the leader of the free world, the Commander-In-Chief, the President of the United States ??? Even during 21 Democratic primary debates, I don't remember any reporter ever questioning Obama's credentials, not for one second. Hillary Clinton did question Obama's credentials, and the media castigated her for it. They called her mean-spirited. What incredible double standards we have in this country. Charles Gibson's first EIGHT questions all implied that Sarah Palin is not qualififed for the job.

When Gibson got done impugning Palin's experience, he tried to cast her as a religious kook, with these questions and statements:

"You said recently, in your old church, "Our national leaders are sending U.S. soldiers on a task that is from God." Are we fighting a holy war?"
and
"I take your point about Lincoln's words, but you went on and said, "There is a plan and it is God's plan."
and
"…are you sending your son [to Iraq] on a task that is from God?"

Again, Obama, who is a Christian, has never been asked any questions of this kind that I can recall. Apparently, "God's plan" is only important if you're running for Vice President. The only questions asked regarding Obama's church had nothing much to do with theology, they had to do with Obama's spiritual mentor of 20 years being an anti-american racist.

So, Gibson tried to establish right up front that Sarah Palin is a provincial holy roller who has never set foot outside the igloo. All in the spirit of fairness, I'm sure.

That being said, I thought the interview was tedious and repetitive (how could it not be, with Gibson asking the same question over and over and over ?), and I thought Palin looked nervous, and at times confused. She made some errors. She referred to Russia's aggression toward Georgia as "unprovoked", but that is an oversimplification. It was reported that way in the American media, but Russia's actions weren't unprovoked. Russia's response wasn't proportional, however, and was a clear act of aggression. In the later part of the interview that was broadcast on Nightline, Palin said we should do something about global warming whether it is man-made or merely the result of natural weather cycles. Uh, no. If global warming is the result of natural weather changes (i.e. solar activity), there isn't anything we can do about it. The last I heard, we don't have any control over the sun.

Gibson asked Palin over and over whether the USA should support Israel if Israel decided to act to take out Iran's nuclear facilities, and Palin repeatedly gave the same answer, that Israel is an ally and we shouldn't second guess Israel regarding it's own national security. Gibson tried real hard to get Palin to say Israel should destroy Iran's nuclear facilities, and I applaud her for not saying that.
Gibson asked Palin over and over whether we should cross into Pakistan without Musharraf's permission to take out Al Qaeda, and Palin repeatedly gave the same answer, that we must do what is necessary to defeat Al Qaeda and shouldn't take any options off the table. Gibson tried real hard to get Palin to say we should invade Pakistan, and I applaud her for not saying that. Gibson tried to get Palin to say we'd have to go to war with Russia if we let Georgia into NATO, and Palin took the bait on that one a little bit, indicating that was perhaps a possibility according to the terms of the NATO alliance, which, of course, it is.

Are y'all getting the drift of all these 'will you take military action ?' questions from Gibson ? The more times he can get Palin to answer in the affirmative to military action, or even acknowledge the possibility of military conflict, the more the media can portray her, and Republicans in general, as warmongers. Or maybe I'm just being paranoid from watching this same sort of thing happen my entire lifetime. When Obama says we should invade Pakistan, well, that's just sensible, because that's where Bin Laden is. When a Republican says the same thing, they are unilateral fascist warmongers.

I heard some response from the left. I heard Alan Colmes allege that Palin didn't know what the Bush Doctrine was, but that was specious. Palin only asked for clarification on that question from Gibson, for specifics. I heard Clinton supporter Lanny Davis say he was shocked by Palin's declaration that we would go to war with Russia, but that was a severe misrepresentation of what she said.

I'm sure the furious spin will start today, as every word Palin spoke will be parsed, dissected, and recast.

At this point, I'm wondering if we we'll hear another true word from the mainstream media about Sarah Palin, or even John McCain, until election day. They are in full attack mode, fearing that their wunderkind Obama might (shiver) lose the election, leaving America stuck in the seventh circle of hell (also known as 'non-government dependence'). They're like rabid dogs trapped in a corner by animal control, foaming at the mouth and ready to lash out at any moment. Now, in their bloodlust to bring down Palin, they are attacking the very voters Barack Obama is attempting to woo, the middle class and small towns across America.

In a Michael Kinsley hit piece on Palin for Time, called Alaskanomics, which Yahoo put up on it's home page to maximize exposure, Kinsley starts with this:

Sarah Palin thinks she is a better American than you because she comes from a small town, and a superior human being because she isn't a journalist and never lived in Washington and likes to watch her kids play hockey.

This is classic circular (non)logic. First, the media, Democrats, and the Obama campaign jump all over Palin for being a mayor of a small town in Alaska, which they say renders her unfit, calling her all sorts of sexist names in the process, as I outlined in the Palin Derangement Syndrome post, and then when Palin defends herself by saying there are good people in small towns, that same group says 'look, Palin thinks she's better than you !'. Un-freaking-believable.

In addition to character assassination, Kinsley also attacks Palin for not being a fiscal conservative (ironic, since the liberal Kinsley detests fiscal conservatism). He does this primarily by attacking Alaska as a whole more than anything Palin has done. During her short tenure as governor, Palin has reduced government spending by $500 million, and pork barrel spending has been reduced by 67%. That sounds rather like a fiscal conservative to me, unlike, say, Barack Obama, who plans to drive federal spending through the roof if he grabs the reins of federal power. Obama has also openly stated that he has no plans to balance the federal budget in his first term. Alaska has a large budget surplus under Palin, estimated to be between $5-9 billion next year. Palin has also instituted ethical reforms to root out corruption. Evidently, when Kinsley researched his hit piece on Palin (apparently using DailyKos as his primary source), he overlooked these things. Palin doesn't need to control spending too much with her huge surplus, but she still has.

The strange thing about it is, a liberal like Michael Kinsley should LOVE what Sarah Palin has done as governor of Alaska. She taxed the oil companies. She distributed those monies back to Alaskan citizens to help with their energy bills. She has fought corruption in her own Republican party, replacing many of the 'old boy' network. She cancelled the Bridge To Nowhere. She sold the governor's jet.

Yet, liberals HATE her. I understand the differences on social issues, but Kinsley is attacking her strictly on fiscal matters. It makes no sense.

You'd almost think there was an agenda behind all the lies and distortions.

Speaking of lies and distortion, Annenberg Factcheck.org has addressed a few of the phony Palin rumors that have been propagated by the media. Here's a quick summary: No, Palin didn't try to ban library books. No, Palin didn't cut funding for special needs education, she tripled it. No, she was never a member of the Alaskan Independence Party (AIP). No, she has not pushed for creationism in public schools. No, she didn't support Pat Buchanan for president.

Finally, the 'I Am Moonbat' quote of the day, from radio talk show host Randi Rhodes. Rhodes was talking about John McCain's POW experience during Vietnam, when she said: "Of course he [McCain] became very friendly with the Vietnamese…He was well treated actually."

Sure, Randi. I guess that's why they called it the Hanoi HILTON. Nothing but the finest amenities.

Since Democrats and the mainstream media have awakened at long last to the notion that experience is important for a president, where before they were mesmerized by the audacious word 'CHANGE', CNN's Anderson Cooper actually asked Barack Obama about his experience (and to think, it only took 18 months or so into the campaign). Obama's answer is WAY revealing. Here's the exchange:

Anderson Cooper: Some Republican critics say, you don’t have the experience to handle a situation like this [Hurricane Gustav]. They’ve in fact said that Governor Palin has more executive experience as mayor of a small town and as governor of a big state like Alaska. What’s your response?

Barack Obama: Well, you know, my understanding is that, uh, Governor Palin’s town of Wasilly [sic] has, uh, 50 employees, uh, uh, we’ve got 2500, uh, in this campaign. I think their budget is maybe $12 million a year. Uh, uh, we have a budget of about three times that just for the month. Uh, so I think that, uh, our ability to manage large systems, uh, and to, uh, execute, uh, I think has been made clear over the last couple of years. Uh, and certainly, in terms of, uh, the legislation that I’ve passed just dealing with this issue post-Katrina, uh, of how we handle emergency management. The fact that, uh, many of my recommendations were adopted and are being put in place, uh, as we speak indicates to extent to which we can provide the kinds of support and good service that the American people expect

The eloquent, uh, Obama is COUNTING HIS, uh, PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN as, uh, executive experience ! Yeah, THAT'S the same thing as GOVERNING A STATE, not that Obama even acknowledged the fact that Sarah Palin is the governor of Alaska (Alaska has a $10 billion budget and employs 25,000 people). He compared the size of his freaking presidential campaign to Palin's town of Wasilly back when she was the mayor in order to make himself look bigger. That's a real profile in dishonesty, as is Obama's attempt to equate co-sponsoring legislation AFTER THE FACT of hurricane Katrina with executive experience.

And do I even need to mention that Obama doesn't run his campaign ? He has a campaign manager to do that. To buy into Obama's fallacious logic, Palin would also have executive experience just by virtue of running for political office ! So would everybody else who ever ran for office.

The McCain campaign had a response to Obama's buffoonery, oh yes:

“For Barack Obama to argue that he’s experienced enough to be president because he’s running for president is desperate circular logic and it’s laughable. It is a testament to Barack Obama’s inexperience and failing qualifications that he would stoop to passing off his candidacy as comparable to Governor Sarah Palin’s executive experience managing a budget of over 10 billion dollar dollars, and more than 24,000 employees.” —Tucker Bounds, spokesman John McCain 2008

I think Obama supporters better zip their lips about Sarah Palin's inexperience, because it only shines a spotlight on Obama's own inexperience, and forces The One to make ridiculous statements like this one.

Better the Dems should talk about the really important things, like how Palin's daughter is, gasp, pregnant, or how her husband had a DUI twenty years ago. Just to keep the campaign positive.