Draw and STRIKE!

2013-05-19T13:26:00.001-07:00

How Media Progressives Like Those At

The New York Times Go About

Shaping The 'Correct' Perception

People Should Have Of News Stories

Some real news came out of the release of the Inspector General's report on the IRS abuse, and from the Congressional hearings this week. The Obama administration lied when it claimed it had no idea the IRS was targeting Conservative groups for delays & denials of their applications for tax-exempt status.

Everybody lied. The then-IRS Commissioner lied last year to Congress when he insisted no such targeting was going on, and Obama lied when he claimed he learned of the IRS scandal just last week by reading the newspapers.

But you wouldn't really know that if you read the New York Times. You MIGHT if you dug way down deep into the story towards the end, if you can read a little between the lines.

Thankfully, as the following screenshots will show, you can learn for yourself how a breaking news story containing REAL new information gets 'massaged' by a media professional to ensure that readers come away with the 'correct' impression.

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tom-blumer/2013/05/18/nyts-peters-cleans-jonathan-weismans-original-report-fridays-irs-scandal

This is Jonathan Weisman. He's sorry for reporting real news

& promises it won't happen again.

When Jonathan Weisman first put his story up on Friday following more Congressional testimony, this is what the headline and the opening sentence looked like:

Now, notice what Weisman did here: in the HEADLINE and in the OPENING SENTENCE he revealed the MAJOR NEWS that came out of that day's testimony. The IG directly contradicted the Obama administration's claim it had no idea anything was wrong at the IRS or that certain groups and citizens were being targeted for harassment due to 'incorrect' political beliefs.

In other words, WEISMAN DID WHAT A REPORTER IS SUPPOSED TO DO. He led with the news and made it easy to see.

Well that really bothered somebody higher up, who decided that Weisman's piece was 'incomplete' and needed some 'massaging' to bring out the REAL STORY.

Take a look at what Weisman's original piece was turned into after it was helpfully 'edited' by Jeremy W. Peters:

Hello! I'm Jeremy Peters, the Political Morale Officer

here at the NYT's! I see Jonathan left the real news out of his article!

No problem, I can fix that!

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/18/us/politics/irs-scandal-congressional-hearings.html?_r=0

As you can see, Jeremy W. Peters knew EXACTLY what Weisman's article needed; the real story is about the REPUBLICANS trying to use this breaking scandal for their own political benefit.

So how could Weisman have left out the word 'Republicans' in the headline? How could he have not inserted Republican attempts to enlarge the scandal to score political points against the White House in the very first sentence? Well Peters made sure those were the very first things that got changed.

Peters must have also wondered: Hey Johnathan, WTF? Why are you LEADING with the IG's testimony that he informed top administration officials of the scandal back in 2012? Don't you realize this directly contradicts what Obama & the administration spent all this week claiming? Why the bloody blue hell would you make THAT the lede? Are you seriously trying to give your readers the sense there's a REAL scandal here instead of just another political witchhunt? No man, you gotta BURY that crap and hide it way further down in the story like this:

Weisman's original opening sentence:

What Peter's butchered it into way down in the 9th paragraph:

See Johnathan? THAT'S how it's done, bro! You change it from 'senior Treasury officials', which reveals a bunch of top Administration people knew, to just the 'Treasury's general counsel', a single person. It's important to give the present administration as much cover as you can! Are you taking notes, bro?

In the USSR's military, there was the military commander and then there was the 'Morale Officer' which is a kind way of saying Communist Party hack. The military commander would make decisions and then would have to run them by the Morale Officer first for approval. That often meant sound military decisions were changed and suborned to stupid party ideology.

How is what Peters did to Weisman's article any different? Sound reporting was 'massaged' until it reflected Party Ideology. There is no way anybody can call that revised article anything but propaganda.

From a real news story into a political hack job - The NYT's at it's best!

Congratulations, media 'journalists' like those at the New York Times. You don't break news any more, you cover it up. You don't speak truth to power, you cover for The Power. How's it feel to be today's version of the USSR's Pravda?

Since Jeremy Peters is on Twitter at @jwpetersNYT , how's about we all go tell him what a smashingly good job he did improving the article by burying the real news & interjecting a lot of political spin?

@jwpetersnyt How The NYT's Goes About Shaping The 'Correct' PerceptionPeople Should Have Of News Stories: drawandstrike.blogspot.com/2013/05/how-me…
— Brian Cates (@drawandstrike) May 19, 2013

Youse guyz can follow me on Twitter at @drawandstrike if you really want to.

UPDATE: It's #ACCOUNTABILITYWATCH DAY 10 since Lois Lerner tried her 'controlled explosion' on Friday May10th. You know what one of the biggest outrages of the IRS scandal is?

That the Obama administration quickly proffered two patsies who weren't even in charge when most of the abuses took place. A guy who was leaving next month anyway and a guy who'd been on the job a grand total of 8 days.

That's NOT accountability. Accountability would be the people in charge at the time the abuse took place getting fired, not the people who replaced them. But for some reason the MSM seems pretty darn reluctant to point out that Lois Lerner and Sarah Hall Ingram still have jobs at the IRS.

Why is that?

2013-05-17T15:08:00.004-07:00

The IRS Scandal's Sacrificial

Resignations To Cover For

The *REAL* Culprits

It's masterful the way the Obama administration tried to pull this off. Now, it didn't work, but you have got to admire the planning that went into it.

Having known for weeks that an IRS scandal was about to break, the administration quickly sacrificed outgoing Acting Commissioner of the IRS Steven Miller - who as it so happens was leaving that job next month anyway.

The unlucky Joseph Grant - NONE of the criminal conduct happened

while he was on the job the last EIGHT DAYS but canned anyway!

It's next move was to 'force' the resignation of the fellow presently in charge of the IRS division where this targeting of Conservative groups occurred from 2009-2012. The problem? That guy had only been in that job for a grand total of 8 days.

Meanwhile, the two people who were in charge of that IRS division while the actual abuse was occurring? Nothing whatsoever has happened to them. In fact, both received huge bonuses over this time period and one of them was actually PROMOTED to a new, higher position.

Last Friday Lois Lerner had a planted question asked to her at a conference so the IRS could get out ahead of the release of the Inspector General's investigative report that came out this Wednesday. Lerner was attempting to do what's in media parlance called a 'controlled explosion', where the offending party breaks the bad news itself, offers an apology and minimizes their own culpability in an attempt to head off further damage.

In her statement to a stunned room of conference goers last Friday, Lerner admitted the IRS division in charge of granting tax exempt status to non-profits had deliberately targeted Conservative groups for delays and denials of their applications for tax exemption. She then made a concerted effort to blame just a handful of low level rogue employees in one office in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Further investigation - and the release of the IG's report this Wednesday - has revealed that just about everything Lerner claimed was false.

Kevin D. Williamson at NRO's excellent 'The 9 Lies Of Lois Lerner' breaks down her falsehoods so go read it:

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/348428/nine-lies-lois-lerner-kevin-williamson

Today former Acting IRS Commissioner Steve Miller defiantly told Congress that the IRS's deliberate targeting of certain groups due to their political beliefs was 100% legal, before backing away from that statement.
http://twitchy.com/2013/05/17/acting-irs-chief-agencys-targeting-of-conservative-groups-absolutely-not-illegal-video/?utm_source=autotweet&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=twitter

As the scandal grows, the glaring fact that 2 patsies offered up thus far weren't in charge when the abuse occurred, while the two people who were sail on untouched will be much, much harder to justify.

Lois Lerner Sarah Ingram Hall

Riddle Me This: How in the hell do these two people STILL have

jobs at the IRS?

Sarah Ingram Hall, who was actually in charge of the tax exempt division when this criminal conduct occurred, not only hasn't been fired, she was actually promoted to the head of the IRS's new ObamaCare enforcement division. Lerner is also still safely ensconced at her IRS job.

Last Friday when the attempt at a 'controlled explosion' was just getting underway after Lerner's revelation & apology, the IRS told reporters that no one had been fired or would even be disciplined for these abuses. Karen Tumulty at the Washington Post:

IRS on conf call saying no disciplinary action against employees who targeted tea party groups for extra scrutiny.
— Karen Tumulty(@ktumulty) May 10, 2013

That smug attitude quickly changed, leading to the offering up of two scapegoats, but the real question is how can the IRS - and the Obama Administration - claim the scandal has been dealt with when the people most responsible for the scandal are still there?

2013-05-11T19:37:00.004-07:00

Liberal Stupidity Case #23,443:

Concrete Example From The Benghazi Talking Points Of The Obama Administration's Attempts To *DEFINE* The Threat Of Islamic Terrorism Out Of Existence With Word Games

CBS New's Sharyl Attkisson - one of the few real investigative reporters that will follow the story no matter WHERE it goes - was discussing the Obama administration's heavy editing of the CIA's talking points on the Benghazi attack.

As ABC News' Jon Karl revealed on Friday, those talking points underwent 12 revisions, and at no point was a YouTube video mentioned in any of them, something that reduced Jay Carney to a stuttering idiot yesterday in his briefing with the White House press corp.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2013/05/exclusive-benghazi-talking-points-underwent-12-revisions-scrubbed-of-terror-references/

Attkisson was tweeting out the nature of the administration's edits, which you can read about here:

http://twitchy.com/2013/05/10/sharyl-attkisson-reviews-trail-of-benghazi-talking-points-references-to-islamic-extremism-jihad-removed/

Note this peculiar particular edit she mentions:

Removed "Islamic" from the reference to "Islamic extremists."
— Sharyl Attkisson (@SharylAttkisson) May 11, 2013

Uh really? An attack supposedly over a video in an area inhabited by Islamic militias, why would they feel a need to remove the word 'Islamic?

A Sr. US Intel official tells CBS: “Overall, the changes were made to address intelligence and legal issues."
— Sharyl Attkisson (@SharylAttkisson) May 11, 2013

Oh. That's right..........legal issues. The Obama administration had LIMITED the language federal agencies can use when discussing 'man caused disasters' overseas.

Even as they were getting ready to put out the false narrative about our consulate being sacked & Americans being killed by an Islamic mob due to a YouTube video, somebody in this administration objected to the use of the word 'Islamic' in the CIA talking points.

Marvel for a moment, if you will, that people locked into this kind of stupidity are presently in charge of our national security.

As you'll recall, I ranted about how this stupid Obama policy of trying to DEFINE the threat away just last week:

http://drawandstrike.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-obama-administrations-determination.html

.....from the earliest beginnings of this administration's roll out of it's 'smart power' policy of redefining the domestic terror threat out of existence, people were warning this would put the walls between federal agencies right back up and put us on a pre-9/11 footing again. AND AMERICANS WOULD DIE BECAUSE OF IT.

Dick & Liz Cheney were exactly right, as all the fumbling and bumbling by the FBI, CIA, DHS and White House the past 2 weeks has amply demonstrated.

Click on image to view at full size, read from the bottom right

With his eyes wide open, Obama led a rebuilding of all the walls between federal agencies when it came to sharing info and being alert for foreign & domestic Islamic terror activity. Because, as in everything, he was convinced it was in his political interest to do so.

From Bengahzi to the Boston Marathon Bombing, Obama's stupid and dangerous short-sighted policy of playing word games with real existential threats has already borne bloody fruit and will continue to do so until we get new people in charge.

2013-05-09T16:16:00.002-07:00

With Eyewitnesses Finally Coming Forward Despite Threats & Retaliation, The Truth Is Coming Out:

The Obama Administration Lied To America About A Terrorist Attack For Weeks For No Other Reason Than To Cover Its Own Ass & Win An Election

Deliberately lying about a terrorist attack for even a single day would have been bad enough. But the Obama administration desperately tried to sell its YouTube video version of the Benghazi attack for over two weeks.

U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice launched the cover up on 5 Sunday news shows. For the next 17 days the administration sold the video narrative to whoever would listen - including the grieving families of the 4 Americans that died.

A moment that will live in infamy: Hillary Clinton knows the

truth that there was no Benghazi demonstration over a YouTube video

when she blames it for the Benghazi attack -

and then tells Charles Woods they are going to

prosecute the videomaker

Listen at 16:40 as Hillary Clinton blames an inflammatory

YouTube video as the 'cause' of the Benghazi attack that killed

US Ambassador Chris Stevens & 3 others

They finally gave up because even the WHITE HOUSE PRESS CORP couldn't help itself and started laughing out loud at Jay Carney's attempt to keep the meme alive.

The great thing about the Benghazi conspiracy for the Progressive Left is that the cover up had a TIME LIMIT.

The cover up lie about Benghazi being a 'spontaneous event' caused by 'a YouTube video' ONLY needed to last until the election was over. The whole point of the cover up was to make sure the administration avoided any political blowback over it's own incompetence that led directly to this attack and 4 dead Americans. Blowback might hurt Obama's reelection chances, so a cover up became necessary.

A sitting President & his administration made a calculated political decision to lie to the American people for WEEKS about a terrorist attack in which Americans died so they could avoid any accountability for it and win an election. And once the election was over and they won it, it was time to turn the page on Benghazi forever.

For over two weeks the administration had all it's ducks in a row: Obama, Susan Rice, Hillary Clinton, Jay Carney - at every opportunity when asked about Benghazi they CONSTANTLY blamed the YouTube video and claimed it was the cause of the attack. This DESPITE the fact there was NEVER a shred of evidence provided by anybody in Libya that there had been any kind of protest at all. All the evidence they had from people on the ground pointed to a terrorist attack.

But it couldn't BE a terrorist attack on a consulate they had isolated & stripped security from in a terrorist hot zone on the anniversary of 9-11. It just COULDN'T be. This fact was not politically helpful.

Neither Gregory Hicks or anybody else on the ground in Libya that day

EVER reported any kind of demonstration/protest at Benghazi.

When Their Man In Libya called and asked just where in the heck did this idea come from that the Benghazi terrorist attack was REALLY just a 'spontaneous protest over a video', since neither he or ANY BODY ELSE on the ground in Libya he was aware of had EVER told anyone back in Washington that, he was basically told to shut his mouth and drop this line of questioning.

When Greg Hicks, their guy in charge in Libya asked White House where video/protest talking point came from, "SHUT UP!", they explained.
— Brian Cates (@drawandstrike) May 9, 2013

The same administration that had told him what an awesome job he did during and after the Benghazi attack then turned on Hicks and demoted him for not being a team player and questioning their cover up.

The media reaction to this has been predicable. A whistleblower who just happened to be the State Department's top guy in Libya once Steven's died & he had to take over just testified to Congress that wherever the administration got this weird idea that the Benghazi attack happened during a video protest, they certainly didn't get it from him or anyone he talked to, and this isn't some big revelation.

The media is DISTINCTLY uncurious about who decided to totally invent this talking point about a video protest in an attempt to get this administration off the hook for getting caught with it's pants down on 9/11/12.

Something Ace of Spades & I discussed on Twitter:

When you can, please let us know which law allows career diplomats to be demoted for finking on office-holders. @michaelphirsh@ronfournier
— DepressiveBlogger69 (@AceofSpadesHQ) May 9, 2013

@aceofspadeshq @michaelphirsh @ronfournier When guy in charge in Libya asked WH where video/protest talking point came from: "SHUT UP!"
— Brian Cates (@drawandstrike) May 9, 2013

@aceofspadeshq @michaelphirsh @ronfournier They went from 'great job in Benghazi aftermath!" to "Shut up about video talking point origin!"
— Brian Cates (@drawandstrike) May 9, 2013

@aceofspadeshq @michaelphirsh @ronfournier Our Man In Libya wants to know where video talking point came from, got demoted for asking.
— Brian Cates (@drawandstrike) May 9, 2013

@aceofspadeshq @michaelphirsh @ronfournier Apparently Hicks went from awesome job after attack to not being a team player in the cover up
— Brian Cates (@drawandstrike) May 9, 2013

@aceofspadeshq @michaelphirsh @ronfournier You'd think real journalists would also want to know where video talking points originated.
— Brian Cates (@drawandstrike) May 9, 2013

@aceofspadeshq @michaelphirsh @ronfournier It is quite remarkable that they are decidedly uncurious about this.
— Brian Cates (@drawandstrike) May 9, 2013

@drawandstrike @michaelphirsh @ronfournier but they don't. They exist to cover things up themselves, not to expose them.
— DepressiveBlogger69 (@AceofSpadesHQ) May 9, 2013

2013-05-07T20:03:00.000-07:00

Lefty Media's Big Excuse For Missing

Pigford & Benghazi Stories:

"Right-Wing Media Covering Those Stories
Made Them Untouchable. So Our Lack of
Coverage Is Their Fault."

I am not joking. This is not a parody. They are actually saying this at places like MSNBC, Salon.com, and The Atlantic.

First, The Atlantic article by Conor Friesenwhatsis in which he admits Breitbart was right about Pigford BUT it was also Breitbart's seizing hold of Pigford that MADE 'progressive journalists' not want to look into the claims of fraud:

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/05/how-did-progressive-journalists-get-pigford-so-wrong/275593/

Friensendoofus' take on this is that Conservatives talking about Pigford made Lefty Progressives see it as merely a 'Conservative issue' and this prevented them from taking their own close look at what was happening with all that Treasury Dept. money with the Pigford settlements.

In point of fact Breitbart and other right-leaning media practically end up having their stories PICKED FOR THEM due to 'progressive jounalists' deciding to deep-six stories that make Progressives & Democrats look bad.

A point I made in the comments at The Atlantic:

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/05/how-did-progressive-journalists-get-pigford-so-wrong/275593/#comment-888572597

Click image to view at full size

Salon.com is also floating the justification for ignoring Benghazi: because it was a 'Fox News story' so if it DOES turn out to be something & nothing happens, this is Fox New's fault. Or something. See if you can make sense of this:

http://weaselzippers.us/2013/05/07/salon-lib-on-benghazi-if-the-three-new-witnesses-dont-get-the-attention-they-deserve-fox-news-and-its-ilk-deserve-much-of-the-blame/

While we won’t know exactly what the three will say until they testify Wednesday, some pieces have leaked. Thompson, according to Fox News, is alleging that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton tried to cut out his counterterrorism bureau from the department’s decision-making in responding to the attack. This, Thompson will reportedly allege, was part of the administration’s attempt to downplay the terror connection to the attack. [...]
If the three new witnesses don’t get the attention they deserve, Fox News and its ilk deserve much of the blame.

Yes, this is the defense the Lefty Media is going to mount for 'missing' these important stories. Because of their ideology, they refuse to cover something, the Right does, so now this gives the Left a reason to discount the story because it's only "Right-wing people talking about it.".

And once the story grows to the point the Lefty Media HAS to cover it, they blame the New Media for 'doing it wrong' and forcing them to stay away.

I've had it with this stupidity.

Shorter Lefty Media water carriers for Obama: "IF ONLY BREITBART HAD STAYED OFF THE PIGFORD STORY, DAMMIT!" #BUTTHURT #SCOOPEDAGAIN
— Brian Cates (@drawandstrike) May 7, 2013

@aceofspadeshq Isn't it amazing how every story Lefty media doesn't want to cover instantly becomes a 'Conservative crusade nonstory'?
— Brian Cates (@drawandstrike) May 7, 2013

@aceofspadeshq "We don't wanna cover #PIGFORD, #BENGHAZI..oh wait, Conservatives are covering it? WE'RE OFF THE HOOK! Now it's UNTOUCHABLE!"
— Brian Cates (@drawandstrike) May 7, 2013

Amazing how Lefty Media manages to repeatedly sneer "F**K YOU!" at Conservative Media while professing to just be now discovering stories
— Brian Cates (@drawandstrike) May 7, 2013

Year 1: Pigford is a nonstory. F**k you!"Year 2: "Still a nothingburger. F**k you!" Year 3: "You were right, so what? F**K YOUUUU!!!"
— Brian Cates (@drawandstrike) May 7, 2013

Breitbart wasn't making Pigford a 'conservative' issue. He was covering a story the Lefty media was determined to ignor
— Brian Cates (@drawandstrike) May 7, 2013

But this is how Lefties plays the game: ANY story they choose to ignore or suppress INSTANTLY becomes a 'nothingburger Conservative crusade'
— Brian Cates (@drawandstrike) May 7, 2013

The moment WE talk about stories the Lefty Media are ignoring/suppressing they switch to their 'Oh hey see, only Cons care about this!" mode
— Brian Cates (@drawandstrike) May 7, 2013

"We TOLD you this was all just a political witch hunt, right? Notice ONLY Fox News & Breitbart, etc. are the 1's talking about this?"
— Brian Cates (@drawandstrike) May 7, 2013

Virtually ALL of MMFA's coverage of Pigford was in relation to attacking, mocking & ridiculing Breitbart for this 'nonstory' he was pursuing
— Brian Cates (@drawandstrike) May 7, 2013

For MMFA, Pigford was seen solely as a 'Breitbart crusade'; no reason to pursue any independent investigation of the claims of fraud
— Brian Cates (@drawandstrike) May 7, 2013

The Lefty Media is ALWAYS more than happy to point out Fox News, Breitbart's supposed ideological agenda in picking the stories they cover.
— Brian Cates (@drawandstrike) May 7, 2013

What the Lefty Media NEVER talks about is THEIR OWN ideological agenda which CREATES the need for a Conservative media.
— Brian Cates (@drawandstrike) May 7, 2013

Lefty Media ideological ignoring/suppressing of stories practically creates the Conservative news 'crusades' and 'nonstories' we see.
— Brian Cates (@drawandstrike) May 7, 2013

Lefty Media doesn't want to cover #BENGHAZI or #PIGFORD, so it's left up to Fox News, Breitbart & other 'ideological' Conservative media
— Brian Cates (@drawandstrike) May 7, 2013

Lefty Media is masterful at hiding it's OWN ideological agenda, then turns around & talks nonstop about 'ideologically driven Cons. media'
— Brian Cates (@drawandstrike) May 7, 2013

Well it's time to call them out on this. Hey Lefty Media, YOU are HANDPICKING many of our stories for us. AND WE'RE KICKING YOUR ASS WITH'EM
— Brian Cates (@drawandstrike) May 7, 2013

Yeah, we'll cover #BENGHAZI & #PIGFORD because YOU won't, & when the truth comes out, you have no excuse.
— Brian Cates (@drawandstrike) May 7, 2013

We MAY be ideologically bound to cover the stories YOU choose to ignore & suppress, but U are DEFINITELY bound by YOUR ideology.
— Brian Cates (@drawandstrike) May 7, 2013

Lefty Media proves it's bound to it's ideology every time they choose to ignore/suppress a story that hurts the Left.
— Brian Cates (@drawandstrike) May 7, 2013

Somehow it's supposed to be a VALID CRITICISM of the Righty Media that they often focus a lot of their time on stories the Left ignores.
— Brian Cates (@drawandstrike) May 7, 2013

This is called BALANCE.There are no 'Lefty' or 'Righty' stories, they're just STORIES.There's just news events.
— Brian Cates (@drawandstrike) May 7, 2013

Lefty Media ideology in suppressing & ignoring real stories FORCES the alternative media to step in & cover them. & then get blamed for it!
— Brian Cates (@drawandstrike) May 7, 2013

"We said this was a big non-story, so if Fox & Breitbart are focusing attention on covering it, that proves they = ideological"
— Brian Cates (@drawandstrike) May 7, 2013

How many times are YOU gonna get caught 'missing' a real important story due to YOUR ideology b4 you stop this stupid sh*t, Lefty Media?
— Brian Cates (@drawandstrike) May 7, 2013

If you'd stop being ideologically driven & just do your f**king job like you were SUPPOSED to, we wouldn't NEED a Righty media, would we?
— Brian Cates (@drawandstrike) May 7, 2013

Maybe #PIGFORD & #BENGHAZI will at last expose the people ALWAYS calling the other side 'ideological' as being nothing but themselves.
— Brian Cates (@drawandstrike) May 7, 2013

I am sick & tired of 30 years of watching these bastards in the MSM suppress real news stories, then mock the people that go where news is
— Brian Cates (@drawandstrike) May 7, 2013

2013-05-02T09:32:00.001-07:00

While The Left Still Waits With

Bated Breath For The First

Tea Party Rally To Devolve Into

A Riot.......

Let's All Enjoy The Usual Round Of Excuses They'll Make For THESE May Day Protesters As They:

Assault Cops
Engage In Massive Amounts of Vandalism
Say Stupid Stuff

http://weaselzippers.us/2013/05/02/seattle-leftist-may-day-protesters-in-violent-clashes-with-police-rocks-metal-pipes-fireworks-hurled-at-police-officers/

Only in the minds of Leftist goons can police not letting them move in on a glass storefront so they can vandalize it be worthy of assaulting cops:

http://twitchy.com/2013/05/02/may-day-protester-brags-about-punching-officer/

I asked this over a year ago, and the challenge still stands: Find me one example from a Tea Party rally where people assaulted cops or engaged in vandalism like this. If one cannot be supplied, then can we FINALLY bury this stupid Leftist meme that the Tea Party is 'violent'?

At Seattle's May Day protests last year, Asst. Police Chief Mike Sanford made an ill-advised

attempt to effect an arrest after he witnessed an act of vandalism - and had to be rescued by his

own police force after being surrounded by black bloc protesters, several of whom were armed

with clubs and pipes.

Here's a website making the usual BS argument Lefty's use to excuse the always-present violence during these protests:

http://www.presstv.ir/usdetail/301374.html

Yes, anarchists always 'hijack' the peaceful march. Nothing they can do about it really, even though this happens EVERY time. I don't know, maybe I'm unrealistic, but if EVERY YEAR or every WTO meeting you have a march that turns violent, how many times can you float this idea that your side isn't really doing anything violent, this is anarchists 'hijacking' your protests?

Somehow I get the idea if Skinheads or violent wackos on the Right ever did start 'piggybacking' Tea Party rallies, Tea Party organizers/marchers would NOT get off the hook by simply claiming their peaceful rally got 'hijacked'. And even IF some people would buy that, how many years in a row would they take that excuse before reconsidering?

While cities like Seattle lose millions of dollars every year to the vandalism that inevitably occurs during these protests, it's worth noting this kinda stuff never happens in red states. Because when they tried to vandalize a store, some of these rioters would get shot.

UPDATE: John Ekdahl & Ace both put up posts on this at the Ace of Spades blog that are both well worth a look:

http://ace.mu.nu/archives/339633.php

Yet Again, Anarchists Highjack Peaceful Left Wing Protest

http://ace.mu.nu/archives/339634.php

Mostly Peaceful Riot in Seattle Leaves Eight Cops Mostly Peacefully Injured after Having Been Mostly Peacefully Pelted with Mostly Peaceful Rocks and Mostly Peaceful Bottles

http://www.jammiewf.com/2013/stunner-mostly-peaceful-may-day-march-turns-violent-in-seattle-eight-cops-injured/

Stunner: Mostly Peaceful May Day March Turns Violent in Seattle, Eight Cops Injured

2013-05-01T14:53:00.001-07:00

It was a long time ago! You don't NEED to hear from

eyewitnesses of this terrorist attack! Can we just all move on already?

IN OTHER NEWS, THE BENGHAZI COVER-UP CONTINUES TO UNRAVEL

The administration's attempts to stonewall on Benghazi also reached comical proportions today. For over 6 months we were told 'the investigation is ongoing, can't talk about it'. Now all of a sudden, watch Jay Carney suddenly pull the 'Benghazi was a long time ago, let's move on, OK?' card:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=_w2McO3Wk70

Oct: Wait for the investigation.Dec: Wait for the investigation.Mar: Wait for the investigation.May: #Benghazi happened a long time ago.
— Razor (@hale_razor) May 1, 2013

Gee, what could possibly have happened to cause the switch from "Sorry can't talk about it" to "This was a long time ago, why are we still talking about it?"

Oh. Hey. Maybe the fact actual EYEWITNESSES in Benghazi that night have finally decided to come forward despite threats & give their testimony to Congress:

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-57582207/benghazi-whistleblowers-still-waiting-to-tell-their-story/

Eventually, some of these people were going to talk. The only question was, how long could this thuggish administration cow them into anonymous silence? Turns out the answer was about seven months.

If the Bush administration had tried to keep eyewitnesses of a terrorist attack on the anniversary of 9/11 that killed Americans from telling their stories, do you need ME to tell you how our DNC shill mainstream media would be covering it?

2013-05-01T14:46:00.003-07:00

Andrew Breitbart & Lee Stranahan

Vindicated On Pigford Scandal

The New York Times 'revealed' to it's readers a few days ago what everyone who followed Andrew Breitbart and Lee Stranhan's expose of Pigford knew over 3 years ago:

After starting out for a legitimate purpose to rectify real grievances, the Pigford program was turned by Democrats into a huge vote-buying scam using taxpayer money right out of the Treasury.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/26/us/farm-loan-bias-claims-often-unsupported-cost-us-millions.html?hp&_r=1&pagewanted=all&

For exposing the corruption and lies of Pigford, and how it has devolved into a huge cash cow for Democrats fronting bogus discrimination complaints in order to steal taxpayer's money, Andrew Breitbart and Lee Stranahan were mercilessly lampooned, mocked, ridiculed and attacked by the Left for over 3 long years.

But that didn't stop them from telling the truth about Pigford and how it was dishonestly being used to defraud American taxpayers out of hundreds of millions of dollars:

Eric Bohelert made countering every single revelation about Pigford by Breitbart & Stranahan with mockery and ridicule his own personal quest from his post at Media Matters For America:

http://twitchy.com/2013/04/26/hilarious-flashback-media-matters-tool-told-breitbart-to-hold-a-mardi-gras-style-funeral-for-pigford-crusade/

Great idea for @andrewbreitbart: He should have a mock, Mardi Gras-style funeral this wk for his Pigford crusade. Cuz it's dead/buried
— Eric Boehlert (@EricBoehlert) March 7, 2011

Since the NYT's broke this front page expose of the huge extent of Pigford corruption on April 25th, Boehlert hasn't tweeted or posted one word about it. Anyone care to guess why?

To me, this was the biggest revelation of the entire NYT's story:

Er, what?! You mean Attorney General Eric Holder has had for 5 years 'broad discretion' to settle Pigford cases all by his lonesome without any messy Congressional or Court oversight and we're only just NOW finding out about it?

Here's intrepid Attorney General Eric Holder trying to decide

how much Treasury money to hand out to some guy who never

owned a farm but who WILL be very generous with future

Democratic votes and donations.

So how many MILLIONS of the taxpayers money has he directly funneled out of the Treasury in the past 5 years? And who got all this money? Was anybody keeping count? Does any one know?

Congress needs to look into this just as soon as it's done with it's Benghazi and Boston Marathon bombing investigations.

2013-05-01T13:28:00.001-07:00

The Obama Administration's Determination To Avoid

The Obvious Is Reaching

Insane Proportions -

And It's Already Costing
American's Their Lives

It was always ludicrous that this administration embarked on a policy in 2009 of DEFINING Islamic terrorism out of existence by using solipsistic phrases like 'man-caused disasters', 'workplace violence', 'overseas contingencies operations' and whatever else they could dream up.

So the policy the past 5 years has been to drone-strike the sh*t out of Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations overseas while at the same time not allowing even the USE of the words 'jihad' or 'Islamic terrorism' in official language in gov't use on the domestic front.

It's not just insanely arrogant, it was also incredibly stupid, as the administration is once again being forced to use it's patented dodge that the Tsarnaev brothers are only 'lone wolf domestic terrorists'.

How many times has the Obama administration made this claim insanely early in the investigation?

Shoe Bomber = Lone wolf
NYT's Square Car bomber = Lone wolf
Ft. Hood shooter = Lone wolf
Underwear Bomber = Lone wolf

and now:

Boston Marathon bombers: a pair of lone wolves.

Now, there is an ELEMENT of truth to the lone wolf idea. Al Qaeda has clearly switched strategies from sending operatives from foreign countries like Saudi Arabia to the United States to carry out a single, specific attack. Like they did on 9-11.

No, what they'll do now is FIND radicalized Muslim fanatics who ALREADY LIVE inside the target country and encourage them to act.

But can a guy who traveled to a foreign country to meet radical Islamic terror groups and get training, encouragement and funding before returning to launch his own 'lone wolf' attack REALLY be a lone wolf?

HOW DID THE GOV'T MISS ALL THE RED FLAGS?

There is a story in the British press about the Saudis sending the Dept. of Homeland Security a warning in a letter in 2012 that mentioned Tamerlan Tsarnaev by NAME and that he was linked to a plot to launch an 'explosive attack a major US city'. The Saudi official quoted anonymously in the report also claims the British Gov't got the same warning the Americans did.

On the condition of anonymity, a DHS official confirmed to the Daily Mail that such a letter does indeed exist, and he had heard about it before the Daily Mail called and asked regarding it.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2317493/Saudi-Arabian-ambassador-Washington-DENIES-nation-warned-United-States-Tamerlan-Tsarnaev-2012.html

It must be remembered that when it was initially claimed that the FBI had interviewed Tamerlan Tsarnaev back in 2011, the FBI at first issued a flat and complete denial. Only after family members were talking in the press about the interviews they had with the FBI did an abrupt about-face occur.

"Oh. THAT Tamerlan Tsarnaev in Boston! Oh yeah, ok. We talked to this guy 2 years ago, didn't find anything."

When the bombing happened on Monday, you would have supposed by the time the video and pictures of the suspected bombers were circulating all over the country on Thursday morning that SOMEBODY at the FBI or the DHS would have been poring over the list of people in the Boston area with radical Islamic ties.

I mean, how long do you suppose the list is of people that live in Massachusetts with terrorist ties? How many make the list of 'a foreign gov't told us to watch this guy for terrorist activity' list? If such a list is more than a couple hundred names long, I'd be shocked. Was nobody looking at known or suspected Islamic radicals in the Boston area in that 4 day span from Monday to late Thursday night, when the terrorist brothers decided to ambush a cop? Would that police officer be alive right now if somebody at the FBI or DHS has been doing the COMMON SENSE THING and looking at known radicalized Muslims in Boston?

As I ranted on Twitter the other day, from the earliest beginnings of this administration's roll out of it's 'smart power' policy of redefining the domestic terror threat out of existence, people were warning this would put the walls between federal agencies right back up and put us on a pre-9/11 footing again. AND AMERICANS WOULD DIE BECAUSE OF IT.

Dick & Liz Cheney were exactly right, as all the fumbling and bumbling by the FBI, CIA, DHS and White House the past 2 weeks has amply demonstrated.

Click on image to read Twitter Rant at full size;

start at bottom of the right hand column and read your way up.

2013-04-15T11:54:00.001-07:00

The Kermit Gosnell Case

Gosnell initially scoffed at the idea he would ever be convicted of murder.

How 'Access To Choice' Ended Up Trumping Public Safety

Some observations after reading the Grand Jury report - which you can read yourself here:

http://www.phila.gov/districtattorney/PDFs/GrandJuryWomensMedical.pdf

1. As incredible as this is going to sound, PA Dept. of Health [DOH] officials decided to stop regular inspections of the state's abortion clinics in 1993; then in 1999 they held a big meeting where they discussed whether or not to begin regular inspections again...and decided not to since they strongly suspected several clinics would NOT pass any inspections. Since closing clinics would 'harm women's access to abortion', it was decided to leave these unsanitary, unsafe clinics alone and allow them to continue to operate.

This. Actually. Happened. It's on page 9 of the Grand Jury's official report.

But at least the department had been doing something up to that point, however
ineffectual. After 1993, even that pro forma effort came to an end. Not because of
administrative ennui, although there had been plenty. Instead, the Pennsylvania
Department of Health abruptly decided, for political reasons, to stop inspecting abortion clinics at all. The politics in question were not anti-abortion, but pro.

With the change of administration from Governor Casey to Governor Ridge, officials concluded that inspections would be “putting a barrier up to women” seeking abortions. Better to leave clinics to do as they pleased, even though, as Gosnell proved, that meant both women and babies would pay.

One of the DOH's own state lawyers - who was subsequently fired along with a lot of other people for this, by the way - testified to the grand jury about that 1999 meeting:

http://www.businessinsider.com/kermit-gosnell-clinic-not-inspected-2013-4#ixzz2QGpovf4O

The grand jury report that lays out allegations against Gosnell has an entire section called "How did this go on so long?" The simple answer is politics.

Pennsylvania's health department stopped routine inspections of abortion facilities in the state after Tom Ridge, a pro-choice Republican, became governor in 1995.

Health department lawyers "changed their legal opinions and advice to suit the policy preferences of different governors," health department official Janet Staloski said in grand jury testimony. In this case, she said the state didn't want to be "putting a barrier up to women" who wanted abortions.

In 1999, high-level Pennsylvania officials met to consider starting up regular inspections again but decided not to, state lawyer Kenneth Brody testified, according to the grand jury report. He told the grand jury that officials were concerns that abortion clinics wouldn't meet inspection standards and then there "would be less abortion facilities."

The state's politics-driven policy continued until the gruesome allegations regarding Gosnell came to light.

"Choice" trumped public safety. Time and again, PA health & legal officials chose to look the other way and let a butcher stay in business. Late term abortions have been illegal in America since 2003, and state law in PA forbid abortions being done after 6 months. So the kind of abortions Gosnell was doing were illegal to begin with.

2. Even two women DYING from procedures performed by Gosnell was not enough to get PA officials to crack the door open and take a look into Gosnell's clinic. This is a dereliction of duty beyond the pale.

Karnamaya Mongar was killed by Gosnell in November, 2009

The only record of any inspections being done of Gosnell's clinic from 1993 until the FBI raid finally shuttered the clinic in 2010 is from a health worker looking into compliance with a child vaccine program. This health worker checking up on kids vaccines used everything but signal flags to tell her superiors things at Gosnell's clinics were not right. She was ignored.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/04/14/PA-Dept-Health-Official-Tried-To-Help-Ignored-By-Superiors

It caused a huge state-wide scandal in PA when it was discovered that two women could actually die from an abortion "doctor's" bungling and it wouldn't even buy that abortion clinic a summary inspection.

3. Even after the second death in 2009, and numerous instances of women having to be rushed to emergency facilities after botched procedures at Gosnell's clinic, Gosnell was allowed to continue to operate. It was an FBI raid investigating Gosnell's illegal prescription drug sales that finally exposed the horror of what was going on in his 'clinic'.

Got that? Killing two women and maiming countless others since 1993 didn't even buy Kermit Gosnell an inspection, but rumors he was selling illegal prescription drugs got him raided by the FBI.

Karnamaya Mongar died as a result of malpractice by Gosnell's clinic staff on November 19, 2009. The FBI raid that finally ended the horror was held on February 18, 2010, a good 3 months after Mongar's death. Gosnell was still in business, with the FBI finding, as the Grand Jury reports on page 20:

......blood on the floor. A stench of urine filled the air. A flea-infested cat
was wandering through the facility, and there were cat feces on the stairs. Semi-conscious women scheduled for abortions were moaning in the waiting room or the recovery room, where they sat on dirty recliners covered with blood-stained blankets.

All the women had been sedated by unlicensed staff – long before Gosnell arrived
at the clinic – and staff members could not accurately state what medications or dosages they had administered to the waiting patients. Many of the medications in inventory were past their expiration dates.

3. Kermit Gosnell did not 'fall through the cracks'.

Gosnell was no 'back alley' abortionist. He was licensed by the State.

As the grand jury report makes clear, his abuses were brought to the attention of PA health officials repeatedly between 1993 and 2010. And repeatedly, PA health officials made a decision to take no action. When they stopped regular inspections in 1993 it was claimed the DOH would inspect clinics only when they received specific complaints. Yet the fact the DOH received numerous complaints about Gosnell from 1993-2010 while taking no action demonstrates this 'policy' was bogus.

4. Gosnell's abortion 'procedure' wasn't really an abortion procedure.

Unlike prostaglandin or D&C abortions, the two main late-term abortion techniques, Gonell's method ensured live births would take place. What he was doing was he was sedating the women and then giving them labor-inducing drugs, forcing them to give premature birth.

Inducing early labor in the 6th, 7th, and 8th month of gestation virtually assures some babies will exit the womb alive. Gosnell's method for handling such cases was to take a pair of scissors and sever the baby's spinal cord at the neck.

***WARNING****

GRAPHIC IMAGES BELOW. IF SEEING TWO OF THE ACTUAL INFANT MURDER VICTIMS OF KERMIT GOSNELL WOULD UPSET YOU, SKIM DOWN QUICKLY TO PASS OVER THE EVIDENCE.

These pictures are disturbing. For good reason have plenty of people discussed how this case has deeply affected them. You will have to click on them to bring them up to full size.

The result of an 'evacuation of the uterine contents' after Gosnell 'terminated the pregnancy'.

Gosnell is charged by the State of Penn. with murdering this baby boy.

Below are images from a 'dilation and curettage abortion

The difference between what Gosnell was doing with inducing early delivery vs.

a real abortion method such as Dilation & Curettage should be fairly obvious.

5. While the mainstream media is belatedly covering the Gosnell case, they are insisting on referring to the victims as 'fetuses'.

This is incorrect. The State of PA has correctly put Gosnell on trial for murder of babies, not 'fetuses'. These babies were born, they were outside of the womb, and they were alive when they were killed by having their spinal cords cut. Even according to many pro-choicer's convoluted 'inside womb a fetus, outside the womb alive a baby' this is murder, and the State is treating it as such.

In fact, this is the real reason why the MSM was deliberately trying to 'overlook' the 'nonstory' of Gosnell up until this week. As I explained on Twitter, this entire 'in the womb/out of the womb' distinction is totally bogus and many pro choicers have known this all along:

How many more Gosnells are out there, operating with impunity thus far because they knew they didn't have to worry about surprise inspections by state health officials? Is anybody out there REALLY looking for the next Gosnell? Or like the now-fired PA DOH officials, are they part of the cult of choice that practically results in policy that means 'access to choice' trumps public safety?

UPDATE: One might have been exposed in Delaware already due to 5 women having to be rushed to local hospitals since January of this year:

http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=news/local&id=9059172

Two former employees have come forward to blow the whistle to the local ABC affiliate. They very much make it sound like Gosnell 2.0. A key difference? This is a Planned Parenthood abortion clinic.

UPDATE II: Kermit Gosnell - Maiming & Injuring Women Since 1972! James Taranto in the WSJ had a long column on how we got from Roe to Gosnell that is well worth a read;

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324030704578422883948238160.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_MIDDLETopOpinion

This particular passage made for especially chilling reading:

As a long-time pro-life advocate, I've known for years the only real effect Roe v. Wade had on back alley abortionists was to allow those quacks to move from the back alley to hang their shingle on Main St. and get a license from the State to do what they'd already been doing. The idea that legalization of abortion drove the back alley butchers out of business is one of the most cherished illusions of the Progressive movement.

UPDATE III: After a week of testimony at the Gosnell trial about dead babies being dropped into toilets and flushed into Philadelphia's sewage system, this was sort of inevitable.

Planned Parenthood & NARAL weigh in: 'By Golly, If There's Anything The Gosnell Case Proves, It's That Abortion Clinics In America Need FEWER Inspections And Less Oversight From The State.

Yes. Really. They said this.

http://weaselzippers.us/2013/04/22/planned-parenthood-naral-abortionist-monster-kermit-gosnell-proves-we-need-fewer-restrictions-on-abortion-clinics/

2013-04-01T16:03:00.002-07:00

News of the Week:

Eagle Ford Shale Oil Field

Adds 116,000 New Jobs

& $61 Billion To Texas

Economy In 2012

http://www.aei-ideas.org/2013/03/the-eagle-ford-shale-oil-field-came-out-of-nowhere-and-had-an-61-economic-impact-on-texas-last-year/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=032713

What's interesting is Eagle Ford was found just 6 years ago, and nobody knew at the time what a bonanza it was going to be. It doubled it's oil output in just ONE YEAR from 2011 to 2012 and now clears 375,000 barrels a day.

Eagle Ford in Texas, Bakken in North Dakota & Marcellus in Pennsylvania are leading the way in an energy revolution that is totally befuddling the Obama Administration. Take out the economic gains of states like Texas and North Dakota and the economic picture for the nation gets even bleaker.

But instead of following Texas' lead, right now Washington and the EPA are planning their counter attack.

Out Of The 100 Biggest Cities

In America, Only 14 Now Have

More Jobs Now Than Before 2007 Recession Hit

Not surprisingly, 6 of the only 14 major American cities that now have MORE jobs than they did than before the recession of 2007 are in Texas.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323361804578390823877463426.html

And let it be noted: Texas Gov. Rick Perry has fought Washington constantly - especially the out of control EPA - to bring about this success.

NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo Unsuccessfully Tried To

Hide A Scientific Report From The Public

New York and other states could be enjoying the same economic lift from oil and gas development if it weren't for politicians that still buy the whole Global Warming fraud.

http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2013/01/06/leaked-report-suppressed-by-cuomo-says-fracking-is-safe/

“Thanks to a leak from an anonymous insider, we learned Thursday that a report commissioned by the State of New York has given fracking a clean bill of health. The insider ‘did not think it should be kept secret’ and released the document, which is now nearly one year old, to the New York Times.”

When NY State's own health department showed fracking is safe, Gov. Andrew Cuomo buried the report and continued delays.

http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/160973/

Remember when the authorities used to cover up dangers? Now they’re covering up news that fracking is safe, because that harms their political agenda.

9% of the population of NY State has gotten out in the last decade:

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/03/28/here-are-the-10-freest-states-in-the-u-s-and-the-least/

http://freedominthe50states.org/download/print-edition.pdf

9.0 percent of the state’s 2000 population, on net, left the state for another state between 2000 and 2011, the highest such figure in the nation.

When NINE PERCENT of your taxable base up and leaves in just over a decade, you've got problems.

Just A Friendly Reminder:

The Official Unemployment

Rate Keeps Dropping Because

The Labor Force Keeps SHRINKING.

It Is Now The Same Size It Was In 1981

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/post/the-incredible-shrinking-labor-force/2012/05/04/gIQANXAy1T_blog.html

It IS kind of amazing to consider there are now just as many people working as there was in 1982 DESPITE over 30 years worth of population growth and immigration.

Global Warming Policy Is

Killing People Already

While 250,000 people in the UK have died from cold since 2003, just 20,000 have died from heat.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/elderhealth/9959856/Its-the-cold-not-global-warming-that-we-should-be-worried-about.html

Due to totally buying the global warming fraud, the UK has drastically ramped down it's oil and gas production, closing coal-fired electrical plants and pouring trillions of wealth into useless solar and wind power farms. The result being a terrible shortage of power last winter that caused power failures and some near misses in some areas, a doubling of energy prices in the past 7 years, and elderly and poor people FREEZING TO DEATH in ever greater numbers.

So many people are now being forced into making an awful decision: freeze or eat? Heat or food?

The Great Global Warming Fraud can't be exposed fast enough.

http://freebeacon.com/science-earth-not-warming-over-last-15-years/

Like Michael Crichton, I knew back in the late 1990's the moment we would be able to check the computer model predictions the fraudsters were using to gin up the hysteria the whole thing would start coming apart.

I agree with DrewM:

http://minx.cc/?post=338782

After trillions in wealth has been wasted and misdirected and countless lives lost because of AGW Fraud, it's infuriating that not a single person will ever end up in prison because of this scam.

Hopelessly In Debt & Facing Bankruptcy,
San Bernardino, CA Is Contemplating A
Rather Novel Way Out Of It's Predicament:
Death

http://www.city-journal.org/2013/cjc0325jr.html

As Maetenloch noted on this story:

San Bernardino, CA is completely bankrupt but filing for bankruptcy still may not save it from CalPERS debt, insanely generous union benefits and pension payments that could take up 75% of the city's budget.But there is another option: death.

And lets end with this:

The Guy Who Leaked The East Anglia

Climate-Gate EMails Tells Why He Did It:

FOR THE POOR

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/03/13/climategate-3-0-has-occurred-the-password-has-been-released/

This guy should get a freaking Nobel Prize. Instead, he'll have to keep his identity secret until the day he dies.

2013-03-21T17:13:00.001-07:00

Stupid Liberals Doing

Stupidly:

NY Gov. Cuomo's New 'SAFE' Law

Ensnares It's First 'Criminal':

An Iraqi War Hero Who Sold

A 10 Rd Magazine In An AR-15

Liberals refuse to solve the real gun crime problem, so they'll write stupid laws like this SAFE Act to criminalize ordinary gun owners/sellers and then prosecute them. To show they 'care' and are 'doing something' about guns. Beyond pathetic.

I'm a moron, folks. I'm now calling for the repeal of a main provision

in a law I pushed the legislature to pass in a hurry just a month ago.

http://buffalonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130320/CITYANDREGION/130329919/1010

Nobody makes a freaking 7 round magazine, something that Andrew Cuomo finally got around to realizing just a few days ago.

http://washingtonexaminer.com/cuomo-new-law-banning-magazines-over-seven-rounds-should-be-repealed/article/2524994

“There is no such thing as a seven-bullet magazine. That doesn’t exist. So you really have no practical option,” New York Governor Andrew Cuomo admitted yesterday at a news conference, explaining why his tough ban on ammunition magazines over seven rounds should be repealed.

The bill must be repealed if New Yorkers ever want to purchase an ammunition magazine for their firearm.

Cuomo explained yesterday, however, that the new law will only allow citizens to put seven bullets in the magazines, unless they are at a shooting range.

Smart people tried to tell the liberals up there in NY this BEFORE they passed the SAFE Act that nobody makes a 7 round magazine, but anyone who spoke up trying to stop the law's passage or pointing out how unworkable it was, hey they must be right wing extremists and who pays attention to THOSE people?

They wrote this thing & passed it so fast it didn't even occur to them to exempt police from it.

http://www.humanevents.com/2013/01/18/goofball-new-york-legislators-forget-to-exempt-the-police-from-tough-new-gun-laws/

And note that if you get caught with a gun in NY state that has eight rounds in it instead of just seven, you've committed a felony. Yes, you're reading that correctly. Cuomo wants the law amended to read the act of putting an eighth round in a 10 round magazine is a felony worth up to seven years in prison.

So - 7 bullets you're a law abiding citizen. 8 bullets in the gun? You're a dangerous menace to society and a criminal. Thank God there's a court system to protect the rest of us from people like you.

Did I already say this was beyond pathetic? I did? Not one criminal with a gun in NY State will turn in a single magazine. But you'll see a whole slew of honest people like Benjamin Wassell get dragged to court, maybe even get prison time, so stupid Liberals like Cuomo can smugly pretend they're 'fixing the gun problem'.

2013-03-13T13:16:00.001-07:00

It's Been Six Months Since The

Benghazi Terrorist Attack -

And This Administration

Continues To Stonewall

Congress & Avoid Any

Responsibility Over It

How bad is it? The Congress can't even get this White House, State Dept. or CIA to simply TELL them who ANY of the Benghazi survivors are. There are around 30. Despite explicitly asking repeatedly for these survivors testimony about what happened that fateful night, not one name has been forthcoming.

The White House keeps turning over heavily redacted information then claiming they've 'complied'with Congresses' requests.

Imagine getting boxes full of papers that looked like this one & then

having the prick that sent it to you claiming he's 'complied' with

your request for information. Welcome to Darrell Issa's world.

CBS New's Sharyl Attkisson continues to be the ONLY major news network reporter demanding to know why this information hasn't been released to Congress yet:

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-57573613/six-months-later-where-are-the-benghazi-survivors/

Today marks six months since the September 11, 2012 terrorist attacks on the U.S. compounds in Benghazi, Libya in which four Americans were killed, including U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens. Some watchdog groups, members of the media and Republican members of Congress are asking: Where are the more than two dozen U.S. personnel who survived the attack but haven't been seen nor heard from in public since? There were also an undisclosed number of witnesses at the U.S. compounds in Tripoli but they also have not spoken publicly.

In a recent press report, Secretary of State John Kerry said he visited one survivor at "Bethesda hospital," and referred to him a "remarkably courageous person who is doing very, very well." Kerry added, "I've called his wife and talked to her." But the identities, condition and testimony of the survivors and witnesses have been closely held from the public.

Over 100 guys with automatic weapons, mortars and

techinicals with 50. cal. guns on the back =

'spontaneous demonstration' according to this White House

One reason the administration doesn't want to see the Benghazi survivors testify about the events of the night of September 11, 2012, is that their testimony before Congress will likely diverge from the administration's story as to what happened.

The administration has claimed repeatedly no requests for help from Tyrone Woods or Glenn Doherty were denied. Woods, Doherty & others were in constant radio contact with both the State Dept. and the CIA that night. The White House, State Dept. and the CIA all had members that testified under oath and assured various media reporters that no requests for aid were turned down during the seven hour attack.

The White House also embarked on a two week attempt to sell a false narrative to the country about the Benghazi attack being the result of a 'spontaneous demonstration' due to an inflammatory YouTube video. Members of Congress have thus far been unable to get the White House to put forth ANY evidence they had that pointed to any kind of protest or demonstration in Benghazi that day or night of September 11. The Benghazi survivors will no doubt be asked about this. Especially in light of the fact the administration has already admitted they WATCHED the attack via overhead drone cameras. How could they end up selling the video narrative when they knew from the first night how organized and heavily armed the attackers were?

Another sign of a cover-up is that the administration claimed several people had been 'fired' over Benghazi who actually weren't fired at all, an obvious attempt to give some kind of fake accountability and then quickly move on that backfired when the truth came out:

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/international/benghazi_penalties_are_bogus_ncP7RZx5uTIgDPbTp5WtoN

"So we really didn't fire them like we said we did.

What difference, at this point, does it make??!!!"

Hillary Clinton then had to 'explain' during her testimony before Congress why it was 'erroneously reported' that these four State. Dept. officials had been fired when in actual fact all had been placed on 'administrative leave' and were keeping their jobs:

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/01/23/clinton-finally-explains-why-the-four-state-dept-employees-blasted-for-leadership-failures-in-benghazi-report-have-not-been-fired/#

Did the White House EVER have any evidence of the attack being as a result of a protest over a video? Evidence has certainly mounted that from the time the attack was *STILL UNFOLDING* it was an organized terrorist attack, and yet for two weeks afterwards the White House attempted to sell the video idea.

If 9-11-12 was a planned terrorist attack on the anniversary of 9-11-01, and if the administration had been stripping security from one of the most dangerous diplomatic postings in the world, then this administration had a lot to answer for. Which is why it looks like they desperately attempted to sell a false narrative to the public for several weeks. It was just another example of how this administration will never accept responsibility for it's own policy decisions and instead will simply lie.

This very well could have been a full scale massacre with over two dozen dead Americans. It was only the quick thinking, actions, and self-sacrificing bravery of two former Navy SEALs that the Benghazi survivors managed to escape.

The American people deserve to know the truth about what happened that night. I don't see the White House's attempts to stonewall lasting much longer.

I did not write this poem. It's making away around the 'net. Kudos to the original author.

2013-03-12T14:50:00.002-07:00

It Begins To Dawn On Most

Democrats Just What A

Huge Freaking

Boondoggle ObamaCare

Is Gonna Be...

So naturally some of them are already wondering if there's something they can do to foist the responsibility for this huge turd onto the Republicans.

Sorry, Democrats. You own this sh*t sandwich. You're gonna have to eat it. You know who else is gonna have to eat it? Tax payers and voters. Think about that for a minute.

No, this is *NOT* the ObamaCare Law that nobody read before passing.

See, this is just *SOME* of the NEW job destroying, small business killing

REGULATIONS of the ObamaCare Law. Rest easy, Citizen!

The American Heritage Foundation in it's '12 Days Of ObamaCare' article spelled out the fact that while ObamaCare's costs keep skyrocketing, the actual NUMBER of new people who'll get health insurance coverage keeps declining:

http://blog.heritage.org/2012/12/18/12-days-of-obamacare-surprises-uninsured-americans/

One of Obamacare’s primary goals was to dramatically reduce the number of uninsured. To achieve this, Obamacare depends on a Medicaid expansion, new government subsidies funneled through exchanges, and an individual mandate to get people covered.

In 2010, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projected that Obamacare would insure 32 million non-elderly people by 2019, leaving 23 million non-elderly Americans uninsured.

In 2012, the CBO updated its projection to show that Obamacare would provide coverage for 36 million people through Medicaid and subsidized coverage in the government-run exchanges, leaving 30 million Americans uninsured in 2022.

Surprise: That’s a projected increase of 7 million additional Americans who will remain uninsured despite Obamacare’s costly efforts to expand coverage.

Or another way to put it:

Well when you remember this is the same administration that created 355 permanent 'green jobs' by spending $10 billion taxpayer dollars, it shouldn't really surprise you.

http://drawandstrike.blogspot.com/2012/06/obama-white-house-spends-10-billion-tax.html

As Obama and others with the 'vision of the anointed' have always admitted when they felt like being candid, ObamaCare is just a incremental step in getting the country ready for a single payer health care system. To get the public ready for such a single payer system, they first need to 'prove' to the citizenry just how broken and insufficient the private health insurance and health care industries are without total government control over them.

In other words, Obama & Democrats want to sell the public on the idea that the FREE MARKET is the problem because greedy capitalists are running it, so once the switch is made to having benevolent gov't bureaucrats running those industries from a central planning HQ, the prices will drop and the quality of the services will increase.

But the one flaw in this plan is that you have to keep people from noticing it's GOVERNMENT INTERFERENCE in that supposedly 'free market' that keeps prices climbing and the quality of service declining IN THE FIRST PLACE.

As Ann Coulter has pointed out incessantly in columns like this one, we don't really have a 'free market' in this country when it comes to health insurance. Gov't interference in the market keeps driving the costs up, and so the same people keep proffering MORE gov't interference as the way to 'fix' the problem.

Government Bureaucrat: What's that? After we passed a crapload of new

restrictions/regulations on the health insurance industry,

your premiums went up again? DAMN THAT FREE MARKET!

When are you gonna let us do right by you, O Citizen, and just put us

in charge of the whole thing?

They're likely to try the whole 'Oh hey, we're just as surprised as YOU are at the rising costs, but hey it's the law, too late now!' If you listen real close, you can hear them whisper '...suckers!' at the end of that sentence.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

UPDATE! With some help on Twitter, I got the bright idea of crunching the CBO's latest update on ObamaCare. We're going to spend $2.6 trillion taxpayer dollars in the next decade to....drop the # of uninsured people from 36,000,000 to 30,000,000.

In other words, we're going through this ObamaCare hell to insure just 36 million people and when we're done there'll still be 30 million with no health insurance.

You want to see how really stupid this is?

Here's what we COULD be doing with that $2.6 trillion over the next 10 years: we could just directly GIVE it to each of the 36,000,000 uninsured and let them buy their own health insurance with it.

How much money could each uninsured person in that 36,000,000 get out of that $2.6 trillion over 10 years?

How about...$72,222.00. Over 10 years that's $7,222 a year.

Got that? We'd better off getting this 36 million uninsured people health insurance if the freaking government just GAVE THEM $7,222 a year.

We'd spend the same $2.6 trillion we're slated to spent on ObamaCare, but instead of insuring just 6 million, we'd insure the entire 36 million.

Instead, according to the CBO, we're embarking on a 10 year, $2.6 trillion program, that is only gonna benefit 6 million uninsured people.

2013-03-04T12:36:00.001-08:00

Obama's Latest Buck-Passing Lie

Doesn't Work Out So Swell

Ever since he entered office President Obama has shown an unusual affinity for passing the buck every time a bad policy decision comes back to try to bite him on the ass.

Let's take a trip down memory lane:

1. WHITE HOUSE GETS CAUGHT RED HANDED CHANGING IT'S PANELS REPORT ON SIX-MONTH OFFSHORE OIL DRILLING MORATORIUM:

When asked who came up with the completely unnecessary six month moratorium on offshore drilling following the Deepwater Horizon explosion, the Obama White House told everyone that expert panel they had convened to study the issue came up with it.

It probably never dawned on the White House that the panel would speak up and tell the truth. When it did, the Inspector General for the Interior investigated and discovered the White House had indeed changed the language of the panel's report to make it look as if the panel had recommended a six month drilling ban.

From the New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2010/11/10/10greenwire-white-house-changed-report-implying-experts-su-96097.html

The White House tampered with language in a controversial Interior Department report on its deepwater drilling moratorium, implying a group of independent scientists supported language recommending the ban, according to the agency's watchdog.

Interior's inspector general said edits made by the White House to the Interior report "led to the implication that the moratorium recommendation had been peer reviewed by the experts."

At issue is the May 27 report on oil and gas drilling safety that was compiled at President Obama's request after the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, sparking the nation's worst oil spill. The report made several recommendations for safety improvements at offshore drilling rigs and called for the six-month ban on deepwater drilling and permitting.

To escape any political blowback from it's own policy decisions, Obama & Co. decided to try to foist it's decision onto the panel it convened. They would repeat this pattern constantly over the next several years.

2. WHITE HOUSE LIES ABOUT IT'S ROLE IN DECIDING TO STRIP AUTO WORKERS OF THEIR PENSIONS AND OTHER BENEFITS BY CLAIMING THE COMPANY MANAGING THE GM BANKRUPTCY MADE THAT DECISION

The first necessary step of any attempt to avoid bankruptcy is to shed debt. Which the White House did with GM by shedding debt owed to thousands of auto workers in the form of their pensions and benefits accumulated over the years of their labor. Strangely enough, many noticed that those workers for GM who were unionized were moved to the head of the line and got to keep all their pensions & bennies, and those who were not unionized ended up losing everything.

When questioned about who's idea it was to engage in such blatant favoritism, the White House claimed the company handling the auto bailout plan made that decision on it's own. Timothy Geithner, US Treasury Secretary and other Treasury officials testified as much under oath before Congress.

And then the truth came out:

http://dailycaller.com/2012/08/07/emails-geithner-treasury-drove-cutoff-of-non-union-delphi-workers-pensions/

Emails obtained by The Daily Caller show that the U.S. Treasury Department, led by Timothy Geithner, was the driving force behind terminating the pensions of 20,000 salaried retirees at the Delphi auto parts manufacturing company.

The move, made in 2009 while the Obama administration implemented its auto bailout plan, appears to have been made solely because those retirees were not members of labor unions.
The internal government emails contradict sworn testimony, in federal court and before Congress, given by several Obama administration figures. They also indicate that the administration misled lawmakers and the courts about the sequence of events surrounding the termination of those nonunion pensions, and that administration figures violated federal law.
Delphi, a 13-year old company that is independent of General Motors, is one of the world’s largest automotive parts manufacturers. Twenty thousand of its workers lost nearly their entire pensions when the government bailed out GM. At the same time, Delphi employees who were members of the United Auto Workers union saw their pensions topped off and made whole.
The White House and Treasury Department have consistently maintained that the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) independently made the decision to terminate the 20,000 nonunion Delphi workers’ pension plan. The PBGC is a federal government agency that handles private-sector pension benefits issues. Its charter calls for independent representation of pension beneficiaries’ interests.

Former Treasury official Matthew Feldman and former White House auto czar Ron Bloom, both key members of the Presidential Task Force on the Auto Industry during the GM bailout, have testified under oath that the PBGC, not the administration, led the effort to terminate the nonunion Delphi workers’ pension plan.

“As a result of the Delphi Corporation bankruptcy, for example, Delphi and the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation were forced to terminate Delphi’s pension plans, which means there are Delphi retirees who unfortunately will collect less than their full pension benefits,” Feldman testified on July 11, 2012.

The emails TheDC has obtained show that the Treasury Department, not the independent PBGC, was running the show.

Once again the pattern is seen: they make a decision and then run from it, trying to point the finger of blame at someone else. They pretend to be bystanders and say "Oh hey, PBGC, really?"

3. AFTER WASTING $20 BILLION OF THE TAXPAYERS MONEY TRYING TO PROP UP FAILING GREEN TECH COMPANIES LIKE SOLYNDRA, THE OBAMA WHITE HOUSE CLAIMS THEY ARE SIMPLY CONTINUING GEORGE W. BUSH'S LOAN POLICY.

The list of failed green tech companies is now so long it would be tedious to list them all. In a stupid attempt to dictate to the market where it should go, Obama threw away billions of taxpayer cash in risky loans to struggling - and in some cases bankrupt - green energy companies.

When the sheer number of green tech companies going under - and the amount of wasted tax dollars - became an issue, the White House tried to claim many of the loans they had made to these failing companies had actually been started under the previous President, George W. Bush.

In fact, the Bush administration had REFUSED to loan Solyndra and many of these other failing companies any money under it's green tech investment program after an analysis showed they would be bad investments.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/09/16/solyndra-pestered-bush-administration-over-delays-in-approving-federal-loan/

David Ploffe & other Obama political operatives attempted to spin it as if the real question was who STARTED the green tech loan program. Watch how Poltifact tries to make when the loan program started the issue, not which administration decided to hand out a loan to failing companies the other guys backed away from:

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/nov/17/david-plouffe/solyndra-loan-george-w-bush-david-plouffe/

Having wasted billions of tax payer dollars in risky investments in failing green tech companies the Bush White House had backed away from, the Obama White House then tried to pass the buck and claim this was all Bush's fault. Again, the pattern emerges: make bad decisions, the fallout shows up, claim you're just some bystander trapped by the Evil Bush.

4. WHEN THE DISASTROUS FAST & FURIOUS GUN RUNNING PROGRAM WAS REVEALED TO HAVE LET THOUSANDS OF HIGH POWERED WEAPONS WALK INTO MEXICO INTO THE HANDS OF VIOLENT DRUG CARTELS & USED IN OVER 300 MURDERS, THE OBAMA WHITE HOUSE CLAIMED F&F WAS ACTUALLY BUSH'S OLD 'WIDE RECEIVER' PROGRAM WITH A NEW COAT OF PAINT ON IT.

Yes. They actually claimed this.

Here's Jake Tapper of ABC News on Obama's stunning and appalling lie:

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/09/president-obama-falsely-claims-fast-and-furious-program-begun-under-the-previous-administration/

Asked about the Fast and Furious program at the Univision forum on Thursday, President Obama falsely claimed that the program began under President George W. Bush.

“I think it’s important for us to understand that the Fast and Furious program was a field-initiated program begun under the previous administration,” the president said. “When Eric Holder found out about it, he discontinued it. We assigned a inspector general to do a thorough report that was just issued, confirming that in fact Eric Holder did not know about this, that he took prompt action and the people who did initiate this were held accountable.”

In actuality, the Fast and Furious program was started in October 2009, nine months into the Obama presidency.

Previous programs involving ATF agents allowing guns to “walk” across the border so as to trace them were run during the Bush presidency, but not this particular “field-initiated program.”

In Operation Fast & Furious, there WAS no attempt to track the guns after they crossed the border. We know this because it was their being ORDERED not to track the weapons that led to the five ATF whistle blowers coming forward in the first place.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18563_162-20039031.html

http://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/ATF_Report.pdf

After Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was shot to death in Arizona by a F&F gun, the ATF Agent's fears had become reality & they could no longer be silent about the program in which they had been ORDERED by their superiors to watch thousands of high powered weapons enter Mexico.

Facing a backlash for the program it had launched that didn't try to track any weapons it let into Mexico, the White House and the Holder Dept. of Justice attempted to claim F&F was the 'continuation' of a program that had started -and ended - under Bush: Operation Wide Receiver.

The problem with this claim - as I discussed at length in a blog post last year:

http://drawandstrike.blogspot.com/2012/06/stupid-new-liberal-talking-point-obamas.html

is that Operation Wide Receiver was ended soon after it started after it was clear the attempt to track the guns with GPS devices in concert with Mexican authorities was not working.

5. AFTER OUR CONSULATE IN BENGHAZI CAME UNDER ATTACK DUE TO POOR SECURITY THE WHITE HOUSE TRIED TO CHANGE IT'S STORY AND CLAIM OUR PEOPLE THERE WERE VIRTUALLY DEFENSELESS DUE TO BUDGET CUTS MADE BY CONGRESS.

Now, the White House lying about Benghazi being a terrorist attack and spending over two weeks trying to sell the idea to the country it was a 'spontaneous demonstration due to a inflammatory YouTube video' gets most of the attention on this issue, and deservedly so. You lie about a terrorist attack that killed four Americans and could have easily turned into a wholesale massacre, that's what you get.

They tried to sell an alternative narrative to reality that would let them off the hook and allow them to escape real accountability for their incompetence and almost criminal negligence. To this day the White House & State Dept. can't put forth one shred of evidence that they claim supposedly led them to go down the 'YouTube' rabbit hole for that 2 week+ period.

But another bald faced lie escaped most people's notice. Right after the Benghazi attack, State Dept. spokesperson Victoria Nuland was asked repeatedly if the consulate had been stripped of much of it's security due to budgetary concerns. She repeatedly denied this was the case.

Then when Hillary Clinton testified under oath before Congress, all of a sudden the administration was blaming lack of security for the Consulate on funding cuts.

The only problem with this is that after those funding cuts were made, the State. Dept. under Hillary Clinton apparently DID have enough $$$ to buy over $16 million worth of Kindle book readers at the outrageously inflated price of $6,600 each. Oh, and to spend $4.5 million on art to decorate offices. Because like Ambassador Stevens, when you have to run for the safe room, you want a tastefully decorated office to run through.

http://frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/state-department-had-no-for-benghazi-security-here-is-what-it-did-have-for/

Even if we BUY this lame excuse proffered by this administration, what told them to spend $20 million+ on frivolities while stripping security from one of the most dangerous postings in the world? It was KNOWN at the time our consulate was sharing Benghazi with a Al Qaeda terrorist training camp. Yes, really.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/10/31/exclusive-us-memo-warned-libya-consulate-couldnt-withstand-coordinated-attack/

Now we come to the latest example:

6. HAVING COME UP WITH THE SEQUESTER HIMSELF, THREATENED CONGRESS WITH A VETO IF THEY DIDN'T SEND IT TO HIM & SIGNING IT INTO LAW, OBAMA THEN LIED AND CLAIMED THE SEQUESTER WAS THE REPUBLICANS IDEA AND THEY SOMEHOW FORCED IT ON HIM.

Obama traveled the country the past 2 weeks selling the sequester as a financial Armageddon and claiming it was the Republicans idea. Not only that, Obama went on to claim that after the Republicans had FORCED him to go along with the sequester and sign it into law, they then RENEGED on the tax hikes that were part of the deal.

Bob Woodward, who was there during these negotiations two years ago, promptly called BS. Not only did he remind the rest of the MSM that seemed to have lost it's voice the previous two weeks that the sequester was Obama's idea all along, he pointed out tax hikes WEREN'T part of the deal Obama had made.

Naturally, Obama and all his cheerleaders didn't take these facts well. Tough sh*t.

So here we are, the pattern being followed again. Make a policy decision, then attempt to avoid any responsibility for it by foisting it off on someone else and demonizing them to attempt to score political capital.

People who keep wondering when Obama's gonna 'stop campaigning' are clueless. Obama's running like a mofo already for 2014 hoping he can get the House flipped and hold onto the Senate. He wants the same blank check from 2014-2016 that he mostly got from Congress from 2008-2010.

If you don't like what he's been doing lately, just wait until you see what he's like with no Congress in his way.

You can fully expect to see Obama pull his passing-the-buck shenanigans the next 2 years as he tries to position the Democrats for total control of Washington.

The question is: is he running out of time as more people start to call him out on his continual abdication of responsibility for everything he does?

2013-03-01T09:53:00.002-08:00

One Year Ago Today

Today is the 1 year anniversary of the death of Andrew Breitbart. In commemoration, here's the tribute I wrote to him within hours of hearing that he had collapsed and died on a Brentwood sidewalk:

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Breitbart vs. The Old Media

I'm old enough to remember where all there was were 3 broadcast channels, one big UHF channel, some big newspapers, Time, Newsweek and a few other magazInes, and that was it. Those were the days of the Old Media.

Early on in my watching and reading of the Old Media, one of the first things that struck me was how UNIFORM they were in their presentation of current events, political issues, and cultural issues.

In my high school days, one of my teachers in my senior year (1983) had us spend an entire hour reading that week's news magazines on Fridays. I spent 4 hours a month for an entire school year poring over Newsweek, Time, US News & World Report, one right after another.

What struck me strongly from my reading was that no matter how diverse or controversial the topics being discussed in these newsweeklies, the authors of the articles would discuss them all from the SAME perspective. Many of them would actually make the same statements almost word for word in their commenting on the events.

TV News was no different from the weekly news mags. Watching ABC News with Peter Jennings, or CBS with Dan Rather, or NBC with Tom Brokaw, I also noticed it didn't really seem to matter which one you watched, they all pretty much covered the same events in the same way. They were practically interchangeable.

This uneasy feeling was fed around 1984 or so when I first stumbled upon William F. Buckley's Firing Line show on PBS. I wasn't even a Conservative at the time, but it was immediatly apparent this gentleman was talking about politics and the culture from a distinctly different perspective than one saw on CBS News, ABC News, NBC, Time Magazine, the New York Times and so on.

What attracted me to Firing Line was the novelty of watching the ominpresent Liberal point of view actually being vigorously debated by someone presenting a radically different point of view, something that was never seen elsewhere in the Old Media.
The second event in my crossing over from Liberal to Conservative was reading Alan Bloom's 'The Closing Of The American Mind'.

http://www.amazon.com/Closing-American-Mind-Allan-Bloom/dp/0671657151
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Closing_of_the_American_Mind

Third was reading 'Cultural Literacy by E. D. Hirsch, Jr.

http://www.amazon.com/Cultural-Literacy-Every-American-Needs/dp/0394758439/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1330989285&sr=1-2

At the time of it's publishing the book created quite a stir by demonstrating just how cut off from their American heritage most of the young generation actually was. There was the usual pop quiz answers in which 60% of the high school students polled didn't know Japan wasn't on the side of the Allies in WWII, and so on. The amazing thing was time and time again over 50% of graduating high school students were demonstrated not to have even a basic grasp of American history or the country's cultural foundations. They could not list any of their inalienable rights found in the Constitution, for example. If you don't know what your rights and liberties are, you have no idea when they are being taken from you by the State.

Realizing there was much of America's early history that I was ignorant of, I set about studying the period from 1400-1860, since much of my American history in High School centered about 75% of it's time on the period between the Civil War and the 1960's.

Progressives have to attack the entire concept of American Exceptionalism because the very idea of a Constitutional Republic and it's uniqueness in preserving and protecting the rights and liberties of the individual citizen against the powers of the State is an anathema to Progressive Utopian aims.

The Old Media presented themselves as watchdogs who would protect ordinary Americans from those in power by uncovering corruption and revealing attacks on the rights and freedoms of all Americans by those in government.

Here was the problem, which Breitbart could see more clearly than most: the Old Media not only long ago abandoned it's role as a watchdog, it CO-OPTED THE PROGRESSIVE AGENDA.

No longer neutral and giving all voices a say in the public square, the Old Media deliberately set about ensuring culture, news and politics was covered only from the Left point of view.

The nature of the Old Media came to be that of affirming, establishing, defending the point of view they agreed with, while attacking, misrepresenting and omitting points of view they disagreed with.

What made this doubly infuriating is that the entire time they were doing it - well before the 1940's all the way to the present day - the Old Media insisted on the pretense of being neutral and objective in it's coverage.

And if you pointed out their obvious bias they merely patted you condescendingly on the head and chortled, "Why, my dear boy, you must be imagining that!"

They pissed down the back of the people of this country for decades and told them it was just raining. Triply infuriating? There wasn't much at all that could be done about it. They knew you really didn't have anywhere else to get information.

Had the Old Media been what it proclaimed itself to be, there would have been no need for a New Media.

Now, for a committed Utopian Leftist Progressive in the Old Media, slanting their coverage to fit a point of view they already agree with is as easy and natural as breathing. It only makes perfect sense, after all, to look at things the 'correct' way, and the Left way IS the only 'correct' way.

"I'm covering the news, current events, politics and the culture the way it 'should' be covered - from the Left. I mean, you seriously think I'm going to spend any time trying to objectively present the viewpoint of the racists, sexists, idiots, nuts and flakes on the Right? Why would I do that?"

They went from watchdogs to lap dogs. From guardians of the little guy to mouthpieces for their friends in Washington. They picked sides and they weren't even good at hiding it.

All pretense of being neutral went out the window in 2008. After the long involved love affair between Barack Obama and the Old Media, any claims to objectivity between cultural and political views are absurd. They picked sides and they made it evident.

Breitbart's message was: If the Old Media won't do it's professed job, and protect the individual citizen and his or her rights and liberties from the overweening power of the Utopians in the Progressive movement who are threatening those rights from Washington and elsewhere, then we need a New Media.

Of course, Progressivism is represented in the New Media as well as the Old. There are plenty of blogs and websites devoted to the Progressive point of view on popular culture, current events and politics. If CNN and MSNBC and ABC News and the NYT's, et. al. just aren't giving you enough leftward-slanted stuff to float your boat, you can always hop on the internet and peruse The Daily Kos, Democratic Underground, HuffPo, ThinkProgress, Media Matters, Talking Points Memo and dozens of others.

But here's the thing that drives Progressives NUTS: there's no way to screen out or silence Conservatives like they could with the Old Media.

Now they have to contend with talk radio, Fox News, and dozens upon dozens of influential and popular Conservative websites. Instead of one smothering viewpoint coming nonstop, people actually have alternative viewpoints to choose from.

Of course, the Old Media and it's New Media allies do their level best to engage in the same kind of ridicule, mocking, distorting and misrepresentation of the Conservative viewpoint that the Old Media used to do alone.

The difference now is that Conservatives can use the New Media to talk back. And Progressives don't like this one bit.

Breitbart was fearless about informing them that they'll just have to get used to it. The Old Media monopoly is over, and over for good.

Now that there is a Progressive Utopian in the White House, we need the New Media more than ever to sound the alarm. Even before he assumed the powerful office of the Presidency, Barack Obama openly complained about the 'severe' limitations placed on Federal power by the US Constitution. As if that wasn't the whole point of having the Constitution to start with.

Progressive Utopians believe that America was founded 'wrong' and they need to therefore 'transform' the national foundations from a Constitutional Republic into something like what is seen in Europe, with their top-down socialist and Marixst governmental systems.

Utopians on the Left have always understood amongst themselves that the only way to achieve their plans is to remove certain Constitutional protections that guard the individual American citizen's rights and liberties. They understand full well the entire Constitutional Republic was deliberately set up to thwart any attempt at the very Utopian central planning they want for the country. The group must ALWAYS come before the individual. Where some new mandate or policy runs up against a Constitutional protection of individual liberty, the Constitutional protection MUST lose. There is simply no other way for Progress to be made.

To get the country where they want it to go, to 'transform' it adequately to meet their aims, individual rights must be subsumed to the interests of the State. It's the only way. Once they clear that hurdle, the rest is easy.

But here comes the snag. Many Americans don't want to give up their Constitutional rights and liberties to satisfy some insane Progressive vision of Utopia.

And any responsible media would be siding with the citizens against a State that wants to take away their rights and liberties.

And as Breitbart ceaselessly pointed out: THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT THE OLD MEDIA REFUSED TO DO. The not only picked sides, they picked the wrong one.

Far from sounding the alarm and alerting and warning the citizenry of attempts to undermine their precious liberties and freedoms, instead what we had got was a Old Media that had jumped into bed with the Progressive Utopians. Far from doing their job, they instead became attack dogs for their friends in the State, going after anyone who did try to sound the alarm.

Breitbart and others were not going to stand for this. Not only were they going to speak out, they were going to create a New Media that would do the job the Old Media could and would no longer do.

That's why Breitbart was my hero. He was controversial, combative, and confrontational when facing the Old Media horde and the mobs that support it. Conversely in private conversation with individuals he was charming, friendly and always up for a friendly debate, if it was possible. The very night he died he spent several hours in a bar having a friendly debate with people who disagreed with him.

From his early days in setting up and helping to run The Drudge Report, to co-founding The Huffington Post with Arianna Huffington, to launching out on his own with his 'Big' websites he had one clear goal: American citizens need a watchdog against the State to protect what makes this country great and exceptional. And if the Old Media wouldn't do that job, he'd help build and inspire others to build a New one, brick by brick, line of code by line of code.

Because he cared. He was passionate about freedom and liberty. While those who want to tear America down to the foundations and start it over based on their Utopian fantasies always seemed to be yelling the loudest and most passionately, I remember a man who was just as passionate and yelled back just as loudly.

And he's gone now. Far too soon. But it's OK in the end because I think most of his work was done.

The New Media is up and running. It has found it's voice. No longer will a captive populace be spoon-fed the narratives and memes prepared for it by a Utopian Progressive intelligentsia using their media puppets.

Now they'll have to fight for it, debate for it, persuade for it. The very thing they are most ill-prepared to do because their leaders fully realize they cannot honestly and openly declare what they want and what their real agenda is, because it would force them tell the American people what rights and liberties they would have to surrender to achieve the proposed Utopia they are offering.

Knowing this, their anger at the New Media knows no bounds, and neither does their rage at those who built it, sustain it, and are causing it to grow.

Breitbart hurt them deeply and hugely, and they know it. He's put their entire decades-long enterprise in jeopardy. He might have caused enough Americans to wake up to the danger.

I myself have pledged to carry on Breitbart's work. Anyone who wants to shill for a Progressive Utopia in America that can be had if only certain inalienable rights and freedoms are meekly surrendered is just as much my enemy as they were Breitbart's.

And they're going to know it. This I swear.

I AM ANDREW BREITBART. The real revolution lives on.

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ADDENDUM:

I think Andrew is smiling down as he watches the developments of the last few days. President Pass-The-Buck was right in the middle of doing his usual buck-passing schtick, traveling around the country claiming the Republicans had come up with the sequester and then somehow forced him to accept & sign it.

Then Bob Woodward showed up out of nowhere and committed an act of journalism, confronting the White House with two incontrovertible facts:

1. The sequester was Obama's idea and
2. The deal Obama had signed off on 2 years ago did not contain any tax hikes.

Since this was not helpful to the narrative Obama was selling, plenty of people in Obama's Palace Guard - i.e., what's often referred to as the 'Mainstream Media' or 'The Old Media' immediately spoke truth to power and stood with Woodward.............

Oh wait, that's not what happened.

Instead the Old Media circled the wagons around Obama and castigated Woodward for...............wait for it................................................

no really, wait for it..........................

TELLING THE TRUTH.

Yes folks, this is how far the Old Media has fallen. It was obvious to everyone by 2 days ago that Obama was lying about who came up with the sequester. His Great Sequester Traveling Road Scare-Mongering Show ran smack into an honest journalist.

And once Woodward spoke up when the Old media had to decide whether to admit if Woodward was right OR defend their guy. And not surprisingly, they chose to defend their guy by attacking Woodward.

See if Woodward was telling the TRUTH and Obama was lying about the sequester and the deal he made 2 years ago, and most inside-the-beltway journalists KNOW this, that brings up a very pertinent question:

Why the hell did it take WOODWARD SPEAKING UP BY HIMSELF to make this an issue?

Remember what I wrote up there in my tribute to Andrew about an Old Media that not only picked sides, but picked *THE WRONG ONE*?

They had either been silent or were actively helping Obama sell his fictions. They were complicit in the selling of falsehoods to the public by either silence or stenography.

And it took a real journalist showing up and showing what really happened to stir them to action. Not to 'speak the truth to power' but instead to circle the wagons around that power and demand Woodward suffer a penalty to his reputation for daring to speak up.

In other words, in a stark dramatization carried out as the entire country watched on the news, the Old Media just demonstrated yet again by the way they treated Woodward as an apostate that everything Breitbart ever said about them was 100% true.

Breitbart is still here, and his work is still going on holding the Old Media accountable, building the New Media, and standing for the truth.

A year's gone by and it hurts a little less about losing him. He'd want us to focus on the fight and get ready for 2014. Obama wants to flip the House and the Senate so he can get back to having Washington under complete Democratic control for his final 2 years in office.

It's a long #WAR for the future of this country. As I've said many times on Twitter and elsewhere, if people thought turning back 40+ years of Progressive advances was going to be fast, easy and always fun, this fight wasn't for you to begin with. We've got over a year and a half to get ready for 2014 and ensuring Obama doesn't get a blank check from Congress from 2014-2016.

Let's get busy. It's what Andrew would want.

2013-02-26T11:16:00.000-08:00

As Obama Wails & Screams

That A 2.2% Cut To

The Federal Budget Is

'Huge", 'Massive' & 'Painful'

To His Beloved Federal

Government, Which Must

Only & Ever Always Grow,

I've Got Just One Thing To Say

To Him:

"WELCOME TO THE PARTY, PAL!"

Maybe Obama hasn't bothered to notice, but the REST of the country outside Washington has been tightening it's belt and making do with less for FIVE F**KING YEARS NOW.

But when Federal bureaucrats up there in Washington are FINALLY coming face to face with a REDUCTION to the amount of money they get to spend, all of a sudden we're treated to hysterical wailing about how this threatens the very foundation of the Republic.

These sequester 'cuts' aren't even real cuts to begin with. Federal spending was slated to grow by over 5% this year, just like it has every year Obama has been in office. Instead of growing the federal budget this year by 5%+, the sequester's automatic 'cuts' trims 2.2% from the spending INCREASE.

That's right. Federal spending is STILL going up over what it was last year by almost 3%. Yet from the way Obama & the Democrats have scare-mongered on this issue, you'd think trimming this spending INCREASE puts the country on the verge of collapse or something.

Let's get a couple of facts on the table before we go further.

If trimming 2.2% from a spending INCREASE to a $3.8 trillion budget has Obama in a four alarm FREAK OUT, what's going to happen when real cuts have to be done?

We've known all along we can't continue to carry trillion dollar deficits. Yet we've just done it 4 years in a row and are getting read for year #5. Barack Obama hasn't proposed any spending cuts of his own and is now back out there demanding more tax increases after he just got $600 billion in new tax increases just a few months ago. And let's remember he got that $600 billion in new taxes without A SINGLE SPENDING CUT.

Government will never shrink under this President. He's shown time and again what his true colors are. He's demonstrated his commitment to Bigger Government at every opportunity. If the answer wasn't Bigger Government, more spending, more centralized control & planning, then he wasn't interested in the question.

Reality keeps TRYING to assert itself on Washington, but thus far the bureaucrats up there have been pretty darn successful at shielding themselves from it with our money. Despite the shrinking of the labor force, the decline in tax revenue, and every other signal that should have told Washington to slow down, since 2007 it's done nothing but ramp it's spending up like a V-2 rocket climbing for the stratosphere.

From Day 1 Obama insisted we were going to SPEND our way out of this financial crisis. It's now the 5th year of his Presidency and he remains as committed to this insanity as ever. He can't cut spending because he sees the problem as being too little revenue from taxation. This is why he insists we don't have a spending problem, and that if the rich would just 'contribute' a little more, we can solve the problem.

Well he did get re-elected. So we do get 4 more fun years of watching him try to tax and spend the country into prosperity. I suspect, however, more people are catching on to the fact his policies don't work. And the sight of him and his supporters continually fear mongering on spending cuts while shilling relentlessly for more tax increases is likely to backfire.

More & more Americans, as they struggle to buy food, keep gas in the car, keep and find jobs and just basically survive, are going to notice Washington is hysterically carrying on about having to get by on less. For over 5 years Washington insulated itself from the effects of the recession & 'recovery' as it ramped up it's spending to insane levels. But now the reality is starting to hit.

And we're supposed to be all 'boo-hoo-hoo!' for Federal workers and bureaucrats up there in Washington who kept spending like drunken sailors for the past 5 years?

You know what plenty of Americans are going to say to that?

2013-02-20T08:42:00.001-08:00

Three Facts To Remember In The

Coming Week As Obama

Scare-Mongers Relentlessly On

The Sequester He Demanded:

As you listen to all the hysteria in Washington peak over the next couple of days as the March 1st deadline for Obama's sequester draws closer, let's go over some facts:

Fact #1. $85 billion dollars is less than 1% of a $3.6 trillion dollar budget. It is the equivalent of what the Government spends in 7 1/2 days. In 2012 the Federal Government was spending $11 billion per day.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/12/17/cost-spending-federal-government-racking-up-huge-tab/

Fact #2. Spending on our Federal Government doubled from 2000 to 2011. The Federal Budget in 2000 was $1.7 trillion. The Federal Budget in 2011 was $3.6 trillion. In 11 years the amount of money spent on the Federal government doubled.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_United_States_federal_budget

Fact #3. It's estimated Washington wastes anywhere from $125 billion/yr to $1 trillion/yr. Yet the usual suspects are wailing that tax increases and new spending are the only way out of this crisis. Those evil spending cuts need to keep being put off indefinitely.

http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2011-02-19/news/fl-federal-government-waste-20110219_1_medicare-fraud-federal-agencies-error-rate

http://www.rd.com/health/healthcare/the-government-is-wasting-your-tax-dollars/

It depends on how you define 'waste'. As long as no fraud is involved, some people don't count programs such as the ones you'll find in the link below as 'waste' , since all the money was earmarked for those programs and it all went where it was supposed to.

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/government-waste-20-of-the-craziest-things-that-the-u-s-government-is-spending-money-on

However spending $175 million taxpayers bucks per year to maintain hundreds of buildings that aren't even being used for anything would qualify as 'waste' in most people's books.

Remember these 3 facts as Obama spends the next 8 days claiming a budget cut of less than 1% is going to end life on Earth as we presently know it.

Apparently just going back to 2011 levels of Federal spending is A AWFUL FATE THAT MUST BE AVOIDED AT ALL COSTS.

The only way we can all be saved is if these evil spending cuts are averted and Obama gets the new tax increases he wants so he can spend new revenue.

So here he is, getting ready to spend the next week pretending the sequester he demanded and signed into law is some evil cross he has to bear that has been put there by the Republicans.

UPDATE: Krauthammer on why Obama isn't proffering any solutions of his own to the sequester:

http://weaselzippers.us/2013/02/20/krauthammer-sequester-most-ridiculously-hyped-armageddon-since-the-mayan-calendar/

KRAUTHAMMER: This is the ridiculously hyped armageddon since the Mayan calendar. In fact, it looks worse than the Mayan disaster. Look, this, as you say, can be solved in a day, in an hour by allowing a transfer of funds. It’s incredibly soluble, easily soluble. And the president is the one who ought to propose it. He won’t, of course, because he is looking for a fight and not a solution. But secondly, look at this in perspective.

In terms of the gross domestic product of our economy this is .03, it’s a third of 1% of our domestic economy. On the domestic side, overall, it’s 2.5 cents on the dollar. And overall, on the non-defense side, it’s a penny-and-a-half on the dollar of reductions. Here we are with a debt of $16 trillion and the argument today is if we cut a penny-and-a-half on non-defense spending in one year it’s the end of the world. If so, we are hopelessly in debt and we’re going to end up like Greece.

2013-02-15T13:04:00.002-08:00

Having Just Caused A Wave Of

Mass Layoffs In January With

New Tax Increases &

Obamacare, President Obama

Proposes Hiking The Minimum

Wage $1.75 To $9/hr

Alternate Headline: If You've Ever Suspected Washington Shields Itself From the Results Of The Policies It Wants The Rest Of Us To Live Under, You Were, In Fact, Correct

Anyone with 2 cents worth of business sense knows what would happen if already struggling businesses in the present economy suddenly had to face a new increase in their business costs. Like say, having to pay each and every minimum wage worker an extra $1.75 an hour.

But since a lot of people out there apparently don't have 2 cents worth of business sense, I'll spell it out: businesses will shed a lot of minimum wage workers. Those that remain will end up working reduced hours.

Now I never went to Harvard. I'm not super smart like many people seem to think Obama is. If I can see what the real world consequence of this new policy would be if it was enacted, why can't he?

That brings up an interesting point that was the subject of my latest Twitter rant: People in Washington spend A LOT of time - and a lot of OUR MONEY - shielding themselves from the results of their own polices.

They truly do come to believe they are this super-special elite class that needs to be exempt from many of the laws they want to make the rest of us live under. And because the job of being up there and dictating how us serfs should live our lives is such a huge burden, they deserve to be EXTREMELY WELL COMPENSATED for this, as we're going to see.

Several times in that Twitter rant, I refer to a chart I posted as a photo. Here it is:

Like all Twitter reading, you start at the bottom waaaay down there and read your way up.

2013-02-07T16:06:00.001-08:00

Two Examples Of How Lefty Outrage

Depends On WHO'S Doing It,

Not WHAT They're Doing

Alternate Headline: If You Ever Suspected It Wasn't About Principle At All, You Were Correct

I'm President Awesome. I'm above that petty Constitution thing.

EXAMPLE #1: It was revealed 4 days ago that the Obama Administration has in place a policy in which the President can put American citizens on his drone strike kill list and kill them without due process.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/07/us/politics/obama-orders-release-of-drone-memos-to-lawmakers.html?_r=0

We only found out this was official policy because someone leaded the documents to NBC News.

In fact, at least 2 American citizens that we know of have ALREADY been killed without due process because of this policy. One was a 17 year old boy with no real ties to terrorist activity besides having terrorists for relatives:

This 17 year old American was summarily executed by a drone strike

on our President's direct orders because he lacked a 'more responsible father'.

http://weaselzippers.us/2013/02/05/flashback-the-16-year-old-american-killed-in-one-of-those-legal-wise-and-ethical-drone-strikes/

If this was George W. Bush's administration being found to have this drone strike policy targeting Americans with no due process, do you really need ME to point out what a four-alarm, full scale, maximum volume FREAKOUT this would have caused on the Left and in the MSM?

It's day 4 of this scandal and Obama hasn't even had to address it yet because the MSM isn't making it an issue. They are not DEMANDING he respond to it.

Look, I already said these drone strikes that kill American citizens

without due process are legal, ethical and wise. Why would you need

to hear that from my boss? I'm not good enough for you?

Do you think the MSM would content itself with hearing a mild denial from Press Secretary Ari Fleischer on behalf of George Bush? Hell no they wouldn't. They would DEMAND Bush drag his sorry ass over to a microphone and answer himself. But Obama won't have to do this because the MSM is not going to press him on it.

They'll let Obama make his case through his spokespersons, ask a question or two, and then DROP IT as fast as they can.

EXAMPLE #2: The MSM & the Left browbeat Palin & Conservatives over the head about the Tucson Arizona mass shooting last year in which a crazy Jared Loughner shot Rep. Gabby Giffords and 6 other people, making wild, unsubstantiated claims that Palin and the Tea Party had 'inspired' Loughner's deadly attack.

Jared Loughner: Obvious Tea Party Member, right?

They did everything they could think of for several months to keep this meme alive that somehow Loughner had been 'influenced' to do this mass shooting by a woman he didn't follow and a map he never saw and a movement he never joined or talked about.

As I said in a blog post last April:

Old Media didn't even wait a day to begin charging that gunman Jared Loughner must have been a right-wing Tea Party-type driven to finally act because of an 'atmosphere of hate' supposedly created by people like Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh. When the facts came out, it was revealed that Loughner wasn't Conservative, was politically Leftist, didn't listen to talk radio, and had had mental problems for years before the Tea Party even existed.

Here's Ed Schultz, Bill Press & Howard Kurtz, then Debbie Wasserman Schultz all laboriously...oh so very laboriously...attempting to connect the dots:

Jacob Weisberg's tortured reasoning was pretty standard for the kind of stuff that appeared on Lefty blogs for weeks afterward:

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/the_big_idea/2011/01/the_tea_party_and_the_tucson_tragedy.html

Newsbusters called the MSM out for engaging in this wish-fulfillment slander:

Last August a man named Floyd Corkins II entered the headquarters of The Family Research Council intending on committing a mass murder. Unfortunately FRC is one of those icky places that has an armed security guard, so ol' Floyd didn't get very far in his attempt at the whole mass murder thing. He shot the guard, but only hit him in the arm. The armed guard then tackled him and disarmed him.

In court yesterday Corkins dropped this bombshell:

http://dailycaller.com/2013/02/06/floyd-corkins-pleads-guilty-and-theres-a-reason-youve-never-heard-of-him/

That's right. This hate-filled Lefty went to the website of the Southern Poverty Law Center, a hate group that tends to label every OTHER group it disagrees with as a 'hate group'. You follow that sentence correctly? OK.

As it so happens, because FRC opposes gay marriage, SPLC calls it a 'hate group', right up there with Westboro Baptist Church of Fred 'God Hates Gays!' Phelps fame.

So ol' Floyd had decided to shoot some anti-gay people but he needed help picking a target. It was REALLY AWESOME of the SPLC to have this whole HATE MAP thing on their website, because he said in court it aided him in choosing where to launch his homicidal one man crusade.

Note that this is EXACTLY what the MSM and the Left accused Palin & the Tea Party of doing in the Tucson Massacre without A SINGLE SHRED OF EVIDENCE.

If you were waiting for the major network news shows to report that fact to you, you were waiting in vain:

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/katie-yoder/2013/02/07/networks-ignore-frc-shooter-s-use-splc-hate-map

It was huge news. A map targeting those with opposing viewpoints led to a tragic attack. Partisan rhetoric was out of control and fringe-types were being driven to commit gun crimes. Except that, in the case of the Gabby Giffords shooting two years ago, none of those things were even remotely true. But that didn’t stop the media from breathlessly conjecturing that a target-festooned map on Sarah Palin’s website had pointed Jared Loughnerto Rep. Giffords, and that Palin’s “reload” rhetoric made him shoot.

But now we have a case in which a politically motivated shooter has confessed to choosing his targets according to a map. In fact, it was a “hate map” created by the left-wing Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). But ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN aren’t talking.

They have a narrative. They are just waiting for an excuse to use it. And when a case even remotely close to what they 'need' for their narrative comes along, they shoehorn it to fit even if it means trying to pound a square peg into a round hole.

But there's also the OPPOSITE: a case that comes along that DOESN'T fit their narrative. In fact, there are things that HURT the narrative they'd like to be telling you. So they just drop those inconvenient facts out of their story.

And when you point out what they are doing, they keep telling you what an awful person YOU are.
How about stopping the partisan political games in your 'news coverage' and just admitting you're nothing but propaganda shills? That you'll drop facts from your reporting if it's gonna hurt The Glorious Cause?

UPDATE: MSNBC host Toure already made it clear he's flipped 180 degrees on this drone strike thing. Wouldn't tolerate it under Bush, but hey, Obama's the Commander in Chief, baby!

Now Krystal Ball [yes, that's her real name], the host of MSNBC's The Cycle, joins him in '180 Degree Flopville':

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/msnbc-host-defends-liberals-who-trust-obama-with-drones-would-you-trust-bush-with-nuclear-codes/

MSNBC’s co-host of The Cycle, Krystal Ball, took on the notion circulating in the media that liberal supporters of President Barack Obama are engaging in hypocrisy when they defend the executive’s authority to execute drone strikes on Americans overseas. Some claim that they would never support this power if the president were a Republican. Ball agreed with this point, conceding that she would not support President George W. Bush having this authority. However, she said that Obama is a “fundamentally responsible actor” while Bush regularly “displayed extraordinarily lapses in judgment.”

Ball said that she did harbor some reservations about the way in which the drone program has been administered by the Obama administration. Overall, however, she said that she is comfortable with Obama having the authority to execute American citizens overseas extra-judicially.

So this is how it's going to go. All the Lefty talking heads will admit they 'trust' Obama with this kinda extra-Constitutional power that circumvents due process, while at the same time admitting they'd TOTALLY FREAK OUT if this kind of power had been in Bush's hands. The media will take a few lame defenses of this from Jay Carney and then everybody will move on next week to the new topic du jour.

They keep demonstrating they believe in an elite class that can 'trusted' with these kinds of contra-Constitutional powers just as long as these elites are the 'right' kind of people - Leftists. They're totally cool with it. But their palms get sweaty and their knuckles turn white if they think about some goddamn Conservative or Republican holding that kind of unConstitutional powers.

They don't want rule of law. They want rule of men. And that is PRECISELY what our system of government is set up to AVOID and PREVENT. There can be no real excuse for deliberately undermining the very foundational principle of American government.

2013-02-05T15:55:00.001-08:00

We Need To Remember What

The Lapdog Media Considers

The OTHER Half Of It's Job

It's not just slanting the news they DO cover with fancy edits - like those that just got NBC News President Steve Capus fired.

No, there's another whole side to how the Lapdog Media goes about being the propaganda arm of the DNC & the White House. It's by how they decide what ISN'T news.

And the past week has provided several sterling examples of this:

1. Where are the Benghazi survivors? - The pre-planned, organized terrorist attack on our consulate in Benghazi on 9/11/12 was over four months ago. Congress convened hearings 2 1/2 months ago on how Benghazi happened, who was responsible and what can be done to prevent it's happening again.

While 4 Americans died in this terrorist attack, 30+ managed to escape alive - chiefly due to the heroic actions of two men who fell in the attack, Tyrone Woods and Glenn Doherty. You would think the eyewitness testimony of the survivors of the attack would be pretty pertinent information in figuring out what happened that night.

Unless of course what happened that night is a story that must never be told because it would contradict the Obama Administration's already quite public version of how Benghazi went down.

They have denied repeatedly that they refused to send any help to Benghazi while the attack was underway while refusing to say if they did in fact receive any communications requesting aid.
They have denied that Woods & Doherty were ordered to stand down and stay at the CIA Annex building, a direct order that Woods & Doherty then disobeyed.
They claimed for almost a month afterwards there was 'no evidence' that Benghazi was a planned terrorist attack while simultaneously blaming a 'YouTube video' for causing a 'spontaneous demonstration' that got out of hand. This despite the fact not one shred of evidence has ever surfaced there was ANY kind of demonstration anywhere near our consulate on 9/11/12.

Eyewitness testimony from people under oath who were there day would likely contradict many of the claims Obama & Co. have been making since the event occurred.

Yet the media can't seem to get interested in why over 4 months after the fact not a single one of the Benghazi survivors has come before Congress to testify about what really happened that awful night. Senators & House Reps. have complained repeatedly about this, trying to get an answer from both the White House and the State Dept. about why their repeated requests to talk to these Benghazi survivors haven't produced any witnesses.

According to Google, note it's only the New Media asking where the Benghazi survivors are:

Which Media Outlets Are Asking Why No Testimony From Benghazi Survivors?

As it stands right now, the complete stonewalling of the White House on this could lead to the Congressional committee investigating Benghazi subpoenaing the Administration to discover who these survivors are so they can testify about what happened that night.

If that happens the sight of the MSM struggling to explain to the people that follow it why Congress is having to FORCE the White House to let these people testify about what happened will be fun to watch.

2. The Menendez Scandal - a sitting Democratic Senator was revealed to be under investigation by the FBI since June of last year for accepting illegal favors from a big political donor and engaging in sex with prostitutes in the Dominican Republic after being flown down there on this donor's own private jet. This story actually broke last November when Drudge Report & The Daily Caller revealed it.

Daily Caller Story From November 1, 2012

New allegations surfaced two weeks ago of other illegal favors and the fact the FBI investigation of Menendez was still ongoing. One new twist was that now the investigation had found evidence several of the prostitutes in this story were underage. The New Media covered this for two weeks while the Old Media sniffed and ignored it, claiming there was still no story here.

Despite the fact this news first broke last November, the MSM couldn't get interested in this Menendez scandal until 2 things happened:

1. The FBI investigation was revealed to ongoing and to have turned up plenty of new allegations besides the DR sex parties with underage girls.

2. Last week the big donor's business was under FBI surveillance & when a truck from a paper shredding service pulled up out front the building was quickly raided to prevent the destruction of any evidence.

Readers Of NYT's Go "Prostitution Scandal? What Prostitution Scandal? 1st I've Read Of This In The NYT's!

Forced to cover the scandal at this point, the MSM has limited itself to merely discussing Menendez's denials of any wrong doing. Had this been a Republican caught doing this, you can rest assure the Lapdog Media would be rushing investigative journalists to the Dominican Republic and New Jersey to start furiously digging.

Of course, there's no reason to do any furious digging into the story here because the it's the wrong sort of target.

3. IRS report projects that in 2016 the cheapest family health insurance plan will be $20,000 - When he was selling his Obamacare monstrosity to the American public, Obama was fond of saying his new boondoggle would 'bend the cost curve downward'. He also threw out the figure $2,085 a few times as being the 'cheapest' family plan's cost.

Last week the IRS released an official report after crunching all the numbers and said the cheapest family health insurance plan for a family will be $20,000.

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/irs-cheapest-obamacare-plan-will-be-20000-family

So turns out according to the IRS Obama was only off by a factor of 10.

And as yet, over 5 days after the IRS released this report, not one Lapdog Media outlet has breathed a word about it:

Google Search For 'IRS Report Family Insurance Plan $20,000

Anyone solely trusting the MSM for important news impacting them and their family is gonna be in for one hell of a shock later on while people who surf the net and don't participate exclusively in the Big Brother Media Complex will be much better informed.

Well there you have it.

Last week the MSM decided to cover these 3 important stories with the overwhelming sound of......*crickets*.

The Lapdog Members of the Big Brother Media Complex are VERY well aware of what the OTHER half of their job is, even if plenty of people haven't realized it yet.

2013-02-02T14:07:00.000-08:00

California Governor Jerry Brown

Tries To Copycat Texas Governor

Rick Perry's Economic Miracle In

Texas By.......................

Waving Around A Piece of Paper

At A Press Conference

At least Perry waited until after a year and a half of belt tightening following billions in across-the-board cuts to state spending & getting to a surplus BEFORE bragging about it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/09/us/texas-budget-surplus-proves-as-contentious-as-a-previous-shortfall.html

Note the negative spin the NYT's puts on Texas' budget surplus. The article is one long downer - oh no, politicians in TX are arguing over what to do with all this surplus money!

California? Look at the marked CONTRAST to how the NYT's handles a state with a $27 billion deficit last month that merely ANNOUNCES it's intention to balance it's budget:

"I just waved my hands like this and that $27 billion deficit just went 'POOF!'"

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/11/us/california-balances-its-budget.html?_r=1&

“The deficit is gone,” Mr. Brown proclaimed, standing in front of an array of that-was-then and this-is-now charts that illustrated what he said were dramatic changes in California’s fortunes.

“For the next four years we are talking about a balanced budget,” he said. “We are talking about living within our means. This is new. This is a breakthrough.”

Mr. Brown was not just talking about a balanced budget. He projected that the state would begin posting surpluses starting next year, leading to a projected surplus of $21.5 million by 2014, a dramatic turnaround from the deficit of $26 billion — billion, not million — he faced when he was elected in 2010.

That's right. Brown called a press conference and announced CA's $27 billion deficit from just last month has now been 'erased'. Note the deceptive headline of the NYT's, as if this balanced budget has already been achieved.

Back From the Fiscal Abyss, California Balances Its Budget

It needs to be remembered these guys were over $7 billion off in their budget deficit projections last year. Not only that, they grew their budget deficit from $9 billion at the start of 2012 to over $27 billion in just one year. They kept jacking up their tax rates then watching the revenues drop as taxpayers and businesses fled the state in droves.

So one state cut it's budget and went through a brief period of making do with less, and is now reaping the fiscal rewards of that, while the other kept spending like drunken sailors and jacking up their taxes and borrowing to make up the shortfall. The NYT's sees only silver linings and blue skies for CA, while pointing out TX has a real problem on it's hands.

What I suspect is that Brown is engaging in this Kabuki Theater here to convince the lending institutions that have been threatening to cut off the state's credit & borrowing ability to continue shoving more money into CA's state treasury so they can spend it.

It's an attempt to fool credit raters and banks into thinking the politicians in Sacramento have AT LAST gotten serious about dealing with their over-the-top spending problem. I don't think any of them will be fooled, and they will instead take the wiser 'wait and see' approach to discern if Brown & Co. actually follow through on this proposed budget for 2013-14.

I'd love to see CA balance it's budget in a year and follow the example of Texas. Nobody wants to see the state fail and end up being bailed out. The question is if there will be any real, committed follow-through on what Brown announced last week.

Perry & Texas has demonstrated it IS possible to go from $27 billion in the hole to having a surplus in less than 2 years. But Texas' attitude towards businesses and taxpayers is MARKEDLY DIFFERENT from CA's. So I remain skeptical.

UPDATE: Thanks to @rdbrewer4 for the link in the sidebar at Ace of Spades HQ! Welcome to my fellow members of the Moron Horde!

All non-Moron Horde blog readers are encouraged to head over and check out Ace's blog - it's awesome & I read it every day:

Ace Of Spades Blog

2013-01-26T15:19:00.001-08:00

OF COURSE!

Feinstein's New Gun Ban Bill,

If It Becomes Law [Doubtful]

Would Exempt Gov't Officials

So it's just the unwashed masses that would be unable to purchase the weapons on DiFi's ban list:

http://hotair.com/archives/2013/01/26/of-course-feinsteins-assault-weapons-ban-exempts-government-officials/

Not everyone will have to abide by Senator Dianne Feinstein’s gun control bill. If the proposed legislation becomes law, government officials and others will be exempt.

“Mrs. Feinstein’s measure would exempt more than 2,200 types of hunting and sporting rifles; guns manually operated by bolt, pump, lever or slide action; and weapons used by government officials, law enforcement and retired law enforcement personnel,” the Washington Times reports.

Here's the list of the semi auto weapons DiFi is seeking to ban for sale to the SERFS:

So, once again: one set of rules for us, another set of rules for the jackasses who think they comprise some sort of 'elite' that are up there to rule over us. Mary Katherine Ham at Hot Air calls this for the sanctimonious BS that it is:

I’m always confused by how liberals— the segment of the population most obsessed with constantly telling us of our country’s sins, its government’s brutal overreaches, its occasional tyranny, and its fundamental disregard for the justice it promises— suddenly decide the idea of governments becoming tyrannical is a paranoid delusion once the wary citizen is a gun owner. Presumably you’re only allowed to believe the government might become tyrannical and still be a respected political figure and college professor if your weapon of choice was a nail bomb meant for Ft. Dix.

That's a dig at the Bill-Ayers-Is-A-Cool-Guy-Because-He-Took-On-A-Tyrannical-US-Government-With-A-Bombing-Campaign Left, in case you missed it.

2013-01-26T14:00:00.001-08:00

Joe Biden: A Shotgun Is Better

For Self-Defense Than

One Of Those Military-Style

Assault Weapon AR-15's

http://now.msn.com/joe-biden-says-shotguns-are-better-choices-than-assault-weapons

Oh really? Someone might need to tell Slow Joe why the AR-15 is a WOMAN'S PREFERRED DEFENSE WEAPON OF CHOICE.

Practical experience has taught a lot of women about why the lighter, easier to fire and control AR-15 is more preferable than a 12 gauge.

YouTube is chock full of videos of 100 pound girls getting owned by shotguns. Here's just a few examples:

On the other hand, AR-15's are so easy to shoot and control that 100 pound girls can fire them while SITTING DOWN.

Another fact to consider is when you shoot someone with a shotgun round and hit them, they are actually being hit by one HUGE SLUG or a dozen projectiles. It's MUCH easier to survive getting shot with a single AR-15 round than getting hit with a round from a 12 gauge shotgun.

Which will do way more damage: the single round that is made up of a single piece of metal, OR the single round that will send either a humongous steel slug or a dozen or more steel balls into the target?

It's important to make this distinction because protecting yourself isn't necessarily about making sure you KILL somebody. Many people would much prefer to put a single round into an attacker, ending the threat, but not killing anybody. With a shotgun your chance of a 1 shot kill is GREATLY magnified.

2013-01-21T13:09:00.003-08:00

The first sign of a free people with real liberty is that they are not
'allowed to have' arms by their Government;
they have them by right whether the
f**king Government likes it or not. - me, just now

There's Only One

Explanation As To

Why Most Americans

Still Don't Know

This Important Fact:

The State Doesn't Want Most People To Know It

THE POLICE HAVE NO RESPONSIBILITY TO PROTECT YOU OR TO EVEN COME TO YOUR AID WHEN YOU CALL FOR HELP

You'd be AMAZED at how many people don't know this. Yet this has been demonstrated to be the case in courts of law REPEATEDLY:

Do You Have A Right To Police Protection?
http://hematite.com/dragon/policeprot.html

The case law on this is incontrovertible. The answer is a resounding NO!

Yet during this whole gun control debate going on the past month after the Sandy Hook tragedy, it keeps being said: "Trying to defend yourself with a gun is nonsensical. Just call the police, let them handle it."

This kind of advice overlooks facts:

1. You often won't know you NEED the police until the crime is IN PROGRESS. Average police response time from when the call is made to their arrival at a crime scene is FIVE MINUTES.
The average incident between a criminal and his victim is NINETY SECONDS.

Here's a Dept. of Justice report on police response times to calls for help compiled from 1996-2007:

http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/cvus/previous/cvus107.pdf

2. You may not have time or even be able to dial a phone or scream for someone else to make a call to police on your behalf.

3. You may be too busy running, hiding, fighting to call for aid.

And once you finally DO get off a call for help, you'll STILL be on your own for around FIVE MINUTES.

Unless you got Mad Kung Fu Skillz, were a star on your high school track team, or have the hiding ability of a ninja, you just MIGHT have to defend yourself until the trained, armed professionals get there to take over.

But understand THIS: the same Liberal authorities in those deep-blue crime-infested cities who strongly DISCOURAGE you from buying a gun, learning to use it, and having it for self protection ALSO will accept NO RESPONSIBILITY for protecting/defending you with THEIR 'official' guns.

If your Plan A, B, & C is to outsource your self defense to the State, you better come to understand ONE THING: that State you are relying on as your sole means of self-defense ACCEPTS NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOU WHATSOEVER.

They mess up, don't show up on time, or even never show AT ALL, not only can you not sue them for damages [assuming that you're still, you know, ALIVE] you'll discover they never had any obligation to protect you in the FIRST PLACE.

What sense does it make to say "I take no steps or preparations to defend myself or my family in case of an emergency/criminal assault because I'll just wait for the people who accept no responsibility for my protection whatsoever to show up and handle this for me."

Yet I've encountered plenty of people on Twitter recently who are saying to others "Don't buy a gun, don't take any steps to defend yourself, just call the police, let them handle it. It's what we pay them for, duh!"

"A GUN?! Seriously? You're better off just submitting,

being a victim & giving them what they want. Wingnut!

If YOU want to take no steps to defend yourself, FINE. Do that. Hide in the closet, pray they don't find you and hope someone comes to save your ass in time. What pisses off many Americans is watching people with that attitude turn around and pontificate that those of us who want a gun for self-protection are some kinda violence-crazed lunatics.

Maybe it's time to consider that many people in America know it's up to THEM to keep themselves & their family safe in the event of a criminal attack or other emergency. They know this truth, that the police have no duty to come do it for them, and so they don't need to live behind a comfortable illusion.

UPDATE: Milwaukee Sheriff tells citizens the truth, Liberals get the vapors over it:

http://hotair.com/archives/2013/01/26/video-milwaukee-country-sheriffs-psa-on-self-protection/

Time to ask again: which side in this gun control debate is dealing with REALITY and which one is trying to sell a COMFORTABLE ILLUSION to the public?