How We Got Here: The Decline of the 10th Amendment - 10/30/09, 3pmE - Unspun with AnnaZ BlogTalkRadio

How We Got Here: The Decline of the 10th Amendment

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Michael Boldin of Tenth Amendment Center joins the show to discuss the history and current state of the 10th Amendment to the US Constitution.

With the over reach of federal government in many American sectors and industries, including as being currently witnessed in the health care takeover debate, state legislatures are starting to take up the 10th Amendment as a topic again.

Can citizens also be inspired to appreciate its wisdom and demand a return to its observation? Tune in.

Call-in Number: (347) 327-9710



Unspun with AnnaZ on Blog Talk Radio

OMG Don Imus Is Out Of His Mind

"Because the President is a whiny little titty baby and a girly man and doesn't have enough guts to figure out what to do in Afghanistan, he's going to take on, what - Fox News and get his ass kicked there?"

He's not too kind to Maureen Dowd either.

Courtesy of NewsBusters:




Imus Rants About His Fox Critics; Calls Obama 'A Whiny Little Titty Baby and a Girly Man' | NewsBusters.org

EWWW... OctoNun And Her Devil Spawn ::: Nadya Suleman dresses as a pregnant nun for Halloween

She is just ridiculously out of her mind.

The looks on the kids' faces are the best:

Source: That IS creepy: Octomum Nadya Suleman dresses as a pregnant nun for Halloween | Mail Online

Shocking... Not ::: AP: Stimulus jobs overstated by thousands : NPR

The gov is so good with numbers and living up to expectations that we should allow their reach to increase. Right?

A Colorado company said it created 4,231 jobs with the help of President Barack Obama's economic recovery plan. The real number: fewer than 1,000.

A child care center in Florida said it saved 129 jobs with the help of stimulus money. Instead, it gave pay raises to its existing employees.

Elsewhere in the U.S., some jobs credited to the stimulus program were counted two, three, four or even more times.

The government has overstated by thousands the number of jobs it has created or saved with federal contracts under the president's $787 billion recovery program, according to an Associated Press review of data released in the program's first progress report.

The discrepancy raises questions about the reliability of a key benchmark the administration uses to gauge the success of the stimulus. The errors could be magnified Friday when a much larger round of reports is released. It is expected to show hundreds of thousands of jobs repairing public housing, building schools, repaving highways and keeping teachers on local payrolls.

The White House seized on an initial report from a government oversight board weeks ago that claimed federal contracts awarded to businesses under the recovery plan already had helped pay for more than 30,000 jobs. The administration said the number was evidence that the stimulus program had exceeded early expectations toward reaching the president's promise of creating or saving 3.5 million jobs by the end of next year.

But the 30,000 figure is overstated by thousands — at the very least by nearly 5,000, or one in six, based on AP's limited review of some of the contracts — because some federal agencies and recipients of the money provided incorrect job counts. The review found some counts were more than 10 times as high as the actual number of jobs; some jobs were credited to stimulus spending when, in fact, none were produced.

The White House says it is aware there are problems. In an interview, Ed DeSeve, an Obama adviser helping to oversee the stimulus program, said agencies have been working with businesses that received the money to correct mistakes. Other errors discovered by the public also will be corrected, he said.

"If there's an error that was made, let's get it fixed," DeSeve said.

Within minutes of the publication of AP's story, the White House released a statement that it said was the "real facts" about how jobs were counted in the stimulus data distributed two weeks ago. It said that had been a test run of a small subset of data that had been subjected only to three days of reviews, that it had already corrected "virtually all" the mistakes identified by the AP and that the discovery of mistakes "does not provide a statistically significant indication of the quality of the full reporting that will come on Friday."

The data partially reviewed by the AP for errors included all the data presently available, representing all known federal contracts awarded to businesses under the stimulus program. The figures being released Friday include different categories of stimulus spending by state governments, housing authorities, nonprofit groups and other organizations.

As of early Thursday, on its recovery.org Web site, the government was still citing 30,383 as the actual number of jobs linked so far to stimulus spending, despite the mistakes the White House has now acknowledged and said were being corrected.

There's no evidence the White House sought to inflate job numbers in the report, but the administration embraced the flawed figures the moment they were released.

Continued here: AP IMPACT: Stimulus jobs overstated by thousands : NPR

A Classic ::: Rep. LaTourette Deflates Dems Obstructionist Claims On House Floor

Somebody call the Whaaambulance.



Rep. LaTourette Makes Fun Of Democrats On The House Floor. |

Sunstein Would Be Proud ::: Farmer fined for failing to meet 'psychological needs' of cow

You'll note, in the article, that the farmer pretty much lives the same way the cow does.

Ronald Norcliffe, 65, kept the cow and its calf in a barn but had no provided adequate lighting, breaching the Animal Welfare Act.

Huddersfield magistrates heard that Mr Norciffe, who had been a farmer for 30 years, did not even have electricity in his own house.

Officers from Kirklees Environmental Health department and the Government's Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) visited Norcliffe's farm at Scammonden, West Yorks, in August 2008 to carry out tuberculosis tests.

While there, they asked where Mr Norcliffe intended to keep his cows in winter. When he said he would use a barn underneath his house, he was told it was unsuitable because it had little natural light, no electric lights and the doors were kept closed.

There were three follow-up visits but things did not improve.

Carol English, prosecuting, said: "He said the cattle were fine and he always kept them this way. He wouldn't keep the doors open as it was too cold. He said he would have lights fitted on a generator."

An improvement notice was served on Norcliffe by a DEFRA vet, ordering him to improve the lighting.

But on two further visits the lights were not switched on.

Bob Carr, representing Norcliffe, ridiculed the Kirklees Council prosecution.

He said: "I don't know what the psychological or ethological needs of these cows are and I'm sure Mr Norcliffe doesn't either.

"I still have no idea how much lighting is appropriate for a cow - and this man, who has had 30 years of farming experience and is keeping these animals healthy, is none the wiser.

"In my respectful submission this didn't do any harm whatsoever."

As well as the fine, Norcliffe was ordered to pay £50 costs and a £15 victim surcharge. However, he was not stopped from keeping cattle.

The council defended the prosecution, the first it has brought under the Animal Welfare Act in nine years. A spokesman said: "Our animal health and welfare officers paid several visits to Mr Norcliffe and worked hard to find simple, low-cost solutions - some as simple as cleaning windows and trimming back bushes obscuring the windows which could have been easily introduced.

"We offered help and advice, but Mr Norcliffe failed to improve conditions for his livestock.''

You can't make it up: Farmer fined for failing to meet 'psychological needs' of cow - Telegraph

Drugs Are Bad... M'kay? ::: Lindsay Lohan Looks Older Than Sharon Stone

And FGS... get a manicure!!!

*shakes head*


(Lindsay clearly needs a prayer team.)

Source: Lindsay Lohan works the blonde bombshell look as she parties with Richard Branson | Mail Online

Proverbs 21:9/21:19 ::: Man prefers prison to house arrest with wife

Hilarious.

PALERMO, Sicily (Reuters) - A Sicilian builder transferred from prison to house arrest tried to get himself locked up again to escape arguments with his wife at home, Italian media reported Thursday.

Santo Gambino, 30, did time for dumping hazardous waste before being moved to house arrest in Villabate, outside the Sicilian capital, Palermo, Italian news agencies reported.

Gambino went to the police station and asked to be put away again to avoid arguing with his wife, who accused him of failing to pay for the upkeep of their two children.

Police charged him with violating the conditions of his sentence and made him go home and patch things up with his wife.

Yeah... I'm sure she got all sweet with him after that move...

Source: Builder prefers prison to house arrest with wife | Oddly Enough | Reuters

Quote Of The Day ::: Dennis Miller on Obama

If Obama were any more thin skinned, he'd have a reservoir tip.

Source: Narcissistic Rage in the White House

The Logic of Simple Math ::: National Health Care Kills, And Insults While It Does It

A really great and concise piece.

by Matt Patterson

In 1997, Brian Booy of Bristol, U.K. was diagnosed with angina, a chest pain caused by coronary heart disease,¹ and told he needed triple bypass surgery.²

Unfortunately for Mr. Booy and his family, he made the grave mistake of getting ill in Great Britain, where government management of the health industry contributes to massive shortages of everything from doctors³ to hospital beds⁴ and vaccines.⁵

The result? Booy waited a year and a half for his lifesaving surgery, which he never received – he died of a massive heart attack in January of 1999.⁶

Booy's is just one of the many heartbreaking stories featured in "Shattered Lives: 100 Victims of Government Health Care" by Amy Ridenour and Ryan Balis at The National Center for Public Policy Research. Nor should we assume that Booy's case is anomalous: According to the BBC, Dr. Peter Wilde, clinical director for the Bristol Royal Infirmary's cardiac unit, admitted that same year that "ten patients may have died because they had to wait too long for operations."⁷

Why do long waits and shortages result from government control of the health sector? There are only so many hospitals, only so many doctors. When government promises that everyone will be treated (ostensibly) gratis, and creates a program to that effect such as Britain's National Health Service,⁸ it does not simultaneously conjure more doctors into existence. Rather, the existing pool of doctors is besieged by more patients, who are now likely to seek treatment more often because they perceive it to be free. The result is long lines, long waits, substandard care.

But it's worse than that. Not only does the socialization of medicine fail to produce more doctors, it actually shrinks the pool. How? In our free market system, being a good doctor can be substantially pecunious. This matters, because becoming a good doctor is a long, arduous, expensive proposition – the hope of financial reward later in life is often a significant animating factor when someone decides to endure the years and years of schooling and hundreds of thousands of dollars in expense required to become a practicing MD. Remove the profit incentive and you are guaranteed to have fewer people choose medicine as a profession.

The free market has been good to our doctors: General practitioners in the U.S. have almost twice the average monthly net income than their counterparts in the government-run system in Great Britain, according to worldsalaries.org.⁹ Unfortunately, American doctors see in Britain their future under ObamaCare, a future of increased regulation and taxation coupled with decreased earnings, and are deciding en masse that it may not be worth it: A September 2009 Investor's Business Daily/TIPP poll of practicing physicians found that "hundreds of thousands would think about shutting down their practices or retiring early" if ObamaCare makes it into law.¹⁰

Think about that. Obama promises to expand coverage to every American, but no new doctors will be co-created for this enterprise. In fact, many doctors are telling us that they will shutter their doors if ObamaCare is enacted. But at least your medical care will be "free," under the new regime, just like Brian Booy's was - for all the good that did him.

And on top of it all, government will also add its standard bureaucratic idiocy and insult to the medical-care mix: One year after Booy died from his heart attack, his wife Pat received a letter saying that her husband had at last been given an appointment for his surgery.¹¹

Proponents of government-run health care will tell you that the free market unfairly rations health care by making it unaffordable to some, and that their solution will fix this gross inequity. But this is fantasy at best, cruel deception at worst. Resources are always and everywhere necessarily rationed, because resources are always and everywhere finite. Government control does not fix this – it only makes it worse.

Source: National Health Care Kills, And Insults While It Does It

12 Primary Colors?! ::: Shrimp's eye points way to better DVDs

Super interesting, and bizarre.

LONDON (Reuters) – The amazing eyes of a giant shrimp living on Australia's Great Barrier Reef could hold the key to developing a new type of super high-quality DVD player, British scientists said on Sunday.

Mantis shrimps, dubbed "thumb splitters" by divers because of their vicious claws, have the most complex eyes in the animal kingdom.

Hmmm... now I'm really disturbed that an aquarium lady left my 6-year-old daughter alone to feed one of these armed with a pair of desk scissors. LOL.

 

They can see in 12 primary colors, four times as many as humans, and can also detect different kinds of light polarization -- the direction of oscillation in light waves.

Now a team at the University of Bristol have shown how the shrimps do it, using remarkable light-sensitive cells that rotate the plane of polarization in light as it travels through the eye.

Manmade devices do a similar thing in DVD and CD players but they only work well for one color, while the shrimp's eye operates almost perfectly across the whole visible spectrum from near ultra-violet to infra-red.

Transferring the same multi-color ability into a DVD player would result in a machine capable of handling far more information than a conventional one.

How about transferring that "multi-color ability" to glasses? I want to see 12 primary colors. (WTH?)

"The mechanism we have found in this eye is unknown to human synthetic devices. It works much, much better than any attempts that we've made to construct a device," researcher Nicholas Roberts told Reuters.

He believes the "beautifully simple" eye system, comprising cell membranes rolled into tubes, could be mimicked in the lab using liquid crystals.

Details of the mantis shrimp research were published in the journal Nature Photonics.
Just why the mantis shrimp needs such a rarefied level of vision is unclear, although researchers suspect it is to do with food and sex.

Isn't everything?




Here it is:






Reuters, via Yahoo!: Shrimp's eye points way to better DVDs - Yahoo! News

Stats To Make Leftists Shudder ::: Gallup Sees Rising Conservatism

The main thrust of the poll release is that, as a group, those who identify as conservatives form the largest ideological block.

These stats that follow the graphs of that are just delicious:

Americans Also Moving Right on Some Issues

In addition to the increase in conservatism on this general ideology measure, Gallup finds higher percentages of Americans expressing conservative views on several specific issues in 2009 than in 2008.

• Perceptions that there is too much government regulation of business and industry jumped from 38% in September 2008 to 45% in September 2009.

• The percentage of Americans saying they would like to see labor unions have less influence in the country rose from 32% in August 2008 to a record-high 42% in August 2009.

• Public support for keeping the laws governing the sale of firearms the same or making them less strict rose from 49% in October 2008 to 55% in October 2009, also a record high. (The percentage saying the laws should become more strict -- the traditionally liberal position -- fell from 49% to 44%.)

• The percentage of Americans favoring a decrease in immigration rose from 39% in June/July 2008 to 50% in July 2009.

• The propensity to want the government to "promote traditional values" -- as opposed to "not favor any particular set of values" -- rose from 48% in 2008 to 53% in 2009. Current support for promoting traditional values is the highest seen in five years.

• The percentage of Americans who consider themselves "pro-life" on abortion rose from 44% in May 2008 to 51% in May 2009, and remained at a slightly elevated 47% in July 2009.

• Americans' belief that the global warming problem is "exaggerated" in the news rose from 35% in March 2008 to 41% in March 2009.

This quote was also pretty fab:

Gallup has not recorded heightened conservatism on all major social and political views held by Americans. For instance, attitudes on the death penalty, gay marriage, the Iraq war, and Afghanistan have stayed about the same since 2008. However, there are no major examples of U.S. public opinion becoming more liberal in the past year.

And there was wailing and gnashing of teeth.

But not by me.

=)

Source: Conservatives Maintain Edge as Top Ideological Group

Liar, Liar ::: Biden Changes Story About Running Mate Offer from Obama

Since it's the Boston Globe, they bury the story. (Had it been Cheney...)

Biden’s recalls rejecting first running mate offer

Remember that story how then-senator Joe Biden became Barack Obama’s Democratic vice presidential running mate?

In the summer of 2008, Biden had accompanied his wife to the dentist’s office for a root canal. He got a call there from Obama, who offered him the vice presidency. Biden accepted, if the job could be made meaningful.

Speaking at an annual Allegheny County Democratic Committee dinner in Pennsylvania last week, Biden told a curiously different version. He said he rejected Obama’s offer flat-out when first approached.

“I initially said no, that I wasn’t interested,’’ Biden said, but he agreed to think about it.

“A couple months later,’’ Biden said, Obama repeated the offer in a hotel room in Minneapolis. The senator looked at Obama and said, “Are you really committed to changing the course of this country?’’

“He reached out, shook my hand and said, ‘I am.’ ’’

Oh, puke.

Source: Democratic candidates suffer from ‘Obama Hangover’ - The Boston Globe

Photos of U2 in Houston ::: The View From The Floor

Sorry so late on these... this was October 14th.

Lots of pix of the 360 "claw" stage and screen. And the band, of course.

This Week's Unspun with AnnaZ: So Busted! ::: Mark Finkelstein/NewsBusters and The State(Run Media) We're In :On BlogTalkRadio

Mark Finkelstein of Newsbusters brings his time and talents this week to Unspun. We'll discuss... what else? The mad mad media. Tune in!


Friday, 3pmE/2pmTX/NoonP

Call-in Number: (347) 327-9710

Archives available afterward on iTunes, and here: Unspun with AnnaZ on Blog Talk Radio

Merck Researcher Admits: Gardasil Guards Against Almost Nothing

Very interesting.

October 21st, 2009 by Steven W. Mosher

[with Joan Robinson, Assistant Editor at the Population Research Institute]

On the morning of 2 October 2009, one of us (Joan) joined an audience of mostly health professionals and listened as Dr. Diane Harper, the leading international developer of the HPV vaccines, gave a sales pitch for Gardasil. Gardasil, as you may know, is the new vaccine that is supposed to confer protection against four strains of the sexually transmitted Human Papillomavirus (HPV).

Dr. Harper came to the 4th International Public Conference on Vaccination to prove to us the real benefits of Gardasil. Sadly, her own presentation left me (Joan) and others filled with doubts. By her own admission, Gardasil has the doctors surrounding me glaring at a poor promise of efficacy as a vaccine married to a high risk of life-threatening side effects.

Gardasil, Dr. Harper explained, is promoted by Merck, the pharmaceutical manufacturer, as a “safe and effective” prevention measure against cervical cancer. The theory behind the vaccine is that, as HPV may cause cervical cancer, conferring a greater immunity of some strains of HPV might reduce the incidence of this form of cancer. In pursuit of this goal, tens of millions of American girls have been vaccinated to date.

As I sat scribbling down Merck’s claims, I wondered why such mass vaccination campaigns were necessary. After all, as Dr. Harper explained, 70% of HPV infections resolve themselves without treatment in one year. After two years, this rate climbs to 90%. Of the remaining 10% of HPV infections, only half coincide with the development of cervical cancer.

Dr. Harper further undercut the case for mass vaccination campaigns in the U.S. when she pointed out that “4 out of 5 women with cervical cancer are in developing countries.” (Harper serves as a consultant to the World Health Organization (WHO) for HPV vaccination in the developing world.) Indeed, she surprised her audience by stating that the incidence of cervical cancer in the U.S. is so low that “if we get the vaccine and continue PAP screening, we will not lower the rate of cervical cancer in the US.”

If this is the case, I thought, then why vaccinate at all? From the murmurs of the doctors in the audience, it was apparent that the same thought had occurred to them.

In the U.S. the cervical cancer rate is 8 per 100,000 women.1 Moreover, it is one of the most treatable forms of cancer. The current death rate from cervical cancer is between 1.6 to 3.7 deaths per 100,000 cases of the disease.2 The American Cancer Society (ACS) notes that “between 1955 and 1992, the cervical cancer death rate declined by 74%” and adds that “the death rate from cervical cancer continues to decline by nearly 4% each year.”3

At this point, I began to wriggle around in my seat, uncomfortably wondering, is the vaccine really effective? Using data from trials funded by Merck, Dr. Harper cheerfully continued to demolish the case for the vaccine that she was ostensibly there to promote. She informed us that “with the use of Gardasil, there will be no decrease in cervical cancer until at least 70% of the population is vaccinated, and in that case, the decrease will be very minimal. The highest amount of minimal decrease will appear in 60 years.”

It is hard to imagine a less compelling case for Gardasil. First of all, it is highly unlikely that 70% or more of the female population will continue to get routine Gardasil shots and boosters, along with annual PAP smears. And even if it did, according to Dr. Harper, “after 60 years, the vaccination will [only] have prevented 70% of incidences” of cervical cancer.

But rates of death from cervical cancer are already declining. Let’s do the math. If the 4% annual decline in cervical cancer death continues, in 60 years there will have been a 91.4% decline in cervical cancer death just from current cancer monitoring and treatment. Comparing this rate of decline to Gardasil’s projected “very minimal” reduction in the rate of cervical cancer of only 70 % of incidences in 60 years, it is hard to resist the conclusion that Gardasil does almost nothing for the health of American women.

Despite these dismal projections, Gardasil continues to be widely and aggressively promoted among pre-teen girls. The CDC reports that, by 1 June 2009, over 26 million doses of Gardasil have been distributed in the U.S.4 With hopes of soon tapping the adolescent male demographic, Merck, the pharmaceutical manufacturer of the vaccine, and certain Merck-funded U.S. medical organizations are targeting girls between the ages of 9 and 13.5 As CBS news reports, “Gardasil, launched in 2006 for girls and young women, quickly became one of Merck’s top-selling vaccines, thanks to aggressive marketing and attempts to get states to require girls to get the vaccine as a requirement for school attendance.”6

Just as I began, in my own mind, to question ethics of mass vaccinations of prepubescent girls, Dr. Harper dropped another bombshell. “There have been no efficacy trials in girls under 15 years,” she told us.

Merck did study a small group of girls under 16 who had been vaccinated, but did not follow them long enough to conclude sufficient presence of effective HPV antibodies.

If I wasn’t skeptical enough already, I really started scratching my head when Dr. Harper explained, “if you vaccinate a child, she won’t keep immunity in puberty and you do nothing to prevent cervical cancer.” But it turned out that she wasn’t arguing for postponing Gardasil vaccination until later puberty, as I first thought. Rather, Dr. Harper only emphasized to the doctors in the audience the need for Gardasil booster shots, because it is still unknown how long the vaccine immunity lasts. More booster shots mean more money for Merck, obviously.

I left Dr. Harper’s lecture convinced that Gardasil did little to stop cervical cancer, and determined to answer another question that she had largely ducked: Is this vaccine safe?

Here’s what my research turned up. To date, 15,037 girls have officially reported adverse side effects from Gardasil to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). These adverse effects include Guilliane Barre, lupus, seizures, paralysis, blood clots, brain inflammation and many others. The CDC acknowledges that there have been 44 reported deaths.7

Dr. Harper, who seems to specialize in dropping bombshells, dropped another in an interview with ABC News when she admitted that “The rate of serious adverse events is greater than the incidence rate of cervical cancer.”8 This being the case, one might want to take one’s chances with cancer, especially because the side effects of the vaccine are immediate, while the possibility of developing cancer is years in the future.

In the clinical studies alone, 23 girls died after receiving either Gardasil or the Aluminum control injection. 15 of the 13,686 girls who received Gardasil died, while 8 died among the 11,004 who received the Aluminum shot. There was only one death among the group that had a saline placebo. What this means is that 1 out of every 912 girls in the Gardasil clinical studies died. (9 , see page 8.) The cervical cancer death rate is 1 out of every 40,000 women per year.10

The numbers of deaths and adverse effects are undoubtedly underestimates. Dr. Harper’s comments to ABC News concur with the National Vaccine Information Center’s claim that “though nearly 70 percent of all Gardasil reaction reports were filed by Merck, a whopping 89 percent of the reports Merck did file were so incomplete there was not enough information for health officials to do a proper follow-up and review.”11 On average, less than 10 percent—perhaps even less than 1 percent—of serious vaccine adverse events are ever reported, according to the American Journal of Public Health.12

[snip]

More here: Merck Researcher Admits: Gardasil Guards Against Almost Nothing �|�Catholic Exchange

FNC Coverage of The WH's Attempted Barring From Pay Czar Interview

1) I'm amazed and quite cheered that the rest of the networks wouldn't go along with this insanity.

2) What a bunch of punks this administration is!! Like 8th grade bullies... the cool kids trying to make the compliant sycophants cut off all ties to the "lesser thans" in order to stay "in". Just outrageous behavior.

3) Feinberg isn't really the "pay czar"... his actual title is creepy-worse... he is the Special Master of Compensation.

Yeah... whatever you say, comrade...




YouTube - White House tries to bar Fox News from intervewing pay czar

Via Email ::: Why Obama Won, As Demonstrated By Children

There's quite a bit of truth in this one:

--From a teacher in the Nashville area

"The most eye-opening civics lesson I ever had was while teaching third grade this year...

The presidential election was heating up and some of the children showed an interest. I decided we would have an election for a class president. We would choose our nominees. They would make a campaign speech and the class would vote. To simplify the process, candidates were nominated by other class members.

We discussed what kinds of characteristics these students should have. We got many nominations and from those, Jamie and Olivia were picked to run for the top spot. The class had done a great job in their selections. Both candidates were good kids. I thought Jamie might have an advantage because he got lots of parental support. I had never seen Olivia's mother.

The day arrived when they were to make their speeches. Jamie went first. He had specific ideas about how to make our class a better place. He ended by promising to do his very best. Everyone applauded and he sat down.

Now is was Olivia's turn to speak. Her speech was concise. She said, "If you will vote for me, I will give you ice cream." She sat down. The class went wild. "Yes! Yes! We want ice cream." She surely would say more. She did not have to. A discussion followed.

How did she plan to pay for the ice cream? She wasn't sure.

Would her parents buy it or would the class pay for it. She didn't know.

The class really didn't care. All they were thinking about was ice cream. Jamie was forgotten. Olivia won by a landslide.

Every time Barack Obama opened his mouth he offered ice cream and 52 percent of the people reacted like nine year olds. They want ice cream.

The other 48 percent know they're going to have to feed the cow and clean up the mess."

This is the ice cream Obama promised us! - A Cow Pie. Remember, the government cannot give anything to anyone -- that they have not first taken away from someone else.

This isn't any real exaggeration... lest we forget the Obama chant, "We want pie!"

Delish! ::: David Harsanyi : Fox News Is Biased? So What?

Superb column.

David Harsanyi
Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Those of you paying even the slightest attention these days realize that President Barack Obama has been the target of a near-criminally biased and antagonistic mass media.

Someone had to put a stop to the madness.

The organization most persistently engaged in reporting on issues that put the administration in a poor light has been Fox News. Or should I say Fox "News." Unfair. Unbalanced. Uncooperative.

"They're not really a news station," White House senior adviser David Axelrod recently explained.

"It's not a news organization so much as it has a perspective," chief of staff Rahm Emanuel added. Mao enthusiast and communications director Anita Dunn claims that Americans should not "pretend" Fox is a "news network the way CNN is."

For those who missed it, the key phrase to remember is " not a news organization."

Dunn also asserted that when the president "goes on Fox, he understands he's not going on it really as a news network at this point. He's going on to debate the opposition." Who knew debating the future of the nation is such a ghastly thought?

So what is the underlying rationale for this hypersensitive strategy of trying to delegitimize the voice of cable opposition? "We're doing what we think is important to make sure news is covered as fairly as possible," a White House official explained to Politico.

It's about time someone charged the White House with the task of "making sure" news coverage is "fair." It's "important" work, you see. After all, who better than the executive branch -- supposedly in the business of representing the entire nation -- to decide whether a station qualifies as a legitimate news organization?

Then again, does biased political coverage disqualify one from reporting legitimate and useful news stories? Fox News may not be able to unsheathe the intellectual rigor of Obama favorites David Letterman and Jay Leno, but it has covered numerous stories in the past few months that otherwise would have gone unnoticed.

Remember that ACORN's penchant for aiding the child-enslaving pimp set was a valid story. Uncovering the radical ramblings of Van Jones -- a man tasked with creating "green" jobs even though he never had created a job for anyone but himself -- was legitimate enough for the czar to abdicate his crown. The National Endowment for the Arts' attempt to politicize art was genuine enough to elicit a White House apology.

And whatever its intent, Dunn's inane admission that all-star mass murderer Mao Zedong was one of her "favorite political philosophers" (insert Hitler for Mao, a Bush administration figure for Dunn and stir) is a story worth hearing.

Hey, Mao was no dummy. That's probably why Dunn is employing the noted dictator's notion that one should "despise the enemy strategically but take him seriously tactically." In this case, it is precisely the legitimacy of the stories Fox News covers -- rather than the bias of the station -- that drives the administration to conflate news with opinion.

Read the rest here: David Harsanyi : Fox News Is Biased? So What? - Townhall.com

Beck and His Bodyguard (+ a lol tweet) ::: NYPost: Take no chances

Interesting Page Six story...

Controversial Fox News host Glenn Beck is now travelling with an armed guard. Guests at the other day's preview of Broadway musical "Memphis" noticed Beck was closely accompanied -- even to the men's room -- by a body guard with a gun partially con cealed under his jacket. Beck, who famously accused President Obama of being "a rac ist," tweeted after the show: "Just got back from 'Memphis' on Broadway. Amazing cast & music. 2 songs abt Hope & Change. rlly? Only 2?" A rep for Beck declined to comment.

Source: Take no chances

Unbelievable (Or Is It) ::: Grassley Warns HHS Web Site May Be ‘Propaganda’

I just get more and more nauseous every day.

By John Stanton
Roll Call Staff

Oct. 20, 2009, 9:07 p.m.

Senate Finance ranking member Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) is raising concerns that a Department of Health and Human Services Web site that urges visitors to send an e-mail to President Barack Obama praising his health care reform plan may violate rules against government-funded propaganda.

The Web page is accessed through a “state your support” button featured prominently on the HHS Web site and carries a disclaimer that the Web site is maintained by HHS.

In a letter sent to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius Tuesday, Grassley warned that “any possible misuse of appropriated funds by the executive branch to engage in publicity or propaganda in support of an Administration priority is a matter that must be investigated and taken seriously,” noting that in 2005 Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) argued that “the use of official funds for similar activities were 'underhanded tactics' and that these tactics 'are not worthy of our great democracy.'”

The form letter on the “state your support” page includes language hailing Obama's efforts. “We strongly support your commitment to comprehensive health reform. This is not a luxury. The continuing, sharp escalation of health care costs for families, businesses, and government is unsustainable. Reform is imperative. We believe that health reform must be enacted this year,” the letter says.

Additionally, the form letter says that signatories will back Obama's efforts. “During these extraordinarily challenging times, we need to put aside past differences and address the health and economic crisis. Our shared interest must come before narrow interests so we can achieve a health system that is affordable and provides high quality for all Americans. We will support your budget with its reserve fund dedicated to achieving health care reform in a fiscally responsible manner. Each of us must be prepared to contribute to achieving this fundamental goal. By signing this statement we affirm our commitment to work with you and our Congressional leaders to enact legislation this year which provides affordable, high quality coverage for all Americans.”

The page requires signatories to provide their name, zip code and e-mail address, and also asks for their mailing address and phone number, although that information is not labeled as required.

In his letter, Grassley notes that HHS has recently issued new guidance to insurers that they must obtain permission from beneficiaries before sending out mailers critical of the reform efforts in Congress. “The use of the official HHS.gov Web site for activities that seem to be nothing more than government propaganda raises many serious questions,” Grassley wrote.

Grassley asked Sebelius for a host of information, including which contractors helped develop the Web site, which third parties and executive branch offices will have access to the personal data and whether signatories will be or have been contacted by HHS or other executive branch offices.

"Healthreform.gov is a valuable resource for the American people and we look forward to discussing this resource with the Senator," HHS spokesman Nick Papas said Tuesday evening.

Source: Grassley Warns HHS Web Site May Be ‘Propaganda’ - Roll Call

I Want To Throw Up ::: DOJ Says Blacks in N.C. Town Can’t Get Elected Without "D" Label

Is it now a function of the Department of Justice to ensure that blacks get elected everywhere?

(CNSNews.com) - The U.S. Department of Justice is refusing to allow the town of Kinston, N.C., to hold nonpartisan local elections on the grounds that African Americans cannot win election without being listed as Democrats on the ballot.

In a letter sent Saturday by to Kinston City Attorney James P. Cauley III, the Justice Department stated: “Removing the partisan cue in municipal elections will, in all likelihood, eliminate the single factor that allows black candidates to be elected to office.”

The department Tuesday also refused to answer questions from CNSNews.com about the letter.

Kinston voters last year approved changing city council elections to a nonpartisan basis, similar to thousands of other towns in the U.S. – without mention of party affiliation.

The letter, written by Acting Assistant Attorney General Loretta King, flatly asserts that the decision was made on the assumption that the town’s citizens use race as the primary consideration in voting.

“In Kinston elections,” King wrote, “voters base their choice more on the race of a candidate rather than his or her political affiliation, and without either the appeal to party loyalty or the ability to vote a straight ticket, the limited remaining support from white voters for a black Democratic candidate will diminish even more.”

The Justice Department analysis was based partly on the opinions of local officials in Kinston, the letter said.

“Numerous elected municipal and county officials confirm the results of our statistical analysis,” she wrote, “that a majority of white Democrats support white Republicans over black Democrats in Kinston city elections. At the same time, they also acknowledged that a small group of white Democrats maintain strong party allegiance and vote along party lines, regardless of the race of the candidate.”

However, King asserted that even whites who currently vote for black candidates would abandon them in nonpartisan elections.

“Many of these white crossover voters are simply using straight-ticket voting. As a result, while the racial identity of the candidate greatly diminishes the supportive effect of the partisan cue, it does not totally eliminate it. It follows, therefore, that the elimination of party affiliation on the ballot will likely reduce the ability of blacks to elect candidates of choice,” King concluded.

The letter incensed one congressman, Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), who condemned it as “unconstitutional” and “racist.”

“This policy of the Department of Justice that prohibits them from removing the partisan label on a local candidate’s name is done for reasons purely of race and the policy is, on it’s face, racist,” Rep. King – no relation to the asst. attorney general – claimed.

“It’s outrageously offensive,” said the congressman, “and it should be offensive to, especially, African Americans to be pandered to in that way, and to have the Department of Justice tell them that they don’t have the ability to discern who to vote for by name, that they can only discern that if it’s party – and it presumes that all African Americans are Democrats.”

“By any legitimate measure, this is an unconstitutional decision on the part of the Department of Justice,” the congressman said in an interview with CNSNews.com.

The Justice Department, meanwhile, refused to answer questions about the letter that CNSNews.com submitted Tuesday – including questions about the basis for the decision and what empirical evidence – i.e., hard data – the department relied upon for its conclusions that whites in Kinston vote based on race.

Other questions CNSNews.com posed included whether the Justice Department was asserting that African-Americans only vote Democratic and whether it was ethical for the federal government to take an action which at least appears to be designed to benefit a particular political party.

Justice Department spokesman Alejandro Miyar refused to provide any specifics.

“The letter speaks for the department's position,” Miyar wrote in an e-mail response. “We decline to address your questions in specific.”

Calls to local officials in Kinston were not returned.

Source: CNSNews.com - Justice Department Says Blacks in N.C. Town Can’t Get Elected Without Democratic Party Label

Some Animals Are More Equal ::: Germans Unhappy with Alternative Swine Flu Vaccine for Politicians

Just crap.

Damage control is the name of the game in Berlin on Monday as politicians rush to deny that they are receiving a better, safer swine flu vaccine than ordinary Germans. The first of 50 million doses arrived in Germany on Monday.

One might think that the arrival in Germany of the first of 50 million doses of swine flu vaccine on Monday might be cause for celebration. But with news breaking over the weekend that top government officials in Berlin will be injected with an alternative vaccine -- one widely seen as safer -- a debate about an alleged two-class medical system has erupted.

SPIEGEL over the weekend reported that Chancellor Angela Merkel, a number of her ministers and other government officials would receive a vaccine manufactured by the pharmaceutical company Baxter -- the same vaccine that the German military opted for, as was reported last week.

The mass-circulation tabloid Bild on Monday plastered the story on its front page on Monday, assuring its readers that "experts are accusing the government" of serving up "second class medicine" to ordinary Germans.

Fevers and Headaches

The controversy centers on an additive included in the vaccine manufactured by pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline. The additive includes an inactive strain of the entire flu virus as opposed to virus fragments. Critics say the additive can increase the risk of side effects from the flu vaccine such as fevers and headaches.

Supporters counter that the additive is safe, and its use allows the drug manufacturer to quickly produce more doses of the vaccine. The SPIEGEL story mentioned that the GlaxoSmithKline vaccine, with the additive, has undergone more testing than the Baxter version.

An Interior Ministry spokesman told SPIEGEL that the Baxter vaccine had been ordered for all ministries and other agencies as well as for the employees of the Paul Ehrlich Institute, the authority responsible for approving vaccines.

Merkel's spokesman Ulrich Wilhelm on Monday denied that Merkel was taking a different vaccine than the one available to ordinary Germans. He said that the Baxter vaccine had been ordered four months ago as part of a deal hammered out one year ago and has nothing to do with recent concerns surrounding the GlaxoSmithKline vaccine.

'Second-Class Medicine'

Still, voices have become raised. The Green Party's health expert Biggi Bender said that the separate vaccines amount to "big risk for the people, little risk for the government. This type of second-class medicine cannot be allowed to exist in a democracy."

Leading physicians also complained about the planned vaccination. The head of the Institute for Hygiene and Public Health at the University of Bonn, Martin Exner, said: "The fact that politicians and top civil servants in ministries will be vaccinated with a vaccine other than the people is a terrible sign. Today politicians must take what they recommend."

[snip]

More here: Second-Class Medicine: Germans Unhappy with Alternative Swine Flu Vaccine for Politicians - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International

When Even Flawless Isn't Good Enough ::: Ralph Lauren in new photoshop row

Somone at RL is completely out of their head.

This is the before shot (before!!):

And this is the after:

In case you missed it, here's the first photoshop overload that started the buzz, wherein the model's head was made to be wider than her waist:

I think they should just find a serpent to model for them.

Source: Ralph Lauren in new photoshop row as SECOND image of model airbrushed to make her head larger than her waist emerges | Mail Online

I <3 Brit ::: Hume Defends Fox, Asks How CNN, Others Like Being Patted on Head by White House

Care of NewsBusters, this video is FANtastic.



Source: Hume Defends Fox Again: Asks How CNN, Others 'Like Being Patted on the Head and Given the Seal of Approval by the White House' | NewsBusters.org

Disgusting ::: Obama to skip anniversary of the Fall of Communism

I just watched a fantastic film about life in East Germany (The Lives of Others) over the weekend. Perhaps someone should be kind enough to send Obama a US-compliant copy of it.

It is pretty clear why the president is refusing to accept the personal invitation of the German chancellor and attend festivities marking the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

It would smack of American triumphalism - our success in defeating perhaps the most odious of all the odious ideologies of the 20th century. Obama doesn't do "triumphalism." That would place America above other nations - something that he has explicitly condemned.

So he will be conspicuous by his absence. And another European ally has been embarrassed by this president. Rick Richman of Contentions adds this:

President Obama has reportedly informed the German government that he will not travel to Berlin on November 9 to participate in the 20th-anniversary celebration of the fall of the Berlin Wall. It is an unfortunate decision on multiple counts.

First, it is another slight to another European ally - one that is going all-out to celebrate the event. The invitation to Obama was extended personally by Chancellor Angela Merkel last June.

Second, it is a failure to correct the historical misstatement of his citizen-of-the-world address last year in Berlin, when he credited the fall of the wall to the "world standing as one" and failed even to mention the names of John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan.

Third, it is an embarrassment for the United States not to be represented at the highest level for the commemoration of an event of this magnitude. As Matt Welch writes in the November issue of Reason magazine, November 1989 was "the most liberating month of arguably the most liberating year in human history" - the end of the Soviet Union and communism in Europe and a 50-year Cold War that was a worldwide ideological battle. It was battle led by America.

Fourth, it is an opportunity for Obama to give a speech in which he does not apologize for his country but celebrates the triumph of freedom that has been the driving force of American history from its beginning through his own election.

More: American Thinker Blog: Obama to skip anniversary of the Fall of Communism

Just Wow ::: White House Urges Other Networks to Disregard Fox News

What a bunch of bullies.

The White House is calling on other news organizations to isolate and alienate Fox News as it sends out top advisers to rail against the cable channel as a Republican Party mouthpiece.

Top political strategists question the decision by the Obama administration to escalate its offensive against Fox News. And as of Monday, the four other major television networks had not given any indication that they intend to sever their ties with Fox News.

But several top White House officials have taken aim at Fox News since communications director Anita Dunn branded Fox "opinion journalism masquerading as news" in an interview last Sunday.

White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel told CNN on Sunday that President Obama does not want "the CNNs and the others in the world [to] basically be led in following Fox."

Obama senior adviser David Axelrod went further by calling on media outlets to join the administration in declaring that Fox is "not a news organization."

"Other news organizations like yours ought not to treat them that way," Axelrod counseled ABC's George Stephanopoulos. "We're not going to treat them that way."

Asked Monday about another Axelrod claim that Fox News is just trying to make money, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said that while all media companies fall under that description, "I would say sometimes programming can be tilted toward accentuating those profits."

But by urging other news outlets to side with the administration, Obama officials dramatically upped the ante in the war of words that began earlier this month with Dunn's comments.

So far, none of the four other major networks has given any indication that they wish to disinvite Fox News from the White House pool -- the rotation through which the networks share the costs and duties of White House coverage and the most significant interaction among the news channels.

The White House stopped providing guests to "Fox News Sunday" after host Chris Wallace fact-checked controversial assertions made by Tammy Duckworth, assistant secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs, in August.

Dunn said fact-checking an administration official was "something I've never seen a Sunday show do."

"She criticized 'Fox News Sunday' last week for fact-checking -- fact-checking -- an administration official," Wallace said Sunday. "They didn't say that our fact-checking was wrong. They just said that we had dared to fact-check."

"Let's fact-check Anita Dunn, because last Sunday she said that Fox ignores Republican scandals, and she specifically mentioned the scandal involving Nevada senator John Ensign," Wallace added. "A number of Fox News shows have run stories about Senator Ensign. Anita Dunn's facts were just plain wrong."

Fox News senior vice president Michael Clemente said: "Surprisingly, the White House continues to declare war on a news organization instead of focusing on the critical issues that Americans are concerned about like jobs, health care and two wars. The door remains open and we welcome a discussion about the facts behind the issues."

Observers on both sides of the political aisle questioned the White House's decision to continue waging war on a news organization, saying the move carried significant political risks.

Democratic strategist Donna Brazile said on CNN: "I don't always agree with the White House. And on this one here I would disagree."

David Gergen, who has worked for Democratic and Republican presidents, said: "I totally agree with Donna Brazile." Gergen added that White House officials have "gotten themselves into a fight they don't necessarily want to be in. I don't think it's in their best interest."

"The faster they can get this behind them, the more they can treat Fox like one other organization, the easier they can get back to governing, and then put some people out on Fox," Gergen said on CNN. "I mean, for goodness sakes, you know, you engage in the debate.

"What Americans want is a robust competition of ideas, and they ought to be willing to go out there and mix it up with some strong conservatives on Fox, just as there are strong conservatives on CNN like Bill Bennett."

Bennett expressed outrage that Dunn told an audience of high school students this year that Mao Zedong, the founder of communist China, was one of "my favorite political philosophers."

"Having the spokesman do this, attack Fox, who says that Mao Zedong is one of the most influential figures in her life, was not...a small thing; it's a big thing," Bennett said on CNN. "When she stands up, in a speech to high school kids, says she's deeply influenced by Mao Zedong, that -- I mean, that is crazy."

Fox News contributor Karl Rove, who was the top political strategist to former President George W. Bush, said: "This is an administration that's getting very arrogant and slippery in its dealings with people. And if you dare to oppose them, they're going to come hard at you and they're going to cut your legs off."

"This is a White House engaging in its own version of the media enemies list. And it's unhelpful for the country and undignified for the president of the United States to so do," Rove added. "That is over- the-top language. We heard that before from Richard Nixon."

Media columnist David Carr of The New York Times warned that the White House war on Fox "may present a genuine problem for Mr. Obama, who took great pains during the campaign to depict himself as being above the fray of over-heated partisan squabbling."

"While there is undoubtedly a visceral thrill in finally setting out after your antagonists, the history of administrations that have successfully taken on the media and won is shorter than this sentence," Carr wrote over the weekend. "So far, the only winner in this latest dispute seems to be Fox News. Ratings are up 20 percent this year."

He added: "The administration, by deploying official resources against a troublesome media organization, seems to have brought a knife to a gunfight."

Source: White House Urges Other Networks to Disregard Fox News - Political News - FOXNews.com

Brilliant!!! ::: Steyn: Limbaugh's So 'Divisive' The Left Had To Make Up Lies About Him

Love this. (I talked quite a bit on these topics on last Friday's show.)

By MARK STEYN

Posted 07:54 PM ET

Here is a tale of two sound bites. First: "Slavery built the South. I'm not saying we should bring it back; I'm just saying it had its merits. For one thing, the streets were safer after dark."

Second: "The third lesson and tip actually comes from two of my favorite political philosophers, Mao Tse Tung and Mother Teresa. Not often coupled with each other, but the two people that I turn to most to basically deliver a simple point, which is: You're going to make choices. ... But here's the deal: These are your choices; they are no one else's.

"In 1947, when Mao Tse Tung was being challenged within his own party on his own plan to basically take China over, Chiang Kai-Shek and the nationalist Chinese held the cities, they had the army. ... They had everything on their side. And people said 'How can you win? How can you do this against all of the odds against you?'

"And Mao Tse Tung says, 'You fight your war and I'll fight mine.' You don't have to accept the definition of how to do things. ... You fight your war, you let them fight theirs. Everybody has their own path."

The first quotation was attributed to Rush Limbaugh. He never said it. There is no tape of him saying it. There is no transcript of him saying it. After all, if he had done so at any point in the last 20 years, someone would surely have mentioned it at the time.

Yet CNN, MSNBC, ABC, other networks and newspapers cheerfully repeated the pro-slavery quotation and attributed it, falsely, to Rush Limbaugh. And planting a flat-out lie in his mouth wound up getting Rush bounced from a consortium hoping to buy the St. Louis Rams.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said the talk show host was a "divisive" figure, and nondivisive figures like the Rev. Al Sharpton and the Rev. Jesse Jackson expressed the hope that, with Mr. Divisive out of the picture, the NFL could now "unify."

The second quotation — hailing Mao — was uttered back in June to an audience of high school students by Anita Dunn, the White House communications director. I know she uttered it because I watched the words issuing from her mouth on "The Glenn Beck Show" on Fox News. But don't worry. Nobody else played it.

So if I understand correctly: Rush Limbaugh is so "divisive" that to get him fired leftie agitators have to invent racist sound bites to put in his mouth. But the White House communications director is so un-divisive that she can be invited along to recommend Chairman Mao as a role model for America's young.

From my unscientific survey, U.S. school students are all but entirely unaware of Mao, and the few that aren't know him mainly as a T-shirt graphic or "agrarian reformer." What else did he do? Here, from Jonathan Fenby's book "Modern China," is the great man in a nutshell:

"Mao's responsibility for the extinction of anywhere from 40 million to 70 million lives brands him as a mass killer greater than Hitler or Stalin."

Hey, that's pretty impressive when they can't get your big final-score death toll nailed down to within 30 million. Still, as President Obama's communications director says, he lived his dream, and so can you, although if your dream involves killing, oh, 50 million to 80 million Chinamen you may have your work cut out.

But let's stick with the Fenby figure: He killed 40 million to 70 million Chinamen. Whoops, can you say "Chinamen" or is that racist? Oh, and sexist. So hard keeping up with the Sensitivity Police in this pansified political culture, isn't it?

But you can kill 40 million to 70 million Chinamen and that's fine and dandy: You'll be cited as an inspiration by the White House to an audience of high school students. You can be anything you want to be! Look at Mao: He wanted to be a mass murderer, and he lived his dream! You can too!

The White House now says that Anita Dunn was "joking." Anyone tempted to buy that spin should look at the tape: If this is her Friars Club routine, she needs to work on her delivery. But, for the sake of argument, try a thought experiment:

Midway through Bush's second term, press secretary Tony Snow goes along to Chester A. Arthur High School to give a graduation speech:

"I know it looks tough right now. You're young, you're full of zip, but the odds seem hopeless. Let me tell you about another young man facing tough choices 80 years ago. It's last orders at the Munich beer garden — gee, your principal won't thank me for mentioning that — and all the natural blonds are saying, 'But Adolf, see reason. The Weimar Republic's here to stay, and besides, the international Jewry control everything.'

"And young Adolf Hitler puts down his foaming stein and stands on the table and sings a medley of 'I Gotta Be Me', '(Learning To Love Yourself Is) The Greatest Love Of All' and 'The Sun'll Come Out Tomorrow'." And by the end of that night there wasn't a Jewish greengrocer's anywhere in town with glass in its windows.

"Don't play by the other side's rules; make your own kind of music. And always remember: You've gotta have a dream, if you don't have a dream, how you gonna have a dream come true?"

Anyone think he'd still have a job?

Well, so what? All those dead Chinese are no-name peasants a long way away. What's the big deal? If you say "Chairman Mao? Wasn't he the wacko who offed 70 million Chinks?" you'll be hounded from public life for saying the word "Chinks."

But, if you commend the murderer of those 70 million as a role model in almost any schoolroom in the country from kindergarten to the Ivy League, it's so entirely routine that only a crazy like Glenn Beck would be boorish enough to point it out.

Which is odd, don't you think? Because it suggests that our present age of politically correct hypersensitivity is not just morally unserious but profoundly decadent.

Twenty years ago this fall, the Iron Curtain was coming down in Europe. Across the Warsaw Pact, the jailers of the communist prison states lost their nerve, and the cell walls crumbled. Matt Welch, the editor of Reason magazine, wonders why the anniversary is going all but unobserved: Why aren't we making more of the biggest mass liberation in history?

Well, because to celebrate it would involve recognizing it as a victory over communism. And, after the left's long march through the institutions of the West, most are not willing to do that. There's the bad totalitarianism (Nazism) and the good totalitarianism (communism), whose apologists and, indeed, fetishists can still be found everywhere, even unto the White House.

Rush Limbaugh's remarks are "divisive"; Anita Dunn's are entirely normal. But don't worry, the new Fairness Doctrine will take care of the problem.

Source: Investors.com - Limbaugh's So 'Divisive' The Left Had To Make Up Lies About Him

Ode To a Web Commenter ::: (From 'anti-ObamaCare ad during Tex v OU game')

Love this.

(Now how do we get the distinction out to more people?)

Insurance companies don’t take away your constitutional rights like this government will do.

That is the flip side to the Dumocrats’ lies that there is a constitutional right to health insurance.

You have the freedom to obtain health insurance.

The govt wants to take away your freedom to choose.

12 posted on Sat Oct 17 12:22:41 2009 by Canedawg (FUBO)

Just an anti-ObamaCare ad during the Tex v OU game (Insurance cos dropping the hammer)

Anita Dunn Gets Spanked ::: VDH: Now We Know Why He Passed on the Dalai Lama

These folks need a good schooling.

Now We Know Why He Passed on the Dalai Lama [Victor Davis Hanson]

I am not a big fan of saying that officials should resign for stupid remarks. But interim White House communications director Anita Dunn's praise of Mao Zedong as a "political philosopher" is so unhinged and morally repugnant, that she should hang it up, pronto.

Mao killed anywhere from 50 million to 70 million innocents in the initial cleansing of Nationalists, the scouring of the countryside, the failed Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution, Tibet, and the internal Chinese gulag. Dunn's praise of a genocidal monster was no inadvertent slip: She was reading from a written text and went into great detail to give the full context of the remark. Moreover, her comments were not some student outburst from 30 years ago; they were delivered on June 5, 2009. Her praise of Mao's insight and courage in defeating the Nationalists was offered long after the full extent of Mao's mass-murdering had been well documented. Mao killed more people than any other single mass killer in the history of civilization.

So where do all these people, so intimate with our president (Dunn is the wife of his personal lawyer), come from? A right-wing attack machine could not make up such statements as those tossed off by a Dunn or a Van Jones. There seems to be neither a moral compass nor even a casual knowledge of history in this administration. And now we have the avatars of the "new politics" claiming it's okay to praise Mao's political and philosophical insight and his supposed determination ("You fight your war, and I'll fight mine") because Lee Atwater supposedly once evoked Mao too.

Ms. Dunn should simply duck out of her D.C. suburb and ask any Tibetan or Chinese immigrant in his 70s and 80s what life was really like in Mao's China.

10/17 11:25 AMShare

Source: Now We Know Why He Passed on the Dalai Lama - Victor Davis Hanson - The Corner on National Review Online