Daily Archives: November 5th, 2009

Last night, the New York Yankees ended this decade of baseball the way they began it -- by winning the World Series. In between these triumphs, things didn't go quite as planned. However, when you sort it all out, the Yankees are the team of the decade, having appeared in four World Series, winning two. Their arch-rivals, the Red Sox, are runners-up. They won two titles, but played in only those two World Series.

The team of the decade honor is nothing new for the Yankees. By the measure used above, they were the team of the 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, and 1990s. They were also second runners-up behind Oakland and Cincinnati in the 1970s, when they won two championships and appeared in three World Series.

Rounding out the list, the Chicago Cubs were the team of the 1900s, the Red Sox were the team of the 1910s, and the LA Dodgers -- the only two time champions of the 1980s -- were the team of that decade, though it didn't really seem that way.

Foremost today is to care for the wounded and the families of those who were lost or wounded. Next week, we must continue to care for those in need, while mourning our losses. 

First reports are notoriously wrong. The shooter already has been killed then resurrected by the media. Some media are in a frenzy and so the reports are particularly untrustworthy at this time. Now is not a time to psychoanalyze the attacker by using a media-supplied telescope that already said he was dead, and that there were multiple attackers. Media: STOP, please. There will be time to pursue answers and justice after Christmas. We must remember that family members lost loved ones just before the holidays. Justice and answers will come with time.

Most important is to remember that we have just lost a dozen people. Others are wounded. Children and other family members will need care and thoughtful attention.

---

Senator Barbara Boxer Breaks Senate Committee Rules…
The liberal California senator passed the dem’s cap-&-tax legislation out of committee without a single GOP member in attendance. This is against the rules and the first time it has ever happened.

Senator Jim Inhofe (R-OK) discussed the outrageous move by the democrats:

The Politico reported:

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee approved climate change legislation Thursday with no Republicans voting for the bill or even participating in the process.

With Republican boycotting the proceedings, Committee Chairman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) relied on a little used interpretation of committee rules to move the legislation. Traditionally, two minority members are required to conduct committee business.

Boxer said that she passed the bill “in full accordance with long-standing committee and Senate rules.”

“This is not a procedure we wanted; it’s a procedure that’s available to us,” said Boxer. “The majority has to be able to do its work…otherwise the whole Senate could come to a screeching halt.”

Republicans called Boxer’s move the “nuclear option,” warning that it violated decades of committee precedent.

“I am here to appeal to you and the members of the committee,” Sen. Jim Inhofe, the top Republican on the committee, said in a brief statement. “In the history of this committee, we have not been able to find a time when the bill has been marked up without minority.”

But, to Boxer and the democratic majority, rules were meant to be broken– especially when a $3.6 trillion gas tax is on the line.

Read this post »

After two minutes of smiling, pointing and dithering… Barack Obama finally got around to mentioning the massacre at Fort Hood in Texas.
The president then went on to tell the audience what great admiration he has for the men and women in uniform…
Except, of course, for those serving in Afghanistan who he refuses to support.

On her segment of CNN Newsroom this morning, anchor Heidi Collins asked business correspondent Christine Romans about Senate action on extending yet again unemployment benefits:

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: You're right. And Heidi, all of those things that you mentioned are incredibly important to your money and all of them could affect you very, very near-term here. This extension of the unemployment benefits, it would be the third.

The Senate has passed it. It goes to the House. It's expected to be voted on and passed very, very quickly here. Because, remember, your Congress member and your senator, they are being inundated in their offices with questions from people saying, wait, how am I going to survive when this check runs out? Seven thousand checks running out every week.

It would be a 14-week extension nationwide, 20 weeks of unemployment. More unemployment benefits for the states with 8.5 percent unemployment or more. And this would be paid by a two-year extension of an existing -- existing tax on employers. So this would be paid for by a tax on employers.

It would not come out of your pocket and my pocket. But it would be the third extension here, Heidi. And it's critically important. Like I said, so many people are losing their unemployment benefits right now. Some 200,000 have lost their jobless benefits just as the Senate has been negotiating this.

In parroting the liberal theme that big bad business, not taxpayers, will actually foot the tab, Romans does a disservice to viewers.  The late Milton Friedman, Nobel Laureate in Economics, explained why in 2005 testimony given the President's Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform:

All taxes ultimately -- the consumer pays the taxes.  Nobody else pays the taxes.  Corporations don't pay taxes.  They collect them, but they don't pay them.  The only people who pay taxes are people and people are all consumers.

Yet Christine Romans claims you and I won't pay for the extension of unemployment benefits.  One way or the other, we will.    
 

On Tuesday evening, the disparity between Fox News' ratings and those of its cable news competitors was remarkable:

More people watched Fox News than all of its cable news competitors combined, and CNN came in a dismal fourth. CNN's ratings have been in a tailspin. Shockingly, CNN finished October out of the list of the top 30 cable channels. Fox News, meanwhile, was the third highest-rated cable channel in prime time, after USA and ESPN.

Some might argue that Tuesday's ratings were skewed because it was mostly Republicans who were fired up about that day's elections. True enough, as the election results showed. But lots of Democrats watch Fox too--in fact, around 30 percent of Fox's audience are Democrats. A couple of nights ago we were watching Bill O'Reilly's show, and he pointed out that more Democrats watch Fox News than CNN and MSNBC combined, even though those networks cater almost exclusively to the left--one more reason why the Obama administration's attacks on Fox are painfully stupid.

For the foreseeable future, Fox News stands alone atop the world of cable news. If this were a boxing match, Fox vs. CNN, MSNBC and CNN Headline News, they would stop it: it's a TKO.

Welcome to Thursday all M&Ms. Now that we've gotten most of our anger and spite out, we can start the slow shamble to forgiveness, reconciliation, and the usual snarky comments behind each other's backs. Also expect the ONT to be...

Army major Nidal Malik Hasan, identified by Texas officials as the gunman, was wounded during the shooting. (Examiner)

Well that didn’t take long.

So called decent Muslims aren’t talking about the attack as much as they are about the backlash against the Muslim community…whining about themselves rather than the tragedy that just occured at Fort Hood.

Um, yea, when Muslims keep committing terror acts both at home and abroad, it’s kinda hard not to notice.  Of course people are going to be pissed.  What Muslims need to do is stand with the victims and vow to confront the evil within their own and with the exception of a handful of groups we can be sure that this won’t happen. Now more than EVER Muslims need to stand up and ADMIT the problem within Islam instead of attacking anyone who questions it or who is critical of the ideology.

Waco Now

Al Siddiq, president of the Islamic Center of Waco, followed the unfolding news of the Fort Hood tragedy anxiously, as a veteran of the U.S. Army himself, as a friend of some Muslim soldiers currently stationed at the Central Texas post and as a Muslim who has become wary of backlash.

Siddiq said the Muslim Islamic community is very concerned that the shooter on Fort Hood was a Muslim because Muslims tend to get all thrown into the same category. Since 9/11, Siddiq said, when an individual Muslim acts stupid, it affects the entire Islamic community. The concern is backlash against other Muslims, he said.

“We’ve been very fortunate in Waco,” Siddiq said. “But there’s always a backlash.” Siddiq said he had a great experience in the U.S. Army, both in Korea and stationed at Fort Campbell.

“That’s what hurts me the most,” he said. “The Army has accommodated Muslims. Not any other Army can offer what the U.S. Army offers.”

Siddiq said what he has heard is that the Fort Hood shooter may be a convert to Islam. He said he thinks the problem some converts have is not based on the Islam religion, but on the resentment toward the U.S. government that they bring to their faith.

UPDATE: Malik attended prayer services nearly every day in Silver Spring for several years. Six months ago Hasan came to the attention of the FBI because of Internet postings that discussed suicide bombings.

After lauding a Muslim U.S. Army soldier who killed comrades in Kuwait in 2003, Hasan wrote in an online posting, “If one suicide bomber can kill 100 enemy soldiers … that would be considered a strategic victory.”

UPDATE 2: Hasan was put on probation early in his postgraduate work at the Uniformed Service University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md. He was disciplined for proselytizing about his Muslim faith with patients and colleagues.

I have some seriously mixed emotions right now. Today was amazing. I was blown away by the shift in the GOP Representatives. There were so many who were FINALLY getting it. It was like they realized we weren’t going away, and they’d better get on board. It’s about time. I have been busting my tail all week [...]

Leave to a brilliant mind like Keith Olbermann, who finally decided to show his face on live TV after Nov. 3's Democratic defeat, to throw a temper tantrum about the public display of opposition to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi's that occurred on the west lawn of the U.S. Capitol on Nov.5.

After Olbermann and Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson all but declared Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., organizer of the "House Call" event, an enemy of the state, they predictably came to the conclusion the event was racist. However to overcome that hurdle, Olbermann suggested organizers "pay" minorities to show up to make the cause look more diverse.

"On an associated point with this, how do the organizers of this not realize, ‘You know what, we had better get somehow, even if we have to pay them to show up, some black faces, some brown faces, some Asian people or somebody in this crowd other than the crowd we were seeing?'" Olbermann said. "Every piece of videotape I looked at looks exactly the same. This is otherwise going to look like a pro-Apartheid rally in South Africa 35 or 40 years ago."

Robinson concurred and took it even further by suggesting not just today's event, but the entire Republican Party was "hostile to minorities."

"Well, now this is going to sound tendentious, Keith," Robinson said. "But I went to the Republican National Convention last year and you did not see many minorities there. And look, this is a party that has been more and more hostile to minorities, to Latinos, to African-Americans - it's certainly perceived that way. And this didn't help that image at all. That seems to be the hand they've decided to play."

"It's terrifying," Olbermann replied.

Olbermann's "terrifying" declaration was unclear if it was in reference to Robinson's breakdown or the actual Republican Party itself.

Army press conference right now. Now they are saying it's a single shooter, Hasan, and he is in the hospital. The officer who shot him was thought to be dead but she's alive and out of surgery. Damn. Just...

Give the military-industrial complex an unlimited budget, and it’ll find unlimited ways to kill people. From megaton nuclear missiles to Donald Rumsfeld’s allegedly humane, small-scale nuclear...

View Original Post

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

When is religion indistinguishable from politics? When is politics indistinguishable from religion? An article in the Daily Mail describes an environmentalist who believes that his Green Views are indistinguishable from traditional religious beliefs. Tim Nicholson argued that his dismissal from a government position was tantamount to religious persecution.

If he wins he could be entitled to an unlimited compensation payout.

Mr Nicholson was dismissed from his job as head of sustainability at Grainger, the UK’s biggest residential landlord, which manages 27,000 properties worth £3billion.

He claims he was unfairly made redundant in July 2008, after two years’ service, for criticising senior management … His criticisms included accusations that executives failed to live up to their own green policies to cut emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, including driving ‘the most polluting cars on the road’.

The Equality and Employment (Religion or Belief) Regulations 2003 were brought in to stop employees being sacked on the grounds of their religion.

But after lobbying by secular groups, philosophical beliefs were also included. To qualify for protection, a philosophical belief must be ‘genuinely held’, be about a ‘weighty and substantial aspect of human life’, and have ’seriousness, cohesion and importance and be ‘worthy of respect in a democratic society’. …

However, Andrea Williams, of the Christian Legal Centre, condemned the ruling. … ‘Christians are being discriminated against for holding orthodox views that have been protected in law over many centuries …  in Britain. We have 45 cases where Christians have found themselves discriminated against.’

These include several highprofile cases involving the Employment Appeal Tribunal.  Former registrar Lilian Ladele is challenging the tribunal’s ruling in support of Islington Council’s decision to discipline her for refusing to carry out civil partnerships on the grounds of her Christian beliefs.

What is the difference between a Christian who refuses to carry out an abortion on the basis of a religious belief and an environmentalist who refuses to follow management on the basis of his adherence to Gaia? What is the difference between either of these and a Muslim who believes his fundamental duty is to the Ummah and not the United States of America? And can a multicultural country so constituted survive?  Or will it dissolve into Balkanized enclaves? The Christian Science Monitor argues that blasphemy laws now being pushed by the United Nations will effectively shut down free speech. There may come a time when you can’t even raise this subject for discussion.

the Organization of the Islamic Council. Under the leadership of Pakistan, the 57-nation OIC wants to give the religious antidefamation idea legal teeth by making it part of an international convention, or legally binding treaty. Members of the UN Human Rights Council are passionately debating that idea in Geneva this week.

The United States under Barack Obama recently joined the UNHRC, maligned for years as the mouthpiece for countries that are themselves flagrant human rights abusers. A “new” council formed in 2006. President Obama’s hope is that as an engaged member, the US can further reform – and its own interests. This case will test his theory.

Lincoln believed that a country could not remain simultaneously divided and united. The presupposition was that there was an overarching and shared set of values to which everyone owed a primary duty.

If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could then better judge what to do, and how to do it.  We are now far into the fifth year, since a policy was initiated, with the avowed object, and confident promise, of putting an end to slavery agitation. Under the operation of that policy, that agitation has not only, not ceased, but has constantly augmented.  In my opinion, it will not cease, until a crisis shall have been reached, and passed.

“A house divided against itself cannot stand.”

I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided.

It will become all one thing or all the other.

Can there be such a thing as treason in a multicultural society or is that so yesterday? If so, Lincoln was wrong: a house divided against itself can stand. In a heap about an inch high perhaps, but maybe that’s cool. And cool in the end may best describe a house with no walls. Maybe Cole Porter got it right after all. Anything goes.

---

Tip Jar or Subscribe for $5

Neither the CBS Evening News nor NBC Nightly News, in their East coast feeds Thursday night, noted the Muslim religious beliefs of the mass killer at the Fort Hood Army base in Texas, but ABC anchor Charles Gibson wasn't cowed by political correctness as he teased World News, “Fort Hood tragedy: An Army officer, a Muslim convert, is the suspect in a shooting spree...” Introducing his first story, Gibson referred to how Major Nidal Malik Hasan “an army officer, a Muslim, opened fire with handguns...” (With a range of frequency, during late afternoon/early evening coverage, CNN, FNC and MSNBC all identified Hasan as a Muslim.)

Cryptically, ABC's senior foreign affairs correspondent, Martha Raddatz, concluded a story on reaction at Fort Hood: “As for the suspect, Nadal Hasan, as one officer's wife told me, 'I wish his name was Smith.'” So, a concern this will lead to groundless fear of Muslims?

The CBS Evening News avoided any mention of Islam or Muslim faith as Katie Couric provided this benign description: “Today, according to the Army, a soldier opened fire....He's identified tonight as Army Major Nadal Malik Hasan, a licensed psychiatrist and drug and rehab specialist from Bethesda, Maryland.” NBC anchor Brian Williams: “The soldier, identified as the initial gunman here, is an Army psychiatrist, Nadal Malik Hasan. He's an officer, a Major, and he was apparently armed with two handguns.” NBC's Pete Williams insisted, the MRC's Brad Wilmouth noticed, “everything about his background is rock solid, and nothing extraordinary stands out about his background.”

(At another moment on ABC, Gibson he pointed out there's “confusion” over whether Hasan was convert or was born a Muslim. Brian Ross then offered that he “attended Damascus University in Syria and may be Jordanian -- likely not a convert if that's the case.”)

From the latter part of the story narrated from Washington, DC by Raddatz on the Thursday, November 5 World News on ABC:

 

MARTHA RADDATZ: Fort Hood's 1st Cavalry Division is currently deployed to Iraq, making this all the more tragic. This woman's husband is among the soldiers in Iraq.

WOMAN: He's really upset. He's freaking out. Yeah, it says [reading from PDA], “I'm freaking out here. I have no idea what's going on. The guys keep asking questions. Can someone please tell us something?” I don't believe for a second that a soldier could do this to another soldier at Fort Hood. I just, I don't believe it.

SECOND WOMAN: It's very, very stressful and we don't know what's going on.

RADDATZ: And on Capitol Hill late today, a moment of silence. Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison said the shooter was about to be deployed.

SENATOR HUTCHISON: The shooters were military people. And of course that's very troubling.

RADDATZ, ON SCREEN AT ANCHOR DESK: As for the suspect, Nadal Hasan, as one officer's wife told me, "I wish his name was Smith." Charlie.

Follow this breaking story here on this thread. Post updates as you find them so others can keep tabs. I've posted a Twitter updater below to make it easier to follow here at NB:

(Press conference)

---

Earlier Paul described Sen. Lindsey Graham's observations on Tuesday's elections as the "least cogent commentary about New York-23" that he'd seen. Paul probably hadn't read this column by E.J. Dionne. Of Tuesday's results, Dionne, spinning furiously on behalf of his beloved Democratic Party, writes that "[t]he night's biggest loser was the national conservative political machine -- the wealthy tax-cutters at the Club for Growth and the Palin-Limbaugh-Beck complex."

Sometimes, all you can do is laugh. In his typically mean-spirited way, Dionne ascribes defeat to what in less pejorative language are called "conservatives." Yet conservatives won two big races Tuesday night. The only significant Democratic win was the result of a local committee's stubbing its toe by nominating a lousy Republican candidate.

Dionne makes much of the unique circumstances of NY 23, but has little to say about the far bigger races where voters rejected personal appeals by Barack Obama and turned two big states over to Republican governance. Dionne tries to make palatable these bitter defeats for his party by suggesting that Bob McDonnell won in Virginia by appealing to moderates and independents. While not quite signing on to the absurdity of David Axelrod's claim that McDonnell ran "not as a Sarah Palin Republican, but more as a Barack Obama centrist," Dionne nevertheless says that Axelrod's "point was right."

But wait! Is this the same Bob McDonnell who, until Tuesday night, was a far-right candidate determined to chain women to their stoves? In September, Dionne wrote that McDonnell was a "onetime protege of Pat Robertson" who once wrote a paper, "unearthed by the Washington Post," that argued:

...that working mothers were detrimental to the family and that he opposed a Supreme Court decision legalizing contraception for married couples. He had some less than kind words about homosexuals.

Dionne was willing to turn this supposed Neanderthal into a moderate--almost "a Barack Obama centrist!"--in order to avoid admitting the unacceptable, that Tuesday's elections were a big win for conservatives.

It's true, of course, that conservatives Bob McDonnell and Chris Christie appealed, successfully, to moderates and independents. That was, indeed, the big story of the election. But this doesn't mean that conservatives were the "big losers," it means the Democrats are in trouble because conservative ideas, for now at least, resonate better with independents than the far-left nonsense we are seeing from the Obama administration and the Democratic Congress.

UPDATE: Michael Ramirez skewers Nancy Pelosi's claim, closely allied to Dionne's commentary, that Tuesday was a big win for the far left; click to enlarge:

PAUL adds: John is right on both counts: I had not read Dionne's column and his take is even less cogent than Sen. Graham's.

I did read an earlier Dionne column in which he argued that the lesson of Tuesday was going to be that all Democrats should embrace President Obama. At that time ,most polls had Corzine ahead while Deeds, of course, was behind. Dionne attributed this to the fact that Corzine had embraced Obama, whereas Deeds had been reluctant to.

In the end, both Democrats lost. Corzine's race was closer. But then, New Jersey is an extremely blue state and Virginia is not blue at all. Which, of course, is why Corzine wanted to associate himself with Obama to a greater degree than Deeds did.

Please pray tonight for everyone at Fort Hood.

The question, obviously, is whether it was a terrorist attack, or just a disgruntled soldier who snapped. The gunman who murdered at least eleven people has been identified as Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, a psychiatrist who has been working at Walter Reed and was scheduled to be deployed to Iraq.

There have been reports that two other men were taken into custody, but they now have apparently been released. It's also being reported that a third man has been picked up for questioning. This seems odd, if Hasan was a lone gunman. If others were involved it presumably could suggest a terrorist attack. At present, though, there is no strong evidence of others' participation.

UPDATE: It's now being reported that Hasan, a Muslim, posted favorable comments about suicide bombers on a web site. All of this is just one step above rumor, for now, however.

FURTHER UPDATE: A Lt. General giving a press conference says that, contrary to earlier reports, Major Hasan is alive. He also confirms that three other people have been taken into custody and interviewed, but says that indications are that Hasan was a "single shooter."

MORE: The Associated Press reports that Hasan was investigated six months ago because of internet postings that praised Islamic suicide bombers:

One of the Web postings that authorities reviewed is a blog that equates suicide bombers with a soldier throwing himself on a grenade to save the lives of his comrades.

"To say that this soldier committed suicide is inappropriate. Its (sic) more appropriate to say he is a brave hero that sacrificed his life for a more noble cause," said the Internet posting. "Scholars have paralled (sic) this to suicide bombers whose intention, by sacrificing their lives, is to help save Muslims by killing enemy soldiers."

Again, this information is preliminary at best, especially since there are indications that two doctors, the shooter and someone completely unrelated, share the same name. More will be known before long.

ANOTHER: The denizens of the Daily Kos weigh in from their perverse, anti-American perspective.

LAST ONE FOR TONIGHT: The Associated Press has a surprisingly balanced story on the murders, titled "Troubling protrait emerges of Army psychiatrist suspected in rampage at Fort Hood, Texas." It includes this item:

On a form filled out by those seeking spouses through a program at the mosque, Hasan listed his birthplace as Arlington, Va., but his nationality as Palestinian, Khan said.

"I don't know why he listed Palestinian," Khan said, "He was not born in Palestine."

Mark K. mentioned Kindle earlier, in reference to the publication of my new novel, The First Assassin. My listing on Amazon is only about a day old at this point and I've already received maybe half a dozen inquiries about whether the book will be available for Kindle. Right now, the answer is: I don't know. I'm investigating the possibility. I certainly didn't realize how popular these e-books have become.

---

I have been missing from the site for several days and I’d like to explain why. I attended the State Policy Network 17th Annual conference in beautiful Ashville, North Carolina. Here is what I found: Some final thoughts on the State Policy Network’s 17th Annual Conference. It was invigorating to be able to share a conference with [...]

* I’m going to update this semi-regularly for the next couple of hours. At the moment, information is surprisingly not-so-surprisingly sketchy. Often times, you get conflicting information about what happened in the immediate aftermath of an event like this. So far, I’ve heard, there are two key pieces of data that I’m hearing conflicting data on: * [...]

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.] – The Mighty Jon Voight took no prisoners on the steps of the Capitol today, hitting Obama with...

View Original Post

Last week Congressman Steve King (R-Iowa) made quite a splash when he raked NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell over the coals for the decision to stop Rush Limbaugh from becoming an owner of the St. Louis Rams.

On Wednesday I spoke to King about this episode as well as it's bigger meaning as it pertains to what's happening in America today.

King described what he sees as "victimology and multiculturalism...where the liberals decide that they’re going to be the judges of what goes on in the heads of people."

As a result, he wasn't going to sit by and watch Goodell "pass judgment on Rush Limbaugh for what he thought Rush thought" or for what "some irresponsible bloggers had to say about what Rush said."

In King's view, the witch hunt against Limbaugh is emblematic of how liberals and the media "have been so steeped in this for so long that they believe they're right, and they believe that the people that disagree with them are evil racists."

As such, King feels the Left have adopted the Marxist philosophy of Antonio Gramsci who argued "a lie [has] as much virtue as the truth, you just [need] to create the case for that in the constituency group that would support the lies" (20-minute audio available here with relevant section beginning at 2:15, transcript below the fold): 

NEWSBUSTERS: I want to switch back to last week. You had a very, very interesting encounter with the NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. And first, the owner of the Media Research Center wanted me to make sure, Brent Bozell, wanted me to make sure you had gotten his message of thanks last week.

CONGRESSMAN STEVE KING (R-IOWA): Well, I just went to his website and read what he wrote on that, and I appreciated Brent's comments more than any others. Honestly, I did. You know, I sometimes sit there at night, I don't sleep too well, and I go down through that and I read his statement on that, and I laughed out loud, "Yeah, that sends the message."

NB: Well, he'll be glad to hear that. Just, bring us back to that moment. What, what inspired you to bring this up during that, during that hearing concerning head injuries in the NFL?

KING: Well, you know, I've been one who has been really out front on these issues of special rights for, for minorities, and I believe that we are all created in God's image, and we have equal rights and equal opportunities. And when I watched this society move where we're seeing all this victimology and multiculturalism, and when you see it manifested where the liberals decide that they're going to be the judges of what goes on in the heads of people that just simply want equal rights for everybody, I've been in that fight before. I sued Gov. Vilsack back in Iowa over a very similar issue and won. I had to go against the Republican establishment to get it done. And, so, and that time, I drilled down through the Constitutional, historical, and potential statutory aspects of this kind of thinking. And Roger Goodell deciding he was going to pass judgment on Rush Limbaugh for what he thought Rush thought and for what some pundits, or I should say some irresponsible bloggers had to say about what Rush said. And, so, when I looked at the nine quotes that were out there on one of those websites that alleged that Rush had made these statements, eight of them were completely fabricated. And the ninth one, there was nothing racist in Rush's statement whatsoever except that he, Rush implied that the media was trying to advance a quarterback because of his skin color. Now, that doesn't make the guy that says that, Rush himself, even racist. But, if so, it isn't Roger Goodell's call. And, so, then when the information came into my hand about Fergie and about J-Lo, that was it. It just was too blatant an example of hypocrisy to let that go by me in the Judiciary Committee.

NB: Well, and what I thought was fascinating, and get your opinion on it, was when Goodell said, "Well, I'm not an expert on what Rush Limbaugh had said." Well, then how did he come to any conclusion that he had made "divisive comments?"

KING: Well, and if you noticed, I came right back at him on this, and, "You did use his name." And I read the quote back to him where Goodell had said "Rush Limbaugh" and went on with what he alleged that Rush said and done. So, you know, there's something I just ask the people who read and listen and pay attention to these things to keep in mind is that I get five minutes in that window. And I've got five minutes to make the case, ask the questions, do the follow-up, and close my case. And if I bring up a subject matter that doesn't fit with the subject of the hearing, the chair can wrap the gavel at any instant and call me out of order. And, so, I'm grateful that Sheila Jackson Lee was there and opened up the issue when she spoke against Rush. But I also had one eye on the Chairman at the whole time to see if he was picking up the gavel and getting ready to try and cut me off. Because, so you know people wonder why didn't Steve King follow-up and take him all the way to the woodshed and thrash him. There wasn't time to do that. It had to all be compressed into five minutes.

NB: Well, how did your other members of Congress that were there at the hearing and your constituents and the media, how did they respond to your questioning?

KING: Well, the other members were not ready for it or they likely would have followed him up and pressed him further. But I didn't want to let anybody know that I was thinking about it because there might be a chance that it gets preempted. You know, in this town if you tell your shadow something everybody knows it. So, that was part of it, the other members in the committee just weren't informed enough to pick it up and go. But what I noticed just in the media, within the next 24 hours, I was getting just thrashed in the blogs and on the media on it. But the second 24 hours and from there on, it went the other way. And after that, all of those things that my press shows me and the clippings, not all of them but a large percentage of them came back positive. So, what that says to me is if you take a stand, take a stand on truth, it's awfully hard for them to peel you off of that. I'll say if I'm out on a, out on the end of a limb, but there's a branch of truth, they haven't invented a saw that saws that branch off yet.

NB: Well, has Goodell, you had, you had told the Commissioner that you were going to be sending him information concerning the matter, and that you'd like a response or an apology. Has, has that transpired, and have you gotten anything back from Goodell?

KING: Well, my staff takes care of that along with the Judiciary Committee staff, and I'll have to circle back on that and look at the exact language that's gone out. But I know the directive went out. And they follow-up, they've got so many days to get that done. So, we shall, if we get anything out of that that has any news value we'll have to make sure we get that back to you.

NB: We'd love to hear. Now, something else came out of all of this that surfaced last week. We identified, I'm not sure if you're familiar with a Rapper by the name of Snoop Dogg, but he's actually doing commercials for ESPN's Sunday NFL Countdown. And if you're not familiar with him, he's got a bit of a rap sheet, and I don't mean as a Rapper rap sheet. This is a guy who actually was accused of murder at one point. Kind of interesting that he'd be allowed to represent the NFL but Rush Limbaugh can't.

KING: Well, yes, when I think Snoop Dogg I think guns and bullets and gangsters. Gangster rap. And, this story is probably not over. We do need to hold people in the public eye accountable. And Roger Goodell is one of those people. It is, it is so sanctimonious for him to, and by the way, to leap to a conclusion and take a public position and he, I think that he was the straw that broke the camel's back or the rug that was ripped out from underneath Rush's endeavor to buy into the Rams because it was October 13 when Goodell made his statement and October 14 when they withdrew the offer. So it was picked, the time, the timing was chosen to be I think as effective as it could be if you were anti-Rush. You know, how can a man, Rush Limbaugh, 20 years in the media, nearly everyday out there several hours a day? You know, of all the things that I've said over the last 20 years, if I had a tape recorder on me, and I had people that despised me the way the Left despises Rush, and it's because he's effective. To only have one thing on him, and that's the allegation he had a racist thought even though it was as Rush pointed out very succinctly that it was the media that was trying to advance a black quarterback. Now, I don't know that I have this information in front of me or I can speak to it directly. If I can find it while I talk I will. But I asked them to go back and take a look at what are the real facts, and I wanted to know how many, how many white running-backs there are in the NFL. I mean, if you really want to be objective about this, you'd want to ask that question. Does it work the other way? And, there's, my staff handed me those numbers, and I don't have them in front of me. So, I want to be careful that I'm not trying to represent something that's perfectly factual. But there are not very many white running-backs in the NFL. And my oldest son pointed out to me that there's a red-headed white running-back for the Northwestern University. He was on his last stop to go play for a Division I school, and his difficulty was, and it was in the article, that the recruiters couldn't seriously advance a white kid that could be a running-back.

NB: Wow. Well, wait a minute, are we sure it wasn't his red hair?

KING: Well, maybe I forgive them if it was only red hair. No, I love red-heads myself. But, it had to, it had to do with skin color, hair color, not too many red-headed African-Americans. And it was plain, out in the open, and it was blatant. And they can get it by with that when they're prejudiced against a white kid. So, why don't we have, why don't we have white kids that are tailbacks in college football? Well, there's a mindset in the recruiters in the colleges. They just don't think they can do it. Now, is that a racist thought? I don't know. I want meritocracy. I want every person to be able to do the best they can do without regard to people measuring their, their race, their ethnicity, their skin color. It, this country needs to have opportunity for everybody. That's what Rush believes, that's what I believe, that's what everybody in your operation believes. And we need to get there as a nation or we'll be at each other's throats forever.

NB: Well, you know what's interesting, and I hadn't considered it until I was listening to you speak, do you think that this same attack on Rush from the NFL would have occurred if this was last year or two years ago and George W. Bush was President or if McCain had won?

KING: Hmmm.

NB: Do you think this has a lot to do with Obama as President? And I'm not blaming him just the different environment we're currently in as a result?

KING: If you had asked me that question a year and a half ago as when Obama was a candidate, I would have said, "If a man who presents himself as a, as a black man gets elected to the office of the Presidency of the United States, this focus on race must dissipate because he's clearly proven definitively that race is not a factor of impediment to a person rising to the very top of everybody's profession in the world." Yet, we've seen President Obama focus on race, we've seen him point his finger at Officer Crowley, and, and make, and just make the implication that because Professor Gates was black and the officer was white there must have been some prejudice against him. The President was completely wrong on that, and I wish Officer Crowley would have refused to go to the beer summit until he got an apology from Gates.

NB: Well, what's interesting, I don't know if you, you saw ABC's "This Week" on Sunday, but Stephanopoulos had mentioned a poll that was taken back in 1963 asking people whether they thought that, if racism would ever be over in their lives, lifetime, and at the time the number was something like 42 percent or thereabout said, "No." A year ago right after the election, that number had dropped to about 30 percent. And now that number is back up to almost 40 percent almost what it was before the Civil Rights Acts.

KING: I have to tell you that I would have ten years ago, 20 years ago or 40 years ago I would have believed that racism be over in my lifetime. And after the election of President Obama, I would have said, "Yes." But what I'm seeing now, with the race-baiting that goes on, the playing of the race card. I'm watching legislation come through this Congress. There was legislation offered in the Small Business Committee by, by Nadia Velazquez who's the Chair of Small Business. She will tell you she is of Puerto Rican descent. Legislation that setup special benefits for small business set aside for women and minorities. And I made the point that you need to write that, instead of saying women and minorities, you need to say, "Anybody but white men." And she nearly came unglued. I mean, she was physically, you could visibly trembling before the microphone. Anybody that had the audacity to point out the hypocrisy of what she was trying to do.

NB: Well, and would a white male who had made the comments that Justice Sonia Sotomayor had made concerning Hispanic women, if it had been a white man that said that about white men, would that person have survived the hearings?

KING: It would have been five to ten times worse than the high-tech lynching they delivered to Clarence Thomas.

NB: Yep.

KING: And, by the way, Clarence Thomas would be one of those people that I would think would be supportive of Rush Limbaugh's position on this, and critical I would think of Roger Goodell.

NB: What do you think the, the position of the media is on all of this, or more to the point, do you think that this is a media driven witch hunt against conservatives and against folks that are not behind the Obama agenda at this point?

KING: Well, once I say that it is a media driven witch hunt, and I could make the case for that myself. I'm wondering, and I hesitate to answer that because I'm wondering how much of this the media and the liberals actually understand. They have been so steeped in this for so long that they believe they're right, and they believe that the people that disagree with them are evil racists. And they've characterized people that disagree with them on these concepts of individual rights and individual freedom as opposed to special privileges for groups who they identify. It is two completely different approaches to the world. They, they are rooted in, and hardly anybody talks about this, but Antonio Gramsci was the father of multiculturalism, and he was also the president of the Communist Party in Italy from 1919 until 1926. Mussolini put him in prison, he wrote his Prison Notebooks there along with a number of other works. And I believe I've actually read them all. But he argued, Gramsci is the one who took Marxism to another level, the level of victimology and multiculturalism. And he argued that this culture of Western civilization needs to be torn apart piece by piece into shreds and that, that this moral, the moral foundation of a, of a Judeo-Christian society isn't based in anything eternal or spiritual. It's just simply, he argued, a social construct created by those in power to enhance their power. And, and he argued that a lie had as much virtue as the truth, you just needed to create the case for that in the constituency group that would support the lies.

NB: Wow!

KING: That's Gramsci, the father of multiculturalism/victimology, and when you listen to Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson and Sheila Jackson Lee and the race-baiters out there, that trade in this, trade in divisions between people to advantage people to be able to take the labor of one and put it into the pocket of the other. That tells you what's going on. It's about aggregating power, and, and the class envy component that Obama has so masterfully played at least up until this point, up till Virginia and New Jersey.

NB: And doesn't that basically explain the whole movement towards healthcare reform?

KING: It does. It's a transfer of wealth, and it's built on class envy, and it's based on two flawed premises: one is that we spend too much money. Now you can argue that whether it's flawed or whether it isn't. But spending one to two trillion dollars more is not the solution to the problem of spending too much. Second one is, the argument that, they say they think they've already won the argument that everybody deserves health care. And they may have won that argument. But they had to move onto the next socialist argument which is everybody deserves their own personal health insurance policy handed by the federal government to those individuals. And the, so they argued that there are too many uninsured. 47 million is their number. So I subtract from the 47 million those illegal aliens that should be disqualified, and those who qualify for a government program, and those who qualify for an employer program, these that don't sign up, and those that make over $75,000 and don't have health insurance. Now you're down to not 47 million but 12.1 million, less than four percent of the population. They want to socialize everything in this country that's big enough for them to bother to manage. They are elitists. They are the antithesis of the things that made America great. And it is a very critical point that we have in front of us coming up tomorrow when we're calling everybody into this city at 12:00 noon.

NB: And what do you envision happening tomorrow, Congressman, and what do you envision happening with this legislation?

KING: I'm, I'm calling for every American that can drop what they're doing and come to the Capitol, come in here and fill these Capitol grounds. Fill the grounds, fill the Capitol building, fill the Congressional offices and the hallways. And first it's a press conference at 12:00, that's formally what it's called. There will be lots of people there. Michele Bachmann, myself, Mike Burgess, Scott Garrett and others. There'll also be Mark Levin, Jon Voight, Tony Perkins and others will be there tomorrow. And we'll intersperse this and we'll have a prayer and we'll have a Pledge and we'll have, we'll sing the National Anthem, and we'll talk about freedom and killing this socialized medicine beast that is hanging over our heads. When that is over, the call to action is going to be now fill up the Congressional offices, look these members of Congress in the eye, tell them not to take away our freedom.

NB: That's spectacular. Well, I know you've got a very, very busy day ahead of you tomorrow, so I thank you very, very much for your time and my readers at NewsBusters very much appreciate you taking time out of such a busy day to talk to us.

KING: Well, Noel I appreciate the chance to do so, and there's a lot more left in me yet, but you know I'll sleep better because you let me vent. Thanks a lot.

NB: Thank you. You have a great night and a great tomorrow.

KING: Appreciate it.

NB: Thank you, sir.

Regarding the shooting at Fort Hood; let's assume for sake of argument that the following reports are correct:

• The main shooter was Major Malik Nadal Hasan (or Nidal Malik Hasan -- I've seen both versions);
• Hasan was a recent convert to Islam;
• Hasan was "violently hostile" to the deployment of American forces in Afghanistan and Iraq;
• That the two persons currently being held in custody are, in fact, collaborators in the massacre.

And let's make one final assumption that is admittedly based on nothing more than my speculation about the nature of the shooting:

• That the two in custody were also recent converts to Islam or radical Moslems.

My question is this: In such a case, would President Barack H. Obama ever admit to the American people that -- contrary to the knee-jerk FBI statement -- such a shooting under these assumptions would almost certainly be an act of "jihadist" terrorism?

Or would he insist it was just a trio of motiveless killers, no matter what?

(Maybe he would dub it a man-caused Major disaster, suggest we respond by initiating a domestic contingency operation, and blame George W. Bush.)

Sachi believes Obama would not; that no matter how much evidence emerged, Obama would never say that this was domestic radical-Islamic terrorism. But I'm not entirely sure; he might realize that the disconnect between what he was saying and what the average guy or gal on the street was thinking would be so great that his approval would suffer significantly.

Recall, we made some assumptions up there: First, that all "facts" reported so far hold up, and second, that the accomplices were also Moslem converts or radicals. So everything I'm saying here is conditional.

But given those assumptions, what do you think the One would say?

Per Fox and CNN.

---

Fox has interviewed the shooter's cousin, Nader Hasan, who says Nidal Malik Hasan was raised a Muslim -- he is not a convert. I'd also note the anguish and shock in Nader Hasan's voice; his family, the cousin says, is devastated.

Fox also reports that the other two men who were detained have been released.

---

Mel Gibson is a talented man with serious mental-health problems, which manifest themselves, among other ways, in anti-Semitic tirades. Unfortunately, he has also been keeping company with some people who will do him no spiritual good. Gibson founded a schismatic conservative-Catholic church, at which congregants are apparently unhappy with him because of an extramarital affair that has resulted in the collapse of his marriage. One of the devout believers at this church has helpfully said the following, on a conservative website:

None of us at the church think that Mel ever had any interest in marrying his mistress, Oksana Grigorieva, whose illegitimate child was born on October 30, 2009. Legally, Mel and Robyn's “divorce” could have been finalized a month ago, but there has been no news on that front. He has never brought Grigorieva to the church. I don't think many of us in the congregation would stay around if that happened.

Heaven forbid that we should go to a church where there are actually sinners -- and even ones who have engaged in something as heinous as . . . sex!  Don’t give up hope, Mel, Oksana, and little Lucia, whom I am delighted to welcome to the human family. It is not the Pharisees who will have the final word, but rather one “whose yoke is easy and burden light.”

---

Priorities. Linda Chavez calls it Obama's My Pet Goat Moment. I think she's wrong since the media is editing it down to cut the opening lines out....

Major Nadal Malik Hasan, a 39-year-old Muslim convert, was born and educated in Virginia. He is a psychiatrist who worked at Walter Reed for six years (and got a poor performance evaluation there). Hasan was transferred to Ft. Hood and worked at the psych ward there. He complained about deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. Fox has interviewed someone who worked with him at Ft. Hood (Terry Lee) who says he was a harsh critic of U.S. foreign policy who said Muslims had a right to stand up and fight against the aggressor in Iraq and Afghanistan -- i.e., us. 

---

Coverage of Tuesday's election night took place during prime time, giving cable news partisans the responsibility of tracking and reporting details on the elections. Many observers, fed up with the substandard coverage of the networks' opinion commentators, turned to Twitter for up-to-the-minute coverage.

Election followers on Twitter displayed their discontent towards cable news stations throughout the night. Twitterer Some1ToShoutFor lamented, "I know this isn't a huge election, but you would think CNN would be covering it a little bit."

Another, with the ironic username msnbcwatcher, complained of hyper-partisan Ed Schultz's coverage: "What makes @MSNBC think that Ed Schultz should be on TV more? Is there no 1 else to do election coverage? Wheres @DavidShuster?"

Even MSNBC's own correspondent Mike Murphy couldn't watch his own channel. “MSNBC even more unwatchable than usual tonight. Mistake to ever let Olbermann host election night. The mega-crazy gets in the way," he tweeted late Tuesday night.

Liberal blogger Duncan Black fumed about Larry King Live, with its eclectic lineup of guests. "larry king jesse ventura, ben stein, and james carville. i cannot take anymore," read one tweet. Another gave readers some simple advice: "Cable news even stupider than usual. Just turn it off."

Prime time hosts spent their nights touting their respective candidates, and doing little to no on-the-ground reporting on the ongoing elections. But political junkies and rabid news consumers turned to Twitter for updates throughout the night.

Reported Politico,

For hardcore lovers of politics, Twitter served up the real-time nuts and bolts of campaigns racing to the finish line. Top political reporters like NBC’s Chuck Todd tapped away for hours as results came in. Meanwhile, the Washington Independent’s Dave Weigel provided constant, on-the-ground dispatches from New York’s 23rd congressional district, with Twitpics inside Conservative Doug Hoffman headquarters as the tide changed toward the Democrats. With each precinct reporting, journalists and junkies offered quick takes, both amusing and analytical.

The cable networks broadcast the news, and had reporters like CNN’s John King, who went deep on each race on CNN’s Magic Wall. But they also featured a motley assortment of analysts and partisan guests who sometimes seemed to have little familiarity with the races in play and might have turned off anyone hungry for more sophisticated insight...

For less-obsessive viewers, there’s always the late news on the hour to find out who won the major races. But for those needing immediate results—which Virginia county is going blue to red in real-time—the Internet is the faster alternative.

The poor election coverage sparked some discussion on the self-evident differences between the networks' partisans and their hard-news reporters.

Tom Rosenstiel, director of Pew’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, said that election nights underscore the necessary difference between a journalistic analyst and a partisan.

“[I] think the consequence of having partisan talk show hosts as your stars of prime-time and ideological shows rather than reportorial shows in prime-time creates a potential problem when you have actual news breaking in prime-time,” says Rosenstiel.

“Do you bump these people off and bring on more traditional journalists?” Rosenstiel asked. “Or, do you let the talk show hosts have their time slots? I think this is an interesting and difficult question for cable.”

Davidson Goldin, former editorial director of MSNBC, has had to make those decisions before. But Goldin said that on election night voters know where to get the immediate results, and are likely to flip to their preferred cable network for analysis they’re more likely to agree with.

But Tuesday night's viewers did not simply tune into the channels that best fit their views and tolerate the sub-standard reporting. At least some of them went in search of an alternative--and they found Twitter. It is an interesting commentary on the state of the cable news industry when Americans--both laymen and professionals--turn off the boob tube to get their news 140 characters at a time.

AP is reporting. (Thanks to Diana West.)

The press seems to think it's more relevant that he was a "mental-health professional" (unclear whether psychiatrist or psychologist).

---

Andy, you're right that there's something deeply weird about the media's instinctive avoidance of the M-word or the T-word and the careless abandon with which they speculate about "post-traumatic stress disorder" even as the emerging facts render it absurd (a three-man conspiracy to commit PTSD?).

I was talking about this on the air with Hugh Hewitt a few moments ago, and Hugh brought up the "Washington sniper" case from seven years ago. In both that case and at Fort Hood, the media seem over-eager to take refuge in the explanation least discomforting to the usual pieties. One can forgive the press not getting the story right in the first hours, but it will be interesting to see how honestly they cover it as the facts emerge. They never quite did in the Muhammad/Malvo case.

---

(Appeared in USA Today, November 3, 2009) 'A nation that proudly offers fresh starts and open doors regardless of old world titles or family connections should reject snobbery based on either academic attainment or...

Scott Wolf, the star of a new show about evil aliens who use superficial journalists to take over the planet, appeared on Monday’s Good Morning America and compared his "morally compromised" character to real-life CNN anchor Anderson Cooper. The V star asserted that "Chad Decker" doesn’t have much "gravitas" and added, "He's more of Anderson Cooper-y."

In the program, which premiered November 3 on ABC, Wolf’s fictional reporter scored an exclusive interview with "Anna," the lead alien, who is secretly plotting to take over the planet. She instructed him, "Just be sure not to ask anything that would paint us in a negative light." After he explained journalists must ask tough questions, Anna delivered this punch line: "That was not my understanding." [Audio available here.]

Under the threat of losing such a high-profile interview, Decker backpedaled and offered a promise to be "fair." The scene, which some conservatives might think reflects coverage the Obama administration has received, continued. The alien lectured, "You'll need to be more than fair if you want to proceed...We can't be seen in a negative light."

On the November 2 GMA, after Wolf made his crack about Cooper, co-host Chris Cuomo jumped in and defended his CNN colleague: "Whoa, not to say that Anderson doesn't have gravitas. What, are you trying to kill us?"

In an interview on AOL Television, Wolf was slightly more diplomatic. Speaking of who he based the character on, the star asserted, "There wasn't any one person. He's scripted as an Anderson Cooper-wannabe. I took that to mean he's a modern-day newsman."

An example of Anderson Cooper doing a “Chad Decker” impression might be on March 21, 2008 when he conducted a softball interview with Barack Obama, failing to press the presidential candidate on many of Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s more incendiary remarks. At one point, Cooper sympathetically told the Democrat that his opponents would "use" patriotism against him.

A transcript of the exchange on GMA and then a transcript from the November 3 premiere of V, can be found below:

GMA 11/02/09

8:33

CHRIS CUOMO: So who is the role model for the character portrayal?

SCOTT WOLF (Star of V): You know, you factored in.

CUOMO: No, I didn't. No, I didn't.

WOLF: Yeah, I play, I play a morally compromised news journalist.

CUOMO: Maybe it is me.

WOLF: No, the morally - compromised part had nothing to do with you. But, you know, he's kind of a modern day, he's not sort of the gravitas- parochial, you know, Walter Cronkite. He's more of Anderson Cooper-y. He's kind of-

CUOMO: Whoa, not to say that Anderson doesn't have gravitas. What, are you trying to kill us?

WOLF: No, no, no, no. I'm going to get a letter. No, no, but there's a sense that he's sort of someone you know who's kind of telling you the truth. It's not sort of talking down to you, and there's this connection and, but he gets this incredible opportunity. He speaks to the leader of the aliens.

CUOMO: Don't give it all away.

WOLF: Yeah, I know, I know, I know.

SAM CHAMPION: When does it air?

CUOMO: The premiere episode of 'V" airs Tuesday, November 3rd at 8:00 PM, ET, that's Eastern time, not extraterrestrial, on ABC.

CHAMPION: And consider the newscaster to be- Like, Chris is very newsy. So, it would be- like, Chris-light is the way I would see the newscaster.

V 11/03/09

8:38pm

"CHAD DECKER" (Scott Wolf): Thanks again for choosing me to do this.

ALIEN LEADER (Morena Baccarin): I'm really excited. so are we.

"DECKER": Do you have any questions before we go to air?

ALIEN LEADER: No. Just be sure not to ask anything that would paint us in a negative light.

"DECKER": Excuse me?

ALIEN LEADER: Don't ask any questions that would portray us negatively. Ask ones like you did when we first met.

"DECKER": Oh, I think there's a mistake. I’m a journalist. It's my job to ask questions even if they make the other person uncomfortable.

ALIEN LEADER: That was not my understanding.

VOICE: Standing by to go to air.

"DECKER": Afraid I don't have a choice.

ALIEN LEADER: This interview is now canceled.

"DECKER": Whoa, whoa, whoa, hang on. hang on. Look, this is just how it's done. I swear I'll be fair.

ALIEN LEADER: You'll need to be more than fair if you want to proceed.

VOICE: Two minutes to air.

ALIEN LEADER: We can't be seen in a negative light. This interview would elevate your career, wouldn't it, Mr. Decker? Don't you want to elevate your career?

ABC news reports. The suspected gunman was identified as Major Malik Nadal Hasan. He was killed and two other suspects have been apprehended, Lt. Robert W. Cone said. The gunman used two handguns, Cone said. He wasn't sure if the...

Jonah's right, we don't want to get ahead of the facts. There's the Fort Dix Six precedent, but there's also Oklahoma City, where people guessed reasonably but guessed wrong.

Two observations are in order about news coverage, though. First, the question on everyone's mind, the 800-pound gorilla in the middle of the room that we are supposed to ignore or be ostracized from polite society is: Was the gunman (or gunmen) Muslim? Under the circumstances of the war against us by Islamist terrorists, it is bizarre that this perfectly natural question can't be asked.

Second, for all the reluctance the press exhibits about asking the "M" question, how easily "post-traumatic stress syndrome" trips off the journalistic tongue. I've heard it again and again in the reporting -- even after it was reported that there were two other people in custody. Now, we don't know at the moment why the other two people are being held: They could be suspects, or they could just be thought potential witnesses who have insight about the shooter. But it's at least possible (if not likely) that they are suspects. When was the last time you heard of a conspiracy to commit post-traumatic stress disorder?

---

The amazing conversion story of former Planned Parenthood clinic director Abby Johnson in Texas is almost entirely untouched in the national press. They discussed it on The View on ABC Tuesday, which may not count as "news." The Washington Times offered it Tuesday. It's breaking today on ABCNews.com. They also discussed it on Wednesday's edition of Hannity on FNC:

HANNITY: Fascinating clip. You know, I've always been pro-life my entire life. And, especially with new technology and the advancement of new medical technology, it's fascinating, you know, when you see that heartbeat at 18 days and you see, you know, the development of a fetus, it's pretty remarkable about what we've learned about when life begins.

Planned Parenthood, a director quits after watching an abortion ultrasound. And let's show you this video.

ABBY JOHNSON, FORMER PLANNED PARENTHOOD DIRECTOR: I feel so pure in heart. I don't have this guilt. I don't have this burden on me anymore. And that's how I know that this conversion was a spiritual conversion.

HANNITY: You know, I've always said, Ralph, that this -- when people -- technology will change people's hearts. This is an example. She joined a pro-life group after that.

RALPH REED: No question about it. I mean, you remember back in the '80s. Dr. Bernard Nathan's son, who was one of the fathers of the pro-abortion movement, had a very similar conversion experience.

I was born six weeks premature, and it's very personal for me, and was able to watch my children on this technology. And that's why we support women's right to know laws. Because we don't think women should be forced or manipulated in any way. They ought to have all the information, and this is an example of a hard change.

I mean, in the end, Sean, we're going to have political disputes. We're going to have the legislative battles. And that's part of a free society.

HANNITY: Sure.

REED: But what's ultimately going to win this is the same thing that won civil rights and the same thing that won the suffragists movement. It's going to be a change in the culture, a change in people's hearts, and here's one heart that's changed.

In Texas, the story broke on the local CBS affiliate, so CBS should already have footage it can use. The College Station Eagle's report also was distributed by the AP -- but only on the State and Regional Wire, not on the National wire. That story buried the conversion and played up Planned Parenthood's mission of protecting patient privacy. It took ten paragraphs to get to the conversion story:

Hearing set in Planned Parenthood director case

Planned Parenthood has filed a temporary injunction to prevent a former director of its Bryan clinic from teaming up with a local anti-abortion group to release records from her eight years of work at the family planning clinic.

The employee, Abby Johnson, said Monday that she never planned to release the records.

Either way, the case, which has gained national attention on conservative online media sources and anti-abortion blogs, has caused a skirmish between the clinic and the Brazos Valley Coalition for Life, which recently moved its headquarters several hundred feet away from the clinic.

A hearing on the issue is scheduled for Nov. 10 in the 85th District Court.

The injunction was filed Friday and signed by District Judge J.D. Langley. It prevents Johnson and the coalition from releasing anything that Johnson, who was executive director for about two years, may have retained while working at Planned Parenthood -- at least until the hearing.

Coalition Director Shawn Carney said Monday that there was not a campaign to reveal private information. He said Planned Parenthood's actions were unnecessary and an overreaction.

Lawyers for Planned Parenthood wrote in court documents filed Friday that Johnson was seen copying confidential personnel files and possibly other documents in the days before she abruptly resigned on Oct. 6. The clinic's lawyers expressed worry in the filings that Johnson might release clients' medical records, information about doctors who work at the clinic and the clinic's security measures.

Johnson said in a telephone interview with The Eagle that she didn't turn over any documents to the Coalition for Life.

"I didn't provide any because I don't have any," she said.

The 29-year-old said she resigned from the clinic because she felt guilty after witnessing an abortion in September. She also said she was concerned about pressure from the organization's regional manager that the Bryan clinic focus on more abortions because of financial reasons.

"Definitely the most lucrative part of their business was abortions," she said. "One of the things that kept coming up was how family planning services were really dragging down the budget, and family planning services include education about contraceptives. It was a drain on the budget, but abortion services were really running up the budget and that was keeping the center afloat."

An employee at Planned Parenthood's Bryan clinic declined to comment and referred questions to the organization's regional office in Houston. A spokeswoman from the regional office released a statement but declined to answer any questions.

In the wake of Tuesday's elections, it's never been more clear that "put up or shut up" time is rapidly approaching for the President. The Right, of course, is opposed to him. And now, even some of the Left is getting...

Earlier this week, Big Hollywood’s Stage Right broke the story of a ”Sesame Street” episode which referred to Fox News as “Pox News” and “trashy.” In...

View Original Post

* “Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.” — Elie Wiesel * “Most people fail in life because they major in minor things.” — Tony Robbins * “I know you’re a feminist and I think that’s adorable, but this is grown-up time and I’m the man.” — Family Guy * “I [...]

Over at Politico, Matthew Gagnon is saying that blame for the Maine loss lies in Obama and company's failure to get out the vote.

There's only one problem with this analysis. Voter turnout was huge: 60 percent, according to the Bangor Daily News. Also, before the loss, gay-marriage advocates were boasting about their 8,000 volunteers and significant get-out-the-vote apparatus.

But heck, why let the facts get in the way of good story line?

---

There's no reason to get ahead of the story. But CNN is saying the two men in custody are "suspects" and "under arrest." The shooter, Maj. Malik Hasan Nadal, was killed. The two men are also members of the military.

---

In the 1970s only 24 countries had fertility rates of 2.1 or less, all of them rich. Now there are over 70 such countries, and in every continent, including Africa. Between 1950 and 2000 the average fertility rate in developing countries fell by half from six to three—three fewer children in each family in just 50 years. Over the same period, Europe went from the peak of the baby boom to the depth of the baby bust and its fertility also fell by almost half, from 2.65 to 1.42—but that was a decline of only 1.23 children. The fall in developing countries now is closer to what happened in Europe during 19th- and early 20th-century industrialisation. But what took place in Britain over 130 years (1800-1930) took place in South Korea over just 20 (1965-85).

Things are moving even faster today. Fertility has dropped further in every South-East Asian country (except the Philippines) than it did in Japan. The rate in Bangladesh fell by half from six to three in only 20 years (1980 to 2000). The same decline took place in Mauritius in just ten (1963-73). Most sensational of all is the story from Iran.

When the clerical regime took over in 1979, the mullahs, apparently believing their flock should go forth and multiply, abolished the country’s family-planning system. Fertility rose, reaching seven in 1984. Yet by the 2006 census the average fertility rate had fallen to a mere 1.9, and just 1.5 in Tehran. From fertility that is almost as high as one can get to below replacement level in 22 years: social change can hardly happen faster.

---

Which party was "embarrassed" by Tuesday night's election results? You may be surprised.

In "Democrats in Congress See Election as Giving New Urgency to Their Agenda," New York Times congressional reporter Carl Hulse managed, as he often does, to tilt the conversation in a direction favorable to Democrats. 

Thursday's story came in the aftermath of two big Republican wins in New Jersey and Virginia governors' races. Yet Hulse, echoing liberal wishful thinking, portrayed the special congressional race in upstate New York, where Douglas Hoffman, running on the Conservative ballot, came within a few points of beating the Democrat, as an "embarrassing loss."

Blaming election setbacks on a drop in voter enthusiasm, Congressional Democrats said Wednesday that losses in governors' races in Virginia and New Jersey -- and a striking House win in New York -- should give new urgency to their legislative agenda, including a sweeping health care overhaul.

As they assessed the results, Democratic lawmakers and party strategists said their judgment was that voters remained very uneasy about the economy and did not see Democrats producing on the health, energy and national security changes they promised when voters swept them to power only a year ago.

Republicans portrayed the election outcome as a repudiation of Democratic policies and predicted significant Congressional gains next year despite Tuesday's embarrassing loss in a longtime House Republican stronghold in upstate New York.

Hulse let House Speaker Nancy Pelosi claim, without rebuttal, that a night that included huge wins by conservative Republicans in the governors' races in Virginia and New Jersey was a "victory for health care reform."

From a purely Congressional perspective, Tuesday was a positive night for Democrats as they retained a California seat in a special election and picked up the seat in upstate New York partly as a result of a Republican Party feud. The winner of that race, Bill Owens, has already assured Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California that he will support the party health care proposal that could reach the floor this weekend, aides said.

Mr. Owens and John Garamendi, a California Democrat who won a House seat in the Bay Area vacated by a Democrat, could be sworn in as early as Thursday, bringing the party breakdown in the House to 258 to 177 in favor of Democrats, a net increase of one.

"This was a victory for health care reform," Ms. Pelosi said. "From our standpoint, we picked up votes last night."

While not discounting the Republican wins in Virginia and New Jersey, Democrats said the New York and California House races were the only contests that centered on Congressional issues and Democrats won both despite months of Republican attacks on the legislative priorities of President Obama and Congressional Democrats.

Hulse (eventually) interrupted the Democratic happy talk, four paragraphs from the end:

Yet there were ominous signs for Congressional Democrats in the results, notably in Virginia, where Democrats picked up three Republican seats last year and acknowledge that they will have difficulty holding on to them. Republicans noted that in two of those freshman districts, the Republican victor for governor, Robert F. McDonnell, won by a more than 20-point margin.

Thursday’s CBS Early Show looked back at 1954 as part of its ‘Time Machine’ series, with co-host Harry Smith praising former CBS anchor Edward R. Murrow for taking on Senator Joseph McCarthy: “McCarthy was on a kind of a witch hunt. Ed Murrow boldly recognized that and took him on....It was very gutsy and very risky on Murrow’s part....McCarthy was a bully. Ed Murrow said ‘I’m not going to stand for it.’”

Smith made the comments during a pre-taped video montage in which he and the other Early Show co-hosts reminisced about the time period. The montage concluded with co-host Maggie Rodriguez, who was off on Thursday, observing: “I think 1954 was an important year in American history because people stood up for what was right, whether it was desegregation or speaking out against a Senator who was targeting people as communists, it was a year of fighting for the truth.”

As the Media Research Center’s recently released special report Better Off Red demonstrates, Smith wasn’t exactly a staunch Cold Warrior. As the Soviet Union began to fall apart in 1990, Smith, then co-host of CBS’s This Morning, lamented: “Yes, somehow, Soviet citizens are freer these days — freer to kill one another, freer to hate Jews....Doing away with totalitarianism and adding a dash of democracy seems an unlikely cure for all that ails the Soviet system.”    

Here is a full transcript of the segment:

8:12AM

DAVE PRICE: So much happened in the 1950s. And it seems when we look back like an innocent time, but the truth is, this year was filled with controversy and social change. So let’s take a minute and let’s look back at some of the lasting images from 1954.

HARRY SMITH: You’ve got suburbs growing, in a kind of profound and explosive way. You’ve got the advent of television.

[Excerpt from ‘Superman’ TV series]

PRICE: It was the era of ‘Superman’ and ‘Father Knows Best.’

[Excerpt from ‘Father Knows Best’ TV series]

PRICE: All of these great cars were driving down the streets getting two miles a gallon.

[Excerpt from 1950s TV commercial]

MAGGIE RODRIGUEZ: 1954 was the year that TV dinners were invented. I remember it was such a treat when my parents would let me sit in front of the TV with my TV tray and my TV dinner.

RUSS MITCHELL: The fact that in 1954 this transistor was developed which made the radio portable. You could take it anywhere, it wasn’t this big box in your home anymore.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN [NEWS ANNOUNCER]: As Mrs. Eisenhower christens it with a valiant blow.

SMITH: One of the things we were proud of was that we had a nuclear powered submarine named the Nautilus, you know, just like Jules Verne.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN B [NEWS ANNOUNCER]: The Supreme Court thus handed down its unanimous decision.

PRICE: Brown vs. Board of Ed was a court ruling in 1954 which basically said, you know, you can’t have white education and black education in a public school.

[Footage of anti-integration protests]

RUSS MITCHELL: I remember looking at images from the mid-1950s and seeing things like the Little Rock Nine, where these kids had to be escorted into school. All they wanted to do was go into school. It was hard to believe. But that decision back in 1954, I know it changed life for my family and ultimately changed life for me.

JOSEPH MCCARTHY [U.S. SENATOR]: Even if there were only one communist in the State Department, that would still be communist too many.

SMITH: These were the early days of what was turning into the Cold War. McCarthy was on a kind of a witch hunt. Ed Murrow boldly recognized that and took him on.

EDWARD R. MURROW: Tonight ‘See it Now’ devotes its entire half hour to a report on Senator Joseph R. McCarthy.

SMITH: It was very gutsy and very risky on Murrow’s part.

MCCARTHY: Murrow is a symbol, the leader, and the cleverest of the jackal pack.

SMITH: McCarthy was a bully. Ed Murrow said ‘I’m not going to stand for it.’

[Marilyn Monroe singing ‘Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend’]

RODRIGUEZ: At the beginning of 1954, Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe got married and it was the same year that she did that famous scene from ‘The Seven Year Itch’ where her white dress gets lifted up on top of the subway grate.

[Excerpt from ‘The Seven Year Itch’]

RODRIGUEZ: And he was there and he saw that scene and did not like it one bit. I don’t know if it’s because of this, but later that year they got divorced.

PRICE: As I look back, compared to what we are facing now, everything in 1954 seemed so manageable.

RODRIGUEZ: I think 1954 was an important year in American history because people stood up for what was right, whether it was desegregation or speaking out against a Senator who was targeting people as communists, it was a year of fighting for the truth.

SMITH: I want to talk a little bit about Brown vs. Board of Education.

TURNER-BELL: Board of Education, yes.

SMITH: Years ago I went down to Mississippi and I talked to the children of share croppers who said ‘we’re going to figure out how to get to these schools because the law now says we can get to these schools.’ And people came and they shot at their homes because they said ‘we’re going to go, we’re going to believe what the government says is true. That the Constitution protects my rights to go do this thing.’ And they were shot at for it.

MITCHELL: It’s amazing. My father could not attend the university that I attended in the ‘70s because of the whole Plessy vs. Board of Ed – Plessy vs. Ferguson in the 1800s.

SMITH: He couldn’t go to the University of Missouri?

MITCHELL: He could not, he could not go in 1954, yeah.

DEBBYE TURNER-BELL: My mom and dad couldn’t go to the high school that I attended and my father integrated the university, the Arkansas State University. He was one of the first African-American students there.

PRICE: That was the legal proceeding. The battle continues, all these years later.

TURNER-BELL: A lot of lives – the laws have changed, but hearts need to change, too. Neat time.

Promises, promises. Obviously, it was easy for President Obama to make promises about how we would be able to see how stimulus dollars were spent and how transparent this administration was going to be. Turns out, in practice, the administration and its bureaucrats on the ground in the states are as bad as their predecessors.

Here are three stories that add to the pile of evidence about how totally unreliable the job "created or saved" data on Recovery.gov is.

First, this article in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on overreporting of jobs number in Wisconsin:

A stimulus job report that says more than 10,000 jobs were saved or created in Wisconsin is rife with errors, double counting and inflated numbers based more on satisfying federal formulas than creating real jobs, a Journal Sentinel review has found.

In one case, five jobs were mistakenly listed as 50 - and then counted twice. In another, pay raises to workers were listed as saving more than 100 jobs. And in another, jobs were listed as saved even though the money had not been received and no work on the project had begun.

And this Boston.com story about how much of the stimulus funds are used on pay raises to bureaucrats rather than new jobs, and yet are counted as new jobs:

A review of the latest stimulus reports - which the White House promised would undergo extensive reviews to ensure accuracy - found that more than two-thirds of 14,506 jobs credited to the recovery act by Head Start programs involved pay increases.

Health and Human Services spokesman Luis Rosero defended the practice. “If I give you a raise, it is going to save a portion of your job,’’ he said.

Finally, here is the New York Times, of all places, looking at some of the flaws in reporting on Recovery Act job creation, and notes that "a report on the government's stimulus Web site improbably claims that that single lawn mower sale helped save or create 50 jobs," while at the same time, Chrysler, which "got a $52.9 million stimulus order for new cars for the government," claimed the money "did not save a single job."

The Times says reports released last week "from more than 130,000 recipients of stimulus money in which they claimed to have saved or created more than 640,000 jobs" are in some cases "simply wrong, while others contain apparently subjective estimates."

Basically, the newspaper admits that maybe the administration can't really calculate the number of jobs saved or created with the stimulus money.

Are you listening, Paul Krugman?

---

I missed the series premiere of “V,” but not the ongoing flap afterwards. The remake of the 1984 sci-fi classic seems to have hit a lot of nerves on the left and found an audience on the right....

View Original Post

The August Congressional Budget Office budget forecast for the fiscal year that began last month says that Uncle Sam will take in $2.264 trillion from October 2009 through September 2010. That's an increase of 7.6% over fiscal 2009's intake of $2.105 trillion.

Though it won't be official until Tim Geithner's crew releases its Monthly Treasury Statement next week, it's virtually certain that the government's collections will open the year in a deep hole compared to last year, and probably well behind what CBO expects.

Take a look at this compilation of key items from October's final Daily Treasury Statement, compared to the actual results from October 2008 and 2007:

This downward spiral continues a trend that began in the summer of 2008, as the public and especially businesses, entrepreneurs, and investors began comprehending the horrid economic implications of a Barack Obama electoral victory (assumes that Oct. 2009 will come in at $135 billion; excludes 2008's stimulus payments, which the government treated incorrectly in my opinion as reductions of receipts):

In the intervening year since the election, fear and uncertainty have spread to consumers in general, which of course has significantly suppressed economic activity and federal collections resulting from it.

It is ironic to say the least that Congress and the Obama administration are glorifying the idea of a "public option" that would ultimately lead to government-run health care while Treasury receipts continue to shrink. If the private health insurance market disappears, so will its taxes.

To name just one example, Aetna's recorded income tax expense on its financial statements for 2005-2008 (including state and local taxes) averaged roughly $900 million per year. Put the company's health insurance segment out of business, and a large portion of those taxes would stop coming in, digging the country's and various states' debt holes that much deeper.

The establishment press paid very little attention to fiscal 2009's drop of 19.5% in receipts from economic activity, so I expect similar treatment of October's continuation of the trend. It would appear that they don't want any unsettling news getting in the way of the statist agenda.

If there's a reason to believe that this ongoing decline won't continue as long as the current bunch remains in charge and continues doing what they're doing, I want to know what it is.

Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.

We have two MRC-on-TV alerts to make you aware of:

Media Research Center President and NewsBusters Publisher Brent Bozell will take part in the Great American Panel tonight at 9:30 p.m. EST on Fox News Channel's "Hannity." Topics include the conservative rally at the Capitol today, the one year anniversary since Obama's election, the epidemic of schoolchildren literally singing Obama's praises, and controversy over a "threesome" scene on the CW network's "Gossip Girl."

Tomorrow morning at 7:15 a.m. EST, Bozell will join two other panelists on FNC's "Fox & Friends" to discuss the White House's spin on Tuesday's election results, as well as he media's coverage of today's tea party protest on Capitol Hill. 

Read this post »

At least 7 dead so far and 20 injured at the largest military installation in the world.  I will update this as more info comes available.

At least 7 are dead and 30 were injured after 3 gunmen opened fire on a crowd at Fort Hood in Texas.
Reuters reported:

At least seven people were killed and 12 wounded in a shooting at the Fort Hood, Texas, U.S. Army base Thursday, local media reported.

One gunman was in custody and another was on the loose at the military base, one of the largest military installations in the world, local media reported. There could be a third shooter involved, MSNBC reported.

Via FOX News– The FBI says terrorism was not involved. The shootings began about 1:30 p.m. Thursday at a personnel and medical processing center at Ft. Hood. 6 of the 7 victims were military.

The base is still on lockdown.

MSNBC is already speculating that it’s a mentally ill US Soldier but there’s no evidence of that at this point.  Just the anti-military left’s early talking points

Kxxv - All available EMS units in and around Killeen are being dispatched to Fort Hood where a “mass casualty event” has taken place.

News Channel 25 has learned a shooting has left seven people dead and 12 injured.

The Nolanville Fire Department tells News Channel 25 that they’ve been asked to bring all available EMS and Rescue personnel.

*update* there are reports of 3 gunmen now.  Still holed up at the base.  Shootings still going on. 2 gunmen still on the loose.

*update* Here’s a video update from ABC News

*update* Tom Elia reporting that “shooting started at the House Theater and then moved to an athletic complex.”

*Update* CNN is now saying 12 dead

*Update* US Army Twitter account: @USArmy: Fort Hood officials confirm 12 dead, 31 wounded in Fort Hood shooting. Installation remains locked down.

*update* Breaking News on twitter confirms 2 suspects arrested 1 killed

*Update* CBS affiliate WGME is reporting that all 3 gunmen are US soldiers.

cross posted at InfidelsAreCool.com

Here’s the video from teh press conference:

UPDATE: US Army Major Malik Nadal Hasan Identified As Primary Shooter At Fort Hood.
ABC has more on Malik.
He is a convert to Islam.
FOX News: “This was a deliberate act of execution.”
Hasan was an MD psychiatrist.

UPDATE: Malik was previously stationed at Walter Reed.

The killer had completed a fellowship in disaster and preventative psychiatry. He received a poor performance evaluation at Walter Reed.

UPDATE: This was jihad.

UPDATE: George Stratton III was one of those shot at Fort Hood.

Rest in peace.

UPDATE: Malik’s cousin Nader Hasan said that Malik was upset because he was abused he recieved in the military.

UPDATE: Via FOX News and the latest military press conference- The shooter is wounded and not dead.

Business just can't win.

For years the environmentalists and their green-loving mainstream media allies have been slamming businesses for trashing the planet. Outlets ranging from television networks to magazines to newspapers have spearheaded an incessant "eco-friendly" campaign that has been so influential on consumers that some companies have gone into the red just to be green. But of course now that being green has actually become profitable, the media's criticizing the free market for "taking advantage of it."

On Nov. 5 "Good Morning America's" weatherman and eco-propagandist Sam Champion tsked, "In the past five years, there's been an explosion of products marketed as being green or good for the environment. But just how accurate are all of those claims? And are we really getting what we think we are? Well, the government now says, in some cases, we're not."

You'd think "greenwashing," the topic of the segment, is what Champion's incessantly biased environmental "reporting" is meant to do to viewers. But no. Greenwashing is "labeling products as eco-friendly, when they may not be."

Lee Stringer, an environmental architect and author of the "groundbreaking" book "The Green Workplace," told Champion that greenwashing "infuriates" her:

When I find that they haven't done the work - they've just slapped a green label on something and haven't really shown me that they've done the due diligence - I find it very frustrating.

The problem (as if you couldn't see this coming) is the lack of government regulation. "None of these product claims are illegal," GMA's Elisabeth Leamy said ominously, "because there is no legal standard."

GMA turned then to Scott Chase of Terrachoice, a company that certifies green products for the Canadian government. Chase explained to Leamy the "confusing" green certifications that companies can award themselves

"What's the point?" said Chase. "What does it mean? Who determined it was earth-friendly? You gotta give me, as a consumer, additional information so I can make an intelligent choice."

But contrary to Learny's assertion, there is a legal standard. It's called "truth in advertising," and the segment ironically included an interview with Jim Kohm of the Federal Trade Commission. Kohm listed seven recent class action lawsuits that the FTC has brought against companies that have falsely advertised green products.

"The reason the FTC is on the beat," said Kohm, "is that we want to make sure that consumers get what they're paying for."

Wouldn't that make further legal standards unnecessary? No, because nothing is ever good enough for the environmental left.

For example, the ever-so-hated plastic water bottle. The company Poland Spring has a bottle design that saves 30 percent more plastic. But, as Chase pointed out, "You still have this kind of sin of the hidden trade-off, given that you're shipping this product back and forth across the country, when you could, in fact, just get it out of your tap." Never mind that you can't carry your tap with you.

So now with the environmentalists and the media shooting down the same products they demanded, what's left? Well, Leamy concluded, "Sometimes the best way to be green is not to buy anything at all." So much for the economy.

Many industries rely on migrant labor, but that is no excuse for news networks to advocate a path to legalization for illegal aliens, or - worse - to excuse employers who simply look the other way.

Yet, CNN's Jason Carroll did both in a segment for "American Morning" Nov. 5.

"You hear it, not just in the farming industry, but in the restaurant industry as well and so many of these industries - the garment industry - you know, this is what these people are looking for," Carroll said after delivering his pro-immigrant report. "They're looking for immigration reform. They feel like their businesses will go under if someone does not find a way to make some of these people who are here working, who are undocumented, and get them into some sort of legal status."

Carroll had interviewed Rob Valicoff, an apple farmer in Yakima, Wash., who owes thousands in fines because his workers' papers weren't in order. Valicoff said he checks their paperwork, but it's not a "guarantee."

Valicoff claimed that U.S. citizens won't do the work he needs: "Uh, we've had some out here and they just don't last."

Carroll was sympathetic to Valicoff and interviewed an immigration attorney who warned that if businesses had to check immigration status the way ICE wants them to, they would "go broke."

"Though not required, ICE says employers like Valicoff should use their system called E-Verify to validate a worker's social security number," Carroll said. "However, immigration attorney Tom Roach says ICE doesn't require E-Verify because they know the reality of the workforce."

Roach also told Carroll that if that system was required the "farmers in America would go broke."

Ultimately, Carroll excused farmers like Valicoff saying, ""[Y]ou hear from the farmers there, if they don't get the reform that they think that they need it's just gonna be turn the other way and do what they have to do."

The network media has also promoted illegal immigration. An MRC Special Report in 2006 (as the House of Representatives passed a bill to curb illegal immigration) found that amnesty and guest-worker program advocates were almost twice as likely to speak in news stories as advocates of stricter border control.

The Chicago Tribune is wondering--what's up with the AARP? Something must be up:Why else would the nation's largest lobbying organization, sworn to protect the interests of senior citizens, watch silently as Congress...

Are you morally opposed to abortion? Do you think it’s the greatest evil in American history? Do you believe it’s absolutely, incontrovertibly incompatible with your religious views? That’s too bad, because under Obamacare, you’ll be personally funding abortions: From House Republican Leader, John Boehner: Health care reform should not be used as an opportunity to use federal [...]

As hundreds (maybe thousands) of protestors gathered at the Capitol today to protest government-run health care options being floated around Congress, Democrats pressed onward in pursuing their agenda:Reuters is...

Ten people have been arrested outside of Pelosi's office in the Cannon House Office Building. Four were charged with unlawful entry, and six for unlawful conduct in hallway. In addition, two other women arrested and...

No word yet on motive, but the fact that at least three gunmen are involved already has Shuster and Miklaszewski mentioning similarities to the Fort Dix Six plot on MSNBC. [...] Read the rest »

I’m pretty sure that some of our friends on the Right will conclude from this that Bill Clinton quit the much-ballyhooed “debate” with George W. [...] Read the rest »

Mike Franc writes:

If overhauling our health system exudes the odor of bigger, more expensive government, the odds of passage plummet in the face of these growing middle-class concerns. When it comes to their own political survival, politicians possess impeccable radar. Last night’s election returns should set off those radars for dozens of Democrats who represent these overextended and financially insecure suburban families. One can almost hear those backroom conversations. “I still want to see a health-reform bill enacted,” they will assure their leaders on Capitol Hill, “but can’t we at least dial it back a bit?”

This will complicate things for Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid. How will they find a politically acceptable mix of new taxes to finance such an ambitious plan? The short answer is that they can’t. Whether they finance their plan with a tax on “Cadillac” health plans, drugs, and wheelchairs or impose massive new taxes on the “rich,” it will hit the family budgets in these middle-class communities. Memo to lawmakers who represent these districts: You will need to identify other ways to pay for the trillions in new health “benefits” you want to bestow on us, or find a more fiscally manageable way to skin the health-care cat.

---

A D.C. reader e-mails: 

Kathryn (can we still call you K-Lo?), [Yes, of course. Even if no one in the White House does anymore. --K]

Spotted a rainbow in the direction of the Capitol (I'm at Connecticut and L) at the precise time of the healthcare rally.  Coincidence?  I think not.

---

Latest: 5:45: If you are close to this area, Scott and White Hospital has issued an urgent request for blood. Most of the casualties were taken here. The ER is closed to the public, the blood donation center is...

Rep. Gerry Connolly's Communications Director George Burke reportedly pushed Teri Christoph, executive director of the group "Smart Girl Politics," after she visited Connolly's office as part of today's "House Call"...

Via Mike Madden, the Democrats’ House health care proposal on the floor outside Nancy Pelosi’s district office. [...] Read the rest »

An openly gay city council candidate is targeted by malicious campaign literature suggesting he may be a pedophile and subsequently loses his bid for alderman.

It's the type of story highlighting bigotry and homophobia that the mainstream media would love to trumpet and it happened just days ago in the 2009 city elections in Annapolis, Md.

Unfortunately for Scott Bowling, he's a Republican in the liberal capital city of Maryland.

Aside from coverage in the Annapolis Capital and the Baltimore Sun's Maryland Politics blog, a Google News search and Nexis searches of the AP wire, major newspapers, and network transcripts revealed no coverage of the story in the mainstream media:

A candidate for Annapolis alderman says he will file a complaint with the state Attorney General’s office after an anonymous racist and homophobic flier criticizing his candidacy began circulating last weekend.

The flier, addressed to the “Friends and Supporters of Black Annapolis,” was distributed in public housing developments in Ward 3, where Republican Scott Bowling, who is white, is challenging the Democratic incumbent Classie Hoyle, who is African-American.

The flier states that Bowling “will be a danger to us all and our children,” and makes references to the “risk of sexual assault,” and says that Bowling is “white and gay,” and “wants to push for a pro gay agenda at City Hall.”

“It’s racial, bigoted and prejudiced and this has no place in Annapolis politics,” said Bowling, 38, a mortgage banker.

The flier also compares Bowling, who is openly gay, to Samuel E. Shropshire, the alderman who has been accused of fondling a male midshipman.

Given Annapolis's proximity to Washington, D.C., it's hard to believe that this story would not come to the attention of editors at the Washington Post or the bureau chiefs for the cable news networks in D.C. Yet although the Post has a Maryland Politics blog, the Bowling controversy has not even been covered in that lightly-trafficked portion of the Post's Web page, much less given ink in the dead tree edition.

President Obama and other world leaders are gearing up to meet in Copenhagen next month to discuss global policies to fight global warming climate change. However, British climate expert and former advisor to Margaret...

Maggie writes: "I am always struck by how unempirical the Left is." Very true. And how sad that it should be Derb, of all people, who has to be reminded of this. The notion that abortion is pro-family because it reduces single motherhood is hard to reconcile with the fact that demographic groups with the highest rates of abortion -- such as, say, the African-American community -- also have the highest rates of single-parent households.

And, even if that were not the case, abortion as a means of reducing single motherhood would not be pro-family, unless by "pro-family" you mean not only that there would be fewer dysfunctional families but fewer families, period. It would be what one might call the European solution, whose consequences Lord Sacks, Chief Rabbi of the British Commonwealth, noted in his speech last night.

---

Shootings at Fort Hood. Seven Dead.

At least seven people are dead and 12 wounded in a shooting at Fort Hood in Texas, the base's public affairs office told NBC News on Thursday.

The official would not give his name nor additional details. It was unknown whether victims are soldiers or civilians. One gunman was reportedly in custody and another was on the loose, NBC News said. A third shooter may be involved, according to NBC News affiliate KCEN, which said the person had opened fire on the SWAT team at the base.

KCEN reported that a policeman was among those shot.

KCEN in Waco reported that the second suspect may be holed up in a building on the post.

Greg Schannep, an aide to U.S. Rep. John Carter, told the Austin American-Statesman that he was on the Army post to attend a graduation service. He said that as he neared the entrance of a building where the service was being held, a soldier with blood on his uniform ran past him and said a man was shooting.

---

Both of them -- the Senate plan and the House plan. For a a long time, they have been falsely reporting the "ten year costs" by comparing ten years of revenues -- also known as higher taxes and mandates --...

Read this post »

On the one hand, Obama can not be labeled a "liberal" because he does not fit into any category. On the other hand, to be a liberal means you're "humane" and want everyone to have Obamacare. Which is it Rep. Elijah...

Brother Geraghty notes that George Pataki might be running for the Senate. I'd rather he win than a Democrat -- or at least any Democrat I can imagine New York State producing these days. But that won't stop me from reiterating my view that he's one of the dumbest politicians in America. I refer you (again) to my favorite idiotic quote from the former governor:

"It is conceivable," George Pataki, declared in 2000 when he signed a hate-crimes bill into law, "that if this law had been in effect one hundred years ago, the greatest hate crime of all, the Holocaust, could have been avoided."

---

Written by: Jim Demint

I believe government has already inserted itself too far into our lives and too far into the operations of America’s businesses. We certainly don’t need government regulating the Internet and broadband communications too. But that’s what FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski and his Democratic colleagues are pushing. They believe the Internet is a failed market in which neither entrepreneurs nor consumers are treated fairly.

Last week Senator Orrin Hatch and I published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal where we provided a counter argument to Mr. Genachowski. We believe the Internet is growing and sprouting new industry and businesses because it is one of the only aspects of our economy free from government regulation.

Senator Hatch and I wrote:

“If there is a perfect encapsulation of the success of Washington’s current hands-off approach to the Internet, it’s the popular “There’s an app for that” advertising campaign. Since the latest introduction of smart phones like Apple’s iPhone and Blackberry’s Curve, independent software developers have created tens of thousands of applications for mobile devices. There are apps for gamers, bloggers, couch potatoes, foodies, health-care providers and every other niche market you can imagine. These applications have improved people’s lives and satisfied consumer demand.

And it has all happened without a Washington politician or bureaucrat moving a muscle.

This isn’t a coincidence. If the Internet were invented by a politician or worse, managed by bureaucrats, cell phones would still look like bricks and the information superhighway would still be a dirt road. If there is any sector of our economy where competition is so fierce and where the pace of innovation is so rapid that government interference would only get in the way, it is the Internet and telecommunications market.

The Internet has grown because of a virtuous and mutually beneficial circle: network operators provide ever-increasing speed and bandwidth; content providers one-up each other with game-changing innovations; and consumers adapt and adopt at lightning speed.”

Arguing on behalf of FCC regulators in the Wall Street Journal was Mitchell Baker and John Lilly. Ms. Baker is the chair and Mr. Lilly is the CEO of Mozilla, producer of the Firefox web browser. They argued:

“Those who oppose neutrality claim that government involvement—even to ensure an open and competitive market—is somehow bad for business. This claim is wrong and cannot be left unchallenged. It contradicts the history of the Internet, and threatens its foundations.

The fundamental technologies of the Internet have always been open; the FCC’s proposed rules would merely preserve that openness. The principle that any “bit” of information is treated the same as any other bit is a defining characteristic of the Internet; it is a central aspect of the design that has lead to the unprecedented impact of the Internet on our lives.”

Ms. Baker and Mr. Lilly go on to cite numerous success stories like Amazon, Ebay, Google, and Facebook; successes that we all recognize. The difference is that Ms. Baker and Mr. Lilly believe government must be involved to maintain equality and fairness on the web. But we believe that every business is different and fairness should be based on competition and innovation. Companies like Amazon, Ebay, Google, and Facebook have succeeded and changed our world because we have a system in place that lets the cream rise to the top.

Today I’m asking for your opinion on this extremely important debate.

Will you please use the comments section below to give me your thoughts on net neutrality?

Do you agree with Senator Hatch and me or do you agree with the Mozilla team? Should government regulate Internet activity or not?

Let me know what you think.

The time for debate is over. So is the time for studies demonstrating PelosiCare will increase premiums by a cumulative $20,700 between 2013 and 2019. Or else. Or else Nancy Pelosi just might want to investigate the industry for antitrust...

Today, the Washington Post reported that a painting by artist Alma Thomas entitled “Watusi (Hard Edge)” was being removed from the White House’s East Wing.  For those who don’t remember, Thomas’...

View Original Post

Summary of House GOP Health Care Reform Bill (PDF)

Text of House GOP Health Care Reform Bill (PDF)

Fact Sheet: Speaker Pelosi’s Government Takeover of Health Care Will Destroy Small Business Jobs (PDF)

Fact Sheet: Speaker Pelosi’s Government Takeover of Health Care Will Hurt Seniors (PDF)

Fact Sheet: Federal Funds Will Be Used to Pay for Abortion Under Speaker Pelosi’s Government Takeover of Health Care (PDF)

Fact Sheet: GOP Alternative Helps States Reduce Health Care Costs (PDF)

Section-by-Section Summary of House GOP Health Care Bill (PDF – Courtesy House Ways & Means Committee Republicans)

The American people have spoken. They oppose government-run health care. Republicans are on the side of the American people.

What Americans want are common-sense, responsible solutions that address the rising cost of health care and other major problems. In the national Republican address on Saturday, October 31, 2009, House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) discussed Republicans’ plan for common-sense health care reform our nation can afford.  Boehner’s address emphasized four common-sense reforms that will lower health care costs and expand access to quality care without a government takeover of our nation’s health care system that kills jobs, raises taxes on small businesses, or cuts Medicare for seniors:

• Number one: let families and businesses buy health insurance across state lines.
• Number two: allow individuals, small businesses, and trade associations to pool together and acquire health insurance at lower prices, the same way large corporations and labor unions do.
• Number three: give states the tools to create their own innovative reforms that lower health care costs.
• Number four: end junk lawsuits that contribute to higher health care costs by increasing the number of tests and procedures that physicians sometimes order not because they think it’s good medicine, but because they are afraid of being sued.

For the full text of Leader Boehner’s address, click HERE.

For more information about some of the other common-sense health care reforms proposed by Republicans, please visit the links below:

• Empowering Patients First Act (Republican Study Committee  Health Care Reform Bill, introduced July 30, 2009)
• Improving Health Care for All Americans Act (Shadegg Health Care Reform Bill, introduced July 14, 2009)
• Medical Rights & Reform Act (Kirk-Dent Health Care  Reform Bill, introduced June 16, 2009)
• Help Efficient, Accessible, Low-cost, Timely Healthcare (HEALTH) Act (Gingrey medical liability reform bill, introduced June 6, 2009)
• Small Business Health Fairness Act of 2009 (Johnson small business health plans bill, introduced May 21, 2009)
• Promoting Health and Preventing Chronic Disease through  Prevention and Wellness Programs for Employees, Communities, and Individuals Act of 2009 (Castle Wellness & Prevention Bill, introduced July 31, 2009)
• Improved Employee Access to Health Insurance Act of 2009 (Deal auto-enrollment bill, introduced October 15, 2009)
• Health Insurance Access for Young Workers and College Students Act of 2009 (Blunt bill to improve health insurance coverage of dependents, introduced October 21, 2009)

On June 12, 1987, as the liberal media elite were toasting the leader of the Soviet Union as a great champion of progress, President Ronald Reagan stood at the Berlin Wall and challenged Mikhail Gorbachev to put his money where his mouth was: “General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization, come here to this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”

Gorbachev did not open the gate or tear down the Berlin Wall, but two years later the people of East Germany did. News broke in the U.S. late in the afternoon (Eastern Time) on November 9, 1989 that the communist government would no longer restrict travel to West Berlin. Just a few hours later, ABC’s PrimeTime Live hosted former President Ronald Reagan to celebrate what would turn out to be the death blow against communism in Eastern Europe. We found the tape in our archives, and posted a video excerpt at right. (Audio excerpt here.)

Co-anchor Sam Donaldson, who as White House correspondent had been a liberal antagonist during Reagan’s presidency, told the former President he would “get a lot of credit for helping bring this moment about.” Reagan told Donaldson that although he did not know when the Wall would finally fall, “I’m an eternal optimist. I believed with all my heart that it was in the future.”

He also reminded Donaldson that on his visit to Berlin two years earlier, he witnessed the East German police forcing people away from the gate so they could not hear Reagan’s speech over a loudspeaker. “So there was another sign of their system and how it worked with their own people. They just manhandled them and turned them around and would not let them, even though they were staying in East Germany, not let them come near the Wall.”

Here’s a transcript of that interview, conducted just a few hours after the Berlin Wall opened up on November 9, 1989:

CO-ANCHOR SAM DONALDSON: A lot of political leaders over the years, since 1961, in the West, have urged that that Wall be torn down, but the one, I think, that people remember the most at this moment — and who's going to get a lot of credit for helping bring this moment about — is former President Ronald Reagan, who joins us live tonight from his office in Los Angeles. Mr. President, glad to see you. Thank you for joining us.
 
PRESIDENT RONALD REAGAN: Well, thank you, Sam. It's a great pleasure to be, well, in a way, talking with you again.
 
DONALDSON: Well, two years ago, when you stood in front of the Wall — and we've shown those pictures tonight — and you challenged, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall," did you think it would come this soon?
 
PRESIDENT REAGAN: Well, I didn't know when it would come, but I have to tell you, I'm an eternal optimist. I believed with all my heart that it was in the future, because that's a single country. This isn't a thing of a division with two groups of people, or two different types of people brought together within boundaries. These are Germans on each side of the Wall, and the only reason that Wall is there, and there was a difference, was because East Germany was under the domination of the Soviet military when the war ended. And they didn't have any say about what they could do, or what kind of government they would have.
 
DONALDSON: Well, I know you made this point publicly many times. In your conversations with Gorbachev, and at the end you got to be quite intimate, from the standpoint of being able to talk to him one-on-one, did you discuss the Wall, and what did he say?
 
PRESIDENT REAGAN: No, not really. We- I got into the kind of generalities with him about human rights, mainly. And then, of course, the things that we were talking specifically about, arms reduction and so forth, and I remember telling him — it wasn't original with me, but I told him — that we didn't mistrust each other because we were armed. We were armed because we mistrust each other. And if we were going to talk about reducing arms, why don't we try to get together on reducing the things that make for the mistrust between us. And he didn't disagree with that. And at the same time, contrary to what some critics have said, I never believed that we should just assume that everything was going to be all right. And that's why I learned a Russian proverb which I used on him a great deal, doveryai, no proveryai. He got to the place that he would clap his hands over his ears when I said it. It means, "Trust, but verify."
 
DONALDSON: Well, are you of the opinion, with Gorbachev beset by all of the problems and troubles that he has at the moment, that he is going to survive, that perestroika is going to prosper?
 
PRESIDENT REAGAN: Well, I have to believe that, but I do know that the great threat to what he is trying to do does not come from outside his borders. It comes from that hard-core political Communist bureaucracy that has a vested interest in keeping that kind of totalitarian government. So maybe if he doesn't move as fast as we would like to see him move, it's because he knows that that threat is there behind him. Now, by the same token, I think that those people who threaten him, those hard-core Communists, must by now have seen the changing attitude on the part of the people and they must be a little disturbed about doing something that would bring them toe to toe against their own people in the streets.
 
DONALDSON: Do you think the United States can do something — it's a question often asked, and I know you've wrestled with it — can do something, or should we do something, to help Gorbachev?
 
PRESIDENT REAGAN: Well, yes, I think we can, and I think we have been doing these things, by continuing these meetings with him and to deal with him, negotiating with him. I used to bring him handwritten lists of dissenters that had been brought to my attention in the Soviet Union. And every time we met, I would present him with one of these lists and ask him if it was possible that these people could be allowed to emigrate. And very shortly I would get word that these people were on their way, many times to the United States. So I believe that, as long as he's performing the way that he's performing, we should do whatever we could that might be of help, and yet, at the same time, short of interfering or rousing the enemy within his own borders.
 
DONALDSON: A moment ago, you said that it was unnatural for the two Germanys to be apart, that they were all Germans. Do you believe that we're going to move rapidly toward a reunification of Germany? Do you think our European allies want that?
 
PRESIDENT REAGAN: I think they do. Now, I don't know how soon this can come. But again, as I say, these people are Germans, living on each side of that Wall. They didn't have much to do with the building of that Wall, or the form of government in the eastern half that was forced upon them. And I think it just makes sense that instead of wondering what we're going to do with millions of refugees intent now upon getting out from under that system in East Germany, to once again say, "You who are Germans can stay in your homes and stay where you are, and it will be the Germany you once knew."
 
DONALDSON: I know you've often said that you don't believe your views have changed about the Soviet Union, but you recognize that the Soviet Union may, in some sense, particularly under Gorbachev, be changing. So I want to ask you about your famous phrase, "the evil empire," that you in 1983 spoke in Orlando, Florida, if memory serves. What do you think about it now?
 
PRESIDENT REAGAN: Well, I have to tell you, I said that on purpose. There were some things that I believed very deeply, from before the time that I came into office. I believed that the best peace is peace through strength. And I believed also that the Soviet Union needed to know and to hear what we felt about them, so that, oh, maybe in some of the previous meetings that had been held in which they had — people tried to negotiate on a basis of just developing a friendship or something, that we were aware of what the Communist totalitarianism was like, and that we were realists.
 
DONALDSON: Well, aware, and in your case, certainly very confident that it would fall. I remember in London once, you talked about Communism eventually being consigned to the dustheap of history. Do you feel vindicated?
 
PRESIDENT REAGAN: Well, I have always believed that, and I think it will, and I think there's evidence in the world today. We see all over the Communist part of the world these great changes taking place, Hungary and in Poland, in the eastern bloc and so forth, and other countries that way, and we see a great wave of democracy sweeping the world. And I think what it is, is people have had time in some 70-odd years of — since the Communist revolution, I think the people have seen that Communism has had its chance and it doesn't work.
 
DONALDSON: President Reagan, you're looking well, we're glad to see it, and we thank you for joining us tonight.
 
PRESIDENT REAGAN: Well, thank you, Sam. It's a great pleasure to talk to you, and to talk to you under these circumstances, with this announcement that's just been made. If the Wall isn't torn down immediately, at least they could keep the gates open. Could I just finish with one thing? When I made that statement, with the Brandenburg Gate behind me, and I was talking to a great audience of West Germans, in that statement about the Wall, I had had an opportunity to look across the Wall. Now, the people in West Berlin had arranged the sound system so that my voice was carrying on both sides of the Wall. But I could see East German police keeping the East German people in the streets from getting anywhere near the Wall, to keep them from hearing, overhearing anything that we might be saying on the other side, on the west side of that Wall. So there was another sign of their system and how it worked with their own people. They just manhandled them and turned them around and would not let them, even though they were staying in East Germany, not let them come near the Wall.
 
DONALDSON: Thank you, President Reagan. Thank you very much, and give our best to your wife.
 
PRESIDENT REAGAN: I certainly will, and thank you, Sam.

Read this post »

We noted here that a group led by Michele Bachmann was organizing a protest against the Democrats' government takeover of health care, to take place at noon today on the Capitol steps. The protest went off as planned, with 10,000 attending, according to one estimate. The Minneapolis Star Tribune, no friend of Bachmann, reports on the rally. This photo is from InstaPundit:

We'll try to update later.

UPDATE: Here are some AP photos from today's rally. Here is part of the crowd:

More of the crowd:

Michele addresses the crowd:

Here, a Catholic priest from Omaha lies in front of Nancy Pelosi's office. He was dragged away by police:

FURTHER UPDATE: And here's the video.

ONE LAST ITEM: Dan Riehl was there today, and posted an impassioned narrative of the event.

An Italian court recently sentenced 23 CIA employees in absentia for their role in the 2003 Abu Omar rendition.

We should capture terrorists anywhere, any time, but we should get the job done right and with a minimum of bureaucracy. Real spying is inexpensive and requires few people. The basic act of espionage is a single CIA officer meeting a single source -- a person with access to secrets on terrorists or nuclear proliferators, for example -- in a dingy hotel room in a dysfunctional country.

Any CIA operation that is revealed to the public, however, shows these telltale signs: The operation looks busy, a lot of people are involved, and large amounts of money are spent. Often you’ll hear the CIA accused of being risk averse. I agree. However, risk aversion is a complex concept. The CIA will sometimes conduct risky operations in order to achieve a more important goal: looking busy. In the Abu Omar operation, 21 Agency employees flew to Italy to abduct a single terrorist suspect -- as an eminent scholar put it, “21 people to get one fat Egyptian!” -- who was already under surveillance by the Italian police. The 21 people stayed in five-star hotels and chatted with headquarters on open-line cell phones, all at great expense and awful tradecraft. The number of people managing the operation from headquarters was enormous. But it was a successful operation in that it spent a lot of money, made a lot of people look active, and suggested the CIA’s willingness to take risk.

CIA officials are quick to deny that the organization is risk averse by pointing to risky operations that went wrong. This darker, more complex, passive-aggressive aspect of risk aversion seems to say: We can certainly do risky operations, but here’s what happens when you make us get off our couch and do them.

Take a look at any CIA activity that is revealed in the future and ask yourself: Was this a traditional, inexpensive intelligence operation involving a meeting between a CIA officer and a human source to gather intelligence? Or was this an operation designed to spend a lot of money, to make a lot of people look busy, and to give the appearance that the CIA is willing to take risk?

Whenever we see CIA employees released from bureaucracy, we see success. The tactical intelligence production within Iraq is excellent; the early Afghan campaign, featuring no offices and a flat chain of command, just a few guys and bags of money, was extraordinary.

-- “Ishmael Jones” is a former deep-cover officer with the Central Intelligence Agency. He is the author of The Human Factor: Inside the CIA’s Dysfunctional Intelligence Culture, published last year by Encounter Books.

---

Fresh off their months long gubernatorial campaign against Republican Bob McDonnell and batting less than .500 with their endorsements, the Washington Post now claims that the scary Republicans actually will be moderates. Behold what suddenly passes for moderation. McDonnell and...

Fresh off their months long gubernatorial campaign against Republican Bob McDonnell and batting less than .500 with their endorsements, the Washington Post now claims that the scary Republicans actually will be moderates. Behold what suddenly passes for moderation. McDonnell and...

Fresh off their months long gubernatorial campaign against Republican Bob McDonnell and batting less than .500 with their endorsements, the Washington Post now claims that the scary Republicans actually will be moderates. Behold what suddenly passes for moderation. McDonnell and...

Sen. Lindsey Graham offers the least cogent commentary about New York-23 I've seen. Graham told Politico:

To those people who are pursuing purity, you'll become a club not a party. Those people who are trying to embrace conservatism in a thoughtful way that fits the region and the state and the district are going to do well. Conservativism is an asset. Blind ideology is not.

There's some unintended irony in Graham's "conservatism that fits the region and state" argument. Graham's state, South Carolina, is about as conservative as any in the Union. Yet Graham, among other liberal stances, supports the Democrats' concept of immigration reform, was the only Republican on the Judiciary Committee to vote for confirming Sonia Sotomayor, and has been at the forefront of terrorist rights advocacy in the Senate.

If conservatives in South Carolina were to "embrace conservativism" in the "thougtful" (i.e. pragmatic) way Graham recommends, they would see to the nomination of someone other than the Arlen Specter of the South. Such a conservative would probably have little trouble winning the general election. After all, South Carolina's other Senator is Jim DeMint.

As for conservatives in New York-23, there's a good case that they have behaved thoughtfully and pragmatically. Had the Republican nominee, Dede Scozzafava, been elected, she might well have become a fixture. It would have been a blow to conservatism to have a moderate to conservative district (its recent representative had an ACU rating of 71 percent) represented by someone as liberal as Scozzafava.

As things stand now, it is not unlikely that a center-right candidate will be nominated and elected in 2010.

UPDATE: I almost forgot about Sen. Graham's role in pushing liberal "climate change" legislation. NetRightNation has some interesting things to say about Graham's "bedfellows" in this endeavor.

Obama: "We are closer to passing this reform than ever before." The President surprised Gibby's White Briefing today with this "thrilling" [not sure if it will reach anyone's leg] announcement:

The credibility of the Obama administration on stimulus accountability continues to crash today, this time in Wisconsin. [...] Read the rest »

The California Air Resources Board or CARB, according to the Washington Times, is threatening to require all cars and light trucks sold in California after 2012 to feature metallic reflective window glazing (i.e. tints)...

One of the promises the pro-abortion crowd made in the late '60s and early '70s was that abortion would reduce illegitimacy, would reduce the number of "unwanted" children. Instead, of course, illegitimacy continued to rise dramatically after abortion was legalized. (What collapsed was shotgun weddings, not illegitimacy.)

I am always struck by how unempirical the Left is. They are the empowered culture-makers who can repeat certain untruths so intensely and so frequently that even conservatives believe them. (Oh, things like "gay marriage is inevitable, the culture has shifted," for example.) It takes an amazing amount of work and money to break through the blinders cultural liberalism crafts for all our eyes.

These are like the people who go around saying, "We have separated sex from reproduction," even as girls keep getting pregnant in massive numbers. 

When and how does reality get to matter? An interesting sociological problem . . .

---

Obama Stimulus...? Not ringing any bells. What year is it? Is my name "Patient"? I think that nurse is stealing from me. Is it cold in here? Can we get to Red Lobster by 4:00? I have a coupon, or...

Read this post »

Just like the anti-Prop. [...] Read the rest »

Worried about it. Might not "look" like all that much, you see. Any other cool facts about Levi Johnston? I heard he impregnates girls, refuses to take responsibility for his child and the child's mother, and then tries to turn...

Just how bad for Obama were Tuesday's election results?

So bad White House senior adviser David Axelrod went on Fox News Wednesday to try and spin it?

In case you've forgotten, this is about two weeks after Axelrod told ABC's George Stephanopoulos, "[T]hey're not really a news station."

I guess that's changed now that the Republicans have come back to life (video of Major Garrett's unedited interview with Axelrod embedded below the fold, part of it was aired on Wednesday's "Special Report"):

As Andrew Malcolm of the Los Angeles Times put it Thursday (h/t Tweeter NYfitter):

Here's how desperate Obama administration spokesmen were Wednesday to fill the info void they'd created by hiding away during the previous night's bad news election returns:

David Axelrod, an ex-newspaper reporter but one of the lead Obama attackers against the Fox News Channel in recent weeks, actually granted an interview to the Fox News Channel. To Major Garrett.

Well, I guess the Administration NEEDS Fox again, huh?

All I can say is that as much as you might hate a RINO, there are more detestable creatures out there. Democrats are hoping a growing conservative revolt within the GOP wreaks havoc on Republicans in the 2010 elections. Republicans...

Embarrassing, but it's happened to all of us.