Daily Archives: November 6th, 2009

Did you know that activist filmmaker James O'Keefe and partner Hannah Giles made only one undercover video showing ACORN employees willing to assist them in illegal and human rights-violating activities?

Absent prior knowledge, that's the impression you would have upon reading the Associated Press's coverage of the latest development in the ACORN saga, namely the raid on the organization's New Orleans office by Louisiana state investigators.

AP writer Cain Burdeau only mentions O'Keefe's and Giles's videotaping efforts in Baltimore. The fact is that the pair have thus far presented the results of their efforts in five other locations, and may have more episodes in inventory for other opportune times.

Here are the first five paragraphs of Budreau's coverage (bold is mine):

Computers, records seized at ACORN offices in La.

State investigators raided ACORN offices on Friday, taking away computer hard drives and documents as part of a probe into alleged embezzlement and tax fraud when the organization's national headquarters was based in New Orleans.

"This is an investigation of everything - ACORN, the national organization, the local organization and all of its affiliated entities, specifically as it relates to any potential violations of Louisiana law," Assistant Attorney General David Caldwell said.

ACORN staff on the scene declined to comment, but an attorney for the group said in a statement the raid was prompted by allegations that former ACORN employees had removed or altered electronic documents and may do so in the future.

Attorney Pamela Marple said ACORN was cooperating and called the raid exhaustive, saying investigators wanted "virtually every document in the possession of ACORN and any related entity."

The raid was the latest development for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. Videotapes released recently showed ACORN employees offering tax advice to two people in Baltimore posing as a prostitute and her pimp. The videos led Congress and state governments to cut funding for ACORN.

For the record, the other locations besides Baltimore where O'Keefe and Giles have shown results of their undercover visits are Washington DC, New York/Brooklyn, San Bernardino CA, San Diego, and Philadelphia.

In an article of over 400 words, Burdeau clearly could have included "and five other cities" in his paragraph that mentioned Baltimore. But he didn't. There's no good explanation for this failure other than a conscious effort to minimize the comprehensive nationwide significance of the O'Keefe's and Giles's work. It would appear that the AP would rather that as few readers as possible know that the intrepid pair have exposed and organization that from all appearances is corrupt to its very core, from sea to shining sea.

Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.

Sometimes you hear it said that baseball's post-season reveals weaknesses in teams that went undetected during the regular season. I've never really subscribed to this view. The 162 game season (and its 154 game predecessor) should expose any true weaknesses. The much shorter post-season (only four to seven games in the old days) has more to do with chance than with revealing hidden truths about a squad.

On the other hand, I believe the post-season can reveal things about managers who, due to the pressure and the format of an elimination series, can find themselves managing quite differently than they did during the regular season. Sometimes, to put it bluntly, they panic. And, at the risk of contradicting my opening paragraph, when managers panic in the post-season, their decisions tend to reflect their innermost fears - justified or not - about weaknesses in their squad that were not apparent during the regular season.

We have seen how Milwaukee Braves manager Fred Haney tried to get through the 1958 World Series by having Warren Spahn and Lew Burdette pitch 51 of his team's 63 innings. It didn't work, nor should Haney have believed it would.

In 1959, Al Lopez went into the World Series with six pitchers in whom he had real confidence - Early Wynn, Bob Shaw, Dick Donovan, Billy Pierce, Jerry Staley, and Turk Lown. That's a little thin, but probably not fatally so. By way of comparison, his opposite number, Walter Alston, had perhaps four pitchers he trusted greatly - Don Drysdale, Roger Craig, Johnny Podres, and Larry Sherry -- and perhaps three more he trusted up to a point -- Sandy Koufax, Stan Williams, and Clem Labine. This year, the Yankees and Phillies both seemed to have about eight pitchers they mostly trusted.

When relievers Staley and Lown struggled early in the Series, Lopez seemed to lose faith in them, even though during the regular season they had formed one of the best relief tandems in the history of baseball to that point. Facing elimination in Game 5, Lopez had used Donovan and Pierce to relieve Shaw, instead of Staley and Lown. This meant that in Game Six, Lopez felt constrained to hand the ball to Wynn, age 39, even though he had only two days rest.

The result was disastrous. In the third inning Wynn gave up a two-run homer to Snider (this was the 11th and final home run for this Dodgers legend, who had not started the previous three games). In the fourth, Demeter singled, Roseboro sacrificed him to second, Wills singled him in, and Podres, the pitcher, doubled in Wills.

Lopez then brought in Donovan (not Staley or Lown), even though he had started Game Three and relieved in Game Five. Donovan walked Gilliam and allowed a double to Neal. After Moon then homered, the Dodgers were up 8-0.

The White Sox rallied in the bottom of the inning. Kluszewski smashed a three-run homeer off of Podres and the White Sox then loaded the bases with two out. However, Larry Sherry, who had helped load them, retired Aparicio to end the inning. Sherry gave up only three hits over the final five innings, and the Dodgers cruised home to victory, 9-3.

For the Dodgers it was an improbable championship. They had finished seventh in 1958, and in 1959 had only the fifth best run differential in the majors. I haven't checked, but I'd be surprised if, in the days of 16 teams and no post-season other than the World Series, any team ever won a championship with the fifth best run differential. The Dodgers could also count themselves lucky that the Yankees imploded in 1959. The 1958 and 1960 Yankees would have been favored against the '59 Dodgers. But then, so were the White Sox, if I remember correctly.

The 1959 championship came at the exact mid-point between the Dodgers' previous one in 1955 and their next one in 1963. The '59 team was a mixture of holdovers from '55, such as "Boys of Summer" Hodges, Furillo, and Snider; mainstays of the 1963 team like Drysdale, Koufax, Roseboro, and Wills; and solid but unspectacular players for whom this would be their only championship with the Dodgers, e.g., Demeter, Neal, and Larker. Larry Sherry, who won two games and saved the other two Dodgers wins in this Series would play only a bit part on the 1963 team. The only Dodgers who contributed meaningfully to all three championships were Podres, Gilliam, and of course Alston, the skipper.

For the White Sox, 1959 was a great success despite the World Series failure. They had won the pennant for the first time since 1919, the year of the Black Sox, and in doing so had broken the Yankees streak of four straight pennants.

The future didn't look great, however. Of Lopez's core pitchers, only Shaw was under age 30, and Wynn and Staley were 39 and 38, respectively. Among the eight non-pitchers who started most often in the Series, only Landis and Aparicio were under 30.

The White Sox would double down on aging veterans in 1960. Hoping to make one more run at a championship, they added Minnie Minoso (37) and Roy Sievers (33). The result was another very good team, probably better than the 1959 version, but not quite good enough to stave off the resurgent Yankees. New York finished 10 games ahead of Chicago, albeit with an almost identical run differential.

The White Sox would not make it back to the post-season until 1983 and their next World Series (which they won) was not until 2005 - a wait that exceeded by six years the seemingly interminable one that had ended in 1959.

A rising Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) means better times are on the way, right? Not necessarily, according to CNBC CME floor reporter and tea party movement inspiration Rick Santelli.

Santelli made an appearance on CNBC's Nov. 6 "Fast Money," a show which the host, Melissa Lee, is skittish about a discussion that politics interferes with the market is a reality. Nonetheless, Santelli explained there so happens to be correlation between a rise in unemployment rates and the rise in the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

"[I] think we're building a stairway to heaven in Dow prices on the back of paper and I think that, you know it seems kind of dire to me that 8 percent - 8,000, 9 percent - 9,000, 10.2 - 10,000," Santelli said. "I shudder to think where the unemployment rate is going to be at 11 and 12,000 in the Dow."

Lee challenged Santelli on his premise and applied the conventional wisdom that stocks are forward-looking indicators and that unemployment is a lagging indicator. That's not the case, according to Santelli, who expressed his concern about the pending health care legislation being debated in the House of Representatives under the leadership of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

"Not anymore," Santelli replied. "How can it be? What are they going to do in Washington at midnight tomorrow? How can it possibly be forward looking? We don't know what they're going to do with our money - with trillions of dollars, one-sixth of the economy and that's one example."

But here's how the equation works as Santelli explained - as long as unemployment continues to go up, the Federal Reserve will be reluctant to raise interest rates. And that's a bet investors are going to take - that as long as monetary policy remains easy, investors will continue to fuel the market.

"That's the game - that's why stocks keep going up on an unemployment rate, where the unemployment rate is important to America and investors that are invested in the stock market can still profit. Hey - you know, the last three recessions - what size was Google or Amazon? You know, let's look at who used to hire and how recessions used to be. You know, GM hired hundreds of thousands of people. What were their market capitalizations? Look at Google - how many people do they have? Do you really see this changing?"

The Uighurs are Muslims from East Turkmenistan who no doubt have legitimate grievances against the Chinese who have conquered and colonized their country, if such it ever was. But some of them decided to pursue jihad against China and went to Afghanistan to train with al Qaeda. They were there at the end of 2001 when we routed the Taliban and captured a number of terrorists and terrorist trainees. The Uighurs fell in the latter category.

The Uighurs posed no great threat to the U.S., notwithstanding their extreme Muslim beliefs, and the Bush administration would have been happy to let them go. But the only country that wanted them was China, and the Chinese government would have killed them the moment they got off the airplane. So, for humanitarian reasons, the Bush administration held the Uighurs at Guantanamo Bay and tried to find someone who would take them.

The Obama administration finally succeeded in that effort, but at considerable cost. The first batch of Uighur terrorist trainees were resettled in Bermuda. We wrote about it here. Going from East Turkmenistan to a training camp in Afghanistan to Guantanamo Bay to Bermuda may not be quite like dying and going to Heaven, but it's awfully close.

Now the second batch of six Uighurs has been resettled, in Palau. Palau has little in common with Bermuda except that both are island paradises. The Associated Press reports:

Palau, a clutch of islands east of the Philippines that is home to some 20,000 people and still relies on funds from Washington, offered to take all but one of the Uighurs. Both sides denied the offer was linked to U.S. aid. ...

[President Johnson] Toribiong is taking a personal interest in the resettlement. He turned out to welcome them when they arrived before dawn Sunday. On Wednesday, he plans to treat them to a boat trip and picnic in Palau's Rock Islands, the country's main tourist destination and one of the world's top diving spots. ...

Earlier, the Uighurs spent time at an Internet cafe, setting up e-mail accounts and contacting relatives in Australia and four fellow former detainees now living in Bermuda.

Nearby, their government-supplied home has spotless hardwood floors, a fresh coat of paint, new furniture and appliances, and a sweeping view of the ocean. Washington is paying for the Uighurs' housing, job training, food and other costs in Palau.

To the men's visible relief, a large air conditioner was delivered Tuesday afternoon to help them cope with the tropical heat. High speed internet--a rarity in Palau--and cable television are scheduled to be installed on Wednesday.

Here is a photo of the resettled Uighurs, having shaved their long beards to fit in with the local population:

Here, a couple of the would-be terrorists go wading in the Pacific Ocean:

Here, they are grilling beef skewers on the beach:

Here, they board a boat for the picnic in the Rock Islands referred to above:

It's hard to know what to make of this, apart from the fact that the world is a weird place, and getting weirder all the time. I'm fine with resettling the Uighurs, but is it really necessary for U.S. taxpayers to fund "spotless hardwood floors, a fresh coat of paint, new furniture and appliances, and a sweeping view of the ocean"? Not to mention housing, job training, food, and all other living expenses, including air conditioning, cable television and high-speed internet, which is a "rarity" in Palau. If the administration is looking for volunteers to live at government expense in an island paradise, count me in.

No doubt these expenses are a drop in the bucket compared to the trillions that the Obama administration is wasting here at home. But could it be any clearer that we are living under a government that treats our tax money--which is to say, our work; our time; our lives--with contempt?

Fannie Mae has announced that it is going to become a landlord. To avoid foreclosing, Fannie will allow some homeowners to rent. Fannie has a precise formula to determine who is eligible:

Tenants interested in a lease... must be able to document that the [rent] is no more than 31% of their gross income.

31%. If it weren’t our money, it would be funny watching bureaucrats come up with these precise formulas.

Why is Fannie getting into the rental business?

"If they can keep the property occupied and have at least some positive cash flow, that may end up being less worse than going the route of kicking them out and having a vacant home," Thomas Lawler, an independent housing economist based in Leesburg, Va., told the WSJ.

It’s another gamble with our money. Just 6 years ago, Barney Frank said this about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac:

We see entities that are fundamentally sound financially and withstand some of the disastrous scenarios. And even if there were a problem, the Federal Government doesn't bail them out.

Oops, this year Congress bailed them out with 100 billion of your tax dollars. And congress has promised Fannie and Freddie CK... another $300 billion in guarantees.

Fannie says that its leases will be issued for "up to 12 months, with the possibility of… month-to-month extensions."

Month to month and year to year? Will the renters ever leave? I doubt it, given government’s track record.

After Hurricane Ike hit Texas, so FEMA promised “temporary” housing in trailers. Recipients signed contracts promising to “diligently seek and obtain permanent housing” – but they haven’t, yet. Now, more than a year later, almost 2000 people live in free FEMA trailers.

FEMA even sent $17 million in rental assistance to families who were living in free FEMA trailers.

And while you could buy a trailer for $30,000, FEMA spends as much as $229,000.

We already have a huge public housing bureaucracy-- 3,200 different public housing authorities. Now the monstrous Fannie Mae is diving in. Give me a break.

He really can’t help it.
Geraldo Rivera is “most upset” about the Muslims in America who will face “widespread prejudice and discrimination” because of this Islamic terrorist attack that killed 13 US soldiers.

Geraldo was on with Bill O’Reilly tonight:

Geraldo Rivera: “I think what happened in Orlando and what happened in Fort Hood Texas is the same thing. You have a paranoid obsessed, impotent, frustrated loser who takes out his rage whatever it is, whether he lost his job, or like the kids at Columbine High School who were being bullied in school or in the case of Major Hasan he’s got whatever his psychobabble religious beef is. They go off and they inflict terrible harm on innocent people to assuage whatever it is that’s bugging them. It is totally about them. It is the same story. And the people I feel the most sorry for tonight are the 12 to 15,000 Muslim GI’s who serve honorably and the four million Muslims in this country the citizens who are patriots and believe that believe in our country and now will be because of this, the way this story is being played will be subjected to more of this kind of undertone, widespread, resentment and prejudice and discrimination that’s happened really since 9-11.

Of course, Geraldo is wrong.
IBDeditorials.com released this chart on US hate crimes back in 2007, via Michelle Malkin:

The number of hate crimes against Muslims have significantly decreased since 9-11.

Jules Crittenden would likely disagree with Geraldo.

UPDATE: The Fort Hood killer attended mosque before his massacre.

Background for the Yuval reference here.

On Friday’s Countdown show, MSNBC host Keith Olbermann suggested that Fox News is a racist organization that would hold race or religion against its employees in awarding promotions, as he used the show’s "Worst Person" segment to slam Fox and Friends co-hosts Brian Kilmeade, Gretchen Carlson, and Peter Johnson, for raising questions about whether Muslims serving in the military should be treated with more attention. While every show in MSNBC’s primetime and morning lineups has a host who is white and non-Muslim, Olbermann suggested that the Fox and Friends hosts would have trouble succeeding at FNC if they were Muslim or non-white. Olbermann: "Since we’re asking questions, I have one for Carlson, Johnson, and Kilmeade. You guys ever wonder if you all succeeded inside a company like Fox mostly because you’re not Muslim or black or Asian or Hispanic?"

Below is a transcript of the relevant portion of the "Worst Person in the World" segment from the Friday, November 6, Countdown show on MSNBC:

KEITH OLBERMANN: The runners up, Brian Kilmeade, Gretchen Carlson, and Peter Johnson of Fox Noise, on the Fort Hood case. Kilmeade: "Do you think it’s time for the military to have special debriefings of Muslim Army civil, uh, officers, anybody enlisted. Johnson: "You won’t countenance special screenings for Muslim soldiers, will ya?" Carlson: "Could it be that the military was exercising political correctness in not approaching him as seriously as they would have had he not been a Muslim?"

Since we’re asking questions, I have one for Carlson, Johnson, and Kilmeade. You guys ever wonder if you all succeeded inside a company like Fox mostly because you’re not Muslim or black or Asian or Hispanic?

Read this post »

ABC doubled the length of its evening newscast on Friday night and World News used its second half hour to suggest an exculpatory reason behind Army psychiatrist Nidal Hasan's mass killing at Fort Hood -- as anchor Charles Gibson reasoned “treating the mentally wounded can be stressful” -- then to devote a story to the plight of Muslim soldiers: “It's not easy for anyone serving in the armed forces these days, but with America fighting Islamic enemies overseas, Muslim troops face a unique burden.” Reporter Bill Weir despaired:

The Pentagon has made a real concerted effort to create a military that is culturally sensitive and religiously tolerant, but Muslims in uniform today face a challenge not seen since Japanese-Americans fought in World War II. They taste suspicion from some fellow soldiers who question their loyalty and resentment from fellow Muslims opposed to both American wars.

Weir featured a Muslim soldier who lamented “our religion teaches better,” before Weir painted Muslim soldiers as victims of intolerance, highlighting the experience of one Muslim soldier who “began his overseas deployment on 9/11, and taunts followed him throughout his four-year enlistment.”

Weir acknowledged that “Major Hasan's motives are still unclear,” but he, nonetheless, recalled how “back in 2003 prosecutors alleged it was repeated taunting and religious ideology that led Sergeant Hasan Akbar to kill two of his commanding officers with a grenade.”

With “Stress Factor” as the on-screen heading, Gibson had set up the previous story from Martha Raddatz:

Many troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan bare the psychological scars of war, everything from anxiety to post-traumatic stress. The alleged Fort Hood gunman was a psychiatrist trained to help these soldiers. And while it's way too early to know why this rampage occurred, we do know that treating the mentally wounded can be stressful as well.

The MRC's Brad Wilmouth corrected the closed-captioning against the video to provide this transcript of the Muslim soldier story aired during the second half hour of the Friday, November 6 World News on ABC:

CHARLES GIBSON: Muslim groups here in the United States have moved quickly to condemn the rampage at Fort Hood after learning the alleged gunman was a practicing Muslim, born in the U.S. to Palestinian parents. The Council on American-Islamic Relations said no political or religious ideology could ever justify or excuse such wanton and indiscriminate violence. Organizations representing Muslims in the U.S. military also are denouncing the attack. It's not easy for anyone serving in the armed forces these days, but with America fighting Islamic enemies overseas, Muslim troops face a unique burden. Bill Weir joins us now. Bill?

BILL WEIR: Charlie, the Pentagon has made a real concerted effort to create a military that is culturally sensitive and religiously tolerant, but Muslims in uniform today face a challenge not seen since Japanese-Americans fought in World War II. They taste suspicion from some fellow soldiers who question their loyalty and resentment from fellow Muslims opposed to both American wars. At the Islamic community center in Killeen today, Friday prayers took place under a cloud of despair. This is where Major Nidal Hasan worshiped, alongside Fort Hood's small Muslim community, including Sergeant Fahad Kamal, just back from a 15-month tour of Afghanistan.

SERGEANT FAHAD KAMAL, U.S. MILITARY: I feel let down because we're better than this. Our religion teaches better, and it just makes me feel hurt and just, I just feel like we're much better individuals.

WEIR: Of the 1.4 million active service members around the world, just over 3,500 call themselves Muslims -- one-quarter of one percent. But members of their community say there are tens of thousands more who keep their faith to themselves, bowing to Mecca five times a day in private to avoid potential conflict with fellow troops.

SERGEANT MCCALL ABDULLAH: My last name's Abdullah, so it's really hard to run from it. It's right there on your BDUs, it says Abdullah.
    
WEIR: Sergeant McCall Abdullah began his overseas deployment on 9/11, and taunts followed him throughout his four-year enlistment.

ABDULLAH: You get called a camel jockey or a sand nigger or, you know, Haji or something like that.

WEIR: While Major Hasan's motives are still unclear, back in 2003, prosecutors alleged it was repeated taunting and religious ideology that led Sergeant Hasan Akbar to kill two of his commanding officers with a grenade. He was sentenced to death for that crime, and he became a symbol for those who want to believe a true Muslim could never choose America over Allah in a war against fellow Muslims. Former Gunnery Sergeant Jamal Gadani could not disagree more.

FORMER GUNNERY SERGEANT JAMAL GADANI, U.S. MILITARY: What some of these individuals do, is they try to take the Koran, the Muslim Koran, out of context and say, well, we can't kill other Muslims. Well, our mission is not to go kill other Muslims. We're there to find the bad guys, al-Qaeda.

ABDULLAH: We are all Americans, and we are all contributing, quite a few of us. And it would do best to remember that before putting people in a box.

GADANI: I feel embarrassed for the Muslim community. The feeling is that, I want to believe that it was the individual, not the religion, that made him do what he did.

WEIR: I asked Sergeant Abdullah how he managed to answer the call to prayer or march while fasting during Ramadan, he said, you just have to want it more than the rest of your guys in your platoon.

ABCNews.com video of Weir's story.

When in doubt, cite the need for more government funding of health care. You won't find an argument on MSNBC.

Among the guests offering their perspectives about the Fort Hood massacre on Rachel Maddow's show last night was Salon.com national correspondent Mark Benjamin, who tried to downplay growing evidence that suspected assailant Nidal Malik Hasan was motivated by a jihadist's hatred of America --

BENJAMIN: There are people that believe that this is a person that was suffering some sort of secondary post-traumatic stress from treating soldiers and there are people that believe he was somehow influenced by Muslim extremism. I think it could be a combination of both. I certainly have met mental health care providers in the military who after sitting all day long and listening to some really disturbing tales, you know, when they're treating these soldiers coming back from Iraq, and in combination with the fact that they're overwhelmed, overworked, don't have the resources to do their jobs, become extremely stressed and frazzled. And there's no reason to not think that this could, this could ultimately lead to that kind of a conclusion.

How could Benjamin know only hours after the massacre whether Hasan did not have "the resources" for his job as an Army psychiatrist? If Benjamin was in possession of such specifics, he wasn't sharing them with Maddow's audience.

More along the same lines after Maddow spoke of the high rate of suicide in the military ("even outpacing the civilian rate," she pointed out, as if that's surprising) --

BENJAMIN: The other thing that's interesting is that there's this discussion about whether there's some ideological component and, you know, motivation to this person. You know, I'm not sure that's necessarily separate from the kind of treatment this person was doing. I mean, in other words, if you sit, I have literally interviewed hundreds of soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan since 9/11, and in private moments, when they tell you some of the things they were forced to do, and I'm not talking about, you know, intentional My Lai stuff, but, you know, things that happened in the vagaries of war, really, really, awful, awful things, it can affect you, it can turn people against the war, it can make you really think about that stuff. It's extremely difficult to think about, you know, to work on that all day long, imagine this doctor, who, that was his job.

By Benjamin's logic, he is also at risk of going berserk from the stress of interviewing "literally" hundreds of soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan and hearing of the horrors they experienced.

By the same logic, every blood-splattered doctor and nurse toiling in emergency rooms is one bad day from a rampage, along with every cop, every police reporter, every victim's advocate in court -- the entire country after 9/11, for that matter.

The difference here, as Mark Steyn pointed out today while filling in for Rush Limbaugh, is the apparent absence of trauma when it comes to Hasan, who was reportedly upset over his pending deployment to Iraq but had yet to serve there or in Afghanistan. Perhaps Hasan suffered from a new malady, Steyn suggested --"pre-post traumatic stress disorder."  

Based on Benjamin's observations, I can see coming to a different conclusion about the wars we're fighting and the overarching conflict against radical Islam. If I am working as an Army psychiatrist, my patients might, for example, include soldiers who saw Afghan girls scarred from acid thrown in their faces as they walked to school. Who picked up the limbs after the mentally enfeebled were coerced into suicide bombings. Who returned fire at insurgents using children as human shields.

I might well conclude that as a soldier and single man of 39, as with Hasan, the only place for me is where I can serve to destroy the evil behind such malignancy.

Even worse: It was a presidential transition event. [...] Read the rest »

Top Cuban bloggers Yoani Sánchez, Orlando Luis Pardo, Ciro Díaz and Claudia Cadelo were arrested today and severely beaten by the Castro regime.
Babalu has the latest.

Tomorrow I'll be on the radio from 11 to 1 central, as usual, with my radio partner Brian Ward on AM 1280 the Patriot. You can listen on the internet here. At 11:30 central, 12:30 eastern, we'll be interviewing Michael Barone. Tune in to hear Michael's thoughts on Tuesday's results and the new edition of his Almanac of American Politics.

Well … [...] Read the rest »

Robert Gibbs whined today about the offensive images and discourse by the church-going, taxpaying, America-loving tea party protesters that descended on the US Capital this week.

“I will continue to say what I’ve said before. You hear in this debate, you hear analogies, you hear references to, you see pictures about and depictions of individuals that are truly stunning, and you hear it all the time. People — imagine five years ago somebody comparing health care reform to 9/11. Imagine just a few years ago had somebody walked around with images of Hitler.

Mary Katharine Ham at The Weekly Standard Blog corrected the White House press secretary. MKH pointed out the nonstop Bush-Hitler comparisons by the left for 8 years.
Here is Gibbs whining about the conservative protesters:

Of course, Robert Gibbs also apparently forget that the left not only regularly compared Bush to Hitler and mass-marketed Bush-Hiter merchandise but they even made Bush-Hitler ads from the 2004 election:

Of course, if the state-run media outlets were not so corrupt they would have confronted Gibbs on this ridiculous statement.

Mark Steyn, at The Corner:

The Headline of the Day, from the BBC:

Shooting Raises Fears For Muslims In US Army

Really? Right now the body count stands at:

Non-Muslims 13
Muslims 0

...Even if you take the view that it would be grossly unfair if all Muslims were to be tarred by Major Hasan's brush, it is, to put it at its mildest, the grossest bad taste to default every single time within minutes to the position that what's of most interest about an actual actrocity with real victims is that it may provoke an entirely hypothetical atrocity with entirely hypothetical victims.

The BBC article is actually worse than the headline. There is, though, a certain black humor to this kind of news coverage. For example:

Kamran Memon of the organisation Muslims For a Safe America says the subject splits America's Muslim community down the middle.

"Those at one end of the spectrum say we should have nothing to do with the US armed forces as they are involved in wars with our fellow Muslims abroad," he told the BBC.
"Those at the other end say we should definitely serve and help defend our country against those who wish to attack it.

"There is no easy answer to this."

It's a puzzle, all right.

Mr Memon says the vast majority of Muslim citizens in America are "able to live peaceful lives", even though they have probably suffered some discrimination, if only a hostile look, since the 11 September 2001 attacks.

Raise your hand if no one has given you a hostile look since 2001. I actually get a lot of them, but then, I'm a lawyer.

However, there have been some high profile incidents in recent years that have fuelled tensions.

At a camp in Kuwait, as his unit prepared to move into Iraq in March 2003, Sergeant Hasan Akbar threw hand grenades and opened fire on a tent full of sleeping soldiers in the early hours of the morning.

Yes, that could tend to fuel tensions. Maybe even lead to a hostile look. Meanwhile, we're still waiting for that hypothetical atrocity, as Mark put it, with its hypothetical victims.

What happened at Walter Reed? An article in USA Today suggests that events which have still to become public knowledge led to Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan’s departure from the Walter Reed Army medical center.

At issue, S. Ward Casscells told USA TODAY, “is whether the Army missed a warning signal. It’s a legitimate question.” … Casscells, who retired in April as the Pentagon’s assistant secretary for health affairs, said he had been speaking to many who worked with Hasan at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center near Washington, D.C.

Some at Walter Reed, Casscells said, was that Hasan was sent to Fort Hood for “a fresh start” after a difficult time at Walter Reed.

Hasan received a poor performance evaluation there, the Associated Press reported, quoting an official who spoke on condition of anonymity. While he was an intern, Hasan had some “difficulties” that required counseling and extra supervision, according to Dr. Thomas Grieger, who was the training director at the time. …

“Talking to people who knew him,” Casscells said, “no one thinks that this was (post traumatic stress), and they are skeptical that he was subject to religious harassment.”

“That is not tolerated in the military. The military will look at all this closely and decide if there is any mental or physical illness, whether this is just a lonely guy with a remote personality who got a bad officer evaluation report and lost the confidence of his peers, maybe withdrew into religion as solace. What could we have missed? How could we do better?”

“These are the types of questions that will be rigorously asked.”

If Hasan was in the doghouse, then it would be interesting to ask why a “lonely guy with a remote personality” badly regarded by his evaluators was selected to represent the Uniformed Services University School of Medicine at a Homeland Security series of workshops held between April 2008 and January 2009. (Hasan’s name is on page 32). Those workshops were attended by a wide variety of personalities, including foreign diplomats, think tank analysts and academics. It would have been difficult to imagine why Hasan should be chosen to front for an institution if his views were controversial.

The US News report says “Hasan came to the attention of law enforcement officials six months ago because of Internet postings about suicide bombings and other threats, including posts that equated suicide bombers to soldiers who throw themselves on a grenade to save the lives of their comrades. Investigators had not determined for certain whether Hasan was the author of the posting, and a formal investigation had not been opened before the shooting, law enforcement officials who spoke on condition of anonymity told the Associated Press.” The Army refused to rule out the possibility that Hasan was not acting alone.

What happened at Walter Reed? Did Hasan have an influential patron? If Hasan had exhibited certain disturbing tendencies, and if he was in fact being scrutinized by law enforcement, then what was achieved by moving him to Fort Hood, except putting distance between Hasan and whatever was in Washington DC?  What hypothesis could cover so many disparate facts? Many questions remain unanswered. There’s not enough data yet to conclude anything.

President Obama ordered the flags at the White House and other federal buildings be at half-staff and urged people not to draw conclusions while authorities investigate. “We don’t know all the answers yet. And I would caution against jumping to conclusions until we have all the facts,” Obama said in a statement.

This investigation can go anywhere. There’s a great incentive to make sure that whatever the truth happens to be that those in officialdom who have the most to lose should not be the last to know.

Romney, Huckabee, and Pawlenty must be thrilled. [...] Read the rest »

Yesterday the AP reported that productivity gains may be "bad for workers". More productivity is BAD for workers? Seriously?

What nonsense. Reporters once said automation would kill jobs. Then they say computers would kill jobs. They did take jobs from secretaries. But total employment kept rising.

The AP reporter said "as long as companies can get their workers to produce more, they have little reason to hire."

When workers are more productive, profit margins rise. That gives companies even MORE reason to hire.

This graph shows that from 1950 to 2008 productivity rose 230 percent.

That didn't destroy jobs. During the same period, employment rose. Millions of new jobs were created, as the second graph shows.

From 1993 to to 2002, 309 million jobs were lost. I'd say that was a terrible thing, except during the same period 327 million jobs were created. A net gain of 18 million jobs. That's creative destruction.

The mindset that higher productivity will cost people jobs has led to foolish attacks on progress. In the 1930’s, some states passed laws against supermarkets. They were necessary, said legislators, to protect jobs at small stores. In Minnesota, small stores got laws passed making it illegal to sell goods with less than a 15 percent profit margin. That prevented supermarkets from competing with them on price. The A&P Supermarket chain eventually got those laws struck down as unconstitutional.

It’s a good thing. If government has the right to "protect" jobs, the politicians would ban refrigerators because they took jobs away from the ice man. They would ban lightbulbs because they took jobs from candle makers.

Productivity gains free up money that is invested or just spent. That creates other jobs

Today my producer walked by this Blockbuster Video Store that is going out of business.

Because of "productivity gains" from Netflix and movies on demand, it’s not profitable. It’s very tough on the workers who lose their jobs, but most will move on to employment where their skills will be better used.

That's the creative destruction that productivity gains give us. It makes us all better off.

I picture Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Haight-Ashbury, 100%) writhing and twisting in frustration; with all those Democrats, surely she can scrape together 218 to vote for SqueakerCare!

Surely not, at least not yet:

House Democrats acknowledged they don't yet have the votes to pass a sweeping overhaul of the nation's health care system, and signaled they may push back the vote until Sunday or early next week.

Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., told reporters in a conference call Friday that the make-or-break vote on President Barack Obama's push to make health coverage part of the social safety net could face delay. Democrats were originally hoping to pass the bill on Saturday_and officially, that's still the plan....

Hoyer acknowledged that Democrats are still short of the 218 votes they need to pass the bill. "There are many people who are still trying to get a comfort level that this is the right thing to do," he said. "We're very close."

So what's the hold up? Yep, the same old overreaching -- our secret weapon against the Left! Evidently, Democrats still can't agree on coverage for abortions and of illegal immigrants:

But Democrats have yet to resolve a intraparty disputes over abortion funding and illegal immigrants' access to medical coverage. They cleared one hurdle Friday when liberals supporting a government-run Medicare-for-all system withdrew their demand for a floor vote.

Translation: some Democrats demand SqueakerCare pay for abortions -- and demand it cover illegal aliens. If there was no power faction insisting on such coverage, it would be easy to insert language banning it.

Here's a point that hasn't gotten enough coverage, I think: La Casa Blanca has endorsed the House version of the bill; which means that President Barack H. Obama has formally renounced his earlier pledge to keep the cost below $900 billion over ten years. Even by the Congressional Budget Office's reckoning, SqueakerCare would cost $1.2 trillion; and the CBO is obliged to accept all the economic premises of Congress, however ludicrous they may be... for example, that Congress will be able to loot half a trillion dollars from Medicare, that they'll be able to raise vast taxes in an election year, that those taxes won't cause a recession, and so forth.

Evidently, each and every solemn oath that eructates from the Obamacle's mouth is what Mary Poppins would call a "pie-crust promise: easily made and easily broken."

Anent the abortion and illegal immigrant controversies, Democrats have run straight into the fundamental buzzsaw of nationalizing health care: There are many things that a private company can do but the government cannot. So what happens under liberal fascism, where the federal government takes control of the private sector? Here is the dilemma in a nuthouse:

1. A private insurance company in a Capitalist system can offer coverage for abortions if it chooses; a great many do so.
2. A private company can choose not to demand proof of legal residency before insuring a subscriber; many insurance companies follow this route.
3. But when the federal government operates its own insurance plan -- and especially when it rigs the game to force more and more people into that government plan -- then there are only two options for those particularly controversial issues:
   1. The government plan can cover them; in which case you have the federal government funding abortion and paying for coverage of illegal aliens;
   2. Or the government plan can refuse to cover them; in which case, hundreds of thousands of women forced into the government plan can no longer get their insurance to pay for their abortions; and millions of illegal aliens will lose the insurance they currently pay for and rely upon.

Thus in the House and Senate, either you have moderate Democrats up in arms about federally funded abortions and a free health-care ride for illegals -- in which case the bill goes up in smoke, because there are too many Blue Dogs to ignore; or else fewer women get abortions and fewer illegals get medical insurance -- and the ultra-liberal mainstream of the Democratic Party jumps ship, leaving the bill in even worse trouble.

The only solution would be to bribe three or four Blue Dogs to go ahead and vote for the bill, knowing they will likely lose their seats in 2010. For example, the One can offer lucrative positions in the administration to any Democrat who loses reelection next year; or the Democratic leadership can offer specific Blue Dogs powerful committee chairmanships if they betray their constituents -- plus a ton of campaign cash in 2010, in both the primary and the general elections.

I assume that's what is going on; and Squeaker Pelosi's insistance that she will have the votes represents her certainty that at least that many moderate Democrats are eager to be bribed.

But the fact that she does not yet have the votes indicates either that they're holding out for a super-duper bribe... or else that Pelosi's fundamental axiom -- that all Democrats are enthusiastic participants in the Democratic culture of corruption -- is a misapprehension based upon projecting her own ethos onto other people.

The next few days will tell us which. Since we're talking about Democrats, I suspect the Squeaker's scheme will ultimately bear fruit; she'll find three or four Blue Dogs corrupt enough to accept money and power in exchange for selling their constituents down the river. But I'm always open to persuasion by hard data.

Cross-posted on Hot Air's rogues' gallery...

In a different age, SNL would have covered this ground weeks or months ago; as it is, they can’t even field a decent impression of the president anymore. [...] Read the rest »

You know what? [...] Read the rest »

Dan Anderson sent this from the “Kill the Bill” rally yesterday at the US Capital.

With the democrats on the verge of taking over one-sixth of the US economy Republicans in Congress are calling for another rally tomorrow–

Second “House Call” Event Planned For Tomorrow

What: Second Health Care “House Call” on Washington
Who: Republican Members of Congress
Americans concerned about our health care future
Other Guests – TBA
When: Saturday, November 7, 2009 at 1:00 p.m. EST
Where: U.S. Capitol

Morning Meeting host Dylan Ratigan on Friday appeared uncomfortable discussing the faith of the Muslim shooter who killed 12 people in Texas. In a tease for a segment on the subject, he noted that Major Nidal Hasan is being "described as a devout Muslim, mortified at being deployed to Iraq. Did that drive him to allegedly commit murder?" Ratigan quickly added, "And who cares what his religion was?"

Talking to Corey Saylor of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Ratigan offered a tortured, run-on question about the importance of Hasan’s Muslim faith: "Corey, it's very easy, considering, sort of, the history of the relations between our country and some nations- and some individual, really, of a Muslim faith. There's a very quick response or higher levels of anxiety for no reason other than because of the lesser familiarity."

Meandering his way to the end of this politically correct query, Ratigan concluded, "Is it appropriate to be looking at the- any sort of religious signals in a situation like this when you're clearly dealing with an American soldier, born in America, who enlisted again right out of high school?"

Speaking to FBI profiler Clint Van Zandt, Ratigan wondered what pressures Hasan may have been under:

RATIGAN: Yep. Clint Van Zandt, it's very easy to people to play pop psychiatrist or pop psychologist in a situation like this. Again, fear of war, abstractly, fear of going into combat abstractly would make anybody anxious, let alone working for as long as this man did as an Army psychiatrist, counseling men who lived and continued to live through war. Can you give us any indications, any commonalities of what happens when you're expose to do trauma like that repeatedly?

A transcript of the two exchanges, which occurred at 10:07am EST on November 6, follow:

9:59am

DYLAN RATIGAN: Still ahead here on the Morning Meeting, inside the mind of the alleged Fort Hood shooter, described as a devout Muslim, mortified at being deployed to Iraq. Did that drive him to allegedly commit murder? And who cares what his religion was?

10:07am

RATIGAN: Corey, it's very easy, considering, sort of, the history of the relations between our country and some nations- and some individual, really, of a Muslim faith. There's a very quick response or higher levels of anxiety for no reason other than because of the lesser familiarity. Is it appropriate to be looking at the- any sort of religious signals in a situation like this when you're clearly dealing with an American soldier, born in America, who enlisted again right out of high school?

COREY SAYLOR (Council on American-Islamic Relations): I think that it's really important that we, first of all, express our condolences to the victims of this tragedy and, which, those who are injured that they get better quickly. Right now, investigators need to do their jobs and look at everything. And the importance is we sew patience and sobriety in waiting for that investigation and let's hear what their conclusions are.

RATIGAN: Yep. Clint Van Zandt, it's very easy to people to play pop psychiatrist or pop psychologist in a situation like this. Again, fear of war, abstractly, fear of going into combat abstractly would make anybody anxious, let alone working for as long as this man did as an Army psychiatrist, counseling men who lived and continued to live through war. Can you give us any indications, any commonalities of what happens when you're expose to do trauma like that repeatedly?

CLINT VAN ZANDT (Former FBI profiler):Well, number one, there's going to be hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of men and women who have gone through this all the time. Dr. Hasan was not being sent in as a ground troop. He was being sent in to help care for those psychologically injured during the course of war, just like he had treated them in the states. Dylan, this was a contract that he had with the U.S. government. You and I and all of the taxpayers agree to pay his way through medical school with the understanding that he would stay in the military and that he would perform his duty, whatever the military said that was. So here, it appears we have a man who may have been in conflict between his duty to his country and his duty to his religion. And he, apparently, sided with one as opposed to the other and made the decision he was not going to go to Iraq. He was not going to be part of any action that saw the lives of Muslims taken in a combat situation and he was going to violate the terms of the agreement he had with this government.

Shooting Raises Fears For Muslims In US Army

Really? Right now the body count stands at:

Non-Muslims 13
Muslims 0

I was reading from some of this kind of coverage on the Rush Limbaugh show today. Even if you are concerned that it would be terribly unfair if all Muslims were to be tarred by Major Hasan's brush, it is, to put it at its mildest, the grossest bad taste to default every single time within minutes to the position that what's of most interest about an actual atrocity with real victims is that it may provoke an entirely hypothetical atrocity with entirely hypothetical victims. I refer you yet again to this note-perfect parody:

British Muslims Fear Repercussions Over Tomorrow's Train Bombing

This kind of media coverage is really a form of mental illness far more advanced than whatever Major Hasan's lawyers eventually enter in mitigation, and apparently pandemic, at least among the Western media.

On a related note, from David Horowitz: "Is everybody out of their mind?"

Bonus: "We're the ones who love death -- our own." 

Appearing on the Dr. Nancy program on MSNBC Friday, NBC News terrorism analyst Roger Cressy warned against labeling the mass shooting at Ft. Hood as terrorism, despite the apparent radical views of the shooter: “We’ve heard some family references that he was being criticized for his Muslim faith, that’s all we know right now....It’s still premature to draw the terrorism conclusion.”

Prior to Cressy’s assessment, host Dr. Nancy Snyderman spoke with Dr. Stevan Hobfoll, director of the Traumatic Stress Center at Rush University Medical Center and asked about the mental health of the attacker, Major Nidal Hasan. Hobfoll made no hesitation describing the shooting as a terrorist act: “Strangely enough, terrorism is not in itself an area – an act of mental illness. I think this was a Jihadist act, it’s certainly psychologically abnormal what he did, but that doesn’t mean that he had any psychological disorder, per se.”

Snyderman then turned to Cressy, citing his unwillingness to use the terrorism label: “Roger, I have heard you express caution that we not say this is terrorism, but that there was, obviously, despaired anger.” She went on to compare Hasan to Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh: “I’m thinking of Timothy McVeigh, an American born on this soil, filled with despair, full of anger, but nonetheless, we labeled him a terrorist pretty darn early.”

Cressy argued that the two situations were not analogous: “Well Nancy, we did, because his was a political act. I mean the – the traditional definition of terrorism is premeditated violence for political purposes against noncombatants. And what McVeigh did in Oklahoma City was, he was trying to send a political message with attacking the Murrah building. What we don’t know yet with Major Hasan is whether or not he was trying to do the same.”

Another NBC analyst, former FBI profiler Clint Van Zandt, was more willing to acknowledge the terrorism aspect of the attack: “I appreciate that we haven’t yet identified these internet postings to him....one posting that said if a suicide bomber can kill 100 enemy soldiers because they were caught off guard, that would be considered a significant victory. Should these postings ultimately be attributed to him, that sounds like some ongoing planning that he actually acted out yesterday.”

Here is a full transcript of the discussion:

12:03PM

NANCY SNYDERMAN: Well, today Major Nidal Hasan’s family is expressing grief over the shootings, just releasing this statement, quote, ‘We are shocked and saddened by the terrible events at Ft. Hood. We send the families of the victims our most heartfelt sympathies. We are filled with grief for the families of today’s victims. Our family loves America. We are proud of our country, and saddened by today’s tragedy.’

Investigators have learned that Major Hasan cleaned out his apartment days ago, telling a neighbor that he was being deployed today. And that has certainly raised questions about the attack. Let’s bring in our team of experts. Dr. Stevan Hobfoll, he is the director of the Traumatic Stress Center at Rush University Medical Center. Retired Army Colonel and military analyst Jack Jacobs will be with us. NBC terrorism analyst Roger Cressy and NBC analyst Clint Van Zandt, he’s a former FBI profiler and author of ‘Facing Down Evil.’

I think I want to sort of start with the basics, and Stevan, I’m going to start with you. Physicians in the military are, in many ways, sort of the top rung. And as a major, certainly an officer. Who guards, who profiles, who makes sure that the physicians taking care of people are, themselves, mentally healthy?

STEVAN HOBFOLL: Well, they are guarded and they are checked for mental health and it’s a part of the process. But strangely enough, terrorism is not in itself an area – an act of mental illness. I think this was a Jihadist act, it’s certainly psychologically abnormal what he did, but that doesn’t mean that he had any psychological disorder, per se. And that’s always a difficulty that we have that we think there must be a psychological disorder involved with doing something that is – the act is so abnormal.

SNYDERMAN: Roger, I have heard you express caution that we not say this is terrorism, but that there was, obviously, despaired anger. But then let me ask you about what the obvious is when we talk about domestic terrorism. And I’m thinking of Timothy McVeigh, an American born on this soil, filled with despair, full of anger, but nonetheless, we labeled him a terrorist pretty darn early.

ROGER CRESSY: Well Nancy, we did, because his was a political act. I mean the – the traditional definition of terrorism is premeditated violence for political purposes against noncombatants. And what McVeigh did in Oklahoma City was, he was trying to send a political message with attacking the Murrah building. What we don’t know yet with Major Hasan is whether or not he was trying to do the same.

We’re hearing contradictory and uncorroborated reports about potential postings on the internet. We’ve heard some family references that he was being criticized for his Muslim faith, that’s all we know right now. So until the investigators can determine through their analysis of his cell phone calls, his computers, some of his other things, the data, they’ll determine whether or not there was something that politically motivated him to commit mass murder. It’s still premature to draw the terrorism conclusion.

SNYDERMAN: Clint, as we look at someone who was motivated enough to plan this out, he had to have some forethought to walk in, armed, knowing that there was a mission that he individually wanted to accomplish. And, you know, as a doctor, I know dumb doctors, but you have to have some smarts to get through medical school and through residency. Does he fit a different kind of profile?

CLINT VAN ZANDT: Well, when we look at suicidal ideation, many times we’ll see someone who will give away their belongings before they commit some type of terrible act. In this case, what you just pointed Dr. Nancy, about him giving away furniture and personal belongings at least two full weeks before he was going to deploy, suggests there may have been some ongoing – ongoing planning.

Relatives have said, you know, he really didn’t like to be around weapons and firearms and yet this is someone who appears to have had two personal handguns, a semiautomatic and some other weapon, that he was able to use and with the number of people that he shot, he had to reload two, three times perhaps. That takes a little bit of planning, too. It takes a little bit of practice, Dr. Nancy, to understand how to use a weapon in that regard.

And, although I appreciate that we haven’t yet identified these internet postings to him, we only know that there’s somebody who uses his name, there is one, should this be him, there was one posting that said if a suicide bomber can kill 100 enemy soldiers because they were caught off guard, that would be considered a significant victory. Should these postings ultimately be attributed to him, that sounds like some ongoing planning that he actually acted out yesterday.

Of course, this surprises no one.
Weakling Hollywood Director Roland Emmerich of the disaster movie “2012″ will show Catholic landmarks destroyed but will spare Muslim holy sites.

Emmerich says he doesn’t want a fatwa placed on his head.

Catholic Exchange reported, via Free Republic:

Catholic League president Bill Donohue speaks to the way Catholics and Muslims are treated in the upcoming film, “2012”:

When we got word recently that the movie “2012” depicts the Vatican being blown up, along with the famous statue from Rio, Christ the Redeemer, we were unmoved. Why? Because this occurs during the end of the world in a massive destruction. This kind of sensationalism, we reasoned, is standard fare for director Roland Emmerich: he is the guru of the “blow ‘em up” genre of movies. But now we’ve learned that while Catholics get theirs, Muslims are spared. Out of fear, of course.

Emmerich is more than a coward—he is a liar who has it out for Catholics. Last year, he was quoted saying, “I would like to erase all nations and religions.” Not true. He is quite content to live with Islam, even though he readily admits it is a religion of terror. When asked why he did not show the destruction of Kaaba, the religious structure in the Grand Mosque in Mecca, he said, “I wanted to do that, I have to admit. You can actually let Christian symbols fall apart, but if you would do this with [an] Arab symbol, you would have…a fatwa.”

So why was the Sistine Chapel designated for destruction? “We have to show how this gets destroyed….I am against organized religion.” Emmerich lies again. He is not against Islam.

This one’s a day old but still fresh. [...] Read the rest »

(Flickr)
“Truth Czar” Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) held a blogger conference call today to discuss the elections and the planned democratic takeover of the health care industry. During the call I had the opportunity to ask the good Congressman what he thought of Alan Grayson’s outlandish, sexist and offensive remarks about Republicans and women.

Question: Congressman, this is Jim Hoft in St. Louis, Missouri, Gateway Pundit Blog. I had a quick question for you. I’m wondering if you have any comments on the recent remarks by Congressman Alan Grayson?

Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) : Well I really don’t. I think Congressman Grayson truly speaks for himself and people will monitor and listen to what he says. I think it speaks for itself. I believe many of his comments are truly outrageous, insulting, and unlike the particular comment I made, my own son said to me, “Dad, I know what you did it was your town hall moment.” On the other hand, the outrageous statements, the inappropriate statements actually are storyboards. And, so they were actually thought out. And, so I would say there is a difference between a town hall moment and premeditated is that. It’s premeditated.

Here’s the audio from the conference call with Rep. Joe Wilson.
The call starts at the 6 minute mark. The question about buffoon Grayson is at around 10 minutes.

To counter such notions, Raymond Ibrahim's article, "Are Judaism and Christianity as Violent as Islam?," is certainly worth a weekend read.

A tip o’ the hat to CNN for gamely trying to spin one of the most gruesome polls for ObamaCare that we’ve seen this year — so far. [...] Read the rest »

Our friend and worthy co-conspirator responds to my response to his original article in Mondo Cult about the Roman Polanski case:

I cannot resist seizing the opportunity to respond to his response to my response. Brad's point is as always well taken; the law is a trollop who will sleep with anyone. But that doesn't mean that every dalliance with "the Man" is necessarily illicit.

I can boil down my fundamental axiom on individualism, and perhaps my core disagreement with Brad, to the following:

Humans have not yet evolved to the point where individualism is the default social order. I believe someday it will be, when technology has sufficiently evolved. But for all of human history, the reflexive response of groups of humans trying to survive in a frequently hostile natural and social environment has been collectivism -- collectivism that runs the gamut from the most repressive and brutal kind to a somewhat kinder and gentler oppression.

Globally, it's nowhere near as bad now as it was even just seventy years ago, still during the Dark Age of Socialism. The urge to merge has its ups and downs, but it's mostly been dropping since the original Dark Ages, following the collapse of the Roman Empire (one of the greatest disasters of humanity, from an individualist perspective).

I don't see individualism as yet able to stand and fight; so I want, perhaps peversely, collectives to fight to defend, succor, and raise it. I note we took a great leap forward on that project in the 1770s and 1780s; so you see it can be done.

But the quickest way to discredit individualism is to encourage, or even allow, people to believe that individualism is just a code word for plutocracy. Plutocracy is where "the rich" (however defined) have their own private set of laws, whose purpose is to keep themselves on top and the rest of us in chains.

That belief, true or false, traditionally leads to Jacobism in response -- in 1789, of course, but also in 1917, 1949, 1979, and we even saw a little of that in 2008 -- where possibly mindless fury at an unaccountable and static plutocracy, "rage against the machine," leads directly to a "people's revolution" that is, of course, infinitely worse.

This I believe: Individualism can only flourish when people generally believe that all are equal under the law, prince and pauper alike. Contrariwise, when it starts appearing that the rich and powerful can get away with everything, perhaps paying a small fine they barely even notice, we're tugged towards collectivism.

That is why I believe it was good that O.J. was convicted of the armed robbery; that is why I think it will be good if Polanski has to serve some time.

Deadline Hollywood shocked the entertainment world Thursday when it predicted Oprah Winfrey would soon give up her syndicated television program to move it to her OWN cable network.

On Friday, the website TVNewser wondered if this might open the door for Fox News sensation Glenn Beck to move into such a syndicated arrangement.

This was on the heals of the New York Times lavishing praise on Beck for being the new Oprah when it comes to helping the sales of fiction writers. 

Newser's Chris Ariens wrote: 

With the news that Oprah Winfrey may take her daily talk show away from broadcast affiliates and to her own OWN cable network, that got us wondering: should Glenn Beck, now the #2 show on cable despite airing in he afternoons, be Oprah's syndicated replacement?

Beck is well-rounded. Between his #1 best-selling books and comedy shows he's a three-dimensional talent that could easily adapt to daytimes. He could also use his radio audience to promote to local affiliates. [...]

Beck is locked in to a multi-year deal with Fox News which would probably keep him from jumping anytime soon. His show premiered in January, and quickly shot past all competitors and even programs on his own channel, which air later in the evening to larger available audiences.

Amazing. Just months ago, Beck was the target of an organized smear campaign by detractors who sought to eliminate all of his sponsors, and now he's rumored to be the next Oprah Winfrey.

The folks in the leftosphere as well as the shills that sit around all day listening to every syllable Beck utters praying for a salacious tidbit that might bring him down must be hating all the accolades he's suddenly getting.

Isn't it marvelous?

He was screaming “Allahu Akbar” as he shot her dead.
She had just finished a tour in Iraq.

Francheska Velez, 21, of Humboldt Park was three months pregnant when she was killed in the Fort Hood shootings, relatives said. (Sun Times)

One of the dead soldiers in Thursday’s slaughter was pregnant soldier Francheska Velez.
The New York Daily News reported:

A fresh tragedy added to the horror of the Fort Hood massacre Friday when it was revealed that one of the victims was a pregnant soldier.

Francheska Velez, who returned to the U.S. just three days earlier from a foreign posting, was filling out paperwork when a gunman hollered “Allahu Akbar!” and embarked on a bloody rampage that left her and a dozen others dead.

A 21-year-old Chicagoan, Velez was six-weeks pregnant when she was cut down on Thursday, FOX Chicago News reported.

Velez was a sitting duck when the accused gunman, Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, yelled “God is great” in Arabic and opened fire with the two guns he’d smuggled into an intake center, Col. John Rossi said at a post-massacre briefing.

Well who would have guessed this?
Nidal Hassan sat on Obama’s national security panel last year.
Gawker dug up this document:

More… Power and Control has more details on Hasan’s radical imam.
Thanks Andrew!

UPDATE: Glenn Reynolds thinks that saying Hasan sat on the Obama security panel is a bit of a stretch.

Texas police officer is hailed a hero today for shooting Fort Hood killer Nidan Hasan 4 times during his killing rampage.
ABC reported:

The Times Online reported:

A police officer who intervened to stop a shooting spree at America’s biggest military base was hailed today a heroine as she received treatment for the wounds received in a shoot-out with the gunman.

Major Nidal Hasan, an army psychiatrist due to be posted to Afghanistan, shot dead 13 people and wounded 30 others after opening fire with two handguns at Fort Hood yesterday afternoon.

But the death toll from the rampage could have been far worse had it not been for the actions of Sergeant Kimberly Munley, a civilian police officer stationed at the base who was the first on the scene as Major Hasan picked off his victims.

Sergeant Munley managed to hit Major Hasan four times but was herself hit by a bullet that passed through both her legs, according to witnesses.

Am traveling. [...] Read the rest »

A Newsweek.com article on Tuesday celebrated historic speeches by U.S. Presidents at the Berlin Wall, somehow ignoring the fact that Barack Obama has decided not to go to Germany to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the collapse of communism. At the same time, the piece, by Anita Kirpalani, pretended that President Obama has made such a trip.

The article, entitled, "Ich Bin Ein Speechmaker: Historic speeches by visiting American presidents have left an outsize footprint on Berlin," listed visits by John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Obama’s entry insisted, "President: Barack Obama- Date: July 24, 2008." This was prior to his election and was only in the city of Berlin, not at the wall. The article notes these facts. So, why list him as President when he wasn't? The rest of the piece is vague on this point.

Kirpalani began, "Five American presidents delivered addresses at the Berlin Wall and, 20 years after its fall, the city is still considered a prime venue for American presidents to deliver important speeches." No mention is made of the President’s decision to snub German President Angela Merkel and not attend the upcoming 20th anniversary ceremonies.

Further, Kirpalani asserted, "...[Obama’s] plea for the fall of all walls echoed every earlier presidential speech, and the crowd of 200,000 was more than four times the number that attended Reagan's 1987 speech."

However, in a November 3 column, National Review editor Rich Lowry pointed out:

Obama famously made a speech in Berlin during last year's campaign, but at an event devoted to celebrating himself as the apotheosis of world hopefulness. He said of 1989, "a wall came down, a continent came together, and history proved that there is no challenge too great for a world that stands as one."

The line was typical Obama verbal soufflé, soaring but vulnerable to collapse upon the slightest jostling from logic or historical fact. The wall came down only after the free world resolutely stood against the Communist bloc. Rather than a warm-and-fuzzy exercise in global understanding, the Cold War was another iteration of the 20th century's long war between totalitarianism and Western liberalism. The West prevailed on the back of American strength.

Newsweek.com's full entry on Obama's visit:

President: Barack Obama
Date: July 24, 2008 
Obama hadn't even been elected when he went to Berlin during his 2008 campaign. For that reason, the Germans did not allow him to speak at the Brandenburg Gate—they reserve it for presidential speeches. But his plea for the fall of all walls echoed every earlier presidential speech, and the crowd of 200,000 was more than four times the number that attended Reagan's 1987 speech. 

In a 20th anniversary piece on the fall of the Berlin Wall, the very least Newsweek could do is acknowledge the bewildering decision by Obama to turn down an invitation to Germany.

Read this post »

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Word choice can be a subtle but effective way in which the media colorfully editorialize on the news, skewing the perceptions of readers in one direction or another. Take Washington Post's Philip Rucker, who did masterful job in skewing his 19-paragaph-long page A4 story "Activists bring 'tea party' to Capitol Hill" in favor of ObamaCare proponents while smearing conservatives in a negative light.

Rucker's labeling bias was a thread woven through the entire piece, starting with the lead paragraph (emphasis mine):

With the stage set for a historic House vote on health-care reform this weekend, an estimated 10,000 conservative activists descended on Capitol Hill on Thursday for a campaign-style rally in a last-ditch effort to defeat a bill they demonized as "Pelosi-Care."

In other words, Rucker tells readers, the Democrats, poised to make history, are threatened by a "last-ditch" effort by conservatives driven to defeat a bill they've unfairly maligned.

But the  starkest contrast was how Rucker described how "hundreds of activists stormed congressional offices in an attempt to turn wavering Democrats against the [Democratic health care] bill" yet found "nine pro-reform activists" who "had staged a sit-in the seventh-floor office of Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman."

The tea partiers "unleashed their ire on Speaker Nancy Pelosi," while the Lieberman protesters simply came "demanding that he return campaign contributions from health insurers."

The message is clear: the Lieberman protesters, who were arrested with unlawful entry of the Connecticut independent's office, were civilly disobedient, while the tea partiers -- no arrests within their ranks reported -- were a seething mob.

If Democrats want to push through a massive government intervention in the health-care industry, they have to make the case that the government can do the job more competently than the private sector. [...] Read the rest »

As reports of the Fort Hood shooting began to pour in yesterday, numerous news outlets neglected to mention that the shooter is a Muslim. Either the potential import of this fact was completely lost on these journalists, or they omitted the shooter's Muslim affiliations out of a concern for political correctness.

CBS and NBC both omitted the shooter's faith in their East Coast feeds last night, as reported by Brent Baker. The Los Angeles Times left key facts out of its report, published at 9:46 EST (which has since been edited), even though other other media outlets had reported them. Among these was that shooter Nidal Malik Hasan was Muslim, and that he had previously expressed on an Internet forum affinity for suicide bombers.

The Associated Press reported at 8:15 EST that Hasan had "come to the attention" of Army officials at least six months ago for these Internet posts.

The Times also noted the high number of suicides at Fort Hood this year, suggesting--though not stating outright--that the shooter could have been under tremendous mental strain.

Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, the Army’s deputy chief of staff, has been leading an effort to reduce the number of Army suicides, which has climbed sharply this year, possibly as a result from long and repeated deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Three of the four brigades of the 1st Calvary Division are in Iraq. The three brigades — the first, second and third — are on their third Iraq tour. The division’s newest brigade, the fourth, has done two tours in Iraq, returning most recently in June.

Ft. Hood also is home to three of the brigades of the 4th Infantry Division. The fourth brigade is now in Afghanistan. The first brigade has done three tours in Iraq, returning most recently in March. The second brigade has also done three tours, returning most recently in September.

The Times did not mention, however, that Hasan was about to go on his first tour, a fact disclosed by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson at roughly 6 PM EST. Hasan was reportedly very upset about his upcoming deployment, but the Times gives the impression that the mental strain endured by servicemen overseas for extended tours could be a possible motive, failing to note that Hasan had not been deployed.

As Patterico reported last night, "the L.A. Times story on the shooting has no mention of the shooter’s religion, his alleged rants against U.S. involvement in Iraq, his alleged approval of suicide bombings, or the allegations that he was shouting something in Arabic as he shot." These are all vital facts to the investigation, as they may indicate motive in Hasan's slaughter of 13 at the base.

With the exception of the shooter's Muslim faith and his "alleged approval of suicide bombings," these facts were not widely reported on until today. But as of 1:10 PM EST the Times still does not mention the many new--and disturbing--facts that have come to light.

According to military personnel present during the shooting, he shouted "Allahu Akbar"--Arabic for "God is great"--before opening fire.

The Times also leaves out reports from a retired Ft. Hood colonel who claims he heard Hasan say he was "almost sort of happy" about the shooting of an Army recruiter in Little Rock, Ark (see Patterico post).

NPR reported today that Hasan gave a lecture on the proper Muslim ritual for the beheading of an infidel. "It seemed to be his own beliefs. That’s what a lot of people thought," one attendee stated, adding, "people actually talked in the hallway afterwards about 'is he one of these people that’s going to freak out and shoot people someday?' "

While none of these facts are proverbial smoking guns in the country's efforts to discover the motives for the shooting, they all indicate a strong resentment of the military, and an affinity for anti-American violence. They are at least worthy of a mention in reporting the story.

Perhaps the Times will notice these new--and revealing--facts as they come to light and continue to update their story accordingly. Readers only ask that they own up to their politically correct instincts and admit when they left out facts critical to understanding the incident.

Facts have steadily streamed in, and there was an air of confusion shortly after the shooting. But the Times shied away from covering some of the more damning details of the shooter's life, even when those facts were reported by other sources. It seems that the Times joined the ranks of CBS and NBC in choosing the politically correct avenue rather than reporting the inconvenient facts that could give readers insight into the shooter's motives.

Bernhard commented during a Nov. 5 segment on CNN's "Joy Behar Show" that focused on the upcoming threesome episode of CW's "Gossip Girl."

Behar asked Bernhard and her fellow panelists, actresses Aisha Tyler and Fran Drescher, what they thought about the Parents Television Council call for CW affiliates to pull the episode which reportedly contains a threesome scene.

"I don't think any kid is going to watch something about sex and then run out immediately and do it. I mean they may be titillated by it, they may find it, oh this is ooh," claimed Bernhard.

Tyler admitted to being a fan of the show and was even more dismissive of PTC's concerns. 

"Let me just break a piece of news to everybody here. If you don't know, teenagers have sex. I don't know if anybody - like, they do it, and you know, first of all, we are not encouraging them to do it, but they do," Tyler told Behar and her co-panelists. "And if you hide it and you ignore it and you fake it and act like your kid is not doing it you are doing them and yourself a disservice because kids have sex."

But what Tyler and Bernhard ignored is that depictions like the "Gossip Girl" threesome feed the perception that "everyone is doing it" and create expectations of teen sexual behavior.

"Perhaps the greatest problem is that what's presented on the screen offers a skewed version of reality to many young people you lack the life experience to understand just how preposterous some the content is," wrote Carol Platt Liebau about sexual content on television in her book "Prude."

Very few sexual escapades featured on television show the physical and emotional consequences of early sexual behavior, a point Fran Drescher was the only one to make on Behar's show.

"In the episode is there a downside to these kids - is there some kind of a lesson?" the actress asked.

Nobody could answer Drescher's question, but given the glamorized view of teen sex the show has previously depicted, chances are this episode will show the "titillating" behavior and little of the damage left in its wake.

President Obama took another pass at commenting on the Fort Hood massacre in the Rose Garden this morning:

This morning I met with FBI Director Mueller and the relevant agencies to discuss their ongoing investigation into what caused one individual to turn his gun on fellow servicemen and women. We don't know all of the answers yet, and I would caution against jumping to conclusions until we have all of the facts.

"Don't jump to conclusions" is an all-purpose tautology, like "Don't panic." It's hard to argue with. One wonders, though, exactly what conclusions he has in mind. I think it's safe to predict that President Obama will never reach those conclusions, let alone jump to them.

The most informative and straightforward account of the massacre I've seen is in London's Sun newspaper. It pays tribute to policewoman Kimberly Munley, who was on a routine traffic patrol and became the first officer on the site. (There were lots of soldiers there, of course, but they were all unarmed because it was a "gun-free zone"--sort of a microcosm of the adage that when guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.) It would have been easy for her to conclude that this incident was way beyond her pay grade and wait for reinforcements, but instead Sgt. Munley sought out the murderer, confronted him and shot him four times while being wounded herself. The Sun quotes Base Commander Lt. Gen. Bob Cone:

Often you circle the building and wait for back-up. But the thinking is if you act aggressively and take-out the shooter you have less fatalities.

Presumably that doesn't constitute jumping to conclusions.

PAUL adds: Suddenly, President Obama doesn't want to jump to conclusions. He had no such compunction about jumping to conclusions when his friend Professor Gates harangued a police officer.

I think we can jump to a few in this case. The shooter hated the United States and its armed forces. The shooter's grievances were political and religious in nature. In addition, the shooter may have had grievances specific to things that were said and done to him. Any such grievances cannot remotely explain or justify his resort to violence, much less mass killing. The killings are best viewed as an act of terrorism grounded in radical Islam.

A FEW MORE CONCLUSIONS (jumped to by Paul): The shooter should be executed. If the shooter is not executed, this country is in more trouble than I thought. There should be an investigation into how the shooter remained in the Army, given his increasingly obvious anti-American radicalism.

The rule against soldiers carrying weapons on military bases should be revisited. The rule against soldiers having their weapons "locked and loaded" on bases in combat areas (yes, a friend who served in Iraq tells me there was such a rule on his base) should be revoked.

So, at the Investigative Project on Terrorism, Steve Emerson marshals some of the answers that have come in about Nidal Malik Hasan: "Born in Virginia, sent to medical school by the U.S. Army, the psychiatrist was chastised for proselytizing to his patients about Islam. Asked his nationality, he didn't identify himself as an American but as a Palestinian. He appeared pleased by the shooting death of a Little Rock Army recruiter in June and reportedly was heard saying, 'maybe people should strap bombs on themselves and go to Times Square.' In the fateful moment before he opened fire on his unarmed victims, he shouted Allahu Akhbar!'"

President Obama has had no problems jumping to conclusions about everything from the stimulus (it was going to keep unemployment below 8 percent) to Honduras (the administration pronounced it a lawless coup when, as the answers came in, it was shown to be the opposite of that). In fact, based on what it acknowledged was no "specific information," his Homeland Security Department concluded that the country was about to experience a surge of violence from "rightwing extremists." I don't know what further answers the president is going to need here, but it seems some pretty obvious conclusions are in order.

By the way, as Steve points out, CAIR has also weighed in. They say . . . we don't know all the answers yet and we shouldn't jump to conclusions.

Barack Obama gave his second statement on the Fort Hood massacre, and this one went better than his first. [...] Read the rest »

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President Obama lobbied for government stimulus almost as soon as he took office. In order to gain passage of that $787 billion spending spree, Obama warned of economic "catastrophe" including double-digit unemployment.

Roughly 9 months later, we now have proof that those billions of taxpayer dollars spent didn't stop the unemployment rate from soaring to 10.2 percent. Still, that failure didn't prevent one CNN anchor from asking if a second stimulus might be needed.

CNN business correspondent Christine Romans announced the latest jobs numbers on Nov. 6 during "American Morning. She said, "The unemployment rate is 10.2 percent. It is worse than economists had been expecting - 10.2 percent - we have hit double-digits on the unemployment rate now and this is the highest since the early 1980s. The number of jobs lost: 190,000 jobs lost in the month. That is a little worse than we had thought."

Following Romans' report, CNN anchors John Roberts and Kiran Chetry consulted author William Cohan, a contributor to The DailyBeast.com and Bloomberg, and Diane Brady, senior editor of BusinessWeek magazine. Both guests were concerned about the rising rate of unemployment and Cohan said he didn't see "anything optimistic about these numbers."

Obama administration officials said that with a stimulus package unemployment wouldn't rise above 8 percent, but neither anchor pointed out that failure of the massive spending package.

Instead Roberts asked, "So I guess Bill, the question many people are asking this morning is ‘Wow. How long do we have to live in fear? How long until things really start to turn around? And what about this idea of a second stimulus, purely to create jobs?'"

Cohan replied, "Well I think the administration may have to come to terms with that very shortly. I know there's been a lot of talk about it - the question is can we afford that as a country vs. can we afford not to do it. I mean, we have huge budget deficits. We have a huge $12 trillion that the Fed and the Treasury has pumped into the economy already. Uh, you know this is not an easy problem."

The Associated Press and other outlets have reported that a "second stimulus" is likely on the way, but will be done in "stealth" mode. Time magazine predicted "More stimulus is coming, but it just won't be called stimulus," because public opinion has turned against it.

The last time unemployment was at 10.2 percent was in 1983 under President Ronald Reagan.

The Business & Media Institute recently released a Special Report about network coverage of unemployment in 2009 under Obama and 1982 under Reagan. BMI found reporters desperately looking for silver linings in 2009, but consistently showing the "worst of times" in 1982 with people living out of trucks under bridges or collecting free food at a food bank. Networks reports were 13 times more negative in their treatment of Reagan compared to Obama.

Bravo on mentioning the once-common institution of adoption. I had an out-of-wedlock child back in the late 1960s, and she was placed for adoption through Catholic Charities in Pittsburgh. I stayed at Rosalia Foundling Home and Maternity Hospital, and those nuns were wonderful to us (in those days there were such places, and they did great work). I've always thought it a bit odd that the only choices anyone has recognized in subsequent years are abortion or single-parenthood. Sure, adoption was hard. It tore my heart out for a while. But you know there are lots of things in life that tear your heart out. I can't imagine that trying to raise a child by yourself as a teen-aged single mother doesn't present you with an endless succession of them, and they go on for years.

In regard to the Foundling -- there are still such places, thank goodness.