RSSMix.com Mix ID 6191

If the Soviets had run Pravda like this, we'd all be communists now (Part 2)

Continuing our groundbreaking coverage of the Miss Russia 2010 contest (be sure to see Part 1) comes the costume and evening wear portion of the event. From Russia Today: Contestants of Miss Russia 2010 pageant showed off their charms in...

A Reminder Of Who We Are

And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor. READ THE REST!...

OBAMAVILLES SPREAD: Number of People Living on New York Streets Soars.

Sat, 20 Mar 2010 02:12:46 -0400

OBAMAVILLES SPREAD: Number of People Living on New York Streets Soars.

AP: 'Some' Obama Health Care Bill Promises Not Kept; More Like 'Almost All'

Sat, 20 Mar 2010 01:18:15 -0400

In a Friday piece of presidential protection prose promulgated by the Associated Press, writer Erica Werner correctly identified a number of significant "unfulfilled commitments" relating to proposed health care legislation, and then attempted to make excuses for why they didn't happen.

Werner's work was conveniently accompanied by a heavily downplaying headline -- "Final health bill omits some of Obama's promises" -- while her rundown of the specifics in reality ended up being "all but two":

It was a bold response to skyrocketing health insurance premiums. President Barack Obama would give federal authorities the power to block unreasonable rate hikes.
Yet when Democrats unveiled the final, incarnation of their health care bill this week, the proposal was nowhere to be found.
Ditto with several Republican ideas that Obama had said he wanted to include after a televised bipartisan summit last month, including a plan by Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma to send investigators disguised as patients to hospitals in search of waste, fraud and abuse.
And those "special deals" that Obama railed against and said he wanted to eliminate? With the exception of two of the most notorious - extra Medicaid money for Nebraska and a carve-out for Florida seniors faced with losing certain extra Medicare benefits - they are all still there.
For the White House, these were the latest unfulfilled commitments related to Obama's health care proposal, starting with his campaign promise to let C-SPAN cameras film negotiations over the bill. Obama also backed down with little apparent regret on his support for a new government-run insurance plan as part of the legislation, a liberal priority.
But was it all the president's doing?
In the cases of the insurance rate authority, the Republican ideas and the special deals, it came down to Obama making promises that Congress didn't keep. He can propose whatever he wants, but it's up to Congress to enshrine it into law.
Arguably, the president could have foreseen that outcome, and was making a low-risk p.r. move by floating proposals - dismissed by critics as insubstantial anyway - whose demise he couldn't be blamed for.
While the White House worked hard to trumpet Obama's plans for the rate authority, his embrace of bipartisanship and his opposition to special deals, the administration hardly advertised the lack of follow-through. Understandable, certainly, but perhaps not the new way of doing business that Obama promised to bring to Washington.

Werner also continued the wire service's annoying habit of saving some of the more important news for the very end when she quotes a health policy consultant who says that "Democrats will have three years to tinker with health reform before universal coverage goes live."

Geez, after 2,000-plus pages in heaven knows how many Senate and House iterations, with who knows how many new bureaucracies, taxes, mandates, fines, and penalties, we will have to endure another three years of "tinkering" until we know what we're really going to face in 2014 if the current madness disguised as legislation "passes" this weekend ("passes" is in quotes because the constitutionality of attempt is extremely dubious)?

If so, this will mean that the length of the Wall Street Journal has called "the uncertainty economy" will bear quite a resemblance to how certain not-free countries used to run things -- i.e., five-year plans -- while endless establishment press protection prose continues to proliferate.

Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.

Video: Louis Armstrong Death Metal

Sat, 20 Mar 2010 00:07:38 -0400

An instant YouTube classic — Louis Armstrong sings “What a Wonderful Word,” Slipknot-style.

[Video]

(Hat tip: Tara at Dangerous Minds.)

Boring from within

Paul — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 23:35:21 -0400

The Obama administration has tapped Nawar Shora, legal director of the Arab-American Anti-Defamation Committee (ADC), to serve as a senior adviser for the TSA's office of civil rights and civil liberties.

The ADC is, among other things, virulently anti-Israel. During the 2006 war in Lebanon, it filed a lawsuit claiming that the U.S. government failed to fulfill its obligation to protect US citizens "under attack" in Lebanon. The lawsuit sought to compel U.S. officials to request a cease fire and to stop all U.S. military support to Israel during the evacuation of US citizens from Lebanon.

Fortunately, TSA doesn't make foreign policy and the Obama administration's policy towards Israel can't much worse in any case. But TSA is involved in protecting the U.S. from attack, and the ADC has taken plenty of positions that bear on this matter.

For example, it has been a fierce critic of the Patriot Act since day one. And ADC failed Scott's "Al Arian test" when it claimed that the indictment of Professor Sami Al Arian was "a political witch-hunt, a vendetta, and a kind of very, very ugly post-9/11 McCarthyism." Al Arian eventually pleaded guilty to conspiracy to help the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a specially designated terrorist organization.

The Washington Post, in what I would describe as a celebratory article, is very clear about what Shora's role will be at TSA. It states (under his picture in an article appearing today) that Shora "is used to fighting for the civil rights of Muslims and Arabs, but now he will do so as a federal government official." Shora is equally clear, saying "it is about time I cross over to the government and start working within the system."

But TSA is not a civil rights organization; it is (or should be) an organization dedicated to promoting safety and thwarting terrorism. Shora's appointment is more evidence that TSA is not sufficiently dedicated to that purpose. Shora's mission in life is not promoting safety and thwarting terrorism; it is promoting the interests of Arab-Americans by, for example, making sure they are treated the same way other Americans are.

Unfortunately, the two interests are not always consistent. I would argue that they were not consistent, for example, at Fort Hood when it came to dealing with the Arab-American officer who murdered Americans. Lives were lost because we were overly solicitous of that Arab-Americans civil rights, as conceived by ADC. Lives might well be lost to the extent we similarly are overly solicitous of the civil rights of Arab-American airline passengers.

We will need to keep a close eye on the Obama administration TSA.

NEW YORK TIMES: Fundraiser for Obama and Clinton Admits Fraud:A wealthy businessman who raised

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 23:31:11 -0400

NEW YORK TIMES: Fundraiser for Obama and Clinton Admits Fraud:A wealthy businessman who raised money for leading Democratic Party politicians, including Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, pleaded guilty on Thursday to defrauding three major banks out of $292.2 million in loan transactions, Reuters reported.Hassan Nemazee, 60, who once ran a private equity firm, admitted [...]

DON SURBER: Hey, what George Bush could not accomplish in 8 years, Obama has accomplished in 14 mo

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 23:26:45 -0400

DON SURBER: “Hey, what George Bush could not accomplish in 8 years, Obama has accomplished in 14 months.”

In defense of the Freedom Alliance and Sean Hannity

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 23:20:32 -0400

I had the honor of speaking at one of Oliver North’s Freedom Alliance events in 2002 about immigration and national security. While there, I met Shannon Spann, the widow of American hero Johnny “Mike” Spann — the 32-year-old CIA officer and former Marine Corps artillery specialist who was the first American killed in action during [...]

ITS THE ECONOMY, STUPID: Video: Obama Confronted at Pep Rally By Disgruntled Unemployed Worker.

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 23:16:18 -0400

IT’S THE ECONOMY, STUPID: Video: Obama Confronted at Pep Rally By Disgruntled Unemployed Worker.

A REPORT FROM THE SAN ANTONIO TEA PARTY:I would like to tell you about what happened to a small

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 23:12:39 -0400

A REPORT FROM THE SAN ANTONIO TEA PARTY:I would like to tell you about what happened to a small and orderly group of private citizens when we tried to visit the local office of Rep. Cuellar. We were bringing over 300 letters that were urging the congressman to vote NO to the healthcare bill now [...]

AT AMAZON, its the Friday Sale.

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 23:00:06 -0400

AT AMAZON, it’s the Friday Sale.

Video: STOVL F-35B JSF First Hover - March 17

Sweet..Lockheed Martin video of the Mar 17 first hover the a STOVL F-35B Joint STrike Fighter, aircraft BF-1, at NAS Patuxent River, Maryland. The flight began with a conventional takeoff before F-35 lead STOVL pilot Graham Tomlinson initiated conversion to...

Sandcrawler: Quiz Who's Behind is Up for Auction?

click for answer...

Death Star Watermelon Somehow Racist?

I dunno, I'm told that all watermelon references are now racist. Bigger pic at I Has a Funny Thanks to Red....

Democratic Fundraiser Hassan Nemazee Pleads Guilty in Manhattan Federal Court to $292 Million Bank Fraud

Nemazee was the national finance chairman of Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign. He also raised money for President Barack Obama. FBI/New YorkPREET BHARARA, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced that HASSAN NEMAZEE pleaded guilty today...

Sorcerer's Death Sentence Upheld in Saudi Arabia

At least he's accused of sorcery. For what? Telling fortunes.(CNN) -- Amnesty International is calling on Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah to stop the execution of a Lebanese man sentenced to death for "sorcery." In a statement released Thursday, the international...

Gitmo Closing Deal Imminent?

From the looks of it, yes. NRO:And remember, all of this will be based on the fiction that Gitmo foments anti-U.S. terrorism and to the extent the U.S. reputation in the world has been tarnished, much more of that...

Blogger's Husband Killed in Afghanistan

Mrs. Porto from A Little Pink in a World of Camo heard the sad news that her husband, Marine Cpl. Jonathan Daniel Porto was killed in Afghanistan earlier this week. Our thoughts and prayers are with her and baby Ariana....

Worst Employer Evah: 'I'd Rather Employ a Pedophile Than a Hero': Company Boss,Webeurope's Karl Winn, Compares British Troops to Child Molesters in Rant at Job Agency (UPDATED)

Click for website UPDATE below fold, his press release on the matter Naturally, this is giving the ehadi's more propaganda, damn arsehole Via Daily MailA company boss has compared British soldiers to paedophiles and drug dealers after refusing a request...

"Twas The Eve Of State Healthcare"

Ha! Be sure to read it all. PMWith non-festive apologies to Clement Clarke Moore. Twas the eve of state health care, and all through the House The bill was unread, even by the head louse. The statists hung round with...

Bad Ghey: ATTN YouTube Users hizbudava & Kishkooo

Never will it be said I passed up a chance to make fun of someone. Idle threats bore me hizbudava's YouTube channel: hizbudava's friends, note "Soldier of Allah". (YouTube user Kishkooo - 1,151 friends, 982 subscribers) hizbudava's subscribers, note "Soldier...

Gene Simmons' Message to America

Watch the latest news video at video.foxnews.com Hat Tip: Kathy....

If the NSA Really Was Willing to Kill Nearly 3k People on 9/11 ...

... then why haven't they gone through the trouble of killing just one more? Real Change and Sense has more on this piece of trash....

What a wonderful smell you've discovered!

This WaPo piece on the conflict between the NSA and the military on one side wishing to shut down a website used by al Qaeda in Iraq vs. the CIA and the Saudi intelligence on the other side who were...

IBD: Teague To Vote No; Pelosis Margin Now Zero.

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 22:31:07 -0400

IBD: Teague To Vote No; Pelosis Margin Now Zero.

WAR AGAINST PHOTOGRAPHY UPDATE: Photographers and Police: A First Amendment Clash.

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 21:55:24 -0400

WAR AGAINST PHOTOGRAPHY UPDATE: Photographers and Police: A First Amendment Clash.

Controversial Propositions

John — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 21:30:04 -0400

Here are some things I believe to be true. At least, I think I do:

* The most under-rated man in modern history was U.S. Grant.

* It is odd that people keep talking about the Great American Novel, since American novelists are, and always have been, sub-par by international standards.

* The greatest athlete of modern times, in any team sport, was Bobby Orr. Sorry, no room for discussion. It's just a fact.

* The most over-rated man of the 20th century was Gandhi. Nelson Mandela is runner-up.

* Much as Bob Dylan was the most authentic spokesman for his generation, Taylor Swift is the most authentic spokesman for hers.

* The three most desirable actresses in movie history are Paulette Goddard, Anna Karina and Catherine Zeta-Jones.

* There is over-rated, and then there are the Rolling Stones.

* How is Vermeer like Flaubert? They might have been the best ever, if they had produced more. Stendahl could go in that category, too.

* London is the world's greatest city, and Israel is the world's most exciting place.

* America's youth have never been the same since Saturday morning television went from real programming (Fury, Sky King, the Cisco Kid, etc.) to cartoons.

* The only good lawyer show in the history of television was Perry Mason.

* The title of world's greatest man has bounced back and forth between England and the U.S. for a while now: last half of the 18th century, George Washington; first half of the 19th century, the Duke of Wellington; second half of the 19th century, Abraham Lincoln; first half of the 20th century, Winston Churchill; second half of the 20th century, Ronald Reagan. But I very much doubt that the pattern will continue.

* The greatest benefactors of humanity, by a mile, are the pharmaceutical companies.

* But for World War II, Franklin Roosevelt would have gone down in history as the worst President since James Buchanan.

* Anyone who uses the word "sustainability" has no idea how the world works.

* The worst person in the history of the world was Lenin. Not only was he a mass murderer, the three biggest mass murderers in world history--Mao, Stalin and Hitler--were all his legitimate heirs, and may not have been possible without him.

* The smartest person whom most Americans see on a regular basis is Simon Cowell.

* Minneapolis's Institute of Arts is the most under-rated museum in the country. Among other things, it has the best painting Rembrandt ever did.

OK, maybe one or two of those are tongue-in-cheek, but I really do think they are true. There's more where they came from, too. I'd be happy to argue any of these propositions with any of our readers in a bar of your choice, as long as you're buying.

PAUL takes the bait: I prefer Paris to London. John, didn't you tell me you were thinking of a trip to Paris? Keep an open mind.

JOHN responds: Paris is one of the many cities I've not visited. Nor will I in the near future, given the massive tax increases slated for next year. But I confess to an Anglophile, London bias. When I think of Paris I think of guillotines, the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre, the "whiff of grapeshot," hunchbacks and other unpleasantness. I'll be eager to be set aright, however, if I can ever afford to make the trip.

PAUL responds: I'm an Anglophile too, and no big fan of the French. But in terms of cities, I give Paris the edge.

This may sound strange, but I think it has something to do with the following controversial proposition: the French are bad at philosophy, bad at economics, bad at political theory, bad at national security, but excellent at living.

SHOCKER: Federal Employees Bombarded With Obamacare Email Pitches. Is this legal?

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 21:18:42 -0400

SHOCKER: Federal Employees Bombarded With Obamacare Email Pitches. Is this legal?

HEATH SHULER WILL VOTE NO ON OBAMACARE.UPDATE: Also Joseph Cao, according to this report.

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 20:53:06 -0400

HEATH SHULER WILL VOTE NO ON OBAMACARE.UPDATE: Also Joseph Cao, according to this report.

ABC Highlights Congresswoman Upset ObamaCare Opponents Dare Pressure Her via TV Ad

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 20:30:43 -0400

Complete with a photo of her late parents, ABC's Jonathan Karl concluded his Friday night story on undecided Democratic House members by conveying the complaint of Pennsylvania's Kathy Dahlkemper, who contended a TV ad about how further government control of health care will lead to delays in cancer treatment as has occurred in Britain, is inappropriate because her parents recently died from cancer.

Perhaps the most powerful personal story belongs to Pennsylvania's Kathy Dahlkemper, Karl intoned, pointing out her father died of leukemia in February, and her mother died just two weeks ago, and now she finds herself among the undecided Democrats targeted by this ad. Viewers then saw a very brief clip of an ad from Americans for Prosperity in which a woman maintained: If you find a lump, you could wait months for treatment and life-saving drugs can be restricted.

Karl relayed Dahlkemper's indignation: She says the group that made the ad is wrong, and takes it personally. In a soundbite, the freshman representing the Northwestern area of the Keystone State squeezed between Ohio and New York, decried: So, for these ads to come out and somehow say that I'm soft on cancer, after having just lost two parents within the last six weeks from cancer, and with having the record I have really for supporting wellness, to me, is wrong.

How dare citizens subject Members of Congress to political advocacy and arguments with which they disagree!

March 16 Dahlkemper press release: After Dahlkemper loses her parents to cancer, tobacco front group launches attack.

Erie Times-News posting of an AP dispatch from DC: Dahlkemper says health care ad distorts and hurts.

From the end of Karl's story on the Friday, March 19 World News on ABC:

JONATHAN KARL: ...Perhaps the most powerful personal story belongs to Pennsylvania's Kathy Dahlkemper. Her father died of leukemia in February, and her mother died just two weeks ago, and now she finds herself among the undecided Democrats targeted by this ad.
WOMAN IN TV AD FROM 'HANDS OFF MY HEALTH CARE.COM': If you find a lump, you could wait months for treatment and life-saving drugs can be restricted.
KARL: She says the group that made the ad is wrong, and takes it personally.
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE KATHY DAHLKEMPER (D): So, for these ads to come out and somehow say that I'm soft on cancer, after having just lost two parents within the last six weeks from cancer, and with having the record I have really for supporting wellness, to me, is wrong.
KARL: Congresswoman Dahlkemper tells tonight she is still undecided but, Diane, even for those today who made up their mind, this is not over. They are under attack from one side or the other back home in their districts.

BOEING COMPLETES DESIGN of shipboard superlaser.

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 20:22:44 -0400

BOEING COMPLETES DESIGN of shipboard superlaser.

Do They Have the Votes?

John — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 19:17:53 -0400

Eric Cantor says the Democrats are bluffing and are still something like seven votes short. I don't think anyone knows for sure where the vote count stands, but last we knew the Democrats were continuing their full-court press on wavering members, which presumably means they aren't sure they are at 216 yet.

Deal or no deal?

Paul — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 19:05:02 -0400

Rep. Brad Ellsworth (D-Ind.) has announced that he will vote for Obamacare. Ellsworth also voted "yes" the last time around, but as a member of the Stupak coalition. So Pelosi's success in peeling him away from that coalition is a big deal. But then, perhaps Pelosi has cut some kind of a deal with that coalition. That would be a bigger deal.

There's another way of looking at the Ellsworth vote. He will be the Democrats' nominee for Senator this year. Voting for Obamacare probably dooms his chance of winning in November. Thus, he may have been at the top of the list of Dems Pelosi was willing to see vote "no." Under this scenario, his "yes" vote would mean that Pelosi has no votes to spare.

We'll see.

JOE HICKS: An ObamaCare Surprise: Racial Preferences?More from John Leo.

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 18:57:14 -0400

JOE HICKS: An ObamaCare Surprise: Racial Preferences?More from John Leo.

MEGAN MCARDLE: BUY NOW, PAY LATER:If we pass this thing, no American politician, left or right,

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 18:44:57 -0400

MEGAN MCARDLE: BUY NOW, PAY LATER:If we pass this thing, no American politician, left or right, is going to cut any of these programs, or raise the broad-based taxes necessary to pay for them, without any compensating goodies to offer the public . . . until the crisis is almost upon us. I can [...]

TURF WAR: Best Lawnmowers of the Year: Comparison Test.

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 18:41:17 -0400

TURF WAR: Best Lawnmowers of the Year: Comparison Test.

YOU TALKING TO ME?

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 18:34:51 -0400

YOU TALKING TO ME?

COMING SOON: The Augmented Reality Windshield? The enhanced vision system would monitor a driver

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 18:33:53 -0400

COMING SOON: The Augmented Reality Windshield? “The enhanced vision system would monitor a driver’s eye and head movements via sensors located both inside and outside the vehicle. The display would then overlay enhanced views of the road on top of the actual scene visible through the windshield. GM hopes that the augmented reality [...]

OUT OF STEP WITH THE TIMES: Legislation to ban assault weapons passes Illinois House committee.

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 18:08:35 -0400

OUT OF STEP WITH THE TIMES: Legislation to ban assault weapons passes Illinois House committee.

AP: Goverment Secrecy Increasing Under Obama, But It's Not His Fault

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 18:07:52 -0400

In a week that has been chock full of lame claims, it would not be correct to say that the howler propagated by Sharon Thiemer of the Associated Press on Tuesday is the worst. But it's definitely in the upper echelons.

In an item about government bureaucrats' increased volume and increased level of excuse-making for denying Freedom of Information Act requests, Theimer acts as if the guy in charge of the entire enterprise -- that would be President Obama -- has stood by helplessly while things got worse. One can be reasonably assured that the problems described below would not be treated with such kid gloves if a conservative or Republican occupied the Oval Office:

PROMISES, PROMISES: Is gov't more open with Obama?
Federal agencies haven't lived up to President Barack Obama's promise of a more open government, increasing their use of legal exemptions to keep records secret during his first year in office.
An Associated Press review of Freedom of Information Act reports filed by 17 major agencies found that the use of nearly every one of the law's nine exemptions to withhold information from the public rose in fiscal year 2009, which ended last October.
Among the most frequently used exemptions: one that lets the government hide records that detail its internal decision-making. Obama specifically directed agencies to stop using that exemption so frequently, but that directive appears to have been widely ignored.

Well, if they're being ignored, who's letting them get away with it.

It gets worse:

Major agencies cited that exemption at least 70,779 times during the 2009 budget year, up from 47,395 times during President George W. Bush's final full budget year, according to annual FOIA reports filed by federal agencies. Obama was president for nine months in the 2009 period.
...The prolific use of FOIA exemptions is one measure of how far the federal government has yet to go to carry out Obama's promise of openness. His first full day in office, Obama told agencies the Freedom of Information Act, "which encourages accountability through transparency, is the most prominent expression of a profound national commitment to ensuring an open government."

Theimer's thesis might ordinarily have a bit of credibility, except for the fact that the President by his own actions and by his own acquiescence to Congressional secrecy-denying actions has made a mockery of his promised of transparency.

I'm still waiting for the promised C-SPAN broadcasts of health care deliberations. I mean, gee, Obama only promised on eight different occasions to ensure that this would happen.

A report that doesn't mention these and other presidential/congressional transgressions and cops out the Chief Executive's responsibility over Executive Branch conduct isn't a news analysis. It's apparatchik propaganda, which the AP has taken to a whole new level since early November 2008.

ORIN KERR: Is the Supreme Court too conservative? Not according to the public, it seems.

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 17:21:31 -0400

ORIN KERR: Is the Supreme Court too conservative? Not according to the public, it seems.

BOEHNER: Make this a roll-call vote.

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 17:09:17 -0400

BOEHNER: Make this a roll-call vote.

MSNBC's David Shuster Slams Conservatives for 'Targeting' Pro-Obama Care Child: 'Is the Right Sinking to a New Low?'

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 17:09:04 -0400

MSNBC's David Shuster on Friday attacked conservatives for "targeting" an 11-year-old child who lost his mother and is now lobbying for government-run health care. The liberal anchor sneered, "Is the right sinking to a new low? We'll let you judge for yourself." He then interviewed the young Marcelas Owens and his grandmother, for the second time in ten days.

In case viewers didn't get the slant of the segment, MSNBC's graphic reiterated, "New Low For Right? Conservative Critics Call Owens' Tale a 'Sob Story.'" As the MRC's Tim Graham noted, this story is being heavily pushed by Media Matters and other left-leaning outlets. Shuster did not talk to any conservative voices. (He only played a brief clip of Rush Limbaugh asserting that Democrats are using Owens for their own purposes.)

Shuster prompted the child to explain how he wasn't being exploited: "Marcelas, first of all, did anybody in the Democratic Party force you to tell this story?" The liberal cable anchor also offered this loaded question to the boy's grandmother, Gina Owens: "Gina, what was your reaction when you heard Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck targeting your grandson?"

Considering that there are many horror stories from countries that do have government-run health care, wouldn't it only be fair of Shuster to talk to some of those victims? Despite the journalist's pledge to "let you judge for yourself," MSNBC doesn't seem interested in that.

A transcript of the March 19 News Live segment, which aired at 10:22am EDT, follows:

DAVID SHUSTER: Is the right sinking to a new low? We'll let you judge for yourself. Last week, I interviewed Marcelas Owens who spent his 11th birthday on Capitol Hill fighting for health care reform. It's a very personal issue for Marcelas whose mother died at the age of 27.
MARCELAS OWENS: -2006. She missed so much that she lost her job and along with her job. And along with that job, she lost her health care. And losing her health care ended up causing her her life. And I wanted to finish her fight for health care. So, I don't want any other kid to go through the pain that our family has gone through.
MSNBC GRAPHIC: New Low For Right? Conservative Critics Call Owens' Tale a "Sob Story"
SHUSTER: Conservative radio talk show hosts like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh jumped all over this, accusing Democrats of using Owens to further their cause.
RUSH LIMBAUGH: Now, this is unseemly, exploitative. An 11-year-old kid being forced to tell this story all over just to benefit the Democrat Party and Barack Obama. I would also say this to Marcelas Owens. Well, your mom would have still died, because ObamaCare doesn't kick in until 2014, if they sign it this year.
SHUSTER: Let's bring in Marcelas Owens along with his grandmother Gina Owens. Marcelas, first of all, did anybody in the Democratic Party force you to tell this story? And are you only doing this story just because of your mom or because of other people who might face a similar situation?
GINA OWENS (To Marcelas): Go ahead. Go ahead.
MARCELAS OWENS: I'm fighting for everybody that might face situations like ours. And I don't want them to lose someone important to them.
SHUSTER: And, Marcelas, is anybody forcing you to do this?
MARCELAS OWENS: No. I asked to do this. .
SHUSTER: Gina, what was your reaction when you heard Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck targeting your grandson?
GINA OWENS: To be totally honest with you, Dave, my first reaction was that it didn't matter because it didn't matter to Marcelas. He just knows that he is fighting for something that he believes in and fighting for a cause that his mother believed in. So he's not really listening to the negative, and neither am I.
SHUSTER: That is such a powerful statement. And, Marcelas, there's so much negativity, sometimes on both sides in this debate. What is the message that you have for people when it comes to trying to talk to Congress or trying to explain to Congress your point of view?
MARCELAS OWENS: The message I try to get across is everybody deserves health care.
SHUSTER: And what's your view of what's happening now in Washington as we get to the final hours here and the final votes? What do you make of what's going on?
GINA OWENS (To Marcelas): What do you hope happens?
MARCELAS OWENS: Oh, well, um, I hope that health care gets passed. I mean, the health care bill, and at least the stories about people having health care, but then finding out they don't have it will stop. I hope.
SHUSTER: Gina, what does it say do you think about the level of our political discourse when- I think, whether people agree with health care reform or not I think at least most people I know admire when an 11-year-old boy like your grandson can get up and have the courage to put himself on the line to express his point of view. What does it say about our political discourse, in your view, when that gets attacked?
GINA OWENS: We're talking about an 11-year-old child, Dave, so my honest opinion is that when adults are stooping to that kind of low it's usually because they're pretty scared about what's going on. And, in this case, I think that there's a lot of fear because the health care bill is gaining momentum and it looks like it's going to pass, from my understanding. So, I think it's coming actually from fear of the other side, the opposers.
SHUSTER: Well, Gina Owens and Marcelas Owens, we appreciate you coming on, again, today, and best of luck to both of you. And, Marcelas, you're particularly courageous young man. And I think as I said the last time you were on, I don't know your mother, but I'm sure wherever she is she is so proud of you and what you're doing. And good luck to you.

OBAMAS HEALTH CARE SPEECH IN FAIRFAX: If the Washington Posts report is correct, and 8,000 peo

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 17:06:45 -0400

OBAMA’S HEALTH CARE SPEECH IN FAIRFAX: “If the Washington Posts report is correct, and 8,000 people turned out, the real news is that two days before the big health care vote, Obama couldnt fill a 10,000 seat arena at a university with 30,000 students (albeit many part-time), in a state and county Obama won, [...]

One More: USA Today Joins in Misreporting Gardasil Misreporting

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 17:05:39 -0400

When the vaccine Gardasil was first introduced, the mainstream media wasted no time falsely touting it as cure for cervical cancer. The dangerous side effects of Gardasil including death- were also ignored. Even though the side effects are now known, a March 18 article in USA Today by Liz Szabo worried about girls who are not receiving the vaccine.

In Poorer Girls Not Getting HPV Vaccine for Cervical Cancer, Szabo was confused in her first sentence and called Gardasil a cervical cancer vaccine. Actually Gardasil is not a vaccine for cancer; its a vaccine for HPV, which can cause cancer. But HPV is a sexually transmitted disease and, as many conservatives have argued, if a girl is not sexually active and has no plans to be until marriage, Gardacil is an unnecessary risk.

Of course, if Szabo has been paying attention to the mainstream media its easy to understand why she was confused. The Culture and Media Institute has reported on many examples of the media calling Gardasil a cancer vaccine. NBCs Nightly News even has a segmented entitled, Cancer Vaccine Controversy. CBS The Early Show stated that the, top medical breakthrough [of 2006] has to be the cancer vaccine for cervical cancer, Gardasil.

Szabo also complained that low incomes girls were not receiving the vaccine, even though they are the ones who might need it the most. She stated, Yet in Mississippi, where the vaccine could perhaps save the greatest number of lives, only 16% of teen girls in 2008 received the shot.

Save lives? CMI also previously cited a National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) study in February of 2009 that found that 29 known cases in which patients have died after receiving Gardasil. Szabo never mentioned a single one of those deaths.

And its not just deaths that Gardasil causes. According to NVIC press release: Nearly 90 percent of all Gardasil recipients and 85 percent of aluminum placebo recipients reported one or more adverse events within 15 days of vaccination, particularly at the injection site. Pain and swelling at injection site and fever occurred in approximately 83 percent of Gardasil and 73 percent of aluminum placebo recipients. About 60 percent of those who got Gardasil or the aluminum placebo had systemic adverse events including headache, fever, nausea, dizziness, vomiting, diarrhea, myalgia. Gardasil recipients had more serious adverse events such as headache, gastroenteritis, appendicitis, pelvic inflammatory disease, asthma, bronchospasm and arthritis.

Peter Bach of New Yorks Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center apparently didnt see anything wrong with the side effects. Szabo wrote, Though there's nothing wrong with wealthier girls getting the vaccine, Bach says, the low vaccination rates in poor states are a failure. Whats truly a failure is calling Gardasil a cervical cancer vaccine and not reporting all the side effects.

STIMULUS: Caterpillar: ObamaCare Will Cost Us $100 Million In The First Year.

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 17:02:53 -0400

STIMULUS: Caterpillar: ObamaCare Will Cost Us $100 Million In The First Year.

Getting from "yes" to maybe not

Paul — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 17:01:59 -0400

Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore), who voted for Obamacare last year, says he's not going to vote for the latest incarnation unless it is changed. He stated:

I voted for the original bill for three principal reasons: it had a public option which would get people out from under the thumb of the insurance industry; it had national exchanges which would give people lower rates and better coverage; and, after decades of trying, we finally fixed the Medicare geographic disparities formula which discriminates against Oregon and 16 other states. The most current version of the health care bill includes none of these provisions and unless we fix the geographic disparities, I cannot vote for this bill. We negotiated this change for months and we finally got an agreement included in the House bill and expected it to be in the final bill, but it has been removed.

I imagine that the Democrats will "fix the geographic disparities" if they need DeFazio's vote. Then, we can call it the Oregon arrangement.

SCOTT adds: FDL News Desk "whip counter" David Dayen has been tracking DeFazio's comments. In his whip count this afternoon, incidentally, Dayen has it 200 firm yes, 209 firm no (207 yes, 212 no with leaners). Two hundred sixteen is a majority.

Hannity-Backed Foundation Refutes Blogger's Accusation His Concerts 'A Giant Con'

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 16:51:36 -0400

An incendiary article from a conservative blogger is being strongly refuted today by its target, a charitable foundation backed by talker Sean Hannity of the Fox News Channel, Brian Maloney reported this afternoon on his Radio Equalizer blog. Posted yesterday by Debbie Schlussel at her site, Maloney explained, the piece accuses Hannity of perpetuating 'a giant con' in promoting his annual Freedom Concerts, which benefit the Freedom Alliance. At issue are both the group's expenses and subsequent charitable contributions, which Schlussel believes are questionable.

Huffington Post, among others, have hyped Schlussel's allegations, which include, that though the Freedom Alliance promised the money raised would pay for the college tuition of children of fallen soldiers and go to severely wounded war vets, less than 20% -- and in two recent years, less than 7% and 4%, respectively -- of the money raised by Freedom Alliance went to these causes, while millions of dollars went to expenses, including consultants and apparently to ferry the Hannity posse of family and friends in high style. Thus, Sean Hannitys Freedom Concerts are just a giant con.

Maloney's post has the refutation from the Freedom Alliance's Thomas P. Kilgannon.

Excerpts of Kilgannon's key points (PDF of full document):

1. The blog posting accuses our friend Sean Hannity of personally benefiting from Freedom Alliance. This is FALSE....
2. Sean Hannity has contributed $100,000 to the Wounded Warriors Foundation, over $200,000 to the Freedom Alliance, and over tens of thousands of dollars to other military charities and individuals. We only make this information public because of the outrageous slander against him....
3. The blog posting accuses Freedom Alliance of spending less than 20% of money raised on program activities. This is FALSE....
5. The blog posting accuses Freedom Alliance of spending money intended for student scholarships on other expenses. This is FALSE. Freedom Alliance has distributed $3.4 million in Scholarships and created a Scholarship Trust Fund with the additional money that we have raised for that program. That fund now contains $15 million, over $10 million of which has been raised by Hannity and the concerts.
Our scholarship program is managed with the understanding that it will be needed for at least the next 20 years as there are children who will ultimately receive a scholarship who are now only a few years old. As indicated on our Federal Form 990, these funds are restricted and used only for future scholarships....

MATT WELCH: David Brooks Surveys Economic Wreckage, Redoubles Patriotic Battle Against the surge i

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 16:41:25 -0400

MATT WELCH: David Brooks Surveys Economic Wreckage, Redoubles Patriotic Battle Against the “surge in vehement libertarianism.” Sorry, but whatever’s wrong with this country doesn’t stem from a surplus of libertarianism . . . .And if we face a “devastating crisis of authority,” it’s because the many authority figures Brooks has been sucking up [...]

PENNSYLVANIA REP. JASON ALTMIRE SAYS HE WILL VOTE NO.

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 16:35:10 -0400

PENNSYLVANIA REP. JASON ALTMIRE SAYS HE WILL VOTE NO.

BYRON YORK: Dems Waste Time in House As Vote Search Goes On.

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 16:34:25 -0400

BYRON YORK: Dems Waste Time in House As Vote Search Goes On.

CBS's Pizzey: Child Sex Abuse 'A Plague of Biblical Proportions' in Catholic Church

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 16:31:21 -0400

On Friday's CBS Early Show correspondent Allen Pizzey made the over-the-top declaration that allegations of child sexual abuse within the Catholic Church amounted to "a scandal that's threatening to become a plague of biblical proportions." A headline on-screen declared a "Catholic Crisis."

Pizzey was reporting on Pope Benedict XVI's efforts to address the scandal in a soon-to-be published Papal letter, but noted that such a statement "seems unlikely to assuage the anger of victims in parishes ranging from the U.S. to Ireland, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, and Brazil." Pizzey cited one victim of abuse, Andrew Madden, who argued: "I don't think a pastoral letter is the proper context in which to respond to a report about the cover-up of the rape of children."

Madden has made his opinions of the Catholic Church well-known on Twitter. One of his tweets reads: "Actual photo of the Devil at work in the Vatican," with a link to a picture of Pope. In response to another tweeter complimenting him on a recent television appearance, Madden replied: "do my best, but these really are the scum of the earth, I'd never have said that 6 months ago but I truly believe it today."

Later in his report, Pizzey accused the Pope, once a German archbishop, of being complicit in a cover-up of sex abuse: "In fact, the practice of protecting offending priests at the expense of the victims involved even the Pope himself. When he was an archbishop in Germany, at least one known offender was moved from one parish to another." Pizzey of course provided no evidence of then-Archbishop Ratzinger having any direct knowledge of or involvement in the scandal. Perhaps Pizzey was simply reading another tweet from Madden: "If the Catholic Churh [sic] is to be led by a man who reflects it, then maybe it should be led by a man who has covered up for a priest rapist."

Pizzey concluded his rant against the Church by once again painting with a broad brush: "What really matters is how far the Pope will actually go to righting a massive wrong that just seems to keep on spreading."

Ahead of Pope Benedict's first visit to the United States in April of 2008, Pizzey attacked Pontiff's commitment to traditional Catholic principles: "a man who was once known as God's Rottweiler. As Pope he has not gone out of his way to appease the more liberal wings of the Catholic Church in the U.S."

Here is a full transcript of Pizzey's report:

7:10AM
MAGGIE RODRIGUEZ: Some news this morning out of the Vatican. Pope Benedict is set to publish a historic letter addressing and apologizing for Roman Catholic priests who've sexually abused children. CBS News correspondent Allen Pizzey is in London this morning with the story. Good morning, Allen.
ALLEN PIZZEY: Good morning, Maggie. Well, the Papal letter of apology is the latest effort to save the Catholic Church from a scandal that's threatening to become a plague of biblical proportions. Even Benedict has admitted that the church has been, as he put it, 'severely shaken.'
[ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: Catholic Crisis; Papal Apology on Pedophilia to be Released]
POPE BENEDICT XVI: My hope is that it will help in the process of repentance, healing, and renewal.
PIZZEY: The letter will be released tomorrow, but seems unlikely to assuage the anger of victims in parishes ranging from the U.S. to Ireland, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, and Brazil.
ANDREW MADDEN [VICTIM]: I don't think a pastoral letter is the proper context in which to respond to a report about the cover-up of the rape of children.
PIZZEY: Government-ordered inquiries in Ireland have documented cases of abuses and cover-ups between the 1930s and the 1990s that involve more than 15,000 children.
MADDEN: Children were sworn to secrecy, having made allegations against a priest, and subsequently that priest was allowed to carry on being a priest.
PIZZEY: In fact, the practice of protecting offending priests at the expense of the victims involved even the Pope himself. When he was an archbishop in Germany, at least one known offender was moved from one parish to another. German bishops have now recommended what they termed 'a compulsory registration' of suspected sexual and physical abuse cases to state prosecutors. 'I don't want to blame the Pope,' the Archbishop Reinhard Marx said, 'we as bishops have the responsibility in our dioceses.' Be that as it may, what really matters is how far the Pope will actually go to righting a massive wrong that just seems to keep on spreading. Maggie.
RODRIGUEZ: Allen Pizzey in London for us this morning. Thanks a lot, Allen.

C-SPAN VIDEO: Message to Bart Gordon: Dont Trade Your Health Care Vote for NASA Administrator Job

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 16:25:51 -0400

C-SPAN VIDEO: Message to Bart Gordon: Don’t Trade Your Health Care Vote for NASA Administrator Job.Bart Gordon’s Response: How Dare You Call Me A Sellout.UPDATE: Bart Gordon: That $100M that got put in the bill before I changed my vote isn’t a “special deal.”ANOTHER UPDATE: Report from the Anti-ObamaCare [...]

Liberal WaPo Columnist Marcus Cool to CBO Projections Others in Media Giddy Over

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 16:22:17 -0400

Democrats will be pointing to this preliminary CBO score as if it is engraved on stone tablets. Republicans will proclaim their respect for the CBO and proceed to argue that its estimates should not be taken too seriously in this instance. This may come as a surprise, but I think the Republican argument is closer to correct. To crow, as did House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, that the package is "a triumph for the American people in terms of deficit reduction" is premature at best, delusional at worst.

That's none other than Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus -- no conservative acolyte she -- in an op-ed today entitled in the print edition, "Score one for skepticism."

As Marcus went on to explain, the central flaw in taking the CBO numbers as the gospel truth is that (emphasis mine):

The CBO is required to assume that Congress will do what it promises. So, for example, Congress promises in the measure to cut several hundred billion dollars in Medicare spending. Sometimes such promises have come to pass. Other times, as in the current difficulty with scheduled cuts in Medicare reimbursements for doctors, they are put off because of a public -- or politically connected -- outcry.

This stands in marked contrast with how others in the media, such as CBS "Evening News" anchor Katie Couric's gleefully pounced on and misrepresented the CBO projections (emphasis below that of NB editor-at-large Brent Baker):

The price tag certified, Couric trumpeted in teasing the CBS Evening News before leading with how the CBO put out a report that may help win over some Democrats, reciting: It says the plan, which would cost $940 billion over 10 years, would reduce the deficit over that same period by $138 billion. She then cited a claim CBO didn't make: It would cut the deficit over 20 years by more than $1 trillion.
Cordes pegged $1.3 trillion as the amount by which the final health care bill would reduce the deficit over the next 20 years, bucking up the CBO's credibility: That's according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, which is trusted by both parties as the authority on budget matters.
The $1.3 trillion number, however, is not in CBO's report (PDF). Robert VerBruggen noted on National Review Online's The Corner that the 20-year estimate is nowhere to be found in the CBO report itself. It seems that the Democrats took the CBOs estimate that deficit reduction could fall 'in a broad range around one-half percent of GDP,' matched it up to some estimates of GDP in 20202029, and attributed their back-of-the-envelope math to the CBO itself. I e-mailed a source within the CBO to ask if they had arrived at the $1.2 trillion figure themselves. The source e-mailed back one word: 'No.'
ABC and NBC also cited the CBO's estimates, but didn't lead with them or match CBS's enthusiasm for championing them and the CBO's authority.
Unmentioned by CBS, how the CBO can only go by what congressional leaders say they will do. In this case, that includes cutting $500 billion from Medicare over the next ten years, cuts few think will ever really occur, to say nothing of how every entitlement program takes on a life of its own which leads to soaring costs well beyond the initial estimates.

HAVE A JOB? Dont Expect A Raise Anytime Soon.

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 16:19:21 -0400

HAVE A JOB? Don’t Expect A Raise Anytime Soon.

You Lie! MSNBC Lets Dem's False 45,000 'Uninsurance Deaths' Go Unchallenged

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 16:13:57 -0400

Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-NY, for one, does not want blood on his hands from 45,000 Americans who allegedly die every year due to lack of health insurance. And MSNBC's Alex Witt, for one, doesn't think it worth questioning the veracity of that number.

"There are a lot of problems I have with the bill, primarily it doesn't go far enough. I really wish we had the public option in this bill," Nadler said in a March 18 interview on MSNBC.

"There are some other problems with it but bottom line - bottom line - the Harvard Medical School study tells us that 45,000 American per year die for lack of access to health insurance," Nadler said. "A No' vote on this bill is a vote to kill 45,000 American a year. A Yes' vote is a vote to save their lives - everything else is secondary."

That the famous study by the Harvard Medical School and Cambridge Health Alliance has been a reliable Democrat talking point for months. But its estimate that 44,789 "excess deaths" are associated with lack of health insurance annually is rarely questioned by the media. They should be.

"The findings in this research are based on faulty methodology and the death risk is significantly overstated," National Center for Policy Analysis president John C. Goodman has explained. "The subjects were interviewed only once and the study tries to link their insurance status at that time to mortality a decade later. Yet over the period, the authors have no idea whether subjects were insured or uninsured, what kind of medical care they received, or even cause of death."

Researchers of the Harvard based their conclusion upon national surveys participants filled from 1986-1994. After checking how many of the adults died by the year 2000, researchers proceeded to make the unbelievable leap in assumption and faith that the uninsured stayed uninsured for all those years - and died as a result.

"Like unemployment, uninsurance happens to many people for short periods of time. Most people who are uninsured regain insurance with one year," Goodman wrote. "The authors of the study did not track what happened to the insurance status of the subjects over the decade examined, what medical care they received or even the causes of their deaths."

In regards to socialized medicine - or as Keith Olbermann's selling point puts it "Medicare for all" - studies from RAND and the Employment Policies Institute do not do Democrats and Olbermann any favor.

The Employment Policies Institute found that the involuntarily uninsured were only 3 percent more likely to die over a fourteen year period, and found that people enrolled in Medicaid have a much higher mortality rate than the uninsured. As Goodman put it, "In other words, Medicaid enrollment reduces life expectancy rather than increasing it!"

Image via: psychologytoday.com

Wolf Blitzer Presses Scott Brown: 'What's Wrong' With Passing ObamaCare?

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 15:32:04 -0400

On Thursday's Situation Room, CNN's Wolf Blitzer engaged newly-elected Republican Scott Brown on his opposition to ObamaCare, and asked him the same question from the left twice in succession: "What's wrong with giving 30 million-plus more Americans access to health insurance?" He also later added, "What's wrong with spending money...if it's going to give access to 30 million Americans?" [audio clips available here; video clips available here]

Blitzer had the Massachusetts senator on just before the bottom of the 5 pm Eastern hour. The anchor first complimented Brown for driving over to the CNN Washington Bureau in his "nice little truck," and immediately asked his slanted question.

After the senator gave his initial answer, Blitzer, seemingly unsatisfied by the response, pressed further, and added another argument from the left: "I guess I should rephrase the question. What's wrong with spending money- the cost, if it winds up costing money, if it winds up raising taxes on multimillionaires or millionaires, or people even earning more than $250,000 a year- if it's going to give access to 30 million Americans, so they don't have to worry about getting sick- what's wrong with that?"

The transcript of relevant portion of the interview, starting at the 5:27 pm Eastern mark of Thursday's Situation Room:

WOLF BLITZER: If you had to name one Republican who makes Democrats downright nervous right now, it just might be Senator Scott Brown of Massachusetts. He single-handedly deprived the President's party of its filibuster-proof super- sixty-seat- majority in the U.S. Senate. Now, what is he doing for an encore?
One thing he's doing, he's here in 'The Situation Room.' Senator, welcome.
SENATOR SCOTT BROWN: Good to be here. Thank you.
BLITZER: I hope you'll be a frequent visitor in 'The Situation Room.' We're not very far from Capitol Hill.
BROWN: Thank you.
BLITZER: And thanks for driving your pickup truck all the way from Congress here.
BROWN: That's how I get around. It's no secret.
BLITZER: Well, it's a nice little truck.
Let's talk about health care right now, priority number one. What's wrong with giving 30 million-plus more Americans access to health insurance?
BROWN: Well, part of the problem is after a year of doing this, it still raises taxes. It cuts Medicare a half a trillion dollars. It cuts TRICARE for military people. It's going to cost a trillion-plus, and while it's certainly important to provide care for those people, I believe that individual states could do it better, and that we can do it better, because all the carve-outs and all the special interest issues that we were talking about. that we all shook our heads about, a lot of those are still in that bill.
BLITZER: But I- but let me- I guess I should rephrase the question. What's wrong with spending money- the cost, if it winds up costing money, if it winds up raising taxes on multimillionaires or millionaires, or people even earning more than $250,000 a year- if it's going to give access to 30 million Americans, so they don't have to worry about getting sick- what's wrong with that?
BROWN: There's nothing wrong with that, but more importantly, it does raise taxes and it does raise taxes for people who are earning less. It's going to affect businesses. It's also- once, as I said before- I had felt, as we did in Massachusetts, we provide almost 98 percent of our people with insurance, and individual states would like to have that right to do the same thing and ask the federal government, how can you help us do that? Can you incentivize us to do it better? Maybe they'll do it better than Massachusetts and get costs in- costs under control. But this one-size-fits-all plan really is hurting businesses and hurting individual citizens right now with all the carve-outs is not appropriate.

COMING SOON: Netflix streaming for Wii and iPhone?

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 15:00:02 -0400

COMING SOON: Netflix streaming for Wii — and iPhone?

SPEAKING TRUTH TO POWER: The Insta-Wife snapped this on Lyons View this morning.

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 14:54:31 -0400

SPEAKING TRUTH TO POWER: The Insta-Wife snapped this on Lyons View this morning.

JOHN STOSSEL: Politicians Smother Cities. Why do some cities thrive while others decay? One reaso

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 14:47:41 -0400

JOHN STOSSEL: Politicians Smother Cities. “Why do some cities thrive while others decay? One reason is that some politicians smother their cities with the unintended consequences of their grand visions, while others have the good sense to limit government power. . . . But the politicians haven’t learned. They still think government [...]

JOE BIDEN: Were going to control the insurance companies.

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 14:40:25 -0400

JOE BIDEN: “We’re going to control the insurance companies.”

PUBLICITY: YouTube: Viacom secretly posted its videos even as they sued us for not taking down Viac

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 14:17:29 -0400

PUBLICITY: YouTube: Viacom secretly posted its videos even as they sued us for not taking down Viacom videos.

BARTON HINKLE: If you disagree with me, youre mentally ill.

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 14:11:11 -0400

BARTON HINKLE: If you disagree with me, you’re mentally ill.

AMA Endorses Health Care Reform Bill

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 14:05:17 -0400

The American Medical Association is now officially endorsing President Obama’s health care legislation: AMA Supports House Passage of Health System Reform.

Washington, D.C. – After careful review and consideration, the American Medical Association (AMA) today announced its qualified support for the current health reform bill as a step toward providing coverage to all Americans and improving our nation’s health system.
“The pending bill is imperfect, but we cannot let the perfect be the enemy of the good when it comes to something as important as the health of Americans,” said J. James Rohack, M.D., AMA president. “By extending health coverage to the vast majority of the uninsured, improving competition and choice in the insurance marketplace, promoting prevention and wellness, reducing administrative burdens, and promoting clinical comparative effectiveness research, this bill will help patients and their physicians.”
“While the final product is certainly not what we would have devised, we strongly support the parts of this bill that are desperately needed by millions of Americans who are struggling to get or keep health insurance coverage,” Dr. Rohack said. “We will continue to work with Congress and the administration to solve important issues that cannot be addressed through the reconciliation process.”
“This is not the last step, but the next step toward real health system reform,” Dr. Rohack said. “We will remain actively engaged with Congress and the administration to ensure that before Congress adjourns there are additional important changes to our health system. Congress must act to preserve access to care for seniors and military families by permanently repealing the Medicare physician payment formula that will cut Medicare payments by 21 percent next month. According to an AARP poll, nearly 90 percent of people age 50 and older are concerned that the Medicare physician payment cuts threaten their access to care.”
“Congress must also move immediately to correct problems with the Independent Payment Advisory Board,” Dr. Rohack said. “The current IPAB framework could result in misguided payment cuts that undermine access to care and destabilize health care delivery. The AMA will be relentless in our pursuit of permanent repeal of the Medicare physician payment formula, corrections to IPAB, and other important changes that we outlined in a letter today to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.”
“Every day physicians see the devastating effect that being uninsured has on the health of our patients: They live sicker and die younger,” Dr. Rohack said. “Physicians dedicate their lives to helping patients live healthier and longer, and we have an historic opportunity to do just that.”

A BOMB-DISPOSAL ROBOT that you can carry in a backpack.

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 13:59:44 -0400

A BOMB-DISPOSAL ROBOT that you can carry in a backpack.

CALLING YOUR CONGRESSMAN TO COMPLAIN now counts as harassment? What thin-skinned lily-livered los

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 13:52:47 -0400

CALLING YOUR CONGRESSMAN TO COMPLAIN now counts as “harassment?” What thin-skinned lily-livered losers we have in Washington. Glad somebody stood up to this one.

"Do Not Allow Yourself to Get Into a Discussion of the Details"

John — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 13:52:19 -0400

That's the instruction the Democratic Party has given its spokesmen with regard to the health care debate, in particular the CBO's recent report. It's easy to see why: the Democrats' claims about their health care takeover fall apart if you look at it carefully.

Yesterday, the Democrats sent the memo that is reproduced below to their "health and communications staff." It instructs them in the "key points health staff and communications staff should make in the next 48 to 72 hours in the media ahead of Sunday's vote." The memo admits that the Democrats' claims about their government takeover plan are disingenuous and that it is therefore imperative that they not discuss the plan's details. For example:

Quote from today's CBO letter: "CBO and JCT estimate that enacting both pieces of legislation--[the Senate-passed bill] and the reconciliation proposal--would produce a net reduction in deficits of $138 billion over the 2010-2019 period as a result of changes in direct spending and revenues."

Sure. This results from the childishly simple fraud that the Democrats are using the CBO to perpetrate. The CBO will only estimate costs ten years out. So the Democrats' plan increases taxes right away, but waits four or five years to implement its most expensive provisions. So the Dems are comparing ten years of taxes against five years of spending. What a great way to reduce the deficit! Actually, if you compare revenues against expenditures in any given year after the plan is up and running, the plan hemorrhages money.

So Democrats are warned not to venture into substantive debate with their Republican opponents:

We cannot emphasize enough: do not allow yourself (or your boss) to get into a discussion of the details of the CBO scores and textual narrative. Instead, focus only on the deficit reduction and the number of Americans covered. ... These anti-reform extremists [Ed.: That would be the American people.] are making a last-ditch effort to derail reform. Do not give them ground by debating details.

That explains why Republicans like Paul Ryan, who are always ready to debate details, are feeling so lonely these days.

One of the many dishonest features of the Democrats' effort to conceal the fact that their plan is a budget-buster is the assumption that reimbursements to physicians under Medicare will decline. This accounts for a large chunk of the Democrats' "savings." In fact, all knowledgeable observers understand that this alleged savings will be illusory because Congress will, in separate legislation, raise those reimbursement levels as in the past. The Democrats' memo acknowledges the party's dishonesty on this point, and urges its staffers to continue misleading the public:

Second, most health staff are already aware that our health proposal does not contain a "doc fix." Some Republicans have repeated CBO's November 18 letter that says "the sustainable growth rate (SGR) mechanism governing Medicare's payments to physicians has frequently been modified ... to avoid reduction in those payments, and legislation to do so again is currently under consideration in the Congress." The inclusion of a full SGR repeal would undermine reform's budget neutrality. So, again, do not allow yourself (or your boss) to get into a discussion of the details of CBO scores and textual narrative. ...
As most health staff knows, Leadership and the White House are working with the AMA to rally physicians support for a full SGR repeal later this spring. However, both health and communications staff should understand we do not want that policy discussion discussed at this time, lest it complicate the last critical push to health care reform.

It couldn't be clearer: the Democrats' strategy is to mislead the American people about the nature, contents and fiscal consequences of their health care takeover. Toward that end, they are trying to cover up the details of the plan, at least until Sunday's vote. Here is the Democrats' memo; click to enlarge:

UPDATE: Bill Otis writes:

Knowing whether the healthcare bill merits support is actually easy. If the proponents of X tell you not to be concerned with the details of X, and not to be concerned about the process used to bring about X, then you should oppose X.

It doesn't matter what X is or who the proponents are. If this is what they are telling you, you would be a fool to do what they want. And everyone over the age of ten knows this.

FURTHER UPDATE: Democrats are disputing the memo's authenticity. That will give media outlets cover if they decline to report on it, at least until Sunday.

ANOTHER UPDATE: No one seems willing or able to authenticate the memo. It is being widely circulated by Republican sources who say they're convinced it's genuine, but we haven't gotten a straight answer as to the original source, except that an unnamed lobbyist emailed it, apparently inadvertently, to a Republican staffer. We haven't been able to get anyone to identify either the lobbyist or the staffer. So, take it for what it's worth--which is nothing if it isn't genuine. The discussion of the "doc fix" issue is of course correct, but that's another issue.

TRANSPARENCY UPDATE: Federal Reserve must disclose bank bailout records. The Federal Reserve Boar

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 13:49:51 -0400

TRANSPARENCY UPDATE: Federal Reserve must disclose bank bailout records. “The Federal Reserve Board must disclose documents identifying financial firms that might have collapsed without the largest U.S. government bailout ever, a federal appeals court said. The U.S. Court of Appeals in Manhattan ruled today that the Fed must release records of the [...]

Video: Jon Stewart As Glenn Beck's Evil Twin

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 13:43:48 -0400

Comedy Central is sure getting some mileage out of Glenn Beck’s increasingly loony shows. Let’s face it — Beck is a comedy goldmine. We should get on our knees and give thanks to Fox News for bringing him into our living rooms, America.

Here’s Jon Stewart piling on.

[Video]

SHOCKER: NY Times and Wash. Post Say CBO Numbers on Obamacare Dont Pass Smell Test.Megan McArd

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 13:36:35 -0400

SHOCKER: NY Times and Wash. Post Say CBO Numbers on Obamacare Don’t Pass Smell Test.Megan McArdle: “I think this is a fiscal disaster waiting to happen. But no one on the other side cares.”UPDATE: They certainly don’t want to talk about it.

RED MENACE: Stop the Ug99 Fungus Before Its Spores Bring Starvation. 90 percent of the worlds

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 13:32:15 -0400

RED MENACE: Stop the Ug99 Fungus Before Its Spores Bring Starvation. “90 percent of the worlds wheat has little or no protection against the Ug99 race of P. graminis. If nothing is done to slow the pathogen, famines could soon become the norm from the Red Sea to the Mongolian steppe [...]

Video: Colbert Investigates 'Social Justice'

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 13:23:56 -0400

Stephen Colbert investigates Glenn Beck’s peculiar aversion to churches that preach “social justice,” and interviews Jesuit priest Father James Martin (who gets off the best line).

[Video]

NOVEMBER IS COMING: Protesting outside Obamas final health care rally in Fairfax, Virginia today

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 13:21:06 -0400

NOVEMBER IS COMING: Protesting outside Obama’s “final” health care rally in Fairfax, Virginia today.

MAX BOOT: No way to treat a friend. Why is the Obama administration so hard on Israel the most

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 13:11:14 -0400

MAX BOOT: No way to treat a friend. “Why is the Obama administration so hard on Israel — the most liberal and pro-American country in the Middle East — when it’s so soft on its despotic neighbors?”

GOOD NEWS ON SEX AND THE OLD: Its never been better.

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 13:00:46 -0400

GOOD NEWS ON SEX AND THE OLD: It’s never been better.

OPERATION DEM RESCUE: The St. Louis Tea Party will defend Democrats who vote no on Obamacare.

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 12:50:28 -0400

OPERATION DEM RESCUE: The St. Louis Tea Party will defend Democrats who vote “no” on Obamacare. Meanwhile, Tennessee’s Democratic Governor Phil Bredesen tells Tenn. delegation the state can’t afford ObamaCare. And here’s a target list.UPDATE: A Tea Party reader emails:There is going to be a video town hall tonight night in [...]

Getting to "yes"

Paul — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 12:32:38 -0400

Rep. John Boccieri (D-Ohio) has announced that he will vote in favor of "deeming and passing" Obamacare. Boccieri voted "no" on Obamacare last year.

Politico reports that, even with this pick-up, "all indications are that [Pelosi and company] stil have a few more votes to go." But Boccieri illustrates why the Dems are likely to pick them up.

In making his announcement, Boccieri, a first-termer from a right-of-center district, stated: "Today, I hope and I pray that we can get this job done." Presumably, he was hoping and praying the same thing last year, but was permitted to vote "no" because the leadership didn't need his vote. Now that Pelosi needs it, Boccieri's liberalism, coupled with plenty of arm-twisting, carries the day, even in the face of a huge personal political risk.

Pelosi only needs a few more Boccieri's, and I suspect she will have them.

JOHN adds: I think that's right, and if/when the Dems twist the last arm to get the votes they need, they will proclaim it a great victory. But it's hard to overstate the skepticism of voters. To take just one example, Rasmussen finds that only 20% of voters think most Congressmen will understand what is in the bill when they vote on it. The perceived illegitimacy of the Democrats' power grab will haunt them for a long time.

Cave-in Watch; Updated

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 12:28:28 -0400

Scroll for updates…Ohio Democrats Charlie Wilson and John Boccieri have caved.Nevada Democrat Dina Titus is a yes.Six pro-life Democrats led by West Virginia Democrat Rep. Nick Rahall are getting ready to sell out for a chump promise.Fox News asks: One down, one to go?On the no side: Mass. Democrat Rep. Stephen Lynch.NY Democrat Michael [...]

The Demcare bribe list, Pt. III; Update: Late-night wheeling and dealing into the midnight hour; Stupak press conference 11am Saturday

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 11:08:12 -0400

Greasing the skids.

IN THE MAIL: From Lee Harris, The Next American Civil War: The Populist Revolt against the Liberal

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 11:00:24 -0400

IN THE MAIL: From Lee Harris, The Next American Civil War: The Populist Revolt against the Liberal Elite.

REASON TV: Reason Saves Cleveland: The Final Episode.

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 10:49:06 -0400

REASON TV: Reason Saves Cleveland: The Final Episode.

TAXPROF: House Health Care Bill Dangerously Expands IRSs Power.

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 10:39:27 -0400

TAXPROF: House Health Care Bill ‘Dangerously Expands IRS’s Power’.

DOCTOR ZERO: The Terms of the Deal. When Barack Obama tries to convince you to accept a governmen

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 10:35:36 -0400

DOCTOR ZERO: The Terms of the Deal. “When Barack Obama tries to convince you to accept a government takeover of the health-care industry, he is making a promise he wont be around to keep. ObamaCares job-killing taxes are front-loaded, but in order to fool the Congressional Budget Office into giving it a respectable [...]

The Arlen Specter of the South Strikes Again

Paul — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 10:29:33 -0400

Andy McCarthy directs our attention to this report in the Wall Street Journal that Sen. Lindsey Graham and the White House are close to a deal that would close Guantanamo Bay in exchange for what McCarthy aptly describes as "some amorphous concessions on the legal proceedings to which terrorist detainees will be subjected."

The deal is a win-win for Graham, who wants both the closing of Gitmo and the amorphous concessions, but it's a loss for America. As Andy explains:

The good parts of the deal will be either things we'd have gotten anyway (like no civilian trial for KSM) or unenforceable (like promises that the Obama administration will be more open to using options other than the criminal justice system for top terrorists). The bad parts will be horrific, and no matter what Sen. Graham says, he can't do a thing about them: The place or places where the terrorists are held will become targets that we will have to spend tons of money to protect; the tons of money we have already spent to make Gitmo a first-rate, ideally secured facility, will be lost; and, most significantly, the physical presence in the U.S. of the detainees will mean they are unquestionably in the jurisdiction of the federal courts, where judges will be able to say the Constitution requires all sorts of remedies, including release.
And remember, all of this will be based on the fiction that Gitmo foments anti-U.S. terrorism -- and to the extent the U.S. reputation in the world has been tarnished, much more of that has been done by the politicians who've attacked Gitmo than by the facility itself, which is a model.

Lindsey Graham has been called a RINO (Republican in name only). The label doesn't fit because he votes with Republicans most of the time. But to me, Graham is worse than the RINOs because, unlike that breed, he comes from a rock-ribbed conservative state.

A South Carolina Senate seat is a terrible thing to waste on a squishy figure like Graham, who mindlessly subscribes to portions of the liberal narrative and relishes opportunities to stick it to conservative Republicans.

UPDATE: Sen. Graham's office is disputing the WSJ's report that a deal is close. It claims that that "we're not near a deal."

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Moorfield Storey!

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 10:25:54 -0400

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Moorfield Storey!

Warning: Reading may cause nausea

Scott — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 10:21:36 -0400

Ben Nelson has proven himself an embarrassment to the decent people of the state of Nebraska. They remain unbought and unamused by the special Medicaid payments he secured for Nebraska that instantly came to be known as the Cornhusker Kickback.

All things considered, the people of Nebraska let it be known that they preferred not to sell their birthright for a mess of pottage such as Obamacare. If the Obamacare legislation makes it to Obama, it is supposed to be minus the Cornhusker Kickback.

Now Rowan Scarborough reports that the Obama administration has delivered another budget plum to Nelson and the state of Nebraska, adding more than a half-billion dollars for a new veterans hospital in Omaha. Scarborough notes that the move reverses a decision by Mr. Obama's own Veterans Administration of a year ago, which called for repairing an existing hospital. Nelson's spokesman rejects the idea the new hospital was awarded in exchange for the senator's health care vote.

And maybe that's so. But there is no doubt that other kickbacks have been inserted into the reconciliation package that is before the House. For Tennessee congressional leaders have stuffed an extra $100 million for Tennessee hospitals serving a high volume of Medicaid patients into the package. This was apparently to secure the vote of Rep. Bart Gordon; see Tom Bevan's post.

Although the package nationalizes the student loan system, one bank -- the state-owned Bank of North Dakota -- would be allowed to continue making student loans. Such a deal for North Dakota's Democratic congressional delegation facing massive opposition to Obamacare back home.

North Dakota Senator Byron Dorgan has already announced his retirement rather than try to defend Obamacare to his constituents. Kent Conrad -- North Dakota's other Democratic senator -- is employing the full Nelson, declining the bribe. Referring to "an overly heated partisan environment," he asked the House to remove the buyoff from the legislation.

We await word from Rep. Earl Pomeroy, the state's lone member of the House. Before the package was announced, Pomeroy was an enthusiastic advocate of the buyoff. "We want what's taking place in North Dakota protected," Pomeroy said. It is not clear whether Pomeroy shares Conrad's second thoughts

And Congress will now expressly fund racial discrimination in higher education:

The new package also promises new aid for colleges serving minority students, using money the government is supposed to save by no longer paying banks to make student loans. Included are annual payments of $100 million for schools with large numbers of Hispanic students, the same amount for colleges with many black students, and millions more for schools with large numbers of native Americans and other minorities.

Newspapers running stories on these deals such as the Washington Post's "Cornhusker Kickback gets the boot in health bill" really ought to provide nausea warnings and motion sickness bags.

UPDATE: Michelle Malkin provides an updated roundup in "The Demcare bribe list, Pt. III."

MICHAEL SILENCE TO ABC NEWS: From This Week to Last Week? So let me get this straight. At a t

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 10:19:27 -0400

MICHAEL SILENCE TO ABC NEWS: From “This Week” to “Last Week?” “So let me get this straight. At a time when TV viewership is moving right, (see Fox News), and interest is more focused on domestic issues like, oh, say, health care and spending, you decide to hire a liberal to focus more [...]

WHITE DEATH: The Sniper Who Killed 700 Soviets in 100 Days.

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 10:14:48 -0400

WHITE DEATH: The Sniper Who Killed 700 Soviets in 100 Days.

Health Care Debacle Spurs Candidate Recruitment

John — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 10:10:22 -0400

The Democrats' push to ram government medicine down our throats has led to one of the best Republican candidate recruitment years ever. Byron York reports "As Dems struggle, GOP candidates line up to run."

House GOP leaders believe [this] is the best class of new candidates in many years. "So far, our successful recruitment efforts have helped produce over 95 top GOP recruits," says Rep. Kevin McCarthy, who is leading the recruitment drive for the National Republican Congressional Committee. And those are just the hot prospects in potentially winnable districts; there will also be Republican challengers for even the safest Democratic seats.

A remarkable 31 of these candidates come from the medical professions, and 24 are doctors. Too bad the Democrats aren't trying to socialize the legal industry. Then lawyers would switch to the Republicans en masse, and return the GOP to its former glory.

POLL: Obama tied with Huckabee and Romney.

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 09:59:04 -0400

POLL: Obama tied with Huckabee and Romney.

SLATE: Forget alpha and beta now its the Omega Males. And were not talking Charlton Heston he

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 09:53:33 -0400

SLATE: Forget alpha and beta — now it’s the Omega Males. And we’re not talking Charlton Heston here, either. . . .

A future that doesn't work

Scott — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 09:49:08 -0400

There is no more important public policy issue facing the United States than the imminent nationalization of the health care system by the Obamacare legislation. it is an oppressive nightmare from every relevant perspective. Despite the pitiful coverage afforded the substance of the legislation by the mainstream media, the American people have somehow gotten the picture. Even as the Democrats are forcing it through Congress by hook and by crook, the American people strongly oppose it.

One little noted provision of the legislation is Obamacare's imposition of a new 3.9 percent Medicare payroll tax on capital gains and other investments. Larry Kudlow observes of this tax: "It will depress the economy, depress wages, and depress jobs." (The bill would also increase the Medicare payroll tax by 0.9 percentage point to 2.35 percent on wages above $200,000 for individuals and $250,000 for married couples filing jointly.)

Within the political arena, there has been no more astute observer of the evils of the legislation than Wisconsin's Rep. Paul Ryan. The video below of Rep. Ryan below comes from Larry Kudlow's recent interview of Ryan on Kudlow's CNBC show.

Via NRO.

UPDATE: Michelle Malkin and Jeffrey Anderson have good columns on the CBO's cost estimates for the legislation.

Is Eric Holder a coward?

Scott — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 09:36:23 -0400

I thought I was being harsh in suggesting that Eric Holder might be a dope. Reviewing the same testimony that evoked my suggestion, Andrew McCarthy begins by observing: "There is dishonest, and there is asinine. Combine them and you have Attorney General Eric Holder's congressional testimony on Tuesday." McCarthy concludes:

Holder clearly believes -- as he argued in the amicus brief he withheld from the Senate before his confirmation hearings -- that our al-Qaeda enemies should be regarded as common criminals: given Miranda warnings upon capture and endowed with all the due-process protections of civilian defendants. This is an ill-advised position, but it's not an uncommon one. It is predominant on the academic Left. Yet Holder bobs, weaves, and contradicts himself on the question -- whatever it takes to avoid giving us a straight answer about his own beliefs. So who is the coward?

Let's just say that McCarthy does not mince words in "The corpse has the right to remain silent."

Taxpayer march on Washington: Saturday high noon

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 09:19:54 -0400

Yesterday, I told you about the Tea Party protest scheduled for high noon at the Capitol tomorrow. More groups are joining in. Update: I’m told the rally will be on the West Lawn of the Capitol. Take note.GOP congressional leaders, activists, and actor Jon Voight are scheduled to speak:WASHINGTON, March 18 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — An unprecedented [...]

The Deem-o-crats towering deception

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 09:13:39 -0400

When statistics are not based on strictly accurate calculations, they mislead instead of guide. The mind easily lets itself be taken in by the false appearance of exactitude which statistics retain even in their mistakes, and confidently adopts errors clothed in the forms of mathematical truth. Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, volume 1, [...]

Pope Benedict's German Diocese Ignored Abuse Warnings

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 23:52:15 -0400

Every day seems to bring ever more horrifying new revelations about the German Catholic school child abuse scandal. Today we learned that the German archdiocese headed by Josef Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) ignored a psychiatrist’s repeated warnings about a priest accused of molesting children, and simply let the priest continue preying on young boys for many years: German Diocese Ignored Abuse Warnings, Doctor Says.

“I said, ‘For God’s sake, he desperately has to be kept away from working with children,’” the psychiatrist, Dr. Werner Huth, said in a telephone interview from Munich. “I was very unhappy about the entire story.”
Dr. Huth said he was concerned enough that he set three conditions for treating the priest, the Rev. Peter Hullermann: that he stay away from young people and alcohol and be supervised by another priest at all times.
Dr. Huth said he issued the explicit warnings — both written and oral — before the future pope, then Joseph Ratzinger, archbishop of Munich and Freising, left Germany for a position in the Vatican in 1982.
In 1980, after abuse complaints from parents in Essen that the priest did not deny, Archbishop Ratzinger approved a decision to move the priest to Munich for therapy.
Despite the psychiatrist’s warnings, Father Hullermann was allowed to return to parish work almost immediately after his therapy began, interacting with children as well as adults. Less than five years later, he was accused of molesting other boys, and in 1986 he was convicted of sexual abuse in Bavaria.
Benedict’s deputy at the time, Vicar General Gerhard Gruber, said he was to blame for that personnel decision, referring to what he called “serious mistakes.”

GOP fights again: Cantor introduces privileged resolution challenging Slaughter Solution; Dems move to table the motion, 232-181

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 17:27:50 -0400

GOP Rep. Eric Cantor is on the House floor right now introducing a privileged resolution challenging the Slaughter Solution and condemning deem-and-pass. The clerk is now reading it into the record. Democrat House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer moves to table the motion. Boos break out on the House floor. Recorded vote underway. Stand by…Here is [...]

Video: Democrat Rep. Perriello admits, If you dont tie our hands, we will keep stealing

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 15:37:20 -0400

A congressional thief makes a true confession. Watch Democrat Rep. Tom Perriello of Virginia rat out his profession. Put it on a bumper sticker. If we don’t tie their hands, they will keep stealing — from us, from our kids, from our grandkids. And so on. And so on. And so on. (Via Welborn Freedom [...]

Speed-readers unite! House Rules Committee finally releases Wreckonciliation bill; Hoyer announces weekend schedule

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 14:18:32 -0400

Full speed ahead.

The House vote on the Slaughter Solution: Update: Constitution-butchers prevail, 222-203; Roll call vote added; Calling out Dems Altmire, Lynch; Barones analysis added

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 13:56:40 -0400

Deem-o-crats.

Pamela Geller Goes Nuts Over 'Census Stalkers'

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 12:43:16 -0400

Newsmax columnist and wingnut blogger Pamela “Shrieking Harpy” Geller is losing her marbles today over being contacted by census workers, calling them “Census Stalkers.”

For the past month I have been called, harassed and visited by a Pamela Childs of the Census Bureau, who was pursuing me for an interview. Knowing my rights under the law, even under the current coup, I did not respond. I filled out my form — that which is required by law — but still received calls, visits, notes. Daily.
At one point, I left a message saying I would not speak to her. Period.
A week passed, and now I am being harassed again by another census goose stepper. They want to interview me poisonally.
It’s pretty clear Obama intends to use the census to fix the next and future elections so as to ensure his Radical Left polices prevail for the long-term.
Morris points out that Obama will:
1. Legalize millions of illegal aliens
2. Use Acorn to “assist” with the next census
Census goons prying into my private life. Welcome to Oganda.

“Stalkers.” “The current coup.” “Census goose stepper.” “Census goons.” “Oganda.”

It’s a cornucopia of crazy.

Also at Geller’s hate hole today, she finds a new reason to bash Obama — the President who is simultaneously a master schemer with a secret plan to turn America into a Nazi-like state, and an ignorant illiterate who doesn’t even know how to hold a pen.

Every time I see BHO sign another bill, I am fascinated at how he holds a pen. He holds a pen like an illiterate. Have you seen it? Like a little kid who just learned how to write and he signs a scribble.
He makes an O instead of an X.
Just sayin.

Take the Town Halls to Washington; Update: Obama postpones Asia trip to June

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 12:40:11 -0400

If you can make it to D.C. this Saturday, there’s a Tea Party effort to “Take the Town Halls to Washington:”More info here.Bring a Constitution Butchers sign! (Get yours here.)Photoshop exclusive: Big Fur Hat at iowntheworld.com and Applecross Media***Update: Just announced…White House press secretary Gibbs says Obama is postponing Asia trip to June.Now is the [...]

These are the good old days, Part Three

Paul — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 11:34:04 -0400

My conservative cousin from New York finds support for my "these are the good old days" theme in Great Britian:

Your post on Obamacare was really on point. Once the federal government becomes so deeply involved in allocating health care, it will come to be a dominant focus of political discourse.
Over the years watching on C-Span the British Prime Minister's Question Time, I've observed that a large portion of this exercise is devoted to specific questions about the quality care provided by The National Health Service in members' districts. A question on the terrorists threats to the UK will invariably be followed by a passionate query from a Member asking the PM if he's aware of nurses being re-assigned at a hospital in Sheffield. The PM seems to spend as much time on parochial health care issues as on national security.
The politics of deciding who gets what in the way of medical treatment doubtlessly will push aside traditional affairs of state. Every member of Congress will need to hire several staff members just to manage constituents' complaints about their care. Elections will be won and lost on the basis of who can get the most in the way of health care for their districts.
We will become the Gulliver of nations, a great power whose leaders are tied up in strings as they spend much of their time addressing the medical complaints, valid and imagined, of their electorate.

By the time I get to Phoenix (health care edition)

Scott — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 10:36:42 -0400

Video of Bret Baier's 18-minute interview of President Obama in the White House yesterday is below; a transcript of the interview is here. The interview was broadcast on the the Fox News Special Report with Bret Baier. Having previously declared Fox News an illegitimate organization, Obama's strategists must have arrived at a health care reconciliation package of their own. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

Most of the interview is devoted to Obamacare and related questions of process. Is the Louisiana Purchase in or out? Is the Cornhusker Kickback in or our? Is Gatorade in or out? Is the Connecticut hospital in or out?

By the time the bill is voted on, Obama says, Obama will know, and so will Baier, because the bill will be posted online. All will become clear in the fullness of time. To paraphrase Jimmy Webb, we'll laugh when we read the part that says we're payin', 'cause we've paid so many times before.

Obama apparently can't say at the moment exactly what's in and what's out of the bill that is imminently to be voted on. There is some mystery about the contents. Obama does defend the Louisiana Purchase; unlike Nebraska, Louisiana's staying bought.

By my lights, the attention to procedure in the interview is excessive. The distasteful procedural issues, however, fairly represent the deceptive talking points supporting the horrendous substance of the legislation. When Baier asks Obama about double counting the purported Medicare savings in the bill, Obama all but says, "I'm dancing as fast as I can." There is good reason Obama hasn't made himself available to be questioned on the substance of the bill by a knowledgeable reporter.

Baier is incredibly persistent in pressing his questions over Obama's evasions and filibusters. Obama's technique for dealing with difficult questions is on display throughout, as well as his reactions of frustration and irritation. Baier manfully resists Obama's domination of the interview. Putting the seriousness of the issues to one side, I found this to be an incredibly entertaining piece.

Via NRO's The Feed.

UPDATE: Memeorandum compiles comments on the interview. Ann Althouse critically observes Obama's evasions. Michelle Malkin attends to Obama's invocation of the Hawaiian earthquake, a highlight that whizzed right by me. Seth Liebsohn's assessment is on the money: "Bret Baier just concluded the single best interview of President Obama in a year, by any reporter....Bret showed the rest of the press how to do it from now on."

Hang in there, Rep. Stupak

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 09:31:05 -0400

"It's been a living hell."

CBO: Covering the Backsides of Obamacare-pushers?; Update: House Ds conjure up $940 billion price tag; GOP united in opposition; Dems giddy; Pelosi: I love numbers. Theyre so precise.

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 09:13:30 -0400

Scroll for updates…9:54am Eastern…Boehner vows to do “everything we can to make sure this bill never, ever passes.”…Democrat whip James Clyburn announces the majority is “giddy” over the $940 billion price tag…The CBO scoring of the House Demcare bill that the American people have not seen will be released this morning.The poor number-crunchers have been [...]

Hawaii is Fed Up With the Birthers

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 01:42:30 -0400

Hawaiian public service officials are normally the most laid-back public service officials in the country; to get on their last nerves you really have to work at it.

But the Birther kooks are nothing if not persistent: Hawaii Birthers Bill: State May Start Ignoring Requests For Obama Citizenship.

HONOLULU — Birthers beware: Hawaii may start ignoring your repeated requests for proof that President Barack Obama was born here.
As the state continues to receive e-mails seeking Obama’s birth certificate, the state House Judiciary Committee heard a bill Tuesday permitting government officials to ignore people who won’t give up.
“Sometimes we may be dealing with a cohort of people who believe lack of evidence is evidence of a conspiracy,” said Lorrin Kim, chief of the Hawaii Department of Health’s Office of Planning, Policy and Program Development. …
Hawaii Health Director Dr. Chiyome Fukino issued statements last year and in October 2008 saying that she’s seen vital records that prove Obama is a natural-born American citizen.
But the state still gets between 10 and 20 e-mails seeking verification of Obama’s birth each week, most of them from outside Hawaii, Kim said Tuesday.
A few of these requesters continue to pepper the Health Department with the same letters seeking the same information, even after they’re told state law bars release of a certified birth certificate to anyone who does not have a tangible interest. Responding wastes time and money, Kim said.

If there were a Nobel Prize for Gaffetastic-ity

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 00:25:35 -0400

Ed Morrissey has done a terrific job at Hot Air chronicling President Obama’s malapropisms, blunders, fantasy math, and history-flubbing with his “Obamateurisms” series. It’s a gaffe-a-minute with the supposedly silver-tongued emir of eloquence.If there were a Nobel Prize for Gaffetastic-ity, Obama would be a deserving recipient (for once).Now comes this bizarro statement from tonight’s interview [...]

These are the good old days, Part Two

Paul — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 00:10:45 -0400

A friend and occasional Power Line contributor writes:

If [Obamacare] passes, the Dems will own every doctor complaint out there. Moreover, the complaints will multiply, and not just because care will deteriorate as demand increases and supply decreases. They are going to multiply because the care-seeking population is about to become the Baby Boomers -- i.e., the most indulged, demanding and complaining generation in a hundred years, or maybe ever. The Dems are (apparently) fixing to take over medicine at exactly the time The Giant Complaining Horde shows up at the door.

Of course, the irony, as ever with these egalitarian programs, is that people with money will still come out ahead. One reason I found out about [my] liver cancer in time to do something about it was that, knowing I had a potential problem, I paid $4,000 out of my own pocket for an exotic annual physical exam beyond what insurance would reimburse.

What is actually going to happen is that there will spring up a quasi-underground medical practice for people who can pay their own bills and do not rely on Medicare or (what will become dwindling) private insurance. Indeed, this has already started to happen with boutique clinics like the one I used. If I were a shrewd businessman, I would figure out some way to franchise it, or something, and make a fortune.

The basic thing the Dems detest is inequality born of the fact that people who think about what they're doing tend to come out ahead of people who don't. Oh well.

And in other news, did I tell you that my doctor never returns my calls?

Landmark Legal Foundation to Slaughter House butchers: Not without a fight; Update: The states revolt

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 17:29:43 -0400

Photoshop exclusive: Big Fur Hat at iowntheworld.com and Applecross Media(Get your Constitution Butchers poster here.)Not without a fight, Deem-o-crats:Mark R. Levin, president of Landmark Legal Foundation, today issued a warning to the leadership of the U.S. House of Representatives about the possible use of the so-called deem and pass, self-executing, or Slaughter Rule to enact [...]

Wednesday Afternoon Metheny

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 16:30:02 -0400

Here’s a midday music break with the Pat Metheny Group, from a 1992 performance at Japan’s “Live Under the Sky” music festival.

[Video]

Holder: 'Reading Miranda Rights to a Corpse'

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 14:00:43 -0400

Attorney General Eric Holder is turning into quite a rambunctious cowboy: If bin Laden is found, he’ll be killed, Holder says.

Osama bin Laden “will never appear in an American courtroom,” Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. told House members at a hearing Tuesday.
“Let’s deal with the reality here,” Holder said in response to questions from Rep. John Culberson (R-Tex.). “The reality is, we will be reading Miranda rights to a corpse.”

In response to amnesty stooge Dick Armey

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 13:43:03 -0400

I have wonderful, grass-roots friends at Freedomworks. Dick Armey is not one of them.He’s a clueless promoter of bailout-happy, big government Republican Sen. John McCain. And Armey’s a blowhard-y Beltway dinosaur who can’t resist shooting off his mouth and alienating the Tea Party base while criticizing other conservatives of alienation. At the National Press Club [...]

Hitchens: The Great Catholic Cover-Up

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 00:50:32 -0400

The investigations into child abuse in Germany’s Catholic schools are continuing to widen, now getting close to Pope Benedict himself, as his brother Georg Ratzinger has been implicated in covering up the systemic child abuse (with the now well-known Catholic Church practice of moving priests around to different parishes) — and he is also accused of physically battering children himself.

Christopher Hitchens has a scathing piece on this true outrage at Slate: The Great Catholic Cover-Up.

There are two separate but related matters here: First, the individual responsibility of the pope in one instance of this moral nightmare and, second, his more general and institutional responsibility for the wider lawbreaking and for the shame and disgrace that goes with it. The first story is easily told, and it is not denied by anybody. In 1979, an 11-year-old German boy identified as Wilfried F. was taken on a vacation trip to the mountains by a priest. After that, he was administered alcohol, locked in his bedroom, stripped naked, and forced to suck the penis of his confessor. (Why do we limit ourselves to calling this sort of thing “abuse”?) The offending cleric was transferred from Essen to Munich for “therapy” by a decision of then-Archbishop Joseph Ratzinger, and assurances were given that he would no longer have children in his care. But it took no time for Ratzinger’s deputy, Vicar General Gerhard Gruber, to return him to “pastoral” work, where he soon enough resumed his career of sexual assault.
It is, of course, claimed, and it will no doubt later be partially un-claimed, that Ratzinger himself knew nothing of this second outrage. I quote, here, from the Rev. Thomas Doyle, a former employee of the Vatican Embassy in Washington and an early critic of the Catholic Church’s sloth in responding to child-rape allegations. “Nonsense,” he says. “Pope Benedict is a micromanager. He’s the old style. Anything like that would necessarily have been brought to his attention. Tell the vicar general to find a better line. What he’s trying to do, obviously, is protect the pope.”
This is common or garden stuff, very familiar to American and Australian and Irish Catholics whose children’s rape and torture, and the cover-up of same by the tactic of moving rapists and torturers from parish to parish, has been painstakingly and comprehensively exposed. It’s on a level with the recent belated admission by the pope’s brother, Monsignor Georg Ratzinger, that while he knew nothing about sexual assault at the choir school he ran between 1964 and 1994, now that he remembers it, he is sorry for his practice of slapping the boys around.
Very much more serious is the role of Joseph Ratzinger, before the church decided to make him supreme leader, in obstructing justice on a global scale. After his promotion to cardinal, he was put in charge of the so-called “Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith” (formerly known as the Inquisition). In 2001, Pope John Paul II placed this department in charge of the investigation of child rape and torture by Catholic priests. In May of that year, Ratzinger issued a confidential letter to every bishop. In it, he reminded them of the extreme gravity of a certain crime. But that crime was the reporting of the rape and torture. The accusations, intoned Ratzinger, were only treatable within the church’s own exclusive jurisdiction. Any sharing of the evidence with legal authorities or the press was utterly forbidden. Charges were to be investigated “in the most secretive way … restrained by a perpetual silence … and everyone … is to observe the strictest secret which is commonly regarded as a secret of the Holy Office … under the penalty of excommunication.” (My italics).

Read the whole thing…

Tuesday Afternoon Music: Bruce Hornsby, 'In The Low Country'

Tue, 16 Mar 2010 16:24:02 -0400

Here’s Bruce Hornsby with an excellent solo version of “In the Low Country,” from his latest album Levitate.

[Video]

Onion: New Initiative by US Bigots

Tue, 16 Mar 2010 15:03:52 -0400

The Onion reports on an initiative among the nation’s bigots to develop new state of the art slurs to keep pace with rising numbers of multi-racial births.

WASHINGTON—A coalition of the nation’s most fervent bigots convened in Washington Monday to address growing concerns that the production of hateful new racial slurs has failed to keep pace with the rise in mixed-race births.
According to representatives from the American Racists and Bigots Council (ARBC), the growing number of children born to parents of different ethnicities has posed a real challenge to the nation’s hate-speech developers—a challenge they say threatens their way of life.
“The world is changing, and we, the hateful and ignorant of America, need to change with it,” ARBC chairman Tom Branson said at a rally Monday. “The time has come for our ugly, intolerant rhetoric to step into the 21st century. Our disgusting, dehumanizing slurs simply must reflect the terrifying new global society we now live in.”
Added Branson, “In order to continue going backward, we first have to move forward.”
According to statistics provided by the coalition, a rise in the birthrate of mixed-race Americans has left millions of confused racists with absolutely nothing prejudiced to say when confronted by a person of indeterminate or complex background. What frightens the coalition most is data suggesting that by 2015, ignorant bigots everywhere could be powerless when it comes to reducing mixed-raced individuals to profoundly uninformed cultural stereotypes.

Heh.

Clinton Pledges 'Unshakeable Bond' with Israel

Tue, 16 Mar 2010 13:36:30 -0400

Hillary Clinton dialed down the diplomatic confrontation with Israel this morning, pledging that the US has “an unshakeable bond” with Israel, and dismissing suggestions that the relationship between the US and Israel was at its worst point in decades.

“We have an absolute commitment to Israel’s security. We have a close, unshakeable bond between the United States and Israel,” Clinton told a news briefing.
Her comments marked a turn after days of tough U.S. talk following Israel’s announcement last week that it would approve construction of a housing project in East Jerusalem, a move which infuriated the Palestinians and put hopes for resumption of Middle East peace talks on hold. …
“We share common values and a commitment to a democratic future for the world, and we are both committed to a two-state solution” for Israel and the Palestinians, she said. “But that doesn’t mean that we are going to agree. We don’t agree with any of our international partners on everything.”

Onion: Kentucky Violated NCAA Rules

Tue, 16 Mar 2010 01:13:51 -0400

[Video]

Video: Flogging the Scientists

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 23:42:22 -0400

Environmentalist Peter Sinclair fires off some pretty good snark at the climate change denial community in his new video, “Flogging the Scientists.” The title comes from denial mob leader Marc Morano, who said about climate scientists, “They deserve to be publicly flogged.”

(Morano’s extreme punishment fantasy sounds oddly similar to what shrieking harpy Pamela Geller said last year about yours truly. What is it with wingnuts and sadistic fantasies?)

It’s not all snark, though. Sinclair also points out some especially outrageous cases of the distortions and lies for which deniers are infamous. And it’s in 720p too.

[Video]

Monday Afternoon Music: Gorillaz, 'Stylo'

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 15:18:24 -0400

[Video]

Fox News vs. Glenn Beck

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 14:18:28 -0400

There is growing tension within the ranks at Fox News over the Glenn Beck Clown Show: Howard Kurtz - The Beck Factor at Fox: Staffers say comments taint their work. (Ya think?)

Fox staffers note that veteran producer Gresham Striegel left the network after clashing with Beck and say the host has surrounded himself with loyalists from Mercury, some of whom remain on that company’s payroll. (Striegel did not respond to a request for comment.) When Fox covers breaking news during Beck’s hour, some journalists say, they are flooded with angry e-mail from viewers about the preemption.
Friction between opinionated cable personalities and journalists has also flared occasionally at MSNBC. But Beck has caused such anguish at Fox that some of its journalists celebrated the failure of last week’s interview with embattled ex-congressman Eric Massa, which Beck pronounced a waste of time.
Love him or hate him, Beck is a talented, often funny broadcaster, a recovering alcoholic with an unabashedly emotional style. Yet even that has caused grousing. Some staffers say they have watched rehearsals, on internal monitors, in which Beck has teared up or paused at the same moments as he later did during the show. Asked about this, Balfe responded sharply: “Glenn reacts the same way to issues whether he knows people are watching or not, and is proud to show his emotions, unlike the cowardly, two-faced critics who hide behind anonymity.”

J. D. Hayworth: I Am Schtoopid

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 13:33:08 -0400

May I be blunt? The idea that legalizing same sex marriage will lead to bestiality is one of the most stone-dumb reactionary talking points of the religious right. Do these people really think the only reason humans don’t “marry” animals is because it’s against the law? Good grief.

Maybe this says more about them than they’d like to admit.

The latest Neanderthal to pull out this scaaary boogeybeast is John McCain’s Republican opponent in Arizona, tea party Birther candidate J.D. Hayworth: ‘You could marry your horse’. He might as well be wearing a badge that says “I AM SCHTOOPID.”

Former Rep. J.D. Hayworth (R-Ariz.) said Sunday that the expansion of state laws allowing gay marriage could lead to people marrying horses.
Hayworth, during an interview with an Orlando, Fla., radio station explained: “You see, the Massachusetts Supreme Court, when it started this move toward same-sex marriage, actually defined marriage - now get this - it defined marriage as simply, ‘the establishment of intimacy.’”
“Now how dangerous is that?” asked Hayworth, who is challenging Sen. John McCain from the right in Arizona’s GOP Senate primary.
“I mean, I don’t mean to be absurd about it, but I guess I can make the point of absurdity with an absurd point,” he continued. “I guess that would mean if you really had affection for your horse, I guess you could marry your horse.”
The former Republican congressman then insisted that the “only way” to prevent men from marrying horses is to create a federal marriage amendment. Hayworth noted that he supports such an amendment.

Pew Research: Outlook Grim for Pay Walls

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 12:46:25 -0400

As mainstream news organizations increasingly find it difficult to turn a profit in the Internet Age, Pew Research has been studying the attitudes of news consumers toward some of the proposed solutions; and the prospects are pretty grim for news organizations to convince consumers to pay for something that they now get for free: Online economics and consumer attitudes.

The biggest question facing online journalism today is how to pay for it. With revenue declining both online and in legacy platforms news organizations say they are intensifying the search for new models. What kind of new advertising options are out there? How will users respond? And would consumers in the marketplace accept pay walls?
To learn more, PEJ and the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project collaborated on a national phone survey in January 2010 to explore consumers’ willingness to pay for news online and their attitudes and behavior in response to online advertising.
Over all, the evidence suggests the outlook is difficult both for paywalls and for online display advertising. While most people have not been asked to pay for content, even among the most avid news consumers online, only about one in five at this point say they would be willing to pay, and this does not include less voracious news consumers. At the same time, the vast majority of those online, 8 out of 10, say they basically ignore online ads.

Sunday Night Music: Steely Dan, 'Gaslighting Abbie'

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 00:45:39 -0400

I like this version of Steely Dan’s “Gaslighting Abbie” even better than the one on Two Against Nature. Ricky Lawson is an ultrafunky metronome in this one, Walter Becker squeezes out some nicely twisted licks, and the arrangement is more fully developed.

[Video]

One plush summer you come to me ripe and ready
And bad through and through
With that deep mystical soul synergy pumping steady
Between me and you
Lovin all the beautiful work weve done, cara mia
And its barely july
If we keep on boppin until labor day
Lil miz abbie - bye bye
What will it be - some soothing herb tea?
That might be just the thing
Lets say we spike it with deludin
Or else - maybe tonight a hand of solitaire
Chorus:
Flame is the game
The game we call gaslighting abbie
Its a luscious invention for three
One summer by the sea
With the long weekend thats comin up fast
Lets get busy
Theres just too much to do
That black mini looks just like the one shes been missin
Feels good on you
Theres a few items we need in town - allez-vous girl
Theres no time to waste
Such as fresh cable and fifteen watt bulbs
Couple dozen - its a big old place
Lets keep it light - well do a fright night
With blood and everything
Some punky laughter from the kitchen
And then - a nice relaxing hand of solitaire
Chorus
You can choose the music
Ill set up my gear
Later on well chill and watch the fireworks from here
How can you knock this mighty spitelock
Check out the work itself
A mix of elegance and function
Thats right - a tweak or two and then shes out of here
Chorus