Getting past the obvious.

A retired writer for the Virginian Pilot wrote another one of those columns about bias in the media. You know the kind I mean: the one that says that newspaper reporters stifle their biases when they write. Somewhere in every one of these articles there is a reference to a colleague who did not live up to the standard by wearing a campaign button or making a campaign contribution, and how that was a violation of the code.

Can we please stop missing the point? Wearing a Kennedy button does not make a reporter a Democrat. Making a campaign contribution to a Democrat or a Republican does not make the reporter a partisan. He or she is a partisan way before the button is displayed or the contribution is made. These are simply the outward manifestation of internalized beliefs.

No one had any question about the political orientation of Keith Olbermann before he was suspended for giving campaign contributions to three Democrats running for congress. I read nothing on the Internet or the MSM that expressed surprise at his political bent; just that he was suspended for giving cash in addition to in-kind contributions to these candidates on his TV show. Seeing an Obama sticker on a reporter’s bumper is not an “aha” moment, it simply another confirmation of something that’s already apparent.

The retired reporter acknowledged that the use of loaded words in a story can show bias and he gave an example. And he’s right; it’s a common way for a reporter or editor’s bias to frame the issue. But the most common way the MSM shows its bias never appears in print or shows up on the air. It’s the story that is not covered, the issues that are not discussed that, more than any other technique allows the media to shape public perception.

To use the most glaring example, what did we know of Barack Obama when we voted for him? What do we even know today; not about his governing style but about him? Who shaped his beliefs in his youth and early adulthood? What were his accomplishments? How did he attend Reverend Wright’s church for 20 years without once hearing the racism, anti-Semitism or hatred of America? Why was Michelle not proud of her country before Barack was nominated? Was Bill Ayers really just a guy that lived in his neighborhood? What did he do to get the support of the Chicago political machine? Barack Obama was a rock star candidate; and he was treated as a rock star with the MSM acting as the distribution medium for his press handouts.

None of the reporters during the last election wore an Obama pin on their lapel. I heard of none that gave to his campaign. It was not necessary for the American people to know that they were on his side; wanted him elected and were not interested in pursuing stories that questioned his qualifications, his background or his political orientation.

I think that it may even be healthy for people in the MSM to wear pins and stickers, to openly make contributions. Maybe then we can get past the obvious and discuss the less obvious.

CHRIS CHRISTIE shows how it’s done.

Via Instapundit.

Evidence at F-22 Crash Site Indicates Pilot Died

ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- Evidence found at the remote, rugged Alaska site where an F-22 Raptor crashed indicates the pilot died, an Air Force official said Friday evening.

Part of the jet's ejection seat was found at the site, which means Capt. Jeffrey Haney of Clarklake, Mich., could not have survived the Tuesday night crash, Col. Jack McMullen said. Also found were pieces of the flight suit Haney had been wearing.

Picture of crash site


F-22 Raptor


Video of F-22

Obama Press Secretary Robert Gibbs giver fewer press briefings.

As this administration's actions become more erratic and unhinged, it's becoming tougher for Robert Gibbs to face the press.

At the beginning the questions were on the order of: "Bob, given the godlike aura surrounding the throne of The One, what wonderful thing has the President done today?"

Then the questions became: “Bob, we know that the President is the smartest person in the history of the universe, why do you thing that the American people don’t appreciate him more?”

It’s now: “Since the election, will our wise president focus even more on reducing unemployment?”

The MSM is still not giving the press secretary a daily beating, but there is some hint, a faint whiff of less than slavish adulation, and that has to be rough on Robert Gibbs.

"I think they may just want to lay low with him," says Pulitzer Prize winner and media critic Dorothy Rabinowitz, who is also is a member of the editorial board of The Wall Street Journal.

"Gibbs has been a huge problem for the administration," referring to a series of comments that Gibbs' made recently in various media venues and had to back track. His statements included slamming the what he called the "professional left" and angering Speaker Pelosi with a summer prediction that Democrats were likely to lose the House.

Why is Kathleen Parker so ignorant about American history?

Via Newsbusters.  

Kathleen Parker is the kind of conservative that Liberals would build from spare body parts if they could construct conservatives: stupid people who espouse "Liberal Lite."

On Thursday's Parker-Spitzer, CNN's Kathleen Parker bizarrely and inaccurately claimed that Alexander Hamilton came to the United States illegally and drafted the Constitution: "Let's remember...a lot of Americans did come through the back door such as Alexander Hamilton. He got off the boat from the West Indies, and all he did was write the Constitution and become the first Secretary of the Treasury."

The real Hamilton had a somewhat different history. He did not come to the United States because when he arrived here from the British West Indies this country was still a British colony. And he did not write the Constitution, that was largely the work of James Madison.

And of course, Spitzer (otherwise known as Client number 9) agreed with Parker, making him complicit in her ignorance.

Boxer, Citing Don't Ask Don't Tell, Compares U.S. to Iran, N. Korea and Pakistan

Sen. Barbara Boxer, no stranger to controversy, compared the United States to Iran, North Korea and Pakistan this week, saying America's Don't Ask Don't Tell policy puts it on a par with those three countries.

Via Fox News.  Read the whole thing.

Duncan Hunter responds:

California Rep. Duncan Hunter, a Republican who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, was stunned when he was told about Boxer's comments.


"Wow," he told FoxNews.com. "I can probably think of few people less qualified to comment on our military than Ms. Boxer."


He said Boxer's comments perform an "extreme disservice to our men and women" in the armed forces and "our military tradition, which I don't think Ms. Boxer understands."

Don't you dare question her patriotism ... or her sanity.  This is the kind of person that the people of California send to Washington to represent them.

Michelle Malkin Interviews Mark Steyn

Part 1



Part 2



Part 3



Part 4

Roy Green Interviews Mark Steyn

Part 1.


Part 2

What’s the Matter With America? (Soros, Huffington, Maher, & Olbermann Can’t Be Wrong).

Via Instapundit, Klavan on the Culture:

Halloween Extravaganza

Race and Failed Leadership

The “American Race Problem” has created a new and interesting challenge. Until the last decade, black leaders were - in the political world – leaders of blacks. Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, members of the congressional Black Caucus, were leaders in a world where the followers were black, or elected from districts that were created for them for the purpose of racial homogeneity via Gerrymandering. The thought of replacing any of these men or women with a “white” person in simply inconceivable. Replace Jackson or Sharpton with … Michael Moore (to pick someone who shares their views)? The question is simply silly. Their ethnicity may not be sufficient, but it is necessary.

In politics that situation has changed. To bring two examples to the fore, we now we have a black President and a black Republican Party chairman. Both lead majority white groups. And both have lost the confidence of many of their followers. Both want to hold on to their jobs for another term and both have a card that no white candidate can play: the race card.

For black followers of Barack Obama, which appears to include well over 90% of the black population, his critics are racists. I was sent a copy of a newspaper article by a retired black teacher which appears to reflect her views. These views include the assumption that Barack Obama’s life is in danger because he’s black. Andrew Manis, Associate Professor of History at Macon State College put it this way:

First, every day that Barack Obama lives in the White House that Black Slaves Built, I’m going to pray that God (and the Secret Service) will protect him and his family from us white people.

Second, I’m going to report to the FBI any white person I overhear saying, in seriousness or in jest, anything of a threatening nature about President Obama.

Third, I’m going to pray to live long enough to see America surprise the world once again, when white people can “in spirit and in truth” sing of our damnable color prejudice.

Professor Manis is white. My correspondent is black. Can you imagine the reaction from them and millions of others if the Democrats, fearing a continuation of the electoral catastrophe that began this year, decided to try to deny Barack Obama the nomination for a second term? The Democrats – who are now of the opinion that Obama doesn’t know what he’s doing – are caught in a vice of their own creation. They absolutely need a monolithic black vote to win national elections so they cannot antagonize that part of their coalition. Having an incompetent, unpopular black man as their leader puts them in a virtually impossible situation which they are trying to wriggle out of. The article in the Washington Post Douglas E. Schoen and Patrick H. Caddell is the answer that would – mostly – get them off the hook. But the “Lightworker” whose election would cause the seas to recede and the earth to cool is not that kind of man. In case they have not noticed, it’s not about them, it’s about him.

Michael Steele is a problem for Republicans. He was elected to be the Republican Party Chairman in part to prove that Republicans were every bit as inclusive as Democrats. Steele is a politician and, like many politicians he likes the spotlight. He has had the unfortunate habit of putting his foot in his mouth too often. Party chairmen should neither be seen nor heard. Their job is to raise money and to tend to the party machinery. It now appears that Steele is prepared to play the race card if he does not get a second term. Since his tenure as chairman has not seen an increase in Republican support in the black community, Steele’s hold on the Chairmanship is much less secure. For whites, the accusations of racism – thanks to the rants of Professor Manis and other like him – has lost much of its sting. “You’re calling me a racist? Whatever.” Still, we can be sure that the Liberal community and their megaphones in the MSM will be sure to make the case that Steele is being dropped because he’s black.

There are things that are so emotionally charged that they are immune to logic. Race is one and religion is another. People who have been seeking a secular savior – someone who looks like them – will not let him go even if he brings misery to his people. That’s the hold the First-Black-President™ has on the overwhelming majority of the black community. To give another example, the photo “Piss Christ,” like a lot of Andres Serrano’s work product is - when stripped of its appeal to emotion - not much more than a blurry image in various shades of yellow. A visitor from Mars would wonder not just what all the fuss was all about but why it was put on exhibit in the first place. Only a Christian would have an emotional reaction and be offended.  Only someone who has contempt for Christians but understands the insult would like the picture.  So it is with the new class of black political leaders. If they become leaders due to their race – as Obama was in part – they create a racial crisis if they are found wanting.

So what can a non-black group or culture do if they find themselves governed or led by a black man who is unsatisfactory?  Can enough people find the courage to do the right thing; to look beyond the racial dimension and make a color-blind judgment?  What will be the result?

As I have said in the past, Barack Obama may well be the worst thing that has happened to the black community since the days of Jim Crow.  Many view him as a test case.  This is a problem that will not go away until another generation passes away. I always thought that the Bible verse about the sins of the fathers being visited on the children was unfair. As I have grown much older, I see it’s just the truth.

UPDATE: 

The very white Nancy Pelosi and her very white underling, Steny Hoyer, are now deeply enmeshed in the Democrat’s Black Problem©. It seems the number 3 Democrat in the House, James Clyburn, wanted to move up in the ranks but it seems Queen Nancy believes that she had nothing to do with the Democrat’s defeat so she’s staying, which means Steny is staying which means that Jim Clyburn doesn’t get the promotion that he believes he deserves. It seems that affirmative action is only for the little people since none of Jim’s white overlords is willing to give up his or her job for the affirmative action black man.


The answer? Create a new position. Let’s call is the Senior-Black-in-the-Democrat-House-Party position. He’ll have a car, a driver, a nice office and no power. Sort of like welfare on a grander scale. Hey, it’s worked for the Democrats for several generations.

Federal pay ahead of private industry

In USA Today, an apples to apples comparison of feral pay to private industry pay. It's not even close, the government worker gets more, in some cases much more than the private industry worker. And that's not counting benefits!

These salary figures do not include the value of health, pension and other benefits, which averaged $40,785 per federal employee in 2008 vs. $9,882 per private worker, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

Check the chart.

A New Poster Boy for Greed & Arrogance

Osama bin Laden appoints new commander to spearhead war on West

Via the UK Telegraph:

Little was heard of al-Adel, who was held by Iran with a group of al-Qaeda fugitives, for several years thereafter. The fugitives were housed in villas along Iran's Caspian coast and in Lazivan, north-west of Tehran. Al-Adel lived there with his five children and wife Wafa, who is the daughter of Mustafa Hamid, another top al-Qaeda figure.


But in April this year, he was released from Iranian custody along with Saad bin Laden, Osama bin Laden's son, and top al-Qaeda operatives Suleiman al-Gaith and Mahfouz al-Walid.


...

US and Pakistani sources have told The Daily Telegraph that al-Adel is running several similar operations as part of a war of attrition intended to persuade Western public opinion that the war against terror is unwinnable. This would clear the road for al-Qaeda to capture power in fragile states such as Somalia and Yemen.


"His strategy", said Syed Saleem Shahzad, a Pakistani expert on al-Qaeda, "is to stage multiple small terror operations, using the resources of affiliates and allies wherever possible."

Our counter-strategy is to irradiate our citizens travelling on planes, and, if they object, to molest them sexually.

Mike Malloy calls for a race war.

The Radio Equalizer asks: Should Libtalker Be Held Accountable For Hateful Rantings?

Why are Democrats so violent?

Via Glenn Reynolds who linked to The American Spectator:
Kanjorski on Gov.-Elect Rick Scott: "Shoot Him"

Congressman Paul Kanjorski, the Pennsylvania Democrat who just lost his seat to Hazleton Mayor Lou Barletta, a Republican, had another target on his mind before he lost his election.


Curiously, that would be Rick Scott, now the Republican Governor-elect of Florida. Kanjorski is clearly not a Scott fan. In fact, he has suggested that the Governor-elect should be…shot.

Read the whole thing.

Why do Democrats win all the close races; it's uncanny!

Ann Althouse remarks on this. People like Mickey Kaus and Glenn Reynolds are beginning to notice that in the races that end in a slow count, there are frequently boxes or bags of ballots that just - mysteriously - show up with votes for the Democrat; just enough to put him or her over the top.

It's a puzzlement.

TSA out of control: "Cuffed to a Chair, Her Ticket Ripped up"

The Congress of the termites

Via Often wrong, never in doubt:

Art Laffer gave some remarks [at the Show Me Institute recently] and he said something that I found apt: "The political class are like bad renters, not knowing if they'll be in power more than two years they spend everything at hand and then some, because to conserve it is to eventually bequeath resources on their adversaries."

The crop that have just been semi-tossed were particularly bad - they've been ripping out the copper plumbing and smashing the furniture for firewood.

A comment followed:

The bunch that have just been semi-tossed consumed much of the structure of the building. The Congress of the Termites...

Very apt similes and metaphors.

The video Rachel Maddow doesn’t want you to see

The Virginian Pilot cleans up its website, ignores the cause.

The Virginian Pilot has decided the anonymous comments degrade the quality of its website so they have decided that if people are going to be impolite, they will have to do it under their real names. I have to agree that anonymity give many people a cover to say a lot of obnoxious things.

But …. you knew there was a “but” coming, didn’t you? But where did the people whose foam flecked fingers write those hate-notes learn their craft? Unfortunately, they are the product of the Unofficial School of Journalism. Yes, folks, the “wingers” and “a**s-hats” were taught by those great folks who brought you the Virginian Pilot, MSNBC and the Comedy Channel, just for starters. The difference is that the anonymous commenters don’t have editors to clean up their grammar and didn’t get a degree in English Lit. so they’re a little cruder.

They strive to provide the same message as Daryl Lease, editorial writer for the Virginian Pilot who wrote this column which he used to club Christine O’Donnell and the Tea Party like a baby seal. In the course of a single column we find 6 references to “witch,” 4 to “Tea” and several not-so-subtle references to O’Donnell’s illiteracy, all wrapped in the theme that dressing up like patriots is a really stupid idea. Lease imagines himself something of a political humorist. In reality he’s simply a political bomb thrower who’s paid to polish his bombs before throwing, something that the anonymous commenters on the Pilot’s website don’t have the luxury of doing.

One of the great benefits of the internet is that it has freed the previously passive recipient of the MFM’s bile from having to sit and take it. The alternative was a letter to the editor – which was then at the not-so-tender mercies of the same people who were busy insulting their readers in the first place. I don’t know why people feel compelled to respond on a paper’s website. The Internet is out there. Start your own blog. Be your own editor. Seize control.

TimeScapes: Rapture

TimeScapes: Rapture from Tom Lowe @ Timescapes on Vimeo.

Watch it full screen.

Why Can't Chuck Get His Business Off the Ground?

Via Carpe Diem

Self-fulfilling prophesies.

A response to Paul at Powerline ...

I am not a resident of Delaware nor do I have inside knowledge of its Republican political establishment. However, those who blame the Tea Party – which is not a party – for putting up a candidate who could not win, may want to amend their conclusions about the inevitability of Christine O’Donnell’s loss.

I base my dissent on several factors. First, despite being the focus of a really vicious national campaign to denigrate her personally; a campaign that included both Democrats AND Republicans, O’Donnell’s loss was not the blowout that was widely predicted. She received 40% of the vote in a state everyone said was a deep blue state. She was even with Coons for the Independent vote. According to exit polls, she received 51% of the white vote and 50% of the vote in small communities. She lost massively among blacks (by about the same margin as Republicans often get) but only got 81% of the Conservative vote.  In fact, O'Donnell got about the same percentage of the vote as Joe Biden's opponents received despite the national campaign to make her the poster child of the "Loony Right."

There was second factor that may give us some insight into her loss. She had to build a political machine from the ground up in the space of 45 days. Appearing on Bill O’Reilly’s show last week she said that the Republican Party in Delaware denied her their machinery to help her during the election. For all the good the Republican label gave her in blue-state Delaware, she actually ran an Independent campaign.

The bottom line is this: her loss was not foreordained. The Republican establishment – from Karl Rove on down – would rather lose an election than have people that they can’t control into that “big tent” they always say they want. When somebody as high profile as Rove denigrated O’Donnell after she beat the one the establishment anointed, Mike Castle, he was in the process of creating a self-fulfilling prophesy.

Not saying that O’Donnell would have won the election in any case, just saying that running against both the Democrats and the Republicans made it just that much harder. The lesson for the Tea Party and Conservatives in general is that you have to be careful about choosing your friends because they may be the ones who are close enough to you to stab you in the back.

HISTORICAL SIDE NOTE: 

As I was writing these comments I was reminded of another event, long ago, during England’s War of the Roses. It ended in the death of the last British king killed in battle: Richard III. Most people have heard of Richard III from the play of the same name by William Shakespeare. He made Richard out to be a bloody villain. With the benefit of hindsight, Shakespeare knew that it was much safer in the England of his day to be on the side of the winner, Henry Tudor who after the battle was crowned Henry VII.

Richard III was killed at the battle of Bosworth Field because one of his key military leaders, Henry Percy – Earl of Northumberland – decided to sit out the battle, and another, William Stanley, waiting to see how the battle developed before deciding to come on Tudor’s side; in the end helped to kill Richard.

Politics hasn’t changed much in the intervening 525 years.

Don't just do something - stand there.

Sometimes you wonder if even really smart people have not been paying attention. For example, in the Virginian Pilot (my local birdcage liner) today I found an op-ed that brought me up short. Jesse T. Richman, assistant professor of political science at Old Dominion University actually thought that it would be a good thing if Republicans and Democrats were able to get together after this election to enact major legislation.

I realize that professors of political science have a bias in favor of legislators legislating. The article does not specify exactly what congress should be legislating on, but the general thrust of the article was that while “cooperation is difficult,” he was optimistic that Democrats and Republicans in congress would be able to work together with Obama to pass laws that “address broad public concerns.”

Well, the public is broadly concerned about jobs, under-water mortgages, ObamaCare, multi-trillion dollar deficits as far as the eye can see and … if you have been shopping lately … the rising cost of food and fuel. Given that Obama seems to be fixated on spending as a way of stimulating the economy, has staked his Presidency on passing ObamaCare, and the Democrats in congress and Obama have passed housing legislation that has been a dismal failure, what are the chances that they will do a U-turn and agree with Republicans that taxes should be reduced, ObamaCare should be repealed and spending should be cut?

A call for major bipartisan legislation is, in my view, a call to tinker around the edges of the Liberal agenda; to make it work better so that we can go even faster to becoming a semi-fascist state where government makes the rules, tells us what will be produced, which technologies will be developed, where people who have “enough” will have it taken away from them to give to some other more politically connected class. The right to vote for the person who will tell us how to run all aspects of our lives is not how the experiment in American democracy should end.

Every sentient economist agrees that entitlement spending, which now represents about 80% of federal outlays, need fixing. What are the chances that the Democrats in congress and Obama agree to curb entitlements when they have spent every election since FDR scaring seniors by claiming that Republican want to take their social security away? What is the professor thinking is going to happen?

There is one other aspect of professor Richman’s op-ed that bothers me. It seems that passing legislation - major legislation - is viewed as a GOOD THING. I, and a lot of people in this country, do not agree. In the absence of a total repeal of all the laws passed by congress in the last two years, people on Wall Street and Main Street are hoping for gridlock. Some wag said that the mid-term election was a restraining order. Stop with the “major legislation” already because the deck is still stacked against this government, now thankfully divided, actually fixing our problems instead of making them worse.

Some people really believe that a legislature should be like a factory producing … cars or boots or iPods. And the more the factory produces the better. Can’t you hear the writer now? “You: yes YOU - Senator - don’t just sit there, pass a major law. The more pages the better; the more intrusive the better.  That’s your job.”

One of the great things about Virginia is that the legislature is only in session for about 60 days out of the year. The rest of the time, the Old Dominion is safe from the imperative of the legislature to do something.  So it leaves.

Truth and Science and Facts vs. Unwashed Hillbillies

Randall Hoven destroys Obama's claims for the so-called "economic recovery."

Andrew Klavan: Lies! Deceit! Treachery! You Too Can Be a Mainstream Media Reporter.

Via Instapundit

Blame Bush

Now that the midterm election is over and "Blame Bush" has been temporarily shelved - sure to be resurrected shortly - is there anything that Obama and his enablers have not blamed George Bush for?

Let me count the ways.

George Bush is responsible for the bad economy, for the Obama deficit, for out-of-control spending, for cutting taxes for the rich, for the bailouts, for unemployment, for deregulation, for you losing your home, for 17 pregnant teens in Gloucester, for the Gulf oil spill, for the way the war is going in Afghanistan, for not closing Guantanamo, for the coal mine disaster in West Virginia and the Christmas Day airline bombing, for a stupid American public, for Obama failing to get the 2016 Olympics, for Scott Brown’s win in Massachusetts, for the Somali pirates, for the heartbreak of psoriasis … and much, much more.

Paul Krugman, of course, believes that Obama does not blame Bush enough. But that’s just Krugman being Krugman … sort of like Biden being Biden when he says something so stupid that even his acolytes on the Left who revere him as an elder statesman throw up in their mouths.

There are things for which Obama does not blame Bush, instead he takes credit for winning in Iraq. Of course I predict with absolute certainty that, should the situation there deteriorate, he will blame Bush.

Now the blame for the Democrats electoral defeat is being laid at the feet of … George Bush;  here's Trudeau's Doonesbury:

Reagan had a better and much funnier way of dealing with his mistakes.

The left starts to wonder if Obama is really so cool after all

Jim Treacher finds one of the increasing number of nutbags who find "The Won" a little less inspiring these days.

Remember who the Effing A-holes treated their opponents two years ago?

Ellmers to NRCC: Thanks for Nothing

The Other McCain tells us what he really thinks about the Republican Establishment:

Notice that the bumbling dingbats at GOP-HQ are now telling the New York Times that everything happened because of them and their genius strategy. Excuse me while I quote myself:

Pete Sessions should have been stripped of his chairmanship the day after Dede Scozzafava endorsed Bill Owens. If there were still any old-fashioned justice in the world, Pete Sessions would have been horsewhipped and stomped to death by the House Republican Caucus, his head carried through the streets atop a pike, and his mutilated headless corpse fed to dogs.

Forget about the Republican establishment in Washington. Civil war has broken out between the RINOS and Real America as to who is going to represent Republican values, set the direction of the Republicans in congress, and who will be the next Republican presidential candidate. All the RINO guns are trained on Sarah Palin with daily hit pieces on her by the RINOs and their - temporary - allies in the MFM.

In the meantime, please contribute to Renee Ellmers to fund her recount effort against the truly vile Bob Etheridge in North Carolina.

GOP candidates top Obama in hypothetical 2012 race

The Presidency is the Republicans to lose?  CNN poll:

"Looking ahead to 2012, it may be too early to count Barack Obama out, particularly if Sarah Palin is his opponent," said CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. "The former Alaska governor gets a lot of attention, but she is in third place when Republicans are asked to pick a presidential nominee, and in a hypothetical matchup with Obama she is arguably the weakest candidate of the top-tier GOP hopefuls."

In a hypothetical 2012 matchup, Huckabee leads Obama 52 - 44 percent, while Romney has a 50-45 point advantage, which is within the poll's sampling error.

The MFM are already picking Republicans' candidates for us.  Remember how well that worked out in 2008?

And so it begins: "New House Judiciary Chairman to Obama: Prepare for Investigations"

Veteran Republican Lamar Smith, a Yale graduate and social conservative who grew up in the brush country of south Texas which is now transit point for illegal immigrants and drugs, said in a news conference that a number of issues will come into the sights of his committee when he takes the chairmanship in January, from cracking down on child pornography to taking the Obama Administration to task for failing to do enough to protect the southern border.

Smith says it is his Constitutional duty.

"Part of that checks and balances is in fact holding the administration accountable, is in fact insisting on more transparency, is insisting on more honesty, and getting the facts," Smith said. "Right now, because of the one party monopoly, the Administration has been able to dodge any kind of supervision, any kind of oversight committee action, and they refuse to testify, and that is no longer acceptable."

Students demand consorship in "Free Expression Tunnel."

N.C. State sophomore Monique Bonds, blocking the tunnel and protesting, said ...

"We'll be out here until we get an answer that we can guarantee that we don't have to walk through this tunnel and worry about what's written on the wall,"

Bonds said that graffiti demeaning many different groups is common in the tunnel.

"It's free expression, but nobody is walking through, regulating it," she said. "They're just letting it happen, and it's not just racism, but gender, sexuality and religious discrimination."

You have to appreciate the words: It's free expression, but nobody is walking through, regulating it

ajmiller comments:

Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the war room! But seriously, do any of these people bickering here get the concept of a free speech tunnel, or more importantly understand how bizarre and sad it is that a university NEEDS a special place for free speech? I know at UNCW, there was no shortage of offensive, bitter, and hateful speech against the president, from Jan 2001 til Jan 2009, and I'm pretty sure none of that was punished. Then again, that was mostly the UNCW administration that was saying it...

Is this a visit or an invasion? "34 warships sent from US for Obama visit"

As President Obama begins his 10 day - $200 million a day taxpayer funded - tour:

Press Trust of India reports that ...

He [Obama] will also be protected by a fleet of 34 warships, including an aircraft carrier, which will patrol the sea lanes off the Mumbai coast during his two-day stay there beginning Saturday. The measure has been taken as Mumbai attack in 2008 took place from the sea.

Arrangements have been put in place for emergency evacuation, if needed.

Obama is expected to fly by a helicopter -- Marine One -- from the city airport to the Indian Navy's helibase INS Shikra at Colaba in south Mumbai.

From there, he will drive down in Lincoln Continental -- the Presidential limousine -- to the nearby the Taj Hotel.

Two jets, armed with advanced communication and security systems, and a fleet of over 40 cars will be part of Obamas convoy.

Around 800 rooms have been booked for the President and his entourage in Taj Hotel and Hyatt.

Gary V comments:

34 US Navy ships, 571 rooms at the most expensive hotel in India, 3000 government employees, 4 helicopters 18 jets, Mooshell and the kids for a 3 day trip? This village idiot is abusing the US Govt system. They are a sham and a disgrace to the taxpaying working class American. Make him commute in a Tata! How much you want to bet he is there to pitch the SEIU to the off shore call center workers hired by US companies?

According to the UK Telegraph:

Coconuts removed from trees in preparation for Barack Obama's India trip

Mr Obama will arrive in India on Saturday for the first leg of an Asian tour.

But as well as the usual security measures that come with welcoming a a visiting dignitary, Indian authorities have decided to go one step further, by removing all natural threats to the president as well.

All coconuts around the city's Gandhi museum, one of Mr Obama's stops in the city, are being taken down.

Mani Bhavan, where Mahatma Gandhi stayed during his freedom struggle against the British, is among five places the US president is visiting in Mumbai.

"We told the authorities to remove the dry coconuts from trees near the building. Why take a chance?" Mani Bhavan's executive secretary, Meghshyam Ajgaonkar, told the BBC.

The "over the top" size and cost of this trip is beginning to seep into the MSM and political debate after getting lots of attention in the Internet.

From another article in the Press Trust of India:

Representative Michele Bachmann, a Republican from Minnesota fresh off a victory in her closely watched re-election bid, slammed the White House for the "massive overspending" for Obama's maiden visit to India.

Meanwhile from the Old Grey Whore (NY Times) ... crickets chirping.  Enter "Obama trip cost" in the Washington Post search box and  ... nothing, nada.  The Wall Street Journal?  Silence.

And what is this trillion dollar trip expected to produce?  Barun S. Mitra in the Wall Street Journal:

Indians are not expecting much from the visit of President Barack Obama this week. Rather, given the range of issues on which the two governments diverge today, they are just hoping that no new conflict arises. Neither side seems capable of the leadership that made the visit of George W. Bush in 2006 such a success....

In India, Mr. Obama has attracted neither welcome nor hostility. That may come as a relief after today's U.S. election outcome, but it also means the trip is likely to turn out to be a damp squib. The president is expected to make some concessions to the export-control order that restricts India's access to sensitive and dual-use technologies, something India has been seeking for a long time, but this step is likely to get lost among technical discussions. Mr. Obama may also indicate the U.S. support for India's place on the U.N. Security Council. But this is something the U.S. may not be able to deliver anytime soon.

Bilateral cooperation on international issues is no better. There, Mr. Obama has three key agenda items: Af-Pak, the yuan-dollar exchange rate and climate change. But again, he seems to have given little thought with how to integrate India into his agenda. Either his administration does not see any significant role for Delhi, as in Af-Pak, or the Indian priorities are different, as in climate change.

 

But don't fret, like Michelle's extravagant trip to Spain earlier this year, it will be a swell vacation for the Obamas and the village of hangers-on they're taking along.  After this, I'll never be possible to criticize congressional junkets again.  Everything else - all other royal progresses in the past will pale in comparison.  Over-the-top does not even begin to describe it.

UPDATE:  Allahpundit at Hot Air labels the $200 milliondollar price tag of the trip an urban legend and says "Don’t trust Indian media." 

Instead, who does she trust?  Snopes!  

Do you know who or what Snopes is?  Snopes is about as reliable as Wikipedia.  It’s a husband and wife team running a website out of California.  To suggest that they have any better information about the cost of this junket than the writers if the Indian Press Trust is risible.

The cost “debunked?”  Then come up with something more believable than denials from the same administration that told us that the cost of ObamaCare was zero.  Don’t do the math and say that an entourage of 3000 people that includes the entire White House staff is equivalent of booking accommodations and meals in for a large tourist group visiting India.  Is an aircraft carrier task force going to be assigned to this jaunt?  Are the number of planes and cars going there accurate or not?  What’s the cost of the security arrangements other than the Air force, Navy and Army that surround this trip?   Have the Obamas been known for caring anything about taking extravagant trips on the taxpayer's dime? 

Something’s not normal (taking their first step toward a divorce).

Judi McLeod at the Canada Free Press notices that "something's not normal" with this president and his supporters.

The big problem the day before and after yesterday’s tsunami-like election is the ongoing media failure to confront the big reality: Something’s not normal.

It is not normal to have White House officials casually state that President Barack Obama was not watching election returns last night, particularly when those returns left him in a sort of `Home Alone` state.

Ad then there's that $200 million dollar a day vacation

“Something’s not normal” reeks particularly from the traveling circus of 3,000 people who will travel to Mumbai, India on Friday. Why do a president and his village-size traveling contingent need 40 aircraft?

She questions Obama's relationship to America and observes ...

Talking heads who keep reminding us that there were evil presidents before Obama are doing America a huge disservice. Bad as they were, none was depraved to the point that they flagrantly hated their own country and its people. When it comes to America, Obama acts as though he might have lost his marbles, yet no one is calling for the guys in the white coats.

It is not normal but sick to hate, let alone hate a country so many others look up to.

Then there's Nancy Pelosi doing a Baghdad Bob impression ...

It was not normal for Nancy Pelosi to keep denying reality after polls proved otherwise last night, claiming to that the Dems would get a majority.

What are these people on?

And the media? Even FOX comes in for fair criticism:

It is not normal for television networks to go on about the Tea Party losing “after spending all that money” but not go on about Harry Reid spending the family farm with the help of the Casino Boy’s big bucks in an Election where SEIU thugs manned the voting booths.

Is it normal that not one of these networks—FOX included—ever spoke on Election Night about election fraud, including the denial of America’s troops to cast their votes?

She's a Canadian so she can say it:

Why are they all so afraid to say it: There’s something seriously wrong with Barack Obama.

And until the day he’s no longer in the White House, there will be something seriously wrong with America.

In 2008 America made a big, big mistake.  Infatuated with a clean, articulate young man, they were seduced into spending the night.  When they woke up the next morning they were still infatuated, but as time went on the object of their affection showed that, no, he did not respect them in the morning.  So here they are; taking their first step toward a divorce.  Let's hope there are no children from that one-night stand.

It's Illegal In California to Give Your Customers Coffee and Donuts ....

Mark Steyn wonders what effect this election will actually have.

A few big things have the American people upset: the attempted hijacking of their health care by the federal government and the smug, condescending arrogance of the ruling class swept into power by the Obamas and their $200 million-dollars-a-day vacations.

But as a small business owner, I know that the real burdens that the American people and the American entrepreneur suffer under were not up for election this year, or the year before, or the year before that. The real rulers of our lives sit in offices with grey metal desks and who tell us that a hardware story owner can’t put out a pot of coffee and a box of donuts for its customers without a kitchen with stainless steel sinks with hot and cold running water and a prep kitchen to handle the donuts. In other words, it’s illegal to run down to Dunkin Donuts for coffee and pastries and put them out for your customers if you live in California.

In my particular business, I’m required to file something called and ADV 1 and and an ADV 2 with the federal regulators and register with the SEC to be allowed to provide my clients with financial advice. Well, OK, so we hired a law firm and tens of thousands of dollars later we’re officially and legally registered.

So, by the way, was Bernie Madoff.

So the crooks and liars who got us into this current financial mess – yes, I’m talking to you Chris Dodd and Barney Frank – decide that they need to overhaul financial regulation to eliminate financial risks, like “too big to fail.” They do this by writing a law - the Frank-Dodd Financial Reform bill - that enshrines “too big to fail” as an official government policy while completely ignoring the two institutions - other than Frank and Dodd- that more than any other caused the financial crisis: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Fannie and Freddie between them guarantee about 90% of all home loans and their reckless lending to people who could not afford their mortgages led directly to the financial crisis that cost millions of families their homes and caused banks around the world to fail.

But back to me. Thanks to the new laws I now have to file a revised form ADV 2 written in prose instead of checking off some boxes and I have to register with the state instead of with the feds. And how will that make the financial world safer for the average investor? Beats me (hint: it doesn’t) … but it’s making my lawyers richer, which may be the purpose of the law all along.

Steyn:

This is the reality of small business in America today. You don’t make the rules, you don’t vote for people who make the rules. But you have to work harder, pay more taxes, buy more permits, fill in more paperwork, contribute to the growth of an ever less favorable business environment and prostrate yourself before the Commissar of Community Services – all for the privilege of taking home less and less money.

And eventually you wake up and find, as in California, that your state is all hole and no doughnut. Just as gun control is not about guns but control, so doughnut control is likewise not about doughnuts, but about ever more total control. Big Government won’t make the coffee, or the doughnuts. It just regulates them. All it makes is small citizens. If next Tuesday doesn’t begin the rollback of unaffordable hyper-regulation, we’ll need a new mass movement – the Alliance of Non-Compliance.

Rats abandon ship.

Chris Matthew feels a trickle down his leg.

US to spend $200 MILLION A DAY on Obama's Mumbai visit

The Obama vacation could top $1 billion if it lasts 5 days.

Mumbai: The US would be spending a whopping $200 million (Rs. 900 crore approx) per day on President Barack Obama's visit to the city.

"The huge amount of around $200 million would be spent on security, stay and other aspects of the Presidential visit," a top official of the Maharashtra Government privy to the arrangements for the high-profile visit said.

About 3,000 people including Secret Service agents, US government officials and journalists would accompany the President. Several officials from the White House and US security agencies are already here for the past one week with helicopters, a ship and high-end security instruments.

If there was ever a question if America could afford the Obamas, this puts that issue to rest.

Remember: These people believe YOU'RE stupid…

The hatred the Left has of Christians

I have been having a discussion with this blog about the role of religion in America. My interlocutor desires a secular America in which there is a wall between church and state with excludes Christians from public affairs – because that is what “secularism” means. From the Encarta Dictionary:

• Exclusion of religion from public affairs: the belief that religion and religious bodies should have no part in political or civic affairs or in running public institutions, especially schools.
• Rejection of religion: the rejection of religion or its exclusion from a philosophical or moral system

He says that the “separation of church and state” is a metaphor for the religious freedom clause of the first amendment and that those who disagree ought to be embarrassed.

Here is the actual words of that clause: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;

With this in mind, I read the excellent essay by Richard Fernandez As Wise as Serpents, on the state of religion in the West.

The Times of India notes the recent attack on an Iraqi Catholic Church by supporters of al-Qaeda is part of the larger pattern of Christian expulsion from the Middle East affecting such communities as the Copts. “On Monday, Catholics in Baghdad marked All Saints Day in mourning for 46 Christians killed during an operation by Iraqi special forces to release worshippers taken hostage at a cathedral by al-Qaida gunmen.” Although some pundits have tried to make the attacks on Christians America’s fault by suggesting they in retaliation for the invasion of Iraq, the exclusionary efforts have been going on for decades in such places as Egypt and Saudi Arabia, where the Muttawa, not al-Qaeda, raid underground churches.

Saudi authorities have conditionally released the Catholic Filipino migrant worker arrested on 1 October in Riyadh along with 11 other compatriots — released Oct 3 — while attending Mass along with 150 foreigners celebrated by a French priest. … According to Exxedin H. Tago, charge d’affaires of the Philippine Embassy the 12 are not yet copletely out of danger … “They were accused of proselytizing and if the authorities deem them guilty they could return to jail.”

Saudi Arabia forbids the construction of churches, and other non-Muslim temples, the wearing of religious symbols, or hanging of images in homes.”

One Coptic family facing persecution in Egypt for converting to Christianity thought that since President Obama declared that Muslims had a right to “build a place of worship and a community center on private property in lower Manhattan, in accordance with local laws and ordinances” , then he would help them emigrate from Egypt. They wrote a letter asking for support from President Obama. They’ve heard nothing at all. Maybe he’s been busy. Or maybe there’s one wastebasket labeled “from Christians” and an inbox labeled “for Muslims”.

Article 18 of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, says everyone has a right to choose their religion. “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.” On of the face of things the attack on the Baghdad church and the arrests of worshippers in Saudi Arabia and the continuous persecution of the should have been met by stern disapproval in the West.

But the mainstream media’s narrative doesn’t work symmetrically for Christians and Muslims in the West. In pratice it is expected that Christians accept the depiction of Jesus in the act of fellatio, to countenance a display a crucifix immersed in urine or paint Mary in dung. If they don’t they are bigots. But should anyone dare to draw Mohammed he would immediately be accused of hate speech. Juan Williams, for example, was recently kicked out of NPR, after many years of service — “busted”, in the words of Andrew Sullivan — simply for saying he was wrong to be nervous around Muslims when flying. Despite that that qualification, the mere possibly slur on Islam constituted “pandering to the anti-Muslim bigot, Bill O’Reilly”....

So while the Egyptian Copts might think they will get a sympathetic hearing in the West, they won’t. The way it really works is that Islamists are deemed entitled to their views and the Western elites feel it is their duty to support them. Neither has anything much to do with Christianity, for whom they feel a common distaste. The locus of Christianity has moved been moving away from Western Europe for at least the last 50 years. To some extent the entire world Western canon has been steadily leaving its shores.

He then goes to point out that aggressive Western secularism has had the pernicious effect of encouraging religions that do not believe in “live and let live.”

The dominant religions of the Western elites are now diluted versions of Marxism; the Congregation of Political Correctness and the Synod of Environmentalism. Neither may be particularly spiritually satisfying. They are certainly mind-deadening. An article in the Daily Mail asked, “Why are so many modern British career women converting to Islam?” The reasons given are simple, they find Europe a spiritual wasteland and are fleeing to the first port in a storm.

Women like Kristiane Backer, 43, a London-based former MTV presenter who had led the kind of liberal Western-style life that I yearned for as a teenager, yet who turned her back on it and embraced Islam instead. Her reason? The ‘anything goes’ permissive society that I coveted had proved to be a superficial void. …

‘I grew up in Germany in a not very religious Protestant family. I drank and I partied, but I realised that we need to behave well now so we have a good after-life. We are responsible for our own actions.’ …

‘Some are drawn to the sense of belonging and of community — values which have eroded in the West,’ says Haifaa Jawad, a senior lecturer at the University of Birmingham, who has studied the white conversion phenomenon.

‘Many people, from all walks of life, mourn the loss in today’s society of traditional respect for the elderly and for women, for example. These are values which are enshrined in the Koran, which Muslims have to live by,’ adds [another expert]

These women would probably be astounded to learn how many of the values they so desperately seek have been extinguished in their last 50 years by the new secular religions. The masterstroke of the Left was to hollow out Christianity in the West yet leave its externals standing like a facade in their place. By slow degrees the doctrines of paganism and Marxism were insinuated into the churches, cathedrals and universities and filling their spaces with drivel. Perhaps these “modern British career women” aren’t running from Christianity or even Western civilization at all. They are merely fleeing from its parody, the counterfeit the Left has substituted in its place.

Tony Blair’s sister-in-law announced her conversion to Islam last weekend. Journalist Lauren Booth embraced the faith after what she describes as a ‘holy experience’ in Iran. …  

Broadcaster and journalist Booth, 43, says she now wears a hijab head covering whenever she leaves home, prays five times a day and visits her local mosque ‘when I can’.

She decided to become a Muslim six weeks ago after visiting the shrine of Fatima al-Masumeh in the city of Qom, and says: ‘It was a Tuesday evening, and I sat down and felt this shot of spiritual morphine, just absolute bliss and joy.

Such bliss and joy, though you wouldn’t think it. Here’s Lauren Booth, via Michael Totten’s website describing her feelings. “I don’t care about Israel’s security. I don’t give a damn. Because if you kill civilians you don’t deserve your security, Israel. Because I’ll tell you what, the world should take action and take up arms against Israel right now!” You’d think Lauren Booth was talking about al-Qaeda in the aftermath of the attack of the Baghdad Church. But no, radical Islamism doesn’t even exist, although maybe “man-caused disasters” – the new term for terrorism — does. Maybe Christians in the Third World should stop thinking the Western elites will be sympathetic to their plight. They haven’t got the time. They’re too busy with bliss and joy.

“They’ve spent the past 18 months calling you names and questioning your sanity and patriotism. But today you get to vote, and that’s all that matters.”

Via Glenn Reynolds - "Instapundit"