Brandon

Monday, November 30, 2009

Climategate's "Harry Read Me" File is a Must Read!

As another pundit said: this isn't just the smoking gun pointing to the fraud of global warming, it's a mushroom cloud!

As researchers around the world report on their findings in the hacked emails from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in Britain you often hear references to the infamous "Harry Read Me" file. The entire file, 247 pages long, is an encyclopedia chronicling the absolute mess that temperature records, upon which much global warming theory is based, are in.

Thanks to Monica for directing me to the following story in the Toronto Sun:

'Botch after botch after botch'
Leaked 'climategate' documents show huge flaws in the backbone of climate change science
By LORRIE GOLDSTEIN
Toronto Sun
29th November 2009

...The file -- 274 pages long -- describes the efforts of a climatologist/programmer at the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia to update a huge statistical database (11,000 files) of important climate data between 2006 and 2009.

The computer coding, along with the programmer's apparently unsuccessful efforts to complete the project, involve data that are the foundation of the study of climate change -- recordings from hundreds of weather stations around the world of temperature and precipitation measurements from 1901 to 2006, sun/cloud computer simulations, and the like.
...
The CRU at East Anglia University is considered by many as the world's leading climate research agency. Here's how CBSNews.com's Declan McCullagh describes its enormous impact on policymakers:

"In global warming circles, the CRU wields outsize influence: It claims the world's largest temperature data set, and its work and mathematical models were incorporated into the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's 2007 report. The report ... is what the Environmental Protection Agency acknowledged it 'relies on most heavily' when concluding carbon dioxide emissions endanger public health and should be regulated."

As you read the programmer's comments below, remember, this is only a fraction of what he says.

- "But what are all those monthly files? DON'T KNOW, UNDOCUMENTED. Wherever I look, there are data files, no info about what they are other than their names. And that's useless ..." (Page 17)

- "It's botch after botch after botch." (18)

- "The biggest immediate problem was the loss of an hour's edits to the program, when the network died ... no explanation from anyone, I hope it's not a return to last year's troubles ... This surely is the worst project I've ever attempted. Eeeek." (31)

- "Oh, GOD, if I could start this project again and actually argue the case for junking the inherited program suite." (37)

- "... this should all have been rewritten from scratch a year ago!" (45)

- "Am I the first person to attempt to get the CRU databases in working order?!!" (47)

- "As far as I can see, this renders the (weather) station counts totally meaningless." (57)

- "COBAR AIRPORT AWS (data from an Australian weather station) cannot start in 1962, it didn't open until 1993!" (71)

- "What the hell is supposed to happen here? Oh yeah -- there is no 'supposed,' I can make it up. So I have : - )" (98)

- "You can't imagine what this has cost me -- to actually allow the operator to assign false WMO (World Meteorological Organization) codes!! But what else is there in such situations? Especially when dealing with a 'Master' database of dubious provenance ..." (98)

- "So with a somewhat cynical shrug, I added the nuclear option -- to match every WMO possible, and turn the rest into new stations ... In other words what CRU usually do. It will allow bad databases to pass unnoticed, and good databases to become bad ..." (98-9)

- "OH F--- THIS. It's Sunday evening, I've worked all weekend, and just when I thought it was done, I'm hitting yet another problem that's based on the hopeless state of our databases." (241).

- "This whole project is SUCH A MESS ..." (266)
The Devil's Kitchen calls this "data horribilia" and rightly so. Lorrie Goldstein concludes her piece by saying what many of us have over the years: "And based on stuff like this, politicians are going to blow up our economy and lower our standard of living to "fix" the climate? Are they insane?"

Canadian blogger Small Dead Animals has also been covering the story in detail with a number of excellent resources.

UN Digs In

Meanwhile, over at the United Nations, an organization which stands to rake in billions if the Warmers agenda for global warming is enacted, they are digging in for a fight:
Leaked emails won't harm UN climate body, says chairman Rajendra Pachauri says there is 'virtually no possibility' of a few scientists biasing IPCC's advice, after UAE hacking breach
By James Randerson
Guardian.co.uk,
Sunday 29 November 2009

[Mike's note: Would YOU trust this guy?]

There is "virtually no possibility" of a few scientists biasing the advice given to governments by the UN's top global warming body, its chair said today.

Rajendra Pachauri defended the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in the wake of apparent suggestions in emails between climate scientists at the University of East Anglia that they had prevented work they did not agree with from being included in the panel's fourth assessment report, which was published in 2007.

The emails were made public this month after a hacker illegally obtained them from servers at the university.

Pachauri said the large number of contributors and rigorous peer review mechanism adopted by the IPCC meant that any bias would be rapidly uncovered.

"The processes in the IPCC are so robust, so inclusive, that even if an author or two has a particular bias it is completely unlikely that bias will find its way into the IPCC report," he said.
What absolute bunk! From the very beginning of the global warming story we've seen example after example which confirms how the UN climate panel process has been corrupted. The hacked emails simply confirm what we have known all along. This isn't about science, it's about money and power.

What we are likely to find is that the mess at CRU-East Anglia is also replicated at the other big Warmer data factories since their conclusions are all very similar. The only way to be sure is to have an open and transparent investigation of ALL the major data centers doing this work in the United States, Great Britain and elsewhere.

There is absolutely no reason to proceed with any further world plans to address global warming with this kind of doubt, corruption and incompetence on such full display!

Sunday, November 29, 2009

Will Climategate Overcome Media's Attempt to Sweep Story Under the Rug?

Cracks appear in armor keeping climate scandal from television news!

They say that if you didn't see it on television it didn't happen. For the overwhelming number of Americans who get little or no news from any other source that's definitely true. So, it shouldn't surprise us if most Americans don't know that the science upon which all global warming theory rests is riddled with fraud, incompetence and corruption.

Daily, the number of newspaper stories surrounding the climategate global warming scandal grows. And yet, television news has almost entirely ignored the problem. There have been more stories on the Washington, D.C. couple who crashed Obama's State Dinner last week than there have on a story which affects the lives of every single American.

CNN, which so few people watch, only mentioned it six days after the story broke so they could dismiss it. The only place you would hear much about it on television was Fox News. Nothing on ABC, NBC, CBS.

I guess when the White House warned reporters not to follow Fox News they obeyed.

One chink in the armor came on the ABC News Sunday program "This Week" where the topic was discussed at length in the panel segment of the show (video and transcripts at Newsbusters). Keep in mind that this show typically gets less than 3 million viewers.

Despite all the efforts to sweep this story under the rug, coming at such an inconvenient time as Obama prepares to go to Copenhagen and work towards a costly and unnecessary climate treaty, I have a feeling that the major networks and lesser cable channels won't be able to ignore the story. As I mentioned earlier newspapers in this country and Britain are leading the way.

Here's a sample of the latest:

Finally, after years of denying nearly all requests the Warmers at the Climatic Research University East Anglia have agreed to allow access to all their data. But this might not be so useful to outside analysts as previously thought. Want to know why the Warmer scientists have been so reluctant to share their data? Simple, they discarded it after tweaking the data to reflect their biases:
Climate change data dumped
Jonathan Leake, Environment Editor
The Sunday Times (U.K.)
November 29, 2009

SCIENTISTS at the University of East Anglia (UEA) have admitted throwing away much of the raw temperature data on which their predictions of global warming are based.

It means that other academics are not able to check basic calculations said to show a long-term rise in temperature over the past 150 years.

The UEA’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) was forced to reveal the loss following requests for the data under Freedom of Information legislation.

The data were gathered from weather stations around the world and then adjusted to take account of variables in the way they were collected. The revised figures were kept, but the originals — stored on paper and magnetic tape — were dumped to save space when the CRU moved to a new building.

The admission follows the leaking of a thousand private emails sent and received by Professor Phil Jones, the CRU’s director. In them he discusses thwarting climate sceptics seeking access to such data.

In a statement on its website, the CRU said: “We do not hold the original raw data but only the value-added (quality controlled and homogenised) data.”
Why is this data dump such a big deal? Because Warmer scientists have already been caught in an error by using another of their flawed computer models to calculate temperatures in the Arctic which were totally made up and flat out WRONG, when compared to actual observations. And let's not forget when James Hansen, the Warmer in Chief at NASA claimed October 2008 was the hottest October on record until it was discovered he was using temperature records from September! Oops!

Now we are being told that this brilliant bunch in Britain have destroyed the records upon which all their subsequent data tweaking has taken place and there's no paper trail but we're supposed to believe their calculations are correct.... this time.... SURE!

More on that subject from Christopher Booker writing at The Telegraph, another newspaper in the United Kingdom:
Climate change: this is the worst scientific scandal of our generation
Our hopelessly compromised scientific establishment cannot be allowed to get away with the Climategate whitewash.
By Christopher Booker
The Telegraph
28 Nov 2009

...But the question which inevitably arises from this systematic refusal to release their data is – what is it that these scientists seem so anxious to hide? The second and most shocking revelation of the leaked documents is how they show the scientists trying to manipulate data through their tortuous computer programmes, always to point in only the one desired direction – to lower past temperatures and to "adjust" recent temperatures upwards, in order to convey the impression of an accelerated warming. This comes up so often (not least in the documents relating to computer data in the Harry Read Me file) that it becomes the most disturbing single element of the entire story. This is what Mr McIntyre caught Dr Hansen doing with his GISS temperature record last year (after which Hansen was forced to revise his record), and two further shocking examples have now come to light from Australia and New Zealand.

In each of these countries it has been possible for local scientists to compare the official temperature record with the original data on which it was supposedly based. In each case it is clear that the same trick has been played – to turn an essentially flat temperature chart into a graph which shows temperatures steadily rising. And in each case this manipulation was carried out under the influence of the CRU.
Stifling Scientific Dissent

The left's favorite talking point on global warming used to be: "no credible scientist" disputes the claim. And by "credible" they meant scientists who published peer reviewed articles on the subject. Another theme which runs through this entire scandal is how these Warmer scientists used their positions to stifle dissent from other scientists and block the publication of opposing views, corrupting the peer review process.

Christopher Booker picks up that theme:
The third shocking revelation of these documents is the ruthless way in which these academics have been determined to silence any expert questioning of the findings they have arrived at by such dubious methods – not just by refusing to disclose their basic data but by discrediting and freezing out any scientific journal which dares to publish their critics' work. It seems they are prepared to stop at nothing to stifle scientific debate in this way, not least by ensuring that no dissenting research should find its way into the pages of IPCC reports.

Back in 2006, when the eminent US statistician Professor Edward Wegman produced an expert report for the US Congress vindicating Steve McIntyre's demolition of the "hockey stick", he excoriated the way in which this same "tightly knit group" of academics seemed only too keen to collaborate with each other and to "peer review" each other's papers in order to dominate the findings of those IPCC reports on which much of the future of the US and world economy may hang.

One of the Warmer's most ardent supporters, The Guardian newspaper (U.K.) columnist George Monibot sadly reported how very direct the efforts by these Warmers have been in stopping dissenting views:

One of the most damaging emails was sent by the head of the climatic research unit, Phil Jones. He wrote "I can't see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow - even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!"
The Wall Street Journal sums up the situation this way:

Rigging a Climate 'Consensus'
About those emails and 'peer review
The Wall Street Journal
NOVEMBER 27, 2009

...The furor over these documents is not about tone, colloquialisms or whether climatologists are nice people. The real issue is what the messages say about the way the much-ballyhooed scientific consensus on global warming was arrived at, and how a single view of warming and its causes is being enforced. The impression left by the correspondence among Messrs. Mann and Jones and others is that the climate-tracking game has been rigged from the start.

According to this privileged group, only those whose work has been published in select scientific journals, after having gone through the "peer-review" process, can be relied on to critique the science. And sure enough, any challenges from critics outside this clique are dismissed and disparaged.
...
The response from the defenders of Mr. Mann and his circle has been that even if they did disparage doubters and exclude contrary points of view, theirs is still the best climate science. The proof for this is circular. It's the best, we're told, because it's the most-published and most-cited—in that same peer-reviewed literature. The public has every reason to ask why they felt the need to rig the game if their science is as indisputable as they claim.
Meanwhile, expect to hear that an investigation will be announced in Britain on Monday. Look to see whether the chairman appointed to lead the effort is one of the Warmer's many friends or a truly independent figure able to get to the truth of the matter.

In the U.S. we'll be watching to see whether Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) (his enviro blog) is successful in getting an investigation started by the U.S. Senate committee overseeing global warming issues. Chairperson of Inhofe's committee is California Sen. Barbara Boxer, a devoted Warmer and the second stupidest woman in congress after Nancy Pelosi. So don't hold your breath. You might just build up too much CO2 in your lungs and it will kill a Polar Bear when you exhale!

Saturday, November 28, 2009

Hacked Emails are the Smoking Gun Revealing the Fraud of Manmade Global Warming

Try as they might these "scientists" just couldn't make their model for warming match with reality!

400 years ago, in 1609, Galileo Galilei, who physicist Stephen Hawking hails as "perhaps more than any other single person, was responsible for the birth of modern science," designed one of the first telescopes. He used it to make actual observations of the stars and planets and from those observations (actual observations being the key here in our later story) he concluded that the long held view that the earth was the center of the Solar System was wrong. His worked proved the decades old theory of Copernicus to be correct. The Sun was actually the center of our Solar System.

For centuries philosophers (scientists) had insisted that the earth was the center of the universe. They went to extraordinary lengths to document this belief by creating elaborate models to explain this geocentric view. Readers may recall seeing antiquities like this Geocentric armillary sphere in museums.

But the models were never quite perfect. There was always a flaw which failed to accurately account for, let alone predict, the behavior of the planets and the Sun. When Galileo's observations challenged this model, he was eventually put on trial by religious authorities and subjected to house arrest.

Even as the all the scientific observations from that point on confirmed Galileo's conclusions it would take more than 300 years before the Catholic Church under Pope John Paul II finally admitted that Galileo had been right all along.

Let's hope it doesn't take that long for the Warmers to admit they were wrong about manmade global warming.

Global Warming Theory Based on Flawed Models

The disclosure of the hacked emails from the Climactic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in Britain was the smoking gun that confirmed once and for all that the models underpinning the theory that man's carbon emissions are altering the climate are deeply flawed and being manipulated with an eye towards making their outcome support the beliefs of the researchers doing the work.

Perhaps the most damning of all was this exchange between climate researchers in Britain and America. Kevin Trenberth, Head of the Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, who shared the Nobel Peace Prize for the U.N.'s work on climate change, states the following:
The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t. The CERES data published in the August BAMS 09 supplement on 2008 shows there should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong. Our observing system is inadequate.
In short, the models and systems these scientists have designed failed to predict what is actually happening now. Yet we are supposed to remake the entire world economic system based on their dire predictions for global disaster in the decades ahead? I don't think so.

Models vs. Observation

accompanying post at Climate Science

Just as Galileo disproved the geocentric theory using observations which were repeated by other astronomers, the flawed models underpinning mandmade global warming are being disproved by actual observations, not theories. Here's a short primer comparing the models expected result from a manmande greenhouse effect with the actual observations:


Warmers Inquisition and Media Coverup Won't Stop the Truth!

Just as it was in Galileo's time the scientists representing the manmade global warming community have much to lose if their incompetence and perhaps criminal activity in fudging the numbers and destroying documentation is fully disclosed and investigated.

Over these many years where the warmers have insisted the "science was settled" they attempted to discredit and punish dissenters in a way reminiscent of the injustice handed down to Galileo. They have attempted to block publication of the dissenters work in scholarly journals and openly ridiculed their credentials. Chief Warmer,James Hansen, a NASA scientist with an axe to grind would even put some who oppose his views on trial for "high crimes against humanity and nature."

Perhaps we should insist that climate criminals like Hansen and this friends at CRU-East Anglia and elsewhere should be the ones on trial for the most massive public fraud of all time!

This is one of the biggest stories to hit in decades. It goes to the very heart of a public debate with drastic implications. But so far, the Warmers and their media acolytes have been successful in hushing it up and poo pooing the evidence. Nancy Morgan correctly dubs it a "Silent Scandal."

Even without a full vetting of the scandal, the support for the Warmers view among Americans of every partisan persuasion is dropping fast. The reason is simple. Americans can see with their own eyes that the Warmers dire predictions of just a few years ago have not come true. In fact, the opposite has happened. Instead of warming, we have snow earlier than ever. Instead of more intense hurricanes, we have a thirty year low in storms.

The Big Question: Will Warmers Succeed in Getting Cap and Trade/ UN Treaty Before Time Runs Out?

President Obama and many of his cabinet secretaries will jet off to Copenhagen next month (no doubt killing thousands of polar bears if you believe this video) to ramp up international efforts for a climate treaty that has long been the Warmers great global ambition to address a non-existent problem. Thus far efforts at a treaty have been stalled. Back at home, Senate Democrats don't seem in too big a hurry to pass Cap and Trade legislation that would result in dramatically higher energy costs for all Americans.

In a rare moment of honesty Obama admitted the costs of his plan for Cap and Trade:

"Under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket." -- B. Hussein Obama, January 2008

All that expense and hardship for a problem that doesn't exist? With a fraction of the money that would be misspent on the Warmer's fraud we could most likely cure cancer and practically eliminate world hunger and illiteracy. But instead the Warmers want the rest of us to line their pockets and make Al Gore richer?

It won't take three hundred years for this "silent scandal" to be exposed!

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Obamas Erect Glass Pavillion on White House Lawn for Lavish State Dinner

They Party in High Style While Millions of Americans Face Hard Times!

Is the White House just not good enough for the Obamas? Why else would they erect a glass "tent" on the White House lawn for what has to be one of the most expensive state dinners of all time?

Photobucket

A large tent was erected for the State Dinner on the South Lawn of the White House November 24, 2009 in Washington, D.C. President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama hosted their first State Dinner for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his wife Gursharan Kaur of India.

Photobucket

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Remember how the press lampooned Nancy Reagan when she brought a much more modest sense of style and glamour back to the White House. Queen Nancy is how she was portrayed. As usual, don't expect any press criticism of the Obamas as they overspend Nancy Reagan's dinners by a factor of two or three!

Just keep this post in mind when libs complain after Sarah Palin throws her first state dinner in 2013!

Things to Be Thankful For

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

As you gather with family and friends for a day of Thanksgiving, consider how very fortunate we are:

  • To live in a nation where despite floods and drought, fire and freezes our farmers can produce enough bounty to feed not just ourselves but much of the world.
  • How thankful we are for the beginning of the conservative comeback we saw in elections this year and how that gives us the determination to greater victories in 2010.
  • So very thankful that we live in a nation which STILL is the beacon of hope and freedom to so many billions around the world.

And to keep our nation strong and free, let's not forget the lesson of the first Thanksgiving. The Pilgrims nearly starved by following a socialist/collective model of governance and only began to thrive when they fully respected the property rights of individuals.

Thankful Also for Troops Serving Overseas

Still, as American families gather around the table there will be some empty seats. Our troops in Iraq who have won "Bush's war" and our troops in Afghanistan who have waited months now for reinforcements in "Obama's war" will not be with us at home. Remember them today and all days until they are "Homeward Bound:"

A Personal Thanksgiving

Lastly, I remain thankful for you dear reader. Your company over these many months of debate, loss and victory are sustaining. And thankful too am I for our liberal friends who comment here. They remind us daily how vigilant we must be to protect and defend our great American traditions lest they slip beneath the waves of socialism which swirl around us. Besides that, the libs are always good for a laugh!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Obama's Approval Continues to Crater!

The reason? Perhaps voters feel he makes Jimmy Carter look competent by comparison!

The biggest gap yet in the Rasmussen approval index:

Awaiting 1 PM EST update to the daily Gallup index which also has Obama in a steep downward trend.

What's driving this? One factor may be growing disapproval of the Democrat's plan for a government takeover of health care. The latest Rasmussen poll shows 56% oppose the plan while only 38% support it.

Monday, November 23, 2009

Obama's "New Tone" in Foreign Policy Gets No Result and Weakens America

Obama's foreign policy attitude may be change, but it's not the one America hoped for!

Saturday Night Live's opening skit was a mock press conference between China's Hu Jintao and President Obama. It perfectly highlighted the failure of Obama's Asia trip to strengthen U.S. overseas relations.

But just as it was with Obama's bow to the Japanese Emperor, these scenes are not all jokes and giggles. The issues behind the humor are very serious with potentially dramatic negative consequences for the United States and the maintenance of world peace.

Speaking on Fox News Sunday, Brit Hume summed the problem up well:

"America is not what is wrong with the world....This policy of almost determined weakness on the part of Obama...hasn't produced any results and I predict it will not produce any." -Brit Hume

And for our Fox News hating friends on the left, a similar perspective from Europe comes via the German news magazine Der Spiegel (hardly part of the vast right wing conspiracy):

Obama's Nice Guy Act Gets Him Nowhere on the World Stage
By Gabor Steingart
Der Spiegel
11/23/2009

When he entered office, US President Barack Obama promised to inject US foreign policy with a new tone of respect and diplomacy. His recent trip to Asia, however, showed that it's not working. A shift to Bush-style bluntness may be coming.

There were only a few hours left before Air Force One was scheduled to depart for the flight home. US President Barack Obama trip through Asia had already seen him travel 24,000 kilometers, sit through a dozen state banquets, climb the Great Wall of China and shake hands with Korean children. It was high time to take stock of the trip.

Barack Obama looked tired on Thursday, as he stood in the Blue House in Seoul, the official residence of the South Korean president. He also seemed irritable and even slightly forlorn. The CNN cameras had already been set up. But then Obama decided not to play along, and not to answer the question he had already been asked several times on his trip: what did he plan to take home with him? Instead, he simply said "thank you, guys," and disappeared. David Axelrod, senior advisor to the president, fielded the journalists' questions in the hallway of the Blue House instead, telling them that the public's expectations had been "too high."

The mood in Obama's foreign policy team is tense following an extended Asia trip that produced no palpable results. The "first Pacific president," as Obama called himself, came as a friend and returned as a stranger. The Asians smiled but made no concessions.

Lost Some Stature

Upon taking office, Obama said that he wanted to listen to the world, promising respect instead of arrogance. But Obama's currency isn't as strong as he had believed. Everyone wants respect, but hardly anyone is willing to pay for it. Interests, not emotions, dominate the world of realpolitik. The Asia trip revealed the limits of Washington's new foreign policy: Although Obama did not lose face in China and Japan, he did appear to have lost some of his initial stature.

Obama promised that if he was elected the world would look back and say "This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal." NOW he tells us our expectations had been too high?

Steingart went on to compare Obama's China trip to that of Bill Clinton where the red carpet was clearly more plush for Clinton than Obama. And the most bitter sting of all came at the end of the article suggesting as Newt Gingrich did that Obama is 'a lot like Jimmy Carter.' Ouch!

Der Spiegel also ran op-eds declaring:

Sunday, November 22, 2009

Health Care Bills Violate Obama's Principles & Campaign Promises

He promised to end the old Washington games yet plays along with health care gimmicks and lies!

It's little more than a year now since Obama was elected. Plenty of time for the not so well informed public to forget the principles Obama campaigned on and the promises he made. Even as he repeated his "eight principles" in his budget message in February, he is set on a course that will violate nearly every one of them.

By now it should be painfully clear to all but the most diehard Obamaton that the current "reforms" violate every principle and promise Obama made to the American people regarding health care reform. The bills were negotiated in secret among Democrats. They won't cover all uninsured Americans. Instead of lowering health care premiums the costs will increase. The bills are not "deficit neutral" but are actually the worst form of budget busters filled with the sort of gimmicks and secret deals Obama campaigned against. Millions of Americans will be forced onto the government plan and fined or get jail time if they do not enroll. And despite every promise Obama made during the campaing, taxes on those earning less than $250,000 will go up.

Finally, this message has begun to seep into the consciousness of the greater, often ambivalent, American public:

A budget-buster in the making
By David S. Broder
Washington Post
Sunday, November 22, 2009

It's simply not true that America is ambivalent about everything when it comes to the Obama health plan.

The day after the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) gave its qualified blessing to the version of health reform produced by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Quinnipiac University poll of a national cross section of voters reported its latest results.

This poll may not be as famous as some others, but I know the care and professionalism of the people who run it, and one question was particularly interesting to me.

It read: "President Obama has pledged that health insurance reform will not add to our federal budget deficit over the next decade. Do you think that President Obama will be able to keep his promise or do you think that any health care plan that Congress passes and President Obama signs will add to the federal budget deficit?"

The answer: Less than one-fifth of the voters -- 19 percent of the sample -- think he will keep his word. Nine of 10 Republicans and eight of 10 independents said that whatever passes will add to the torrent of red ink. By a margin of four to three, even Democrats agreed this is likely.

That fear contributed directly to the fact that, by a 16-point margin, the majority in this poll said they oppose the legislation moving through Congress.
...
While the CBO said that both the House-passed bill and the one Reid has drafted meet Obama's test by being budget-neutral, every expert I have talked to says that the public has it right. These bills, as they stand, are budget-busters.

[F]ormer CBO director Douglas Holtz-Eakin amplif[ies] the point with specific examples and biting language. Holtz-Eakin cites a long list of Democratic-sponsored "budget gimmicks" that made it possible for the CBO to estimate that Reid's bill would reduce federal deficits by $130 billion by 2019.

Perhaps the biggest of those maneuvers was Reid's decision to postpone the start of subsidies to help the uninsured buy policies from mid-2013 to January 2014 -- long after taxes and fees levied by the bill would have begun.

Even with that change, there is plenty in the CBO report to suggest that the promised budget savings may not materialize. If you read deep enough, you will find that under the Senate bill, "federal outlays for health care would increase during the 2010-2019 period" -- not decline. The gross increase would be almost $1 trillion -- $848 billion, to be exact, mainly to subsidize the uninsured. The net increase would be $160 billion.

But this depends on two big gambles. Will future Congresses actually impose the assumed $420 billion in cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and other federal health programs? They never have.

And will this Congress enact the excise tax on high-premium insurance policies (the so-called Cadillac plans) in Reid's bill? Obama has never endorsed them, and House Democrats -- reacting to union pressure -- turned them down in favor of a surtax on millionaires' income.

The challenge to Congress -- and to Obama -- remains the same: Make the promised savings real, and don't pass along unfunded programs Photobucketto our children and grandchildren.
Broder makes an excellent point. Has Congress ever followed through with difficult cuts to control costs? Or should we expect the same huge cost overruns from Obama Care that we got from Medicare and most other federal programs? (see chart at right)

Reforms Make Health Care WORSE, Not Better!

Underneath all the talk of "reform" the bills in both the House and Senate devote thousands of pages to creating new federal agencies and layers of bureaucracy that have little to do with improving Americans health care system and everything to do with political power and controlling the lives of Americans.

Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Jeffrey Flier, Dean of Harvard Medical School describes the consequences of the current Democrat legislation:

In discussions with dozens of health-care leaders and economists, I find near unanimity of opinion that, whatever its shape, the final legislation that will emerge from Congress will markedly accelerate national health-care spending rather than restrain it. Likewise, nearly all agree that the legislation would do little or nothing to improve quality or change health-care's dysfunctional delivery system. The system we have now promotes fragmented care and makes it more difficult than it should be to assess outcomes and patient satisfaction. The true costs of health care are disguised, competition based on price and quality are almost impossible, and patients lose their ability to be the ultimate judges of value.

Worse, currently proposed federal legislation would undermine any potential for real innovation in insurance and the provision of care. It would do so by overregulating the health-care system in the service of special interests such as insurance companies, hospitals, professional organizations and pharmaceutical companies, rather than the patients who should be our primary concern.

In effect, while the legislation would enhance access to insurance, the trade-off would be an accelerated crisis of health-care costs and perpetuation of the current dysfunctional system—now with many more participants. This will make an eventual solution even more difficult. Ultimately, our capacity to innovate and develop new therapies would suffer most of all.
In short, the current bills before Congress are bad medicine for the American people and even worse fiscal policy. The Senate can put a stop to this nightmare before it's too late if they vote to block the senate bill from a vote!

Friday, November 20, 2009

Want to Know Why Fewer and Fewer Americans Support the Dems Health Care "Reform?"

If it's the right thing to do why do you need a $100 million payoff?
The $100 Million Health Care Vote?
By Jonathon Karl
ABC News
November 19, 2009 3:03 PM

What does it take to get a wavering senator to vote for health care reform?

Here’s a case study.

On page 432 of the Reid bill, there is a section increasing federal Medicaid subsidies for “certain states recovering from a major disaster.”

The section spends two pages defining which “states” would qualify, saying, among other things, that it would be states that “during the preceding 7 fiscal years” have been declared a “major disaster area.”

I am told the section applies to exactly one state: Louisiana, the home of moderate Democrat Mary Landrieu, who has been playing hard to get on the health care bill.

In other words, the bill spends two pages describing would could be written with a single world: Louisiana. (This may also help explain why the bill is long.)

Senator Harry Reid, who drafted the bill, cannot pass it without the support of Louisiana’s Mary Landrieu.

How much does it cost? According to the Congressional Budget Office: $100 million.

Here’s the incredibly complicated language:

SEC. 2006. SPECIAL ADJUSTMENT TO FMAP DETERMINATION FOR CERTAIN STATES RECOVERING FROM A MAJOR DISASTER.

Section 1905 of the Social Security Act (42 U.S.C. 1396d), as amended by sections 2001(a)(3) and
2001(b)(2), is amended— (1) in subsection (b), in the first sentence, by striking ‘‘subsection (y)’’ and inserting ‘‘subsections (y) and (aa)’’; and (2) by adding at the end the following new subsection:

‘‘(aa)(1) Notwithstanding subsection (b), beginning January 1, 2011, the Federal medical assistance percentage for a fiscal year for a disaster-recovery FMAP adjustment State shall be equal to the following:
‘(A) In the case of the first fiscal year (or part of a fiscal year) for which this subsection applies to the State, the Federal medical assistance percentage determined for the fiscal year without regard to this subsection and subsection (y), increased by 50 percent of the number of percentage points by which the Federal medical assistance percentage determined for the State for the fiscal year without regard to this subsection and subsection (y), is less than the Federal medical assistance percentage determined for the State for the preceding fiscal year after the application of only subsection (a) of section 5001 of Public Law 111–5 (if applicable to the preceding fiscal year) and without regard to this subsection, subsection (y), and subsections (b) and (c) of section 5001 of Public Law 111–5.

‘‘(B) In the case of the second or any succeeding fiscal year for which this subsection applies to the State, the Federal medical assistance percentage determined for the preceding fiscal year under this subsection for the State, increased by 25 percent of the number of percentage points by which the Federal medical assistance percentage determined for the State for the fiscal year without regard to this subsection and subsection (y), is less than the Federal medical assistance percentage determined for the State for the preceding fiscal year under this subsection.

‘‘(2) In this subsection, the term ‘disaster-recovery FMAP adjustment State’ means a State that is one of
the 50 States or the District of Columbia, for which, at any time during the preceding 7 fiscal years, the President has declared a major disaster under section 401 of the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act and determined as a result of such disaster that every county or parish in the State warrant individual and public assistance or public assistance from the Federal Government under such Act and for which— ‘‘(A) in the case of the first fiscal year (or part of a fiscal year) for which this subsection applies to the State, the Federal medical assistance percentage determined for the State for the fiscal year without regard to this subsection and subsection (y), is less than the Federal medical assistance percentage determined for the State for the preceding fiscal year after the application of only subsection (a) of section 5001 of Public Law 111–5 (if applicable to the preceding fiscal year) and without regard to this subsection, subsection (y), and subsections (b) and (c) of section 5001 of Public Law 111–5, by at least 3 percentage points; and ‘‘(B) in the case of the second or any succeeding fiscal year for which this subsection applies to the State, the Federal medical assistance percentage determined for the State for the fiscal year without regard to this subsection and subsection (y), is less than the Federal medical assistance percentage determined for the State for the preceding fiscal year under this subsection by at least 3 percentage points.

‘‘(3) The Federal medical assistance percentage determined for a disaster-recovery FMAP adjustment State under paragraph (1) shall apply for purposes of this title (other than with respect to disproportionate share hospital payments described in section 1923 and payments under this title that are based on the enhanced FMAP described in 2105(b)) and shall not apply with respect to payments under title IV (other than under part E of title IV) or payments under title XXI.’’.
Is it any wonder Americans are rebelling against this big spending/big taxing/big government takeover of health care?

It should be abundantly clear by now that this really isn't about health care but about the acquisition and use of political power.

Saturday's vote in the U.S. Senate will open the door to this monstrosity becoming law. History shows that a vote to continue the debate sets this hideous legislative abomination on a glide path to approval.

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Senate Health Bill Resurrects Publicly Funded Abortions

Did Obama lie in his joint address to Congress when he said "no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions?"

cue to 1:28 for "YOU LIE"

Last summer and earlier this fall Obama repeatedly claimed that those on our side who expressed concerns about many aspects of the health bills working their way through Congress were lying about certain provisions. One of those "lies" was the GOP claim that money from the government run plans would be used to fund abortions.

When Joe Wilson shouted "YOU LIE" during Obama's speech to Congress, Joe wasn't just talking about illegal immigrants getting benefits under these plans (they do). Despite the vote taken in the House to strike abortion funding from their version of the bill, Harry Reid put it back in the Senate bill.

This from House Leader John Boehner (R-OH):

Just like the original 2,032-page, government-run health care plan from Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA), Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-NV) massive, 2,074-page bill would levy a new “abortion premium” fee on Americans in the government-run plan.

Beginning on line 7, p. 118, section 1303 under “Voluntary Choice of Coverage of Abortion Services” the Health and Human Services Secretary is given the authority to determine when abortion is allowed under the government-run health plan. Leader Reid’s plan also requires that at least one insurance plan offered in the Exchange covers abortions (line 13, p. 120).

What is even more alarming is that a monthly abortion premium will be charged of all enrollees in the government-run health plan. It’s right there beginning on line 11, page 122, section 1303, under “Actuarial Value of Optional Service Coverage.” The premium will be paid into a U.S. Treasury account – and these federal funds will be used to pay for the abortion services.

Section 1303(a)(2)(C) describes the process in which the Health Benefits Commissioner is to assess the monthly premiums that will be used to pay for elective abortions under the government-run health plan and for those who are given an affordability credit to purchase insurance coverage that includes abortion through the Exchange. The Commissioner must charge at a minimum $1 per enrollee per month.

A majority of Americans believe that health care plans should not be mandated to provide elective abortion coverage, and a majority of Americans do not believe government health care plans should include abortion coverage. Currently, federal appropriations bills include language known as the Hyde Amendment that prohibits the use of federal funds to pay for elective abortions under the Medicare and Medicaid programs, while another provision, known as the Smith Amendment, prohibits federal funding of abortion under the federal employees’ health benefits plan.

[Read more here]

Senate Republicans will fight hard against this and other abominations in the Reid bill.

And once again, when Democrats talk about lying, they are talking about themselves!

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Obama's Chickens Coming Home to Roost!

Independents are deserting him in droves!

A new record on the Rasmussen index:

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After the huge election wins for the GOP in Virginia and New Jersey the "news" media did it's best to deny that the GOP surge had anything to do with Obama. I guess they are going to have to learn the hard way.

Not only did Independent voters desert the candidates in those races who were vigorously supported by Obama, but independents continue to flee from Obama nationwide.

Chris Cillizza analyzes the new Washington Post/ABC News national survey and finds:

Only on international affairs does Obama get majority support with 57 percent of independents offering approval for the job he is doing.

The rest of Obama's approval scores among independents on the seven issues tested in the poll range from fair to borderline poor. Forty six percent approve of his handling of "the threat of terrorism" while 45 percent said he has done a good job on the economy.

Obama's job approval ratings are weaker among independents when it comes to health care (41 percent), Afghanistan (39 percent) and the budget deficit (37 percent).

While Obama maintains a positive job approval among independents (50 percent approve/47 percent disapprove) the broad skepticism toward how he is handling some of the country's critical priorities could spell trouble down the road for the president.
That same trend is being tracked by the Gallup daily poll and other national polls like the latest Quinnipiac survey in which Obama's job approval rating has dropped below 50% for the first time.

What's happening here?

I can't put it better than Obama's former Pastor Rev. Wright:

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Stimulating Dishonesty

How Obama's "jobs saved and created" scam has introduced a new level of dishonesty to government statistics!

It's no secret that Obama's claim of saving or creating 650,000 jobs is an utter fantasy. But now, the sheer scale of the dishonesty and bungling incompetence of the effort to hoodwink Americans into believing the $trillion stimulus bill is saving jobs is becoming more clear:

Exclusive: Jobs 'Saved or Created' in Congressional Districts That Don't Exist
Human Error Blamed for Crediting New Stimulus Jobs to Nonexistent Places
By JONATHAN KARL
ABC News
Nov. 16, 2009

Here's a stimulus success story: In Arizona's 15th congressional district, 30 jobs have been saved or created with just $761,420 in federal stimulus spending. At least that's what the Web site set up by the Obama administration to track the $787 billion stimulus says.

Discrepancies on government web site call into question stimulus spending.
There's one problem, though: There is no 15th congressional district in Arizona; the state has only eight districts.

And ABC News has found many more entries for projects like this in places that are incorrectly identified.

Late Monday, officials with the Recovery Board created to track the stimulus spending, said the mistakes in crediting nonexistent congressional districts were caused by human error.

"We report what the recipients submit to us," said Ed Pound, Communications Director for the Board.

Pound told ABC News the board receives declarations from the recipients - state governments, federal agencies and universities - of stimulus money about what program is being funded.

"Some recipients clearly don't know what congressional district they live in, so they appear to be just throwing in any number. We expected all along that recipients would make mistakes on their congressional districts, on jobs numbers, on award amounts, and so on. Human beings make mistakes," Pound said.

Well, you try just throwing in "any number" on your tax return and see if the IRS is so understanding. On something THIS important, it's mind boggling that the bureaucrats which Obama is hiring by the boatload (those are the only jobs he has created) can't do even a cursory review of such key data before publishing it.

And we're supposed to believe these people when they say health care won't be rationed under the government plan? Yeah, sure!

Stimulus dishonesty
Job numbers keep proving to be exaggerated
Union-Tribune Editorial
Wednesday, November 11, 2009

First it was The Associated Press refuting the Obama administration’s claims for jobs saved or created nationwide by February’s $787 billion economic stimulus measure. Then it was The Sacramento Bee refuting the claims that state agencies had made for California. Then it was the Chicago Tribune refuting the claims that state agencies had made for Illinois.

The errors were not of a minor or technical nature. They were egregious.

AP reported that “some jobs credited to the stimulus program were counted two, three, four or even more times.” The Bee reported that California State University said “the $268.5 million it received in stimulus funding through October allowed it to retain 26,156 employees” – more than half its statewide work force. The Tribune reported that Illinois education officials grossly inflated job-saved numbers, sometimes saying school districts had saved more jobs than their total number of employees.

This is a scandal and should be treated as such. It’s not government as usual. Instead, it appears to reflect a decision to distort government data collection to support explicitly political agendas.

With U.S. unemployment now topping 10 percent, the Obama administration is struggling more than ever to fashion credible counterarguments to the assertion made by this editorial page and many pundits and economists that the massive stimulus measure was a poorly thought-out pork fest that wouldn’t work. What’s the easiest way to defend the stimulus? Make up claims about its glorious results.

Politics also appears to be driving state agencies in their willingness to prop up this bogus narrative. It helps them make the case that they should get even more borrowed money from the federal government that they never will have to repay.

Such dishonesty should be completely unacceptable – especially at the federal level. We trust the Office of Management and Budget to provide honest figures on the size of the deficit and the national debt. We trust the Labor Department to provide honest statistics on unemployment and job gains and losses by sector. We trust the Commerce Department to provide honest numbers on monthly imports and exports and the gross domestic product. We trust the Environmental Protection Agency to provide an honest accounting of air and water pollution levels.

All of these statistics end up helping shape the public debate on the most crucial issues of the day. If these numbers can’t be trusted, we can’t have an honest debate. When it comes to the economic stimulus package, it sure looks like the Obama White House doesn’t want an honest debate. Instead, it is going to relentlessly push the very dubious claim that the stimulus was a huge success – no matter what.

We are struck yet again by the contrast between the hopeful and idealistic tone of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign and the bare-knuckles Chicago-style politics of his White House. If this hardball approach goes beyond the usual arm-twisting to the routine twisting of government statistics for political purposes, that will be a grim day for America.



In a report which is typical of other states, the Journal Sentinel in Milwaukee, Wisconsin a chart showing just how bogus many of these "jobs created and saved" are:

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Meanwhile, unemployment just keeps going up and up:

House Leader John Boehner has a media wrap up of the news showing that the stimulus is NOT working. Read it here.

Saturday, November 14, 2009

Bow Wow! Obama Does it Again

First the Saudi King and now the Japanese Emperor! I'm surprised Obama didn't apologize for the U.S. winning WW2!

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Obama bows to Emperor Akihito during trip to Japan Saturday.

From the L.A. Times: "Very low bows like this are a sign of great respect and deference to a superior."

Hot Air has the video.

We're also reminded of the Obama bow to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. Later the White House denied that Obama had bowed even though it was obvious they were lying.

How did MacArthur treat Hirohito?

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Who is the "superior" in this photo?



Is Obama totally oblivious to the protocol here? A head of state, such as the U.S. President does not bow to another head of state! Unless of course he sees himself or his country as inferior!

How low can Obama go?

Abuse of Eminent Domain Results in Nothing But Vacant Lots

An entire neighborhood was uprooted to make way for a big money development which will never be built!

Want to know why people are mad at the nexus between big government and big money?

The Famous 'Kelo House' Property Is Now A Vacant Lot
By John Carney
The Business Insider Law Review
Nov. 10, 2009

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What you are looking at above is a monument to government folly.

It is the vacant lot where the home of Susette Kelo once stood.

A decade ago, the town of New London, Connecticut claimed Kelo's house by right of eminent domain. The plan was to demolish the residential neighborhood so that Pfizer could built a massive research and development plant on the adjacent land. Pfizer got the land for next to nothing. Five Supreme Court justices upheld the taking, ruling that although the primary beneficiary was a corporation, it met the constitutional requirement of "public use."

Now Pfizer has announced that it is shutting down the plant.

More from the Associated Press:

New London (AP) - Weeds, glass, bricks, pieces of pipe and shingle splinters have replaced the knot of aging homes at the site of the nation's most notorious eminent domain project.

There are a few signs of life: Feral cats glare at visitors from a miniature jungle of Queen Anne's lace, thistle and goldenrod. Gulls swoop between the lot's towering trees and the adjacent sewage treatment plant.

But what of the promised building boom that was supposed to come wrapped and ribboned with up to 3,169 new jobs and $1.2 million a year in tax revenues? They are noticeably missing.

Proponents of the ambitious plan blame the sour economy. Opponents call it a "poetic justice."

"They are getting what they deserve. They are going to get nothing," said Susette Kelo, the lead plaintiff in the landmark property rights case. "I don't think this is what the United States Supreme Court justices had in mind when they made this decision."
An assualt on the freedom and basic property rights of average Americans has resulted in a scar on the landscape of New London. This abomination was fueled by the greed of big government and big developers. What a shame that the only people standing up for the little people were conservatives!

Obama Grants Arch Terrorist KSM's Fondest Wish!

Khalid Shaikh Mohammed always wanted a show trial in New York!

When the CIA captured arch terrorist KSM in Pakistan in 2003 he refused to talk when questioned. “I’ll talk to you guys after I get to New York and see my lawyer,” he said, according to former CIA Director George Tenet. He must have been really shocked when instead he was stripped naked in a secret CIA prison and waterboarded before ultimately being bundled off to Guantanamo Bay.

But it looks like now he will get his fondest wish for a big propaganda show in New York. Unlike the Bush Administration which determined to keep these monsters isolated at Gitmo, the Obama Administration is bending over backwards to grant KSM the rights he never extended to any of his victims.

This is the man who beheaded Daniel Pearl with a dull knife as he screamed. This is the man who masterminded the September 11th attacks and who was in the process of planning additional attacks. This is the man who the Obama Administration is now conferring with the Constitutional rights of a U.S. citizen by putting him on trial in a civilian court in New York!

The Obama's Administration has now placed an even larger target on the back of New York City. It threw away years of patient legal foundations for military tribunals laid by the Bush Administration in concert with the U.S. Congress and Supreme Court. It has undertaken a process in which the CIA will be on trial, not KSM.

In short, it will be a farce, but a dangerous and expensive one.

Former Attorney General Mukasey addressed the Federalist Society on Friday:


Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, who as a judge presided over a trial stemming from the first attack on the World Trade Center, on Friday warned that the Obama administration's decision to bring Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to New York, along with three other terrorist detainees, to stand trial in a civilian court, reflected a pre-9/11 mindset that viewed terrorism as a simple criminal matter.

Speaking at the Federalist Society's National Lawyers Convention, Mukasey described the move, as “a decision I consider not only unwise, but based on a refusal to face the fact that what we are involved with here is a war with people who follow a religiously-based ideology that calls on them to kill us, and to return instead to the mindset that prevailed before Sept. 11 that acts like the first World Trade Center bombing, the attacks on our embassies in Africa and other such acts can and should be treated as conventional crimes and tried in conventional courts.”
...
He noted that Congress already authorized the trial of detainees through military commissions, and that those trials would have already been underway.

“Now, that procedure is to be short-circuited -- actually, long-circuited would be more accurate -- so that they could be brought to this country and tried in a civilian court," he said. "We should all be aware that those cases which were scheduled to have already begun now have to start from scratch.”

The difficulty of trying terror suspects through civilian courts, he said, is that the discovery process, the public presentation of evidence, and other elements of a trial "could turn a criminal proceeding into a cornucopia of information for those still at large and a circus for those in custody.”

He pointed out that when capturing the enemy combatants, pieces of information “were not gathered, nor was evidence gathered, on the assumption that they would be presented in a federal court.”
...
He later added that, "to the extent that they are within prisons, they are a threat there as well. Any of these people would be a virtually totemic figure in a prison.” He argued that "shoe bomber" Richard Reid's success in challenging his solitary confinement shows that there's no guarantee that convicted terrorists would stay isolated from the rest of the prison population.

Asked about Attorney General Eric Holder's statement that he was confident that the defendents wouldn't be able to get off on a legal technicality, Mukasey replied that while he doesn't have access to the same information as Holder, "Betting the farm on the outcome of that process always involves risk.”


To see part one of this interview, click here.

Meanwhile, in the wake of Obama's inability to "connect the dots" and call Nidal Hasan's murder of 13 soldiers at Fort Hood a "terrorist" attack, we see new evidence here the the Obama Administration, from top to bottom, refuses to recognize that terrorists are at war with us. Returning to a September 10th mindset and treating these as criminal matters will not make us more respected around the world. Nor will it make us safer!

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Why Was the "News" Media So Reticent to Call Fort Hood Shooting a "Terrorist" Attack?

Was it to shield Obama or because they preferred to use the incident to bash the military? Or both?

Nidal Hasan, the Fort Hood shooter made no secret of his radical Islamic views. He passed out business cards with the acronomyn SOA indicating he was a "soldier of Allah." Hasan gave a bizzare PowerPoint presentation in which he quoted the Koran (slide 43): "I have been commanded to fight the people until they testify that there is no deity worthy of worship except Allah and that Mohammed is the Messenger."

In secret, Hasan was in contact with Al Queda and and a string of radical Islamists.

As Hasan began to fire on the unarmed soldiers at Fort Hood he shouted the Jihadi war cry: "Allahu Akbar."

So why has it been so difficult for the "news" media to call this a terrorist act?

PC News: Networks Downplay Terrorism, Muslim Connection in Ft. Hood Attack
All three networks mention 'terror' only after Obama hints at ideology during funeral ceremony.
By Carolyn Plocher and Dan Gainor
Culture and Media Institute
November 11, 2009

  • Networks Decide Attack Wasn’t Terror: 85 percent of the broadcast stories didn’t mention the word “terror.” ABC, CBS, and NBC evening news referenced terrorism connections to the Fort Hood attack just seven times in 48 reports.
  • ABC, CBS, NBC Follow White House Line: Before Obama's Nov. 10 speech, 93 percent of the stories had ignored any terror connection. But after Obama hinted at what ABC called “Islamic extremist views,” all three networks mentioned terrorism.
  • Alleged Attacker’s Muslim Faith Not Important Either: Slightly more than one-fourth (29 percent) of evening news reports mentioned that Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan was a Muslim. Of those, half (7 out of 14) defended the religion or included experts to do so.
Two possible explanations:

First, the recognition of this atrocity as a terrorist attack means that Obama has to take personal responsibility for the failings of his Administration to "connect the dots" to prevent this attack. The same folks who insisted Bush should have done something prior to the September 11th attacks will have a hard time defending the Obama Administration when it's clear there were red lights flashing indicating that Hasan was a problem. It happened on Obama's watch. If they can say it's not a terrorist attack they can escape responsibility for failing to prevent it.

There is also a political dimension to the denial. Evan Thomas, the Editor of Newsweek gave away the game as he reacted to the news that Hasan was a Muslim:


"I cringe that he's a Muslim. I mean, because it just inflames all the fears. I think he's probably just a nut case but, with that label attached to him, it will get the right wing going."
So, already the attack has become politicized by the left. But they didn't stop there.

Second, there seemed to be an instant reaction to the attack to blame the military. All those wars and deployments were bound to make a soldier snap. But of course that explanation is hard to support given that Hasan had never been deployed overseas. The best the left can do is to blame Bush for a war which they claim radicalizes Muslims (despite the fact that Muslims were radicalized long before Bush came to office).

Now that the Muslim and terrorist connection is established beyond a shadow of a doubt the "news" media goes to it's last resort: there are "Christian nuts" too. Maybe so, but last time I checked they haven't flown planes into buildings, beheaded Muslims with dull knives or shot up an Army base. And there certainly has been no "Muslim backlash" despite the number of worried columns with that theme have appeared in the New York Times.

Political Correctness Shielding the Next Terrorist?

With the left and their media acolytes so willing to support the politically correct culture of denial that led to the Hasan atrocity one wonders how many other shooters or bombers or whatever are hiding in plain sight? And wouldn't it be nice that those on the left who would accuse us of wanting to put all Muslims in internment camps cared a bit more for the safety of the citizens who might be the next target?

Hoffman Didn't Lose NY-23 Race After All?

That headline may be premature, but it was even MORE premature to swear in Owens last Friday before all the votes were counted!

Democrats didn't waste any time swearing in Bill Owens to take a seat in Congress representing the 23rd Congressional District of New York. While the Conservative candidate Doug Hoffman had conceded the race on election night when it looked like he was down by over 5,000 votes, all the ballots had yet to be counted and a string of reporting errors underreported Hoffman's totals by thousands of votes.

The official vote count is now so close that the actual winner will be decided by the 10,200 absentee ballots which were distributed. With ACORN and SEIU paid agents working on behalf of Owens that means it's likely the absentee ballots will favor Owens as fraud with these ballots is a specialty of Democrats.

But what would happen if it were determined that Hoffman actually won? Would Owens be removed from office and the deciding vote he cast in favor of Obama Care on Saturday be overturned? All unlikely, but you can just hear Democrats screaming at even the suggestion.

Meanwhile, Hoffman, who wasn't a particularly charismatic candidate is considering running again in 2010. Plus, for those interested in a poll taken after the election, here's some interesting background on the race.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Tropical Depression Ida Brings Much Needed Rain & Casts Further Shame on Global Warming Alarmists

The 2009 hurricane season is another in a line of record low hurricane years!

What's left of Tropical Depression Ida is passing overhead as I write. With barely a breeze but some much needed rain she is a welcome end to the 2009 hurricane season. A year which set a record as the quietest season since 1997. Not one hurricane made landfall in the United States and very few storms even reached hurricane strength. The total accumulated energy of all tropical storms remains near historic lows despite a modest warming trend in ocean waters which is now declining.

And yet the scaremongers continue to warn of more and bigger storms. Al Gore even uses another hurricane graphic , as he did in his propaganda film, An Inconvenient Truth, to sell yet another book on the subject (see right).

PhotobucketYou would think these warming nuts would be too ashamed to show their face in public. Especially as a recent Pew Research opinion poll shows more and more Americans are not buying into the hysteria.

Follow the Money

But Gore and his nuts have a lot riding on the outcome of a successful scare campaign designed to force radical changes in the lifestyle of every American and cost trillions of dollars. Gore himself stands to become the first "carbon billionaire" based largely on profits from climate change grants made by the Federal government to firms Gore has a financial stake in. And let's not forget the big investment firm Goldman Sachs whose top brokers contributed heavily to Obama's campaign. They stand to rake in billions for handling unnecessary carbon credits trading. Then, there's General Electric, whose CEO has close ties to Obama. G.E. stands to rake in billions if Cap and Trade legislation passes Congress.

Resources for an Educated Public

As the climate change debate (yes, it IS STILL A DEBATE) enters it's final phase and one that will be painful for many a warming believe, we have to stay more informed than ever before on the issue. And as always, I'm here to help.

Need a short (under two minutes) update on the lack of any correlation between CO2 and climate change? Our Australian friends do it well:

Want to know more about climate change than Al Gore? See the lecture by Lord Christopher Monckton and you'll soon understand why Gore refuses to debate Monckton:

Monckton's slide presentation is here and his five page synopsis is here.

Climate Chains:


Climate Chains from Climate Chains on Vimeo.

Let's not forget the classic "The Great Global Warming Swindle."

Want to add a climate change update to your blog? Follow the link:

Click to get your own widget

There is a change going on. It's the change that comes when people finally wake up and realize they've been hoodwinked on this issue by Democrats with their hands in our pockets!

Monday, November 09, 2009

World Leaders Celebrate 20th Anniversary of Fall of Berlin Wall

Guess who wasn't there?

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British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and German President Horst Koehler walk through the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin November 9, 2009, during celebrations to mark the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

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Spectators watch as giant, painted styrofoam dominoes stand along the route of the former Berlin Wall near the Brandenburg Gate on November 9, 2009 in Berlin, Germany. The approximately 1,000 dominoes, painted by schoolchildren and artists all over the world, are meant to symbolically represent the end of communist rule across Eastern Europe and are the highlight of celebrations in the German capitol marking the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.


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German Chancellor Angela Merkel (C), former Soviet Union President Mikhail Gorbachev (L) and former Polish President Lech Walesa (2R) pose with a historical picture showing Bornholmer Bridge (Bornholmer Bruecke) in Berlin November 9, 2009, during celebrations to mark the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

There was another American President absent today. But he had already done his job:

The story of Reagan's "tear down this wall" speech.

Ralph Peters Examines the Political Correctness That Killed 13 Americans at Fort Hood

Why is the Obama Administration so reluctant to call Islamist terror by it's name?

Obama can't be bothered by Islamic terrorism
By Ralph Peters
New York Post
Nov. 8, 2009

...A Muslim fanatic, known to the FBI as a fan of suicide bombers and to colleagues as an opponent of our government, coolly buys weapons, heads to a military facility he knows will be packed with unsuspecting soldiers, waits for the crowd to thicken, then shouts, “Allah is great!” and guns down 51 patriots, calmly reloading among the dead and dying.

But don’t rush to judgment.

Imagine if, instead of Fort Hood, the massacre had gone down at a mosque in Detroit — carried out by a maddened Christian or Jew. Obama would’ve been aboard Air Force One before the pilots had time to file a flight plan and he would’ve been on site before the gun smoke cleared, hugging and boo-hooing and dispensing stirring rhetoric for the evening news.

But go out of his way to rally our butchered troops? Not a chance. It’s not like they’re real human beings with Ivy League degrees. When Obama got word of the attack, he didn’t even lose his fabled cool.
...
Of course, this act of Islamist terrorism has been an inconvenience to a president whose administration insists there’s no such thing. Those dead and wounded soldiers are such an embarrassment. If only a Baptist or Lutheran had been the shooter, things would’ve been so much tidier.

What’s next? The White House is going to bring heavy pressure on the FBI, through Attorney General Eric Holder, to play down investigative results confirming that Maj. Nidal Hasan was motivated by his Muslim beliefs.

Instead, we’ll hear even more about the “harassment” Hasan suffered as the media toe the line laid down by the vile lead editorial in Saturday’s New York Times and how this calculating terrorist contracted PTSD from his patients.

Let me kill the harassment myth right now: Political correctness rules in today’s Army. We even protect our enemies these days. Had any soldier harassed Hasan because of his Islamist nuttiness, that soldier would’ve disappeared faster than a Franklin on a Times Square sidewalk.
...
Far from being harassed himself, this creep was allowed to harass the soldiers he treated for stress disorders. According to colleagues, Hasan not only argued with his patients about our wars, but preached Islam to those under his care. (Just what troubled vets needed, no doubt.)

Prejudice? You bet. In this terrorist’s favor. Nobody in Hasan’s chain of command had the sense of duty to weed this pervert out. Why? Hasan would’ve accused them of discrimination. And the officer who brought charges against Hasan would’ve been the one whose career suffered.

Since writing on this travesty in the Post and speaking out on Fox News, I’ve been deluged with supportive messages — many from soldiers outraged at the politically correct treatment of this terrorist by the media, by senior military leaders — and by the president.

How many more Americans have to die, at home and in war, before our president admits that there is, indeed, such a thing as Islamist terror? Will he ever admit that it played a role in the tragedy at Fort Hood?

Not a chance. Islam’s a religion of peace. America’s the problem. And don’t you forget it.

Many of us have scratched our heads wondering how a fine American like Flopping Aces contributor Chris Galloway could commit suicide after tours in Afghanistan and Iraq. Now, we learn that one of the men whose job it was to help returning troops deal with the reality of their deployments was an Islamist nut case. Heads should roll here and let's start with the apparent indifference by the Obama Administration to the problem of Islamic extremists permitted to remain at their jobs in the U.S. military.
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