Written on March 18th, 2010 by adminno shouts
-By Warner Todd Huston
Public supported National Public Radio (NPR) posted a report on March 17 during its “All Things Considered” radio show that warns its listeners that “patriot groups” are dangerous and are apparently increasingly prone to attacking government officials and facilities. Oddly the two examples it uses to prove its case have no ties whatsoever to any “patriot groups.”
Headlined, “Hostility Against Federal Workers Troubles Officials,” NPR blames “patriot groups” on these attacks and worries that “anti-government hate groups” are on the “upsurge.” And what does NPR use to prove its case? Nothing but the say so of the left-wing Southern Poverty Law Center and a misconstruction of two recent attacks on government facilities by disturbed individuals.
NPR ominously begins its report with this:
Three attacks on U.S. government employees this year, along with an upsurge in anti-government hate groups, have officials in Washington concerned about the safety of federal workers.
The piece goes on to report that this sort of violence is a “troubling trend” and lays it all at the feet of “patriot and militia groups.”
NPR then tries to prove its case by discussing the two most recent sensational attackers on government facilities; Joe Stack and John Patrick Bedell.
Joe Stack, a disturbed man who crashed his small plane into an IRS building in Austin, Texas back in February, was not known to have any ties to any tea party group, any “patriot” group, or other right-wing groups. His manifesto reads like a confused communist rant with hate for the U.S. government and George W. Bush liberally sprinkled throughout. But NPR lumps this nut in with the right with claims that they are all dangerous to government officials and facilities.
NPR similarly uses as proof of these dangerous patriots the disturbed actions of John Patrick Bedell who opened fire on officers near the Pentagon on March 4. Bedell was an anti-war protestor, heavy marijuana user, and exhibited paranoia for which he refused to seek medical help. Bedell also has no known ties to tea party groups, any political organizations, or NPR’s frightening “patriot groups.”
Yet NPR put forth both of these sick-minded men as examples of “patriots” that have become dangerous and unstable. If NPR wasn’t saying so why include them in this report?
Naturally for its “expert” on dangerous patriots NPR turns to Mark Potok, the director of the liberal Southern Poverty Law Center. As always, Potok cites claims of a “huge growth in the so-called patriot movement that includes militias out there.” Not that NPR offers any actual proof other than Potok’s say so, of course.
“We’ve seen in particular a huge growth in the so-called patriot movement that includes militias out there,” Potok says. “And I think that some of the violence that we’ve seen, such as the Pentagon shooter and the IRS, are at least in some way a reflection of that rage.”
Potok says there are now more than 500 patriot and militia groups active in the U.S., more than triple the number in 2008.
Again, NPR trots out Potok to warn of those evil, evil right-wing patriots and tries to back his claims up with two crazy people that have no ties at all to those same right-wing patriot groups that are being blamed for this “upsurge” in violence.
What NPR doesn’t tell you is the sort of people that work wt. the SPLC. Chip Berlet, for instance, is one of those people. Berlet has all sorts of extremist, left-wing associates (like anti-American billionaire financier George Soros) and is a member of other far left organizations such as the Socialist Workers Party. Here is an entry on Berlet in discoverthenetwork.org nestled in a page about the left-wing Tides Foundation:
Berlet is a senior analyst for Political Research Associates, and has had affiliations with the American Civil Liberties Union, the American Friends Service Committee, the Christic Institute, the Socialist Workers Party, the National Lawyers Guild, and the Southern Poverty Law Center.
To show how unbiased SLPC’s Chip Berlet is, he once wrote that, “right-wing foundations and think tanks support efforts to make bigoted and discredited ideas respectable.” Not too biased there, eh?
Discoverthenetwork.org also has a page on the SPLC itself.
So, for its expert on those monstrous patriot groups, NPR turns to a group that has ties to the Socialist Workers Party, George Soros, and the anti-Christian ACLU and then expects us to think such an organization should be accepted as an unbiased news source! Apparently NPR does expect us all to accept as gospel its left-biased report on how dangerous those “patriots” are, but I hope America is more skeptical than that.
Remember folks, our tax dollars support NPR.
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Written on March 18th, 2010 by adminno shouts
-By Warner Todd Huston
Remember how Obama stomped across the country between 2004 and 2009 saying that the Bush administration was the “most secretive administration ever”? Remember how he assured us that if HE won the presidency he’d have the most “transparent” administration ever?
He lied.
About both points.
As Andrew Malcolm of the L.A. Times notes, Obama has denied by half again as many FOIA requests as Bush that has been presented to his “transparent” administration to fulfill.
That’s right, Obama has upped the denials of freedom of information requests by 50% over Bush’s rate. So much for that new “transparent” administration Obama promised.
As Malcolm reports, “An Associated Press examination of 17 major agencies’ handling of FOIA requests found denials 466,872 times, an increase of nearly 50% from the 2008 fiscal year under Bush.”
Unbelievable. This liar didn’t even try to fulfill his promise to have a presidency more open to public scrutiny!
So, yes, he lied about both points. Bush’s administration isn’t the “most secretive administration ever,” and Obama won’t have the most transparent administration ever.
Barack Obama truly is an Aliceite.
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Written on March 18th, 2010 by adminno shouts
Isn’t this the same guy who said, “this isn’t about me”, when the word Waterloo came up? Tune of change!
One caucus member told POLITICO that Obama won him over by “essentially [saying] that the fate of his presidency” hinged on this week’s health reform vote in the House. The member, who requested anonymity, likened Obama’s remarks to an earlier meeting with progressives when the president said a victory was necessary to keep him “strong” for the next three years of his term.
Another caucus member, Rep. Jose Serrano (D-N.Y.), said, “We went in there already knowing his presidency would be weakened if this thing went down, but the president clearly reinforced the impression the presidency would be damaged by a loss.”
Added Serrano: “He was subtle, but that was the underlying theme of the meeting — the importance of passing this for the health of the presidency.”…
“The White House is raising the stakes so high, they are basically telling [House Democrats] that failure is not an option unless you want to sink the president,” said health industry lobbyist Steve Elmendorf, a onetime adviser to Rep. Dick Gephardt, a former Democratic leader.
Poor ego bruised because America rejected his push for socialism. Heart strings just may push over enough Dems though. In the feeble attempt some of those wavering Dems might listen to my common sense..here it goes…Obama’s presidency is already doomed. All you will do by voting for this is seal your fate along with his.
How absolutely pitiful.
Hat tip: Hot Air
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Written on March 18th, 2010 by adminno shouts
I wonder if the White House will now start assaulting the Associated Press for daring to stand up and say “liar!”
Buyers, beware: President Barack Obama says his health care overhaul will lower premiums by double digits, but check the fine print.
Premiums are likely to keep going up even if the health care bill passes, experts say. If cost controls work as advertised, annual increases would level off with time. But don’t look for a rollback. Instead, the main reason premiums would be more affordable is that new government tax credits would help cover the cost for millions of people.
Listening to Obama pitch his plan, you might not realize that’s how it works.
Liar! And where will all that money for those tax credits come from? Oh, right, taxes on the rich, meaning, “you get a paycheck? You’re rich.” Rather than money being spread around the economy through people and companies purchasing items, it will go straight to the government coffers. Then the government can say “hey, you want that tax credit? You have to purchase one of our government approved health insurance plans.”
Simple solutions: cross-state purchasing, nationwide pooling, and health savings accounts (which reduce costs by causing people to think twice about running off to the ER because they have the flu, instead of going to their pharmacy. Yes, a bit more complicated than that. HSAs work best as behavior modifiers.) Personally, I have no problem with legislation that tells insurers that they cannot drop people who get sick and have been paying their premiums.
BTW, the AP settles an issue from the other day, vis a vis Obama’s 3,000% gaffe
A White House press spokesman later said the president misspoke; he had meant to say annual premiums would drop by $3,000.
A report for the Business Roundtable, an association of big company CEOs, was the source for the claim that employers could save $3,000 per worker on health care costs, the White House said.
You know how they can save that money? They dump their health insurance offers, pay the fine, and tell their employees to have fun in the Exchange. Companies, per the Senate bill, could save $4k-$10k per year per employee.
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Written on March 16th, 2010 by adminno shouts
No, that is not a typo in the headline. I seriously doubt that The Smartest Man In The World Ever!!!!!! meant to say 3,000. I Blame Bush. Or Secretary Teleprompter. Just image had Bush made this claim, even by accident
Now, so let me talk about the third thing, which is my proposal would bring down the cost of health care for families, for businesses, and for the federal government.
So Americans buying comparable coverage to what they have today — I already said this — would see premiums fall by 14 to 20 percent — that’s not my numbers, that’s what the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says — for Americans who get their insurance through the workplace.
How many people are getting insurance through their jobs right now?
Raise your hands.
All right. Well, a lot of those folks, your employer it’s estimated would see premiums fall by as much as 3,000 percent [sic], which means they could give you a raise.
(Applause.)
And probably quite a few people giving those types of tentative claps accompanied by the thought “WTF did he just say?”
Also, I wonder if The Smartest Man In The World Ever!!!!!! understands the difference in the cost of health care and health insurance. Based on that little exchange, I’d say not.
Crossed at Pirate’s Cove
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