This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Media

  • More Washington Post electioneering BS

    My delicate eyes were assaulted by this headline in the business section of the Washington Post this morning;

    A win? Relly? The trade deals with South Korea, Colombia and Panama were all negotiated under President Bush. They were stalled by Democrats during their reign in Congress for various left-wing reasons (they wanted fewer unionists killed in Colombia and they were angry that Martinelli, a conservative, was elected in Panama). Republicans in Congress have pushing for passage of these Free Trade Agreements for more than four years – so congratualations, Mr President, you get a “win” because the republicans took Congress.

    Given the famous political leanings of the Post, I’m sure if their archivs went back far enough, I could probably find instances of their opposition to the Bush Administration’s attemts at passing the FTAs with Colombia and Panama. I did however find a Washington Post article from 2007 in which they report that Democrats were holding up the FTA with Colombia;

    And a Huffington Post article from just a few days ago which still opposes the Colombia FTA for leftist reasons.

    But, yeah, congats Mr Obama for getting the Republicans to vote the way they’ve wanted to vote for more than four years.

  • Larry “foot in mouth” O’Donnell attacks Cain for “avoiding” the draft

    I’m sorry, but I just can’t imagine a bigger dumbass than MSNBC’s Laurence O’Donnell. In a Newsbusters link sent to us by AverageNCO, O’Donnell, who avoided the draft with college deferments, questions Herman Cain about his deferments from his draft board because of his critical work for the Navy;

    I am offended on behalf of all the veterans of the Vietnam War who joined, Mr. Cain. The veterans who did not wait to be drafted like John Kerry who joined. They didn’t sit there and wait to find out what their draft board was going to do. They had the courage to join and to go and fight that war. What prevented you from joining, and what gives you the feeling that after having made that choice you should be the Commander-in-Chief?

    I’m offended that draft dodger O’Donnell thinks he can speak for “all of the veterans” of any war. Now, I’m no Vietnam veteran, myelf (I turned seventeen the last year of the draft), but I didn’t hear O’Donnell speak up when Bill Clinton, the quintessential draft dodger was running for office. Nor did O’Donnell bother to stick up for George H.W. Bush – the veteran in the 1992 election, or Bob Dole, the veteran in the 1996 election – both of whom faced a true draft dodger candidate.

    His feigned outrage rings hollow at this late date. It always seems that Republicans are always “avoiding Vietnam” even if they join the military, but Democrats aren’t expected to join the military at all.

  • AP’s bias

    There’s an article at Stars & Stripes from an AP newswire story about a Pew Poll which if you bother to read says this about the troops they polled;

    The poll results presented by the Pew Research Center portray post-9/11 veterans as proud of their work, scarred by warfare and convinced that the American public has little understanding of the problems that wartime service has created for military members and their families.

    The survey also showed that post-9/11 veterans are more likely than Americans as a whole to call themselves Republicans and to disapprove of President Barack Obama’s performance as commander in chief. They also are more likely than earlier generations of veterans to have no religious affiliation.

    So what is their headline? This;

    Because it’s more important that we know that less than a third of the veterans of this war think it was a waste than it is to know that the majority are more satisfied with the job they did than most Americans.I also wonder what the job descriptions of those 1/3 were. Did they spend their tours playng video games or did they spend their tours patching up the wounded in operating rooms or kicking down real doors prying the bad guys oout of their liars?

    AP doesn’t mention that 96% of the respondents were proud of their service, or that 93% says the experience matured them or that 90% said that they gained self-confidence from their service.

    And I guess this part wasn’t worth a mention either;

    Patriotic sentiment runs high among post-9/11 veterans. Six-in-ten (61%) consider themselves more patriotic than most other people in the country. Just 37% of Americans overall say the same.

    Yeah, that one third who says it was all a waste is more newsworthy.

  • Canton Patch: How to Verify Military Claims

    Our buddy, Peg McNichol at the Canton Patch wrote an excellent article today about how we “outed” phony SF Major, Ray Schepansky, the gun-toting, Kia-driving Detroit area teacher and why checking outlandish claims of military service is so important;

    Military records should be checked, he said for two reasons: an employer’s responsibility to provide a safe workplace and because “it is a previous employer—you have to validate that information,” Pachuta said, recalling a case his company investigated about a man who claimed to be a chef for the state of Michigan—and in fact, he was, but left out one small detail: He was in prison at the time.

    People who lie about their military service are usually guilty of some other sort of malfeasance as well. For example, Jason “Gunny” Bush who claimed a military career, but ended up being just another career criminal and talked an anti-immigration group into participating in a home invasion and murder in Arizona.

    Thanks to Peg for mentioning us along with other stellar members of the Stolen Valor community, many of whom I count among my friends these days.

  • More Bush’s fault empty rhetoric

    The New York Times is batting a thousand today. A columnist Bill Keller tries to explain to us how awesome Obama is and that’s why he’s so unpopular these days. He begins by telling us how hopeful he was that the ‘partisanship” of the Bush years had ended while he meandered through the crowd at the last inauguration. i had tickets to the Inauguration, too, but I didn’t bother to go because my PTSD acts up when I’m surrounded by thousands of morons – like Keller. Well, keller enumerates the reasons Obama is unpopular;

    The decline in Obama’s political fortunes, the Great Disappointment, can be attributed to four main factors: the intractable legacy bequeathed by George W. Bush; Republican resistance amounting to sabotage; the unrealistic expectations and inevitable disenchantment of some of the president’s supporters; and, to be sure, the man himself.

    “The man himself”. i was curious about that and not so much about the empty bullshit about “unfunded wars” (meaning that Bush didn’t raise taxes and not that the Democrats could pass a budget). Well it seems that Obama is too much of a gentleman, and that’s why he’s losing in the popularity realm;

    Obama can be faulted for periods of passivity (his silence as Republicans have sought to defund financial reforms), for a naïve deference to Congress (his belated engagement in the details of the health care bill), for a deficit of boldness and passion, for not doing more to stiffen the spines of his caucus on Capitol Hill, for not understanding — at least until his latest barnstorming on the jobs bill — that governing these days is a permanent campaign.

    When did Obama stop campaigning? Did I miss that day? but, see obama is too nice of a guy to effectively government and, of course, us mean old conservatives took advantage of his naivete. I guess it couldn’t be that he lost popular support because he’s an incompetent boob? And he’d be an incompetent boob no matter what his level of melanin. No it has to be because he’s too nice. that’s why in the opening days of his administration he said he didn’t have to consult with his opponents because “I won”.

    He is one of our more elusive presidents, not deeply rooted in any place or movement. David Remnick’s biography called Obama a shape-shifter.

    A shape-shifter, huh? He’s not elusive, he has no principles and he expects everyone to just do as he tells them to do. That’s not a leader.

    keller is another vacuous, paranoid Leftist who is not interested in examining the faults of his ideology. I hope the entire left is listening to him. Since the conservatives can’t present an acceptable candidate this year, we need the Kellers of the world to win the election for us.

  • Dealing with buyer’s remorse

    I had a conversation yesterday with an old friend with whom I hadn’t spoke for years. After the niceties, she began bashing Obama for doing nothing successfully. I said, “Wait! I bet you voted for him didn’t you?” She said that she pleads the fifth amendment, but then that she had “believed in him”. I asked “believed in what?” She couldn’t tell me what, except that she had thought that Obama “cared”.

    Then she went on to tell me how she’d watched the interview with George W. Bush that was on National Geographic last week and that it had completely changed her opinion of him. Before the interview she had thought he was an arrogant, smarmy, cold person, but that interview made her think he was a warm and caring person. I told he that was because she got to watch him without the context of his words filtered through the media prism.

    Now, I understand that one conversation with one person doesn’t represent a monumental shift in the politics of the country, but knowing this person like I do, she’s greatly influenced by the media. When the media didn’t bother to criticize Obama’s lack of experience and leadership, but focused on his vacuous “hope and change” message, they abrogated their responsibility to the American voting public, but that’s not news to most of the readers here.

    This economic morass in which we find ourselves today should, but won’t teach the media a lesson. I know my friend will vote for the next shiny object that runs for office, it’s just part of her nature, but the media needs to review it’s standards, such as they are, and adhere to their constitutionally guaranteed contract with the American voter.

    I’m not sure John McCain would be doing much better than Obama, but, I have to think he couldn’t be doing worse. AT least he wouldn’t have wasted a year on getting health care reform passed, he wouldn’t have wasted a summer-plus putting off the extension of the Bush tax cuts, he wouldn’t have been spinning his wheels on Guantanamo, he wouldn’t have been holding “beer summits” to smooth over hurt feelings.

    Added: The Washington Times says “Obama’s a flop in states he flipped in 2008“

  • The hypocritical media

    Rurik sends a link to Pajamas Media about the main publishers of the Wikileaks documents who published a joint statement in regards to the latest massive of unedited documents. Quoting from AdWeek;

    In a joint statement they put out Friday, the New York Times, the Guardian, El Pais, Der Spiegel, and Le Monde condemned WikiLeaks for releasing via Twitter the unedited versions of all 251,000 of the secret U.S. diplomatic cables in its possession. “We deplore the decision of WikiLeaks to publish the unredacted state department cables, which may put sources at risk,” the news organizations said in the statement, which was published in the Guardian.

    This after years of proclaiming Julian Aasange some sort of modern day saint, suddenly, now that australia is contemplating charges against Assange for releasing unredacted material which equates to a counterintelligence operation against the West. Now the media is trying to distance themselves from him and his organization – but they encouraged him in the first place.

    I guess those flea bites itch.

  • NYT provides cover for Obama on Vet and Defense cuts

    The New York Times knows, like we all know, that Obama won’t keep his promise that he made to the assemblage of Legionnaires in Minneapolis on Tuesday that he won’t the national budget to be balanced on the back of veterans. So the Times, provides excuses for the president;

    Yet just how much power Mr. Obama will have to prevent such cuts is not quite clear. The bipartisan “super committee” created to recommend $1.5 billion trillion in spending cuts over the coming decade will undoubtedly include some veterans programs on its agenda; already some of those proposals are floating around Congress and inside the Pentagon, including one that would revamp military pensions to make them similar to 401(k) retirement programs.

    And if Congress cannot agree with the committee’s plan, then across-the-board cuts will be mandated, some of which will almost certainly fall on the Department of Veterans Affairs, which has seen its budget increase by more than 20 percent since Mr. Obama took office.

    Yeah, see it’s not Obama’s fault that he and Congress have no intention of keeping their promises to veterans. It’s the political forces involved. Probably those Tea Partiers.

    Of course, dicksmith at VetVoice just takes the President at his word;

    “We’re pleased that President Obama has committed to not balancing the budget on the backs of veterans,” said Ashwin Madia, Iraq War Veteran and Interim Chairman of VoteVets.org. “We have always made a deal with those who served that we will take care of them when they get home.

    I’m sure everyone is prepared to blame the Tea Party when the President and Congress make their final plans to make veterans and their families pay for this country’s irresponsibility once again.