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

Category: Media

  • AP perpetuates lies about Walter Reed

    Yeah, this is getting very tiring. TSO called me this morning to tell me that Associated Press is still clinging to the lie that Walter Reed Army Medical Center was at the center of controversy over the way they treated soldiers. I wrote about it back in July and nothing has changed. They have an article in the Washington Times this morning about Walter Reed celebration it’s 100th year (which I also wrote about back in March).

    Kamala Lane writes;

    But many of these new features were made after published reports revealed in 2007 that Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans at the site were receiving substandard treatment.

    Kamala, it was NEVER about treatment – if you did even rudimentary research, you’d know the only real complaint was about TWO ROOMS in the OUTPATIENT TRANSIENT BARRACKS. There have never been complaints about the medical treatment that soldiers received at Walter Reed.

    Of course, this is just more Bush-bashing, the AP’s favorite sport – especially now that the Bush Administration is gone.

    Lane makes it sound like somehow the media is responsible for the outstanding care that the troops get at Walter Reed – nothing could be further from the truth. Many of the journalists who write about Walter Reed have never set foot on the campus, they’ve never talked to soldiers who won’t complain to them and they don’t want to hear success stories.

    One mother of a wounded soldier told the Washington Post that no one at the hospital could help her find her way around the city or tell her the condition of her son because she didn’t speak English. She claims she had to use a taxi driver as a translator.

    First of all, there are no Spanish-speaking taxi drivers in DC. Pakistani? Somali? Sure – but no Spanish. Secondly, her son was in my wife’s ward – my Panamanian wife who helped the woman even when my wife was off duty. But did the Washington Post check her story? Nope.

    Now the Associated Press uses the Walter Reed fantasy as a foregone conclusion. That’s what passes for journalism these days – legends and faerie tales.

  • The crisis falls apart

    I really hate to spend so much time on this flu thing, but I’ve got some stuff in the hopper that I’m waiting for confirmation on some small points, so in the meantime, this is all I have for now.

    Remember yesterday that the World Health Organization was blaming US citizens for spreading the flu? Well, it turns out that the one fatality we’ve had in the US was a Mexican child who was brought to Houston for treatment.

    The first reported death in the United States from the swine flu outbreak was that of a 23-month-old Mexican toddler who fell ill in Brownsville and was transported for treatment in Houston, where the child died Monday, city officials said.

    While Egypt is busy slaughtering all of their pigs to quell their fears, WHO announces that there have only been seven deaths worldwide not 152 like the media is blaring;

    “Unfortunately that [150-plus deaths] is incorrect information and it does happen, but that’s not information that’s come from the World Health Organisation,” Ms Allan told ABC Radio today.

    “That figure is not a figure that’s come from the World Health Organisation and, I repeat, the death toll is seven and they are all from Mexico.”

    All of these self-important pointy-headed bureaucrats and media types are still perpetuating the ignorance that’s fueling this exercise in fear mongering. AP’s headline still reads; Toddler in Texas becomes 1st swine flu death in US. And you have to read in the second paragraph that the “toddler” came from Mexico.

    Then to add to all of this bizarre shit, while President Obama was welcoming Arlen Specter to his fold, I heard him tell me to cover my mouth when I sneeze and to wash my hands. For f***’s sake.

  • The stupid season

    There’s just too much stupid stuff going on out there. You haven’t noticed?

    Arlen Specter left the Republican Party yesterday – well, actually, he left the party long ago. But now, Joe Biden, that softspoken, humble guy (who is also our Vice President in case you forgot) claims he’s the reason Specter switched parties;

    “I have been working on [Specter’s party switch] in earnest for the past four years and double time for the past 100 days [as vice president],” Biden told a Democratic fundraiser in Houston on Tuesday.

    Ya know, that just reinforces this good feeling I have about Specter leaving. I certainly don’t want anyone in my party that takes advice from the plagiarizer, braggart buffoon that is Joe Biden. This revelation from Biden just highlights Specter’s poor judgment.

    Drudge has been running a headline all night that the FAA knew they’d cause a panic in New York City with their photo-op overflight (which cost us nearly $400k, by the way), but went ahead without notifying the public.

    Federal officials knew that sending two fighter jets and Air Force One to buzz ground zero and Lady Liberty might set off nightmarish fears of a 9/11 replay, but they still ordered the photo-op kept secret from the public.

    So, we should be asking who was on board that flight that would have caused all of that secrecy at the expense of the public’s sense of well-being? How many people will die in the next REAL terrorist attack because of this false alarm?

    Here’s another bit of buffoonery from the administration – apparently calling it “swine flu” is unfair to pigs and pork producers.

    At a news briefing, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack took pains to repeatedly refer to the flu as the “H1N1 virus.”
    […]
    The Paris-based World Organization for Animal Health also objected to the name, saying the virus contains avian and human components and no pig so far has been found ill with the disease.

    A flu by any other name will make you just as sick. This flu comes from pigs, just like bird flu comes from birds…see how that works. Maybe if people think they can get the flu from eating pork, it’s because the administration isn’t doing a good job of getting the word out. They can get the word out about all of their political aspirations – why can’t they use their poltical machine to benefit the public?

    Maybe it’s because they WANT a panic – like the one in New York City.

    Finally, the media has found a single death in the US from swine flu (I’m still sayin’ it) in Texas. The number of confirmed cases has now “rocketed” (using language I learned from Fox News yesterday) from 64 to 65.

    I’m hiding in my basement until this stupid season blows over.

    Added: Wesley Pruden asks “Are We Dead Yet?”

    The medical researchers say it might mutate. Or it might not. If it does, it might, possibly, maybe, potentially be the worst killer since the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918. Or it might not. Researchers are working on the vaccine, and the media is working on the panic. We may not get a vaccine, but soon there won’t be a dry pair of pants on six continents.

  • Flu fear mongering

    Can you spot the fear mongering in this Associated Press report?

    A better question would probably be “Can you avoid the fear mongering in this report?”

    (more…)

  • You knew somehow the flu epidemic is our fault

    See how easy it is to blame America for everything;

    I think you’re going to see over the next four years, we’re going to be blamed for a lot of things that happen in the world when the world gets a whiff of the possibility of some of our taxpayer dollars. Those Democrats love to throw our money at stuff that’s not our fault to assuage their own guilt.

    I guess it’s too much to blame the people in Mexico who caught the flu from the pigs in the first damn place.

  • Governments “race” to deal with Swine flu

    I have to laugh. This swine flu “epidemic” has been bubbling beneath the surface of the news for months and now that it’s reached a private prep school in New York City, the media has finally paid attention which means the government thinks they can make it a political issue while they “race” into the spotlight. Yeah, they have access to the vaccine, so that gives them some power, but “racing”? Hardly. No more than the coroner’s meat wagon “races’ to the scene of an automobile accident to police up remains in the aftermath.

    Does anyone honestly think that the government will take responsibility for their part in the spread of the illness? Nope, but they’ll take credit in a heartbeat when it stops being a threat. Gateway Pundit writes that even this won’t make Janet Napolitano take border security seriously.

    It’s amazing to me that people continue to think that government can solve all of the world’s problems when government has consistently failed to solve almost every problem. Allahpundit writes that CDC has already given up on containing the flu virus to Mexico.

    Susan Collins, the pretend Republican from Maine, can take comfort in the fact that even though she’s helped Democrats pass their Treasury-busting budgets, she’s still going catch the blame for this flu virus from the moonbats because they’re saying she took the emergency funding out of the budget on orders from Dick Cheney;

    Makes you wonder if Susan Collins was in contact with Dick Cheney before the stimulus vote and he told her, “Hey Susie-Q, make sure to take out the pandemic flu part, because me and Rumsfeld are planning a huge one. Now would be the time to invest on the stock market in flu medicines & vaccines. Just a tip for ya! Now go get ‘em Susie! We’re gonna be rich once again!”? Wouldn’t surprise me.

    The swine flu appears to be here, but that’s okay, Sen. Susan Collins wants us all to know that she did the right thing in making sure there was no money for this sort of pandemic flu.

    Sweet Georgia Brown! She should have at least put funding in the budget to treat Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld Derangement Syndrome.

    Oh, and crackpots are everywhere on the spectrum these days;

    Of course, there is a silver lining to every tragedy. If this disease continues to spread in Mexico, it could substantially reduce our illegal immigration problem. Perhaps that is God’s goal. The Lord does work in mysterious ways.

    Tiffany

  • Still no apology

    Yeah, I heard Janet Napolitano say the word “apology” on Fox News the other morning in regards to the threat assessment of the right, it it wasn’t attached to any other words so that it could in any, way, shape or form be construed as an actual apology. In fact, today in the Washington Times, she blames some nebulous “politicization” typical of Washington, DC for the furor;

    “I regret that in the politicization of everything that happens in Washington, D.C., some took offense,” Ms. Napolitano said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

    The secretary defended the report, as she has since a report in The Washington Times detailed how it defined “rightwing extremism” as including pro-life and anti-immigration groups and cited Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh as an example of a disgruntled veteran.

    “But I think any fair reading of the report says this is very consistent with other reports that have been issued before. . . . They are meant to give people what is called situational awareness, and they are certainly not intended to give offense – far from it.”

    Well, in my opinion, ”politicization” is what caused the report. And if Napolitano had any veterans or pro-lifers or small government advocates in her office, she might have seen this coming. And it is hardly “politicization” when Democrat Congressman (who also happens to be Black) Bennie Thompson is outraged by the report. From a Washington Times article last week;

    “This report appears to raise significant issues involving the privacy and civil liberties of many Americans including war veterans,” Mr. Thompson said in the letter sent Tuesday.

    “As I am certain you agree, freedom of association and freedom of speech are guaranteed to all Americans whether a person’s beliefs, whatever their political orientation, are ‘extremist’ or not,” Mr. Thompson said.

    The report “blurred the line,” and Mr. Thompson said he is “disappointed and surprised that the department would allow this report to be disseminated” to law enforcement officials nationwide.

    For some reason, the only place I can find Thompson quoted is in the Washington Times – I guess no other news source is interested in the fact that there’s a Democrat who finds the report distasteful. And how do Democrat Iraq veterans in Congress respond (PhillyBurbs.com)?

    Eighth District Democratic Congressman Patrick Murphy, who has gained notoriety as the first Iraq War veteran in Congress, had no comment on the report, according to his spokesman Adam Abrams.

    Yeah, that’s how you man-up, Patty. Either you agree with it or you don’t…just say so. Stop hiding behind the skirts of your press office.

  • The CNN video

    I’m sure you’ve all seen this video of CNN reporter Susan Roesgen confronting some poor unprepared guy in Chicago;

    According to doupleplusundead, CNN tried to put a copyright on the video, but them damn bloggers won’t let this be buried.

    But here’s what I heard in Roesgen’s responses to this guy; “Obama gave you a four hundred dollar tax credit and $50 billion to Illinois, so what’s you beef? Just shut up, take your crumbs and go home.”

    Because CNN hadn’t approved the tea parties, the Tea Partyers are fueled by “Right wing conservative network Fox” and they’re “Anti-government. Anti-CNN.” Lady, most of us have been anti-CNN since 1992. Haven’t you been paying attention? If you think Fox is “right wing conservative” you’ve never watched the day time news programs. The anti-government part is ensconced in the Bill of Rights which was written to protect Americans from the government not to protect Americans from their own choices.

    Did Obama really think we’d shut up if he gave us a $400 tax cut, for Pete’s sake?