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

Category: Politics

  • Chavez warns of US guerilla war (Updated)

     

    (Photo from Venezuela Llora, Venezuela Sangra)

    Well, Chavez is acting like he plans on blaming the student protests against his dictatorship on the US. According to the AP;

    President Hugo Chavez urged soldiers on Sunday to prepare for a guerrilla-style war against the United States, saying that Washington is using psychological and economic warfare as part of an unconventional campaign aimed at derailing his government.

    Dressed in olive green fatigues and a red beret, Chavez spoke inside Tiuna Fort—Venezuela’s military nerve-center—before hundreds of uniformed soldiers standing alongside armored vehicles and tanks decorated with banners reading: “Fatherland, Socialism, or Death! We will triumph!”

    “We must continue developing the resistance war, that’s the anti- imperialist weapon. We must think and prepare for the resistance war everyday,” said Chavez, who has repeatedly warned that American soldiers could invade Venezuela to seize control of the South American nation’s immense oil reserves.

    Como no? The US is the boogeyman that hides in every dictator’s closet – especially in Latin America. No matter who is President, he is evil incarnate to those who rape and pillage their own communities for personal gain.

    I guess it couldn’t have anything to do with Chavez tossing out oil companies this weekend could it? I linked to this earlier from Reuters (by way of CNNMoney):

    Some major oil companies have rejected Venezuela’s terms for the takeover of their multi-billion dollar projects and can leave the OPEC nation, President Hugo Chavez said Friday, days before a deadline for them to strike nationalization deals.

    Exxon Mobil , ConocoPhillips , Chevron Corp . , Norway’s Statoil , Britain’s BP Plc and France’s Total are the targeted companies in projects valued above $30 billion and capable of producing 600,000 barrels per day.

    “It seems there are some transnational companies that do not want to accept (the terms),” said Chavez, who met his energy minister to review the progress in negotiations earlier Friday.

    “Well if they do not want (to accept the terms), I told the minister to tell them they can go, that they should leave, that we, in truth, do not need them,” he added during a political speech to swear in the government’s new “central planning committee.”

    Chavez, who calls Cuban leader Fidel Castro his mentor and is on a drive to nationalize swathes of the economy this year, did not say which companies rejected the government’s terms.

    Or it couldn’t have anything to do with his anticipated purchase of Russian Subs, which I also mentioned earlier from Bloomberg;

    Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said his government may buy a fleet of Russian-made submarines when he visits Moscow next week, continuing an arms buildup that has cost his nation more than $4.3 billion since 2005.

    “The only way Venezuela could totally discard the idea of not buying submarines is if we didn’t have a sea,” Chavez told cabinet members at a televised ceremony tonight in Caracas. “We have to protect that sea.”

    Chavez said he also is looking to strengthen the nation’s short-range air-defense system to counter supersonic and “invisible” radar-evading aircraft he claimed Venezuela would face in the event of a U.S. invasion. Most U.S. analysts deem such an offensive unlikely.

    And the LATimes is, of course, impressed with Chavez’ socialist tendencies;

    Last year, public spending leapt to one-third of Venezuela’s economic output of about $180 billion, up from the average of one-quarter of output in the 1990s, said Jose Manuel Puente, an economist with the Institute for Advanced Administrative Studies in Caracas.

    Chavez’s social engineering has taken his predecessors’ plans a step further in giving worker groups a piece of the enterprises and letting them manage the businesses in concert with networks of “community councils” that are local governing modules.

    But, the thing is; it all depends on the world maintaining the status quo. When Chavez’ business sense finally shows no result, the world finds its oil elsewhere  – or finds it doesn’t need his oil at all, Venezuela collapses and Chavez needs to blame someone – of course the best people to blame are Americans. 

    Afterall, we’re the ones that caused Cuba’s economy to collapse, right? Even though Cuba trades with the 160+ other countries in the world, because we refuse to trade with them, they’re destitute – according to the Left. And everything bad that happens in Cuba is blamed either on our policies or the Cuban “ex-patriots”.

    So that’s really all Chavez is doing – setting us up to take the blame for his anticipated failures. from the AP article;

    “It’s not just armed warfare,” said Chavez, a former army officer who is leading what he calls the “Bolivarian Revolution,” a socialist movement named after 19th-century independence hero Simon Bolivar. “I’m also referring to psychological warfare, media warfare, political warfare, economic warfare.”

    Yeah, we’re going to be attacking them, but no one can tell because we’re so sneaky. Typical Latin American paranoia. probably more disturbing is;

    Under Chavez, Venezuela has recently purchased some $3 billion worth of arms from Russia, including 53 military helicopters, 100,000 Kalashnikov rifles, 24 SU-30 Sukhoi fighter jets.

    All the stuff needed to quell his own rebellions and control the inevitable “counter-revolution”. Bloomberg reports that Chavez is also aware of the fact that the military is the final arbiter in Latin American politics. He urged his troops to support his socialism;

    “The armed forces are an institution of the people, meant to promote our constitutionally mandated national project, and the national project we have is socialism,” Chavez told 3,000 troops gathered at a military ceremony in Caracas. “You can’t separate military thinking from political thinking.”

    “When a soldier says `Country, Socialism or Death,’ he’s giving the essence of the project we’re now involved in, and don’t be fooled, socialism is the road to nationhood,” he said at the event….

    It’s a pretty well known fact that if a Latin American leader can’t convince the military that what he’s doing is in the best interest of the country, they’re doomed. The military acts in the interests of the country and the people, not an ideology – that’s why there have already been attempts at a military coup against Chavez. His slogan “Fatherland (the article says ‘country’, but I know he used ‘patria‘ – which means ‘Fatherland’), Socialism or Death” doesn’t mention the pueblo – that means that Chavez wants his soldiers to defend socialism against their own people if they must.

    Ed Morrisey at Captain’s Quarters writes that Chavez is building his military might to use against US interests, but I think it’s to use against his own people when war with the US doesn’t overtly materialize in the form of a shooting war. Then he can blame the Compania and start shooting his own folks as agents of the imperialist US. That seems more plausible. The chavistas appear willing to swallow any red meat Hugo throws them-kind of like Noreiga’s Dignity Battalions.

    Meanwhile, as I also mentioned earlier this weekend, Evo Morales, Chavez’ “Mini-Me” is having his own problems with a few thousand protesters according to The Lima Bean (by way of Gateway Pundit);

    Locals of an ecological reserve in Bolivia have held protests demanding that they be annexed by Peru. Waving Peruvian flags, as many as 4,000 people filled the local square and called on the mayor to extend an invitation to Peru to occupy the region.

    The small town of Apolo, located just 6 hours’ walk from the Peruvian border, marks the entrance to the Madidi National Park, an Amazon wildlife refuge that includes around 1.8 million hectares (4.5 million acres) of pristine rainforest.

    Officials opposing the protest claimed that the people were angered that the protected nature of the area prevents them from being legally allowed to log the forest or take advantage of oil reserves thought to exist in the region.

    Speaking from La Paz 200km away, Bolivian President Evo Morales referred to the protesters as “drug traffickers and wood smugglers”.

    Well, at least it’s only wood smugglers. A couple thousand of them.

    Oddly enough, the protest happened just after the documentary “Cocalero”, Morales’ political biography opened at the Sundance Film Festival according to Bloomberg;

    “Cocalero,” the directorial debut of 26-year-old Alejandro Landes, chronicles Morales’s rise to power with the backing of the coca growers, or cocaleros, who fought U.S.- supported efforts to cut Bolivian drug production. Coca leaves, chewed for religious and cultural purposes across the Andes, are the main ingredient in cocaine.

    “The cocaleros are the sons and daughters of the U.S. war on drugs,” the Brazilian-born Landes said. “Their defense of the coca leaf detonated a nationalist wave that drove Evo to power.”

    The evil US makes such a convenient foil for Latin American dictators. Because we’re interested in criminals who poison our people in our own country, somehow we’re responsible for the rise of socialist governments. Suddenly, “defense of the coca leaf” is noble. 

    If you want to read about what’s happening inside Venezuela, on recommendation of my new friend Kate at A Colombo-Americana’s Perspective, I’ve been rereading much of the posts by Julia at The end of Venezuela as I know it – an English language blog written by a student in the middle of the White Hands movement. Last week, she wrote about the class-struggle inuendos that being flung at the students from Chavistas as if “rich kids are not people“ 

    I’ve noticed an increase in my traffic from Venezuela, Chile and Peru everytime I type Chavez’ name, so I have to guess that the internet is becoming an important information pipeline in that direction. So if I repeat myself and links, I apologize. 

    UPDATE: Apparently there was more to this speech to the army than was reported by the press (unsurprisingly) and the truth about what the event was supposed to represent and how it was staged from Daniel at Venezuela News and Views;

    Yesterday was yet another anniversary of the battle of Carabobo, our Yorktown (our Austerlitz?, our Waterloo?), that battle that made the independence of Venezuela irreversible.

    Usually at that date the armed forces hold a nice rally on the Carabobo field, in all regalia. The background is not bad, graced with the famous Carabobo arch, with lots of space for crowds to attend the festivities, a large tribune for officials, speeches and what not.

    Well, under Chavez things have started to change. First the governor of Carabobo was barred to attend the festivities…

    […]

    This year, Chavez is hurt by the student dissenting protest, a general animosity as per the closing of RCTV, and duly scalded by the failure of the intended pump and circumstances of the bridge reopening when crowds of neighboring shantytowns crashed the party. Thus Chavez did not take chances: Carabobo now was held in Caracas, as a private ceremony between Chavez and HIS army, the one he will use to stop the invasion of the Empire.

    There is much more at Daniel’s blog including screenshots Daniel took from his television. It appears that Chavez is getting a bit paranoid and not the guy he used to be among his “pueblo“. It appears more and more that yesterday’s speech was a plea to the military that they not toss his butt out of Venezuela.

    Daniel also tells of food and fuel shortages here.

  • Obama issues fatwa

    Apparently, Barack Obama, boy-Senator, is threatened by the faithful Christians because he issued a fatwa in the form of raw red meat for Leftists. According to USAToday;

    Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama told a church convention Saturday that some right-wing U.S. evangelical leaders have exploited and politicized religious beliefs in an effort to sow division.

    “Somehow, somewhere along the way, faith stopped being used to bring us together and faith started being used to drive us apart,” the Democratic presidential candidate said in a 30-minute speech before the national meeting of the United Church of Christ.

    “Faith got hijacked, partly because of the so-called leaders of the Christian Right, all too eager to exploit what divides us,” the Illinois senator said.

    “At every opportunity, they’ve told evangelical Christians that Democrats disrespect their values and dislike their church, while suggesting to the rest of the country that religious Americans care only about issues like abortion and gay marriage, school prayer and intelligent design,” he said, according to an advance copy of his speech.

    “There was even a time when the Christian Coalition determined that its number one legislative priority was tax cuts for the rich,” Obama said. “I don’t know what Bible they’re reading, but it doesn’t jibe with my version.”

    Hmmm. I don’t remember the Christian Coalition preaching tax cuts for the rich. I remember some passage from the Bible about “render unto Cesaer that which is Cesaer’s and render unto God that which is God’s”.

    And I think that Obama is saying that paying taxes has something to do with Christian charity – which is just too ridiculous for a rational person such as myself to discuss.

    I’ll admit that the Christian Coalition is operating under the false assumption that they can legislate morality, but I think they’re mistaken. I also think that the Christian Coalition has much less influence in the Republican party than Obama would care to admit.

    Not a week goes by that I don’t get a hate-filled email from some Leftist that accuses me of being a Bible-thumping lunatic, even though it’s been ten years since I set a foot in church. Somehow the entire Left is operating under the misapprehension that all Republicans are religious fanatics – I just think a person can be a good and charitable person without adhering to some set of religious tenets – it doesn’t mean I don’t believe in God or Jesus.

    I can believe that abortions are wrong on purely secular grounds – I don’t need Bible verses or a Pope to tell me that intentionally killing unborn babies is evil. I don’t need a Jerry Falwell to tell me that homosexuality is unnatural and immoral.

    It’s people like Obama that are using religion to divide America – its their own cowardice of being judged evil that makes them mistrustful of the faithful.  His speech yesterday was less about bringing the faithful together than about dividing this country even further – for his own political gain.

    Crotchety Old Bastard and Marathon Pundit’s John Ruberry eat Obama’s lunch while The Barack Obama Report carries his water. 

  • Leftist hyperbole on parade

      There was a demonstration in front of the White House yesterday called “Voices Against Terrorism” – sounds like a good reason to protest, doesn’t it? Except the “terrorism” they’re “against” is that which is inflicted (supposedly) on people by the Bush Administration. According to Washington Post’s Jenna Johnson;

    In 1996, [Sister Dianna] Ortiz founded the Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition International, which brings together survivors and advocates for human rights issues, and she began to travel across the country to tell her story. Participants at this weekend’s vigil, the coalition’s 10th, included 75 survivors from some of the 150 countries the organization cites for practicing and condoning torture.

    “We’re not just telling it — we’re reliving it,” Ortiz said. “We feel like we are back in our cell.”

    This year, survivors and activists had a specific mission: demanding the repeal of the Military Commissions Act, which President Bush signed in October. Coalition members say they think the act is unconstitutional, is a severe violation of human rights and essentially legalizes acts of torture, she said.

    The act establishes procedures for conducting military investigations and hearings for suspected terrorists and combatants. One of the activists, Ray McGovern, who was a CIA analyst for 27 years, said the act ignores prisoner rights established by the Geneva Conventions and the 1996 U.S. War Crimes Act.

    Well, ya know what, I went to the Military Commissions Act (.pdf), known to the legal world as Public Law 109-366, and read all 39 pages. There is nothing in the law that “legalizes acts of torture”. It doesn’t even address torture except to make it a crime and forbid it’s use to extract evidence. It doesn’t violate the Constitution because it’s mandated purpose (948b) is;

    This chapter establishes procedures governing the use of military commissions to try alien unlawful enemy combatants engaged in hostilities against the United States for violations of the law of war and other offenses triable by military commission.

    That’s it - nothing about American citizens, so it can’t be unConstitutional. In fact, it specifically forbids the admisibility of evidence extracted using torture during Military Commission procedings;

    ‘‘§ 948r. Compulsory self-incrimination prohibited; treatment of statements obtained by torture and other statements.
    ‘‘(a) IN GENERAL.—No person shall be required to testify against himself at a proceeding of a military commission under this chapter.
    ‘‘(b) EXCLUSION OF STATEMENTS OBTAINED BY TORTURE.—A statement obtained by use of torture shall not be admissible in a military commission under this chapter, except against a person accused of torture as evidence that the statement was made.
    ‘‘(c) STATEMENTS OBTAINED BEFORE ENACTMENT OF DETAINEE TREATMENT ACT OF 2005.—A statement obtained before December 30, 2005 (the date of the enactment of the Defense Treatment Act of 2005) in which the degree of coercion is disputed may be admitted only if the military judge finds that—
    ‘‘(1) the totality of the circumstances renders the statement reliable and possessing sufficient probative value; and
    ‘‘(2) the interests of justice would best be served by admission of the statement into evidence.‘‘(d) STATEMENTS OBTAINED AFTER ENACTMENT OF DETAINEE TREATMENT ACT OF 2005.—A statement obtained on or after December 30, 2005 (the date of the enactment of the Defense Treatment Act of 2005) in which the degree of coercion is disputed may be admitted only if the military judge finds that—
    ‘‘(1) the totality of the circumstances renders the statement reliable and possessing sufficient probative value;‘‘(2) the interests of justice would best be served by admission of the statement into evidence; and
    ‘‘(3) the interrogation methods used to obtain the statement do not amount to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment prohibited by section 1003 of the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005.

    Of course, the Washington Post couldn’t bother to find that section of the law before publishing their story, could they? Nope, they just quote the moonbats – cuz that’s much better copy than some dry old facts;

    “The act needs to be banned for practical and moral reasons,” McGovern told yesterday’s crowd. An opponent of the Iraq war, he accused then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld in May 2006 of lying about prewar intelligence during the question-and-answer session of a speech in Atlanta.

    I guess Ms. Johnson couldn’t help but inject a bit of the standard “Bush lied, troops died” meme into her obviously biased “story”. 

    Mr. McGovern would do himself a favor by actually reading the Act instead of going off half-cocked, but that wouldn’t serve his search for fame very well, would it?

    The Act, which grants non-Americans the same Fourth and Fifth Amendment protections as the Bill of Rights, is a reasonable law, under the circumstances. Given that many of the nations from which these suspected criminals come would execute them nearly as soon as they are apprehended, it’s pretty damn civilized.

    I think it’s kind of disingenuous for the Left to be so upset about what they consider terrorism committed by the United States but they wouldn’t dare speak out against Islamofacists who behead journalists for video-fare, send six-year-olds with bomb vests into battle,  and hide under females’ clothing to perpetrate their crimes.

    But the Left, and these want-wits in particular, make wild, unfounded accusations hoping no one will ever have the gumption or the wherewithall to prove them liars. They depend on ignorance and laziness.

    Ms. Johnson concludes her front page piece with a quote from terror victim, Sister Ortiz;

    Ortiz said that the protest and vigil were significant and that her goal is to raise public awareness.

    “When I first came back, very few people were speaking out,” Ortiz said. The torture survivors in this country “believe that we don’t have the right to be silent. We have the moral responsibility to speak the truth.”

    I agree and sympathize, Sister, however, your message is being diluted by Leftist hyperbole and you’ve become a political tool of the anti-Bush moonbats.

  • So who’s going to step up?

    Since January 20th, 2001, I’ve heard and read countless times that the US is misusing it’s superpower status. Even before the attacks on us on September 11th that year, the knuckleheads at ANSWER and the various communist organizations were planning a protest against US imperialism and racist policy in Washington DC in October – luckily, for them, the President gave them a war against the Taliban so they didn’t look quite so silly.

    We all remember watching NATO, the EU and the UN twiddle their thumbs while Bosnia was torn to pieces by the Serbs in the 90s. The same group wrung their gnarled Old Europe hands over the attempted genocide in Kosovo and stood by impotently while Rwanda was drenched in the blood of millions macheted in droves.

    After Saddam Hussein thumbed his nose at UN and inspectors, fired at aircraft enforcing UN-mandated no-fly zones and paid off UN officials and their families to sidestep sanctions for 12 years, the US went ahead and decapitated the government with the tacit approval of UN resolutions when it was apparent that the UN couldn’t assemble the intestinal fortitude among its members to take action or make a decision – to the cries of imperialism. Critics charged that we can’t be the world’s police force. The US can’t just unilaterally enforce policy.

    OK, fine. Whatever.

    So we’re busy doing Old Europe’s dirty work killing terrorists by the thousands every month or so – it’s pretty much a full time job. So who’s going to step up to take care of the rest of the world’s business?

    The Gateway Pundit points out that Zimbabweans are wrestling with 4530% inflation – people are starving to death while communist icon President Robert Mugabe fiddles. Folks in Darfur have been dying in herds for more than ten years while Christian missionaries warned the world – and there’s no solution in sight, but at least Hollywood has noticed it now. Kosovo is still in limbo – and the Russians are blocking any meaningful solution because of their nationaistic pride – something frowned upon when it’s the US being nationalistic or prideful.

    The Bloodthirsty Liberal reports that the UN is busy compromising amongst themselves for purely bureaucratic reasons using human lives as barter while UN inspectors, who are unable, according to The Redhunter, to get Iran to stop their nuclear activities without the US apparently, are still looking for WMDs in Iraq.

    Hugo Chavez has negotiated the major oil companies right out of the market in Venezuela (while the LATimes fauns over his socialism) while contemplating buying some Russian subs – can the economc collapse of Venezuela be far away? Gateway Pundit also reports that thousands of Bolivians protested Chavez’ “Mini-Me” Evo Morales today. There’s so much more happening in South America and Kate at A Colombo-Americana’s Perspective does a much better job than I could summarizing it all.

    These are problems that affect real people – thousands, if not millions, are suffering everyday while bureaucrats seek compromises instead of acting as if real lives hang in the balance. Every day is agony – while fat cat politicians form commissions and discuss solutions while never accomplishing anything.

    Ronald Reagan once rhetorically asked, in reference to fighting the Evil Empire, “If not us, who? If not now, when?” I think it’s pretty much time for the rest of the world to put up or shut up and ask that question of themselves. If they don’t want the US to police the world, they’d better get off of their ample behinds and do something before they let all of this stuff get out of hand – again – so that the only solution is our unilateral application of military power.

  • Edwards and “promise and opportunity”

    So with Hillary busy trying to shut up Rush Limbaugh and the rest of the “vast right conspiracy”, maybe John Edwards will slip under the radar with this tasty treat;

    Edwards, who reported this year that he had assets of nearly $30 million, came up with a novel solution, creating a nonprofit organization with the stated mission of fighting poverty. The organization, the Center for Promise and Opportunity, raised $1.3 million in 2005, and — unlike a sister charity he created to raise scholarship money for poor students — the main beneficiary of the center’s fund-raising was Edwards himself, tax filings show.

    Yeah, because every ambulance-chasing girl-lawyer needs her own charity.

    While Edwards said the organization’s purpose was “making the eradication of poverty the cause of this generation,” its federal filings say it financed “retreats and seminars” with foreign policy experts on Iraq and national security issues. Unlike the scholarship charity, donations to it were not tax deductible, and, significantly, it did not have to disclose its donors — as political action committees and other political fund-raising vehicles do — and there were no limits on the size of individual donations.

    […]

    Because the organization is not required to disclose its donors — and the campaign declined to do so — it is not clear whether those who gave money to it did so understanding that they were supporting Edwards’s political viability as much or more than they were giving money to combat poverty.

    Sounds like the only poverty he was eradicating was his own. So when the Wall Street Journal editorial board wrote this back in May, they didn’t realize what a great  country this really is;

    Let us say right up front that it’s terrific that John Edwards lives in a country where he can lose an election and still land a $480,000 part-time job as a consultant to an investment firm that keeps its hedge funds in the Cayman Islands as a tax shelter for its clients. This truly is the land of opportunity.

    In the Associated Press interview last May with Nedra Pickler;

    Asked if he had to join a hedge fund to learn about financial markets, Edwards replied, “How else would I have done it?”

    I guess the same way he funded the eradication of poverty.

    Edwards thinks we’re idiots. He took a $1/2 million job with a hedge fund to learn about poverty, he started a 501c3 to eradicate poverty that basically paid his campaign expenses, he tried to explain to us how calling for an end to the war on Memorial Day was patriotic.

    How stupid are we to allow this scumbucket to think he can be our President?

  • The Hugo Chavez method comes to the US

    I wrote yesterday about Think Progress’ new report on the Right’s domination of the airwaves, at the same time Michele Malkin was writing about the Center for American Progress’ report that came out on the same day – oddly enough. Now the news services are announcing that Hillary and gal pal Barbara Boxer were overheard trying to strategize to legislate the Right’s dominance on radio away. 

    I’ve always wondered why the Left, who claim to be “liberal” and “progressive” “human rights” and “defenders of the First Amendment” weren’t more vocal about what Chavez, Correa and Moreno were doing down in Latin America – and now I know. In fact, there was even a piece on the DailyKos defending Chavez’ shut down of Radio Caracas Television (RCTV) – all because that’s what the Left here in the US intend to accomplish as well.

    From CNSNews;

    Derek Turner, research director of Free Press, said “the potential one-sidedness on the radio dial in terms of political programming is strongly and directly related to ownership and market structure.”

    Turner argued that “increasing diversity and localism in ownership will produce more diverse speech [and] more choice for listeners.”

    Mark Lloyd, another CAP senior fellow, attributed the “imbalance” to “the breakdown in the Federal Communications Commission regulatory system during the Reagan administration in the 1980s and the elimination of caps on ownership in telecommunications during the 1990s.”

    It’s a “structural imbalance” – see a structural imbalance means that it can corrected – if it were a market imbalance, no amount of legislation could MAKE people listen to Moonbattery. The imbalance can’t be because of market forces, it’s because the evil Republican white guys have been plotting nearly thirty years to take over AM radio. Nevermind that AM radio was almost dead before Rush Limbaugh came along. But that doesn’t matter – the Republicans have an advantage, so to “level the playing field” Democrats want to legislate away that advantage. The solution to fairness and equality, you see, is legislation – not hardwork.

    Blake Dvorak of RealClearPolitics quotes an American Spectator interview with a Pelosi aide last month;

    The report would be easy to dismiss if not for the fact that Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said she will “aggressively pursue” reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine, according to two House Democrats who spoke to the American Spectator last month.

    A senior adviser to Pelosi explained the Speaker’s reasons to the Spectator:

    First, [Democrats] failed on the radio airwaves with Air America, no one wanted to listen … Conservative radio is a huge threat and political advantage for Republicans and we have had to find a way to limit it. Second, it looks like the Republicans are going to have someone in the presidential race who has access to media in ways our folks don’t want, so we want to make sure the GOP has no advantages going into 2008.

    Again, it’s blind adherence to what the nutroots want (whenever the media says “Democrat base” – they mean that Leftist vocal minority that spends every minute of every day on the internet).

    So now we know why there was hardly a peep from the Congressional Democrats when Chavez started censoring his opposition - Venezuela was a guinea pig test case to see if Americans were paying attention. They weren’t, with the exception of a few, so now the Clinton/Boxer team figures it’s time to strike.

    Monica Crowley calls Clinton “Putin in Drag“;

    The former head of the KGB and current president of Russia, Vladimir Putin, recently made it illegal to engage in so-called “extremist” talk and activity.  In Russia today, you can get arrested and silenced—and often, killed—for publicly criticizing the government.  Over 1000 Russian journalists have been murdered since last year—all for speaking out against the corruption, cronyism, and tyrannical oppression of the Putin regime.

    I’m reminded that Brigette Bardot was arrested and fined in France for “hate speech” – hate speech that warned about Arab/Muslim immigration diluting the french culture in her book. So can ridiculous laws like that be far behind this latest Orwellian plot to silence conservatism?

    What’s next? Blogs?

    Kate at A Colombo-Americana’s Perpective provides a lot of Spanish language press on goings-on in Latin America in reference to Chavez and our policy towards him. Apparently the Senate Foreign Relations Committe is finally discussing Chavez’ authoritarian tendencies and the House has authorized more radio frequencies to be directed at Venezuela.  But that doesn’t solve our own problems with Chavez-wannabes, the fugly girls of the Senate.

    Kara Rowland in today’s Washington Times talks to local DC radio programming directors about the Center for American Progress report;

    “Nothing in this report addresses the tremendous impact that public radio has,” said Chris Berry, general manager of D.C. conservative talk station WMAL-AM (630). “The fact is, many people, even NPR listeners, consider public radio if not liberal, then certainly in the category of ‘progressive.’ “

    In the Arbitron winter ratings, D.C. public radio outlet WETA-FM (90.9) scored a 4.9 share — although it changed to classical music in the middle of the ratings period — and WAMU-FM (88.5) had a 4.3 share. Together, the public stations top the most-listened-to commercial station, urban WHUR-FM (96.3), which had a 6.9 share.

    Moreover, Mr. Berry noted, the report does not include morning FM radio shows that are topical or cover political issues, especially programs targeted at black listeners.

    WMAL is owned by Citadel Broadcasting, one of the five major broadcasters examined in the Center for Progress study, whose results argue that Clear Channel Communications has the most liberal talk content in absolute terms — 229 hours a week, or 14 percent of its programming. As a percentage, CBS devotes the most time to liberal talk at 26 percent; followed by Clear Channel at 14 percent and Citadel, Cumulus and Salem all at zero percent liberal (and 100 percent conservative).

    “I think that it basically is saying that conservative talk radio is dominated by conservatives,” said Michael Harrison, editor of Talkers magazine. “I don’t know what it means. If it’s an attempt to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine, that’s unconstitutional. If it’s to try to end consolidation, it’ll create a bunch of independent radio stations that will go out of business because of the economics of 2007.”

    Which is exactly what the Left wants – no private broadcasts. In the Chavez model, they want everyone listening to the Democrat-approved drivel on NPR. They want radio stations that plug I-Pods into their transmitter and hit “shuffle” – all music, no comments. That’s basically what would result from a new Fairness Doctrine.

    In typical, Democrat hypocrit-fashion the sponsor of the new legislation says there’s not enough “choices”;

    “The American people should have a wide array of news sources available to them. The more opinions they can hear, the more news sources they can learn from, the better able they will be to make decisions,” said Jeff Lieberson, spokesman for Rep. Maurice D. Hinchey, New York Democrat.

    Mr. Hinchey is preparing to reintroduce his Media Ownership Reform Act, which among other proposals calls for a return to the “Fairness Doctrine,” a long-held requirement that broadcasters give equal time to opposing views when covering political issues. The doctrine was repealed in 1987 because it violated the First Amendment.

    “…a wide array of news sources…”, huh? I wonder what Hinchey thought of Fox News being frozen out of Democrat Presidential debates.

    Update: Hillary and Boxer claim Inhofe didn’t hear them saying what he said they said;

    Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barbara Boxer say Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe “needs to have his hearing checked” if he thinks he heard them talking about a “legislative fix” to curb conservative talk radio.

    I tend to believe the worst.

    And, almost completely unnoticed is Amanda of Think Progress explaining how they don’t advocate bringing back the Fairness Doctrine – just take private property away from people to redistribute it;

    The report argues instead that we should address the more significant problem of concentrated ownership and ineffective regulation in order to push the market structure to better meet local needs. As report co-author John Halpin stated, “If we break up concentrated ownership, and encourage greater local accountability over radio licensing, and still end up with lots of conservative talk, then so be it. We don’t think this will happen but at least the playing field would have been made more level.”

    The CAP/Free Press report argues for more speech, not less. Conservatives should get their facts straight before blindly attacking others.

    Yeah, we should have noticed that their intentions were much more socialistic. A report entitled “Right Wing Domination Of Talk Radio And How To End It” should have been more readily accepted by the Right. The basis of the Right’s argument remains that the Left is looking for ways to get and keep their people on the air on talk radio even though no one is listening. That’s even closer to Hugo Chavez’ method than we originally thought.

    It all boils down the fact that they want a new fairness doctrine enforced by the FCC or the SEC or some government agency who will seize private property and redistribute it to the Left.

    I wonder if they feel just as strongly about breaking up concentrated union power in our schools and encouraging local accountability in the education system.

  • More Think Progress panty-wadding

    I just thought this was funny from Think Progress. Apparently, the “progressives” are in a snit because they think that Brit Hume’s Special Report panel called them names the other night. The headline reads “‘Fox News All-Stars’ Bash Progressive Bloggers As ‘Pungent,’ ‘Profane,’ ‘A Pox’”

    Let’s start with the “pox” comment – from their own transcript;

    MORT KONDRACKE, ROLL CALL: Well, I think they do. And they are the leftward pressure on the Democratic Party that the right-wing talk show hosts are on the Republican party. And between the two of them they manage to polarize even further an already polarized politics, making it increasingly difficult to get any American problems solved, like health care, or the war in Iraq, or sensible terrorism policy.

    And all of the candidates are pandering to them. I mean, the democratic candidates are pandering to them just as much as the Republicans candidates are pandering to the right. And they were doing it again today.

    HUME: Which group, would you say, is more influential with in their respective party?

    KONDRACKE: No, I think a pox on both their houses.

    Wishing a pox on both Republican and Democrat candidates means that liberal bloggers are a pox, apparently. I don’t know how they arrived at that one – unless it’s just to get the readers pumped up – or they’re fairly illiterate and unfamiliar with the phrase.

    But Charles Krauthammer is the one that really gets their creative juices flowing with this comment;

    KRAUTHAMMER: It is interesting, there are conservative blogs, but I think, at least the ones I read, they are more analytical and restrained. The more liberal blogs are a lot more pungent and profane, but political.

    So to prove Mr. Krauthammer wrong, one commenter in a very reasoned and thoughtful post answers;

    Foxnews has NO CREDIBILITY.

    Except with Nazi azzhole-lickers of MURDEROUS WAR CRIMINAL Bush.

    Just PURE PROPAGANDA, and by the way, Natalie Holloway is STILL MISSING!!!

    Comment by Mr. Bush Goes To Hell — June 20, 2007 @ 12:07 pm

    How could Mr. Krauthammer have been so wrong?

  • That terrible talk radio again

    Remember the “Progressive” think tank Think Progress where Harry Reid went to complain about Joe Lieberman’s opinion that we should strike Iran? Now this “think tank” is advocating reintroduction of the “Fairness Doctrine” – the unfair practice of government regulating free speech on the broadcast industry. According to Think Progress;

    Two common myths are frequently offered to explain the imbalance of talk radio: 1) the 1987 repeal of the Fairness Doctrine (which required broadcasters to devote airtime to contrasting views), and 2) simple consumer demand. Each of these fails to adequately explain the root cause of the problem. The report explains:

    Our conclusion is that the gap between conservative and progressive talk radio is the result of multiple structural problems in the U.S. regulatory system, particularly the complete breakdown of the public trustee concept of broadcast, the elimination of clear public interest requirements for broadcasting, and the relaxation of ownership rules including the requirement of local participation in management.

    […]

    Ultimately, these results suggest that increasing ownership diversity, both in terms of the race/ethnicity and gender of owners, as well as the number of independent local owners, will lead to more diverse programming, more choices for listeners, and more owners who are responsive to their local communities and serve the public interest.

    See? The problem is “ownership diversity” – those rich, white Republicans own too much stuff while us hippies can barely scratch together enough money to buy used roaches for our morning doobie.

    Then how do they explain that Air America, the Left’s answer to the EIB network, filed for bankruptcy just two years and a half after it was founded by Democrat deep pockets. Is it because the hippies don’t have enough money to buy the stuff that’s advertised on Air America? I doubt it.

    “Fairness” is one of those words the Left likes to use like “equality”. It only applies to stuff they want. I had an emailer tell me that it was “unfair” that the Gathering of Eagles held a counter-protest at “their” protest. But I guess they thought it was “fair” that a small band of moonbats tried to crash the “Veterans Against Kerry” rally in September, 2004.

    Let me explain to these folks what fairness and equality are in this country. We are all born equal – we all have the equal opportunity to succeed. It’s what you do with that opportunity that defines you as a person. Everybody, E-V-E-R-Y-B-O-D-Y, came to America with nothing except what was carried on our antecedents’ back – so we all come from the same background. You make your own fairness with the sweat off of your own brow, not with the stroke of a judge’s pen.

    You are NOT guarenteed mulligan’s – if you make bad choices, live with your mistakes, but don’t make your neighbors pay for you own stupid mistakes. You are not guarenteed to live equally with your neighbors if they work while you sit on the front porch whittlin’ your life away.

    We are all individuals – we all do different stuff – that’s why life is not fair. The guy who designs and builds medical equipment in his basement is going to be better off than the guy who designs and builds dreamcatchers. That’s just life. The playing field starts off level, what you do in those first couple of steps determines how well you do when the field isn’t in your favor any longer.

    You can’t make us equal, you can’t make life fair by forcing everyone to be miserable. When the Left understands that, then they’ll truly live up their self-proclaimed label “Progressive”.

    Michele Malkin characteristically does a much better job on the Fairness Doctrine and calls it a “Hugo Chavez approach to the radio airwaves”.