Tax troubles were all the rage for certain folks recently. ABC News screamed in a headline about one fellow that was, “America’s Overnight Sensation… Owes $1,200 in Taxes.” Huffintgon Post was all up in arms over the same story. The San Francisco Chronicle was tsking the fellow for being “concerned about increased taxes – but hasn’t paid his own income taxes.” The Chicago Tribune chided this figure for being “delinquent on his taxes.” It was a crime, they all said. An outrage. This is not to even mention the unhinged, screaming mimis of the left blogosphere that dug in like pitbulls to excoriate this notorious tax cheat.

So, who are they talking about? Who had these people out for blood? Is it Tim Geithner, Obama’s tax cheating chief of the Treasury? Maybe the hubby of Hilda Solis, Obama’s choice for Sec. of Labor? Perhaps it’s Tom Daschle, Obama’s unfortunate choice for the HHS? Maybe it was Nancy Killefer, Obama’s pick for the post of chief White House performance officer who just bowed out over troublesome tax issues? Was it any of these tax cheats?

Just who was the guy that the news and left bloggers were so incensed over?

It was Joe the Plumber.

The press and the lefties were out for Joe’s blood over his purported criminal tax troubles not long ago. As Michelle Malkin reported last October, less than four short months ago:

Then, suddenly, the journalists who wouldn’t lift a finger to investigate Barack Obama’s longtime relationships with Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright sprang into action rifling through citizen Joe Wurzelbacher’s tax records. Politico.com reported breathlessly: “Samuel J. Wurzelbacher has a lien placed against him to the tune of $1,182.92. The lien is dated from January of ‘07.” Press outlets probed his divorce records. The local plumbers’ union, which has endorsed Obama, claimed he didn’t do their required apprenticeship work and didn’t have a license to work outside his local township.

Let’s get one thing clear, here. Samuel J. Wurzelbacher was NOT running for any office. He was just a citizen trying to ask a presidential candidate a simple question.

And now we have that very candidate, now the elected president, fielding a score of tax cheating candidates of his own for important offices in our government.

And this is on top of Obama’s own murky tax troubles that the press was not so interested in discussing during the campaign.

Apparently, as an Illinois state legislator through 2004, Barack was prohibited from taking honoraria for speaking under the Illinois Governmental Ethics Act.

But what about Barack Obama’s 2000 and 2002 tax returns?

2000: On his 2000 Schedule C-EZ, Barack reported that he received $16,500 as a “Foundation director/Educational speaker.”

2001: On his 2001 Schedule C-EZ, Barack reported $98,158 from a Chicago law firm, Miner, Barnhill, for “Legal services/attorney” (and nothing for speaking).

2002: On his 2002 Schedule C, Barack reported $34,491 for “LEGAL SERVCES / SPEAKING FEES.”

These “speaking fees” are in addition to the amounts that Barack was paid as an employee, a lecturer at the University of Chicago, reported on the first page of his 1040s.

The Illinois Governmental Ethics Act (apparently last changed in 1995) provides:

(5 ILCS 420/2-110)

Sec. 2-110. Honoraria.

(a) No member of the General Assembly shall accept any honorarium.

b) As used in this Section:

“Honorarium” means a payment of money to a member of the General Assembly for an appearance or speech . . . .

It is interesting to see how differently tax troubles are treated when it is Democrats acting the scofflaw as opposed to Republicans, eh?

Fans of Mens News Daily

I want to thank you all for having been so warm to my work these last few years. MND was one of the early sites that deigned to give me a shot posting my work at sites other than ones I controlled myself. Over the years I got a lot of great feedback and intense discussion.

However, I must now take my leave from this great site. There are several reasons, of course, not the least of which is money. Over the last two years my work has become quite an in demand commodity (much to my surprise). Consequently, I am increasingly being quoted in newspapers across the country and I have also been gratified to be a regular radio source these days both of material as well as being asked on shows as a guest.

And, I am also shocked that this writing “thang” is bringing in money. It isn’t just pure fun anymore, it is becoming a living…. one that is still pure fun. But, that being the case, as you all know, when money starts crossing the table, restrictions and demands begin to be made that one didn’t have to deal with previously.

And there is also the time factor. I simply don’t have enough time in the day to post on so many sites. like I had been. Something has to give. Unfortunately, MND is one of those that is on the table to give way.

Anyway, suffice to say I am not going to be posting here after this last piece. This is a fantastic site with great content and I wish each and every visitor as well as the other writers well.

Look me up on RedState,com, NewsBusters.org, stoptheaclu.com, and my own site Publiusforum.com. I’d appreciate your doing so.

In the meantime, thanks for your eyeballs and those clicky micees that put my work before them.

Yours in service,

Warner Todd Huston

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Folks, this is the kind of sickness we are facing with the world wide Jihadi assault on civilization. Here we have the heartwarming story of kindly grandma Um al-Mumenin. She’s just the local little old lady that all the kiddies love, that’s all. She bakes cookies, loves the kids and instructs all the local young ladies on the fine art of suicide bombing. Yep, she’s an all around community organizer, she is. But, before she takes up the important instruction of all those girls eager for martyrdom, she arranges to have them raped so that later when she recruits them they are mentally “prepared” to feel that suicide bombing is the only way to regain their lost “honor.”

Ain’t she just the cutest lil’ ol’ thing?

Samira Jassam, 51, was arrested by Iraqi police last week and confessed her part in organizing the rapes of more than 80 young Iraqi women that would later be gathered up and encouraged to become suicide bombers to “escape the shame” of having been raped.

In a video confession, she explained how she had mentally prepared the women for martyrdom operations, passed them on to terrorists who provided explosives, and then took the bombers to their targets.

This is the sort of corruption that liberals and Barack Obama do not understand. In order to further “Jihad” these people are willing not only to kill themselves and others, but to rape even their own women in order to destroy their mental balance so that they are more easily brainwashed to become suicide bombers.

Word has also come out of investigations into other Jihadi suicide bombings and like attempts that rape seems to be a favorite weapon of “persuasion” for would be suicide bombers of male and female gender alike.

The Sun is reporting that young male Jihadi recruits are being raped by older Jihadis to break down their mental barriers to killing themselves. The boys are sexually assaulted and then told that the only way to regain their “honor” is to blow themselves up taking unbelievers with them.

The intense social stigma and fear of more gay sex attacks leaves Muslims prepared to die.

The warped new tactic was revealed by a reformed Algerian militant. Abu Baçir El Assimi said: “The sexual act on young recruits aged between 16 to 19 was a means to urge them to commit suicide operations.”

A 22-year-old had suffered sexual injuries before being shot dead on a suicide mission in Tademaït, Algeria, three weeks ago. Samples taken from his body are being analysed in a bid to identify his torturer.

What sort of religion encourages the rape and death of its own children?

Democrats cannot conceive of this sort of corruption of the soul employed for religious control and power over a people. So, instead of facing reality, they bury their heads in the sand and pretend that the enemy is really “just like us,” after all. We cannot prosecute these sorts of people as if they were terrorists without potential for good deep down in the souls, goes the left’s thinking. Why, they are “just like us” aren’t they?

But, is there any western culture that has raped its own children, both mentally and physically, in order to turn them into automatons that will blow themselves up? Is there any such tradition in western history and culture?

So, while the Muslim world’s new friend, Barack Obama, makes his plans to abandon the war on terror and to treat all terrorists as if they are simple criminals, grandma Um al-Mumenin and her kind will be preparing more attacks for which Barack’s “laws” have no way even to address much less prevent.

I feel safer already.

Release Them and They Will Come… Right Back to al Qaeda. Now Even MORE Proof of Obama’s folly!

Obama has long said he wants to close the terrorist detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He even made a play that he will do so by signing an executive order that says he will close the facility in one year’s time… or in one year he will address the closing of the place, which ever you believe he actually said in that order.

But even during the same week that the president has made this big show of fulfilling the campaign promise of closing Guantanamo, though he has not yet actually done so, we have seen several recently released terrorists that have appeared on videos admitting that they are back inside al Qaeda and ready to attack the west all over again.

Releasing these terrorists back into the world is simply a means of repatriating terrorists to their friends to return to their activities as terrorists as opposed to rehabilitating them away from such. The Economist reports that even the Saudis have been embarrassed to find that ex-Guantanamo detainees simply rejoin their terrorist buddies once released.

The Kingdom has had a program whereby ex-detainees are supposedly rehabilitated, given government “pensions” that pay their way for having been “rehabilitated.” Yet, the two recent detainees had quit the “rehabilitation” program and rejoined al Qaeda, mocking the program as they went.

Yet, to the chagrin of the Yemeni and Saudi governments, as well as of an Obama administration that wants Guantánamo closed, the two Saudis in the video happen to be graduates both of the tropical island jail and of a vaunted Saudi rehabilitation programme. The Saudi authorities had freed them last year. Reunited with their families, they had benefited, as had several hundred other repentant jihadists, from state pensions designed to ease a return to civilian life. But the pair vanished a few months ago. In the video they vilify the Saudi counselling programme as a trick, and vow to pursue jihad. Nasir al-Wahishi, the new “emir of the Arabian Peninsula”, a Yemeni, to whom they have sworn loyalty, was himself one of 23 al-Qaeda suspects who escaped from a prison in Sana’a, the Yemeni capital, in 2006.

It also looks like Yemen is back in the business of harboring and supporting terror training camps as al Qaeda has produced new videos showing new facilities in that chaotic region.

Interestingly, The Economist proves that George W. Bush’s efforts in Iraq hurt the terrorists badly. Saying that, “The group has suffered sharp setbacks in such places as Iraq, Lebanon and especially Saudi Arabia, where it has not mounted a serious attack since 2006,” The Economist shows that al Qaeda has been materially hurt in those areas. It cannot be denied that in each of the states that The Economist mention have seen intense efforts backed by George W. Bush’s policies that came down heavy on al Qaeda.

Bush’s policies have worked, but we seem to be on the verge of reversing them all with the new administration blundering into office. Obama seems poised to make us all more vulnerable and to look the other way as al Qaeda reconstitutes itself with the welcome support of Yemen.

What will Obama do? Will he crack down on these new terrorist training camps in Yemen? Will he really close Guantanamo and release over 100 Yemeni and Saudi jihadists so that they can rejoin al Qaeda? Will he pull troops out of Iraq and give a Qaeda the breathing space it needs to revitalize there?

What will Obama do, indeed?

This is why newspapers deserve to be buried in the dust bin of history, at least unless they clean up their act. For well over 20 years a southwest suburban Chicago newspaper called The Reporter has employed a columnist named Michael M. Bates. He has been the local conservative columnist for many years until, that is, his latest column on Barack Obama was altered to add malicious content aimed at the columnist by the paper’s editor.

Bates was one of those conservatives (like myself) that wrote that he hoped that Obama would not succeed as president IF success meant that all sorts of socialist, unAmerican policies would be implemented. Bates was not wishing the president to fail except in implementing policies that Bates felt would be bad for America and even more to the point Bates was not saying he wised the U.S. as a whole ill. But it seems that “nuance” is not something that Bates’ editor understands because the editor decided to add some things to Bates’ column that Bates did not say.

Here was Bates’ main point in the column:

Support them in driving this country into the ground? If Obama delivers on his campaign promises, it’ll be an unmitigated disaster. Good luck for him means bad luck for the United States.

Simply put and unmistakable. Bates wants the country to do well and Obama’s bad policies to fail.

That wasn’t clear enough for the editor of The Reporter, though. Initially Bates headlined his piece against Obama’s policies “Count Me Out” (column can be seen here). The editor, however, decided to change the headline, a practice that is not uncommon in the Newspaper industry. The new headline became “Success for Obama would be disaster.” Obviously a far more negative headline.

But the headline change wasn’t the only alteration — nor the most egregious — that the editor made to the piece because a subhead was also tacked onto Bates’ column. The added subhead read: “Bitter conservative can’t wish U.S. well.”

Amazingly, the editor decided that Bates was a “bitter conservative” and was one that couldn’t “wish the U.S. well.” But, that was not what Bates was saying at all. Bates was standing against Obama’s bad policies. He wasn’t wishing ill will on the entire United States!

Realize what happened here. An editor attacked his own columnist by adding headlines and subheads that the columnist did not write that portrays his own employee as an America hating, “bitter” conservative.

Worse, there is no way that the reader could be aware that this headline and the added subhead wasn’t something that the writer wanted included in his column. To the casual reader, it looked as if Bates was calling himself a bitter conservative that wants the U.S. to fail!

What else can be said here? This editor, in print, without previously alerting the columnist, attacked his own employee , making him look as bad as possible.

Needless to say, columnist Bates has quit his job of over 20 years at The Reporter for being so badly treated. Who can blame him?

This is the sort of hate for conservatives that the Old Media is so steeped in, isn’t it? And if this is how badly editors treat their own employees, no wonder they are so hateful against conservatives in the news!

From the early days of his campaign, Obama made with the flourish that, should he be elected, lobbyists would not be welcome in his new tone Washington, his Washington of change and hope. Soon after the election, Obama’s spokesman John Podesta made a great show of announcing that Obama was insisting on the “strictest ethics rules ever applied” to his ongoing choices for members of his administration and his transition team.

In the early November news conference, Podesta proudly proclaimed that Obama was so interested in distancing himself from the old, business-as-usual Washington that they didn’t care if they were excluding people of long Washington experience with their supposed strict ethics rules. Podesta sternly told reporters, “I’ve heard the complaint that we’re leaving all these extra people on the side, that we’re leaving all the people that know everything out in the cold. So be it. That’s a commitment that is one the American people expect and one the President-elect made.”

Yet within weeks it became clear that this new ethical standard was merely so much window dressing. Now, lobbyists abound in Obama’s administration and have since day one. Not only that, but tax cheats seem to be particularly drawn to the new president.

Several high profile Obama appointees have had major tax issues chief of whom is Timothy Geithner, Obama’s new Secretary of Treasury. But, late last week, it also came to light that Obama’s choice to head the Department of Health and Human Services, Tom Dsaschle, seemed to have conveniently forgotten to claim a free car and driver as income on his taxes and had somehow made this tax faux pas for years.

Naturally, during the vetting process to be approved as the new HHS head, Daschle mysteriously “remembered” the oversight and “repaid” the IRS $101,943 which is the cost of the free limo service and the interest on the “accidentally” forgotten income tax.

And let us not forget that former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson had to withdraw his name for consideration as head of the the Department of Transportation because he is connected to illegal pay-to-play schemes in his state.

Then there are the many lobbyists that have joined the anti-lobbyist president in Washington.

Recently Politico detailed a list of some of the many lobbyists that Barack Obama has seen fit to “bend his rules” to allow into his administration. They find “at least a dozen” lobbyists have entered this purportedly anti-lobbyist administration.

Here is the list of lobbyists joining the Obama administration Politico came up with:

Eric Holder, attorney general nominee, was registered to lobby until 2004 on behalf of clients including Global Crossing, a bankrupt telecommunications firm.

Tom Vilsack, secretary of agriculture nominee, was registered to lobby as recently as last year on behalf of the National Education Association.

William Lynn, deputy defense secretary nominee, was registered to lobby as recently as last year for defense contractor Raytheon, where he was a top executive.

William Corr, deputy health and human services secretary nominee, was registered to lobby until last year for the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, a non-profit that pushes to limit tobacco use.

David Hayes, deputy interior secretary nominee, was registered to lobby until 2006 for clients, including the regional utility San Diego Gas & Electric.

Mark Patterson, chief of staff to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, was registered to lobby as recently as last year for financial giant Goldman Sachs.

Ron Klain, chief of staff to Vice President Joe Biden, was registered to lobby until 2005 for clients, including the Coalition for Asbestos Resolution, U.S. Airways, Airborne Express and drug-maker ImClone.

Mona Sutphen, deputy White House chief of staff, was registered to lobby for clients, including Angliss International in 2003.

Melody Barnes, domestic policy council director, lobbied in 2003 and 2004 for liberal advocacy groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, the American Constitution Society and the Center for Reproductive Rights.

Cecilia Munoz, White House director of intergovernmental affairs, was a lobbyist as recently as last year for the National Council of La Raza, a Hispanic advocacy group.

Patrick Gaspard, White House political affairs director, was a lobbyist for the Service Employees International Union.

Michael Strautmanis, chief of staff to the president’s assistant for intergovernmental relations, lobbied for the American Association of Justice from 2001 until 2005.

Doubtless this will be just the beginning.

Obama’s lip service to which he subsequently fails to adhere is nothing new. He has built a career on it. For decades in Chicago Obama used as a weapon with which to disarm his opponents his rhetoric of hope-n-change, his breathless exclamations that we all need to be working together. He’s claimed for a decade that he wants to reach across the aisle and work with anyone that wants to do so. Yet, he has no actual voting record to prove the rhetoric. He has talked a great game, but every time it has come to crunch time, Obama always votes for an agenda that is strictly in keeping with the far left.

So, it is clear that his acclaimed rhetoric on ethics is in keeping with his long standing practice of issuing flowery speeches and then voting against his own words. After all, from what we’ve seen so far, Obama will hire anyone he wants quite regardless of his so-called “strict ethics.” Lobbyists and tax cheats quite aside.

The boy that was born two months after his famous father died in a tragic accident saw his father’s face for the first time fifty years after the fatal day that stole the elder from our world.

How is that, you ask? Well, it may seem like one of those riddles or some exercise in logic but, no, I assure you it’s quite true. And the truth of the matter makes for a fascinating story.

Jay Perry Richardson was born the same year that his father died in a horrible plane accident. In fact, Jay was still peacefully floating in the womb when that fatal day in 1959 came to take the life of his vital and well-known father. Young Jay never laughed with his father, never touched his face, never was taught to ride a bike by his dad and were it not for the heavily thumbed and faded photographs that his family so cherished of the man lost to time, young Jay wouldn’t even know what his father looked like.

Unless… unless he looked in the mirror. Ah, that face he wore, he has been told, is the spitting image of his father’s. That thought likely always warmed young Jay’s heart.

He may not have known his father in person, but Jay was fascinated by his father’s legacy nonetheless. Jay spent these fifty years of his life studying his father, talking to the many admirers that knew him, writing of him, and traveling the country to keep that memory alive. Even emulating what he knew of the man whose hand he never held, a man with whom he was never able to toss around a football, a man that missed being able to beam with pride at the good school grades of a boy he never knew.

Whether the boy that carries his name did or not, many people did know Jay’s father. And they loved his father. You see, in his day Jay’s father was a great entertainer in the early days of broadcasting and Rock-N-Roll. He was a songwriter, a promoter, and entertainer with a big heart and an energetic style. He was only 28 years old when he died, but already he was amassing what he had hoped would become a great empire of the music and entertainment he loved.

Jay’s father had written Rock and Country tunes and there was always the radio. Jay loved his work as a radio Dee-Jay. He was well loved for that work, too, as everyone knew his rambunctious voice near his home in Teas. The elder Richardson was even one of the first, perhaps even the first, to imagine the concept of the music video. He even used the term himself in what may be its earliest known usage.

But then came that fatal day in 1959 that all too early cut short what might have become the career of an innovator that we’d all know by name today were it not for that last plane ride. Sadly, his name now is not on the tip of everyone’s tongue, though his nickname might be more familiar to music buffs everywhere.

That was half a century ago. Since then, young Jay, son of this tragic figure, spent his life only dreaming of catching a mere glimpse of the man he so yearned to know. To Jay, it may have seemed like his father was more a dream than real. But Jay learned his father’s music, discovered a treasure trove of tunes written but never finished, and then played them for enthusiastic fans. Jay struggled these 50 years trying to keep the memory of his father alive.

And it has been a fruitful effort, though perhaps not as successful as young Jay would want. Still, the folks of Beaumont, Texas were appreciative of the father’s legacy and the son’s work. They asked son Jay if they might raise a monument in his father’s honor to further celebrate his memory?

However, there was a problem. The cemetery told the family that they had rules against large monuments where his father and mother were interred. Jay decided to exhume his father to rebury him somewhere else so that the monument might be built.

There was one other thing that might be done during this exhumation. It seems that in the five decades since the elder’s death, some crazy conspiracy theories had been spun about how the man really died. So, Jay also hired a forensics expert to reassert the cause of death to dispel crazy rumors that had swirled about his father’s death for so long.

In due course the casket was raised and then the time came to open that aging box… and Jay was there. He was a bit afraid of how he might react. Would he be disgusted, afraid, happy, sad? He was told to prepare for little else but clumps of moldy clothing and dry bones. Not knowing how he’d react, Jay girded himself for the opening. But as that creaky lid was pried open there lay Jay’s father looking much as he did in life, almost perfectly preserved through the embalmer’s art.

On nearly the fiftieth anniversary of his father’s death, here was Jay Richardson finally getting to see his father. Amazingly, for the first time in his 50 years of life, the admiring son got to gaze upon the actual face of his famous father. Imagine this amazing opportunity? A man that spent his entire life chasing a father he was never able to even look at one time was at long last able to catch a glimpse of the face of the man he so longed to know. It was a singular wish finally fulfilled by a series of happenstance circumstances and nothing else. Just luck. And Jay was gratified.

Now, we all remember the line written about the fatal plane crash that took from us Jay’s father along with two of his musician friends: “I can’t remember if I cried when I read about his widowed bride. Something touched me deep inside, the day the music died.”

After a 50 year wait, the boy finally met his father, Jiles Perry Richardson, nicknamed “The Big Bopper,” killed on that fateful day, February 3, 1959 as the plane in which he was a passenger fell to the earth in a binding snowstorm taking with it the lives of The Big Bopper, Buddy Holly and Ritchie Valens.

It was just a plane crash, simply that. Jay’s father, “The Big Bopper,” was killed instantly on impact, as the official story 50 years ago presumed. It may have been but a plane crash, but it indeed was the day the music died.

Rest in Peace:

Jiles Perry “The Big Bopper” Richardson, Jr. (October 24, 1930 – February 3, 1959)

Charles Hardin Holley, known professionally as Buddy Holly (September 7, 1936 – February 3, 1959)

Richard Steven Valenzuela, known professionally as Ritchie Valens (May 13, 1941 – February 3, 1959)

Once in a while there is a short piece spewed forth by some Old Media outlet or another that is so perfect as a primer of left-wing bias 101 that I just have to share it. In this case we have the Telegraph writing on the story, covered at NewsBusters a few days ago, where Barack Obama found himself confused by an outside glass panel he mistook for a door at the White House. Michael M. Bates compared the bemused and easy treatment that the confused Obama received to the vicious attacks that Bush suffered when he was similarly confused by a door that wouldn’t open in China in 2005.

Bates wondered aloud if Obama would see the same sort of hateful attacks on his intelligence that Bush was served up by the ignorati in the media in 2005. We have since seen the answer to Bates’ question. Obama has been given a pass. The Telegraph’s treatment of the story, though, is such a perfect example of the subtle, left-wing bias used to excuse anything a lefty does while still attacking every one else that it really must serve as exhibit “A” in the battle against Old Media bias.

And so, I give you the Telegraph’s story from January 29 headlined Barack Obama mistakes window for door at White House.

Hereafter you will see each paragraph of the Telegraph story fisked to reveal its ultimate underlying meaning:

The new US President, who has been commander-in-chief and resident at the White House for just over a week, was photographed from the gardens of the White House on Tuesday. Mr Obama was trying to return to the Oval Office after meeting House and Senate Republicans.

Bias: “resident at the White House for just over a week”  
Explanation: Don’t blame him, folks, he’s just new. I ain’t his fault we swear to God.

Instead of heading straight for the door, Mr Obama showed his unfamiliarity with his new-found surroundings and aimed for a door-length paned window.

Bias: “Obama showed his unfamiliarity with his new-found surroundings”  
Explanation: again making sure the reader is aware that Obama didn’t mistake a window for a door because he is stupid, he did so because he is merely unfamiliar with his “new-found surroundings.” (I see no reason to dispute this explanation, but see below why this is bias in its own way)

His “door malfunction” was far less embarrassing than that experienced so publicly by George W Bush three years ago on a visit to China.

Bias: the whole sentence  
Explanation: Why was it “far less embarrassing”? Because they say so, that’s why. False authority employed. Further, why would anyone in 2005 have expected Bush to be completely aware of every door that was locked in a building he was not familiar with in a country he’d rarely visited? Obama gets soft treatment for his “unfamiliarity with his new-found surroundings,” yet the media skewered Bush for his.

While making a hasty exit from a press conference in the capital, Beijing, Mr Bush tugged on the handles of a giant door, only to find it locked.

Bias: “While making a hasty exit”  
Explanation: Who says it was “hasty”? Only the media that wants to characterize Bush as running away, as a coward, or someone not interested in the business of diplomacy. Why didn’t they say that Obama was “scampering to seclude himself in the White House,” “or perhaps “quickly looking to elude the press” for instance? It’s because they don’t want to impute negative motives to Obama, that’s why. Bush, on the other hand, was fair game for fake motives to be assigned him by the media.

He was good-humoured enough to laugh off the blunder, but the pictures serve as a reminder of Mr Bush’s capacity for gaffes.

Bias: “the pictures serve as a reminder of Mr Bush’s capacity for gaffes”  
Explanation: And why did it “serve” as this “reminder”? Because the media says so. False authority again.

However, there was little note taken in Washington of Mr Obama’s mistake, easily made by a newcomer in the labyrinthine White House.

Bias: the whole sentence  
Explanation: another example of explaining away Obama’s mistake. See, the media wants to be extra sure you have it pounded into your head that he isn’t stupid, just unfamiliar with his surroundings. That’s why this very short piece says the same thing over and over again. On top of that, even the Telegraph notes that most of the media didn’t even bother covering this gaffe because they didn’t want to cast aspersions on The One.

Mr Obama, who was returning from meeting Congressional leaders, may have been distracted by the Republicans’ icy reception to his $825 billion (£600) economic stimulus package.

Bias: simply what? It’s the whole dang sentence!  
Explanation: so, the reason Obama can’t tell a window from a door is because Republicans are jerks? What does this have to do with Obama’s egress troubles? Seriously, you have to be kidding here? We are really going to blame the the GOP’s vote against socialism as the reason Obama walks into windows? Did they say that Bush left the conference because “China was attacking the USA?” Uh, no, they just said Bush was too stupid to find an open door.

In the end, this short piece is as perfect an example of left-wing, Old Media bias as you are going to find. If this piece isn’t chock-full-o bias, nothing is.

**UPDATE**

I would like to report one aspect of this story that would change why some U. S. news agencies have not covered this little tale that I have received from some media folks via email.

Verification for this story initially covered by the New York Daily News has been difficult to come by, apparently. There is only this single photo, no video and a corresponding lack of secondary sourcing.

Perhaps the original report was exaggerated by NYDN reporter Lisa O’Neill, perhaps she was mistaken, or perhaps she was dead on with her version and was one of the only people to catch it occur? What ever the case, some news outlets may not be running this story because they cannot verify it to their satisfaction.

Plausible enough.

However, that does not change the biased treatment that the Telegraph gave this story.

Politico reports that White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel holds daily chit chat sessions with several Old Media pals every morning to start his day. Apparently Emanuel has for years been involved with daily bull sessions to plan media coverage and ideological strategy with CNN’s James Carville and Paul Begala, as well as ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, with the occasional participation of pollster Stan Greenberg. But there is one little problem with this daily palling around with mediots these days: Emanuel now works for the White House.

As Politico’s John Harris notes, “in any given news cycle, it is quite likely that Washington’s prevailing political and media interpretation — at least on the Democratic side — is being hatched on these calls.” In light of this early morning scheming, one has to wonder where the supposed autonomy of the media is if they are being programed by the Obama White House in off the record, secret and daily conversations? Where is their objectivity if these media mavens are all assisting Emanuel mould and shape the news to further a specific ideological goal?

Even worse, where are the people that would normally decry a chummy, personal and secretive relationship between Emanuel, a partisan government operative recently called the second most powerful man in Washington, and major members of the Old Media? Where’s the outrage that the Obama administration is secretly programing media coverage?

Ed Morrissey of HotAir reminds us of the Old Media outcry that was raised when it was thought that the Pentagon held briefings for analysts that reported on military affairs.

Last April, The New York Times rebuked the Pentagon for offering information to analysts as a sort of breach of the public trust and reported the angry words of Democrat Ike Skelton (D- MO) on the matter.

Representative Ike Skelton, Democrat of Missouri and chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said in a speech on Thursday that he and many other members of Congress were “very angry” about the issues raised by the article. “The story does not reflect well on the Pentagon, on the military analysts in question, or on the media organizations that employ them,” he said.

As Skelton said in April, the cozy relationship the TV analysts had with the Pentagon called those analyst’s veracity into question. If this concept was true last April, then the same absolutely must be said of Carville, Begala and Greenberg, and even more so of ABC’s George Stephanopoulos who is supposed to be a “news” man as opposed to an opinionist as Carville and Begala are.

After all, if we were expected to discount the military analysts because of their close relationship with the Pentagon, we absolutely have to view these supposed news guys with the same jaundiced eye since they are in daily, secret conversations with the President’s Chief of Staff.

So, we should be expecting CNN and ABC to announce their embarrassment that their purported “news” men are being so co-opted, right? We must be ready at any time to hear people say that Stan Greenburg’s work is forever compromised and untrustworthy, right? We must be on the verge of apologies by all four men for allowing their veracity to be called into question because of their cozy relationship with the Obama White House… right?

If not, then why not? Where is the proper level of outrage?

Unless…

Could it be?

Could it maybe be that these “news” agencies don’t care if their news men are being co-opted by the White House because it’s THIS White House? One run by a Democrat. And a White House run by The One, at that?

Well, I for one, am calling for ABC and CNN to fire Carville, Begala and Stephanopoulos as well as for everyone to stop considering Greenberg’s work worthy of attention. Short of firing the three TV newsers, the networks should tell their employees to cease and desist with these secret planning sessions with the White House and issue apologies to the viewers for not informing them of this secret pipeline to power.

How can we believe that Carville, Begala and especially Stephanopoulos will be informing us of what is really going on since we are now aware that they have been daily joining a powerful member of the Democratic Party in ideological strategizing? How can we believe that we are getting anything other than the Party line directly from Barack Obama instead of unbiased news when these three men speak to us from our TVs?

Fire Carville, Begal and Stephanopoulos now. They have sold out to Obama and cannot be trusted to report the news to the viewing public.

(Image credit: politico.com)

I am sick and tired of being sick and tired of Old Media people like columnist Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post and liberals like Pelosi and Obama who keep claiming that talk show host Rush Limbaugh is the only voice of the Republican Party. Imagine. A mere radio guy. Our voice!

I am through with Limbaugh’s supporting the long tradition of rugged American individualism, done with his harping on free trade, and up to here with his going on about the Founders and our American character. I am worn out with his bellicose talk of stopping terrorism, and so done with Limbaugh’s high profile as one of the most listened to conservative advocates in the country that I could just spit. I simply don’t want this Limbaugh character to be the sole voice of the GOP. Stop it now. Make it go away.

Instead, it would be nice if just ONE of our actual, purported Republican politicians would be the voice of the GOP espousing all the conservative ideals that Limbaugh so eloquently expounds upon day in and day out. Wouldn’t it be grand if just one guy with the guts to back up the rhetoric with a voting record would become the voice of the party of conservatism?

Liberals have their Ted Kennedys and Nancy Pelosis that do no compromising. They have their “Baghdad” Jim McDermotts that cavort across the globe advocating for murderers and tyrants the world over. They’ve had their presidential candidates “reporting for duty” that have in the past been key members of committees advocating for putting our own soldiers in jail and indicting Americans for faux war crimes. For that matter, the left even has an actual ex-president that runs to the support of every tin-pot dictator in the world pretending at being a diplomat.

The left is unapologetic for its support of Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot, the biggest mass murderers in history. They are resolved to turn our foreign policy over to foreign bodies like the UN. The left is four square against freedom of religion and keen to remove uncounted numbers of our Constitutional rights from us. They hate capitalism, property rights and are against open debate in our schools… yet they say so proudly and their politicians cultivate voting records that reflect those beliefs.

There’s no “compromise” there. The left knows that politics ain’t beanball.

And here we are. With current Republican Senators voting to confirm a tax cheat for Sec. of Treasury. Here we stand with recent presidential candidates that seemed not to have had the first clue about what the Constitution stands for. We had politicians willing to give away some many advantages that the judges we wanted never got seated. We even found ourselves not long ago with a Senate Majority leader in Trent Lott that almost gave more power to the Democrats than he did to his own party (not surprising, I guess, since he started his political life as one of them). There are so many that claim the mantle of Reagan and conservatism that shrink at every opportunity from the principles upon which they campaign that it isn’t even surprising any more.

Worse we have so-called “aides” to prominent Republicans calling Limbaugh and Sarah Palin “the extreme right” and denigrating some of the only voices speaking for our side. Take what John Weaver, “former senior aide to Sen. John McCain,” told the Washington Post, for instance.

“The Democrats and the far left will do all they can to grab electoral turf,” said Weaver. “And one sure way to do it is take some of the most controversial voices on the extreme right — like Limbaugh and [Alaska Gov. Sarah] Palin — and try to insist they speak for all members of the center/right movement.”

Limbaugh and Palin are the “extreme right”? Does this Weaver dolt have the first clue what it is that Limbaugh and Palin have ever said? No, what this Weaver character is doing is accepting the far left’s view of what constitutes “the extreme right” and acting by their rules. Weaver, like his former boss, have turned over the arena of ideas to the enemy and allowed them to determine how things will be defined. The Weavers, McCains, Lotts, Specters and Frists of the GOP spend more time finding things they can agree upon with the left than in advancing the principles of our own side.

No wonder McCain lost.

Yes, count me as one that is sick of Rush Limbaugh being the only national voice of the GOP. Not because I hate Rush or disagree with him much, but because the people we’ve actually elected to enact things for which Limbaugh advocates have so miserably failed to stick with those same first principles Limbaugh has voiced to well.

Certainly, its easier for Rush to talk than it is for politicians to vote and govern. Absolutely our system is based on the act of compromise, the art of what is possible. But what we currently have is a lopsided process. Only our side does any of that vaunted compromising. The left bends not an inch. We need a politician that can force the left to give in some of the time, too. And we needn’t allow ourselves to be fooled by the media and the left about support, either. Remember, Obama did not win a lopsided mandate. Despite the candidacy of the Obammessiah, nearly half the electorate still voted Republican. We have support.

Bring on a voice of the GOP that can Reagan-like step forward and legitimately accept the mantle as the voice of the GOP. Let Rush talk, of course, but let’s have someone that has some actual power in government who will also become our voice. After all, as Rush will be the first person to admit, he is just a guy behind a microphone and has no concrete power to wield. But, it simply must be realized that the reason Rush Limbaugh seems to be the voice of the GOP is because no one else is bothering to speak up. The rest are too timid to raise a voice.

Lastly, we have another thing to take away from this whole business. If Rush Limbaugh really is the voice of the GOP at this time, isn’t it because he has the message that the voters of the GOP want to hear? Limbaugh could not be that “voice” if he wasn’t being listened to by millions. The sooner some savvy, principled Republican realizes that Rush is not some raving lunatic screaming in the night as the left keeps telling them he is, the sooner some Republican realizes that he is someone that has the ear of millions of Republican voters and the sooner some politician takes up the baton that Limbaugh is holding out for a runner to take, the sooner we will have a voice of the GOP that can put our principles into action.

So, yeah. Bring on that next voice of the GOP. If we had more GOP voices willing to stand on principle, and fewer looking to develop a new era of “peace in our times” with the radical left, Limbaugh wouldn’t seem so darn lonely.

Photo of Limbaugh via Lighthouse Patriot Journal.

There is a long human tradition of celebrating the lives of great men by naming buildings and institutions after them. Men that were consequential to their age — or a later one, for that matter — are memorialized by their progeny and held out as the pinnacle of human achievement. Brave, heroic, intelligent, leaders of men, father’s of their people or their field of study, such men are the stuff of legend and societal memory. Memorializing them brings social continuity and gives current generations an ideal model to emulate.

And so, in light of this, we most often wait until someone has actually achieved something before we name a school after them. After all, it’s only fair that we insist that future generations venerate a man that has actually done something exceptional with the end product of their lives, lest the whole exercise seem somewhat hollow.

Sadly, with the coming of Barack Obama, it now seems that hundreds of years of tradition concerning meritorious service has today been unceremoniously cast aside. Apparently, all one need do now for solemn devotion to be lavished upon him is to get elected. A mere election obliviously fosters instant veneration and now presumed excellence can be achieved without all that messy business of having to earn it. Yes, just winning a single election is cause enough to rename schools and streets for Barack Hussein Obama.

Now, I am absolutely not saying that Obama will never deserve this veneration. For all I know standing at one week into his administration, he may end up as one of the greatest of the greats. But as things stand right now, all he did was get elected and that is not enough reason to begin renaming schools and streets in his honor — even temporarily.

It must be remembered that Nixon was successfully elected. So was George W. Bush. In fact, twice each. Are these same sycophantic Obama lovers saying that these two previous presidents achieved as much as Obama? Somehow, I doubt that they would.

To be sure, Obama’s achievement as the first black president is a milestone event. It signifies much about our country; where its been, how far it has come, and where it might now go. But, while that is quite a thing, it does not yet mark Barack Obama as wholly worthy of the instant veneration with which he has been lavished.

There is one other major problem with naming schools after Barack Obama, a public servant not only just starting his life as a young man, but one that has yet to do anything worthy of the honor. There is a second major problem with naming a school after him…

It’s simply unAmerican.

Think about it. We name buildings and schools after men that gave their lives in service to their country. Men that stepped forward, earned their place in history and faded from the scene with the grateful feelings of their countrymen. We in the west have for several hundred years awarded such honors generally to the accomplished.

But, previous to the meritorious era of democracy there was another method of honoring those who stand above us though it wasn’t always because such honorees earned the praise. It was usually because they wielded supreme power. Kings, despots and Pharaohs renamed things for themselves to remind their people of the power they lorded over the commoners. Kings, despots and Pharaohs renamed things for themselves, in their own lifetimes, unbidden by the people. They did this out of a megalomania that we no longer venerate.

No, today, leaders must earn the respect of their fellow countrymen to have such honorifics bestowed upon them. If they do not earn it, the exercise is meaningless, sniggered at, not earned. Just ask William C. Byrd or Ted Stevens.

And that leads us back to how naming a school after Barack Obama is unAmerican. You see, Obama is no Pharaoh, not King and he has not yet earned those honorifics. To give him the honor is premature and undeserved. And no one in America deserves overweening fealty from the people without having done a thing to deserve it.

There may be a day when Barack Obama truly deserves the adulation. But today is not that day. So let’s stop this foolishness or renaming streets and schools after president Obama. Let’s settle back and wait until he actually does something to earn the honor.

Terrorists, murders, oppressors and Islamofascists understandably were not very fond of George W. Bush. Neither were the fellow travelers of the aforementioned lowest rung of the human ladder in Europe, those in the offices of the ACLU and the Democratic Party fond of our late president. This is well understood. But what does the ascension of Barack Hussein Obama mean to them? More importantly, what will what it means to them mean for us?

We have been told by our sycophantic Old Media establishment that Obama is a gift to the world, “our” gift to the world. We are told that he is the one we are waiting for. The L.A. Times, for instance, featured a purportedly heart warming, post inaugural story of three complaining immigrants to the US that seem to imagine that Obama’s presidency will bring them a new era. One complained that we didn’t let him into the U.S. soon enough from the terror producing country of Pakistan. One said we are hated in the world, but Obama lifts that veil. Another whined that working here was no longer a key to success because the country is a failure compared to what it was for immigrants 30 years ago. All three are Muslims.

They, each of them, appear to imagine that Obama will somehow make things different for them. But, what could Obama do that is so different from what Bush did? For that answer we might turn to a recent op ed by Dr Ikram Azam in the Pakistan Observer.

What Azam’s basic point boils down to is that these people expect Obama to begin healing the world by “respecting his Islamic-Muslim paternal origins, roots and mornings.” Azam expects Obama to recognize “realistically that Islam is the Perennial Peace Paradigm.” In other words what these people believe is that Obama will create a new Muslim power base in the United States or, at the very least, rely on Islam to guide his presidency. Azam couched much of his rhetoric in appeals to “democracy” and “consensual government,” but with the long tradition of double speak, or takiyah, that Muslim writers constantly couch their missives to the world in, it is a bit hard to separate his desire for Obama to act the good Muslim and at the same time believe he really wants to help foster democratic government at home or even work with our own abroad. But, even if Azam can be taken at his word that he does, indeed, want peace on a mutually determined basis in keeping with both Islam and western culture, his is a lonely voice. In any case, it is hard to ignore his assumptions that Obama will be driven by some underlying Islamic premise.

To fulfill an early campaign promise to the extremists of the American left that supported his candidacy, Obama made a show of signing an executive order — one that he can easily revoke at any time — to next year close the terrorist detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Obama has made no provisions at all to place these terrorists and murderers anywhere else and since January 22, when Obama signed the order, speculation has been rampant about where these evil men shall end up.

Within in a day of Obama’s acquiescence to those of his constituents unconcerned over terrorist attacks on American soil (or anywhere else for that matter), news that two of those already released from the facility at Guantanamo Bay have again returned to their terrorist brethren and taken up roles as leaders of al Qaeda. Former detainees Abu Sufyan al-Azdi al-Shahri and another have since turned up on new al Qaeda videos once again spouting their Islamofascist hatespeak. This singular fact of the reappearance of former detainees renewing their association with al Qaeda would rather speak to the efficacy of Guantanamo Bay as opposed to its illegitimacy.

Another recent story, also reported within days of Obama’s signing of the order to close Guantanamo, bespeaks an ill wind for the alternate idea that Obama and his supporters have used to undergird their own concepts about what to do with terrorists and those accused of terrorism. Namely, treating their crimes as average criminal actions that should be dealt with by our civilian judicial system.

In 1973 a terrorist named Khalid Duhham al-Jawary built three powerful car bombs and placed them around New York City. Fortunately, his plot failed and he was captured, tried under our criminal justice system, and imprisoned. But, now his 30-year sentence is up and the officials in New York will be compelled to release him with time served.

Now, whether this particular man is still dangerous and filled with hate for America or not, the basic point that we can take from this story is that he is being released as if he is now ready to reenter society, his debt paid like any other criminal. And this is the same fate that might befall any number of terrorists that would be prosecuted by our criminal justice system. We may find safety from these evil men for a time, but by virtue of our own system we will have to release them right back to their terrorist activities at some point.

In other words, Obama’s plan to treat terrorism in the same way we’d treat bank robbery or jaywalking is not an effective means of truly stopping terrorism.

And this gets us back to what Muslims seem to expect of an Obama administration and what, at least at this point, it seems he is poised to give them. And that would be a far, far less strenuous focus on stopping Islamofascist terror. They certainly expect him to give their desires, ideals and policies a wink and a nod and a friendly ear.

This will surely put America in danger.

And that is just what they hope Obama will facilitate.

In the midst of the Obama coronation in Washington this week, school board member Sheila Patterson of the Jackson Public School System in Jackson, Michigan told teachers in her district that if they don’t show Barack Obama’s inauguration in the class room they should just “go home.” Patterson further told teachers that if they didn’t show the ceremony they “don’t belong in this school district.” Patterson also tsked such teachers sternly alerting them that she was “very, very disappointed.”

The news report of this incident notes that 43 percent of the school district is comprised of minorities. I suppose that means that the 57 percent that isn’t minority either does not deserve to have their opinions known, or is presumed not to have wanted to see the ceremony. Either way, we have what shapes up to be a school board member throwing the race card at what she is trying to paint as racist teachers.

It was later discovered that many teachers wanted to show the ceremony on their class computers, but the Internet of the District was overloaded and many couldn’t get a connection. No word if Sheila Patterson will apologize for her racist outburst and her assumptions that whites hate Barack Obama and didn’t want to celebrate his big day.

I recount the incident above to warm up to the topic of a student academic bill of rights. Granted the incident above occurred in a local institute of elementary education and the argument over instituting such a document to protect student’s freedom from political harassment is centered on colleges and universities, but the principle of educators forcing their political agendas on students unawares is the same.

As this academic year has progressed a fight has developed between the board of trustees of a DuPage County, Illinois community college, the College of DuPage, and its faculty association. DuPage County is the county just to the west of Chicago’s Cook County.

At issue is the board’s decision to include in new rules for the college language reminiscent of education firebrand David Horowitz’s Academic Bill of Rights (ABOR). Sara Dogan of FrontPageMagazine.com has the story.

In what may be a landmark battle currently playing out at a large Midwestern community college, the College of DuPage’s faculty association has pitted itself against the board of trustees over whether to protect the academic freedom of its students. This latest skirmish in the five-year war over David Horowitz’s Academic Bill of Rights (ABOR) reveals the lengths to which faculty unions are prepared to go to deny college students the right to an education free from indoctrination.

It should be noted that DuPage County is a bastion of conservatism in the blue, blue state of Illinois. So it is no surprise that the board members there might be the ones to push such an idea. Especially since these same board members have found anecdotal evidence that some students have had grades slashed or been ridiculed by professors and teachers over student’s displays of conservative ideals in papers and class rooms.

Naturally, the National Education Association (NEA) is one of the chief detractors of this protection of student’s rights.

In an 11-page letter to the Board of Trustees addressing the Academic Bill of Rights and other proposed policy changes, the NEA chapter claims that the Bill has “political connotations.” The letter goes on to state, “ABOR supporters apparently hope that the bill will give elected officials the power to dictate, for example, whether creationism should be taught alongside evolution in college biology…. it is the responsibility of college professors, who are trained experts in their fields, to evaluate that evidence. It’s not the job of politicians.”

This hypocritical claim that only the board members are interested in pushing a political message on students and not teachers and school administrators is typical of the NEA, itself a politically driven organization. Dogan points out that the proposed rules make no mention at all of any role to be taken by political figures making the NEA’s concerns a non sequitur.

While incidents abound from all corners of the country of educators and school administrators forcing students to toe the leftist political line, while curriculum after class is loaded with extreme left opinion and content, for professors and teachers unions to deny the truth is simply a laughable proposition.

Our fetid universities are becoming the laughing stock of the world with standards falling more every year, classroom content being warped by indoctrination instead of built upon scholarship, and an ever widening destruction of simple free speech. It is quickly coming to a point where a diploma from most US colleges and universities aren’t worth the paper they’ve been printed upon. Yet tuition costs to obtain these worthless slips of paper are skyrocketing.

But, the board of trustees of the College of DuPage deserve our support for their courageous actions. We need to get our schools back to teaching useful subjects — as opposed to the foolishness of “Womyns Studies” and the like. More specifically, we need to cleanse our schools of the extremists of the left that have no other goal but to tear down this country and fill the minds of its youth with hate for their own nation.

I reminded him that it was a qualified no I gave him. Of course every American wants his president to be successful on every count that will benefit the country. No true American wants to see a monumental, destructive, Carteresque failure in the White House. My liberal co-worker is correct on that count. No one wants the next Buchanan, who, Nero-like, fiddled while Washington D.C. and the country burned. We want them all to be Reagans, Washingtons and Lincolns.

But, that is just it, isn’t it? We want them to do what is best for the country. That is what we mean by “success.” And, when you get right down to it, opinions vary of what “best” means. I do want Obama to be successful on what would be best for this country, absolutely. Unfortunately, there is little that he campaigned on that would be good for this country.

Now, let’s look at the very phrase this is all predicated upon. “I want Barack Obama to succeed.” Or, similarly, “I don’t want Obama to fail.” Both being the same premise. But, let’s face it, the devil is always in the details, isn’t it? What does “fail” or “succeed” even mean? Do I want Barack Obama to succeed in turning this country into a weaker, more communist copy of France? Hardly. But if he did succeed at that, it would be a success of a sort — especially should that have been his goal.

But I don’t want that sort of success.

Conversely, when I asked my liberal friend if he wanted Obama to “succeed” in a way that made him an even more conservative copy of Ronald Reagan, he nearly chocked to death trying to get a decided and vociferous “no” out of his own mouth.

He wouldn’t want that sort of success.

So, the game-saying of wanting Obama to “succeed” is a meaningless exercise. On one hand every American wants the new president to succeed. But at what? That is the key question. We, each of us, want Obama to succeed at what we think is good for the country. So, right off the top the question itself is trope or even tripe.

Now we arrive at where I stand on Obama’s relative “success.” I did not vote for the man. I do not support his socialist ideas. I stand four-square against his votes for infanticide, his votes to gut the Constitutional right to self-protection, his vague ideas of nationalizing various industries, his intention to enlarge government to unheard of proportions and his softening on terror producing countries. And since these are the things his entire life’s career point to as probable goals to “succeed” upon during his presidency… well, I want him to fail. And I want him to do so spectacularly. If Barack Obama is but a Trojan Horse for communism to push its nose under and into the tent, I want him to fail in the attempt.

Simply put I want these ideas to fail miserably because success for them would mean the destruction of this country. So, wishing Obama to succeed would be hoping for the destruction of my country if success means the accomplishments of goals like I mention above.

Needless to say, if he should accomplish the opposite of my laundry list of evils above, well, that sort of success I would heartily welcome.

The upshot is, we as conservatives and Republicans should want Barack Obama to fail if he is to strive for the wrong things. It’s not unAmerican, or even relatively impolite to say so, either.

This is all not to say that Republicans and conservatives should treat Barack Obama in like manner as the ignorati of the lunatic left have treated George W. Bush. We should give Obama a fair hearing, agree when it’s appropriate, disagree when it isn’t and fight tooth and nail when we know we are right. We should eschew the sort of DailyKos, Huffington Post or DemocraticUnderground style of hate so prevalent with the left. But we should not go wobbly. Principled and firm opposition is called for, as always, cooler heads should prevail.

But, we should not wish Obama “success” just for the sake of success. Nor should we let our guard down in some foolish bid to force the left to appreciate us for our civility. Civility is a reward in and of itself. It isn’t a gift to the enemy.

So, here’s hoping great failure for Obama on all the things he should fail on and success with those things that are right and good for the United States of America.

Last Thursday, Barack Obama’s nominee for Attorney General, Eric Holder, admitted during his Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing that he supported renewing the part of the Patriot Act that allows for the FBI to seek records from businesses, libraries and bookstores as the policing agency investigates suspects in this country. For years we’ve seen news agencies and opinionists rail against the expanded power of the FBI to search such records. But, now with Obama’s AG announcing in his confirmation hearing that he agrees that the FBI should have this power, all anti-Bush administration voices are silent on the matter that had them so exercised for 6 years.

Since 2002 the debate has raged about the efficacy and Constitutionality of the Patriot Act with the power of the FBI to search bookstore and library records coming in for special condemnation. Even as the Supreme Court of the United States has upheld the law, right to privacy groups, the media and anti-Bushies have pointed to this particular policy and cried Orwell or worse.

USA Today talked about the situation in 2002. Not unexpectedly, the American Library Association has been worriedly writing of this business for years. Some librarians have even forced the FBI to jump through hoops to seize computers during investigations. And, of course, the ACLU has fought the provisions, too.

Over the years many challenges to the library and bookstore search power have been made and thus far the law has withstood the onslaught. As a result, the Bush administration has been accused of indulging any manner of imperialist, unconstitutional, Orwellian motives.

Holder publicly announces his support for the hated library search provision yet we are met with silence from the very people that made Bush out to be the most evil man in history for his support of the same power. This is the sort of news that would have made its way around the Internet at least 10 times by now if it were a Bush administration official saying so. Yes, now we get silence.

Where is the condemnation of Eric Holder on this issue? Where is the ACLU to demand Obama ditch Holder? Where are the many Huffington Posters and DailyKossacks railing against this junior Orwell, Holder?

The newspapers are strangely silent, though I did see this reported in the San Francisco Chronicle. Olbermann and Matthews, still nursing their tingles, seem to have turned away from this story. Maddow and the DailyKos seem to have lost their voices over it.

It makes one wonder if their conviction is informed by courage and principle or convenience? Are they only to rail against an FBI that intrudes into bookstore and library records when it is Bush’s FBI? Are they suddenly not so worried about their claims of invasion of privacy and unconstitutionality when they feel the FBI is about to become their FBI?

And where are the multi part stories from the Old Media? Where are the stern voices and grave concerns of The New York Times or the L.A. Times that Eric Holder and Barack Obama are about to continue the Bush outrages against the average American’s privacy?

It is, of course, highly doubtful that such stories will materialize. After all, the Old Media are fully prepared to give Barack Obama a pass on the same sorts of things that they claimed made Bush into Bushhitler and Vice President Cheney into the Dark Prince, Darth Cheney.

In the real world is it spelled H-Y-P-O-C-R-I-S-Y. In the Democratic Party we call it business as usual.

(Photo credit UPI.com)

Byron York from NRO’s The Corner Blog noticed an interesting little tidbit in The New York Times on January 18. In the Times’ recounting of all the interesting events going on in the Capitol surrounding the inauguration of The One, the Times seemed very excited that it was suddenly “cool” to be patriotic.

WASHINGTON is suddenly hip again, infused with the heady double-barreled combination of a new crowd of idealistic young political worker bees, who actually believe they can change the world, and the arrival of America’s first black president. It’s even cool to wave the Stars and Stripes. And in the honeymoon months of the Barack Obama presidency, before the country’s marriage to its new president undergoes the usual souring, a trip to the nation’s capital is just the ticket. Why, it would almost be unpatriotic not to visit.

This is far more a revealing and disgusting display of the unpatriotic demeanor of the left than a demonstration of excitement over the Obammessiah’s big day.

This little paragraph also speaks to a chief difference between conservatives and Republicans and the extremists in the Democratic Party. This difference is one that fully defines what real patriotism is and proves once again that the left doesn’t have it.

Recall back during Bill Clinton’s first inaugural, the then left leaning actor Ron Silver told a story that when the jets from the U.S. Air Force streaked over head, he was heartened to realize that those jets were “our jets now.”

Now, many know that Silver had a change of heart in the aftermath of 9/11. After those towers came down, Silver realized that the left was the cause of that crime nearly as much as the Islamofascists that perpetrated it. But in the 1990s he was a die-hard Clintonite. So, when those Air Force jets appeared overhead, Silver, in a revealing display, suddenly felt that those jets were “our jets” whereas before he imagined that the U.S. military apparently stood against him and his ilk. Once Clinton was in charge, though, he felt the military was all of a sudden on his side at long last…. merely because Clinton got elected.

Now we get The New York Times saying that with Obama being installed in the White House, it’s “cool to wave the Stars and Stripes.” It’s as if the flag was not a cool thing before November 4, 2008.

You see, to the left, nothing American is “cool” or “theirs” when they are not in political control. They hate the half of America that leans center right so much that when folks with that ideology are in charge leftists feel that the country is not “theirs.”

On the other hand, conservatives and Republicans claim the flag, the military and the country as theirs no matter who is in charge in Washington D.C. Oh, conservatives and Republicans may not be happy when leftists are in charge, but they rarely completely disown the whole country because of it. Conservatives and Republicans remain proud of the U.S. and its history whether the Democratic Party wins or not.

This sentiment so prominent with Democrats where the country is to be disowned unless they hold political power is not patriotism. It is selfishness, arrogance, hatred, and bigotry, but it is not patriotism.

In these tough financial times it is no surprise that school districts all across the country are crying poor and some of them probably even are. Corners are being cut, positions go unfilled by new applicants, budgets are cut; it is an everyday occurrence these days. Justified or not, the same is no less true in Big Hollow School District 38 in Lake County, Illinois (North of Chicago).

Lennie Jarratt of the Education Matters blog has an interesting story of probable influence peddling by the Big Hollow School Board. Like school districts everywhere, for months the school board has turned down hiring a school nurse and has resisted filling other empty positions citing budget concerns. But that didn’t stop the School Board from inventing a whole new position, essentially in secret, and then picking one of its own members to take that position at an undisclosed salary.

So, a school nurse isn’t necessary but a new position for one of their pals on the school board is indispensable? This seems a bit hard to swallow.

There is more to the story, naturally. It seems that the new position of Director of Technology did not exist prior to a secret report supporting the creation of the position was circulated among board members on December 15 by one of the members of the board itself. A source close to the situation says that the member that passed the confidential report around, the one not made public, has a background in Internet Technology and is currently out of work.

This same member is supposedly to suddenly announce his resignation from the school board so that he can himself take the very job he created out of thin air.

I will not here dispute that there is need for another IT person in the school system. According to the Lake County News-Sun the district has been overworking a single contracted IT guy for some time.

The district’s ratio of one information technology support person to nearly 1,800 uses far surpasses industry recommendations and typical support ratios for an education setting.

But as Jarratt posts on his site, this is all too sudden and convenient. It also seems that the posting of the position and the search for a qualified applicant have not been properly handled.

The job position was posted the following day on the school website (December 16th) without a job description, experience/educational requirements, or any list of tasks and responsibilities. Nonetheless, the Board appears prepared to take action and approve a candidate for hiring at the January 19th meeting. Clearly, the job ideation, job posting, interviewing and possible fulfillment of a director level position in less than 30 days (including holiday break) is a breathtaking achievement for the Big Hollow School Board. While the public had no idea that a Director of Technology was so screamingly urgent, the board seems prepared to hire one of their own. In fact, a board member is set to resign at Monday night meeting.

Jarratt also points out that the secrecy and off-handed treatment of this whole thing has violated the Open Meetings Laws in the state.

It is nearly impossible to believe that this has all been handled in a legitimate way and more likely that a method of influence peddling has been indulged in whereby the board members created a new position and gave it to one of their own before anyone outside the board was even aware the position existed.

Illinois is well known for far exceeding other states where it concerns lucrative salaries for administrators and top teachers, too. As Bill Zettler of Champion News reports, there is no recession in Illinois public schools with salaries from $100,000 a year and up have increased 17% over last fiscal year.

While the rest of us struggle to make ends meet and put off our retirement plans, Illinois school employees continue their unabated raid on public funds. In 2008 fiscal year 11,254 public school employees had salaries greater than $100,000/yr compared to “only” 9,591 in 2007. And as we know, the salaries are just the starting point.

If we include all the other goodies taxpayers pay for, including pensions, retirement health insurance and employee insurance, public school employees total compensation is actually about 30% more than their salary. This means that over 40,000 public school employees, or about 25%, have a total compensation of over $100,000/yr.

With salaries like these that are way over priced compared to the private sector, schools crying poor in Illinois rings a bit hollow… or maybe a Big Hollow, as the case may be.

And, needless to say, all this is happening with the tax dollars brought into the Big Hollow School District by the property taxes paid by Lake County citizens. Must be nice to invent out of thin air a taxpayer-supported job and then take it yourself?

Ah, Illinois. Do you smell that smell? It’s public corruption. I love the smell of public corruption in the morning. It smells like… Illinois. Well, I don’t love it but, sadly, I am getting woefully used to it.

If you’d like to find out what Illinois teachers and administrators are paid, the Champion News has a great resource to search that information. http://www.championnews.net/salaries.php

The gregarious and gracious Jake Tapper of ABC posted an amusing story of the rambling and rather pointless farewell speech Thursday that Joe “the mouf” Biden left on the Senate floor (you make the joke here). Tapper headlined his piece “Biden Yields the Floor (Literally).” The “literally” was just Tapper’s little jab because apparently Biden used the word nine times during his loquacious 5,659 word address to his Senate colleagues.

From Biden’s speech, Tapper relates one of Joe’s little … shall we say, “stories”? I say “stories” as in those same sort of unbelievable tall tales that your favorite uncle would always blurt out at family gatherings. You know, like the one where that wacky uncle claimed he was there when Tojo surrendered in Japan, or he was they guy that first taught Michael Jackson how to moon-walk, or he was really the guy that invented the Internet? Yeah, that kind of crazy uncle.

ANYhoo (to steal a Tapperism), Joe gave us all the following “story” for posterity:

Biden claimed he’d walked up the steps (of the Senate) and went in the reception room. “There was no one there,” he said. “And the glass doors, those French doors that lead in behind the chamber opened.”

“I just walked in,” Biden said. “Literally, I walked in. And I walked in down here, and I came through those doors. And I walked into the chamber, and the lights were still on. And I was awe-struck. Literally awe-struck. And what in God’s name made me do it, but I walked up… and I sat in the presiding officer’s chair. And I was mesmerized.

“And the next thing I know,” he recalled, “I feel this hand on my shoulder.” It was Capitol policeman who spun Biden around and asked, “‘What are you doing?’ And after a few moments, he realized I was just a dumb-struck kid and didn’t arrest me or anything. … That was my first time I walked on the Senate floor.”

“It’s literally a true story,” the vice president-in-waiting assured the crowd.

Nine or 10 years later, Biden said that same Capitol Hill policeman asked Biden if he remembered him.

“Welcome to the floor legally,” Biden recalled that cop telling him.

Number one, how would the young Biden not have noticed that a Capitol Policeman was entering that giant, empty chamber about to nab him as a trespasser? How can he expect us to believe that “the next thing” he knew was that he was being grabbed up by police?

But, an even harder thing to believe is that 10 years later the same policeman would have a), remembered him as a kid, b), realized he just became a Senator, c), would still have been working there, and d), have remembered the previous incident enough to give that cutsey “welcome legally” comment to a new Senator Biden. It is all just too absurd to believe. It seems more like a tall tale than a true one. Joe is that crazy uncle at the family gathering.

So, it is likely that Joe Biden leaves the Senate with one more whopper added to a long, 35 year history of them. Then again, with Joe’s equally long history of plagiarism, maybe the story is true… but happened to someone else? Perhaps some Irish politician experienced it?

Of course, I am sure his Senate colleagues were happy to attend Joe’s last harangue on the Senate floor. I can imagine that his colleagues were happy to see the last of him for his constant 5,000 word stem-winders. And, it doesn’t seem likely that many of his Senate colleagues thought too much of the man in the first place since over the entirety his 35 or so years in that body they never looked to him to be a leader on much of anything. After all, aside from a few Senate committee chairmanships — which his long tenure alone would seem to guarantee — he was never asked to become the minority leader, majority leader, or asked to fill any of the other high positions in the Democratic Party or similarly powerful Senate roles. It appears that he was always just good ol’ Joe. The funny guy that everyone liked but that everyone also thought of as mostly inconsequential.

And now, yaaa for us, he is a heartbeat away from being president of the United States.

Literally.

(Photo credit: washingtonpost.com)

Time magazine got a twofer on a recent screed headlined “Is Israel Losing the Media War in Gaza?.” Not only did Time use its article to take a few swipes at Samuel Joe Wurzelbacher (known as Joe the Plumber) but it also took the opportunity to once again blame the Jews for everything going on in Gaza.

Naturally, Time’s description of Joe the Plumber was more a cut at him than an accurate picture. Not only that, but Time seemed to have somehow forgotten that Barack Obama made Joe famous, not John McCain!

Wurzelbacher, who got his first 15 minutes of fame as a prop for John McCain during last year’s U.S. election campaign, has swapped his plunger for a reporter’s notebook on a mission to cover the Gaza war for the conservative website Pajamas TV.

No, Time, Joe did not get his “15 minutes” because he was a “prop for John McCain during last year’s election.” He became national news when he served as the catalyst for Barack Obama to showcase his communist agenda for America. But, notice how Time conveniently forgot that Joe made the news when his question to a campaigning Obama gave Obama the opportunity to show that he wanted to “spread the wealth” around in this country, just like a good communist does.

Now, why do you think that Time would want to conveniently forget that Barack Obama revealed his communist leanings during the campaign, eh?

Time reports on Joe’s scolding of the Old Media for all too often coming down on the side of the terrorists of Hamas and its Palestinian supporters and then goes on to pretend that such bias isn’t occurring. Time main point is that Israel is losing the public relations war in the media without admitting that it is the media forcing that loss of message in the first place.

Then, Time reveals its ignorance of the situation in Gaza, an ignorance that is either born of stupidity or of support for Hamas.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak told Fox News, “For us to be asked to have a cease-fire with Hamas is like asking you to have a cease-fire with al-Qaeda” – despite the fact that Israel and Hamas had, in fact, agreed via Egypt to a six-month cease-fire just last June.

Does Time reveal the truth that this so-called “cease-fire” that Hamas had supposedly negotiated was a lie? Does Time reveal to the reader that Hamas never stopped randomly firing explosive rockets into Israel despite the so-called cease-fire it signed? No.

Time next gives us a “may have” when the fact of “HAS” is indisputable. Naturally this softening of reality is in favor of Hamas, the terrorists. (my bold)

Hamas fighters have shed their uniforms and blended into the civilian population, hiding weapons and communications systems in houses and mosques. That may have contributed to a death toll so lopsided that it speaks louder than any Israeli press officer…

May have, Time? No, it isn’t a “may have,” with which we are dealing here. It is a singular fact that Hamas hides its weapons and military facilities among civilian populations. And the reason they do that is the Palestinians want dead civilians by the score. That way, with the eager assistance of the western media, they can paint the Jews as evil for killing women and children.

And then we get the media-driven canard of the “exit plan” for war.

As much as each side seeks to spin the war as advancing their overall vision, Israel has yet to articulate a clear, workable exit plan that will achieve the war’s objectives without reoccupying Gaza.

Man, no wonder Time magazine once awarded Hitler it’s Man of the Year award. This so-called “exit strategy” is another Old Media humbug and is a fake war aim. No war is begun with “exit plans” made as firm policy. No war should be so planned ahead of time, either. In fact, it is a practical impossibility to make such a plan. A war is begun with certain goals to be achieved, of course, but “exit strategies” are determined by the actual situation on the battlefield not by direction from the beginning. But, the media has for a decade or more now used this fake excuse to pummel any nation with whose war they disagree — which would be any war in which Israel or the U.S.A. is involved.

The reality is, Israel is under no obligation to offer the anti-Israeli media its plans for an “exit strategy.” Neither, for that matter, is any other nation that goes to war.

This faux “exist strategy” requirement that the media falsely uses as a club against Israel is just another weapon in its Hamas supporting, terror fostering arsenal. The Old Media uses it against both the U.S. and Israel with impunity. And then, when neither country satisfies it’s false requirements, the Old Media then proclaims the war effort a “failure.” They did it in Iraq, they’ve done it in Afghanistan and they are doing it in Gaza.

But, remember, the Old Media is not on anybody’s side… right? And if you believe that I have some land in Florida to sell you.

Clarification: Time did not pick Hitler as man of the year in 1938 because they thought he was an upstanding man. They picked him because he was the terror of his day. I have frequently in the past maintained that Time should use its man of the year award to uplift the world not dwell on evil. Certainly Hitler was consequential in 1938, but he was not one to be lauded with a man of the year style moniker and it was this dwelling on the negative that I was alluding to in my piece above. In any case, I wanted to make it clear what Time meant by its then choice of Hitler as its man of the year for 1938.

(Joe photo credit: ctv.ca — Time Magazine photo svsb.edu)

So, what sort of hue and cry do you think would have been raised if President Bush had proposed that he develop an “art czar” like Obama is proposing? Do you think that the left would have eagerly agreed with the idea that a President Bush should be in control of art in America — at any level whatever?

No, high dudgeon would have been the likely outcome if Bush had proposed to invent the pseudo cabinet position of “art czar” answerable only to the executive branch. Once again Bush would have been excoriated by the left as stamping on people’s Constitutional rights of free expression. They would have lost their tiny little minds over the fact that government with a Republican at its head would be controlling art in any way at all. They would have been outraged anew over the audacity of the Bushhitler and apoplectic over his various evils.

And, at some level they’d have been right.

Not that Bush is a freedom quashing Hitler wannabe, but that the federal government has no business whatever having anything at all to do with the art world. Not funding it, not directing it, not planning it, not even promoting it.

Yet, here is how Artnet News greets the announcement that the Obammessiah is considering inventing an “art czar” out of whole cloth:

WHITE HOUSE OFFICE OF THE ARTS?
The transition team of President-elect Barack Obama is keeping a firm hand on any appointment news, but the buzz in art-and-politics precincts has the new administration seriously considering the idea of an official White House Office of the Arts, overseeing all things having to do with the arts and arts education. The new arts czar wouldn’t be a cabinet-level position — too complicated and too limiting, say insiders — but rather a liaison with the president with real access to funds and power. Who might fill the post, which would be a CEO kind of job? One possible candidate could be Agnes Gund, former president of the Museum of Modern Art and founder of Studio in a School.

The idea of such a position has been floating around for some time. In its 2008 “10-Point Plan,” for instance, the U.S. Conference of Mayors suggested the establishment of a cabinet level secretary of culture and tourism. And though the Obama campaign didn’t specifically mention such a post, it was the first to have an in-depth arts platform (developed in consultation with Americans for the Arts), which actively painted the candidates as “champions of arts and culture,” urging the creation of an “artist corps” trained to work in low-income schools, among other projects. Stay tuned.

Stay tuned? Stay tuned is all they can say?

Where is the outrage that a president dares imagine that HE should be telling artists what to do with his little “art czar”? Where is the “artistic integrity” of these purported artists who so often wish to claim they are free of coercion or control by government and should remain so? Why is it that they don’t seem to mind The One taking control of their world of art?

Ah, but that is just it, isn’t it? These so-called artists really HAVE no principles. They love them some Obama and that is all they need to turn around and paradoxically cast their general disdain of government out the proverbial window. Of course, wait until the next Republican gets in office and see them suddenly remember that they want their freedom from oppressive government, eh?

But, for now, the silence from the “art” community is deafening.

And while we are at it, how about eliminating the unconstitutional funding that is PBS and the National Endowment for the Arts?

So, picture this… you are a refugee from the fall of Saigon, or, after it fell and in the midst of the many millions murdered by the communist oppressors that overtook the country in the 70s and 80s, you were lucky enough to escape with your life. Let’s say you finally move to California to enjoy a communist free life in the United States. Paradoxically, though, there you encounter a newspaper that scolds you and says that you are just a fearmonger for getting upset that there is a communist art show in your new community. And all the while you know that millions of your countrymen were murdered by the same communists that this paper, the L.A. Times, wants you to celebrate in art.

Would you get a tad upset? I think you might. Yet the L.A. Times thinks you should rather be interested in breaking “taboos,” having “open dialog” and to stop “the fear.” You should not get so gosh darned all upset at the commie art show. YOU are at fault here, not the commies.

Yes, the L.A. Times wonders why everyone is all so upset at the communists, so much so that even displays of commie artwork is upsetting to people whose lives and family were destroyed by communists in Vietnam. The L.A. Times is totally oblivious to the hate that should be forever leveled at communism.

So, we find the L.A. Times reporting on an “art” show that “purposely includes communist symbols.” The curators of this sham art show are pretending that their desire is to “challenge sensibilities and provoke discussion in a community where the topic of politics other than staunch anti-communism has long been taboo.”

Naturally, the worst of the trouble has come from another of our anti-American, pro-communist universities.

Organizers say the display is a direct response to the artwork of a UC Davis graduate student and Vietnamese immigrant who painted a foot spa yellow with three bright red stripes. She said it was to honor her mother-in-law’s years of labor in a nail salon, but some in Little Saigon saw it as a mocking reference to the South Vietnamese flag — which is also yellow with three red stripes — and branded it communist propaganda.

Of course this student’s “art” was meant as communist sympathy and also meant to enflame the community. It DID come from an American university, after all.

So, since this commie flaunting “foot spa art” made such a splash, of course this gave other communist sympathizers the idea to mount a full blown communist sympathizing “art” show.

“We felt this prevailing fear around the Vietnamese community after the foot bath incident,” said Tram Le, one of the curators. “I felt the community was on this slippery slope, that we were not progressing toward having open dialogue and being more tolerant of different political viewpoints.”

The group hopes to change the mood in Little Saigon through art.

But, isn’t that just the point? To “change the mood”? To change the mood from the commonly staunch anti-communist sentiment in the area, to whittle away at that sentiment in some faux quest for an “open dialog” about the murderous commies so that communism can be rehabilitated and re-established in that very community? After all, what IS an “open dialog” about but to ease tensions and make everyone comfortable with a formerly devalued ideology? The very purpose of “dialog” is to lead to acceptance and understanding.

And here is the University of California at Riverside trying to help along that communist rehabilitation.

“I think that we were trying to confront that fear head on,” said Mariam Lam, a UC Riverside assistant professor of literature and cultural studies, and board member of the art group. “We are trying to say that the community should be a safe space for people, even protesters.”

Yeah. Head on, indeed.

Sorry, but those in the Vietnamese community in the L.A. area are absolutely right to immediately squash anyone that wants to help reestablish communist ideology among them. These people are right to hate communism and to want it banished from their lives forever. These people are right to ostracize those that want to soften the hatred for communism.

Communism does not need to have “an open dialog.” It needs only to be excoriated and despised. Communism is the single most murderous idea that man has ever spawned and it should be treated like the plague that it truly is.

Yet, here is the L.A. Times and our local California universities telling the very victims of communism and their family members that they are the fearmongers!

Nice going, Times.