The day’s top political news:
Obama will face a defiant world at G 20 Meeting
Despite his immense popularity around the world, Mr. Obama will confront resentment over American-style capitalism and resistance to his economic prescriptions when he lands in London for the Group of 20 summit meeting of industrial and emerging market nations plus the European Union.
The president will not even try to overcome NATO’s unwillingness to provide more troops in Afghanistan when he goes on later in the week to meet with the military alliance.
He seems unlikely to return home with any more to show for his attempts to open a dialogue with Iran’s leaders, who have, so far, responded with tough words, albeit not tough enough to persuade Russia to support the United States in tougher sanctions against Tehran.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/washington/29global.html
German’s spike G20 plans for “Global New Deal”
Carefully laid plans for a G20 deal on worldwide tax cuts have been scuppered by an eve-of-summit ambush by European leaders.
Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, last night led the assault on prime minister Gordon Brown’s “global new deal” for a $2 trillion-plus fiscal stimulus to end the recession.
“I will not let anyone tell me that we must spend more money,” she said.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/G20/article5993184.ece
A "friend" of Vice President Joseph Biden's daughter, Ashley, is attempting to hawk a videotape that he claims shows her snorting cocaine at a house party this month in Delaware.
The anonymous male acquaintance of Ashley took the video, said Thomas Dunlap, a lawyer representing the seller. The real scandal may be her having chosen such scumbag friends.
Dunlap and a man claiming to be a lawyer showed The (New York) Post about 90 seconds of 43-minute tape, saying it was legally obtained and that Ashley was aware she was being filmed. The Post refused to pay for the video.
The video, which the shooter initially hoped to sell for $2 million before scaling back his price to $400,000, shows a 20-something woman with light skin and long brown hair taking a red straw from her mouth, bending over a desk, inserting the straw into her nostril and snorting lines of white powder.
Opinion:
Anger rises, solutions fade and the media fails to meet its obligation
When the history of this era is written – it will speak of how a handful of radical Islamic terrorists succeeded in tearing down the financial structure of the US and even generated a period of world wide unrest.
American presidents are accustomed to being received as the star of the show, and getting great support for whatever position or issue he is pushing. Not so this time. There is fear the expanding government and the high rate of Obama spending, may create more chaos.
In London’s meeting place, there will be more than the usual security problems – and the mobs in the streets may be larger.
In this country, tea bags are being mailed, and tea parties held as symbolic protests against government taxation outrages.
Domestic politics are at full heat.
There is an anger against incumbent politicians as a group – an anger prompting assaults on “good” office holders as well as those – Barney Frank and Nancy Pelosi spring to mind – who should be ousted from our government…some such as Charles Rangel should even be prosecuted.
Wont happen. Barney and Nancy are from safe districts – districts in which such elements as patriotism and common sense have been strangers for generations. Rangel will escape prosecution for his failure to pay tons of dollars in refusal to pay his share of taxes he helped craft.
People are beginning to see the corruption of our mainstream media in clearly lights.
For example, the tea parties wont get much publicity. The liberals who dominate our media don’t want to admit how mad normal America is. Expect the over the air TV News networks to downplay the size and sentiment of the tea parties – depicting their participants as disgruntled nuts.
Even more obvious media corruption – and a corruption that even seeps into many more reliable areas – such as Fox News – is apparent in the total lack of coverage of the many assaults through the courts and elsewhere that questions the eligibility of Obama to serve.
Obama could – and are obligated to – end the controversy by simply producing a real birth certificate. To date, he has not only refused to meet that burden of proof, but his entire entourage has frantically struggled to hide the facts.
Their actions in regard to this issue constitute an admission of guilt.
Of course, don’t expect any honest resolution, or even honest discussion of this issue, as the old political saying goes: “the fix is in”. Even the Supreme Court has ducked the issue.
The failure of the media, government, or Obama himself, to seek to resolve this issue should tell any who are paying attention – just how deeply we have been plunged into a corruption that thumbs its nose at our Constitution.
These matters wont be honestly confronted unless public outrage rises to a point that will push those on Capitol Hill to act. I keep noting the public outrage that doomed the amnesty bill. It was an important display of real democracy – it was an encouraging sign that Americans do care and, when energized, can achieve success.
I keep preaching that point.
The time is now…the responsibility is ours.
Buddy
The day’s top blogs:
First, an overview:
1.
Tea Parties And Thugs
INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
Media Bias: The press need not support every protest it covers. But when it ignores a grass fire movement against government spending while its favored politician watches closely, then there's dereliction of duty.
Five more "tea parties" took place last weekend to protest runaway congressional spending. Showing up with hand-lettered signs were people not often seen at protests.
Inspired by CNBC reporter Rick Santelli's rant over excessive bailouts, these demonstrations started small but now draw thousands. The weekend protests were held in Orlando, Fla.; Raleigh, N.C.; Solomon's Island, Md.; Lexington, Ky., and Ridgefield, Conn. Another 150 tea parties are set for tax day April 15.
Bloggers and local press do cover these events, and to give credit due, so did Investor's Business Daily in a front-page story Feb. 28. But the national TV and print media are conspicuous by their absence.
2.
RED ALERT: ACORN and the Obama Youth Corps
The "Generations Invigorating Volunteerism and Education Act" (or GIVE Act), purports to expand the spirit of volunteerism in America. It is, instead, an insidious mechanism that uses taxpayer funds to build a uniformed cadre of paid ACORN "volunteers" who will be solely focused on re-electing Barack Obama in 2012.
It passed the House days ago and its Senate counterpart (the ill-named "Serve America Act") passed on Thursday. The two acts will be reconciled by the House next week and likely signed into law immediately thereafter.
It is a crime and an outrage.
3.
http://www.denverpost.com/headlines/ci_12006596
Obama gets list of top Muslim Americans
Denver Post Wire Report
CHICAGO — In a bid to get more Muslim Americans working in the Obama administration, a book with resumes of 45 of the nation's most qualified — Ivy League grads, Fortune 500 executives and public servants, all carefully vetted — has been submitted to the White House.
4.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/03/a_leninist_view_of_the_america.html
A Leninist View of the American Media
David G. Muller, Jr.
The American mainstream media's operational code can best be understood in classic Leninist terms. Conservative exasperation with media bias is a tired refrain, a waste of energy. Complaints of bias start from the premise that press coverage ought to be fair and objective. But is this the premise on which today's mainstream media is based?
It's not. The premise that now guides the mainstream media is something we haven't seen before in this country - thus the never-ending consternation of conservatives at the blatant bias of the media and the nonchalance of its practitioners when caught in the act. We have seen press behavior like this before, though - not here, but in China and the Soviet Union during their classical Leninist eras.
Now the complete articles:
1.
Tea Parties And Thugs
INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
Media Bias: The press need not support every protest it covers. But when it ignores a grass fire movement against government spending while its favored politician watches closely, then there's dereliction of duty.
Five more "tea parties" took place last weekend to protest runaway congressional spending. Showing up with hand-lettered signs were people not often seen at protests.
Inspired by CNBC reporter Rick Santelli's rant over excessive bailouts, these demonstrations started small but now draw thousands. The weekend protests were held in Orlando, Fla.; Raleigh, N.C.; Solomon's Island, Md.; Lexington, Ky., and Ridgefield, Conn. Another 150 tea parties are set for tax day April 15.
Bloggers and local press do cover these events, and to give credit due, so did Investor's Business Daily in a front-page story Feb. 28. But the national TV and print media are conspicuous by their absence. Some big news outlets see these events as atomized and unlikely to lead the nightly news. Others aren't interested because they're well outside media centers.
But the real reason the major media aren't interested in these protests is that they don't agree with them. In the final analysis, these affairs are really taking issue with the political party they helped elect without hiding bias in the last election.
That's why a small scrum of Acorn-financed wackos on a bus tour to intimidate AIG execs last weekend made the news while the tea parties didn't.
But unlike the staged, sparsely attended Acorn event, the tea parties are national, growing and indicative of a shift of public sentiment. If proof is needed, one need look no further than the attention the protests are getting from the Obama administration.
One of the biggest protests so far drew 15,000 on March 8 in Fullerton, Calif. But a Los Angeles Times blogger dismissed the event as "a radio stunt" because it was organized by local radio deejays. There was no explanation why the Times and other media were all over a 2006 immigration protest that was also called by deejays.
It wasn't far from Fullerton that President Obama chose to make a series of Southern California town hall visits in the wake of Santelli's criticism to sway the locals to reverse course and back his pro-spending agenda.
The media may have been dismissing the protests as insignificant, but Obama's political sharpies knew a challenge when they saw one.
The mainstream media only hurt themselves by ignoring news. If the Obama camp takes tea parties seriously, so should its toadies in the press.
2.
RED ALERT: ACORN and the Obama Youth Corps
The "Generations Invigorating Volunteerism and Education Act" (or GIVE Act), purports to expand the spirit of volunteerism in America. It is, instead, an insidious mechanism that uses taxpayer funds to build a uniformed cadre of paid ACORN "volunteers" who will be solely focused on re-electing Barack Obama in 2012.
It passed the House days ago and its Senate counterpart (the ill-named "Serve America Act") passed on Thursday. The two acts will be reconciled by the House next week and likely signed into law immediately thereafter.
It is a crime and an outrage.
Criminal: $5.7 Billion for the Obama Youth Corps is destined for ACORN
The Senate bill purports to provide "$5.7 billion to aid 250,000 volunteers across the country in the arenas of health care, energy, environment and education."
Worst of all, the Senate killed an amendment that would have prevented funds from going to ACORN.
This means that ACORN, which stands accused of massive voter registration fraud by its own former employees, will probably receive billions more in taxpayer money. Remember that ACORN is a nakedly partisan and accused criminal operation that has allegedly co-opted more elections than any group in history.
The proposed amendment, offered by Sen. David Vitter (R-LA), would simply have prevented charitable groups with political arms from receiving funding under the GIVE Act. Vitter noted that, "...At the heart of this debate is whether this new federal bureaucracy would, in effect, politicize charitable activity around the country, which we certainly do not want."
Untrue. Democrats want it.
This is criminal: Most of the $5.7 billion is likely to find its way into ACORN's coffers and then help directly fund Democrats and more government expansion.
Orwellian: Precursor to Obama's "Internal National Security Force"?
The GIVE Act was stealthily modified during the House debate -- not in substance, but in terminology. Even so, the nomenclature is Orwellian and ominous. Given President Obama's bizarre promise to create a "civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded” as our military," the GIVE act appears to be a precursor to that type of internal security force.
GIVE creates a "National Civilian Community Corps" and establishes a "Permanent Cadre" which will "give consideration to retired, discharged, and other inactive members and former members of the Armed Forces."
Furthermore, "The Director shall give priority to projects utilizing retired military and emergency professionals for programs to improve public safety, emergency and disaster preparedness, relief, and recovery, search and rescue, and homeland security efforts."
Specifically mentioned are programs "that strengthen community efforts in support of homeland security"; in other words, ACORN. Thus, both the House and Senate bills are designed to funnel money to a semi-militarized wing of the Democrat Party. ACORN appears to be at the center of this wing.
The terminology in the original bill -- "camps" and "superintendents" -- was replaced to avoid scrutiny. The terms used now are "campuses" and "campus directors".
Furthermore, groups like ACORN and "Organizing for America" appear to be detachable from the Democrat Party. They can be seen as cults of personality, unlike any mainstream political organization ever seen in the United States. They are loyal to a man, not a party. Their activities advance the agenda of the man, not the country.
There is even a provision in the bill for uniforms
Mandatory Education Camps: Section 6104 of the bill, entitled “Duties,” states that a commission will be set up to investigate whether "a workable, fair, and reasonable mandatory service requirement for all able young people could be developed, and how such a requirement could be implemented in a manner that would strengthen the social fabric of the Nation and overcome civic challenges by bringing together people from diverse economic, ethnic, and educational backgrounds.”
Mandatory Secondary School Education: Section 120 of the bill also discusses the “Youth Engagement Zone Program” and states that “service learning” will be "a mandatory part of the curriculum in all of the secondary schools served by the local educational agency."
Larry Anderson observes, "There appears to be little volunteerism and almost no education in the bill. But there are a lot of make-work government jobs for doing God only knows what."
While on duty for the Civilian Community Corps, members will be provided with the following benefits:
(1) Allowances for travel expenses, personal expenses, and other expenses.
(2) Quarters.
(3) Subsistence.
(4) Transportation.
(5) Equipment.
(6) Clothing.
(7) Recreational services and supplies.
(8) Other services determined by the Director to be consistent with the purposes of the Program.
That reads more like a "civilian national security force" and not a voluntary program for cleaning up neighborhoods.
You can't say we weren't warned, America. Candidate Obama told us what he planned to do.
3.
http://www.denverpost.com/headlines/ci_12006596
Obama gets list of top Muslim Americans
Denver Post Wire Report
CHICAGO — In a bid to get more Muslim Americans working in the Obama administration, a book with resumes of 45 of the nation's most qualified — Ivy League grads, Fortune 500 executives and public servants, all carefully vetted — has been submitted to the White House.
The effort, driven by community leaders and others, including U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., was bumped up two weeks because White House officials heard about the venture, said J. Saleh Williams, program coordinator for the Congressional Muslim Staffers Association, who sifted through more than 300 names.
"It was mostly under the radar," Williams said. "We thought it would put (the president) in a precarious position. We didn't know how closely he wanted to appear to be working with the Muslim American community."
4.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/03/a_leninist_view_of_the_america.html
A Leninist View of the American Media
David G. Muller, Jr.
The American mainstream media's operational code can best be understood in classic Leninist terms. Conservative exasperation with media bias is a tired refrain, a waste of energy. Complaints of bias start from the premise that press coverage ought to be fair and objective. But is this the premise on which today's mainstream media is based?
It's not. The premise that now guides the mainstream media is something we haven't seen before in this country - thus the never-ending consternation of conservatives at the blatant bias of the media and the nonchalance of its practitioners when caught in the act. We have seen press behavior like this before, though - not here, but in China and the Soviet Union during their classical Leninist eras.
When studying Chinese and Soviet politics back in the 1960s and 70s, I lived on a constant diet of the People's Daily, Pravda, and their companion publications. It was clear from the first day that the press in Communist China and the Soviet Union was fundamentally different from ours. It had a different purpose, a different relationship not only to the political power structure, but to the truth itself. Railing at Chinese or Soviet media bias the way that today's conservatives whine about ABC or the New York Times would have been foolish. Instead, it was necessary to understand the assumptions and objectives that underlay media that was under Leninist control. How did they see their role in society? What did they see as proper and improper practice?
There are rules about how a Leninist press works - its operational code. When reading People's Daily and Pravda with these rules in mind, the controlled press made perfect sense. What's the point here? Troublingly, these same rules fit today's American mainstream media - and the media's relationship to the Democratic Party - nearly to a T.
But you be the judge. Here are the rules, as I discerned and formulated them. "Party" here refers to the governing Communist parties of China and the USSR, in their 20th century heydays.
• The press is part of the Party establishment, not an independent or adversarial entity. The press does not think of itself as a prisoner of the Party, resentfully forced to abandon objectivity in favor of propaganda. Rather, it sees itself as fulfilling a critically important role in supporting and expanding Party rule. Writers are not journalists in the classic Western sense, but are political activists or functionaries.
• The Party decides what is news, what is not, what will be reported, and what will not. The press is used to convey Party positions, and politically correct thinking, to the population. Grass-roots activists read, heed, and promote everything carried in the press. The general populace barely reads it, but has no other source of information or worldview, so tends to passively accept the press's messages.
• Articles must carry the interpretation of events that the Party wishes to convey, without regard to objective accuracy. The press evinces utter certainty of the wisdom and correctness of the Party's motivations, worldview, and policies; no differentiation - much less opposition - is allowed.
• From time to time, the Party uses the press to agitate the populace in a motivational campaign, aimed either at accomplishing a major goal (such as the Great Leap Forward), or criticizing a domestic Party opponent or a foreign country.
• The Party's leading individuals always receive deference, reverence, approval, even adulation. No criticism or adverse reflections on Party leaders are allowed. Senior Party figures have unrestricted access to press coverage. Investigative journalism is rare, and unthinkable if directed against Party organizations, leaders, programs, or policies.
• Individuals opposed to Party rule are selected as targets of disapproval, usually to the point of demonization. Criticism usually extends to allegations of personal corruption, wickedness, or barbarism. Terms used to vilify Party opponents are formulaic, seeming to draw from a lexicon developed for the purpose; there is little if any verbal creativity in criticism of Party-designated targets. Critics or independent thinkers who are not demonized become non-persons, ignored in all articles related to their areas of expertise or attention.
• Fabrication of events, quotations - even people - is permitted in furtherance of Party objectives. Historical facts, or previous Party positions, may be omitted or reshaped to fit current political requirements. The press will report no past error by the Party or its leaders, except when a leader or faction has fallen afoul of the current ruling Party group - then reporting takes the form of demonization.
• National security topics are viewed exclusively through the prism of Party interest. Threats will be ignored if the Party is not worried about them, or if in some way they reflect badly on the Party's performance in foreign affairs. Conversely, bogus threats will be touted if doing so is in the Party's interest.
• Independent media outlets are either forbidden, or permitted only if they address topics of no political impact.
When we look through this Leninist prism, the behavior of today's American mainstream media becomes quite comprehensible. Where conservatives see dishonesty, double standards, and deception, media practitioners see themselves as fulfilling their role in consolidating Party power in pursuit of a socialist utopia. They have fundamentally different ideas of the media's role in society.
How did this happen? Unlike the China or Soviet Union of the 1950s, there is no explicitly Leninist curriculum in the journalism schools, nor have the Democrats formally appointed political commissars on television and newspaper editorial staffs. Yet the effect is clearly apparent. There seems to be a natural, organic affinity between a political party with dictatorial ambitions and the press, and this makes formal indoctrination or routine enforcement unnecessary.
More interesting, what does this Leninist model predict for the mainstream media and its fealty to the Democratic Party? Today's media adhere closely to all the above rules except the last one: exclusivity. NBC or the New York Times may enforce ideological uniformity within their organizations, but what about independent, conservative voices like Rush Limbaugh or National Review?
Democrats have been explicit about plans to revive the Fairness Doctrine, whose implicit goal is to drive conservatives off the talk-radio airwaves. There is no reason to think that a new Fairness Doctrine would not also be festooned with prohibitions against public "hate speech," defined as anything critical of the Left's political program or personalities. Hate speech prohibitions could also be extended to the Internet, targeting conservative opinion sites and blogs. A compliant Supreme Court is only an appointment or two away.
Nor is direct government ownership of media outlets out of the question. We already have the Public Broadcasting System, and this model could be applied more broadly. In this era of government bailouts, how hard is it to imagine a national icon such as the New York Times, crippled by shrinking advertising revenues, seeking government support "in the public interest"?
David G. Muller, Jr. is a writer in Northern Virginia.
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