The day's top political news:
Release of CIA memos may threaten national security
White House senior adviser David Axelrod says President Barack Obama spent about a month pondering whether to release Bush-era memos about CIA interrogation techniques, and considered it “a weighty decision.”
A former top official in the administration of President George W. Bush called the publication of the memos “unbelievable.”
“It's damaging because these are techniques that work, and by Obama's action today, we are telling the terrorists what they are,” the official said. “We have laid it all out for our enemies. This is totally unnecessary. … Publicizing the techniques does grave damage to our national security by ensuring they can never be used again — even in a ticking-time- bomb scenario where thousands or even millions of American lives are at stake."
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0409/21338.html
America is voting with its TV remote -- Fox News demolishes its opposition:
FOX RATINGS SURGE ON PROTEST COVERAGE
8-11 PM ET
FOXNEWS 3,390,000
MSNBC 1,210,000
CNN 1,070,000
CNN HEADLINE 909,000
FOXNEWS O'REILLY 3,980,000
FOXNEWS HANNITY 3,239,000
FOXNEWS GRETA 2,947,000
FOXNEWS BECK 2,740,000
FOXNEWS BAIER 2,401,000
FOXNEWS SHEP 2,185,000
COMEDY DAILY SHOW 1,777,000
MSNBC OLBERMANN 1,499,000
COMEDY COLBERT 1,446,000
CNNHN GRACE 1,336,000
CNN KING 1,292,000
MSNBC MADDOW 1,149,000
CNN COOPER 1,021,000
Hard to argue with those facts...and with the more than a million Americans who joined in open protest.
Democrat Congresswoman Schakowsky: Tea parties 'despicable'
Eric Zimmermann
Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) blasted "tea party" protests yesterday, labeling the activities "despicable" and shameful."
"The tea parties being held today by groups of right-wing activists, and fueled by FOX News Channel, are an effort to mislead the public about the Obama economic plan that cuts taxes for 95 percent of Americans and creates 3.5 million jobs," Schakowsky said in a statement.
"It's despicable that right-wing Republicans would attempt to cheapen a significant, honorable moment of American history with a shameful political stunt," she added. "Not a single American household or business will be taxed at a higher rate this year. Made to look like a grassroots uprising, this is an Obama bashing party promoted by corporate interests, as well as Republican lobbyists and politicians.
(NOTE: I always heard, "it's the bit dog that hollers" - libs cant stand a free voice for those who disagree. For the record, about a million Americans turned out and others sympathized)
GOP leaders embrace the protesters.
http://briefingroom.thehill.com/2009/04/16/schakowsky-tea-parties-despicable/
Opinion:
We are beginnging to see the darkere side of the Obama administration.
I'm sure most people on the Internet have seen by now the absurd confrontation between someone from CNN posing as a reporter, and several people who were joining in on the tea party protests. The reporter embarrassed herself, of course- I suspect as a reaction to her network's having been creamed again in the ratings by Fox News.
The left cant handle honest dissent as we all see in the insulting and absurd document from Homeland Security that cites people who disagree with Obama and left wing positions as potential recruits by domestic terrorists.
It's a most ironic document, given the most notorious domestic terrorists -- the William Ayers family -- is among President Obama's closest buds from Chicago.
By the way, Janet Napolitano's incredible document draws a special bead on veterans -- people who have had military training should be suspect Napolitano warns law enforcement people all over the country.
Liberals such as the Obama team dont care much for our military -- or for our national security.
However, they are beating their chests over the recent hostage rescue involving Somali pirates and a brave American sea captain.
I am advised by a normally accurate source, that the story being promoted, "aint necessarily so". Keep in mind, I cannot verify the accuracy, but the story mirrors the sort of mindset we have reason to believe based on the norm from Obama-like libs. After all, Clinton let Osama Bin Laden walk free time after time.
Here is what I am told really happened in the Indian Ocean rescue:
"The entire story may never be published if the Obama administration thinks it would reflect adversely on him. This sounds highly likely.
The purported real story of Obama's Decision Making with the hostages.
Interesting...
Having spoken to some SEAL pals here in Virginia Beach yesterday and asking why this thing dragged out for 4 days, I got the following:
1. BHO (Obama) wouldn't authorize the DEVGRU/NSWC SEAL teams to the scene for 36 hours going against OSC (on scene commander) recommendation.
2. Once they arrived, BHO imposed restrictions on their ROE that they couldn't do anything unless the hostage's life was in "imminent" danger
3. The first time the hostage jumped, the SEALS had the raggies all sighted in, but could not fire due to ROE restriction
4. When the navy RIB came under fire as it approached with supplies, no fire was returned due to ROE restrictions. As the raggies were shooting at the RIB, they were exposed and the SEALS had them all dialed in.
5. BHO specifically denied two rescue plans developed by the Bainbridge CPN and SEAL teams
6. Bainbridge CPN and SEAL team CDR finally decide they have the OpArea and OSC authority to solely determine risk to hostage. 4 hours later, 3 dead raggies
7. BHO immediately claims credit for his "daring and decisive" behavior. As usual with him, it's BS.
So per our last email thread, I'm downgrading Oohbaby's performance to D-. Only reason it's not an F is that the hostage survived.
Read the following accurate account.
Philips' first leap into the warm, dark water of the Indian Ocean hadn't worked out as well. With the Bainbridge in range and a rescue by his country's Navy possible, Philips threw himself off of his lifeboat prison, enabling Navy shooters onboard the destroyer a clear shot at his captors, and none was taken.
The guidance from National Command Authority, the president of the United States, Barack Obama, had been clear: a peaceful solution was the only acceptable outcome to this standoff unless the hostage's life was in clear, extreme danger.
The next day, a small Navy boat approaching the floating craft was fired on by the Somali pirates, and again no fire was returned and no pirates killed. This was again due to the cautious stance assumed by Navy personnel thanks to the combination of a lack of clear guidance from Washington and a mandate from the commander in chief's staff not to act until Obama, a man with no background of dealing with such issues and no track record of decisiveness, decided that any outcome other than a peaceful solution would be acceptable.
After taking fire from the Somali kidnappers again Saturday night, the on scene commander decided he'd had enough.
Keeping his authority to act in the case of a clear and present danger to the hostage's life and having heard nothing from Washington since yet another request to mount a rescue operation had been denied the day before, the Navy officer, unnamed in all media reports to date, decided the AK47 one captor had leveled at Philips' back was a threat to the hostage's life and ordered the NSWC team to take their shots.
Three rounds downrange later, all three brigands became enemy KIA and Philips was safe.
There is upside, downside, and spinside to the series of events over the last week that culminated in yesterday's dramatic rescue of an American hostage.
Almost immediately following word of the rescue, the Obama administration and its supporters claimed victory against pirates in the Indian Ocean and [1] declared that the dramatic end to the standoff put paid to questions of the inexperienced president's toughness and decisiveness.
Despite the Obama administration's (and its sycophants') attempt to spin yesterday's success as a result of bold, decisive leadership by the inexperienced president, the reality is nothing of the sort. What should have been a standoff lasting only hours, as long as it took the USS Bainbridge and its team of NSWC operators to steam to the location, became an embarrassing four day and counting standoff between a ragtag handful of criminals with rifles and a U.S. Navy warship."
Draw your own conclusions, make your own judgments.
Nuff said.
Buddy
The day's top blogs:
First, an overview:
1.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/04/16/obama-appointee-suggests-radical-plan-newspaper-bailout/
Obama Appointee Suggests Radical Plan for Newspaper Bailout
Rosa Brooks, who has moved from the L.A. Times to the Pentagon, called for more "direct government support for public media" and government licensing of the news, which critics say would destroy the independent media.
Influential Los Angeles Times columnist Rosa Brooks has hung up her journalistic hat and joined the Obama administration, but not before penning a public proposal calling for some radical ideas to help bail out the failing news industry.
Brooks, who has taken up a post as an adviser at the Pentagon, advocated upping "direct government support for public media" and creating licenses to govern news operations.
"Years of foolish policies have left us with a choice: We can bail out journalism, using tax dollars and granting licenses in ways that encourage robust and independent reporting and commentary, or we can watch, wringing our hands, as more and more top journalists are laid off," she wrote in her parting column on April 9.
(Obviously, she is not qualified to recognize anyone as "a top journalist")
2.
http://www.davidlimbaugh.com/mt/archives/001055print.html
David Limbaugh: New Column: Homeland Security Slanders
There has been a lot of outrage over the Department of Homeland Security's leaked summary report on "Rightwing Extremism," but by far its most odious aspects are its implications that military veterans are fertile targets for radical, violent groups and that right-wingers are inclined toward racism.
Information from this April 7 report was provided to law enforcement officials to help them prevent terrorist attacks against the United States.
The "Key Findings" are way light on objective facts but heavy on subjective opinion -- opinion clearly colored by the worldviews and biases of those issuing the report. Right off the bat, DHS admits it "has no specific information that domestic rightwing terrorists are currently planning acts of violence, but rightwing extremists may be gaining new recruits by playing on their fears about several emergent issues. The economic downturn and election of the first African American president present unique drivers for rightwing radicalization and recruitment."
There's more. "The possible passage of new restrictions on firearms and the return of military veterans facing significant challenges reintegrating into their communities could lead to the potential emergence of terrorist groups or lone wolf extremists capable of carrying out violent attacks."
3.
http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=324775037199992
Tea Party System
INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
Politics: The hundreds of tea parties thrown Wednesday were part of one of the most extraordinary grass-roots uprisings in our history. And they spell a golden opportunity for freedom-loving politicians.
Less than three months after a landmark election, throngs of demonstrators everywhere gathered to object to the revolution that our new president is steamrolling into law. It was a landmark protest in the history of the republic.
But how can the voices of tens if not hundreds of thousands of angry taxpayers be turned into concrete political action?
Now, the full stories:
1.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/04/16/obama-appointee-suggests-radical-plan-newspaper-bailout/
Obama Appointee Suggests Radical Plan for Newspaper Bailout
Fox News
Rosa Brooks, who has moved from the L.A. Times to the Pentagon, called for more "direct government support for public media" and government licensing of the news, which critics say would destroy the independent media.
Influential Los Angeles Times columnist Rosa Brooks has hung up her journalistic hat and joined the Obama administration, but not before penning a public proposal calling for some radical ideas to help bail out the failing news industry.
Brooks, who has taken up a post as an adviser at the Pentagon, advocated upping "direct government support for public media" and creating licenses to govern news operations.
"Years of foolish policies have left us with a choice: We can bail out journalism, using tax dollars and granting licenses in ways that encourage robust and independent reporting and commentary, or we can watch, wringing our hands, as more and more top journalists are laid off," she wrote in her parting column on April 9.
Brooks said this would help rescue the industry from a "death spiral" and left the government unaccountable to the journalists who must keep it honest. "[I] can't imagine anything more dangerous than a society in which the news industry has more or less collapsed," she wrote.
But critics say her proposal would spell an end to the independent media and make journalists reliant lapdogs.
"The day that the government gets involved in the news media you see the end of the democratic process, because an independent news media is absolutely essential to the success of a democracy," said L. Brent Bozell, president of the Media Research Center, a conservative watchdog group.
Bozell said licensing journalists would violate American traditions and was a form of "intellectual prostitution."
"Since when did our Founding Fathers envision that ... you could exercise your right to freedom of speech provided you had a license from the federal government? This is the kind of stuff you have revolutions about," he told FOXNews.com.
Attempts to reach Brooks by phone and e-mail were unsuccessful. A columnist for four years at the Times, Brooks this week joined the office of the undersecretary of Defense for policy, the principal adviser to the Pentagon's top brass. She retains her post as a professor at the Georgetown University Law Center and during the Clinton administration served as a senior adviser to the State Department.
Media experts said it was unlikely her calls for a bailout would be heeded by the government.
"I'm doubtful that one person taking a secondary job in the Pentagon is going to guide the policy on [bailouts]," said John Nichols, a longtime journalist whose own plans to help save newspapers were cited approvingly by Brooks, but who called licensing a "very dangerous move."
"I would be very surprised if the Obama administration actually proposed something like that," added Joel Brinkley, a visiting professor of journalism at Stanford University, who said that no one would trust the news industry if it accepted heaps of government money. "It's the first time I've heard this publicly discussed."
It is unclear whether the Obama administration is considering such assistance. A spokesman for Obama did not respond to questions about Brooks' statements, which were published after her appointment to the Pentagon.
Some in the government are already looking to assist the industry. Sen. Benjamin Cardin, D-Md., proposed legislation in March that would allow newspapers to operate as tax-exempt nonprofits as long as they don't endorse political candidates. The move was heralded as a positive step toward finding a fix but condemned by critics for potentially making newspapers beholden to the government.
Some scribes are already closely bound to Washington. As jobs are axed and papers felled across the country, many journalists have sought work elsewhere. A number have gone to work for the Obama administration, including Chicago Tribune correspondent Jill Zuckman; Time magazine's Washington bureau chief, Jay Carney; former L.A. Times reporter Peter Gosselin; and Warren Bass, once the Washington Post's deputy editor.
Brooks is not the first journalist to support a broadsheet bailout, but she is the first member of the administration to publicly declare her support for the move, which appears to be gaining momentum.
Nichols and Robert McChesney suggested in an April 6 cover piece in The Nation that the government eliminate postal fees for smaller papers and periodicals and offer tax credits for newspaper subscriptions to help save the media. Looking for more direct assistance, the company that owns two Philadelphia papers approached Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell in January seeking a $10 million bailout to help cover its massive debts -- and it's not the only conglomerate that's hurting.
The Tribune Company, which owns many of the nation's leading papers, including the Los Angeles Times, filed for bankruptcy protection in December. Many more newspapers have closed their doors, like the Rocky Mountain News, or have ended their print editions, like the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
Brooks worried in her column that the death of such newspapers would spell an end to investigative journalism and leave the country with only "yapping heads" on television and "nothing in our newspapers but ads, entertainment features and crossword puzzles."
But many media critics say the troubles facing newspapers are of their own making, and that throwing around money won't fix the problem.
"Licensing is a simplistic solution for historic trends battering the traditional newspaper industry," said Ken McIntyre, a media and public policy fellow at the Heritage Foundation, who argued that a bailout would "preserve businesses that free enterprise and competition marked for failure -- or a transition into something else."
2.
http://www.davidlimbaugh.com/mt/archives/001055print.html
David Limbaugh: New Column: Homeland Security Slanders
There has been a lot of outrage over the Department of Homeland Security's leaked summary report on "Rightwing Extremism," but by far its most odious aspects are its implications that military veterans are fertile targets for radical, violent groups and that right-wingers are inclined toward racism.
Information from this April 7 report was provided to law enforcement officials to help them prevent terrorist attacks against the United States.
The "Key Findings" are way light on objective facts but heavy on subjective opinion -- opinion clearly colored by the worldviews and biases of those issuing the report. Right off the bat, DHS admits it "has no specific information that domestic rightwing terrorists are currently planning acts of violence, but rightwing extremists may be gaining new recruits by playing on their fears about several emergent issues. The economic downturn and election of the first African American president present unique drivers for rightwing radicalization and recruitment."
There's more. "The possible passage of new restrictions on firearms and the return of military veterans facing significant challenges reintegrating into their communities could lead to the potential emergence of terrorist groups or lone wolf extremists capable of carrying out violent attacks."
At the risk of incurring the scrutiny of the DHS, I must say that these gratuitous sentences are outrageous. In the first place, I don't know anyone playing on "fears about several emergent issues" more than the current administration, of which the DHS is a part. Even when President Barack Obama is delivering a speech on the economy purportedly geared toward reassuring Americans that things will be all right, he has to stoke their fears and anxieties about other financial shoes he expects to drop in the near future. He and his aides are the ones who have signaled they have something to gain from keeping the public in crisis mode, that "something" being the opportunity to make foundational changes to our economy and the relationship between government and the private sector.
I know I'm naive, but the only violent right-wing extremist groups I've ever seen are those played in Hollywood by uninformed, whacked-out leftist actors. I've always wondered where all these Hitler throwbacks live. I've also never seen any of their recruiting signs posted at the local supermarket trolling for right-wing nut jobs prone to "Clockwork Orange" ultra-violence.
Can you imagine a pamphlet stuck under your windshield wiper as you return to your car after shopping because your subservient stay-at-home wife didn't do her biblical duty of attending to the grocery purchases that week? "Attention Fellow Fascists: Seeking Scripture-Reading, Bitterclinging Recruits to commiserate together the economic downturn and then act on it."
How convenient for this report to admit it has no specific information about plans for acts of violence by right-wing groups but then to go on to imply it's only a matter of time. It's kind of like those stubborn media reports decrying black-voter suppression in Florida in 2000, though the Commission on Civil Rights could never find any actual evidence to support its charge.
How dare these people issue such inflammatory garbage? How dare they say that the election of the first African-American president is a "unique driver" for radicalization and recruitment? I know it serves the political cause of the left to continue to divide the races, but this is a government-issued document we're talking about here that was designed to guide the approach to homeland security and law enforcement.
I don't care that this was only intended to be an internal report. This has to be affecting the thinking, direction and actions of those responsible for keeping this nation safe from true terrorist threats. This report seeks to poison the minds of agents to make them believe that returning veterans warrant greater scrutiny and that conservatives are prone to bigotry.
How dare they slander military veterans by suggesting they are more prone than the average citizen to criminal, seditious and violent activity? As The Washington Times' editors note: "A 2000 Justice Department study found that 'veterans were incarcerated at less than half the rate of adult male nonveterans.' Veterans are more likely to be peace officers."
Adding insult to injury, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano was all over TV depicting conservatives as Timothy McVeigh clones. Then she issued a disingenuous statement, that "we do not -- nor will we ever -- monitor ideology or political beliefs."
Well, Secretary Napolitano, you sure could have fooled me -- and anyone else who can read for himself. You (or someone in your charge) are not only monitoring the ideologies and political beliefs of conservatives but also poisoning law enforcement agents with a bias against them and suggesting their beliefs lead to violence against the government. Shame on you.
David Limbaugh
3.
http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=324775037199992
Tea Party System
INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
Politics: The hundreds of tea parties thrown Wednesday were part of one of the most extraordinary grass-roots uprisings in our history. And they spell a golden opportunity for freedom-loving politicians.
Less than three months after a landmark election, throngs of demonstrators everywhere gathered to object to the revolution that our new president is steamrolling into law. It was a landmark protest in the history of the republic.
But how can the voices of tens if not hundreds of thousands of angry taxpayers be turned into concrete political action?
Investor's Business Daily attended one of these historic events, the Fishkill Tea Party in upstate New York, just east of the Hudson River. The original Fishkill Tea Party took place Aug. 26, 1776, when 100 women forced a storekeeper named Abram Brinckerhoff to sell them tea at the lawful price of 6 shillings per pound. This year's Fishkill Tea Party nearly filled Dutchess Stadium, the county's minor-league ballpark.
In a region of liberal New York state where Democrats have been consolidating their power during the last two elections, thousands traveled long distances to support pretty much the classic Reagan political agenda — and not just on taxes and spending.
Banners and placards sported slogans that included "Don't Spread My Wealth. Spread My Work Ethic," "Who'll Bail Me Out?" "Atlas Will Shrug," "Tea Today. No Kool-Aid," and "Acorn Didn't Have To Bus Us Here," referring to the left-wing activist group that specializes in voter registration drives benefiting liberal Democrats.
The crowds responded with thunderous applause to the various local activists' rallying cries, ranging from "How about those Navy Seals!" referring to the recent rescue of Americans from Somali pirates, to attacks on Hollywood for its role in moving America away from traditional Judeo-Christian values.
The audience roared when resentment was expressed toward illegal aliens who eat away the social welfare resources funded by taxpayers. When unemployed information technology manager Troy Johnson took the podium, he elicited an ovation with the quip:
"Just to prove how radical I am, I believe we should all be speaking English!"
The throng cheered calls for term limits to curb the power of elitist career politicians; applauded taunts that the establishment media would proceed to underestimate and misreport the size of the turnout; shouted in approval for blocking the president's planned federal intrusion into health care; and rose from its seats for a speaker who called Washington's march toward socialism "a slap in the face to those who have served in the military."
It was quite clear, however, that the tea partiers feel betrayed by Republicans, not just the Democrats now in power in both the executive and legislative branches in Washington.
One youthful speaker described the cause of the financial crisis as an "assault on our free market system paired with corporate bailouts." The Bush White House late last year lobbied skeptical congressional Republicans hard on a $14 billion auto industry bailout.
Johnson pointed out that "we know that they know that nobody can read 1,000 pages overnight," referring to the rush to get a stimulus bill passed and to the lawmakers who signed it without knowing much of what was in it.
The crowd may not have been aware that apart from liberal Republican Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe and Arlen Specter, the GOP in Congress formed a united front against the Democrats' tax-and-spend behemoth. But the Republican brand is blemished.
During 12 years of dominance in Congress and eight years in the White House, the GOP failed to kick its addiction to pork and make tough decisions on controlling entitlement spending. It found it too politically risky to secure the U.S. borders — even in the post-9/11 years when homeland security trumped all other concerns.
It's almost as if Republicans were daring the kind of people who attended this week's events to go the dead-end route of starting their own third political party.
The tea party movement proves that even in the left-leaning Northeast, a huge natural constituency exists for these bread-and-butter American issues — lower taxes, less government, a strong military that's allowed to win, tough measures to end illegal immigration, term limits and family values.
It's all there, waiting to be tapped into — if only a few smart politicians would grasp the opportunity.
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