From the diaries by Erick

The Associated Press is worried that Americans might accidentally imagine that the elevation of Barack Obama to the presidency could make people think that blacks in America really can get ahead. The AP is so worried that it sought out a race hustler to deny that blacks can make it here no matter what happened on November 4.

As the AP reports it, apparently young Kari Fulton “cringed” when Barack Obama won the past election. She “cringed” because she heard a white guy say that Obama’s election put a dent in the charge of racism in America. And why did she “cringe”? Why, it’s because “racism is still very much alive and well” she told the AP.

And how does young Kari know this? At 23 she never lived through Jim Crow. She doesn’t remember the days when there were few blacks on TV and blacks in music were segregated to separate genres, not mixing with white singers. She wasn’t around when black CEOs didn’t exist and no blacks roamed the halls of Congress or the White House without pushing a broom. So, how does this 23-year-old girl know that “racism is alive and well”? Because she is a black activist, that’s why.

Fulton, 23, was part of a group of young black activists from across the country who worked to register and turn out young black voters in the presidential election. The National Coalition on Black Civic Participation brought the group together shortly after the election to learn about converting their enthusiasm into ongoing political activism.

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The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is still going ahead with its plans to perpetrate a hostile takeover of California local California Healthcare Workers union (UHW). Naturally, the local isn’t too happy to be forcefully dissolved and integrated into the SEIU national and losing their identity.

The UHW folks with their president Sal Roselli in the lead, are staging all sorts of protests and efforts to deny the SEIU its victory. Roselli has been a thorn in SEIU president Andy Stern’s side for quite a while now.

The SEIU has been trying to mount a massive take over of unions all across the country (whether forcefully or not) with the goal of becoming the biggest union in the nation. SEIU president Stern’s goal has been to create a giant union run from the top down with the locals having little power over their own areas. This is a particularly amusing plan because unions have always been about “democracy” and “local control” of its own destiny yet here is Stern trying to emulate the sort of powermongering, top down control that unions usually fight.

In any case, the UHW raised a special fund to be used on something or another, but the SEIU claims it was “illegal” and meant to be used to fight their takeover. The resulting back and forth lawsuits gave the SEIU another excuse to claim that the UHW is “corrupt” and needs to be taken over to root out the supposed corruption.

It’s a mess of a power struggle, to say the least and amusing in that the whole situation seems to go against the grain of what unions always claim to be.

The UHW has posted their point of view on the “retaliation” on their website.

From our perspective, the mess reveals the hypocrisy of unions all the way around.

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Obama is starting to feel a bit of pressure from members of the far left of his own party who are beginning to raise their eyebrows over the fact that he hasn’t shown any desire to institute any “change” thus far with his staff and cabinet picks even though they had “hope” that he would. Obama went so far as to address the situation today as MSNBC reported on its FirstRead blog.

Obama explains away his lack of “change” and his picking of a plethora of out-of-work Clintonites by saying that who he puts on his staff and cabinet don’t matter. It’s because he is the change we seek, you see? But, wait, you might ask. If the press were paying attention, they might remember that during his acceptance speech he said this whole thing wasn’t about him, it was about us? Wasn’t it that we were the change we were waiting for… right?

Is the press going to let him get away with dropping that hoary rhetoric only to say now it’s suddenly all about him? Would they let such arrogance, such a flip-flop, from a Republican pass so easily?

We might recall Obama’s supposed self-deprecation during his acceptance speech in front of the expensive, simulated Greek columns of Obamopolis at the end of the Democratic National Convention.

“But I stand before you tonight because all across America something is stirring. What the nay-sayers don’t understand is that this election has never been about me. It’s been about you.”

But, now all of a sudden it is all about him?

Well, it certainly looks like he’s changed his tune. It IS about him after all.

In response to criticism that he is departing from his promise to bring change to Washington because several members of his economic team were Beltway insiders, Barack Obama said today that his team would combine experience with fresh thinking and his own vision for change.

“Understand where the vision for change comes from, first and foremost,” he told reporters at his third press conference in as many days. “It comes from me. That’s my job, is to provide a vision in terms of where we are going, and to make sure, then, that my team is implementing.”

Of course, the reason he’s come out to say that it’s really all about him after all is to knock aside any charges that he is starting out as the junior member of the new Clinton era. He wants to assert that he is really in charge, of course.

But, this is a complete reversal of the “we are the ones” rhetoric he was mouthing only weeks ago. But, the “no it’s all about me” turn around does fit the arrogance of the non-existent “office of the president elect” conceit he’s indulged in, doesn’t it?

So far, though, the arrogance has been wholly unremarked upon by a pliant media.

Surprised, anyone?

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Oh, the humanities! It has been determined by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) that troubled local president Tyrone Freeman is to be banned for life from the union. Gosh, what a horrible fate, eh? One wonders if he can be reinstated with back pay after he dies. Bet he does!

The Service Employees International Union has imposed a lifetime ban on the former president of its largest California local and ordered him to repay more than $1 million that it says he misappropriated from the labor organization.

Let me suggest a more appropriate punishment: jail.

Freeman was caught with not only his own hand in the union till, but the hands of most of his extended family! His scandal has also led to the discovery of other theft by some of his associates in the union. A rash of firings and indictments have resulted from the imbroglio.

This Freeman fellow was a handpicked “protege” of SEIU President Andy Stern, who has issued a statement of disappointment in Freeman.

“It is tragic and unconscionable that a young leader with such great potential would violate not only the constitution of the international union, but the trust of his members,” Stern said in a statement.

Still, it cannot be ignored that Stern handpicked this guy. It highlights Stern’s judgement and shows it to be subpar. Unless, of course, Stern picked Freeman specifically because of his penchant for corruption?

Something to keep in mind, anyway.

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Naturally, the U.S. media is following the terrorist crimes in Mumbai, India, as well they should. But, the attacks seem to be the Old Media’s only interest where it concerns India and Pakistan, of late, for they’ve completely ignored the several mistakes that Barack Obama has already made with his attempts at foreign policy with the two embattled nations.

Back on November 11, I noted that Obama had made his first mistakes with both India and Pakistan by mishandling early talks with their leaders (or not having them at all, as the case may be). During his first major effort to contact foreign leaders as president elect, Obama called Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari but neglected to call India’s Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh. This short shrifting did not sit well with the Indian government.

Then, Obama appointed to his transition team a woman named Sonal Shah whom the Pakistanis say has ties with a violent Hindu Nationalist Party in India that they claim is responsible for a rampage in Gujarat, India that killed many Muslims and Christians.

Worse, during his outreach to Pakistan’s Zardari, Obama promised that he’d help settle the trouble between India and Pakistan over Kashmir and he did this without asking India if his help was wanted by India. As a result, India got its nose out of joint and immediately said that Obama’s “help” with Kashmir was not wanted.

Well, more on Obama’s unwanted offer with the Kashmir problem has been reported by various Indian and Pakistani news agencies. An Indian official has reiterated that Obama’s help with Kashmir was neither asked for nor wanted. External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee refused Obama’s offer again at a recent press conference held with Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi.

The Indian Express news group reports that on Wednesday Mukherjee “shot down US President-elect Barack Obama’s suggestion that former US President Bill Clinton could prod India and Pakistan into making peace over Kashmir.”

The remarks were also reported at KashmirWatch.com.

On Jammu and Kashmir, Mukherjee rejected any third party interference, when asked to comment on the reports that the US president-elect was moving to appoint Bill Clinton as his emissary to settle Kashmir issue. “There was no question of the intervention of third party. Kashmir is a bilateral issue between India and Pakistan. It is part of composite dialogue process,” he stressed.

These are some embarrassing stumbles on India and Pakistan and shows that Obama won’t be able to flash his dazzling smile and have the world’s leaders just fall at the feet of The One happy to follow his policy ideas.

Curiously, I can’t find this news reporting Obama’s thus far failed attempts at diplomacy in any American news source. Why do you think that is?

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Politico has some interesting analysis on the purported divisions among Democrats going into the future. They may have majority control of Congress on its face, but do they have enough of a controlling majority to push through some of their most egregiously extreme measures like the pro-union card check idea contained in the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA)?

According to Politico the “fault lines” in the Democratic caucus are soon to be revealed.

Unless Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) can whip their caucuses into unity, numerous fault lines will be revealed: Southern Democrats vs. Northern liberals on labor law; California greens vs. Rust Belt Democrats on global warming; socialized medicine adherents vs. go-slow health care reformers; anti-war liberals vs. cautious centrists on national security. And don’t forget the anti-bailout crowd vs. the powerful Michigan Democrats in both chambers when it comes to money for Detroit.

Martin Kady goes on to elucidate those divisions, one of them being the card check issue. Of course, we’ve discussed card check here many times, but essentially if passed it would eliminate any potential union member from having the right to vote for or against a union on a secret ballot, making the member’s vote open for everyone to see. This would leave the member open to any sort of union pressure and thuggery, for sure.

But, how is it a problem for the Democrats who are heavily pushing this disastrous, undemocratic bill?

The legislation is a tough call for new Southern Democratic senators such as Kay Hagan of North Carolina and Mark Warner of Virginia, along with moderate Southerners such as Blanche L. Lincoln of Arkansas and Mary L. Landrieu of Louisiana, all of whom hail from less union-friendly Southern states.

If card check gets approved, states in the south that are right to work states will find an influx of jobs killing, economy wrecking unions into their manufacturing areas. If unions begin to take hold, jobs will be lost and businesses will be shuttered. It will destroy the already shaky economies of states throughout the southland.

But, there is a faulty assumption made by Politico. It assumes that these southern politicians will actually vote the interests of their constituents instead of trying to endear themselves to the leaders of the party. Further, it makes the assumption that newly elected Democrats could imagine that voting against their own voters now will harm them several years from now when they finally run for office again. Many politicians assume that anything they do now won’t be an issue years down the road.

So, constituents have to hope against hope that their representatives actually listen to them instead of trying voting in ways that will get the politician accolades from his fellows in Congress. In most cases, the voters lose this battle.

Still, it is a very good point that Politico makes. If these southern senators and representatives vote in favor of the unions and the Democratic Party leadership, they will most certainly be voting against their own constituents. It is up to the folks back home to keep the pressure on their representatives in D.C. and hope against hope that they bother to listen.

Sadly, Democrats are rarely good at listening to mere voters.

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Obama is starting to feel a bit of pressure from members of the far left of his own party who are beginning to raise their eyebrows over the fact that he hasn’t shown any desire to institute any “change” thus far with his staff and cabinet picks even though they had “hope” that he would. Obama went so far as to address the situation today as MSNBC reported on its FirstRead blog.

Obama explains away his lack of “change” and his picking of a plethora of out-of-work Clintonites by saying that who he puts on his staff and cabinet don’t matter. It’s because he is the change we seek, you see? But, wait, you might ask. If the press were paying attention, they might remember that during his acceptance speech he said this whole thing wasn’t about him, it was about us? Wasn’t it that we were the change we were waiting for… right?

Is the press going to let him get away with dropping that hoary rhetoric only to say now it’s suddenly all about him? Would they let such arrogance, such a flip-flop, from a Republican pass so easily?

We might recall Obama’s supposed self-deprecation during his acceptance speech in front of the expensive, simulated Greek columns of Obamopolis at the end of the Democratic National Convention.

“But I stand before you tonight because all across America something is stirring. What the nay-sayers don’t understand is that this election has never been about me. It’s been about you.”

But, now all of a sudden it is all about him?

Well, it certainly looks like he’s changed his tune. It IS about him after all.

In response to criticism that he is departing from his promise to bring change to Washington because several members of his economic team were Beltway insiders, Barack Obama said today that his team would combine experience with fresh thinking and his own vision for change.

“Understand where the vision for change comes from, first and foremost,” he told reporters at his third press conference in as many days. “It comes from me. That’s my job, is to provide a vision in terms of where we are going, and to make sure, then, that my team is implementing.”

Of course, the reason he’s come out to say that it’s really all about him after all is to knock aside any charges that he is starting out as the junior member of the new Clinton era. He wants to assert that he is really in charge, of course.

But, this is a complete reversal of the “we are the ones” rhetoric he was mouthing only weeks ago. But, the “no it’s all about me” turn around does fit the arrogance of the non-existent “office of the president elect” conceit he’s indulged in, doesn’t it?

So far, though, the arrogance has been wholly unremarked upon by a pliant media.

Surprised, anyone?

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Time magazine wants so badly to make Obama into the next Abraham Lincoln — so noble that he’s willing to include political enemies in his cabinet — that they are willing to throw away any pretense at observing the candidate himself to make it happen. The latest risible effort by Karen Tumulty and Massimo Calabresi invokes the supposed “team of rivals” comparison as Barack Obama begins to formulate his cabinet. The Time writers base their entire point on the fact that Obama is probably offering the job of Secretary of State to Hillary Clinton, his rival for the Democratic nomination.

But, there are is a glaring error Time makes in its analysis. Obama is not picking Hillary because he is noble or looking to include a wider range of policy proscriptions in his cabinet, nor is he picking Hillary to heal party divisions. For one, he’s picking Hillary because Obama himself doesn’t know anyone that could take the office. In fact, that is the main reason he’s going back to the tarnished Clinton years to fill his staff and cabinet positions in the first place. Obama himself has nether the experience nor the network of knowledgeable associates to take those positions so he has no choice but to rely on the past. Secondly, he mistakenly imagines that he can control her merely because she is supposed to be at his pleasure.

Lincoln, on the other hand, faced a far different situation when he came to Washington. He forsook his Illinois associates because his nation was disintegrating into internecine warfare. Lincoln didn’t have the luxury of bringing his Illinois patronage army into Washington because he knew he didn’t have the time for he and they to get the feel of Washington. He had to face a developing war and needed the only party left in Washington four square on his side right away. Even at that he fought his own appointees sometimes bitterly.

Obama, on the other hand, is picking his staffers and cabinet members from the Clinton machine because he has no political machine at home, no long associations with anyone with experience and has none himself to gauge from amongst those he does know for who would have the capacity to take on any of the positions he has to fill.

Far from being a noble gesture, Obama’s falling back on the Clinton era proves his utter lack of experience and a complete dearth of a network of competent associates. It also shows that Joe Biden may have just lost his chance to be the go-to-guy on foreign policy. After all, it is hard to imagine Senator Clinton taking direction from the likes of Joe Biden.

Worse, it shows that he really must not have meant what he said about Hillary’s supposedly wrong headed ideas about foreign policy. Even Time notes that he and Hillary were at odds over foreign policy far more than any other issue. Of course it makes sense that Hillary might feel disposed to take on a position where her ideas on foreign policy might find the light of day, but why does it make sense that Obama would put her in that position seeing as how he felt her ideas were so wrong?

He has to know that Hillary disagreed with his policy proscriptions, right? How can Obama imagine she will allow him to subsume her cherished ideas and replace them all with his own? It seems more likely that Obama is willing to allow Hillary’s input on foreign policy – or else why pick her at all — and that, indeed, his own ideas are not as closely held as he made on during the election.

Instead of a “noble” gesture, this choice of Hillary for State seems born of Obama’s inexperience, his lack of a network of qualified associates, his short term on the national scene, and a lack of dedication to the policy claims he made on the campaign trail.

There is one more thing that Obama’s reliance on Clintonites shows. It shows that he isn’t too ready to usher in that “change” he was advertising. He’s not picked any “new” folks yet, has he?

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From the diaries by Erick

It is interesting to see how Democrats react to abuse of power and invasion of private personal information. The Democratic Party made President Bush a pariah over his supposed act of “domestic spying” when Bush was attempting to stop terror attacks against citizens of the U.S. They called him all manner of names, tyrant, despot, etc., etc., even though no Americans were being snooped on by the Bush administration. And just recently, Democrats tsked tsked Verizon Wireless when it came to light that Barack Obama’s old cell phone records were snooped into by Verizon employees.

But, did they say a word as agency after agency in Ohio illicitly snooped into Joe the Plumber’s records so that they could find dirt with which to attack him? Did the Democrats find anything wrong with agencies and employees from the government of the state of Ohio illegally prying into the private records of Samuel “Joe the plumber” Wurzelbacher? Not much they didn’t.

Where was the left’s indignation at the undue harassment by government officials against Joe?

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And it begins. President of the National Treasury Employees Union, one of the Federal government’s largest labor unions, has drawn up her demands for president-elect Obama to fulfill as payback for union support for his candidacy.

Colleen M. Kelly has announced her demands and two of them are quite controversial. The first, that the employees of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) get unionized, shows that unions want to be in a place to impede our national security. The second, the firing of all current members of the Federal Service Impasses Panel, shows that unions want to eliminate any oversight that might hinder union corruption and give them a freer hand to hide their own illegal activities.

Thus far, the Bush administration has succeeded in stopping the unionization of employees of the TSA and for good reason. Should the TSA be unionized, this would eliminate any possibility that the government could fire or even regulate the people that are supposed to be making sure our airlines are safe and free of terrorists. This would not only add another layer of distance between government (and therefore we the people) and its employees, but it would also make it harder to control the security of our airports. In fact, it would make it impossible for government to control the safety of our airports.

The second is even more obvious. If all current members of the FSI Panel are dumped and labor friendly shills put in their place, we will be handing unions a free pass to indulge in as much corruption as they wish to get away with. Currently the board as well as the Office of Labor Management Standards are a target for elimination by unions as these government groups monitor and punish unions for criminal behavior.

Obama took millions upon millions of dollars both in direct contributions as well as in campaign assistance from unions and unions expect payback for their generosity. But if Obama indulges them he will be proving that he is against security at our airports and soft on union criminals.

We’ll have to see what he does. But we will be watching.

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Senator Susan Collins, the lefty Republican from Maine, has crossed the aisle to vote for the Democrats’ bills and policies more than some Democrats have over the last 10 years. She is pro-abortion, pro-Cuba, pro-fetal stem cell research, anti-gun, ant-free trade… well, the list of things she is for and against seems to follow the Democrat’s path straight down the line richly earning her the title of RINO (Republican In Name Only). Because she is such a reliable Democrat friend one might think that the Democrat Party would be on her side in her 2008 re-election bid, or if not on her side, exactly, at least not too fired up to defeat her in her re-election bid, at least.

But, no. In fact, the Democrats lined up in ranks deep and long to attack her with some of them even going to her district to campaign against her. Even her colleagues in the Senate came to her state to try to defeat her, quite despite the fact that she voted their way at nearly every opportunity. And Collins is a bit upset by that fact, too.

Quite a few of her Senate colleagues campaigned to defeat their “friend” in that chamber during the 2008 campaign season. Among the Democrat Senators that campaigned against Collins were Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Jon Tester (D-Mont.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) even Democrat Whip Dick “Turban” Durbin (D-Ill.) attacked her.

That’s not much gratitude shown by Democrats for Collins’ efforts to cross over from her own party to vote their way so often, is it?

Well, according to The Hill, Collins herself is admitting she was hurt by the massive effort by her Senate “colleagues” to beat her.

Collins told colleagues at a small Senate prayer breakfast meeting last week that she still felt lingering resentment toward Democratic senators who campaigned against her in Maine.

She confessed that she had “trouble forgiving colleagues” who traveled to Maine and told voters she was “a Bush clone and called into question her ethics,” said a senator who attended the meeting.

Collins won her election with 61.5% of the vote and the efforts of the Democrats was wasted, fortunately for her.

But, here is the whole point. Why should a Republican so often cross that aisle? What will it get them? It certainly doesn’t get cooperation or gratitude from the left. In fact, it seems to get powerful forces lined up to defeat you. It also shows that Democrats do NOT want to work with their opposites. Their claims of being “bipartisan” is nothing but a lie.

Maybe Susan Collins will wise up from this experience?

If I know my RINOs, though, she won’t be.

(Photo credit: Washingtonpost.com)

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Democrats do not see the Constitution as a limit on their actions. In fact, Democrats don’t see any rules or laws as limits on what they think they can do. They imagine that they can do anything they want no matter what the law says. Democrats are essentially lawless creatures.

Further proof of this came this week in the Pittsburgh City Council during the debate on an unconstitutional gun bill the city was trying to institute. After the lopsided vote was over — with the anti-constitution side winning — Councilman Tonya Payne told everyone that would listen that she didn’t care about the U.S. Constitution.

“Who really cares about it being unconstitutional? This is what’s right to do, and if this means that we have to go out and have a court battle, then that’s fine.”

What more can be said? Democrats hate the Constitution, hate the law, and want to rule their constituents by fiat. This is a universal idea in Democrat circles across the country.

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Friday Ends Public Comment Phase

Friday marks the end of the allotted time for public comment about the EPA’s new carbon emissions regulations. If you want to tell them NO on their jobs killing, economy busting plans to stop non-existent global warming, go here:

http://stopEPA.com

… and send the EPA a message.

For more information, visit the Heritage Foundation website.

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Governor Palin is in demand. Every newshound, every TV talking head, every newsertainer in the country is after her. She is being pursued for TV shows, book deals, movie roles, hounded by photographers and every hanger on in both Hollywood and the newsertainment industry. But the Associated Press wants to be sure you understand one thing: she is a FAILURE! That’s right, in discussing Palin’s current celebrity, the main concern AP has is to make sure you know she is a big ol’ loser. The AP is so intent to remind you she lost that it has to tell you she lost over and over again. You know, just in case you were unaware she and McCain didn’t win the election.

So, did you know Sarah Palin lost the election? Here, let the AP remind you (My bold throughout)…

Oprah wants her, and so do Letterman and Leno. Fresh from her political defeat, Sarah Palin is juggling offers to write books, appear in films and sit on dozens of interview couches at a rate that would be astonishing for most Hollywood stars, let alone a first-term governor.

Gosh. Fresh from that defeat and all? Imagine.

But, wait. Not to be outdone by the first paragraph, the second paragraph goes one better. It starts OUT telling us she is a failure.

The failed Republican vice presidential candidate crunched state budget numbers this week in her 17th-floor office as tumbling oil prices hit Alaska’s revenues. Meanwhile, her staff fielded television requests seeking the 44-year-old Palin for late-night banter and Sunday morning Washington policy.

Now, the AP continues for a few paragraphs not mentioning her abject, ignoble failure, but just when you are lulled into a false sense that the AP wants to do anything other than constantly sling arrows Palin’s way comes the 7th paragraph with a helpful reminder that she is finished as an effective politician.

Palin may have emerged from the campaign politically wounded, with questions about her preparedness for higher office and reports of an expensive wardrobe, but she’s returned to Alaska with an expanded, if unofficial, title — international celebrity.

Wow, I wasn’t aware of all of that messy stuff about her, were you? Thank God the AP is here to enlighten us!

But wait, the AP wasn’t content just to mention those messy issues. A few paragraphs later the AP has to bring them up again and expand on them.

In her two months on the national stage, Palin energized the Republican base but turned off moderates and independents, according to some surveys. Flubbed answers in national television interviews raised questions about her competence. She was embarrassed by the disclosure the RNC spent at least $150,000 for designer clothing, accessories and beauty services for her and her family.

And, just when you thought that all the Palin smears were to come only from the AP, guess what? AP found an “expert” to bash her, too. I know, imagine that, right?

“She has to deal with the perception that she bobbled her debut,” said Claremont McKenna College political scientist John Pitney. “She needs to stay home for a while. If she wants a future in national politics, her No. 1 job is doing a good job as governor.”

In other words, Johnny wants Palin to shut up and stay in Alaska and above all not to try and keep her profile up!

But, not to be left behind by other bashers, the AP gets one last shot in. Palin is painted as a shirker.

Just this week, shortly after conducting a string of national TV interviews and skipping a state education conference, she was scolded by the Anchorage Daily News.

This “story” by the AP is twice as long as it needed to be because it is stuffed with needless harping on her “failures.” But this piece does reveal one thing quite clearly. The Associated Press simply cannot fathom why anyone would want to interview Governor Sarah Palin. Not only that, but with the constant reminders that she lost the election, the AP wishes to ingrain upon the reader that she is unworthy of the acclaim and celebrity that has come her way.

But, let me give the AP a few reasons that Sarah Palin might be worthy of the curiosity. She only excited the base of the largest part of a national political party that has held the reins of power on and off since 1980. She brought out thousands of excited voters at every appearance she made on the campaign trail. She thrilled and invigorated a party convention that was sure to have been moribund and boring.

Millions of votes, AP. THAT is why she deserves to at least be given a shot to be heard, a shot that you and your media cohorts did their level best to stifle.

So, AP, let me introduce you to Governor Sarah Palin.

(Photo credit: FoxNews.com)

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The Politico reported on November 22 that Time Magazine’s Mark Halperin scolded the media for it’s sycophantic treatment of Barack Obama during this election cycle calling the favorable treatment “the most disgusting failure” of the press he’s seen for years. “It was extreme bias, extreme pro-Obama coverage,” Halperin said at a Politico/USC conference held on Friday.

It’s all pretty amusing, though, to see Mark Helprin complain that his fellow journalists didn’t do a good job reporting on Obama’s record because back in March, NewsBusters reported on how Halperin himself was claiming that Obama represented a “centrist” politician despite the fact that Obama has the most liberal voting record in the Senate! What happened to being tough on The One then?

Halperin cited two specific instances of pro-Obama media bias seen in The New York Times.

“The example that I use, at the end of the campaign, was the two profiles that The New York Times ran of the potential first ladies,” Halperin said. “The story about Cindy McCain was vicious. It looked for every negative thing they could find about her and it case her in an extraordinarily negative light. It didn’t talk about her work, for instance, as a mother for her children, and they cherry-picked every negative thing that’s ever been written about her.”

The story about Michelle Obama, by contrast, was “like a front-page endorsement of what a great person Michelle Obama is,” according to Halperin.

A few of the other panelists disputed Halperin’s claims, but Politico reports that his media bias point “met with little resistance” for the most part.

OK, so the media realizes it went ga ga for Obama and won’t fight too hard when someone like Halperin mentions the patently obvious fact at a conference. But, here is the question: is the media just shrugging its shoulders at the fact? Or is it shamed and determined to correct its utter failure to report the truth in favor of promulgating a gauzy Obama mythos?

I would have to say the former because we are still getting absurd Obama’s-like-Lincoln or FDR or JFK stories all over the place. We are still getting daily reports on what that wonderful Michelle is wearing today. We are still seeing the media comment lovingly on the private schools that Obama’s kids are going to as it ignores the hypocrisy that as a candidate Obama claimed we needed to shore up our failing public schools.

Despite the fact that Halperin is disappointed with the Obama tanked media, and despite the fact that they all seem to accept that Halperin has a valid point, the realization that they failed to follow the basic precepts of journalism doesn’t seem to have deterred them one bit from continuing down that road.

Throw on top of the Obama sycophancy the continued bald-faced attacks against Governor Sarah Palin and we can see that the media isn’t just incidentally in the tank for Obama, but going out of its way to push Obama’s agenda as opposed to merely reporting the news.

In essence, to the charge of pro-Obama bias, the media is shrugging its collective shoulders and saying, “Yeah, well so what?” And we should all realize that the media has no intentions at all to mend its ways.

(Photo credit: The New York Times)

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As the Democratic caucus angles to pass the badly named Employee Free Choice Act, a law that will actually take away the choice of a secret ballot for millions of America’s workers, we get one more example of how Democrats in Congress allocate things for themselves that they refuse to allow others to enjoy.

In the nasty infighting between Henry Waxman (D., Calif.) and John Dingell (D., Mich.) over the chairmanship of the Energy and Commerce committee in the House of Representatives, a secret ballot was held of the members of the House after which, Waxman came out the victor.

So, we have Dingell, a Democrat that shilled for the auto industry and unions as they destroyed their own profitability, and we end up with Waxman, a shill for the enviro-wacko lobby that will destroy the auto industry the rest of the way with unnecessary and idiotic “green” initiatives.

Worse to worser, of course, but notice how they settled who would become the new chairman? They used a secret ballot. And it’s the secret ballot that the EFCA will eliminate for prospective union members.

So, the politicos in the House of Reps find the secret ballot important for themselves, yet they are rearing to take away such a right for America’s workers?

Hypocrites.

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“Gubbmint isn’t the solution,” Ronald Reagan famously said. “Gubbmint is the problem!” Well, until Al Gore invented our wonderful Internet world, there were darn few ways we common citizens could highlight just what the “problem” of government was. But, happily, we bloggers have become the modern version of our Founders plying the pamphleteer’s trade. Now, via the incredible world of blogging, we can spy a government abuse and cast the harsh light of public scrutiny upon it. And we can do it in the blink of an eye. All we need is our computers and a little Internet access.

But, now gubbmint is trying to find ways to make it harder for us to highlight their evil, wasteful, illegal ways. For now comes the Democrat Party of the State of Washington trying to reinvent bloggers as “lobbyists” so that we can be regulated out of existence.

Or, if they don’t exactly want bloggers regulated out of existence, Democrats at least want to put bloggers in such a position that there are fewer of them because of gubbmint’s onerous regulations.

The Seattle Times is reporting that Washington state regulators are considering just that question. Are blogger “lobbyists”? Of course, the answer is no, no, a thousand times no. Even if we make money with our blogs, it does not amount to “lobbying.”

But, beware, fellow bloggers. Whenever gubbmint eyes something, it is rarely long before it gets its grubby hands fully around it.

So, get ready to have gubbmint pry into your personal finances just so you might have the “privilege” of being “allowed” to blog about politics.

Or, you could just blog about sports, or movies. Just forget about all that gubbmint business. What is it of yours, anyway? Let the smarter, better, more refined folks in gubbmint take care of all that. Don’t worry your little heads about it.

So says Big Brother. So shall it be.

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Ya gotta hand it to them. The Associated Press knows how to cut out all the extraneous background noise and get right to the important issues of the day. Barack Obama will surely be in the center of the vortex of some of the most important decisions in the world during the next four years and even his preparations for taking office are vitally important as a marker to what he might do in office. There are wars and rumors of wars, disasters and relief efforts and historic decisions will soon be made. But no decision is so important, as the AP dutifully tells us, than the one of what the president elect had for lunch. The shocking, heartwarming and resolute decision the leader of the free world… no the leader of all mankind… made for his lunch was apparently a corned beef sandwich.

Darfur still swirls with genocide, Iran is still making plans to destroy Israel, China is on pace to build the largest most dangerous army on Earth, the European Union still angles to lay America low, but all that pales in comparison to the important report the AP could muster (no, not mustard). Yes, the AP brings us the most salient story of our day: “Obama grabs lunch at local deli, greets patrons.”

I laughed with the heartwarming tale of Obama’s corned beef. I cried with relief to know he eats sandwiches just like me. I cheered to find out he had a cherry pie. I swooned to discover that he told a restaurant patron, “I love you back” when they offered him a salutation. I worried that Obama felt he “aged a little bit” during the hard, hard task of campaigning over the last four years. Yet was happily buoyed when the resilient messiah said that he’s “doing great.” Finally I was reassured when it was revealed in this important AP report that he exercised at a gym on Friday. And through it all I felt curiously hungry.

Yes, the AP hit all the news that we want to hear. All the details that are most important were covered. Even more revealing was his humanity so graciously on display. Not only did we get Obama’s menu but we thrilled to the fact that Chief of Staff Emmanuel AND Valerie Jarrett were fortunate to find that The One was enough of a regular guy to order sandwiches for them, too. This man, a leader of men yet still just like you and me, sends a thrill up my leg. Doesn’t he yours?

Yes, with this hard hitting and engrossing lunch report in evidence, I dare anyone to ever again say that the Associated Press is mired in hero worship or has degraded into the written word equivalent of Entertainment Tonight. After these behind the scenes revelations I double dog dare you to say that the AP is no better than the National Enquirer!

No, it’s now patently obvious that the AP is the most serious player on the media scene ever. After all, if we don’t know what BO has for lunch, HOW can we assess his presidency? How can we mere citizens feel connected to the exalted one without the knowledge of the contents of his noon meal?

Yes, folks, there is peace in our times. Now, if only we can get our enemies to just have a sit down, a little corned beef, a nice slice of cherry pie, a chance to tell The One that they love him too… how could we possibly have any more trouble in the world?

Thank you Associated Press for this indispensable report. I don’t know about you all, but now I can go to bed and rest easy with this knowledge.

(Photo credit: kazanskysdeli.com)

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Yahoo News featured an interesting short report issued by Agence France-Presse on November 20. In it we discover that a consortium of French, German and Hungarian mathematicians are claiming to have proven that Einstein’s famous equation, e=mc2, is correct. The report is all good except for one very small aspect. They call the effort of these mathematicians “heroic” in contradiction to the root meaning of the word. Mathematics isn’t “heroic” and it is a degradation of true heroics to say it is.

Unfortunately, while a small thing too casually used in the AFP report, it proves a sort of degradation of our language. Not only that, but it further devalues real heroism, making the word mean less with each garbled usage.

Here is how AFP used the word:

It’s taken more than a century, but Einstein’s celebrated formula e=mc2 has finally been corroborated, thanks to a heroic computational effort by French, German and Hungarian physicists.

So, what was “heroic” about this effort? Did these mathematicians find that they were being murdered for their efforts? Where they herded into cattle trucks and sent to their deaths for having made the effort to prove the Einsteinian theory? Was there discrimination or oppression as a result? Were their families at risk because of their important work? Or, on the other hand, did their “heroic” efforts save many lives? Did their figuring save even one?

No is the answer to all of those questions.

Even in using the word at its cheapest meaning (a great effort), it is still meant to imply a monumental overcoming of obstacles at self-peril. But, seriously, is this effort a “heroic” act?

It many be monumental, it may have been difficult, it may even have far reaching effect, but “heroic” it isn’t.

A soldier putting his life on the line, that’s heroic. A fireman entering a burning building to save a child, that’s heroic. Medical missionaries in third world nations risking their own safety and health to save the lives of people that have no access to modern medicine is even heroic.

Applying the word hero to greater and greater groups of people, though, degrades real heroism. It dilutes the word until even doing one’s job can become “heroic.” Politicians, movie stars, sports stars even average Moms and Dads doing their jobs, while all good things, does not rise to the level of heroics. No football player is a “hero” just because he runs around a stadium like a 12-year-old. And neither are mathematicians.

We must not make the word hero into one defined by efforts so common place that just anything applies. Unfortunately, the cultural left is very prone to this sort of moral equivalence and the media loves to over dramatize everything to heighten the emotional level of the tale but we should resist it, nonetheless.

Like I said, this is a small issue, but one that reflects a sad degradation of our society. When there are no heroes, there is no inspiration. Where there is no inspiration, we find little being valued. Everything becomes morally equivalent, nothing is special, better, or worth striving for.

There is a popular saying that holds that “words mean things” and it is a good rule of thumb to observe. Words do mean things. In an age where cynicism has taken a toll on our national character cheapening many of our most cherished beliefs, let’s not cheapen this one. If everyone is a hero, no one will be as the word will cease to have a distinction. And our society will suffer all the more for it.

(Image credit: pbs.org)

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