Archive for September, 2009
Surprise! New York Time’s Kidnapped Journalist A Moron Who Cost A Soldier And Friend Their Lives–UPDATED
Thursday, September 10th, 2009The paper of record will probably not report the flaming ignorance of their own reporter, Stephen Farrell, but the British press is less inclined to cover for him. Remember the NYT reporter who got abducted and subsequently rescued? Remember how good the NYT was with keeping that secret, you know a secret that mattered when lives were at stake?
A soldier lost his life to save this, what’s the Van Jones word?, that’s right, a**hole. Here’s what happened:
Afghan police and intelligence officers repeatedly warned journalists including Mr Farrell that it was too dangerous to go to the site. Kunduz is a notorious Taliban northern stronghold and was one of the last holdouts of the regime when it was toppled in 2001.
While Mr Farrell, who was kidnapped in iraq five years ago, and Mr Munadi were interviewing Afghans near the site of the bombing an elderly man warned them to leave as the Taliban were on their way.
But they stayed and shortly afterwards gunshots rang out and they were taken into captivity. Mr Munadi was working as a freelance during a break from his university studies in Germany.
The dramatic rescue operation came in the early hours of Wednesday when a troop of Special Boat Service commandos supported by a company from the Special Forces Support Group left an American base in US helicopters. But the young British soldier died in the battle to the distress of his commanders.One senior Army source said: “When you look at the number of warnings this person had it makes you really wonder whether he was worth rescuing, whether it was worth the cost of a soldier’s life. In the future special forces might think twice in a similar situation.”
Another military source said: “This reporter went to this area against the advice of the Afghan police. So thanks very much Stephen Farrell, your irresponsible act has led to the death of one of our boys.”
Was his life saving? No. He knew the risks in his job. No doubt, his friends and family members are relieved to have him back in one piece. But there are other people, a British soldier, his interpreter, a woman and a child now dead because he ignored the advice of those who knew better.
And the New York Times? The paper couldn’t be bother with Van Jones or John Edwards, or, most of all, their own idiot reporter.
UPDATED:
The reporter a Brit, tells his story. He concludes:
It was over. Sultan was dead. He had died trying to help me, right up to the very last seconds of his life.
There were some celebrations among the mainly British soldiers on the aircraft home, which soon fell silent. It later emerged that one of the rescue party was also dead, mortally wounded during the raid. His blood-soaked helmet was in front of me throughout the flight. I thanked everyone who was still alive to thank. It wasn’t, and never will be, enough.
The soldier’s name. What is his name? At this point, the reporter’s “ordeal” means little. The man who died for him does.
If NYT … WSJ, CNN, Fox, assorted freelancers, the lot of them … stopped taking risks, we would have very little information about what happens in bad places. I don’t believe that most of them do it lightly, though I’ve known a few who do it irresponsibly and have been lucky they didn’t end up in this situation. A lot of them now have considerable time incountry, experience with these issues, and receive professional training and advice. A lot of them have also died, been injured, or spent time in captivity. It often comes down to judgment calls about what level of risk to take. Here’s an easy call to make in the aftermath: It looks like Farrell made a bad one. Harder to say about the military, which also had the option of standing off and exercised its own judgment in the moment.
I guess what makes me so angry is the way the newspapers so easily trash the very same who would save their sorry hides. The military is treated with contempt by the Western media. As a citizen (recognizing that all parties involved were British), I don’t feel inclined using vast resources and potentially putting solider in harms way for a risk-taking fool who works for an organization working in opposition to their own country’s interests.
The newspapers have no trouble putting soldiers in harms way with irresponsible reporting–remember the flushed Koran? How many false stories have put American and allied soldiers at risk? And now, a soldier’s family must live with the idea that their son, brother, father died for an agent who often indirectly colluded with the enemy.
I’m upset at the gross injustice in this. Over at Jawa, the reporter is described as a “self-indulgent asshole”. That’s being kind.
Barack Obama Speechifying Fail: Dan Riehl And John Hawkins Discuss The President’s Speech & The Republicans
Thursday, September 10th, 2009Was the President’s address a win? In the short term, just like Bill Clinton, yes. Did Bill Clinton get health care reform passed? Don’t think so. The speech, like most Obama soliloquies was rife with Strawmen. Neo Neocon knocks ‘em down.
Do Americans want a mandate to get insurance? We’ll see.
Was Joe Wilson right calling the President a “liar” over illegal aliens will be covered? Yes he was. That is, illegal aliens will most certainly be covered under this plan. That wasn’t the only set of lies. There were many. And, surprise! The AP has a list.
So, the blogger round-table and I talk about all this and what it means. Will health care legislation pass? Prediction: Yes, but it will not be a law that anyone will likes and will make everything worse.
To subscribe on iTunes, just click here!
The Failed Logic of the NRSC
Wednesday, September 9th, 2009For a couple election cycles, Republicans have clearly believed “the more moderate the better”. The result has been that the American people have had two versions of Democrats to choose from–the middle left and the hard left.
Forget social issues for a moment. Just think of something that affects us all: Money. When it comes to taxing and spending, both middle of the roaders and leftists believe in taxing and spending. It’s just a matter of degrees.
On social issues, Americans are more moderate than the extremes of either party. As someone who is ardently anti-abortion, but for common-sense solutions like a morning after pill, my advice to the Republicans is to look at what matters to Americans most: It’s the economy, stupid. It’s lower taxes. It’s less intrusion. It’s less debt. It’s nicer rhetoric.
But the Senate Republicans don’t get it. They have had the equation exactly backwards. The sound like crusty old, intractable throw-backs while having the soft mushy middle-left Democrat core. It’s the worst of all worlds. Erick Erickson says:
More troubling, I’m troubled by reports from too many people to count that Rob Jesmer, the Executive Director of the NRSC, is aggressively pushing a new campaign theory — moderates will win and conservatives will lose. In fact, I’m told he has been rather blunt in a few small groups that the GOP needs to reject conservative candidates in favor of moderate candidates.
Because of the moderate Republican senators we currently have, the GOP is in a very precarious place. We do not need more of them and the NRSC equation is fundamentally flawed.
The NRSC saw Chuck Schumer find candidates to the left of the Democrats and the NRSC now thinks it should replicate that success by finding candidates to the left of the GOP. We are now being left with NRSC recruits to the left of the recruits Chuck Schumer got. And that is too far left.
But this tactic will ultimately do a disservice to the American people. Americans, for some time now, have had no representatives willing to cut back their power, i.e. taxpayer money. They used to look to Republicans to be the party of fiscal responsibility. But they’ve lost that competitive advantage. These days, the only thing Republicans can say is “we’re not as bad as them”. And that’s saying something,…just not enough.
More moderates means less of what Americans want. America is still a center-right country, as Barack Obama is finding out. Why would the Republican party tack left? I don’t see how this is good for the GOP or for America.
Sarah Palin: Barack Obama’s Nemesis
Wednesday, September 9th, 2009The press alternately calls Sarah Palin stupid or irrelevant. However, both in political instinct and policy substance, it’s clear that she is neither.
Today, her Op-Ed appears in the Wall Street Journal. It’s good. Cogent, clear, and well-written. She’s got a ghost-writer, say lib operatives. Let’s hope! Does Barack Obama write all his own stuff? Surely, libs jest. His college thesis can’t even be found. Why would anyone quibble that Sarah Palin would have a ghost writer? Probably because she makes sense:
Instead of poll-driven “solutions,” let’s talk about real health-care reform: market-oriented, patient-centered, and result-driven. As the Cato Institute’s Michael Cannon and others have argued, such policies include giving all individuals the same tax benefits received by those who get coverage through their employers; providing Medicare recipients with vouchers that allow them to purchase their own coverage; reforming tort laws to potentially save billions each year in wasteful spending; and changing costly state regulations to allow people to buy insurance across state lines. Rather than another top-down government plan, let’s give Americans control over their own health care.
Democrats have never seriously considered such ideas, instead rushing through their own controversial proposals. After all, they don’t need Republicans to sign on: Democrats control the House, the Senate and the presidency. But if passed, the Democrats’ proposals will significantly alter a large sector of our economy. They will not improve our health care. They will not save us money. And, despite what the president says, they will not “provide more stability and security to every American.”
Liberals also object to the timing of the piece. Geoffery Dunn in Huffington Post says today, “Yes, the latter continues her unyielding obsession with Barack Obama by trying to upstage his healthcare address to the nation today…”
In politics, timing is everything. Sarah Palin knows good timing. The President gives his big address today. And the press is not likely to pay attention to the Republican rebuttal. And Republicans still seem loath to take the fight to the president en masse lest they appear to be “obstructionist”. Even trying to work across the aisle, Republican are labeled such, anyway. And it’s no matter, their votes won’t affect the outcome one way or another–super majorities and all that. But Sarah Palin can help fight rhetorically and the best time to fight is when the opposition is on the battlefield. Today, everyone is paying attention. Today is a good time to fight. Liberals just hate being out-maneuvered.
And then, there’s the actual substance of Palin’s opinion piece. She makes sense. She continues to give voice to the “sick and elderly” and their very real concerns with government run health care. She is not backing down. She continues to point out the obvious: it will increase the debt.
The real problem Democrats have with Sarah Palin is that she accepts the President’s challenges where others cower. She isn’t going away. And when she does argue the points, she times her arguments for impact.
Sarah Palin is Barack Obama’s nemesis. He needs one.
Forced Abortions: Majority Of American Women Feel Coerced To Abort
Tuesday, September 8th, 2009Many women experience pressure, abuse, and coercion when faced with a surprise pregnancy. This is bearing out with research reported by LifeNews:
Elliot Institute director David Reardon, co-authored a Medical Science Monitor study of American and Russian women with the 64 percent figure.
His new report, Forced Abortion in America, documents cases of violence against women who refused to have an abortion.
It also highlights cases like the one in Maine, which saw a couple charged with abducting their pregnant daughter in an attempt to force her to have an abortion, and another in Georgia, where a woman forced her pregnant daughter to drink turpentine to cause an abortion.
Reardon says the cases are just part of an epidemic of coerced and forced abortions in the U.S.
Reardon said that cases of women being pressured, threatened, or subjected to violence if they refuse to abort are not unusual.
He pointed out that studies have shown that homicide is the leading killer of pregnant women in the U.S. and that women in abusive relationships are at risk for increased violence during pregnancy.
“In many of the cases documented for our ‘Forced Abortion in America’ report, police and witnesses reported that acts of violence and murder took place after the woman refused to abort or because the attacker didn’t want the pregnancy,” he said in a statement LifeNews.com received.
“Even if a woman isn’t physically threatened, she often faces intense pressure, abandonment, lack of support, or emotional blackmail if she doesn’t abort. While abortion is often described as a ‘choice,’ women who’ve been there tell a very different story,” he added.
It has been the rare woman in my practice who sought the abortion and feels no guilt years later. Most women were either pressured to abort or chose the abortion and feel guilt later and remorse later. It is the rare woman who truly “chose”. It is a rarer woman who has no regret over her choice.
About That Bush I Education Speech
Tuesday, September 8th, 2009Byron York points out that the Democrats investigated George HW Bush’s speech. This is delicious:
Unlike the Obama speech, in 1991 most of the controversy came after, not before, the president’s school appearance. The day after Bush spoke, the Washington Post published a front-page story suggesting the speech was carefully staged for the president’s political benefit. “The White House turned a Northwest Washington junior high classroom into a television studio and its students into props,” the Post reported.
With the Post article in hand, Democrats pounced. “The Department of Education should not be producing paid political advertising for the president, it should be helping us to produce smarter students,” said Richard Gephardt, then the House Majority Leader. “And the president should be doing more about education than saying, ‘Lights, camera, action.’”
And as Lorie Byrd pointed out President Obama invoked God. He said “God Bless America” at the end of the speech. Um hello, atheists. That’s just wrong, right? That blending of church and state. It’s almost like church IN school. /sarcasm
Democrats didn’t like using the Presidential platform to reach into the classroom, but now, it’s a-ok.
Are We Witnessing The Decline And Fall Of The American Non-Empire?
Tuesday, September 8th, 2009America, as Bill Whittle so eloquently pointed out, is not, and never has been an Empire builder. Still, America has been a world-power since almost her inception over 200 years ago. Is it over?
Today, we learn that America lost to the Swiss as the world’s most competitive economy.
Consider, too, MaxedOutMama‘s take on unemployment (read the whole thing):
At this point one must interpret a bit. One could, if one were to be polemical, argue that the self-employed worker expansion means that the economy is improving so much that contracting jobs are easier to get and highly lucrative. However, I find that completely implausible in view of the massive drop in wage and salary employment, which has never in our experience been a sign of an improving economy. If wage and salary employment were stabilizing, one might indeed expect to see casual contracting picking up, and indeed, at some point this will happen. Companies are extremely loathe to hire in first stages of economic recoveries.
Instead, what I think we are seeing is the first group of long-term unemployed who are losing unemployment benefits and scratching a living. You only have to be employed one hour of one day of the reference week in order to be classified as employed.
A further comment about the government employment – because of the steadiness of government entities, these numbers are generally pretty reliable in both surveys. It is, however, a rather large drop in view of expanded federal employment, especially the census workers, and likely indicates the depth of the state and local combined tax/retirement problem. The combined impact will only increase for years to come.
So, I wonder what you think. Is America going through a downward cycle or is the downward economic trend spelling doom? Is America declining and diminishing, never to rise again? As a cultural, economic, political and military influence, is America over?
President Obama’s Speech, Rules For Conservative Radicals And More…..Podcast 37
Sunday, September 6th, 2009Are the press, the mainstream media, now the alternate media? Lorie Byrd thinks the media ain’t mainstream anymore. She says:
Something happened last week that underscored this phenomenon. News outlets like the New York Times and NBC and ABC evening newscasts refused to cover the revelations surrounding President Obama’s “green jobs” czar, Van Jones. When those revelations of Jones signing a 911 “Truther” petition, calling Republicans a—holes and claiming white polluters were poisoning black communities reached the point that Jones was forced to resign, some of those news outlets had to cover the resignation. What should cause them embarrassment and damage any shred of credibility they have left as reliable news sources is that many of them had neglected to inform their audiences of any of the events leading up to the resignation.
As Andrew Breitbart put it, “For most people in this country, the resignation was the first they had heard of Van Jones. For this sin of journalistic omission, there’s institutional media blame. Bias is too tame a word for the utter shamelessness on display: Only Republican scandals – real and imagined – matter.”
Please read the whole thing. Lorie joined me to discuss thoughts on Obama speaking to the little children. Both Lorie and I are political writers and bloggers and mothers. We, along with Michelle Malkin, are a rare breed. There are few women political bloggers. There are fewer still who have school age children. Much of what I’ve read and heard people say even on the Right regarding the President’s speech has sounded theoretical. Lorie brings the “real” on this topic.
We also talk about Obama’s cult of personality and the press’ collusion with his policy objectives. Van Jones becomes exhibit “A”. We then play an imagination game of sorts. As in, imagine a conservative had said that “black people are out to poison white people” or some iteration thereof.
Then, I had Michael P. Leahy on to talk about his new book RULES FOR CONSERVATIVE RADICALS
Finally, we end with some behind-the-scenes fun. It’s always a fight to pick music and Twitter participants helped decide the “angry hippie” music we used–spirit of the times and all that.
Special thanks to @MelissaMoore who did this weeks coverart.
To subscribe on iTunes, just click here!
When Melissa isn’t on the radio, you can find her at melissaclouthier.com and on Twitter. Her username is MelissaTweets.
MoveOn Peace Loving Vegan Bites Off Finger Of Right Wing Terrorist
Thursday, September 3rd, 2009So I’m making up the vegan part.
Gateway Pundit reports the whole bloody mess. This probably shouldn’t make me laugh, but how much do you want to bet that the MoveOn.org activist is a hippie vegan? He probably wouldn’t eat meat. But human fingers? Yum!
Moe Lane says it’s the zombies:
The Moveon.org zombie apparently then left. At a walk. And none of his Moveon.org colleagues stopped him. And then they themselves later walked through the crime scene.
Again: wait, what?
Dude. That’s messed up.
Podcast: The President, Little People, The Press, Levi’s Palin Penis Johnson
Thursday, September 3rd, 2009
Stephen Green joins me to discuss the Obama-Education talk controversy. He takes on AllahPundit with wit and style. [I would have asked AllahPundit to be on the show had I thought the man would come out of hiding.] We talk about Obama’s cult of personality. We also discuss The Moment President Obama’s presidency went off the rails.
Brandon Vidrine also joins me to discuss the evolution of news online and the new tools to keep people informed.
Finally, Levi Johnson’s …johnson. Sorry, couldn’t help it. I talk about the press’s Levi-erotica. It ain’t pretty. And then, there’s the Cougars. Growl….
To subscribe on iTunes, just click here!
When Melissa isn’t on the radio, you can find her at melissaclouthier.com and on Twitter. Her username is MelissaTweets.
– Also, don’t forget to check out our other shows on Take That! –
*** click here to grab the latest Out in Right Field show ***
