MSNBC

Rachel Maddow Defending Obama by Rewriting History

Published by Papa Giorgio

Via NewsBusters:

As Stanley Kurtz writes in “Radical-In-Chief: Barack Obama and the Untold Story of American Socialism” (2010) —

Barack Obama and Bill Ayers — that famously unrepentant revolutionary terrorist of the sixties — were longstanding political partners. For eight years, Ayers and Obama worked together at two leftist Chicago foundations. Obama praised Ayers’s writings and funneled major financial support to the projects of Ayers and his radical allies. Ayers helped launch Obama’s political career and joined with the future president in the battle over an Illinois juvenile crime bill. Ayers played an important role in elevating Obama to the position of board chairman of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, an educational foundation Ayers himself helped create. Evidence suggests that Obama was responsible for bringing Ayers onto the board of the Woods Fund of Chicago, where the two worked together to increase funding for radical community organizations, including ACORN and the Midwest Academy. Evidence also suggests that despite official denials the Obama-Ayers connection long predates 1995, when the Obama camp claims it began.

The significance of 1995? That’s when Ayers co-founded the six-year, $160 million Chicago Annenberg Challenge — with Obama as its first board chairman — not that they had anything to do with one another. Later that year, Obama launched his campaign for Illinois state senate in the Hyde Park home of Ayers and his wife, fellow ex-Weather Underground terrorist Bernadine Dohrn. Which again should not be interpreted as evidence that Ayers had anything to do with Obama, who could have launched his political career in any number of Chicago living rooms.

Obama’s years of collaboration with Ayers, which mysteriously occurred without the two men ever conversing, became problematic for the ambitious Illinois pol due to a deeply unfortunate coincidence — a story about Ayers touting his new book, “Fugitive Days” and the glories of bomb-throwing in the New York Times … with the story running on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001.

The piece, under the headline “No Regrets for a Love of Explosives,” began with this memorable quote from Ayers: “I don’t regret setting bombs — I regret we didn’t do enough.” A sentiment surely shared by Osama bin Laden to his dying day.

“I can’t quite imagine putting a bomb in a building today — all of that seems so distinctly a part of then,” Ayers writes in “Fugitive Days” (page 295). “But I can’t imagine entirely dismissing the possibility, either.” The book was published in 2001, the same year Obama and Ayers served together on the Woods Fund Board while magically having nothing whatsoever to do with one another.

What is worse than the above “Madcow” saying Ayers didn’t know Obama is the fact that Ayers was Obama’s ghost writer:

This is from an older post Via Gateway Pundit:

American Thinker has the story,

Google, which sits atop more data than anybody outside the NSA, is presenting Bill Ayers as the author of Barack Obama’s purported first autobiography, Dreams from My Father. Follow this link (below) and see it while you can. If it is gone by the time you read this, a screen shot of the page, and a close-up on the Dreams entry are provided for posterity.

Google knows so much about us already that privacy activists are alarmed. What data are its algorithms sifting through to come to the conclusion that yes, the stylistic parallels to Ayers’ other books are formidable and Barry never showed any sign of an ability to write this way before or after, and yes, Christopher Anderson’s friendly biography includes the information that Obama found himself deeply in debt and “hopelessly blocked.” At “Michelle’s urging,” Obama “sought advice from his friend and Hyde Park neighbor Bill Ayers.”

…read more…

What does WIKI say?

Bill Ayers – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Ayers

William Charles “Bill” Ayers (born December 26, 1944) is an American elementary education theorist and a former leader in the movement that opposed U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. He is known for his 1960s activism as well as his …

And a Google book search? All results for bill ayers »

  1. Fugitive Days: A Memoir
  2. Fugitive Days: Memoirs of an Antiwar Activist
  3. To teach: the journey, in comics
  4. Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance
  5. Race course against white supremacy
  6. Teaching the personal and the political: essays on hope and justice
  7. Sing a Battle Song: The Revolutionary Poetry, Statements, and …
  8. A Kind and Just Parent: The Children of Juvenile Court – Page 208
  9. Teaching toward freedom: moral commitment and ethical action in … – Page 172

And one last piece of information showing Ayers and Obama are close… a book appearance by Ayers had this flyer via Gateway Pundit:

A recent Baltimore book store—Red Emma’s— announced an appearance event byBill Ayers promoting his recent book “Public Enemy,” the Red Emma’s book store post states the following:

“Ayers reveals how he has navigated the challenges and triumphs of this public life with steadfastness and a dash of good humor — from the red carpet at the Oscars, to prison vigils and airports (where he is often detained and where he finally“confesses” that he did write Dreams from My Father)”

Well, Maddow does say her politics are to the Left of Mao… so should we be surprised if she uses propaganda? Who believes her anymore?

Fox News — Democrats Fav of Big 3 (plus: Drudge Report Leans Left)

Published by Papa Giorgio

I was in a conversation with a younger person when they said that Fox News was biased. I mentioned that when you remove the “opinion pages” from Fox, they are slightly biased to the right… as much as CNN (once their “opinion pages” are removed) is biased to the left.

No kidding, twice they mentioned Sean Hannity, and I pointed out these were the opinion pages… then they f-i-n-a-l-l-y started tracking with me. I then mentioned that what they said is like someone coming up to me and telling me “the New York Times opinion pages lean left.” Or, “the Wall Street journal opinion pages lean right.” …

Bias - CBS NBC MSNBC FOX Media

Fox News: Enraging Liberals for 10 Years (L.A. Times):

….What explains all this hysteria? Success, of course.

The propaganda charge is unfair, at least when it comes to the network’s presentation of news. In the 2004 presidential race, Fox pollsters consistently underestimated President Bush’s support. In its final preelection poll, Fox had Kerry winning by a couple of points, one of the only polls to show the Democrat on top. I’m not sure a right-wing fifth column would do that.

A recent comprehensive study by UCLA political scientist Tim Groseclose and University of Missouri-Columbia economics professor Jeffrey Milyo found Brit Hume’s “Special Report” — Fox’s most straightforward news show — more centrist than any of the three major networks’ evening newscasts, all of which leaned left.

The program is a model of smart news television….

Book: Liberal Media Distorts News Bias: Drudge, Fox look more conservative against mainstream’s liberal bent (US News and World Report):

…In a crushing body blow to the pushers of the so-called “Fox Effect,” which claims the conservative media is dragging the left into the center, UCLA political science professor Tim Groseclose in Left Turn claims that “all” mainstream news outlets have a liberal bias in their reporting that makes even moderate organizations appear out of the mainstream and decidedly right-wing to news consumers who are influenced by the slant. [Read Fox’s Huckabee slams MSNBC’s Matthews, Scarborough over bias.]

“Fox News is clearly more conservative than ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC and National Public Radio. Some will conclude that ‘therefore, this means that Fox News has a conservative bias,'” he writes in an advance copy provided to Washington Whispers. “Instead, maybe it is centrist, and possibly even left-leaning, while all the others are far left. It’s like concluding that six-three is short just because it is short compared to professional basketball players.”

What’s more, he says, “this point illustrates a common misconception about the Drudge Report. According to my analysis, the Drudge Report is approximately the most fair, balanced, and centrist news outlet in the United States. Yet, the overwhelming majority of media commentators claim that it has a conservative bias. The problem, I believe, is that such commentators mistake relative bias for absolute bias. Yes, the Drudge Report is more conservative than the average U.S. news outlet. But it is a logical mistake to use that to infer that it is based on an absolute scale.”

And in further analysis sure to enrage critics of conservative media, Groseclose determines that Drudge, on a conservative to liberal scale of 0-100, with 50 being centrist, actually leans a bit left of center with a score of 60.4. The reason: Drudge mostly links to the sites of the mainstream media, with just a few written by Matt Drudge himself. “Since these links come from a broad mix of media outlets, and since the news in general is left-leaning, it should not be surprising that the slant quotient of the Drudge Report leans left,” he writes. [Read Poll: Fox, O’Reilly most trusted news sources.]…

Video Description:

UCLA Professor Tim Grosclose has a new book out Left Turn: How Liberal Media Bias Distorts the American Mind. In his book, he outlines what conservatives have known for years, that the mainstream media has turned more and more leftist which in turn promulgates, influences, rewords, redefines, and imposes leftist doctrine.

From the book:

Using objective, social-scientific methods, the filtering prevents us from seeing the world as it actually is. Instead, we see only a distorted version of it. It is as if we see the world through a glass—a glass that magnifies the facts that liberals want us to see and shrinks the facts that conservatives want us to see….

That bias makes us more liberal, which makes us less able to detect the bias, which allows the media to get away with more bias, which makes us even more liberal.

At the 2:37 mark of the above video, there is a distinction made between news versus opinion shows on Fox. When I defend the “fair-and-balanced” aspect of Fox News it is the equal number of left/right guests on shows dealing more with raw news. Here is a Pew Study that makes the same point:

Pew Study Finds MSNBC the Most Opinionated Cable News Channel By Far

A full 85% of the Comcast-owned network’s coverage can be classified as opinion or commentary rather than straight news, according to the authors of the Pew Research Center’s annual State of the News Media report.

CNN and Fox News Channel, meanwhile, fall much closer to a 50/50 distribution, with Fox News skewing somewhat more heavily toward opinion. Here are the breakdowns

Fox News CNN FAir

When professor Groseclose and other people rate and discuss the left/right bias… they are looking at the news reporting — NOT shows like Sean Hannity. And this fairness is why more Democrats trust Fox News than other cable networks.

Most Americans perceive partiality in the news media and more believe Fox News is the most trusted for accurate reporting among the major television news organizations, according to a recent poll by the Robert Morris University Polling Institute.

Fox CNN MSNBC Democrats Republicans

The poll surveyed 1,004 people nationwide with proportional contributions from each state via an online survey held May 6-13. Of those surveyed, 31.8 percent identified themselves as Democrats and 25.7 percent as Republicans.

When asked which television news stations they considered biased, 37.1 percent said MSNBC and 36.6 percent said CNN. Fox News was first with 47.8 percent.

However, Fox News was also considered the most honest network: 18.4 percent of respondents said it was the most trustworthy. MSNBC was the least-trusted network, clocking in at 4.4 percent, and CNN was declared trustworthy by 14.1 percent of respondents….

  • Robert Morris University Polling Institute Powered by Trib Total Media (2014)

According to a recent poll, likely voters get their political news primarily from cable television. Among cable channels, 42 percent, a plurality, watch Fox News for its political coverage. Only 12 percent said they watched MSNBC. What’s more, most likely voters don’t like or have never heard of MSNBC’s prime time talent.

The poll, conducted by Politico and George Washington University, used a sample split evenly between political parties – even slightly favoring Democrats in some areas: 41 percent of respondents identified as Republicans, while 42 percent said they were Democrats. Forty-four percent said they usually vote for Republicans, while 46 percent answered Democrats. Forty-eight percent voted for Obama, while only 45 percent voted for McCain.

Even among this group, Fox News is by far the most popular cable outlet. CNN comes in at second, with 30 percent. A sorry MSNBC brings up the rear…

  • Politico and George Washington University (2010) (via NewsBusters)

(The graphic is from Pew Poll [2008])

McCainNewsBias

So, Democrats and Independents trust and watch Fox more — or at more of an even split — than they do most other networks (not all) . I only post this here to make a point that I am challenged with often about… so to reference this one post. (The above and below graphics come from some Fox having the best election coverage, HERE.)

FoxBias

Fox News Dominates ~ Cable News Race Update

Published by Papa Giorgio

Via Hollywood Reporter:

From the crisis in Ferguson, Mo., to the cultural impact of Robin Williams‘ and Joan Rivers‘ sudden deaths and all the way up to recent round-the-clock coverage of U.S. strikes on ISIS, cable news has been heavily occupied. The last three months have been so big, Fox News Channel just clocked its first quarter with the most-watched primetime across all of cable in more than a decade — even besting USA and ESPN.

Read more O’Reilly Return Gives Fox News a Ferguson Coverage Ratings Win

The average 1.79 million viewers between 8 p.m. and 11 p.m., Monday through Friday, gave FNC its first quarter atop the dial since the Iraq War broke out in 2003. Expanding that block by an hour, which includes Greta Van Susteren at 7 p.m., FNC was the most watched in primetime for the first time ever. And in the targeted demographic of adults 25-54, FNC was up 12 percent from the same period a year ago, with an average 313,000 viewers.

It’s the last time the cable network will be compared to its previous primetime. Oct. 7 marks the one-year anniversary of FNC revamping a decade-old lineup with Megyn Kelly‘s move to 9 p.m. The third quarter marked Kelly’s best since launch, up a significant 27 percent (year over year) in the time period previously occupied by Sean Hannity. (Hannity, who airs at 10 p.m., enjoyed a high of his own).

Read more Fox News Hits 50-Quarter Ratings Streak With Megyn Kelly on the Rise, Benghazi Still a Hot Topic

Bill O’Reilly remained the top performer across cable news, despite Kelly’s advances, and 14 FNC shows continued to sit atop the cable news roster — while the only other network to see year-to-year improvement, CNN, saw a rather unexpected series perched atop its own rankings. Documentary series The Sixties stands as CNN’s most-watched show of the quarter, edging pasting Anderson Cooper with an average 650,000 viewers — 186,000 of them in the key demo. After ratings spikes for the anchor’s on-the-ground coverage of Ferguson, his show ranked as CNN’s top show in the demo.

CNN’s gains from the comparable quarter last year were modest, but they were still gains. Its 186,000 adults 18-49 in primetime (8-11 p.m.)  marked a 4 percent improvement and even outpaced MSNBC — now back in third place. MSNBC, still holding slight second-place edge in total viewers, was down 21 percent in the key demo compared to last year. Pulling just an average 150,000 adults 25-54 in primetime, it meant quarterly lows for Chris Hayes, Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O’Donnell in the key demo.

The wondrous anomaly of Shark Tank encores also continues. With the ABC reality competition in heavy off-net rotation on CBNBC, those repeats are outperforming much of cable news and ranking No. 14 in primetime where adults 25-54 are concerned — besting every telecast on MSNBC.

Third-Quarter 2014 Primetime Averages

FNC: 1,797,000 viewers, up 12 percent (313,000 adults 25-54, up 12 percent)
CNN: 555,000 viewers, up 2 percent (186,000 adults 25-54, up 4 percent)
MSNBC: 557,000 viewers, down 2 percent (150 adults 25-54, down 21 percent)
HLN: 352,000 viewers, down 4 percent (120 adults 25-54, down 12 percent)

Is “Take Back Our Country!” Racist? ~ If You’re Republican

Published by Papa Giorgio

If saying “take back our country” is racism in disguise… what does this mean for the Democrats in the above video?

A slightly longer version can be found here. The first point I want to make, via NewsBusters, is that Democrats used (and use) the phrase “take our country back.” For instance:

“Taking Back America” Wasn’t Racist Until Liberals Stopped Saying It

…In declaring his run for the presidency, Howard Dean told a crowd in Burlington, Vermont, “You have the power to take our county back!” A little more than half a year later, when Dean was ousted from the Democratic primary, he said the same thing once again. Nine days later, he again said “I’ll be doing everything that I can to make sure that John Kerry and John Edwards take this country back.”

In fact, Howard Dean was such a fan of the phrase, he even wrote two books incorporating it into their titles: “You Have the Power: How to Take Back Our Country and Restore Democracy in America” and “Winning Back America“. From whom? He doesn’t say. But clearly he’s a racist.

As is Hillary Clinton. In a stunning show of racial bigotry, Clinton opened her 2008 run for president by declaring the she would “take our country back.”

Chuck Schumer: also a racist. After the 2006 midterms, he stated: “We really care about taking our country back… So far, sooo good.”

Prominent Democratic strategists James Carville and Paul Begala are also racists. They coauthored a book in the run-up to the last presidential election titled “Take It Back: A Battle Plan for Democratic Victory.”

And how about the racist Katrina vanden Hevuel, editor of the far-left, near-bankrupt magazine The Nation. She’s also a racist for penning a book titled “Taking Back America“.

Liberal talk show host Thom Hartmann also cannot restrain his racist views. The title of his book, “We the People: A Call to Take Back America” is clearly rooted in bigotry…

…read more…

Hard To Find Videos ~ Found

I have to say that Marooned in Marin did a bang up job in keeping these videos available, in one place!

So the question becomes, if it is racist for the T.E.A. Party… why is it not for Democrats? Breitbart points out the obvious (as did NewsBusters)… lying about racial incidents in our electronic age is getting harder-and-harder:

…Don’t forget that the big story occupying the news cycle the weekend of March 20, 2010 was that racist Tea Party protesters in Washington DC yelled the “N-Word” at civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis as he walked across the mall to the capitol building that sunny afternoon.  The story led all the cable shows, the Sunday shows and was the main lede in every print column about the historic events that weekend.  

The media repeated the lie without ever asking a single question of the dubious man who made the audacious claim, Rep., Andre Carson.  Only one man dared to question the bogus tale, Andrew Breitbart.  He offered $10,000 to the United Negro College Fund for any evidence of the slander. He upped it to $100,000. Nothing. 

The Congressional Black Caucus didn’t want to talk about it anymore.  They had done their job.  They had distracted the media. They had gotten their president’s signature piece of legislation passed. Nothing to see here, move along.  

Andrew didn’t let it go.  He found four individual videos that proved Carson’s tale was a lie. The media ignored it. They still do….

…read more…

“Leaning Forward” Past Facts and Common Sense

Published by Papa Giorgio

The left and Israel, h/t: HotAir:

And this story from Belgium via Libertarian Republican:

The French community in Belgium follows the lead of France in anti-Semitism: In Turkish, the sign reads, “Dogs are allowed in this establishment but Jews are not under any circumstances.”  

MSNBC’s Touré Blames Terrorism on Poverty ~ (UPDATED)

Published by Papa Giorgio

New Video Above

 

~ Thanks to Twitchy for the links ~

So did “POVERTY” drive terrorism, as Toure says? Lets start with National Review’s article, How Khalid Learned His ABCs: 

…At Chowan, Mohammed bonded with other Arab Muslim foreign students known as “The Mullahs” for their religious zeal. Alumni say “The Mullahs” kept to themselves and shunned their American counterparts. So much for the vaunted diversity benefits of cultural exchange (“We take great pride in the wonderful relationships developed with our international students,” crows Chowan’s Office of Enrollment Services.)

Mohammed then transferred to North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, where he earned his degree in mechanical engineering along with 30 other Muslims. Also studying engineering at North Carolina A&T at the time was Mazen Al-Najjar, the brother-in-law of indicted University of South Florida professor and suspected Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist fundraiser Sami Al-Arian.

While in North Carolina, Khalid Mohammed may have had contact with Ali A. Mohamed, another key bin Laden operative who enrolled at an officer-training course for green berets at Fort Bragg in 1981 and gathered intelligence for al Qaeda as a U.S. Army sergeant before being convicted of participating in the African-embassy bombing plot.

According to intelligence officials, Mohammed applied his American education to organize the 1993 World Trade Center bombing plot (six Americans dead), the U.S.S. Cole attack (17 American soldiers dead), and the September 11 attacks (3,000 dead). He has also been linked to the 1998 African-embassy bombings (212 dead, including 12 Americans), the plot to kill the pope, the murder last year of American journalist Daniel Pearl, and the Bali nightclub bomb blast last fall that killed nearly 200 tourists last fall, including two more Americans.

Elite U.S. colleges and universities continue to help train students from America’s most hostile enemy countries. Iran, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Sudan — all official state sponsors of terrorism — sent nearly 10,000 students to the U.S. on academic visas between 1991 and 1996 alone. In the 2000-2001 school year, Mohammed’s native Kuwait sent a total of 3,045 undergraduate, graduate, post-graduate, and other students to the U.S. His adopted homeland, Pakistan, sent nearly 7,000 students here. Osama bin Laden’s native Saudi Arabia sent more than 5,000 students. Mohamed Atta’s native Egypt sent nearly 2,300.

Between 1989 and 1995, nearly 100 Middle Easterners paid bribes to community-college teachers and administrators in San Diego — the home base for at least two September 11 hijackers — in exchange for counterfeit admission papers and grades, which allowed them to get student visas. The mastermind of the scheme, Iranian-American businessman Sam Koutchesfahani, pled guilty to visa fraud in 1998, along with officials from six colleges. The whereabouts of his “students,” who poured a total of $350,000 into the plot, remain unknown….

…read more…

The next article submitted for review is also by Michelle Malkin, and is entitled, “Educating the ignorant Kumbaya candidate,” and it is aimed at statements made by the candidates running for the 2008 office of President:

…As for Obama’s continued delusion about the “climate of poverty and ignorance” that supposedly breeds Muslim terrorists, can American politicians ever rid themselves of this unreality-based trope? This belief is part and parcel of the same idiocy that lead the State Department to embrace “spa days” for Muslims to “build bridges” with the Arab world and President Bush to open up our aviation schools to more Saudi students to “improve understanding.” John McCain also alluded to education-as-cure for Islamic terrorism at the L.A. World Affairs Council in March, when he declared that “In this struggle, scholarships will be far more important than smart bombs.” Just what we need: more student visas for the jihadi-infested nation that sent us the bulk of the 9/11 hijackers.

Author and National Review Online blogger Mark Steyn’s sharp rejoinder to McCain then applies to Obama now: “There’s plenty of evidence out there that the most extreme ‘extremists’ are those who’ve been most exposed to the west – and western education: from Osama bin Laden (summer school at Oxford, punting on the Thames) and Mohammed Atta (Hamburg University urban planning student) to the London School of Economics graduate responsible for the beheading of Daniel Pearl. The idea that handing out college scholarships to young Saudi males and getting them hooked on Starbucks and car-chase movies will make this stuff go away is ridiculous – and unworthy of a serious presidential candidate.”

Ayman al-Zawahiri didn’t need more education or wealth to steer him away from Islamic imperialism and working toward a worldwide caliphate. He has a medical degree. So does former Hamas biggie Abdel Rantissi. Seven upper-middle-class jihadi doctors were implicated in the 2007 London/Glasgow bombings. Suspected al Qaeda scientist Affia Siddiqui, still wanted by the FBI for questioning, is a Pakistani who studied microbiology at MIT and did graduate work in neurology at Brandeis….

…read more…

The third article for review is likewise by Malkin, and is entitled, “The myth of the poor, oppressed jihadist,” clearly showing that the “jihadi-as-victim canard to the trash bin of deadly dhimmitude.”

The Independent of London has a piece up today on the wealthy, pampered lifestyle of would-be Christmas Day bomber Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab.

The Nigerian elite enginnering student studied at one of Britain’s leading universities, “lived a gilded life” and “stayed in a £2m flat.”

The Independent says Abdulmatallab’s privileged status is “surprising” — “a very different background to many of the other al-Qa’ida recruits who opt for martyrdom.”

Actually, there’s nothing surprising about it. The only surprise is that so many supposedly informed people — from British journalists to our own commander-in-chief — continue to perpetuate the myth of the poor, oppressed jihadist.

Abdulmutallab isn’t the first terrorist admitted to a Western institution of higher learning who spread fundamentalist Islam on campus.

  • Al Qaeda mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed enrolled at tiny Chowan College in Murfreesburo, N.C., which had dropped its English requirements to attract–ahem–wealthy Middle Easterners. At Chowan, Mohammed bonded with other Arab Muslim foreign students known as “The Mullahs” for their religious zeal. Mohammed then transferred to North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, where he earned his degree in mechanical engineering along with 30 other Muslims. Mohammed applied his Western learning to oversee the 1993 World Trade Center bombing plot (six Americans dead), the U.S.S. Cole attack (17 American soldiers dead), and the September 11 attacks (3,000 dead). He has also been linked to the 1998 African-embassy bombings (212 dead, including 12 Americans), the plot to kill the pope, the murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl, and the Bali nightclub bomb blast that killed nearly 200 tourists, including two more Americans.

(See “How Khalid Learned His ABCs,” NRO, Marc h 3, 2003)

  • Ayman al-Zawahiri didn’t need more education or wealth to steer him away from Islamic imperialism and working toward a worldwide caliphate. He had a medical degree. So did former Hamas biggie Abdel Rantissi.
  • Seven upper-middle-class jihadi doctors were implicated in the 2007 London/Glasgow bombings.
  • Suspected al Qaeda scientist Affia Siddiqui, is a Pakistani who studied microbiology at MIT and did graduate work in neurology at Brandeis.
  • Osama bin Laden did a summer school stint at Oxford.
  • 9/11 lead hijacker Mohammed Atta went to Hamburg University to study urban planning.
  • British-born Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, a London School of Economics graduate, was convicted of abducting and murdering American journalist Daniel Pearl.

…read more…

Just a small correction to the above Tweet, via Yahoo Answers, “Osama Bin Laden is Rich???“:

  • You bet. When Mohammed (his father) died in a helicopter crash in 1968, his children inherited the billionaire’s construction empire. Osama bin Laden, then 13 years old, purportedly came into a fortune of some $300 million. (Sources: Defense Journal, and, Encyclopedia Britannica.)

MSNBC Panel Is Reminded That the UCSB Killer Also Used a Knife and Car

Published by Papa Giorgio

“You know, I wonder if I missed something. My understanding is that some of his victims were stabbed to death. Other of his victims were hit by a car that he was driving. And all of a sudden one weapon is, in fact, under attack. And not only is it under attack, people are talking about stepping on the constitutional rights of law-abiding people.”

(Via Truth Revolt) n MSNBC this afternoon, commentator and Republican politician Ken Blackwell was on as part of panel discussion about guns and gun control in the wake of this weekend’s killing spree in Santa Barbara. Host Craig Melvin runs down a laundry list of various ways of saying gun or shooting and so on before finally asking Blackwell how something like this could happen. Blackwell’s response was absolutely pitch perfect.

Of course, he immediately interrupted by the host. Diverting attention away from MSNBC’s anti-gun agenda is the fastest way to get cut off during an interview on the network. Melvin says he didn’t mean to “attack guns” and the he was just trying to lay out “the facts.” Only the facts are as Ken Blackwell laid them out, contrary to Melvin’s one-note recitation.

There were three weapons used in this murderous rampage. That is the fact. It’s a fact that the hosts at MSNBC clearly aren’t interested in dealing with. Ken Blackwell, however, isn’t going to let them get away with it.

Gay Patriot notes a story about registering cars like you do guns:

For every purchase, you will have to fill out a questionnaire confirming you’re a US citizen, do not use drugs or abuse alcohol, have never had a conviction for alcohol related incidents or reckless driving.  Lying on this form will be punishable by 10 years in prison and/or a $10,000 fine.

New cars will only be purchased from Federal Automobile Licensees who must provide fingerprints, proof of character, secure storage for all vehicles, and who must call the Federal Bureau of Motor Vehicles to verify your information before purchase.  They may approve or decline or delay the sale.  If they decline, you may appeal the decision in writing to a review board.  If they delay, it becomes an approval automatically after 10 days. However, the dealer may decline to complete such a sale in case of later problems.

Federal Automobile Licensees must agree to submit to 24/7/365, unannounced, unscheduled searches of their entire homes, businesses and any relates properties and personal effects to be named later.

Read the whole thing.

The Left’s Crazy Narrative About Bobby Jindal ~ Macho-Sauce

Published by Papa Giorgio

From video description:

It’s another one of those articles that slipped by. The liberal media acts a lot like termites, destroying the integrity of a structure in ways you often can’t see until there’s a big problem. They’re constantly firing little shots to damage republicans, and those little points add up with the masses they’re trying to control. Hear More in this ZoNation.

This reminds me of the MSNBC “narrative” that fits the left’s vision better:

Democratic Money Grubbing Hypocrites Kowtowing to Billionaires

Published by Papa Giorgio

This bugs me to no end, I will post at the end of this a oft posted comparison to progressive billionaires versus more conservative billionaires and the impact this money has for-or-against our freedoms.

Michael Medved shows how Democrats and rational libertarians (the Koch Brothers) diverge on the issues most important to voters. Not to mention the hypocrisy of the left in all this. So much so that Washington Post’s Dana Milbank said:

✂ “Democrats’ climate-change filibuster is nothing but a lot of hot air”…. “This may be the first time in history that a group of senators filibustered themselves.”

The Washington Examiner’s Zack Colman points out some of the hypocrisy when he writes,

✂ “While Reid has grown more boisterous when it comes to the Koch brothers, Republicans have shot back that Democratic-aligned outsiders are starting to play the big money game as well. They have pointed to Tom Steyer, the billionaire former hedge fund manager, who has pledged to spend $100 million through his NextGen Climate PAC on climate and environmental issues ahead of the 2014 midterm elections.”

Powerline goes on to explain the reason behind a bunch of old, outdated politicians doing an all-nighter:

…Tom Steyer, a billionaire who has made a great deal of money on government-subsidized “green” energy projects, has become one of the Democratic Party’s most important donors. On February 18, he hosted a fundraiser at his home that netted $400,000. Harry Reid and six other Senators attended, along with Al Gore and a number of rich environmentalists. At that meeting, plans for last night’s talk-a-thon were already being laid.

The connection is simple: Steyer has pledged to contribute $50 million and raise another $50 million to help Democrats in the 2014 elections. The catch is that they have to emphasize global warming as an issue:

✦ Steyer’s advocacy group, NextGen Political Action, plans to spend at least $50 million of the former hedge-fund manager’s money, plus another $50 million raised from other donors. The group will refuse to spend money on behalf of Democrats who oppose climate regulation, but will not spend money against them either, according to Chris Lehane, a Steyer consultant.

So the Democrats are trying to walk a narrow line. They need to make noise about global warming to keep the cash flowing from Tom Steyer and other deep-pocketed environmental activists (some of whom, of course, are also “green” energy cronies)….

Plus, the comparison to these leftist radicals shrinking human freedom (growing government) versus allowing the proverbial us to make more choices in the individual sense (smaller government) is legend:

…First, the government needs to issue a mandate that all households must own at least one firearm. We will need a federal agency to ensure that people aren’t just buying cheap BB guns or .22 pistols, even though that may be all they need or want. It has to be 9mm or above, with .44 magnums getting a one-time tax credit on their own. Let’s pick an agency known for its aptitude on firearms and home protection to issue required annual certifications each year, without which the government will have to levy hefty fines. Which agency would do the best job? Hmmmm … I know! How about TSA? With their track record of excellence, we should have no problems implementing this mandate.

Don’t want to own a gun? Hey, no worries. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts says citizens have the right to refuse to comply with mandates. The government will just seize some of your cash in fines, that’s all. Isn’t choice great? Those fines will go toward federal credits that will fund firearm purchases for the less well off, so that they can protect their homes as adequately as those who can afford guns on their own. Since they generally live in neighborhoods where police response is appreciably worse than their higher-earning fellow Americans, they need them more anyway. Besides — gun ownership is actually mentioned in the Constitution, unlike health care, which isn’t. Obviously, that means that the federal government should be funding gun ownership….

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This is why people fear government, to answer John’s question.

Back to the excellent NewsBusters response to “Krystal Ball” on MSNBC:

Honestly, how does this woman have a job in a news division?

Oh. That’s right. MSNBC isn’t a news organization. How could I have forgotten?

Saying Republicans don’t want young people to buy health insurance is preposterous.

What conservatives don’t want is the government to force young people to purchase something that morbidity tables show will likely have absolutely no benefit for them until the distant future so that others who likely will benefit much sooner can get it either for free or far more cheaply.

Irrespective of what Supreme Court chief justice John Roberts foolishly ruled last year, this is neither Constitutional nor ethical.

As for these young people dying if ObamaCare is not enacted, that asininely assumes that people won’t have the money to pay for their care if they get sick or won’t purchase health insurance when they reach an age when they believe they need it.

For example, Ball mentioned prenatal care and tetanus shots. As a person that owns an insurance agency, I certainly would be telling a client looking to have children to purchase health insurance.

As for Pap smears, the Mayo Clinic recommends women over 21 do them every two to three years.

The cost varies state by state. In New York City, you can get one for as little as $150.

As such, a woman in that city doing it even once every two years would save thousands of dollars paying for it herself rather than buying health insurance.

As for cholesterol tests, these are now available online for as little as $40.

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This great, short, update comes via The Lonely Conservative:

The short answer to the question posed above is “Not even close.” It’s not the Koch Brothers or ALEC. Nope. The biggest spender in the dark money game is the Tides Foundation. Oh and by the way, Tides is a big liberal group.

Whenever “ALEC” and “dark money” are mentioned in the media, however, there ought to be a third name given at least equal attention – the Tides Foundation. That’s because Tides, the San Francisco-based funder of virtually every liberal activist group in existence since the mid-1970s, pioneered the concept of providing a cut-out for donors who don’t wish to be associated in public with a particular cause. It is instructive to compare the funding totals for Tides and ALEC.

A search of non-profit grant databases reveals 139 grants worth a total of $5.6 million to ALEC since 1998. By comparison, Tides is the Mega-Goliath of dark money cash flows. Tides received 1,976 grants worth a total of $451 million during the same period, or nearly 100 times as much money as ALEC. But even that’s not the whole story with Tides, which unlike ALEC, has divided and multiplied over the years. Add to the Tides Foundation total the directly linked Tides Center’s 465 grants with a combined worth of $62 million, and the total is well over half a billion dollars. (Read More)

So there.

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