In an election year, we will surely hear a great deal of pandering from both political parties. Since the 2010 midterms revealed a surprising drop-off in the numbers of women who voted for Democrats, the current pandering is aimed squarely at the hearts and minds of women. Will it work? If I’d learned anything in 2008, it is that women have an endless capacity to settle for crumbs rather than standing up to claim the cake. Dirty Words on Clean Skins asks us all to be more involved in the debate.

Please visit my website at anitafinlay.com to learn more. Dirty Words On Clean Skin is now available on Amazon. It is also available at Amazon’s Kindle Store as of today!

Thank you, as always, for your kind support of my work.

Those like Matt Taibbi, Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews, Ed Schultz, Jack Cafferty, David Schuster, Dana Milbank, Chris Cilizza, to name a few, have long enjoyed deep cover because of their supposed stance on social issues. That does not nor never should have bought them a pass. These men purport to be journalists and serious commentators. Never was their vile behavior more evident than the sexist horror show of 2008 against Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin. Their vile, sniggering behavior continues unabated. In fact the only half-hearted apologies ever elicited from any one of these men has only come after a hand slap, a loss of ratings or advertisers…Is that the level of political discourse in this country when discussing women: She devil, bitch, Nurse Ratched, bubblehead?

Rush was forced into the same kind of apology last week. Was he sincere? Doubtful. Will he do it again? Very Likely. Has Bill Maher ever apologized for his endless litany of demeaning statements about women?

Rush Limbaugh is entitled to like or dislike whomever he wants, but if the best way he has to discredit Hillary Clinton is by saying she has “a testicle lockbox” or by calling her a “Femi-Nazi” – I’d say he’s lost the argument. And if Bill Maher likewise has to insult Hillary by saying “They fined CBS a million dollars for showing Janet Jackson’s nipple. Just think what they could get for Hillary Clinton’s c*nt,” and calls Sarah Palin a “c*nt” and a “twat” – it is pretty obvious that the cheap shot is all he is good for. It doesn’t say much for his mental capacity otherwise.

Bill Maher just made a million dollar donation to a SuperPAC with the mission of re-electing President Obama. How does that sit with the party of women’s progress? So we don’t care if you treat women like garbage – as long as your check cashes?

Limbaugh and Maher are shock jocks. That’s how they make their money. However, they also both function as commentators on different news programs. But whether they do or not, these two, along with David Letterman and Jay Leno, have powerful bully pulpits. They cannot hide behind the safety net of “comedian” or “host” when what they are selling is hate-speech. Their jokes, satire, rants, whatever you call them, have a devastating effect night after night that is just as costly as that of the vile pundits on MSNBC or CNN.

Just imagine the equivalent comment being made by any one of these guys toward President Obama? What is the equivalent comment to calling a man a slut, a whore, a c*nt, a twat, a moron, a mashed up bag of meat with lipstick, saying that a particular woman “reads copy with a big set of hairy balls in her mouth” (that was from Taibbi)…What if you made a slur against a Jewish person? A Muslim? Juan Williams made a general comment voicing his nervousness about Muslims traveling in traditional garb on airplanes and NPR fired him.

I have no objection to anyone taking a female candidate or a woman making statements in the public sphere to task on the merits. But let’s stick to the issues, shall we?

Why is it necessary for these men (or the complicit women who egg them on) to call women by the most denigrating names possible – as if their very gender was at the root of their crime.

Moral relativism is not acceptable. The source of these comments does not matter, nor the target. This is hate speech, not free speech. If it were not hate speech, what else accounts for all the violence against women in this country and around the world? Clearly, there still exists some sort of sick need to put women in their place, either with words or by violent means. My fear is that men who control the air waves or use ink by the barrel influence society in negative ways when it comes to how we view women. They decide what a woman is worth and influence how they should be treated by speaking of them so disrespectfully.

If the Rush Limbaughs and Bill Mahers and Keith Olbermanns of the world cannot find a more intelligent way to take issue with a female subject than resorting to acting like bullying twelve year olds, then maybe they are not up to the job.

We are so busy in this country protecting every group under the sun from offense. Yet women are still graded and degraded on the basis of appearance, age, sexuality, vocal quality – anything that will allow them to be cleaved into body parts and then disempowered. It is up to women on both sides of the aisle to stop themselves from being used and manipulated in this debate and express a zero tolerance policy. It is up to men on both sides of the aisle to stop grading on a curve when it comes to their own transgressions or those of their brothers.

While it was only fitting that Rush Limbaugh apologize for his behavior, he should not be singled out or used politically as a distraction from the larger debate. If politicians are only coming to the defense of women when they need our votes, it is up to us to say ‘you can do better.’

President Obama called Ms. Fluke to express his support. But if he really wants to support her – then he must return Bill Maher’s million dollar donation to his re-election campaign, since Maher, like Limbaugh is a horrid culprit in this debate and a regular purveyor of sexist attacks upon women of both parties.

Mr. and Mrs. Obama have two beautiful daughters. I know they would never want Sasha and Malia to be on the receiving end of the sexist commentary made by the likes of a Limbaugh or a Maher. Given that a newscaster by the name of David Shuster referred to the Clintons as pimps and their daughter Chelsea a whore by inference, nothing is outside the realm of possibility any longer. Propriety is a thing of the past. No insult to any woman is off limits it seems.

The President has the most powerful bully pulpit in the world. Rejecting Mr. Maher’s money would go a long way toward proving that this zero tolerance policy starts at the top, and is not just about politics.

****************
Anita Finlay is the author of the soon to be released book, Dirty Words On Clean Skin: Sexism and Sabotage, a Hillary supporter’s rude awakening.

No serious attempt has been made to analyse this phenomenon even though the transformation of Pakistani society over the last three decades pints to this trend.

This new breed of Taliban supporter is overwhelmingly comprised of the upper-middle class that sprang up out of the villages or suburban areas thanks to the enormous flow of American cash that washed through the region after the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, and later the U.S. invasion.

The corruption in foreign aid distribution, the secret funds for Afghan Mujahideen and the generous bounties to kill or capture extremists sent the price of real estate sky-rocketing in Pakistan, making the farmers living around big cities rich. Flush with cash, the newly-rich farming class left rural life behind and moved to cities.

This is a major transformation in Pakistani society. Usually population shifts of this magnitude happen over an extended period of time. In Pakistan, it happened over two to three decades, drastically changing a social order that had been in place for almost two thousand years.

Around 322 b.c. a Mauryan ruler, Chandragupta Maurya and his successors expanded his power westwards across central and western India, enforcing principles of governance and laying down rules of administration, including tax collection, maintaining the army, completing irrigational projects, enforcing law and order, devising rates of taxation, and reviving the way of life in the cities and villages. Villages became so self-contained that travel became unnecessary.

The great Mauryan Empire ended in 185 b.c., but the system the King Ashoka put in place remained in place and for the most part untouched, even by the British rulers. Village life remained unchanged until the advent of new technologies. The introduction of mechanized farming and harvesting eased the arduousness of farm work and led to an increase in productivity. But on the other hand it rendered a big chunk of the society unemployed. The void created by idleness was filled with religion. New classes emerged, new rites were formed.

A similar phenomenon was occurring in India, but was countered by the development of industry. Residents of rural areas in search of jobs moved to cities, worked in factories and united under labor unions, forming a new working class fighting for equal rights and better opportunities. In Pakistan, however, attempts to build industry were interrupted time and again by dramatic swings from martial law to democracy and back again. Unstable governance rivalries among industrial barons also slowed or disrupted the building of an industrial worker class.

The segment of the new city dwellers brought with them the customs of village life, including myths, superstitions and family structure. The new urbanites were also largely uneducated and taken aback by the bustle of city life and the ways of residents whose worldview was shaped by modern conveniences. The overwhelming majority of these new city residents have become part of the new middle and/or upper middle class trying to fit into a Westernized lifestyle but with poor results. It is this segment of the population that wants to drink alcohol and travel while at the same time supporting the Taliban as holy warriors. They do not want to let go of their old world values and virtues. They form the base of support for politicians like former cricket legend Imran Khan, whose confrontational attitude towards the West boosts their sense of patriotism.

These new urbanites would fall into one of two extreme categories. If the family had strong but backwards religious beliefs, they spent their money building a mosque or supporting religious organizations – their own way of thanking the Almighty for their unexpected good fortune. If the family had cut its ties with such religious dogmas they choose instead to engage in conspicuous consumption — purchasing high-priced houses, acquiring personal booze collections unmatched in most bars in the West, importing expensive cars and moving money to foreign banks. More important is what they didn’t do with their new found wealth: Reinvest the money into the local financial system.

The way out of this alarming state of affairs for Pakistan is to reform the education system that matches to the needs for the modern industrial era coupled with the formation and development of an industrial and manufacturing sector.

The vast majority of foreign aid provided by the international community is still being targeted at state security agencies, as is a disproportionately large percentage of the country’s budget. The Saudi government discovered long ago that paying to mould the minds of the youth in Pakistan was an excellent investment. The results – the rise of totalitarian Islam, contempt for democracy, romanticizing violent Islamist movements, and sectarian violence – are all too evident. It’s time for the West to become a counterbalance and seriously support civilian governments instead of relying on military dictators to further their agendas. The West should also keep on pressing the civilian administration for good governance if they want Pakistan free of extremists.

David Brock, the conservative turned liberal advocate, has recently garnered a considerable amount of press coverage for his attacks on Fox News for, among many other things, allegedly taking over leadership of the Republican Party. What the news coverage has ignored is his use of tax-free funds for his organization, Media Matters for America (MMA), for these attacks — a form of government support for activities that clearly do not merit tax-exempt status and that as a result infringe on Fox News’ First Amendment rights.

MMA was originally established as an Internal Revenue Service Section 501(c)(3) organization, that is, an organization that can receive tax-deductible contributions to engage in educational activities. The more precise purpose was to counter alleged media bias and so to “identify occurrences of excessive bias in the American media, educate the public as to their existence, and to work with members of the media to reduce them.”

What MMA actually is doing, however, moves far afield from identifying possible bias to mounting a campaign to undermine a major media outlet and to promote the Democratic Party and progressive causes associated with it. Mr. Brock himself has described this new strategy as “a war on Fox,” an effort “to disrupt [Rupert Murdoch‘s] commercial interests” and look for ways to turn regulators against News Corp.’s media outlets. [snip] (Click here to read the rest.)

It does not matter if you like Fox, or hate it, but for taxpayer dollars to go to support an alleged non-profit that has a clear political agenda is unacceptable, regardless of whose political agenda it is. There are laws in this country against that sort of thing, after all. And there is that pesky matter of the US Constitution and the First Amendment. Taxpayers should NOT be funding this organization. If George Soros wants to fund it, that’s his decision, but Media Matters sure should not receive our money as a “non-profit.” That is just ridiculous.

And speaking of money, Obama was in New York Thursday night at a few fundraisers, trying to fill his coffers. I just have to ask – who is it that can afford a $35,800 a plate dinner?? That is not a typo – there are five numbers there on purpose. Just wondering.

While Obama was at it, he did a little pandering to the LGBT community, claiming he thinks we should have the same rights in this country as everyone else. I agree with that, but what CNN was not so great about reporting was that Obama also said he thought it should be a state matter. Huh – that’s the same thing Michelle Bachmann said in the recent debate (to give you a comparison).

Meanwhile, DADT is STILL the law of the land over 6 months later after the big hoopla in December. Yep, the government has not finished what it needs to do to change that. Big surprise, huh? Yeah, I didn’t think so…

Add to that Obama misspeaking about a Medal of Honor recipient while pandering at Fort Drum:

[snip] “Throughout my service, first as a senator and then as a presidential candidate and then as a President, I’ve always run into you guys. And for some reason it’s always in some rough spots.

First time I saw 10th Mountain Division, you guys were in southern Iraq. When I went back to visit Afghanistan, you guys were the first ones there. I had the great honor of seeing some of you because a comrade of yours, Jared Monti, was the first person who I was able to award the Medal of Honor to who actually came back and wasn’t receiving it posthumously.”[snip]

Except it was. Oops…

There is more going on, and feel free to discuss whatever you wish!

So why did Charlie Brown keep trying? To quote Samuel Johnson, Charlie Brown’s determination was an example of the triumph of hope over experience.

Like the relationship between the United States and Pakistan for the last 60 years.

Following 1947″s bloody partition from India, Pakistan followed a more pro-Western policy whereas the Indian government defined its foreign policy as more leftist. Diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Pakistan were established shortly after Pakistan’s independence. In May of 1950, Prime Minister Liquiat Ali Khan made the first state visit to the United States, stopping in New York, Washington, Houston and Kansas City. The prime minister was seeking financial and military assistance. The U.S. did not see the usefulness of a strong relationship with Pakistan and her interests in Pakistan were limited.

1954 marked a turning point in the history of relations between the two countries, as the U.S. began providing Pakistan with military aid, which would increase over the years. It was in the same decade that Pakistan experienced its first military coup, when its Army Chief Ayub Khan took power in 1958.

It was at that point that the football, in the form of aid, support of civilian government and cooperation in the war on terror entered the picture. Over the years, the U.S. and Pakistan’s relationship would improve and worsen in increasingly dramatic cycles.

The U.S. refused to provide military assistance to Pakistan during the 1965 Indo-Pakistani War. In April of 1979 the United States suspended all economic assistance to Pakistan (with the exception of food assistance) over concerns about Pakistan’s nuclear program.

The tide shifted in 1981, when Pakistan and the United States agreed on a $3.2 billion military and economic assistance program aimed at helping Pakistan deal with the heightened threat to security in the region and its economic development needs. With U.S. assistance — in the largest covert operation in history — Pakistan armed and supplied anti-Soviet fighters in Afghanistan. Weapons flowed through Pakistan to arm the mujaheddin through General Zia Ul-Haq, another military dictator who rose to power through a coup.

But the relationship’s cracks were becoming more obvious. As Lawrence Wright wrote in his New Yorker piece “U.S. Support for Pakistan: A Long Messy History;”

At the same time, Zia began giving support to an Islamist organization, Jamaat-e-Islami, the forerunner of many more radical groups to come. In November, a mob of Jamaat followers, inflamed by a rumor that the U.S. and Israel were behind an attack on the Grand Mosque, in Mecca, burned the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad to the ground, killing two Americans and two Pakistani employees. The American romance with Pakistan was over, but the marriage was just about to begin.

After 9/11, Pakistan, led by General Pervez Musharraf, reversed course under pressure from the United States and joined the “War on Terror” as a U.S. ally. This alliance began rather dramatically. According to Musharraf’s biography, In the Line of Fire, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Richard Armitage threatened to “bomb Pakistan into the stone age” if the country didn’t get with the program. It was an “offer” that Pakistan was in no position to refuse. General Musharraf was strongly supported by the Bush administration.

In return for their support, Pakistan has received about $10 billion in U.S. aid since 2001, primarily military.

Where did the money go? According to Military Inc., by Ayesha Siddiqa, Pakistan’s army, which has never won a war, found creative ways to take advantage of Western largesse, investing in hotels, real estate, and shopping malls. According to a 2008 GAO report, more than a third of U.S. funds provided Pakistan since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks were subject to accounting problems, including duplication and possible fraud.

And then there’s the thorny topic of A.Q. Khan, the father of the “Islamic Bomb.” While Khan was operating a nuclear bazaar, the government of Pakistan argued that if there had been wrongdoing, it had occurred without the military’s knowledge or approval. Critics noted that virtually all of Khan’s overseas travels, to Iran, Libya, North Korea, Niger, Mali, and the Middle East, were on Pakistan government aircraft.

Then comes Osama saga.

For decades, the United States has made the mistake of equating “Pakistan” with its army and supporting military governments. The U.S., in the role of Lucy, has turned aid into a football. Unlike Charlie Brown, the Pakistani people, who do not benefit from this aid, have stopped trusting Lucy.

Meanwhile, Pakistan has also played the role of Lucy, offering assistance in the war on terror. While Pakistan has been helpful and the country’s people have suffered immeasurably as a result of brutal and ongoing terrorist attacks, the army and the ISI, like Lucy, have at times been too clever by half. Despite outward signs that aid will continue to flow to Pakistan’s military, there are growing signs that the U.S. is tired of playing the Charlie Brown role.

Charlie Brown never stopped trying to kick the football. Hope triumphed over experience. Can the same be said for the future of U.S. – Pak relations?

Basically, a foreign national has been killed by another foreign army. What does Pakistan have to do with this, then? Nothing and everything. And this nothing yet everything has placed Pakistan between a rock and a hard place.

If Pakistan admits that it helped US forces kill bin Laden it fears a backlash from the different militant organizations with in its boundaries, and if it denies any such cooperation then it will be labeled a supporter of Al Qaeda.

For this reason Pakistan – which is defined as the Pakistan Army and the agencies, including the infamous ISI – stayed silent. So silent that it’s scary. It’s the silence before the storm. This storm is not necessarily directed at the US, the CIA, Afghanistan or India. The tempest could be directed at foreign militants. Remaining silent was a wise approach and the best strategy so far for Pakistan. Be aware of that silence. The pendulum could swing either way. The forces that actually control Pakistan — and I’m not referring to politicians — could back any horse at this point. Or spread the wager across the board. Only time will tell.

The US media has been hammering Pakistan day and night. The media should consider Pakistan’s tight spot here. The US needs help, not just rooting terrorist networks out of Pakistan but in Afghanistan as well. It’s not easy for a country to sustain repeated bombardments, knowing that it depends on the country doing the bombing for large quantities of foreign aid. Already, a number of politicians and the Pakistani media are defining the bin Laden raid as another example of infringement of sovereignty and using bin Laden’s death to goad the US to pull out of Afghanistan. Rock, meet hard place. If only the US media understood that.

Then there have been conflicting reports coming out of various US departments. But the fact is that the raid could not have succeeded without the ISI’s help. Clearly bin Laden’s time was up. Given the ISI’s deserved reputation for treachery and intrigues, wouldn’t there have been a strong and deep bunker under that mansion to hide bin Laden? Or a maze of tunnels to help him and his family escape? Bin Laden was trapped, with the local support on the ground.

Obama said last night that he got confirmed reports of bin Laden’s location last week. I looked out for events that happened last week. President Obama was busy dealing with Trump’s nonsense, while the Pentagon was hosting ISI chief General Pasha. Coincidence? I don’t think so. There must have been a deal, a tit for tat.

Pakistan’s religious quarters have already started to question then authenticity of the killing. Above all, they have started asking US to wrap up their “war” and leave the region. Which again the US or NATO cannot afford to do. Not yet at least. The US has to deal with Afghanistan, Karzai, the Taliban, the Quetta shura…and the list goes on.

So let’s not get carried away here. The war is not over yet. Bin Laden killing has improved Obama’s approval ratings, but bin Laden’s death has hardly put a dent on al Qaeda. Keeping in mind that Al Qaeda’s's real ideological inspiration is al-Zuwahiri, who’s still very much alive. And probably on the ISI’s watch list too.

When these same MINOs (Men In Name Only) belittle women it is most often an effort to impress the “mean girls” they want to be liked by.

A guy can punch one of these comic heads in the chest and they will shrug it off. If a woman slaps them in the face they can try to lower their shame level by calling the woman an ugly dyke, but they can’t get over the fact that the men watching are not going to consider them “cool” anymore. Kirstie Alley put Lopez in diapers when she refused to accept his half-baked apology for calling her a pig. Georgie, you are NOT funny.

The power of scorn from women is a force that can bring these boys down and out of public life. That full power needs to be plowed over these a-holes.

The preceding two paragraphs was disputed by one of NQ’s prominent female writers during a recent writers’ group session. Writes Linda:

The true measure of courage is when we confront those in our own group. From the outside a complaint has the taint of a whine. From the inside a complaint has the ring of truth. And the punch is not just to discipline the bad guy, but to signal to the audience that a line has indeed been crossed and the laughs are not appropriate.

So, OK Linda.. from one MAN to a MINO:

LoMa (Lopez, Maher, et al) You are a Dick. You crossed the line. Not only are you a dick, you are a limp dick.

New rule for turkey neck Bill. Cast no stone before.. Oh. I forgot. You are too damn skinny and puny to even pick up a stone. But, you know what? That’s OK. At least your physical stature towers over your faux intellect.

Now, That’s funny. Loco Lopez you are fat (I mean, really. Nobody is begging to see you in a speedo.) AND when you wake up tomorrow you will still be ugly too. Next time you use the words honkey and pig in your skit don’t be surprised to hear the women in the audience yell hey stick it spick dick.

That’s crude. Not sorry. If TBS and HBO think it is just fine for Lopez and Maher to swirl around in that level of slime then they can stick it too.

These MINOs never could stand up without putting someone down. They are not Red Skeltons or even a Foxworthy. This is not new behavior for these asswipes.

UnderCoverBlackMan wrote about Lopez in 2009.
George Lopez has problems.

Deeper still, George Lopez seems to be revealing more and more of his fucked-up emotional state onstage. The man is filled with contempt. Just seething with it.

I know all comedy is hostile. But the art of standup is in disguising the hostility… or at least turning it in surprising directions.

. . His relentless mockery of white people is tiresome and unfunny. (Come on, George. At least give white folks credit for inventing transplant surgery, you kidneyless bastard.)

And this is not new for Maher, either. From a discussion at the Democratic Underground in 2007:

Bill Maher is a misogynist assbag

Misogynist comedians, and their blogular admirers, will denigrate us whether we comply with the prescribed female scripts (concern for our looks and weight, being more emotionally expressive, wanting “the ring” etc.) or we deviate from them. Imagine if all of a sudden, masses of women became steely-eyed stoics who acted indifferent to the men in their lives, ignored our appearance, stopped caring about the cleanliness of our surroundings, and belched and farted indiscriminately. You bet your ass that Bill Maher would be doing monologues about what callous disgusting unfeminine bitches women have become. You know, as opposed to the vapid, neurotic, and annoyingly clingy nitwits we are now. As it is, he probably dates the most stereotypically fembot-ish women he can find so that he constantly reinforces the ideas upon which he bases his self image.

That’s it. MINOs are limp dicks. Period.

Editor’s Note: Special thanks to our videographer Truthtelling007 who has a great compilation of Larry Johnson’s appearances on television. (See a list, and the link to all, in the right column.)

With the closing down of Countdown, I can now say I have a fairly complete archive of the show. Regardless of the opinions people have against/favor of Keith Olbermann…it was the guests that I was looking for. Guests over those 8 years included Larry Johnson, Lawrence Wilkerson, Matthew Alexander, Malcolm Nance, The Wilsons, and many others that I think we can agree are valuable experienced voices. I don’t let hosts distract me if possible.

From the archive: Larry appeared on Countdown in April 2006 to discuss the attack on his former boss, Mary McCarthy and comments on Porter Goss, Valerie Plame and others:

COMMENT FROM LARRY–I enjoyed going on Keith’s show before he turned into a pompous parody of a serious newsman. It is one thing for Keith to rant at George W. Bush. Bush deserved every rant in my book. But Keith missed his chance to occupy the high ground in the middle. Instead he became (or always was) a venomous partisan. I stopped getting invites to appear on Keith’s show once I came out in favor of Hillary. In this aspect MSNBC and FOX are just alike. Fox put me on the persona non grata list after I had the audacity to speak out about the ideological influence guiding the Fox team behind the scenes.

One big difference between Fox and MSNBC. Fox is successful. I don’t know shat Olbermann plans to do next but like Pickett’s charge at Gettysburg we have seen his highwater mark. It is now clear that Keith is no Edward R. Murrow.

You may recall during the 2008 Democratic Primary Campaign, Hillary Clinton was attacked by Barack Obama about her connections to Wal-Mart while First Lady of Arkansas. Oh, yes, he got just a tad testy as she was highlighting his constant “WORM”-ing (What Obama Really Meant). So he lashed out at her.

In case you forgot that little window into how quick Obama is to hurl accusations , here it is:

And the media, already well into Obama’s pocket, did this “expose” on Hillary Clinton’s connection to WalMart:

Gee – if they could actually do some investigative reporting on HER, and send a legion of AP reporters to Wasilla, how is it they could not be bothered to do anything of the kind to Obama? Oh, right – I forgot – the JournoListers who were protecting him from any hard writing on his unsavory connections. Silly me.

Had the media actually bothered to do their jobs, instead of reacting with glee when Obama reacts so defensively, perhaps they could have taken a little look see at what Obama’s wife’s connection was to WalMart. But, no. Why would they do anything to impede their narrative of Obama’s holiness, or in any way shift his blame off of Hillary Clinton.

So, let’s just see how the media deals with this new announcement, as reported by the Washington Post, “Michelle Obama, Wal-Mart Announce Healthy Food Campaign.” Now, on the face of it, that looks like a great thing. Except for the arrogant, condescending way Barack Obama talked to Hillary Clinton for having had ANYTHING to do with this company, and Arkansas based company, while her husband was governor. Yet, here is ol’ Michelle, teaming up with that very same company. As far as I have heard, not a whole lot has changed with Wal-Mart, how it treats women, how it treats its workers in general, or any of the other general complaints about this company.

Now to the article:

First lady Michelle Obama joined Wal-Mart executives at a Southeast Washington community center Thursday morning to announce a campaign by the low-priced retail giant to offer more healthful foods and push its suppliers to do the same.

Obama has made fighting childhood obesity and increasing nutritious food options in poor neighborhoods a top priority. She will join Wal-Mart, which recently announced plans to open its first stores in the District, to announce “a major initiative to provide its customers with healthier and more affordable food choices,” Wal-Mart said.

[...]

Wal-Mart said it will make thousands of the packaged food items that it sells more healthful over the next four years, make healthful food choices more affordable and more clearly labeled, build more stores in underserved areas and increase its charitable donations to nutrition programs.

[...]

Wal-Mart praised Obama’s “spirit of collaboration,” and called her a “catalyst that helped make today’s announcement a reality.”

Wal-Mart has drawn criticism from advocacy groups in the District and elsewhere because of its anti-union policies.

Obama resigned from the board of a Wal-Mart vendor in 2007, days after her husband – then vying for the Democratic presidential nomination – said he would not shop at the store. [snip] (Click HERE to read the rest.)

If you needed any more proof of Michelle’s connection to WalMart during the campaign, that last line should suffice. If her board position was NOT closely aligned, there would be no need for her to retire, would there?

Yes, it is amazing what just a couple of years will do. Now the once hated, despised, union busting, women hating Chinese-product selling behemoth is now the shining light for the First Lady’s pet project (not that there is anything wrong with healthy eating – I am all for it – it is the hypocrisy that bugs me).

I cannot WAIT to see how Obama’s supporters are going to spin this one. Any guesses? Feel free to talk about that, or anything else on your minds today!

NOTE: Friends, my partner and I are embarking on a major construction project at our home starting Monday, Jan. 24th. I am not sure how much this will impact my writing, but I am assuming it may affect the regularity of my posts. That is to say, I will write when I can, but no promises about how often. And, I will certainly keep checking in to see what’s going on with the awesome readers here at NQ.

A team of 250 federal investigators and 130 local detectives trying to understand why Jared Lee Loughner went on his alleged killing spree has conducted more than 300 interviews with family, friends and neighbors since the shooting. But they remain stumped about what ultimately prompted the 22-year-old’s descent into violence. [snip]

What? There wasn’t a ton of Tea Party pamphlets in Loughner’s bedroom? He didn’t have an “I Heart Sarah Palin” tattoo or anything? Out of all of those interviews, explosive rhetoric from the Right did not jump out at all of these investigators??

Wow. Imagine that.

The article continues:

Investigators have had little success gaining information from either the uncooperative Loughner or his parents, who have told authorities that they had little recent contact with their son, law enforcement sources said.

With so little help coming from the immediate family, investigators are probing associates and witnesses for details that could help them fill out a portrait of Loughner, a task one source described as completing a “jigsaw puzzle.”

[...]

It could take weeks for investigators to fully determine Loughner’s state of mind in the days leading up to the rampage, the sources said. Virtually every member of the FBI’s 200-person Phoenix field division, coupled with 50 additional agents from Washington and Tucson and more from the Capitol Police and the U.S. Marshals Service, have fanned out across southeastern Arizona. About 130 detectives from the Pima County sheriff’s office also are involved.

Investigators have had little success gaining information from either the uncooperative Loughner or his parents, who have told authorities that they had little recent contact with their son, law enforcement sources said. [snip] (Click HERE to read the rest.)

There is a clear answer as to why this young man did this – he is mentally unstable. That is the only snap assumption to be made. It had nothing – nothing – nothing to do with any of those folks targeted by the Left. What they did was cruel, irresponsible, and amounted to hate mongering.

Sarah Palin was on The Hannity Show, Sean being another target of the Left. I do not watch him, as a rule, but do make exceptions, like when Sarah Palin is on, which she was on Monday night. Despite the immediate framing by some on the Left that she has now been made small (gee – I wonder who set out to do THAT?), she seems resolute, clear, articulate, and, well, sad. In case you missed it, here is part of the interview:

I have to say, whenever I see her speak, I gain more respect for her. Who among us could be so reasoned, so calm, so solemn, after the vicious, hateful, mean spirited attacks on not just HER, but her family, as well. After what she went through just in the past 10 days, after being demeaned and belittled for defending herself, being accused of “interjecting” herself after those on the Left falsely accused her of contributing to this heinous crime, her tone was just right.

And to hear that her children have also received death threats is nothing short of shocking. What the hell is wrong with people???

Wow. I must say, when Gov. Palin said, “If the Left didn’t have double standards, they would have no standards at all.” Well, it sure seems that way, doesn’t it?

Love her, hate her, be indifferent to her (I swear, I said the same thing about Hillary Clinton, didn’t I? The media/Leftists did the same thing to her to a degree.)), she does not deserve this kind of horrendous treatment. No one does. The hue and cry if this kind of attack was directed at any one news personality or Democratic governor would be deafening. But when it comes to Palin, the only thing that is deafening are these hellacious attacks on this woman with the sole purpose of destroying her, and her family as well. It is reprehensible.

It will be a relief is when this meme, this lie, about what caused Loughner to go off, is put to rest once and for all. Since so many FBI agents and local personnel have found no link whatsoever to Palin, Hannity, the Tea Party, or others, surely this must put an end to this lie. Those who continue to perpetuate this false, destructive, meme should get their comeuppance, and it cannot come soon enough for me.

Frankly, I think Palin should sue the shit out of the ones who put this out there. What they have wrought against her, and her children, is obscene, and they should be held to account.

Yuck. I don’t know about you, but after hearing about the kinds of attacks Palin, and her family, have endured, I feel like I need a break. In case you need a bit of a break, too, I have another way in which you can view your taxpaying dollars at work. I got the following from my niece, whose husband is a Gunnery Sergeant, and stationed in the Middle East for a year. Anyway, I hope you enjoy:

After dealing with this craploa, the raging hatred, the cruelty, of those who, unfortunately, have access to the MSM, and are using it to attack someone, this was a welcome relief. Or at least it was for me. How about you?

Indeed, their failure to report on them was staggering. One of my brothers just left my house, and he had never heard any of the things Obama said. You know, like the above-referenced “57 states,” and more.

Well, this time, or should I say, once again, the MSM has targeted Sarah Palin. Why? Because she had a slip of the tongue in the midst of a discussion on North Korea attacking South Korea, one she quickly corrected. Not that any of THAT matters. Heck, Obama had to be TOLD that he said there were 57 states. He didn’t catch his mistake (one of many). Nope. Not at all. But, hey – don’t let that change how they actually REPORT the news. Rather, they prefer to make the news, as they did with Palin’s misstep recently.

So, Palin has a little something for the media to help them along. Yes, she has compiled some of Obama’s greatest hits for them in this Facebook message:

A Thanksgiving Message to All 57 States

by Sarah Palin on Thursday, November 25, 2010 at 8:46pm

My fellow Americans in all 57 states, the time has changed for come. With our country founded more than 20 centuries ago, we have much to celebrate – from the FBI’s 100 days to the reforms that bring greater inefficiencies to our health care system. We know that countries like Europe are willing to stand with us in our fight to halt the rise of privacy, and Israel is a strong friend of Israel’s. And let’s face it, everybody knows that it makes no sense that you send a kid to the emergency room for a treatable illness like asthma and they end up taking up a hospital bed. It costs, when, if you, they just gave, you gave them treatment early, and they got some treatment, and ah, a breathalyzer, or an inhalator. I mean, not a breathalyzer, ah, I don’t know what the term is in Austrian for that…

Of course, the paragraph above is based on a series of misstatements and verbal gaffes made by Barack Obama (I didn’t have enough time to do one for Joe Biden). YouTube links are provided just in case you doubt the accuracy of these all too human slips-of-the-tongue. If you can’t remember hearing about them, that’s because for the most part the media didn’t consider them newsworthy. I have no complaint about that. Everybody makes the occasional verbal gaffe – even news anchors.

Obviously, I would have been even more impressed if the media showed some consistency on this issue. Unfortunately, it seems they couldn’t resist the temptation to turn a simple one word slip-of-the-tongue of mine into a major political headline. The one word slip occurred yesterday during one of my seven back-to-back interviews wherein I was privileged to speak to the American public about the important, world-changing issues before us.

I admit – I roared with laughter over Palin not having enough time to write up all of Biden’s gaffes – no kidding – I don’t have that kind of time, either, and I think I have way more time than the ever busy Gov. Palin. Anywho – I get her point – only with someone like her (or Hillary, or anyone who is not Obama or Biden), a slip of the tongue becomes an international scandal. Wow.

Here’s the thing – once again, the MSM failed to actually do their job:

If the media had bothered to actually listen to all of my remarks on Glenn Beck’s radio show, they would have noticed that I refer to South Korea as our ally throughout, that I corrected myself seconds after my slip-of-the-tongue, and that I made it abundantly clear that pressure should be put on China to restrict energy exports to the North Korean regime. The media could even have done due diligence and checked my previous statements on the subject, which have always been consistent, and in fact even ahead of the curve. But why let the facts get in the way of a good story? (And for that matter, why not just make up stories out of thin air – like the totally false hard news story which has run for three days now reporting that I lobbied the producers of “Dancing with the Stars” to cast a former Senate candidate on their show. That lie is further clear proof that the media completely makes things up without doing even rudimentary fact-checking.)

“Hope springs eternal” as the poet says. Let’s hope that perhaps, just maybe, they might get it right next time. When we the people are effective in holding America’s free press accountable for responsible and truthful reporting, then we shall all have even more to be thankful for!

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

- Sarah Palin

Love her, hate her, or be indifferent toward her, this continued faux outrage, this one-sided reporting by the Mainstream Media has got to stop. One would have thought that maybe, just maybe, the expose of the JournoListers shaping the news to benefit Obama from the get-go would have made the MSM act a bit more like professionals. Especially their acknowledgment that they intentionally went after Palin because she was a force with which to be reckoned, so they wanted to take her down.

But no. None of that happened. They have just gotten worse and worse. Perhaps they figured since the cat was out of the bag, what the hell? They might as well go all in. Except that isn’t journalism. That is the stuff of tabloids.

I mean, really – the AP – the ASSOCIATED PRESS – writes an entire article on the conspiracy of conservative bloggers to keep Bristol Palin on “Dancing With The Stars” – after the finale. Maybe, just maybe, people were sick and tired of the MSM going after this 20 yr old because of who her mom is, or two of the judges routinely giving her lower scores even though her technique was better than some of the other dancers (a concept backed up in the AP article as well). Oh, yes – the Associated Press quotes a mathematician, Jason Gershman of Nova Southeastern University in Florida, who referred to her dancing as “mediocre.” Sure would like to see THAT mathematician try to dance on this show. Then again, maybe not.

Let’s just take a little gander at Professor Gershman, he of the dancing judging(you don’t have to listen to him if you don’t want to – just take a look):

Uh, yeah – who is HE to critique Bristol’s dancing? I doubt he could come even close to what she accomplished in 10 weeks.

But I digress. In all honesty, I am pretty worried about what has come of the media in this country. If it’s not Sarah, it’s Hillary. It’s whoever they have decided they want to diss to accomplish their endgame. And that is disturbing to me in a big way.

So, good for Governor Palin for highlighting the numerous gaffes of Barack Obama, and the MSM’s failure to acknowledge same, while attacking her for a slip of the tongue. Someone’s got to do it, right?

Oopsie daisy – sounds like another faction unhappy with Dear Leader. The African American community has been one of the most stalwart groups in supporting Obama in the polls, so this could be a troubling change for Obama. Those days may be coming to an end, at least for some in the community, and with good reason:

[snip]Since Obama has taken office African Americans have faced a number of disproportionate “highs,” few of them good, such as an exceptionally high unemployment rate, a high foreclosure rate, and a high number of African-American political figures deprived of the president’s support or dismissed from his administration (such as former White House social secretary Desiree Rogers, former Department of Agriculture official Shirley Sherrod, South Carolina Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Alvin Greene, former green energy czar Van Jones, Democratic Illinois Sen. Roland Burris, Democratic New York Gov. David Patterson, would-be Democratic New York Senate candidate Harold Ford Jr., and Democratic Reps. Charlie Rangel of New York, Maxine Waters of California and Kendrick Meek of Florida).

Dr. Cornel West, professor of African American Studies at Princeton University, is one African-American leader who has been far from pleased with Obama’s neglect of African-American issues. West told The Daily Caller that he has been extremely frustrated with the president’s relative disinterest in civil rights
issues.

“He can take the black base for granted because he assumes we have nowhere else to go,” West said. “But we just won’t put up with it. He has got to respect us.”

West is not the only black leader who feels this way. Behind the scenes, West says, many African-American leaders are not happy with Obama’s failure to address issues important to the black community, especially considering the support the community gave the president during the 2008 election. But, according to West, many of those dissatisfied leaders are hesitant to step forward.

“There hasn’t been a lot of talk about it because I think most black spokespeople, at the moment, are scared of the Obama machine,” West said. “A lot of us are trying to put the pressure on him without aiding and abetting the right wing.” [snip]

I just have to say, as someone living in SC, surely no one really expects Obama or ANY Democrat, for that matter, to support Alvin Greene. For heavens sake, the man was just indicted on two counts of showing pornography a couple of weeks ago. He was kicked out of a SC restaurant on Tuesday. Originally, it was a campaign stop – until those pesky little indictments came down. The organizers canceled the meeting, but Greene came anyway. He, and a companion, were, um, ushered out of the establishment. Heck, even I don’t blame Obama, or ANYONE, for steering clear of this guy. Just saying.

As for my former professor, Cornell West, it is a bit surprising that he, and others, like Dr. Leon, are speaking out already. Now, West was a Hillary supporter, just to be clear, prior to Obama’s being given the nomination by the rule-breaking DNC. But that does not mean he wouldn’t have some real expectations about what Obama might do for the African American community in this country.

Shelby Steele from the Hoover Institute, has some thoughts on the matter, as well:

[snip] Steele pointed out that Obama does not owe the black community as much as they believe he does due to the fact that whites were the ones who elected him — specifically by throwing their support to him during the Iowa caucus. Initially, the African-American community was significantly supporting Hillary Clinton’s candidacy.

“Once blacks began to see that whites were with Obama they didn’t want to be left standing at the station so they jumped on board,” he said. “They were not his base anyway. So he is not confused about that. That said, blacks will continue to vote for him. They vote for every Democratic candidate at a rate of 90% so Obama can absolutely take them for granted and will.” [snip] (Click HERE to read the rest.)

This raises a couple of points for me. One, not only are whites the ones who elected Obama, they are also the ones who REARED Obama. It is remarkable to me how completely and fully both Obama’s mother and grandmother have been wiped from history. They are the ones responsible for rearing him. That is to say, he was not raised in a traditional African American community. To pretend otherwise has been one of the most glaring manipulations of the entire election.

Two, yes, many in the African American community were breaking for Hillary Clinton. My first rally in Charleston was easily, easily 1/2 African American, if not more. But, when Obama and his campaign played the race card against Hillary Clinton in SC, employing that turncoat, backstabber, Jim Clyburn, that many in the African-American community turned away from her. She, along with her husband, were characterized as racists by Obama, and for some reason I still cannot fathom, the community, the COUNTRY, bought that, despite their long, long history standing in stark defiance of that claim. But they believed Obama.

Instead of a hard-working Hillary Clinton in the White House, who would indeed have worked on behalf of the African American community, and ALL Americans, who would not be taking vacation after vacation after vacation while the Home sales worsen, more jobs are lost, and the DOW tanks, they got Obama. Even if he IS vacationing in the “historically black section of Martha’s Vineyard” at a gazillion dollars a week, I might add.

Still – it begs the question: just what did the African American community think Obama was going to do specifically for them? Oh, wait – I remember:

Wow. That is still hard to believe, that anyone thought that would happen if Obama became president. But someone clearly spread that word – she was not the only one who seemed to think that was the case.

Anyway, I think Leon sums the issue up perfectly:

[snip] “My take on that is, you have to treat him the same way you would treat any other president,” Leon explained. “Especially since he is not giving you any reason to treat him otherwise. And it is going to be very difficult, whether it is 2012 and he is not reelected or it is 2016 and we’re dealing with a new president — who most likely will not be African American — it is going to be very difficult to hold that new president to a different standard.” [snip] (Click HERE to read the rest.)

There’s a concept – treat Obama like every other president. That would be a change, wouldn’t it? Holding Obama to all the same standards as every other president or presidential candidate? What a novel idea. It’s too late for the latter now, but 2012 is not that far away (it just feels like it is).

I guess we will just see how this continues to play out, and if the dissatisfaction with Obama trickles throughout the African American community, not just the leaders and intellectuals. Time will tell…

Is this really the level of press we have now in this country? No wonder we are in such dire straits.

Let me just share with you the beginning of this article:

When Congress required most Americans to obtain health insurance or pay a penalty, Democrats denied that they were creating a new tax. But in court, the Obama administration and its allies now defend the requirement as an exercise of the government’s “power to lay and collect taxes.”

And that power, they say, is even more sweeping than the federal power to regulate interstate commerce.

Administration officials say the tax argument is a linchpin of their legal case in defense of the health care overhaul and its individual mandate, now being challenged in court by more than 20 states and several private organizations.

Under the legislation signed by President Obama in March, most Americans will have to maintain “minimum essential coverage” starting in 2014. Many people will be eligible for federal subsidies to help them pay premiums.

In a brief defending the law, the Justice Department says the requirement for people to carry insurance or pay the penalty is “a valid exercise” of Congress’s power to impose taxes.

Congress can use its taxing power “even for purposes that would exceed its powers under other provisions” of the Constitution, the department said. For more than a century, it added, the Supreme Court has held that Congress can tax activities that it could not reach by using its power to regulate commerce.

While Congress was working on the health care legislation, Mr. Obama refused to accept the argument that a mandate to buy insurance, enforced by financial penalties, was equivalent to a tax.

Ah, yes. Obama’s refusal that this was a tax. As the article points out, Obama flat out lied, um, I mean, denied that was the case in his discussion with George Stephanopoulos. I am sure you remember this little video highlight:

So, apparently, Stephanopoulos was right, and Obama lied to his, and our, face.

We also know, now (well, those who denied it then know now), that this law WILL add a ton to our deficit. Another bigass lie from Obama, thanks so much. Pretty much every claim made by Obama, in that clip and while campaigning for this law, has turned out to be a lie.

I blame him, but mainly, I blame a Congress that didn’t bother to read the damn thing before voting on it, not unlike the recent “Financial Reform Bill,” and a media that failed to do their duty in accurately reporting the discrepancies between what Obama said, and what the law said. And I fault all three for ridiculing those of us who were asking reasonable questions about how this bill would affect our personal health care, how much it would cost, and how it would be paid, even, as always, using the race card against us. The attacks were constant and unrelenting.

Surprise, surprise – we were right all along. And one other thing about which we were right, which the article also mentions: those 16,000 new IRS agents, the funding of which was not set apart in the bill. Yes, we will have to note on our Income Tax returns whether or not we have health insurance. The IRS, despite its claims that it is not set up for this, and is not trained for this, will be policing us and our small businesses to make sure we are compliant.

Oh, and one last thing about the ObamaCare Law:

Can we finally agree that Obama is a massive liar, who uses condescension and derision to dismiss and discount reasonable questions about his plans? If not now, when? How much more are we going to be screwed before Congress stops doing Obama’s bidding?

I shudder to think.

*Bonus – Obama mentioned in his attack on Clinton’s foreign policy experience that he went to Pakistan in college. HOW??? Americans weren’t allowed to travel to Pakistan then. Maybe if the press did their jobs, they would have followed up on that little nugget. Newsflash! It’s not too late!!!! Sheesh.

The press ran with his lame-ass excuse that he was never all that close to Jeremiah Wright ANYWAY, since we were all learning what kind of pastor and church Obama attended. So, he referred to him as “uncle,” acting like he was some wacky relative you couldn’t get rid of, yet he CHOSE to sit in his church for over 20 years. And Bill Ayers? Oh, he was just some guy in his neighborhood. Never mind that Obama had known, and worked, with him for years. P-shaw, people – who are you gonna believe, the naysayers or The One?

As they say, the proverbial chickens are coming home to roost. I am surprised it is happening this quickly, actually. Yep – Obama is blowing off the press, international as well as national, including breaking with protocol (oh THERE’S a surprise. The man cares nothing for decorum and protocol, which strutting in to “99 Problems But a Bitch Ain’t One” should have told anyone. And if THAT wasn’t enough, maybe this photo should have:

Oh, yeah – Jay-Z in the Situation Room at the White House. I think we can assume that Obama is pretty fond of his misogynistic music, wouldn’t you?

So, the press may finally be getting that smack upside the head they have needed for the past few years regarding Obama in this Dana Millbank article(I know, right? Maybe he got himself some smelling salts to snap out of it already.):

Obama’s Disregard For Media Reaches New Heights At Nuclear Summit.

World leaders arriving in Washington for President Obama’s Nuclear Security Summit must have felt for a moment that they had instead been transported to Soviet-era Moscow.

They entered a capital that had become a military encampment, with camo-wearing military police in Humvees and enough Army vehicles to make it look like a May Day parade on New York Avenue, where a bicyclist was killed Monday by a National Guard truck.

In the middle of it all was Obama — occupant of an office once informally known as “leader of the free world” — putting on a clinic for some of the world’s greatest dictators in how to circumvent a free press.

The only part of the summit, other than a post-meeting news conference, that was visible to the public was Obama’s eight-minute opening statement, which ended with the words: “I’m going to ask that we take a few moments to allow the press to exit before our first session.”

Reporters for foreign outlets, many operating in repressive countries, got the impression that the vaunted American freedoms are not all they’re cracked up to be.

Yasmeen Alamiri from the Saudi Press Agency got this lesson in press freedom when trying to cover Obama’s opening remarks as part of a limited press “pool”: “The foreign reporters/cameramen were escorted out in under two minutes, just as the leaders were about to begin, and Obama was going to make remarks. . . . Sorry, it is what it is.”

Alamiri’s counterparts from around the world had similar experiences. Arabic-language MBC TV’s Nadia Bilbassy had this to say of Obama’s meeting with the Jordanian king: “We were there for around 30 seconds, not enough even to notice the color of tie of both presidents. I think blue for the king.”

Ah, yes – repairing the image of the United States around the world, that Obama, isn’t he? Sure, right:

Lalit K. Jha of the Press Trust of India, at Obama’s meeting with the Pakistani prime minister, reported, “In less than a minute, the pool was asked to leave.” The Yomiuri Shimbun correspondent found that she was “ushered out about 30 seconds” after arriving for Obama’s meeting with the Malaysian prime minister. Emel Bayrak of Turkey’s TRT-Turk went to Obama’s meeting with the president of Armenia but “we had to leave the room again after less than 40 seconds.”

“When you only see the president for 15 or 20 seconds without him asking if you have any questions, it’s very frustrating,” said Laura Haim of France’s Canal+, which persuaded the White House to include foreign outlets in the press pool. “It’s very important for this president, who wants to restore the image of the United States, to have more access.”

Obama’s official schedule for Tuesday would have pleased China’s Central Committee. Excerpts: “The President will attend the Heads of Delegation working lunch. This lunch is closed press . . . The President will meet with Prime Minster Erdogan of Turkey. This meeting is closed press. . . . The President will attend Plenary Session II of the Nuclear Security Summit. This session is closed press.”

Hey, maybe THAT’S why he bowed to the Chinese president, Hu Jintao, at the Nuclear Summit he just finished hosting in Washington, DC (no excuses about “cultural expectations” this time, folks). he was thanking him for giving him the rubric for how to run meetings and cut off the press! Yeah, that’s the ticket! (and I LOVE that Media Matters refers to Obama’s bowing to foreign leaders, who do NOT bow back, as “supposed.” Are you kidding me with that kind of dissembling? Please. You know, Media Matters actually used to be a site for which I had respect. I thought it really did work to highlight improper reporting, regardless who was doing it. Nice to get those rose-colored glasses off. Because if they can’t accept that Obama has been bowing to other leaders (he was practically scraping the floor meeting the Emperor of Japan), they have zero credibility on this issue. (Photo by Jim Watson, AFP/Getty Images)

Back to Millbank and the reporters being a bit taken aback by the “transparency” and “openness” of this “hopey, changey” president:

Reporters, even those on the White House beat for two decades, said it was the most restrictive set of meetings they had ever seen in Washington. They complained to both the administration and White House Correspondents’ Association, which will discuss the matter Thursday with White House press secretary Robert Gibbs.

The restrictions have become a common practice for the Obama White House. When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came to the White House a couple of weeks ago, reporters were kept away. Soon after that, Obama signed an executive order on abortion, again without any coverage.

Over the weekend, Obama broke with years of protocol and slipped off to a soccer game without the “protective” pool that is always in the vicinity of the president in case the unthinkable occurs. Obama joked about it later to Pakistan’s prime minister, saying reporters “were very upset.”

Ahahahaha. Those silly, pesky little reporters! Isn’t it amusing that Obama broke with years of protocol (think back to his treatment of Prime Minister Brown, “rudeness personified,” press people) by shaking them off and not treating them like professionals trying to do their jobs? Oh, that’s a good one. I’m sure they are ALL laughing about it – not.

Back to the Millbank article and the Summit:

In “bilateral” meetings with foreign leaders, presidents usually take questions, or at least trade statements. But at most of Obama’s, there were only written “readouts”:

Canada: “The president and the prime minister noted the enduring strength of our bilateral partnership.” India: “The two leaders vowed to continue to strengthen the robust relationship between the people of their countries.” Pakistan: “President Obama began by noting that he is very fond of Pakistan.”

Reporters, many in a “filing center” about a quarter-mile away from the leaders’ meetings, relied on dispatches from colleagues allowed in as the press pool. The dispatches, over three days, were uniform: “They were too far away to hear conversation. . . . Again, Obama had nothing to say of substance that pooler heard. . . . We were in for all of 30 seconds. No news; no quotes and again no statements. . . . Same deal folks.”

Finally, Obama walked over to a group of reporters Monday afternoon. Would he give them an account of his meetings? “I’ll let somebody else do it,” he said with a smile.

Oh, well, I am sure they all swooned and lapped up the fleeting attention. Right? Let’s hope not. Let’s hope they are FINALLY going to start looking at this man they helped get into the White House, OUR White House, on half truths, denials of relationships and reality, blessed little investigative reporting on, well, ANYTHING of substance when it came to Obama (remember, they couldn’t be bothered to send anyone to the distant lands of CHICAGO, but they could send a whole bunch to Wasilla, Alaska). Maybe now, just maybe, they will start to do their jobs in time to get this charlatan, this egotist, out of our White House in 2012. Actually LOOK at his record, FIND his records, stop buying rumors and innuendos from his people, QUESTION what you are told by this most nontransparent of presidents. Do your jobs. Hop to it already.

I’d like to address the objections.

Protest is the American way. The health care bill, a massive piece of legislation, had many elements which some could find objectionable. Mandates are worrying, as is the fear that premiums could go up. There are genuine concerns that the “reform” could turn out to be a souped-up version of COBRA, making insurance obligatory but unaffordable, ultimately benefitting only the insurance companies. Reasonable people can disagree reasonably. That’s one of the great aspects of living in a democracy.

What is not reasonable, however, is circulating pictures of the President disguised as a witch doctor, or spitting on and hurling racial and other epithets at Congressmen (or anyone else), or sending images of nooses, or issuing death threats. This form of “protest” has nothing to do with TARP or health care or anything else. Anyone who defends such behavior should hang their head in shame. Indeed, such acts should be vehemently discouraged and the perpetrators shunned from civilized society.

The Tea Party’s message of smaller government and fiscal responsibility is being drowned out by the movement’s most extreme elements. In this the movement is comparable to A.N.S.W.E.R, a group begun to oppose the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan which then degraded into an umbrella group for every embittered leftist with an ax to grind, from PETA to the Free Mumia crowd to the pro-Palestinian folks. Ultimately the anti-war message was diluted and A.N.S.W.E.R turned into a joke.

Another group that found itself in the trashbin of history was the loosely formed anti-World Bank/WTO/IMF crowd, whose members had no problem protesting the worthy cause of international debt reduction by rampaging in the streets and committing acts of vandalism while filming all the exciting anti-globalist fervor with video cameras and cell phones imported from Asia. Any sympathy they may have generated went up in smoke as the public watched the violence and mayhem.

During campaign 2008, left-wing blogs turned into cesspools of misinformation and ad hominem attacks on the Clintons, going so far as to resurrect the “Vince Foster Was Murdered” canard. The outrageous sexism of the blogosphere and the media was harshly and justifiably criticized on this blog. To ignore the extreme elements of the Tea Party is to do an injustice to those decent people who want to have their voices heard, but do not want to be associated with the ugliness of the extremes.