Thanks to the brainiacs at the Power Line for the video, and I also thank Liz Cheney for standing up for America and the truth. And the truth is that waterboarding is not torture. As Ms. Cheney so logically put it, we (the United States) use waterboarding as a form of training. If we use it on our own people, it is not torture, by definition.
However, if you want to know what real torture is, read this article at Wizbang. Where's the Defeat-ocrat outrage at true torture?
Via NewsMax comes this story about personal responsibility and its lack of being mentioned in the drive-by media.
Major news outlets are largely ignoring personal responsibility in their coverage of a recent increase in loan foreclosures, according to a new report from the Business & Media Institute (BMI).
"Everyone who enters into any kind of financial agreement should be expected to read and understand the documents he or she is signing, and if they don't, they shouldn't sign the papers," the report stated. "This was clearly not the position the evening news programs took."
And here's the first six points of the report:
Irresponsible Borrowers off the Hook: Sixty-two percent of the stories on the three networks ignored the consumer's responsibility for debt. Just as many portrayed borrowers as victims, such as the North Carolina family "living off peanut butter and jelly" just to make the mortgage payment.
Business Gets a Black Eye: Lenders and related companies were blamed for borrowers' debt trouble six times as often as borrowers. ABC and NBC even blamed the National Football League for retired players' financial woes.
A Penny Saved or Spent: While network reporters occasionally complained about Americans' negative savings rate, the ideas of savings and thrift were virtually ignored throughout the nine-month period. Only 14 percent of debt-related stories mentioned a savings or thrift theme.
Scary Words about the Economy: Exaggerated descriptions were often used to describe the economy. the terms "economic tsunami," "chaos," "crisis" and "meltdown" painted a bleak scenario that could undermine consumer confidence. Networks included doom-and-gloom remarks from ordinary people and experts 88 times, and the term "recession" was mentioned 10 times.
NBC the Worst: "Nightly News" blamed business nine times as often as borrowers (19 to 2), and tied with "World News with Charles Gibson" in ignoring the issue of personal responsibility. Both networks omitted it in 66 percent of the stories but NBC outdid itself with its poor coverage.
CBS the Best: CBS was the network most likely to address or promote personal responsibility and also had eight stories promoting savings. The "Evening News" also portrayed fewer people as victims than the other networks.
I am very glad to see this. I've been wondering, as news of banking write downs becomes more common, when someone would talk about the fact that these people (the borrowers) should have known what they were getting into. The fact that they cannot now pay their inflated mortgage payments is their problem alone, not the banks' and most certainly not the taxpayers'.
Read this article that has no bias whatsoever and is most assuredly not written by a Clintonian synchophant.
Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Rodham Clinton said Friday she sees her sometimes Southern accent as a virtue.
"I think America is ready for a multilingual president," Clinton said during a campaign stop at a charter school in Greenville, S.C.
Now how is it that Her Vileness, our nation's first First Lady to be subpoenaed to testify before a Federal Grand Jury, doesn't know the meaning of the word "multilingual"? Or is it perhaps the case that she does in fact know the meaning of the word, but that she's counting on her listeners to NOT know the meaning. I suspect the former. It aligns with her penchant for displaying "breathtaking gall".
Clinton added a Southern lilt to her voice last week when addressing a civil rights group in New York City headed by the Rev. Al Sharpton. On Monday, dealing with a microphone glitch at a fundraiser for young donors, she quoted former slave and underground railroad leader Harriet Tubman.
The two episodes prompted some ribbing in the media and hatched more than a few humorous YouTube video clips.
And here's an example of the new "multilingualism" from YouTube: Here's a bit of that transcript:
"You know, when I walk into the Oval Office in January of 2009, I'm afraid I'm going to lift up the rug and I'm going to see so much stuff under there."
Yes, your vileness, should you be elected President, you will find a lot of stuff under there, all of it deposited by your husband, the Fornicator-in-Chief. It should be tremendousloy familiar stuff to you. Back to the article:
Clinton is a linguistic polyglot—a Chicago native turned New York resident who works in Washington and spent two decades living in Arkansas when her husband, Bill Clinton, was governor.
This is where the complete bias of the so-called reporter is shown to the world. No, Her Vileness is NOT a linguistic polyglot. Polyglots are people who speak more than one language, NOT people who use more than one dialect. Her Vileness is a power-hungry, political whore whose sole interest is obtaining and maintaining personal political power.
And that's our nation's economy. By any measure, we are living in a very prosperous time and experiencing a healthy national economy. Much of this is due to the enactment by Congress of President Bush's tax cuts. Check out the graph below:
It comes from the President's State of the Economy Overview. Did you know that 7.2 million jobs have been created since 2003? You certainly wouldn't know it if you listed to the drive-by media. I urge you to download and read the entire report.
From President Bush's most recent State of the Union address:
A future of hope and opportunity begins with a growing economy – and that is what we have. … This economy is on the move, and our job is to keep it that way, not with more government, but with more enterprise...
I check Google News every day to get a survey of what the drive-bys are saying. Today I came across this headline: "Bush has decided to cut and run from 'staying the course'." Amazing. They don't even try to hide it anymore. The drive-bys just can't stand Republicans and Conservatism.
And it got me to wondering, what if we had a truly objective media in our country? Seriously. What if, when the Democrats mentioned "culture of corruption", a reporter were to ask, "you mean Senator Reid's unreported land flip?" What if, when someone mentioned "tax cuts for the rich", a reporter were to ask, "you mean because the rich pay greater than 50% of all taxes and naturally they'll benefit the most?"
He's the public editor for the New York Times. He "responds to complaints and comments from the public and monitors the paper's journalistic practices."
Fine. Who is Emily Litella?
Sometimes I feel so old. Emily Litella was a character played by Gilda Radner during the beginning years of Saturday Night Live. Ms. Litella would opine about something she heard incorrectly, such as "Endangered Feces" (instead of Endangered Species). After the hosting news anchor would interrupt her and point out her error, Ms. Litella would deliver her classic line, "never mind."
And that's exactly what the New York Times has said, through Mr. Calame, about the damage it has inflicted to our national security by exposing the SWIFT terrorist money tracking program. See the in-depth analysis from Michelle Malkin and the Power Line brainiacs.
John Hinderaker at Power Line shows us the epitome of "drive-by media" in an editor's note from the New York Times. I won't even quote it here. You have to go read it for yourself. It's astounding.
Jerry Bowen: "Some analysts contend the conservative pressure is part of the nation's ongoing culture war."
Martin Kaplan, USC Annenberg School: "There's a well-organized conservative movement in this country that's in charge of its version of the truth, and they swing a big bat."
Bowen: "James Brolin, who plays Reagan, wasn't talking, but his manager was."
Jeff Wald, James Brolin's manager: "And we seem to be in a very oppressive era where they can censor something before they even see it." [emphasis mine]
...if you work at ABC and the liberals ask you to edit something that might make them look bad. From calendarlive.com, "ABC alters 9/11 show under pressure".
After much discussion, ABC executives and the producers toned down, but did not eliminate entirely, a scene that involved Clinton's national security advisor, Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger, declining to give the order to kill Bin Laden, according to a person involved with the film who declined to be identified because of the sensitivities involved.
What would we do without a blogosphere? We'd get lied to a whole lot more, that's what! After Rathergate, you'd think these people would learn a lesson. You'd think. A brief round-up:
Back in May, I posted about Leslie Cauley and her work to become the next Mary Mapes. Sure enough, just as CBS did with Ms. Mapes screed, USA Today has issued a correction to its readers. Here's the substantive paragraph:
Based on its reporting after the May 11 article, USA TODAY has now concluded that while the NSA has built a massive domestic calls record database involving the domestic call records of telecommunications companies, the newspaper cannot confirm that BellSouth or Verizon contracted with the NSA to provide bulk calling records to that database.
Can you imagine being so blinded with hatred that you'll do anything and say anything just to make your President and your Government look bad?
But Mr. Light Bulb, you right-wingers did the same thing with Clinton!
No, no, no. We simply pointed out the truth, snickered at his incompetence, and sneered at his vileness. He did the rest for us.
On May 11, USA Today published a story written by Ms. Cauley claiming that several telecommunications companies, BellSouth among them, have provided phone call record data to the National Security Agency. Well, in the rush to publish her story, it seems that Ms. Cauley might not have had all her facts straight. You see, BellSouth is calling for a retraction.
In a letter to the newspaper's publisher, Craig Moon, the company noted that the story said BellSouth is "working under contract with the NSA" to provide "phone call records of tens of millions of Americans" that have been incorporated into the database.
"No such proof was offered by your newspaper because no such contracts exist," stated the letter, portions of which were read by spokesman Jeff Battcher. "You have offered no proof that BellSouth provided massive calling data to the NSA as part of a warrantless program because it simply did not happen."
And . . . I'm certain there's more she failed to mention. It just hasn't been discovered yet.
HUGE Hat Tip to NewsBusters - what a wonderful comfort to know that resourceful people like the folks at NewsBusters are watching the Drive-By Media and exposing their bias.
I'm a middle-aged, father of two, husband of one, conservative, Christian, white boy from the south - the only demographic against which discrimination and disparagement are not only encouraged but also expected. But I can take it. I am blessed to live in the most wonderful country on earth, and because of that I have opportunities too numerous to count.
The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do. Thomas Jefferson
Every immigrant makes America more American. You can't become an Englishman by going to live in England, or a Frenchman by going to live in France, but anyone can become an American. Ronald Reagan
Our destruction, should it come at all, will be from another quarter. From the inattention of the people to the concerns of their government. Daniel Webster
While capitalism and socialism exist side by side, they cannot live in peace. One or the other will triumph — a funeral dirge will be sung over the Soviet Republic or over world capitalism. Lenin, On Peaceful Coexistence, 1920
The family, however, has to be a sacred unity believing in the permanence of what it teaches, if its ritual and ceremony are to express and transmit the wonder of the moral law, which it alone is capable of transmitting and which makes it special in a world devoted to the humanly, all too humanly, useful. When that belief disappears, as it has, the family has, at best, a transitory togetherness. Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind, page 57, 1987
It is a paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high and tax revenues are too low and the soundest way to raise the revenues in the long run is to cut the rates now ... Cutting taxes now is not to incur a budget deficit, but to achieve the more prosperous, expanding economy which can bring a budget surplus. John F. Kennedy
We live in an age of science and of abounding accumulation of material things. These did not create our Declaration. Our Declaration created them. The things of the spirit come first. Unless we cling to that, all our national prosperity, overwhelming though it may appear, will turn to a barren sceptre in our grasp. If we are to maintain the great heritage which has been bequeathed to us, we must be like-minded as the fathers who created it. We must not sink into a pagan materialism. We must cultivate the reverence they had for the things that are holy. Calvin Coolidge
The issue as regards judicial activism is not whether there shall be "change” since no one is against generic "change" but who shall wield the enormous power of prescribing the particular nature and direction of change and by whose authorization? More specifically, shall it be done openly by officials assigned this task by the Constitution and responsible to the voters, or shall it be done furtively by unelected judges using verbal sleight-of-hand to attribute to the Constitution things that the Constitution never said? The issue is preemption of power, not "change." Thomas Sowell, The Vision of the Anointed, page 230, 1995
America, is like a healthy body and its resistance is threefold: its patriotism, its morality, and its spiritual life. If we can undermine these three areas, America will collapse from within. Joseph Stalin
Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of Patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great Pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of Men and citizens. George Washington, Farewell Address
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