Your Economic Lesson of the Day Topic: WorldNetDaily
I tend to be a target at limousine-liberal gatherings, and, sure enough, a middle-aged gentleman of means came up to me and, from out of the blue, blurted, "Capitalism is the most evil system ever invented."
Displaying my finest George Will deadpan expression, I asked how an intelligent, successful gentleman like him had managed to arrive at such a fascinating conclusion. To which he groused, "Under capitalism, the poor are exploited by the rich." Yikes – it was the ghost of Vladimir Lenin!
Masochist that I am, I asked him to define the terms "rich" and "poor" for me, but he simply waived aside my question as though it were frivolous. My acquaintance's wife then intervened and admonished us that political discussions were forbidden in her house, thus preventing a Sunday afternoon homicide.
Darn. I didn't even get a chance to see the expression on his face had I been able to lay this one on him: The gap between the rich and the poor is supposed to increase under capitalism! It's built into the system.
But also built into the system is the fact that almost everyone is better off under capitalism. Why? Because trickle-down economics really does work.
Of course WorldNetDaily's Joseph Farah would call for the impeachment of President Obama over conversations with Joe Sestak -- that's how he makes his money. (He has bumper stickers to sell, after all.)
The dirty little secret behind Farah's manufactured outrage, though, is that WND has hidden from its readers any evidence that the Sestak conversation is not illegal.
Nowhere in Farah's impeachment screed -- or in purported "news" articles on the Sestak non-scandal -- is it mentioned that numerous legal experts have stated that federal statutes were not violated, or that the Bush and Reagan administrations also offered jobs to politicians in exchange for quitting race.
It's yet another case in which WND has demonstrated an inability to tell the truth. (WND's repeatedlies about Obama are but another example.)
In his eagerness to smear Obama at every possible opportunity , Farah has abandoned any pretense of journalism, and he cannot claim to operate a "news" operation. He, and his website, are nothing but a sad, rage-filled joke.
Farah Admits He 'Can't Believe' What He Reads At His Own Website Topic: WorldNetDaily
Joseph Farah writes in his June 2 WorldNetDaily column:
I have to admit it.
Sometimes I read WND headlines and can't believe what I am reading.
That's no reflection on the competence of my staff.
We know the feeling. But Farah is wrong on that last point -- it is precisely because of the competence of his staff (or, more accurately, the lack thereof) that youcan'tbelieveanything you read at WND.
Sycophantic Kessler Defends Bush's Pronunction of 'Nuclear' Topic: Newsmax
Ronald Kessler wasalways in the tank for President Bush, so it's no surprise to see he still is. But it's still a bit bracing to see Kessler be so sycophantic to Bush that he's defending the former president's mispronuciation of "nuclear."
From the way he walked to the way he talked, Bush was the butt of constant derision by the press. Every action he took to protect America was portrayed as a sinister plot.
Bush’s pronunciation of “nuclear” was cause for constant tittering in the media. In fact, pronouncing the word NOO-kyoo-ler is a Southern rendering similar to Jimmy Carter’s NOOK-ee-yuh. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary lists the way Bush pronounced nuclear as an alternate, even including that version in an audio clip on its website.
Of course, "ain't" is in the dictionary, but that doesn't make it correct or proper English.
Still, in what parallel universe would a guy who boasted that the high point of his career was that he'd been a community organizer be elected the leader of the free world? After stating that the trouble with the U.S. Constitution and the civil-rights movement was that they didn't deal with the redistribution of the nation's wealth, I wonder how it is he got a thousand votes, let alone 62 million. He was also the chowder-head who, after saying that America was the greatest nation on earth, insisted that it was his mission to radically transform it!
Frankly, I think it was a classic case of Pygmalionism. Americans, thanks in great part to the most rancid media this side of China, were mesmerized by the mantra of Hope and Change. Voters were encouraged to think of politics in terms of a fairy tale, as if Obama was Prince Charming and that empty slogan was code for "And they all lived happily ever after."
The more Obama talked, the more, it seemed, poor, ugly men were lulled into thinking they'd become rich and handsome, while homely women came away believing they'd become beautiful and be pursued by rich, handsome men.
Pygmalionism, as you probably guessed, is the state of being in love with an object of one's own making. These days, it's also known as Obamaism.
The confounding aspect of all this is how so many people who regard religion as a sham, and who have nothing but contempt for Christianity and Judaism, continue to believe that Obama is the messiah.
CNS' Biased Approach: An Illustration Topic: CNSNews.com
A June 2 CNSNews.com article by Jane McGrath on President Obama declaration of June as LGBT Pride Month, in which he noted "his commitment to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act," contained reaction from not one but two representatives of right-wing organizations to criticize Obama for, inbthe words of one activist, "pushing ... Gay transgender stuff and gays in the military."
By contrast, a June 2 CNS article by Fred Lucas on House Republicans who "sent a letter to the White House counsel Wednesday saying they believe that a memorandum the counsel released Friday purporting to explain the administration’s actions in offering to appoint Rep. Joe Sestak (D.-Pa.) to a federal position in exchange for Sestak declining to make a Democratic primary run against Sen. Arlen Specter (D.-Pa.) presents a set of facts that appear to violate the law" -- specifically, "18 U.S.C. Sections 211, 595 and 600" -- without noting the numerous legal experts who have said those statues were not violated.
Nor did Lucas endeavor to explain what difference, if any there is between the Obama administration's conversations with Sestak and Karl Rove's reported offer of a Cabinet post to Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson, or the Reagan administration's reported job offer to Sen. S.I. Hayakawa in exchange for dropping out of an election.
UPDATE: A June 4 article by Lucas referred to the Obama administration "discuss[ing] alternative jobs with at least two Democratic Senate candidates to 'clear the field' for President Obama's chosen prospects" without mentioning that Rove and the Reagan administration did exactly the same thing.
Too Stupid, Even For NewsBusters Topic: NewsBusters
NewsBusters' Mark Finkelstein managed to top his notorious 2006 post speculating that Matt Lauer was a Palestinian sympathizer for wearing a checkered scarf. How? By declaring in a June 3 post that the World Cup soccer ball, as used on the cover of Time, "seems strikingly like that of the Obama logo."
We'll outsource the mocking to Media Matters' Simon Maloy, who later goes on to note that NewsBusters was apparently so embarrassed by Finkelstein's post that it was removed from the front page (though not completely deleted).
Bill O'Reilly to Help Promote Latest Newsmax Scheme Topic: Newsmax
We’ve previously detailed how Newsmax uses anti-Obama scaremongering (and Dick Morris) to sell its financial schemes. Now Newsmax is apparently cooking up another scheme -- and it has enlisted another Fox News personality to help sell it.
A June 3 email sent to Newsmax’s mailing list promotes something called the “Economic Crisis Summit,” starring Morris (of course), but also “Premier Guest” Bill O’Reilly:
The purpose of the “summit” is described this way:
What is the Economic Crisis Summit?
On June 17, an esteemed panel led by Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly and Dick Morris, along with global investor Jim Rogers and Newsmax CEO and Editor in Chief Christopher Ruddy, will convene to discuss inflation, higher taxes, our fragile economy, and real solutions that average Americans can take to ensure their wealth is safeguarded and positioned to prosper in an uncertain future.
Call it a hunch, but we suspect that Newsmax also wants to sell you something during this event.
As is standard practice with these things, Newsmax engages in anti-Obama fearmongering -- much of it misleading or outright false -- to whip up outrage and draw people into the “summit.” For instance, there’s this passage:
President Obama Will Usher in One of the Most Massive Tax Increases in History on December 31!
This is when the Bush tax cuts expire.
An immediate 10 percent tax increase across the board will strike citizens of all income categories.
He knows the capital gains tax will rise by almost 50 percent and the tax on dividends as much as 250 percent!
His Obamacare plan already calls for more taxes, including a $28,000 tax increase for millions of Americans.
And now Obama is openly talking about a new “value-added tax” which would be tantamount to a national sales tax. It is clear that the mentality of both the Obama White House and the Pelosi-run Democratic Congress is pro-taxes.
Let’s take that apart point by point:
Obama will not cause an “immediate 10 percent tax increase across the board.” Obama’s fiscal 2011 budget would allow the Bush tax cuts to expire only for individuals making more than $200,000 and families making more than $250,000.
Obama is also not allowing Bush tax cuts on dividends and capital gains to expire for most Americans. Obama’s proposed budget would raise the top rate on both from 15 percent to 20 percent, again applying only to the highest income brackets. That is not an “almost 50 percent” hike (for capital gains) or an increase of “as much as 250 percent” (for dividends).
Health care reform does not include “a $28,000 tax increase for millions of Americans,” and it’s unclear from which bodily orifice Newsmax is pulling that number.
Obama “openly talking about a new ‘value-added tax’ ” is pretty much limited to having once called it a “novel” idea.
The anti-Obama activism doesn’t stop there. If you sign up for the “summit,” you are redirected to a website containing a petition called “America’s Ultimatum,” which states in part:
We of this petition represent all parties and all people of this country. And we are united. We will not stand silently anymore as years of reckless spending have put at risk our wealth, our retirement savings, and our future. And we will not allow you to hurt the promise we’ve made to our children and grandchildren -- that they have the right to achieve financial prosperity and claim their piece of the American Dream. We realize that the only way to get the message across to you is in the voting booths. And this petition serves warning. Inaction on your part will not go unnoticed.
We know Morris has an affinity for taking part in such shameless hucksterism and fearmongering. But how did O’Reilly get roped into this? Have Morris’ frequentappearances on The O’Reilly Factor rubbed off on him? Or has palling around with Glenn Beck unlocked some sort of latent shameless-huckster gene?
Lowell Ponte's derangement doesn't end at Democrats, it appears.
Ponte's June 2 Newsmax column takes issue with Glenn Beck's embrace of the space program as a more noble cause than the "dope-smoking hippies rolling erotically in the mud with strangers" at Woodstock.
Glenn Beck is right on both counts, as far as he goes. But I was troubled when Beck proclaimed these two events as our choice between two kinds of America.
Beck is one of the most libertarian voices in American media, but in comparing Woodstock and Apollo 11 he never made a libertarian analysis.
[...]
Woodstock was irresponsibility run amok, if not a riot, on many levels. Any society using Woodstock as its blueprint is doomed to failure.
But does Glenn Beck want the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as his model for rebuilding American ideals?
NASA is big government.
The Apollo program cost taxpayers more than $25 billion in 1960s dollars.
Thanks to NASA's employees and courageous astronauts, America won the space race, was first on the moon, planted flags and brought back moon rocks. But when the political value of such missions waned, so did NASA's budget for moon shots.
NASA, like any government bureaucracy, has limped forward by doing whatever the politicians are willing to fund.
In recent years this has included ultra-politicized research into purported global warming to justify vast expansions of government regulation and taxation.
Ponte then complains that NASA refused to commercialize space:
Even more frightening to those of us who anticipate humankind's future among the stars is that NASA is the manifestation of unyielding socialist rule forever in outer space.
Like other government institutions, NASA is eager to reshape the world in its big government image. NASA might actually have the power to do this literally on the moon, Mars and worlds beyond.
This could mean that on planets where NASA first plants the flag — soon a United Nations flag — regulations will instantly be imposed to create the equivalent of a national park or a pristine nature preserve planet-wide.
The development of tourist hotels, golf courses, McDonald's restaurants and other earthly manifestations of capitalism and individual freedom will either be entirely prohibited or permitted only under the tightest of restrictions.
Is there an alternative to NASA prohibiting capitalism in outer space (beyond the token examples that even President Barack Obama says he wants)?
Yes. Let free enterprise take the risks, pay the costs, and reap the rewards. As on earth, at least in America, so let it be in the heavens.
"Coca-Cola refreshes you best" should have been the first words Neil Armstrong spoke on the moon.
In exchange for this everlasting advertisement, quoted for centuries via every history book and video of the event shown to schoolchildren, Coca-Cola would have relieved taxpayers of the entire cost of the Apollo space program.
We thus could have commercialized space from the beginning, initially to help fund NASA to capture "the new high ground" for America's national defense.
And almost from that launch we should have offered tax benefits and other incentives to encourage private spacecraft development.
Imagine if the U.S. allowed private companies to stake capitalist private property claims on other worlds.
A single asteroid whose orbit comes close to earth could contain $4 trillion or more worth of iron, nickel, platinum and other valuable resources, a prize worth owning.
Ponte concludes: "Glenn Beck, is NASA really who you want to rule humankind's future in space?"
If the choice is between NASA and Ponte, we'll go with the former.
President Obama had a golden Memorial Day opportunity to show the country that (contrary to his left flank) he is not anti-military and not anti-Christian, by telling Attorney General Eric Holder to order the Park Service to permit volunteer veterans to replace the Mojave Cross that was stolen on May 9. But he let the atheists and those who sneer at our veterans win the day.
A June 2 CNSNews.com article by Penny Starr baselessly claimed that Scott Roeder, the convicted killer of abortion doctor George Tiller, is "a mentally unstable man." Starr offered no evidence to back up her claim.
In fact, while Roeder family members claimed immediately after the shooting that Roeder suffered from mental illness, Roeder did not mount an insanity defense at his trial; indeed, Roeder attempted to justify his actions as necessary. Further, a psychologist hired by the defense found Roeder competent to stand trial.
Starr has previously referenced Roeder's alleged mental problems (also without supporting evidence) in an apparent effort to distance the murder of Tiller from the anti-abortion movement from culpability in Tiller's death -- as others in the ConWeb have done -- despite Roeder's association with the mainstream anti-abortion group Operation Rescue and a tacit endorsement of Roeder's actions by prominent anti-abortion figure Randall Terry, whose protest of President Obama's 2009 speaking appearance at Notre Dame CNS had favorablyreported on.
Kinsolving's Stupid Question Leaves Gibbs in Stunned Silence Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily actually tells most of this story straight for once, so we'll let them handle it:
A question about war memorials at Harvard apparently has left White House spokesman Robert Gibbs without a response.
The question was raised at today's White House briefing by Les Kinsolving, the third-ranking beat correspondent at the White House and WND's correspondent there.
"A two-part question relating to yesterday, Memorial Day. As a graduate of Harvard and Harvard Law School, the president has never protested," started Kinsolving.
"He didn't graduate from Harvard, Lester. He graduated from Harvard Law School, but he graduated from Columbia undergrad," Gibbs corrected.
"I'm sorry, I correct that. Thank you very much. The president has never protested the memorials to Harvard's war dead in World War I and II, which include the names of Harvard alumni designated as 'enemy' because they were soldiers of the Kaiser and of the Fuhrer. Has he – he's never protested that, has he?"
"I honestly don't have – I don't have any knowledge," Gibbs said.
In a second question, Kinsolving continued, "Does the president believe it is right for Harvard to have memorials mentioning these three German enemies, but no memorial at all to 71 Harvard alumni who died in the Confederate army?"
But instead of responding, Gibbs left the room.
WND goes on to try and explain that "The issue was raised because of the long-standing controversy over war memorials at Harvard and the fact that Obama is a graduate of its law school," but in fact there is no "issue," only Kinsolving's strange obsession, which Obama has absolutely nothing to do with and, thus, has no place at a White House press briefing.
And Kinsolving wonders why nobody takes him seriously.
We've previously noted Newsmax's interest in buying Newsweek magazine. Now Newsmax has officially put in a bid. From a Newsmax statement:
Newsmax Media, Inc. has made a bid for Newsweek. Newsmax Media is a multi-platform publishing company that produces a variety of print and electronic products covering news, politics, health, finance and lifestyle, with different editorial voices and perspectives.
The company’s bid for Newsweek’s print and online assets is congruent with its objective to diversify and expand into numerous distinct media brand offerings, like any major multi-title publisher.
Newsweek’s staff, advertisers and readers can be assured that if Newsmax Media, Inc.’s bid is successful, Newsweek's stellar brand and editorial representation would remain distinct from our other brands. Newsweek would continue in its mission to objectively report the news and provide analysis from a wide spectrum of perspectives.
Would Newsmax really allow Newsweek to remain editorially independent and "objectively report the news" and not, say, stick Dick Morris in there somewhere? We have our doubts.
MRC Blinded By 'Name That Party' Topic: Media Research Center
We've previously noted the Media Research Center's enthusiasm for playing "Name That Party" with the media even when it violates those same rules. The MRC's Clay Waters reminds us just how anal they are about this.
In a June 1 TimesWatch post, Waters complained a New York Times story on Mark Kirk making a false claim about his military record identified Kirk as a Republican in the first paragraph, while a story on Richard Blumenthal's false claims about his military record didn't identify him as a Democrat until -- horrors! -- the third paragraph.
Those bastards!
Waters is curiously silent, however, about a couple other crucial differences between the two stories. The Kirk story is only 12 paragraphs long and was buried on page A14, while the Blumenthal story is a whopping 50 paragraphs long and appeared at the top of the front page.
But to Waters, size and placement of an article is apparently a less reliable indicator of bias than how far up in the article a person's political party appears.
Richard Bartholomew does a fine job of once again shooting down WorldNetDaily's promotion of the discredited idea -- promulgated by Joel Richardson -- that the Antichrist will be Muslim.
As Bartholomew succintly puts it, "this is a farrago of nonsense that would be dismissed outright by any serious Biblical scholar – whether atheist, Christian, Jewish, or whatever."
