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MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 2010

THESE AMERICANS, SO DUMB, SO VULNERABLE TO FOX NEWS.  WHAT ARE WE INTELLECTS GOING TO DO? – AT 7:30 P.M. ET:   A new study out from Pew confirms the supremacy of Fox News.  Those in the White House reading the study are advised to have heart medication nearby:

Pew is out with their annual look at how news consumers get their information, with several interesting breakdowns across various forms of media.

But one category that sticks out is which cable news network plays a “significant role in people’s news habits” – not surprisingly, FNC grew year-to-year but CNN and MSNBC were down, even among Democrats.

Rotten right-wing Democrats.  You just can't trust them. 

From the study:

Overall, cable news continues to play a significant role in peoples’ news habits – 39% say they regularly get news from a cable channel. But the proportions saying they regularly watch CNN, MSNBC and CNBC have slipped substantially from two years ago, during the presidential election.

Only Fox News has maintained its audience size, and this is because of the increasing number of Republicans who regularly get news there. Four-in-ten Republicans (40%) now say they regularly watch Fox News, up from 36% two years ago and just 18% a decade ago. Just 12% of Republicans regularly watch CNN, and just 6% regularly watch MSNBC.

As recently as 2002, Republicans were as likely to watch CNN (28%) as Fox News (25%). The share of Democrats who regularly watch CNN or Fox News has fallen from 2008.

COMMENT:  What this tells me is that the universities haven't done as much damage as we may have thought, and that many Americans see right through the mainstream media. 

The mainstreamers have been outfoxed.  We must ask what will happen to the institutions on life support – CNN, MSNBC, CNBC.  Can they really survive with these losses?  Of course, Comcast is taking over NBC, and maybe it will provide a humane, loving end to its two cable failures.  As far as CNN is concerned, it will probably live on as a curiosity.  At least viewers of Ted Turner's dream don't have to put up with Christiane Amanpour any longer, although ABC views now carry that burden.

September 13, 2010       Permalink

REVOLTING – AT 7:18 P.M. ET:  The imam in charge of the proposed Muslim cultural center/mosque at Ground Zero has been speaking out since his return from a State Department-sponsored trip to the Middle East.  He might have been wiser to shut up.  This is his latest burst of wisdom, from Fox News:

The imam leading the effort to build an Islamic community center and mosque near ground zero says there is a "misperception" that the proposed site is sacred ground.

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf said Monday that the location where the center would be built, two blocks from the World Trade Center, has a strip joint and betting parlors nearby. He says it's "absolutely disingenuous" to suggest that it is "hallowed ground."

COMMENT:  The insensitivity of that statement is breathtaking.  Yes, there are areas around Ground Zero that are seedy, and that is the fault of zoning boards.  But there are human ashes in the very ground where the proposed mosque will be built.  A wheel assembly from one of the planes that hit the World Trade Center went through the roof of the building that is on the site right now. 

It is hallowed ground because the American people say it is.  We don't need the approval of the imam.  This is the same man who, last week, said that if the mosque issue isn't "handled right," there could be repercussions in other parts of the world.  That is blackmail.  That is the old Mafia protection racket.

And yet, there is silence among his leftist allies and endless "multiculturalists" who choose not to see because, if they did, and spoke out honestly, it might mean a few less party invitations on the West Side of Manhattan.

September 13, 2010      Permalink

BE CAREFUL, BE CAREFUL – AT 9:07 A.M. ET:  Delaware holds its primary tomorrow, with all eyes focused on the GOP primary for the U.S. Senate nomination.  This is the seat once held by Joe Biden.

It had been assumed that the nomination would go to veteran Congressman Mike Castle, a GOP moderate.  But a conservative faction has gotten behind Christine O'Donnell, who's now been endorsed by Senator Jim DeMint and Sarah Palin.  O'Donnell has now shot into a small lead, as The Politico reports:

A new poll suggests a seismic upset might be in the making in Tuesday's Delaware Republican Senate primary.

The survey, released Sunday night by Public Policy Polling, shows Tea Party favorite Christine O'Donnell leading veteran Rep. Mike Castle by 47 percent to 44 percent — a dead heat within the poll's 3.8 percent margin of error.

COMMENT:  Hmm.  Yes, it's true that O'Donnell is the more conservative candidate, but she has more baggage than Samsonite.  There are serious questions about her stability, her finances, her personal integrity, and a whole lot more.  And there are very serious questions about her electability in the general election. 

Republicans have a good shot at taking a Democratic seat in Delaware, and Castle is a highly popular figure across the state.  O'Donnell is, at best, an unknown with huge vulnerabilities. 

In Nevada, Republicans passed over a solid candidate to nominate Sharron Angle for the U.S. Senate, opposing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.  Angle has been a disaster.  An easy win for the GOP has been turned into a dead heat.  I fear the same mistake will be made in Delaware.  Ideological purity is fun if you can afford to lose a few seats here and there.  We can't.

September 13, 2010      Permalink

SNIPPET OF THE DAY – AT 8:56 A.M. ET: 

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich., Sept. 11 (UPI) -- A bureaucratic glitch in Michigan has led to the issuing of a number of 2011 license plate renewal tags in the wrong color, authorities said.  A state police trooper assigned to the Rockford station reported encountering about 50 vehicles this year with yellow 2011 tabs -- tabs that are supposed to be orange, the Grand Rapids (Mich.) Press reported Saturday.

Think of it – the plates went through the manufacturing process, the issuing process, the mailing process, the bolting-to-the-car process...and no one noticed the color?  What will the governor say about these citizens of her state?

September 13, 2010       Permalink 

THIS IS APPALLING – AT 8:38 A.M. ET:  We rarely see the race card played in as ugly and blatant manner as this.  It is shameful.

David Dinkins is the former mayor of New York, and was the city's first black mayor.  He was famously defeated by Rudy Giuliani in 1993, ending liberal control of City Hall in a city with an overwhelmingly Democratic registration.  We'd had high hopes for Dinkins, an apparently decent if underqualified candidate for mayor, but he could not overcome his racial identification and became, essentially, the mayor of black New York.  It was a true tragedy.

You'd think he would have learned.  But David Dinkins is back with a political endorsement that displays for all to see what the race card is really like.  From the New York Post:

Mayor David Dinkins encouraged voters to embrace a state Senate candidate because he looks "more like us."

"It's important, it is so very important, particularly for the people of this district who vote on Tuesday to recognize how important it is to understand that the city is changing," Dinkins said in his endorsement of state Senate candidate Assemblyman Adriano Espaillat on Thursday.

"Most people in the city are going to look more like us than others and that's just a fact," Dinkins said.

Espaillat opponent Mark Levine, who is white, yesterday called on Espaillat, who is Hispanic, to denounce the divisive comment.

Espaillat did not repudiate Dinkins' words.

That is pure ugliness.  It is an insult to the Hispanic community and to all New Yorkers, and it shows the race card for what it is, an appeal to bigotry.  Can you just imagine if a candidate of a different background had appealed to voters to vote for a candidate because "he looks like us" or "sounds like us"?  There's be an uproar, and the usual suspects would come out of the woodwork to shout "racism." 

Dinkins should be widely denounced for this disgrace, but he won't be.  And that is the heartbreak.

Expect the race card to be played nationally this year, and, especially in 2012, if Obama runs again.  It brings out the base and intimidates others.

September 13, 2010      Permalink

ELECTION UPDATE – AT 8:22 A.M. ET:  We are a bit more than a month and a half away from the midterm elections, and Gallup is out with a poll revealing the report card the current Congress is getting from the American people.  Byron York at the Washington Examiner has the story:

The numbers: Bank bailouts, 61 percent disapprove versus 37 percent approve; national health care, 56 percent disapprove versus 39 percent approve; auto bailouts, 56 percent disapprove versus 43 percent approve; stimulus, 52 percent disapprove versus 43 percent approve. Only financial reform, with 61 percent approve versus 37 percent disapprove, is a winner for the representatives and senators seeking re-election.

Although the bank bailout was passed with significant bipartisan support, the news is terrible mostly for the House and Senate Democratic leadership. It's even worse for Democrats when you single out the opinions of independents. Just 32 percent of independents approve of the bank bailouts; 35 percent approve of national health care; 38 percent approve of the stimulus; and 40 percent approve of the auto bailouts. Sixty-two percent of independents approve of financial regulatory reform.

COMMENT:  Okay, Nancy Pelosi won't be elected Miss America.  The results for the Democrat-controlled House and Senate are catastrophic, but the key question is whether they can be turned into GOP votes.  Americans may disapprove, but a good fear campaign can find them voting for people they dislike...to avoid a larger catastrophe.

Many political pundits are now predicting that the Democratic base, indifferent to this election up to now, may in fact come alive and go to the polls on November 2nd out of fear that some program may be taken away from them.  If that happens, many of the assumptions of a Republican tsunami will be in doubt.  That is why these polls, while good for the morale, mean nothing in the end.  The Dems know how to scare people.  Mr. Obama is at it right now, going back into his one successful role, that of campaigner.  It's much easier than being president.  And some people will buy the line, the way they bought it in 2008.

September 13, 2010      Permalink 

FREEDOM'S FATE – AT 7:49 A.M. ET:  Ronald Reagan said it best:  "Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free."

Make no mistake about it – freedom had a bad week last week.  The Israelis have a term for it:  salami tactics.  Something is taken away one small slice at a time.

I have only contempt for that "pastor" in Florida who wanted to burn the Koran.  I'm glad the obnoxious gent decided against it.  But, as vulgar as the act is, it is Constitutionally protected, and the pastor was cautioned that if he committed this act, some people overseas might be "offended," and react according to the way their culture handles offense.  That is, essentially, blackmail.

Similarly, the guy behind the Ground Zero mosque warned that if the mosque issue wasn't "handled" correctly, there could be a similar reaction overseas.  That is more blackmail.

In civil-liberties stories they call it "the heckler's veto."  Liberty is lost when a heckler can simply shout down a speaker and prevent that speaker from exercising his First Amendment rights.  As a society we're being subjected to a huge heckler's veto.  We must not "offend" anyone because they may do something unpleasant.   We saw the veto in play last week.  Another slice of the salami.

One of the founding principles of this country is, "I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to my death your right to say it."  Another great principle is that the antidote to offensive free speech is more free speech.  "Sunshine," Justice Brandeis wrote, "is the best disinfectant."

President Obama represents a faction in the United States that has no problem with speech codes on college campuses or vaguely worded "hate-crime" laws that can be employed very selectively against groups that are unpopular at the moment.  Salami slices.

So, while we're pleased that a Koran won't be burned, let us contemplate the circumstances through which the vile act was prevented.  Next we will surely be told that any criticism of certain societies is too dangerous for us, too much of a risk.

Yes, freedom had a bad week last week.  And it was a week in which the Muslim Students Association at the University of California, Irvine, under suspension for a year after shouting down a visiting speaker and making his speech impossible, was told that the suspension was being cut to four months.  The signal was sent that the heckler's veto wasn't all that serious.  Another slice of the salami.

Eternal vigilance, my friends.

September 13, 2010     Permalink

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2010

COMMON SENSE FROM THE UK – AT 7:23 P.M. ET:  Readers Mike Scully and Thomas Wharton refer us to a superb article by British journalist Janet Daley, who was born in the United States, and was a leftist at Berkeley before seeing the light and moving right toward the Truth.  Daley understands European and British anti-Americanism perhaps better than anyone else.  From the Telegraph:

Anti-Americanism has a new pin-up. “Pastor” Terry Jones, whose congregation may number as many as 50 on a good week, is holding the world in thrall with his on-again, off-again Koran-burning stunt. In spite of his idiotic proposal having been condemned by everyone in US public life, including the President, Sarah Palin, the secretaries of state and defence, the Pentagon, and the spokesmen of every respectable religious group, this wacko fantasist would have been capable (we were told) of destroying any prospect of peace between the West and the Islamic world...

...That this absurdity became the immediately accepted received wisdom suggests that the world (and not just the Muslim parts of it) must be very eager indeed to find a plausible excuse for casting America as a cartoon country whose heartland is dominated by bigoted know-nothings. Never mind that this is the same America which, only two years ago, was being hailed by ecstatic European liberals for having elected a black president, whose father and stepfather had been Muslims. I remember saying at the time that the victory of Barack Obama would provide only the most fleeting respite from the dominant anti-American mythology which is so essential to European self-regard.

And Janet was correct.  The left is a never-changing religion.  Even the election of Barack Obama won't move the parishioners.

The failure to make any serious attempt to understand the United States and its political culture is now more than smug, stupid and cynical (although it is certainly all those things). The perverse ignorance which allows the British liberal establishment to caricature America’s obsessive concern with its constitutional integrity as simply a front for bigotry (note the BBC’s derisive treatment of the Tea Party movement) is beyond silly: it now presents a real threat to the common cause which the nations of the Enlightenment must make if they are to see their way through the present danger.

Superb point.  The European and British elitists would rather bash America than those forces that threaten their very existence.  Much easier, you know.

What is unique about the US – and indispensable to the understanding of it – is that it is a country of the displaced and dispossessed: a nation which invented itself for the very purpose of permitting people to reinvent themselves, to take their fate into their own hands, to be liberated from the persecution and the paternalism of the old cultures they had left behind.

And...

Not only is hatred and suspicion of over-powerful government embedded in the consciousness of ordinary Americans, it is inscribed in the Constitution, which provides, probably more than any document in human history, a literal embodiment of political values and a bond between disparate people which gives them a sense of national identity.

Finally...

I wonder if the Obama liberals – in their eagerness to turn the US into a European country, complete with paternalistic interventionism and bourgeois guilt – realise what is in the rest of that package: passivity, resignation and the corrosive cynicism that makes it impossible for Europeans to believe that ordinary people can use words like “freedom” and “justice” without smirking, and are not prepared to give up on the attempt to reconcile their ideals with the difficult realities of human behaviour.

COMMENT:  This is a truly fine piece by Janet Daley.  Please read the whole thing and send to your friends, if you wish.

September 12, 2010      Permalink

HILLSDALE – AT 1:10 P.M. ET:  Hillsdale College, in Michigan, is one of the few conservative bastions in higher education.  It's amazing that the thought police haven't closed it down.  In fact, it's thriving.

Urgent Agenda reader and subscriber John McDaniel refers us to an upcoming Constitution Day celebration at Hillsdale that readers in the area may wish to attend.  Others may attend by webcast.  Information is here.

September 12, 2010     Permalink

NAILING OBAMA – AT 11:02 A.M. ET:  The great Ed Lasky of American Thinker refers us to an insightful piece about Barack Obama's strange comments on the 9-11 attacks.  We can truly ask, "Is this an American president speaking?"  From Jennifer Rubin at Contentions: 

Obama’s remarks on 9/11 were about what you would expect from a president who has ridiculed his countrymen for overreacting to the most lethal terrorist attack on our soil and who can’t manage to utter the worlds “Islamic fundamentalists” or “jihadists.”

Really, let’s not dwell on the bad stuff, he tells us. “On this day, it’s perhaps natural to focus on the images of that awful morning — images that are seared into our souls. It’s tempting to dwell on the final moments of the loved ones whose lives were taken so cruelly.” Yes, it is tempting — because that is what the day is all about, to recall the diabolical work of our enemies and recommit ourselves to the defense of our civilization. But no, in his book, it’s about diversity training: “They were white and black and brown — men and women and some children made up of all races, many faiths. They were Americans and people from far corners of the world.”

As for the Islamist fascists who killed so many and made orphans and widows of many more, he has this to say:

It was not a religion that attacked us that September day — it was al-Qaeda, a sorry band of men which perverts religion.  And just as we condemn intolerance and extremism abroad, so will we stay true to our traditions here at home as a diverse and tolerant nation. We champion the rights of every American, including the right to worship as one chooses — as service members and civilians from many faiths do just steps from here, at the very spot where the terrorists struck this building.

Oh, good grief. Yes, it was a religion — fundamentalist Islam that attacked us. Al-Qaeda is one organization but the jihadists attack because of religious beliefs. And they are anything but pathetic or, as he put it, ”sorry” — they did slaughter thousands, after all. And one cannot but wretch at the moral equivalence — just as we condemn Islamist zealots, we must rebuff those who don’t appreciate the desecration of “hallowed ground” ? Also, notice the sleight of hand: the Pentagon chapel he refers to is not a mosque, not the exclusive providence of Muslims but an interfaith facility that bears no religious monikers. (Hey, why not the same at Ground Zero?) His tone is one of condescension, revealing that his mission is to talk Americans out of their righteous anger.

COMMENT:  We'll answer our own question.  No, that's not an American president speaking.  It's a man who considers himself above us, a man of the world, a man who appreciates other "cultures," especially Islamic culture.  He may not have noticed the women stoned to death for not showing proper obeisance to their husbands.

Obama will not stand up for American civilization because he doesn't believe in it. 

And the pity is that we have an academic world and a press corps that still embraces him...because they share his values, and his contempt for the American people.

September 12, 2010     Permalink

ARE WE FINALLY BEING TOLD THE TRUTH? – AT 10:46 A.M. ET:  Uh, wasn't this supposed to be Recovery Summer?  Uh, wasn't the job rate supposed to go down with the stimulus package in place?  Uh, isn't prosperity just around the corner?

Well, uh, maybe not.  Now a new White House appointee may have slipped and told the truth.  This may be a criminal offense:

Austan Goolsbee, the new chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, acknowledged on “Fox News Sunday” that the country may face an enduring job shortage.

“I don't think the unemployment rate will be coming down significantly at any time in the near future,” Goolsbee told host Chris Wallace.

Goolsbee did not respond to Wallace’s question about whether the rate –9.6 percent in August -- could hit 10 percent.

COMMENT:  It isn't just the unemployment rate, it's the underemployment rate, and the shattered dreams that go with it.  Millions of Americans can only find part-time work, or have had to settle for new jobs far below the income level of their last ones.  The Obamans don't seem terribly concerned about them.  There's no sense of urgency.  After all, those people out there – the "flyover people" – are the ones clinging to their guns and their religion.  Isn't that what Obama said during the campaign?

The American people are really suckers.  They were suckers in 2008.

September 12, 2010      Permalink

NOW, HOW DO YOU THINK THE OBAMANS WILL HANDLE THIS?  – AT 10:11 A.M. ET:  We've all been preached to about being sensitive to Islam, genuflecting before Islam, not "offending" Islam.  But what happens when the U.S. Government, in order to act decently, must "offend" an Islamic country?  This, from AP, ranks high on the "juicy" scale:

WASHINGTON — A Saudi diplomat in Los Angeles reportedly has asked for political asylum in the United States, claiming his life is in danger if he is returned to Saudi Arabia.

What?  You mean the Saudi kingdom isn't perfect?  Why, that's offensive.

The report Saturday by NBC News quoted the diplomat, Ali Ahmad Asseri, as saying that Saudi officials have ordered him back to his country because he is gay and had become a close friend to a Jewish woman. Asseri in a letter also reportedly criticized the role of militant imams in Saudi society.

Oh, now the truth comes out.  The man made friends with a Jew, and he criticized Saudi society.  Now that really is offensive. 

NBC said that Asseri, who is first secretary of the Saudi consulate in Los Angeles, was questioned by the Department of Homeland Security after he applied for asylum.

We'll try to follow this story, to the degree that information is released.  Where are the civil liberties groups?  Where are the gay activist groups? 

If the facts in the story are right, this man should be granted asylum, just as we granted asylum to Soviet defectors during the Cold War.  But will the Obama administration "offend" the Saudi king to whom Obama bowed down in that now-famous picture?

Soap opera ahead.

September 12, 2010     Permalink