Quickies

.

A round-up of news items, articles, columns and blog posts that caught our eye this past week.






More news from the George Zimmerman/Trayvon Martin debacle down in Florida:

On Friday George Zimmerman Sues NBC Over Edited 911 Tape Report was a top story. Here is the recap: (TMZ) Trayvon Martin shooter George Zimmerman has filed a lawsuit against NBC over the way it edited his 911 call -- placed moments before Martin was shot -- claiming the network falsely made Zimmerman look like a "hostile racist."
You'll recall, NBC launched an internal investigation over the tape after it aired the edited recording -- which made it sound like Zimmerman immediately told police that Martin was black, without being prompted.

In actuality, the full 911 tape reveals Zimmerman only referred to Martin as "black" when responding to a question from the dispatcher about Trayvon's race.

Zimmerman accuses NBC of creating a "false and defamatory misimpression using the oldest form of yellow journalism: manipulating Zimmerman's own words, splicing together disparate parts of the recording to create the illusion of statements that Zimmerman never actually made."

Two things: 1) We look forward to George Zimmerman sitting on a small mountain of NBC's cash when all is said and done and 2) this is just a gentle reminder of how corrupt and degenerate this country's media has become.







Ugh... We're forced to blog about this guy:

From the Washington Times:

The White House deleted a petition Friday on its web site demanding that President Obama rescind an invitation to “Gangnam style” rapper Psy to sing at a Christmas concert in Washington, due to the performer’s anti-American rants.

The petition was signed by about 500 people who object to the singer’s scheduled performance, which Mr. Obama is to attend. But the White House said it took down the petition because it violated the terms of participation on the administration’s “We the People” web site.

Psy, a 34-year-old South Korean performer whose “Gangnam style” video is the most-watched of all time, apologized Friday for making obscene comments about U.S. troops at a protest concert in 2004 in the aftermath of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. He reportedly sang:

“Kill those f–ing Yankees who have been torturing Iraqi captives.”
“Kill those f–ing Yankees who ordered them to torture.”

“Kill their daughters, mothers, daughters-in-law and fathers.”

“Kill them all slowly and painfully.”

In his apology, the rap star said, “As a proud South Korean who was educated in the United States and lived there for a very significant part of my life, I understand the sacrifices American servicemen and women have made to protect freedom and democracy in my country and around the world.”

“The song in question — from eight years ago — was part of a deeply emotional reaction to the war in Iraq and the killing of two innocent Korean civilians that was part of the overall antiwar sentiment shared by others around the world at that time,” he said in a statement. “While I’m grateful for the freedom to express one’s self, I’ve learned there are limits to what language is appropriate and I’m deeply sorry for how these lyrics could be interpreted. I will forever be sorry for any pain I have caused anyone by those words.”

(italics, ours)


8 years ago... Remember? That was back when dissent was patriotic. Besides, we've moved way beyond all that torture stuff. We won't be holding our breath, however, for a PSY rap-rant on indefinite detentions and/or drone strike assassinations to be performed at this concert.







ObamaCare: improving the financial health of lobbyists one congressional staffer at a time.

Liz Fowler worked for Democratic Senator Max Baucus in the first half of last decade, and so it wasn’t surprising when she cashed out to run the lobbying shop at Wellpoint, the nation’s largest private insurer.

After all, that’s what Max Baucus staffers do. They become high-paid lobbyists for powerful companies dependent on government. Former Baucus chief of staff David Castagnetti is now a lobbyist partner at Mehlman, Vogel, Catagnetti. Successor Jeff Forbes is a partner at Cauthen, Forbes, and Williams. Baucus’s chief trade counsel Scott Parven doesn’t have a lobbying firm named after him, because he sold his firm to K Street giant Akin Gump. There are literally dozens of others.

It also wasn’t surprising when Baucus hired her back to help write Obamacare. After all, Baucus is famously close with K Street and industry lobbyists.

Given Baucus’s central role in drafting Obamacare, and lobbyists’ access to Baucus, it wasn’t surprising either when the bill won the backing of the biggest health-industry lobbies in the country — Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the American Medical Association, and the American Hospital Association.

The hand-in-hand public-private corporatism so derided during the Bush years has re-branded itself to become the single greatest feature of the Obama administration. Congratulations on this feat that was accomplished in no small part by the silence if not advocacy of the government/media/entertainment complex.






Not all calls for genocide are created or viewed equally:

Is promoting genocide a human-rights violation? You might think that's an easy question. But it isn't at Human Rights Watch, where a bitter debate is raging over how to describe Iran's calls for the destruction of Israel. The infighting reveals a peculiar standard regarding dictatorships and human rights and especially the Jewish state.

Human Rights Watch is the George Soros-funded operation that has outsize influence in governments, newsrooms and classrooms world-wide. Some at the nonprofit want to denounce Iran's regime for inciting genocide. "Sitting still while Iran claims a 'justification to kill all Jews and annihilate Israel is a position unworthy of our great organization," Sid Sheinberg, the group's vice chairman, wrote to colleagues in a recent email.

But Executive Director Kenneth Roth, who runs the nonprofit, strenuously disagrees.

Asked in 2010 about Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's statement that Israel "must be wiped off the map," Mr. Roth suggested that the Iranian president has been misunderstood. "There was a real question as to whether he actually said that," Mr. Roth told The New Republic, because the Persian language lacks an idiom for wiping off the map. Then again, Mr. Ahmadinejad's own English-language website translated his words that way, and the main alternative translation—"eliminated from the pages of history"—is no more benign. Nor is Mr. Ahmadinejad an outlier in the regime. Iran's top military officer declared earlier this year that "the Iranian nation is standing for its cause that is the full annihilation of Israel."

A Clintonian torturing of the English language to be sure when we all know the official party line of Iran and about every other bad actor over there in that neck of the woods.





Turns out Mitt Romney was spot-on regarding Benghazi. So explain to us again why it is he is taking so much grief for saying Obama won the election because he promised free stuff.

The city of Detroit faces a major financial crisis and one member of city council thinks President Barack Obama should step in and help.

City Council member JoAnn Watson said Tuesday the citizens support of Obama in last month's election was enough reason for the president to bailout the struggling the city. (Click the video player to listen)

"Our people in an overwhelming way supported the re-election of this president and there ought to be a quid pro quo and you ought to exercise leadership on that," said Watson. "Of course, not just that, but why not?"

Nearly 75 percent of Wayne County voters pulled the lever for Obama in November.

"After the election of Jimmy Carter, the honorable Coleman Alexander Young, he went to Washington, D.C. He came home with some bacon," said Watson. "That's what you do."

Young served as Detroit's mayor for 20 years and served as vice chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 1977 to 1981.

We're sorry. Not free per se, rather quid pro quo meaning Detroit and Wayne County vote for Obama and the rest of us pay for another four years.

Related: Is there a correlation between the percentage of votes going to Obama in a particular city/county and that city/county's fiscal dysfunctionality?








And finally...

You may be shocked to learn that some coastal types that appear on MSNBC on a regular basis don't think you are paying enough at the pump and would like to see that price go higher to make alternative energy sources more competitive.

It's telling that they no longer speak of making wind and solar more competitive by improving the technology of wind and solar rather making wind and solar more competitive by taxing oil and natural gas, i.e. sticking it to the consumer, you, in order to fulfill their half-witted, agenda-driven energy fantasies.




OK, gang, that's it for today. We'll see you all tomorrow.

.