Quickies

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






Here's some more of that transparency we've been hearing about:

Former White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Sunday that he was told not to "acknowledge" or "discuss" the secret drone program when becoming the government's top spokesman.

Chris Hayes, host of MSNBC's "Up," played a video clip of Gibbs and current press secretary Jay Carney dodging questions about drones in the White House briefing room before asking if the Obama administration has been sufficiently forthcoming about the controversial targeted killing program. Gibbs, who recently became an MSNBC contributor, recalled the instructions he was given upon taking the job.

“When I went through the process of becoming press secretary," Gibbs said, "one of the things, one of the first things they told me was, ‘You’re not even to acknowledge the drone program. You’re not even to discuss that it exists.'”

The national media was slow covering the secret drone war in Pakistan and Yemen during Obama's first term, which has been difficult to track given both the government's secrecy and that strikes often take place in remote areas. But the drone media debate has gained steam early in Obama's second term, alongside questions for top counter-terror official John Brennan upon his nomination to become CIA director.

(italics, ours)

If HuffPo's definition of "slow" is equivalent to "effectively gave no coverage to it whatsoever" then we will concede to their definition of slow.

In fact, the first in-depth coverage of the drone program was in the run-up to the November elections; a lengthy piece by the New York Times that served ostensibly to bolster the President's chops as being tough in prosecuting the war on terror. Not exactly a puff piece but not overly critical of the administration either.

For a newspaper that was apoplectic over some tasteless prisoners-gone-wild photos taken at Abu-Ghraib, the contrast in coverage was emblematic of the state of the 4th estate these days.






We haven't yet had time to read the article but this cartoon in the linked piece from the City Journal is perfect in summing up the unholy relationship between California's state Democrats and the state's unsustainable public pension funds.











Our tweet from earlier this week:

Why gun ownership: Best reason: as a way of telling those who don't want you to own to perform physically impossible acts upon themselves.

Maybe we're missing something but didn't we at some point in this country's history, a nation borne of rebellion, have a little more "Eff-you" in our collective DNA?

Shouldn't always our default position, when told by the government to do something, be: "Why?"

And when told to not do something: "Why, not?"

It's not anarchy, merely critical thinking with an edge and when looking at some of the nonsense, in fact, some of the biggest pieces of legislation that have been signed into law over the past two administrations (we're looking at you Medicare Part D, TARP, the American Recovery Act (Porkulus), Cash for Clunkers, Dodd-Frank Fin-Reg and, of course, the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare) and now, pending gun laws) we're stunned by the relative passiveness of the electorate regarding laws that were so carelessly thrown together and which have and will serve to be, at best, preserving of the status quo and, at worst, absolute disasters.


Your thoughts?






Confirmed: Our media doesn't possess a liberal bias, it possesses an idiot bias.

Related: CNN talker, Christiane Amanpour, wishes Zimbabwe tyrant, Robert Mugabe a happy birthday.

They have changed the title of the post to "Robert Mugabe, how many more birthdays in power?"

Original post title did indeed read, "Happy Birthday, President Mugabe"

Nice try, CNN...

San Diego Restaurant-related question:

You wouldn't dare go into a restaurant with a large picture of Adolph Hitler, would you? Hell, no!

Then why would you go into one that had a large floral wall mural of Chairman Mao as is the case with San Diego ramen house, Underbelly?






We actually posed this question to a liberal aquaintance of ours and the shorter version of her response was: Intent.

You see, the statist/collectivist mindset is that that while the purposeful genocide of 6 million Jews, Christians, gypsies and other undesireables was bad, the death of 20-30 million Chinese during the Great Leap Forward, for example, was somewhat excuseable because Mao's heart was in the right place... Oops... he didn't mean to do it.

This is the "Sh$t Happens" logic that excuses the inevitable results of some forms of collectivism over that of others.

Our friend bemoaned the fact that Communism was beset by such bad luck through the centuries, so it could only mean that it was never practiced in its pure(er) form.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the largest body counts in recorded human history as wracked up by the likes of Mao, Stalin and Pol Pot has been sheer coincidence and demonstrable in only that their purer vision of collectivism wasn't implemented.

Just think how many more they could've wracked up had they the opportunity to do so.






Another week and another round of bad news for ObamaCare...

Florida is finding out what California has discovered: there will very soon be a severe doctor shortage:

Brace yourself for longer lines at the doctor's office.

Whether you're employed and insured, elderly and on Medicare, or poor and covered by Medicaid, the Florida Medical Association says there's a growing shortage of doctors — especially specialists — available to provide you with medical care.

And if the Florida Legislature goes along with Gov. Rick Scott's recommendation to offer Medicaid coverage to an additional 1 million Floridians — part of the AffordableCare Act that takes effect next January — the FMA says that shortage will only get worse.

"Florida needs more doctors and it needs more nurses, and it needs them working together in teams," said Rebecca O'Hara, a lobbyist for the FMA.

About 15 million Floridians have health insurance today, and Obamacare, which requires most adults to have coverage by January, could add as many as 2.5 million more. One million would come through a potential expansion of the federal-state Medicaid program that Scott announced this week he was backing. The others would be the result of new mandates requiring employers and individuals to have insurance or be fined.

Governor, Rick Scott, becomes yet another Republican governor to cave in by expanding his state's Medicaid program in response to ObamaCare; Ohio governor, John Kasich, did so two weeks ago.

What is the use of dumping millions more onto the Medicaid rolls if there aren't the doctors to service them? A 2,200 page bill failed to squeeze in a few paragraphs to address this immediate problem.




OK, gang. That's it forr today. We will hopefully catch-up again tomorrow.