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.

Hooray, regulations?

We don't think it's a stretch to imagine these people back in the 60s and 70s, stinky armpits, matted hair and all, agitating and fomenting on the campus greens across our nation on behalf of free speech and the more libertine and perhaps taboo aspects of society.

Who are these people and if they are the same what the hell happened to them?

President Obama's Environmental Protection Agency is encouraging the public to create video advertisements that explain why federal regulations are "important to everyone."

The contest, which ends May 17, will award $2,500 to the makers of the video that best explains why federal regulations are good and how ordinary citizens can become more involved in making regulations. The videos must be posted on YouTube and can be no more than 60-90 seconds in length.

In the current contest, each video must include the slogan “Let your voice be heard,” and it must direct viewers to the government’s regulatory website www.Regulations.gov. The winning video will then be used by the entire federal government to promote the regulatory process and enhance the public’s participation in it.

The EPA is managing the contest, part of the government’s eRulemaking program, on behalf of the entire government.

As explained in the EPA press release announcing the contest, the purpose of the videos will be to remind the public that federal regulation touches “almost every aspect” of their lives and to promote how important those regulations are.

“The contest will highlight the significance of federal regulations and help the public understand the rulemaking process. Federal agencies develop and issue hundreds of rules and regulations every year to implement statutes written by Congress. Almost every aspect of an individual’s life is touched by federal regulations, but many do not understand how rules are made or how they can get involved in the process.”

The videos should be designed to “capture the public imagination” and to “explain” why government regulations are “important to everyone.”

So, that's what happened to them? Now sitting at the levers of power, all that "sticking it to the man" is just a wistful memory, if they happened to believe any of it at all.

But that is the psychology of the liberal-Left. Diversity of thought and action is cool as long as it's conforming to the "correct" standards as defined by...them.

And not even bothering to disguise the Mao/Dear Leader tone of the language bears this out. Because regulations touch "almost every aspect" of everybody's lives there is a oneness and a collective justice to a regulatory regime, thus there is an inherent goodness to regulations. The more the better.


Fortunately, the good people at Americans for Prosperity have made their entry



H/T: Hot Air

Progressively ahead of their time

Crappy ideas from the liberal-Left: the gifts that keep giving.

Someone named Diane Francis writing for the Financial Post is calling for “mandatory conservation measures” in order to control global population growth which she believes is of more critical concern than global warming. Jonah Goldberg rightly ponders the amount and degree of outrage were there a call for a global ban on abortion. Keep your politics off my body, right?

How is this call for forced abor… err, “mandatory conservation measures” any different?

And who does she use as an example? Those progressives calling the one-child policy shots in China.

Ironically, China, despite its dirty coal plants, is the world's leader in terms of fashioning policy to combat environmental degradation, thanks to its one-child-only edict.

Leaving aside the fact that we’re not sure what is so ironic about two results of China’s command and control policies, Francis neglects to mention other progressives like Mao, Stalin and Pol Pot who also implemented very effective population control measures. Who knew they would be so out in front of this issue?

Alas, Ms. Francis is a married mother of two.

We're assuming they're meaning this in a good way

WASHINGTON (AFP) – A CNN correspondent said Monday she was detained by Chinese security guards in Shanghai for two hours for displaying a T-shirt on camera depicting US President Barack Obama as Mao Zedong.

Emily Chang, a Beijing-based correspondent for the US television network, said in a blog post on CNN.com that she hunted down the shirt after hearing they had been banned amid fears they "may offend the American president."

The shirt shows Obama, who is making his first visit to China as president, in a Red Army uniform staring into the distance in a pose made famous by the former Chinese leader.

The front of the shirt says "Serve the People" in Chinese, Chang said. "Oba-Mao" is written on the back in English.

Chang said she held the shirt up to the camera while filming a story in a Shanghai market.

"Two security guards happened to pass by at the moment I announced to the camera: 'This is the T-shirt everybody is talking about,'" she said.
"And that was it. They scrambled towards us and tried to pry the shirt out of my hands," Chang said. "I didn't give in.

"There was a bit of yelling and quite a scuffle," she said, adding that CNN "had everything on tape."

"We ended up being detained for two hours in the cold, maze of a market," she said. "A crowd gathered round. More security and then police showed up.
"They wanted our press cards, our passports, but most of all, they wanted the shirt," she said. "Finally, they let us go. Phew!"

Chang refused to surrender the offending shirt and joked that a number of jealous White House and CNN colleagues had tried to "bribe" her for it.

(italics, ours)

Now that Anita Dunn’s going away present has been taken care of, click on over to B-Daddy’s who is wondering just how wacky things have become when the Chi-coms are scolding Americans over the handling of our alleged capitalist economy.

Quickies

More favorable comparisons of an American president to perhaps the greatest mass murderer of all-time made by people who should know better.

The federal pay czar is now worried that meddling in what firms can/cannot pay their top dogs may scare off talent. Who knew?

The father of Bailout Nation warns against too much government intervention into the free market.

A very good counter (in fact, possibly the only one we’ve seen) to this “Jesus was a socialist” non-sense.

More green on green violence over windmill farms in the San Diego east county wilderness.

And finally, a popular catchphrase you may be hearing in the aftermath of the Ft. Hood terrorist attack is that we are back to a “pre – 9-11” mindset with respect to counter-terrorism. Andrew McCarthy who prosecuted the “Blind Sheikh” argues that it’s actually much worse than that.

Some red meat for ya on a Tuesday

So what does world-wide adulation and praise get the President? Only comparisons to a communist tyrant that killed tens of millions of his own countrymen. Hey, this isn’t a tea party thing – this cotton is from the source.

(if embed no worky, please click here)



KT has a reading recommendation for Obama's communication director, Anita Dunn.

This first authoritative expose of the 1958-1962 famine prompted by China's collectivization plan, "The Great Leap Forward," comes at a time when the cult of Mao is alive and well inside China, and while agents of Chinese influence are able to arrange audiences with a President. Via his painstaking research and reporting that included two treks through interior Chinese provinces, Becker tells how the famine occurred because ill-trained peasants were forced to undertake a gigantic and centralized industrial and agricultural expansion. The new factories, canals, and irrigation systems failed spectacularly, and in contrast to propaganda boasts of having economically outstripped the U.S., when in reality the populace was driven by starvation to cannibalism, slavery, and madness.

And what's this? Another Mao-o-phile in the White House? Gateway Pundit has more, here.

Few things puzzle us more than supposedly educated people holding murderous thugs like Mao and Che and their ideology in any regard whatsoever.

Define Revolution

We’re kind of surprised it took this long but now after “The Motorcycle Diaries”, the Che’ floodgates have been opened. Steven Soderbergh’s two-part Che’ biopic, “The Argentinian” and “Guerilla”, played at Cannes and “Chevolution”, a look at the mass marketing of the iconic Che’ image have been making the festival rounds… no word on when they are showing at your local suburban multiplex – check your local listings.

As “The Motorcycle Diaries” focused on the pre-Cuba Che’, Soderbergh’s movies will be the first to depict Che’ as what this article calls “the legendary Argentinian-doctor-cum-internationalist-revolutionary.” It is noted, they neglected, “Head of Cuban Prison System”, “Castro’s strong-man”, “murderer”, “common thug” and “most-likely rapist”… hey, if the Left can gloss over some inconvenient truths about their man then certainly we can take some dramatic license with his life and accomplishments, as well.

Anyway, so what are we to make of the marketing of Che’ and the supposed irony of Che’ being co-opted in total by capitalism? Are we to take some solace that his Maoist reputation has been permanently soiled by the taint of green (the other “green”) or should it trouble us further that his “brand” which ultimately represents the restriction of free trade and commerce and repressions of liberty, thought and speech, has gone Main Street?

Frankly, it’s a lot of both so we remain torn. We love the fact that “Che’” has become the ultimate sell-out and Madison Avenue shill but we remain discouraged that through the years and with increasing frequency and vigor his actions and motives have been entirely glossed-over and worse, hailed as virtuous.

So until such time when we can come up with an equally market-viable and intellectually and morally empty response to all that is Brand Che’ we offer only, “Revolution..? We got your Revolution right here, pal.”. Oi!