“We need to help people cope with rising gas and food prices, spark job creation by repairing our schools and our roads, help states avoid painful budget cuts and tax increases, and help homeowners stay in their homes,” said the Illinois senator. “And we must also ensure that the solution we design doesn’t reward particular companies, or irresponsible borrowers or lenders, or CEOs, some of whom helped cause this mess.”

Obama’s remarks came the day after the Bush administration laid out a radical bailout plan with a breathtaking price tag — a takeover of a half-trillion dollars or more for worthless mortgages and other bad debt held by tottering institutions.  ~ap.google.com

Obama is third on the list of the top recipients of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac money. Only Chris Dodd and John Kerry got more money and Chris Dodd is chairman of the Senate banking committee!

Now tell me this isn’t framing the entire interview as revealing that Palin believes Iraq is a ‘Holy War’? Meaning that Palin is a radical fundamentalist Christian radical who wants to kill muslims.

Gibson’s gotcha question is baseless however because Palin doesn’t reveal any such opinion of the Iraq war. HotAir and JustOneMinute adequately debunk this strawman.

President Bush Inflexible on Iraq Issue
by David Greene

Morning Edition, July 11, 2007 · President Bush showed no flexibility regarding the war in Iraq during a recent Town Hall meeting in Cleveland. Senate Democrats are counting on a few Republicans to agree to an amendment ordering the president to begin removing U.S. troops within the next 120 days. ~npr.org

Is flexibility the issue here? Is flexibility the news ‘content’ of this story? I submit to you that Bush’s alleged inflexibility is not a fact to be reported in this story at all. It is slant. If the story were devoid of partisan content, truly objective, and merely reporting relevant facts it wouldn’t characterize either side as being inflexible per se. But to characterize one side as such and not the other creates a de facto partisan bias.

According to the facts of this story it would be just as valid to say that Bush disagreed with Democrats who inflexibly insist on demanding troops leave Iraq immediately.

Obviously, Bush is flexible on when troops will leave Iraq. The key point being that both sides agree on one fact: the troops should (and will) leave Iraq. What is not agreed upon however is when and how.

Isn’t it fairly obvious that Democrats are inflexible in demanding that declaring defeat and demanding retreat are the only options? I think so.

Think of all the wasted energy and resources that go into producing a daily newspaper. Often, the news is old even before the paper is printed. Think of all the dead trees represented by the thousands of newspapers landing on doorsteps and flowerbeds only to be thrown away before the end of the day.

Just think, all the chopping, trimming, cutting, transporting, and processing just to cut down a single tree in order to make a newspaper. It’s should be an ecocrime!

Save the earth; ban dead tree publishing!

“Newsprint consumption is 9.2 million tons per year, and the average amount of that which is recycled material is 32%, so about 6 million tons of virgin fiber is used to make U.S. newsprint per year,”  ~Tyson Miller, director of the Green Press Initiative ,

I, in order to save the earth from ecological catastrophe, declare that the government needs to completely outlaw all printing on paper. Congress, if they were truly serious about climate change, would immediately pass a law.

Let’s cut out some of the dead wood here and get on with our lives. From now on let’s consider every newspaper article about global warming to be a crime in itself. The incessant fearmongering about wasted resources from an industry that cuts down trees in order to splash chemicals and ink on the processed wood pulp is far beyond irony, it is treason against mother earth. There is no reason to print transitory news on permanent physical substances.

Magazines…

Locantore says that only about 100 magazines out of 18,000 titles in print use some recycled paper content or use responsibly sourced virgin fiber.

An unparallelled propaganda campaign, unrivaled in the history of civilization, is intended to make man-imputed global warming an undisputed fact without having to actually prove it. Repetition replaces truth.

All it takes to generate literally hundreds of stories (the effect of syndication to be sure) pushing the global warming agenda is yet another proclamation from a group, panel, or team engaged in ‘studying’ the effect of man’s destruction of the earth. Professional global warming ‘experts’. Surely there’s no conflict of interest there at all.

Earth faces a grim future if global warming isn’t slowed, U.N. report says

A new global warming report issued today by the United Nations paints a near-apocalyptic vision of the Earth’s future if temperatures continue to rise unabated: more than a billion people in desperate need of water, extreme food shortages in Africa and elsewhere, a blighted landscape ravaged by fires and floods, and millions of species sentenced to extinction. ~latimes.com

And wouldn’t you know it, here’s the old journalism stand-by: “Women and children hardest hit.”

The devastating effects will strike all regions of the world and all levels of society, but it will be those without the resources to adapt to the coming changes who will suffer the greatest impact, the report said. ~latimes.com

The New York Times:

BRUSSELS, April 6 — From the poles to the tropics, the earth’s climate and ecosystems are already being shaped by the atmospheric buildup of greenhouse gases and face inevitable, possibly profound, alteration, the world’s leading scientific panel on climate change said Friday.

“World’s leading scientific panel on climate change…” Just how many are there?

Then there’s the ridiculous. Witnessing global warming? Witnessing?

Climbers Witnessing Global Warming

(Bend, Ore.) — Mountaineers are bringing back firsthand accounts of vanishing glaciers, melting ice routes, crumbling rock formations and flood-prone lakes where glaciers once rose. ~time.com

How much hotter is it, really? Melting ice.

What happens when you disagree with the propaganda consensus? Simply pointing out the hypocrisy of Al Gore’s carbon footprint brings out the best in those who fear of the planet’s emminent demise.

Leftist hate: Gore fans abuse, threaten Gore foes

…”I was accused several times of being a ‘stupid, redneck bitch,’” recalls Nicole Williams, who fielded numerous calls. “I repeatedly was called a ‘whore’ and asked ‘Whose whore are you?’ for three days straight, almost as if those were talking points … I was shocked by these sexist insults _ basically attacking my gender.”

The calls continued beyond Williams’ Nashville office.

“I had to change my home number and get an unlisted number,” Williams says.

“I got about 10 death threats by phone. I got the ‘I’m gonna get you’-type threats more than 100 times … I worried I would get shot walking to my car.”

Williams discovered her obsolete address posted online. “If they could find my old home address, it would not be so hard to find a current one.”

Gore’s defenders also spewed venomous e-mails. They sent the research center nearly 3,000 Gore-related messages that exhibited the very bigotry the Left routinely denounces. Warning: These offensive, often-vulgar, and occasionally unschooled comments reveal the vitriol behind much of today’s “progressive” rhetoric.

_ Many e-mails displayed Dixiephobia _ an intense disdain for the South and Southerners.

“Why don’t you all go back to shooting one another across the hollows instead of trying to make people think anyone in Tennessee has an ounce of intelligence?” Roger Miller insisted. “Get your snaggle tooth grins capped and learn to read and write.”

“W.T.F. difference would it make if he was (sic) using 1000 times more energy than the average household if it came from clean energy?” Thomas Grinnell wondered. “Don’t think about that too much. It will give your southern mullet a headache.”

“You really should concentrate on what Southerners do best,” D. Hunter advised. “Sodomizing and impregnating little children!”

Christopher LaBarge declared: “I hope you all die slowly and have your hearts and brains trampled to pieces you small-minded, ignorant, backwoods ideologues.”

“We should have flattened the South when we had the chance!” wrote Mount Laurel, New Jersey’s Robert Dodelin. “If ever you confederates (sic) want to leave the Union please do. We Nothen (sic) states would love to stop having to subsidize you with our tax dollars.”  ~scrippsnews.com

The British service personnel held hostage in Iran said they were blindfolded, bound and threatened with seven years in prison if they didn’t admit they had strayed into Iranian waters.

…Once captured the personnel were subjected to “constant psychological pressure” during their time in captivity and agreed to comply with their captors wishes in order to win their freedom.

At one point they were lined up against a wall while weapons were cocked, making them “fear the worst”. ~telegraph.co.uk

See. They were tortured.

So why doesn’t the article report this fact? Of course, our official (U.S.) definition of torture is: “In the US view, torture has to involve ‘severe pain’, and harsh interrogations do not necessarily amount to torture.” But the MSM definition is not quite so focused and ‘defined’, as it were. The media definition, at least when the torturer is the United States, includes all kinds of “psychological pressure.” Usually reported as torture without actually detailing what would be torture.

This one all but gushes… and I’m almost positive that they are misrepresenting, or even lying– I had no idea that Code Pink was made up of, “thousands of christians.”

Weekend Edition Saturday, March 17, 2007 · Thousands of Christians opposed to the war in Iraq gathered at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., Friday night to pray and protest U.S. involvement in the Middle Eastern country.

Tuesday is the fourth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. ~npr.org

Think about it.

Then there’s this story about ‘counter-protestors’ (i.e. man bites dog story) which you might think would get a little more attention because of it’s infrequency:

Counter Demonstrators Support Iraq Policy

Listen to this story… by Allison Keyes

All Things Considered, March 17, 2007 · While thousands marched in Washington against the Iraq war, a counter demonstration was also held in Washington on Saturday to show support for American policy in Iraq.  ~npr.org

Why bother writing the story at all? Why even bring it up? Nothing to see here. Move along.

I’ve been listening to the radio, NPR, Pacifica Radio, as well as conservative talk shows, cable news and newspaper articles, and it’s interesting to note that I’ve heard experts announce confidently that the ‘firing’ of a mere 8 U.S. attorneys is “unprecendented” more than once. Yet after almost two weeks of drumming on this issue– they are barely getting around to mentioning that the Clinton Administration fired ALL 93 U.S. Attorney’s in 1993.

Merely a convenient oversite? Or deliberate lie?

Even as Hillary Clinton demands Alberto Gonzales’ resignation the media have still failed to pick up on this significant fact. Instead of noting it’s significance they bury it under the liberal explanation. It’s routine. Every President always fires ALL U.S. attorneys when they come into office. But apparently this is not true. U.S. attorneys are placed and replaced at the pleasure and will of the administration.

Either these positions are replacable political appointments or they are not.

As the Wall Street Journal notes it was the Clinton’s firings which were unprecedented.

At the time, President Clinton presented the move as something perfectly ordinary: “All those people are routinely replaced,” he told reporters, “and I have not done anything differently.” In fact, the dismissals were unprecedented: Previous Presidents, including Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter, had both retained holdovers from the previous Administration and only replaced them gradually as their tenures expired. This allowed continuity of leadership within the U.S. Attorney offices during the transition. ~opinionjournal.com

Instead we get the same smear machine. Making a mountain out of a molehill. Hillary and Democrats in congress are spinning third rate lies and the media reprints it wholesale as truth.

“People think we’re paranoid when we talk about the vast, right-wing conspiracy, but there is a real connection of these groups — the same names keep popping up,” Sullivan said. “They are the most disgusting group of political thugs that I have ever seen.” ~news.yahoo.com

These are political appointments as such they can be replaced at any time. Where does it say different? There is no scandal here.

• Latest head of Al Qaeda in Iraq captured.
• Bush does PR battle in Latin America.
• China seeks to protect private property.
• Anti-war Democrats have hard time retreating.
• Czech Pres says Environmentalism is a religion.
• Socialist Sweden admits to tapping phones for decades.

These news items may appear unrelated but they are signs of reality peeking through the MainStreamMedia’s propganda filters.

[Insert clever narrative connecting all the above items here. (Good night.)]

A reminder of all the love we’ve shared, lo, these many years, over Iraq: “What the Democrats Used to Say About Iraq”

This is an incredible post at the NYTimes. Even though it is an editorial, it could just as well have been on DailyKos.

The Bush administration’s assault on some of the founding principles of American democracy marches onward despite the Democratic victory in the 2006 elections. The new Democratic majorities in Congress can block the sort of noxious measures that the Republican majority rubber-stamped. But preventing new assaults on civil liberties is not nearly enough.  ~nytimes.com

Little green footballs is exactly right:

Apologize to the world, set all terrorists free so they can realize their full potential, and then everything will be peace and flowers again.  ~lgf

Hee, hee.

Joe Klein? Does the NYTimes fit the list?