Bloodthirsty Liberal

Does the Obama administration have an enemies list?

More to the point, do they act on it?

The plot thickens on the media’s character-lynching of Rush Limbaugh. Of the four stories run on ESPN.com about Limbaugh’s bid for the Rams (October 6, October 12, October 15, and another October 15) none of them mention that NFL Players Association Executive Director DeMaurice Smith served as counsel to Attorney General Eric Holder and was a member of Barack Obama’s transition team.

The October 12 article references Smith’s anti-Limbaugh email meant to garner opposition against the radio host’s bid. The report refers to Smith only as the executive director of the NFLPA. Despite the fact that Smith’s opposition was based on Limbaugh’s political commentary, the report failed to mention that Smith’s political connections (including those to whom he donated thousands of dollars) have a vested interest in Limbaugh’s discrediting.

…

It is not as if ESPN didn’t know of Smith’s history. The sports web site ran a report in July which stated:

In selecting Smith this year, the union chose Washington smarts over football experience. Smith, a Washington lawyer, served on the Obama transition team and also worked for Eric Holder before Holder became attorney general.

Smith’s gross conflict of interest and apparent political targeting of Obama’s top foe is a huge story. Unfortunately the media appears too blinded by their prejudice of Limbaugh to report on it.

I think it’s fair to say to my questions above: yes and yes.

A quick interjection on the concept of an enemies list.

Heard about Anita Dunn? She’s the one who said of Fox News—oh, let her say it herself:

The reality of it is that Fox News often operates almost as either the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party. It’s fair to say about Fox, and certainly the way we view it is that it really is more a wing of the Republican Party.

That may sound valid to some, but it sure as hell avoids the corollary that MSNBC, CNN, the three major networks, PBS, NPR, BBC, the NY Times, Washington Post and most major dailies are running dog lackeys for President Obama and the Democratic Party. Either both statements are true, or neither is.

The battle was joined by Robert Gibbs:

REPORTER: Specifically, the comments by Anita Dunn about Fox not being a real news network?

ROBERT GIBBS, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: I have watched many stories on that network that I found not to be true.

Again, possibly valid. But see my objection above, which can be summarized in two words: Keith Olbermann.

So, the evidence is growing that the Obama administration isolates those it sees as its enemies, and shames them.

But then, they learned from the best. Anita Dunn loves her some Mao Tse Tung (she said she was kidding, but I’m missing the joke):

Van Jones in a blond wig.

Okay, last point about Rush. Someone who had done a little sleuthing wrote in to Mark Steyn:

As I am sure you are aware, the fake Limbaugh quotes have been traced to the Rush Limbaugh Wikiquote page, dating from July of 2005 (see the following link to see when the quotes were added). The Jack Huberman book that most people source for these quotes did not come out until the following year.

The quotes were added by a user with the IP address of 69.64.213.146. This address has been used mostly to make changes to the article about Rush, but also Karl Rove, Sean Hannity, Rush, James Dobson and Sara Palin from 2005 until earlier this year.

While others have noted this in various forums, no one seems to have made the connection that this IP address is used as a gateway by the law firm Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler LLP (see here, for example) that all users from that IP address come from the pbwt.com domain.)

What to make of that?

Well, there’s this:

NEW YORK, NY - September 21, 2009. Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler LLP is pleased to announce the formal establishment of its interdisciplinary Sports Group. The firm’s work in this area dates back decades and includes high-profile disputes and transactions involving professional baseball, basketball, hockey, tennis and golf, as well as the representation of sports-related media entities. Among other matters on behalf of various leagues, teams, and other sports-related entities, over the last several years our attorneys regularly have litigated complex commercial matters, handled sensitive internal investigations issues, and provided corporate, intellectual property and charitable giving advice both in high-profile transactions and as day-to-day legal advisors.

A law firm looking to burnish its reputation in the world of sports seems inexplicably connected to spreading bogus and libelous quotes by Rush Limbaugh. Why do I have an overwhelming urge to scream “Halliburton!”

Obama said we were “basically decent”, with one small exception:

The one thing that I want to insist on is that, as I travel around the country, the American people are a decent people. Now they get confused sometimes. You know, they listen to the wrong talk radio shows or watch the wrong TV networks, um, but they’re, they’re basically decent, they’re basically sound.

What would we do without him trying to run those wrong radio shows and wrong TV networks out of business?

I haven’t been a liberal for eight years now. But more and more I am ashamed of every year I was one. I have a lot to atone for.

The Tiffany Network is looking pretty tarnished today.

First, the left one got blackened:

A New York court on Tuesday dismissed Dan Rather’s $70 million breach of contract lawsuit against CBS Corp., noting that the network continued to pay the anchor $6 million a year even after he left the evening news broadcast.

Rather sued CBS and its top executives in 2007, claiming he had been removed from his “CBS Evening News” anchor post over a report that examined President George W. Bush’s military service.

The Appellate Division of the state Supreme Court — New York’s trial-level court — said the complaint “must be dismissed in its entirety.”

As must Dan himself, and everything he says.

But for every left jab, there is usually a right cross:

“This morning, I did something I’ve never done in my life,” Letterman said on Thursday’s edition of CBS’ “Late Show.” “I had to go downtown and testify before a grand jury.”

As part of the testimony, Letterman admitted that he had engaged in sexual relationships with staff members.

“My response to that is, yes I have. Would it be embarrassing if it were made public? Perhaps it would,” Letterman said. “I feel like I need to protect these people — I need to certainly protect my family.”

Hey, maybe Leno has sex with animals, but I doubt it (though if it would make me any money to say so, I’d buy a megaphone).

I just wonder how hard we’re supposed to laugh at his next top-ten list about some politician’s sexual escapade—or over his next tasteless joke about an underage daughter of a Vice Presidential candidate getting knocked up by a baseball player. As we’re learning over the Polanski affair, the Left has a sliding moral scale.

ACORN is threatening to sue Fox.

Oh God, please make it so. Please, please, please. I’ll eat more broccoli. I’ll take in strays. I’ll care about Darfur. (Well, broccoli’s not so bad.)

In the wake of Fox News reporting on the unfolding ACORN scandal, ACORN is now threatening to sue the network. Now that Fox is actually breaking news on this story by showing new videos, ACORN might just do it. Fox News should pray that ACORN does sue, because it would blow the doors off this story, possibly destroying ACORN and erupting into a political scandal in Washington.

As bizarre as it seems, ACORN is threatening to sue Fox for reporting on these incriminating videotapes. Glenn Beck broke news with a new tape on Monday, and Sean Hannity might be doing the same shortly. Evidently, ACORN is accusing Fox of coordinating with the filmmakers, arguing that somehow these reports make Fox legally liable.

ACORN’s unavoidable problem, however, is that suing Fox News would give Fox — or any other media organization — the ultimate Christmas present: a legally enforceable way to compel ACORN to give up all its secrets.

Exactly. The discovery process would yield more treasure than Tutankhamen’s tomb. President Obama would order a Predator drone strike to blow ACORN HQ to smithereens before he’d allow Fox’s attorneys to wheel out hand truck after hand truck of incriminating documents.

It could also become a massive political scandal in Washington. Two of the individuals on ACORN’s eight-member advisory board include John Podesta (the chairman of President Obama’s transition team after the election) and Andrew Stern, the president of SEIU who is intimately involved with the White House on numerous issues, including the health care plan. Some Democratic elected and appointed officials also have close ties with ACORN.

I am hereby sending a check to the ACORN legal attack fund, and encourage all of you to do the same. Sue the bastards, ACORN, and sink your president.

You couldn’t read your local shopping circular without seeing pictures of worshipful women like Henrietta Hughes fluttering their eyelashes at President Obama:

We here would like to show the other side: women of color who are not so warmly treated by His Oneness and His disciples:

A reporter for a small newspaper was forcibly removed from a press area near Air Force One shortly before President Barack Obama arrived at Los Angeles International Airport to depart California early Thursday.

Lee said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press that she wanted to hand Obama a letter urging him “to take a stand for traditional marriage.”

She said she asked a Secret Service agent to give the president her letter, but he refused and referred her to a White House staffer. Lee said she refused to give the staffer the letter.

“I said, ‘I’ll take my chances if (the president) comes by here,’” said Lee, who identified herself as a Roman Catholic priestess who lives in Anaheim, Calif. “He became annoyed that I wouldn’t give him the letter.”

Lee, who was wearing what she described as a cassock, said she protested when she was asked to leave.

“I said, ‘Why are you bothering me?’ They escorted me outside the gate,” she said.

She said security officers allowed her to return when she promised she would not yell or wave, but then other officers arrived and told her to leave.

“I said, ‘I’m not leaving,’” she said. “They tried to drag me out.”

Two officers then picked her up and carried her out. An Associated Press photographer photographed the incident.

“I was afraid you could see under my clothes,” she said, her voice choking up.

I’ll grant you that if the Secret Service suggested that I do something, I would do it, meekly and compliantly. But Ms. Lee, a reporter, is made of sterner (and perhaps crazier) stuff.

And now we know what happens.

Aggie has a more artistic eye than I, but I’m intrigued by the composition of that photograph. Air Force One is in the background, a cable in the ominous shape of a noose is in the foreground, and her distress is evident. Bystanders watch with puzzled expressions. And I love that LiveStrong bracelet touch. I swear, you could spend as much time on this as you could on a Giotto fresco.

Have at it.

Now that the former Constitutional Law professor has demonstrated what he thinks of that “document of negative liberties”—reading somewhere between the lines a heretofore undiscovered government mandate to build cars, run banks, and provide medical care—let’s recall his jaundiced attitude toward that “make no law” nonsense in the First Amendment:

[T]he Department of Justice and the FTC should closely scrutinize all mergers for their implications for competition and consumer choice. The FCC should more seriously evaluate the impact of proposed mergers on the ability of divergent communities to participate in the national media environment.

…

I strongly favor diversity of ownership of outlets and protection against the excessive concentration of power in the hands of any one corporation, interest or small group. I strongly believe that all citizens should be able to receive information from the broadest range of sources. I feel that media consolidation during the Bush administration has had the effect of eliminating a lot of the diversity of information sources available to persons who have to rely on more traditional information sources, such as radio and television broadcasts and newspapers.

…

The ill effects of consolidation today and continued consolidation are well-documented — less diversity of opinion, less local news coverage, replication of the same stories across multiple outlets, and others.

…

And common sense tells us that the consolidation of outlets in local markets will lead to fewer opportunities for diverse expression of opinions.

…

I do not want to discourage diversity of programming on cable systems and fear that a la carte regulation may do that.

…

I think FCC commissioners must be committed to service, averse to drama and capable of bringing disparate communities together.

…

I think communications policy must be more focused on the public interest, more inclusive of nonindustry voices and analysis, and maximize opportunities for the expression of a diversity of views. These issues go beyond simple economics to involve a set of core principles of an informed and empowered citizenry that need to be recognized in government’s approach to this important segment of our society.

All right, already! We got it the first, second, and third times!

I’m not sure where to begin or why to bother. Does he seriously think there is a paucity of viewpoints in the media? I’ve lived in Boston and New York, and there are more voices to be heard on the airwaves in those cities than Sybil ever heard in her head. Black stations, Latino stations, Pacifica stations, NPR stations. I have to believe other big cities are the same. And if he’s saying the government needs to go further and require greater “diversity”, I think Justice Scalia needs to sit him down and ’splain the First Amendment to him.

Air America was a well-financed attempt to take on the right-wing agenda of much of the rest of talk radio—and it has famously flopped. Would he engineer a bailout of them, too?

One last point: when somebody starts talking in such psedo-intellectual gruel as this:

The FCC should more seriously evaluate the impact of proposed mergers on the ability of divergent communities to participate in the national media environment.

It’s time either to watch your wallet or grab your gun—or both. “Divergent communities”? “National media environment?” Just shut up, stop preempting American Idol, and leave us the hell alone. That’s your job.

PS: Divergent communities participating in the national education environment is a different story, however:

D.C. parents aren’t letting the anti-choice Obama administration off the hook for strangling the city’s school choice program. They’re holding a rally at Freedom Plaza today.

Someone pointed out that this guy has splurged trillions and trillions of dollars, yet won’t unwrap a roll of pennies for “diverse” students in the DC public schools.

I still say Roxana Saberi got railroaded in the Iranian “courts” because she had the nerve (and the body) to look like this:

rather than this:

Here comes another international test for Barack Obama. After making overtures of friendship to Iran and speaking publicly of direct talks and normalizing relations, Tehran has responding by convicting American journalist Roxana Saberi of espionage and sentencing her to eight years in prison. The BBC, which once employed Saberi, notes that Iran tried Saberi in secret and provided no evidence publicly that support the charges.

NPR quoted her dad as saying that she had been told that if she signed a “confession” of sorts, she would be freed. Instead, they used it to convict her.

Ordinarily, I have no problem with women-in-prison movies, but the Roxana Saberi story is one chick flick that should be red-lighted.

Say what you will about Mahmoud Ahdontgiveadamn, he doesn’t waste time:

An Iranian official said Tuesday that the trial of a jailed American journalist who has been accused of spying for the United States had started and would last about three weeks.

The trial of Roxana Saberi, a 31-year-old dual American-Iranian citizen, started Monday and a verdict will be issued within three weeks, according to a report carried by the official Iranian press agency I.R.N.A., which quoted the country’s judiciary spokesman, Ali-Reza Jamshidi. Ms. Saberi presented her final defense on Monday, The Associated Press quoted Mr. Jamshidi as saying.

Ms. Saberi was arrested in January and initially accused of working without press credentials. But an Iranian judge brought far more serious charges against her last week, accusing her of spying for Washington. No further details of the charges were mentioned in the dispatch.

And your State Department is all over it:

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has said that the United States is “deeply concerned” about the espionage charges and has asked Iranian diplomats for help in obtaining Ms. Saberi’s immediate release.

“This charge is baseless and it’s without foundation,” Robert Wood, a State Department spokesman, said last week.

In response, Mr. Jamshidi said Tuesday that the U.S. intervention in the case was “ridiculous and against international laws,” according to the I.R.N.A. report. He said outside countries should not intervene in domestic judicial cases without examining the evidence.

The trial comes at a sensitive moment in relations between Iran and the United States. President Barack Obama has expressed a willingness to talk with Tehran after years of strained relations under the former Bush administration.

You don’t call this strained? I’d have thought even the NY Times would feel a little chill over the arrest of an American journalist. Then again, considering their shabby treatment of Judith Miller for writing the “wrong” thing, how could I be surprised.

Personally, I think she was arrested for the “crime” of being hot while in Iran.

The girl is from North Dakota, and knows a hell of a lot about Fargo than she does about Farsi. She was Miss North Dakota in 1997, and a finalist for Miss America in 1998. About the only thing you could say against her is that she worked for NPR and the BBC.

But Ahmadpoopypants thinks he can mess with Boy Barry, and take a hostage, like some sort of puny pirate. I would like to see the President take that extended hand and wrap it around Ahwannahandjob’s scrawny neck and choke him until his eyes bug out.

I’d like to see that, but, unlike Ahmadinnernoodle, I won’t hold my breath.

We’re making concessions on their nuclear program, and edging closer to Durban II. Ahmathirfaqir would probably have gotten everything he wanted without her, but Roxana is good insurance.

And just to be thorough:

Miss America contestant, Miss North Dakota, Roxana Saberi stands on stage at the end of the swimsuit competition during the Miss America pageant in Atlantic City September 13, 1997.

I bet BTL will have more to say about this later, but I just needed to share the exciting news!

How long before the NY Times shuts itself down?

Times Co. threatens to shut Globe; seeks $20m in cuts from unions
Paper reported to face $85m loss this year, as recession, Internet economy batter news industry
By Robert Gavin and Robert Weisman
Globe Staff / April 4, 2009

The New York Times Co. has threatened to shut The Boston Globe unless the newspaper’s unions swiftly agree to $20 million in concessions, union leaders said yesterday.

Executives from the Times Co. and Globe made the demands Thursday morning in an approximately 90-minute meeting with leaders of the newspaper’s 13 unions, union officials said. The possible concessions include pay cuts, the end of pension contributions by the company, and the elimination of lifetime job guarantees now enjoyed by some veteran employees, said Daniel Totten, president of the Boston Newspaper Guild, the Globe’s biggest union, which represents more than 700 editorial, advertising, and business office employees.

The concessions will be negotiated individually with each of the unions, said Totten and Ralph Giallanella, secretary-treasurer of Teamsters Local 259, which represents about 200 drivers who deliver the newspaper.

“We all know the newspaper industry is going through great transition and loss,”‘ said Giallanella. “The ad revenues have fallen off the cliff. Just based on everything that’s going on around the country, they’re serious.”

Totten said the Times Co. officials wanted the concessions within 30 days or else the paper would be shuttered, but Giallanella said officials did not mention a specific timetable.

Catherine Mathis, a Times Co. spokeswoman, declined to comment last night. Globe publisher P. Steven Ainsley also declined to comment.

In the age of Obama, this cannot happen! Why, to quote the Prez (see a couple of articles below), the only thing between management and a pitchfork is his administration!

Am I the only one who notices that the Left in this country is discussing propping up unions, even as they dismantle them? Q: What is the difference between an autoworker in Detroit and a union newspaper guy? A: Nothing. And the Hopey-Changey folks are gently demonstrating the truth of this observation.

Further observation: I once subscribed to both papers and stopped both papers because of their unbalanced Middle East coverage. I got sick of reading falsehoods against Israel, followed by either very lame or non-existent corrections. Long after I dropped them, I became even more turned-off by their coverage of the Bush administration. The only way either of these two papers could get me back is to include a full page of $100 dollar bills in each Sunday supplement.

- Aggie

In Europe, Jews are advised not to wear any indication of their faith in public. Jews have been beaten in France, Germany, Britain, Norway and Sweden, and Belgium. So the rabbis and in some cases the local police have established this policy. Here in the United States, we terrify employees of AIG

Better Hide Your Badge, AIG Tells Employees
Friday March 20, 11:44 am ET

American International Group’s corporate security advised employees of the insurance giant, which has received more than $170 billion in taxpayer money, to take measures “to increase their overall safety and security” due to “a growing sense of public attention fueled by increased media scrutiny.”

In a memo, employees are advised to “avoid wearing any AIG (NYSE:AIG - News) apparel (bags, shirts, umbrellas, etc.) with the company insignia” and to make sure badges with the AIG name are not visible when they are outside the office.

Employees should also report to building security any individuals “who appear to be out of place or spending an inordinate amount of time near an AIG facility,” according to the memo.

“Avoid public conversations involving AIG and do not engage any media personnel regarding the company,” the memo also warned.

Visitors should be escorted by an AIG employee at all times when inside an AIG building, and employees are advised to “question individuals that you do not recognize and appear to be out of place.”

Employees are also advised to avoid propping doors and be aware of those trying to “piggy back” into the building.

This is a direct result of the behavior of the President, Barney Frank, other members of both the administration and congress, and the media. We have scapegoated a group of citizens and apparently threatened their safety.

- Aggie