116 Responses to Open Thread

  1. PDC says:

    One way the BBC is biased is by what it doesn’t say. Look at this story from Newsweek. Seems like we’re actually winning in Afghanistan. http://www.newsweek.com/2010/11/27/taliban-we-need-a-time-out.html

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  2. David Preiser (USA) says:

    Can the BBC find anyone other than SWP mouthpieces or bearded Marxists to discuss the Irish economic situation?

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  3. fred bloggs says:

    Too much of a coincidence.  While bBC has been interviewing students about their campaign and protests, the current interviews are too similar.  That is, they interview, get the answer ‘our parents cannot afford the costs’; the interviewer NEVER asks about their view based on the governments arguments and repayments under the new scheme.  This happened at  least on too different locations with different interviewers.

    I can only come to the conclusion, the bBC is trying hard to make this situation as awkward as possible for the government: i.e. NOT LABOUR.

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    • Sres says:

      Radio 5 today had Paddy Ashdown on after 8am and he tore a student who has been on a sit-in protest for the past 2 weeks a new one, of course she completely ignored what he said.  You just can’t help some people.

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  4. kitty shaw says:

    Compare and contrast:

    Ken Clarke is a wonderful man and his fantastic “reforms” are going to break the crime cycle say the bBC in barely concealed glee

     http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11933385

    In reality it is a shoddy cash saving exercise that is a betrayal of Conservative promises and the worst decision by far that the Coalition has taken.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1336442/Ken-Clarke-row-Michael-Howard-prison-reform-plans.html

    I am surprised that the coalition hasn’t conned a liberal into putting this shameful thing forward, though come to think of it they have.

    Luckily for them the bBC, Liebour and the Fib Dems are so piss poor it will get though without too much complaint. Truly shocking.

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    • Dez says:

      “Compare and contrast:”

      Prison reform plans criticised by Michael Howard
      http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10469790

      And from the Daily Mail article you refer to:
      “He [Michael Howard] told BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme: ‘Look, it’s simple: if serious, persistent criminals are in jail they can’t commit crimes.'”

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    • gordon-bennett says:

      See this item from the toady program. The headline is the exact opposite of what Michael Howard said.

      http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9262000/9262849.stm

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      • Dez says:

        “Michael Howard: Prison works” is the exact opposite of what he said?

        Huh?

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        • deegee says:

          Former Home Secretary Michael Howard: “There is no link between the number of people in prison and the amount of crime”.
          That seems the exact opposite of the headline.

          What were you reading?

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        • gordon-bennett says:

          At the end of piece Michael Howard says about Ken Clarke:  
           
          I do disagree with him when he says that there is no link between the number of people in prison and the amount of crime”.  
           
          The headline leaves out the part I have emphasised and consequently states that MH has said the exact opposite of what he did in fact say.

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  5. Guest Who says:

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/dec/07/bbc-vision-director-runners-riders?CMP=twt_fd

    No views on which are nags, have been nobbled or will fall at the first hurdle when it comes to ‘double vision’ or Nelsonian ‘”i see no bias”

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  6. deegee says:

    Baroness Ruth Deech, British lawyer, academic, and a Life Peer in the House of Lords. Baroness Deech is a former BBC governor, is currently Professor of Law at Gresham College in London, and was a member of the Jewish Leadership Council until 2010 will be a panellist at ‘Squaring the Circle? Britain and the De-legitimisation of Israel’ in Central London Dec 13th.

    Any questions?  

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    • George R says:

      It should be a very good event, what with other speakers including: Ambassador R. Proser, S. Pollard, D. Finkelstein, N. Cohen, and R. Bardaji (associate of ex-Spanish President Aznar).

      Will INBBC report it?

      When ex-President Aznar spoke in London recently in support of Israel, INBBC didn’t report it.

      “Speech in London to Israeli soldiers’ support group”

        (speech by ex-Pres. Aznar)

      http://www.friendsofisraelinitiative.org/article.php?c=75

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  7. Pounce says:

    The bBC and how it plays articulate with Shark stories 

    Shark attacks not linked to Mossad says Israel

    Israel has dismissed Egyptian claims that a series of shark attacks in the Red Sea could have been the result of a plot carried out by its foreign intelligence agency, Mossad.

    Anybody else notice how the bBC reports on Shark attacks off Egypt by reporting that somebody says the Jews are responsible. Note how while the bBC is more than happy to report these rumours, it gives no balance to the story by reporting any facts such as the attacks have been blamed on hundreds of dead sheep been thrown into the sea by.. Egyptians  Which is how the French, Saudi, Americans, Canadians and Egyptians media is reporting this story. But the famous impartial bBC doesn’t and instead continues to throw mud at the jews because it knows that after a while mud sticks and maybe there lies the reason why anti-Semitism is on the rise in the UK. Because the bBC brainwashes people that the Jews are evil.

    Oh by the way the bBC do report on the sheep angle, but you have to bloody well look hard in which to find it?

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  8. john says:

    Last night I walked up to the shops in the icy conditions (how this was possible I don’t know as the streets should be melting according to Black et-al).
    Non-the less I got there and procured essential supplies – Booze and tobacco.
    On the way back, never thinking about it like this before, I wondered  what does in excess of £3 Billion a year looks like?
    All these houses with lights on are probably paying a TV licence whether they watch the BBC or not.
    I’m just in my local area, so 3bn.+ started to look like an obscene amount.
    It’s not hundreds of millions the BBC get in funding every year, it’s thousands of millions.
    Grateful to no one, the BBC remain impervious to criticism about their left-wing bias.
    With all that money coming in and a feckless PM when it comes to the BBC – don’t expect any ” Impartility – it’s in our genes”  crap to explode on to our TV screens and airwaves from Auntie any time soon !
    They don’t have to.
    Walk around to the shops in the snow David, you never know what  you might learn !

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    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      Mark Thompson told Andrew Marr on Sunday that he expects the BBC’s income to continue to rise, despite the upcoming freeze on the license fee.

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      • deegee says:

        Something like Global Warming? Despite standing up to our arses in snow temperatures will rise.

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  9. Phillip Law says:

    Radio 5 Live keeps pushing the Assange extradition story, Ken Loach just had a party political broadcast on behalf of the ” It’s all the evil Tories fault!” party. Assange is not a rapist but a victim of evil capitalists. Frankly, since they stopped the raping and pillaging, I suspect that Swedish justice is more honest and just than ours. They are not extraditing him to say, Syria. Or Zimbabwe. Or Scotland. (they would just let the man go for compassionate reasons)
    The rest of 5 live seemed to be concerned only with the Lid-Dims and the tuition vote. And guess what way the story was slanted? (The naughty Marxist beard stroking bespectacled onanists are propping up the evil Tories! How very dare they!)
    Oh, but they like Ken Clarke. The wanker.

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  10. dave s says:

    I see the latest international test results from the OECD – the PISA tests- put us way down the list for educational achievement at age 15. China and East Asia are top, not surprisingly ,as real education is taken seriously .
    But why worry . We have “Horrible Histories” from the BBC to keep us and our children entertained and stupid while China ,Korea and the rest become the leading powers of this century.
    The dreadful education system in this country is going to propel us into 3rd world status in our  lifetimes even if some of us are pensioners.

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  11. thespecialone says:

    After the wall-to-wall coverage of the charade in Copenhagen I would have thought that some place in Mexico would be mentioned a few times. I cant say that I have seen much of it on BBC. Why not?

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  12. David Mosque says:

    How about this for a bit of BBC hypocrisy? Naughtie, the doyen of the Islington-Guardian-liberal brigade calls a Minister of the Crown a c*** and it is laughed off and he is celebrated by his BBC chums. Carol Thatcher calls someone a golliwog (supposedly) off camera off the record and in a private conversation and is dismissed in an instant. 

    Or is it just me?

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    • Dez says:

      One was a slip of the tongue; the other wasn’t. Spot the difference?

      Also, you seem to have forgotten that Carol Thatcher wasn’t “dismissed” because of what she said, but because she refused to apologise for it.

      You think that if Naughty had reacted in the same feeble way as she did (to paraphrase); “I’m not going to say sorry for calling him a c*nt – I meant it in a nice way…”, you think he’d be still woking for the BBC?

      Erm.

      No.

      .

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      • David Preiser (USA) says:

        Actually, Thatcher ended up apologizing, but as she didn’t do it in the approved fashion and admit her racist thoughts (which I called Maoist at the time), Jay Hunt ejected her anyway.

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        • Dez says:

          Irrelevant. Was she “dismissed in an instant”?

          No.

          .

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          • matthew rowe says:

            No it was not a slip of the tongue that just Fry talk for abusing your privileged position ! his reaction and the ‘some found it funny’ sort of apology  shows it up for what  it was!
            But if because dezzy says so we cannot go after naughty for his ‘slip’ then what’s the excuse for Marry repeating it ?

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          • David Preiser (USA) says:

            Dez, please explain how the fact that Thatcher did apologize is irrelevant to your claim that she was fired because she refused to do so.

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      • Millie Tant says:

        Er…Naughtie hedged it with references to Reverend Spooner and listeners’ comments that they found it funny, before  even getting around to mentioning that some found it offensive and apologising to them. He never got around to apologising to the person whom he called by a rude word. And you don’t regard that as feeble! My goodness.

        Carol Thatcher did apologise, though, as David Preiser has pointed out, not in the approved way. There there was a ridiculous fuss about it within the Beeboid Corporation, with the Controller and hypocritical clots like Chiles rushing to display their shocked Beeboid credentials when it is an article of faith with those types that they should be free to offend on the airwaves as they like. Thatcher was made persona non grata while Chiles and assorted Beeboid-favoured “comics” and smart arsed “presenters” continued to practise their own forms of Beeboid-sanctioned abuse at will while being paid handsomely for the same.

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  13. Allan D says:

    Take a step back to the 1970s with this “lively debate” between Michael O’Leary, CEO of Ryanair, and radical feminist MEP, Mary Honeyball (Labour, natch) with Jane “Champagne Bottles” Garvey acting as non-impartial chairman over Ryanair’s charity calendar featuring 13 of its most delightful female cabin crew.

    It presses the current hot buttons so beloved by the BBC of Irish corporate governance, budget airlines and (alleged) sexual exploitation. Note the linkage between posing for a calendar and “elfandsafety” issues and the reference to the trade unions being able to veto Ryanair employees’ spare-time activities. What is even more striking is that the Woman’s Hour producer put this item at the top of the programme and considered of even more vital public interest than Wikileaks. You couldn’t make it up.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00wlddm

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    • John says:

      Really enjoyed that, thanks for posting.

      Absolutely glorious to hear Honeyball (especially) and Garvey getting so wound up over something so completely harmless.

      I thought O’Leary absolutely took them both to the cleaners, despite being outnumbered, interrupted and repeatedly spoken over.

      To be fair it wasn’t that difficult, Honeyball’s ludicrous points could have been destroyed by a five year old. Yet the BBC let her make them without pointing out how stupid they actually were.

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      • John Anderson says:

        I flew Ryanair twice this past weekend,  pretty good service as usual, somehow the cabin crew did not look at all downtrodden by male managers.  And their performance of the safety routine befor take-off was exemplary.  Plus they bellowed at a couple of guys who left their seats when the safety-belt lights were on during a bit of turbulence – got applauded by many of the passengers.  So much for Honeyball’s ludicrous elfansafety argument.

        I read that the calendar has been running for 3 years,  has raised £300,000 for charity,  they are aiming for another £100,000 this year.

        O’Leary was on sparkling form this morning.  He could have ignored the silliness of Wimmins Hour running the item,  or sent an underling to speak.  Instead he pulped the stupid pair of harridans.  Nice work.

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  14. Martin says:

    Did I see that right on the news? In Irelenad they pay out something like £400+ per family on CHILD BENEFIT? Are they joking? No wonder their economy is screwed.

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  15. Martin says:

    Oh dear, the poor old BBC, looks like the one eyed mong bottled it over Libya and Magrahi, expect the BBC to blame everyone but mongo.

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  16. Lloyd says:

    Good to hear Michael Howard nail a Nicky Campbell non-fact (lie) on the show this morning. You’ll note that following Howards reply Campbell moves on to another subject. 

    @ 7′ 20″ onwards here

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    • Guest Who says:

      So…. opinionated Beeboid makes things up to suit his agenda, citing, at best, ‘disputed’ facts (without, one notes, any attempt at backing them up), and only gets caught out by a politician more on top of his brief than many (presuming he is factually correct).

      And just how often does this happen, with the masses fed Beeboid mush on the basis that if you churn out enough some will stick?

      This is a very odd way to entertain and especially ‘inform’.

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      • Lloyd says:

        This is all part of their modus operandi. State something as fact because “a scientist says”, “doctors say”, “experts state” etc etc, and unless the guest/victim has the knowledge or where-with-all to refute said “fact” the uninformed listener will just assume that Nicky (or whoever) is on the ball and the pervayor of truth and wisdom.

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        • Guest Who says:

          That… is not quite how I would expect an impartial national broadcaster to conduct itself. Unless, of course, they were very, very… ‘unique’.

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  17. Biodegradable says:

    Contrast & Compare:

    US scraps demand for Israel settlements freeze

    The United States is abandoning efforts to persuade Israel to renew a freeze on settlement-building as part of efforts to revive Middle East peace talks.


    Washington had been negotiating with Israel to try to meet Palestinian conditions for restarting direct talks.

    US, Israel, PA fail to reach agreement on settlement freeze Washington looks for new direction in peace process after concluding 90 day freeze won’t lead to breakthrough in talks; Israeli and Palestinian officials to visit Washington in the coming days for discussions.

    The US-lead diplomatic process between Israel and the Palestinian Authority is going back to the drawing board, with a senior US official announcing Tuesday night that following consultation with the sides it was determined a further settlement moratorium would not provide the basis for a framework agreement.

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  18. David Preiser (USA) says:

    Obamism of the Day, which the BBC will not report:  
     
    Obama muffed U.S. motto  
     
    Apparently, the “highly tuned brain” doesn’t know the difference between the official motto and the one which appears on the state seal.  Fortunately, He sure knows the Indonesian motto.  
     
     
    “In the United States, our motto is E pluribus unum — out of many, one,” he said, then compared it to the Indonesian motto, “Bhennika Tunggal Ika — unity in diversity.”  
     
    The official motto of the U.S., designated by a 1956 law, is “In God We Trust.” E pluribus unum is the motto on the Great Seal of the United States, and appears on the ribbon held in the beak of the eagle that dominates the obverse side of the seal.
     
     
    Maybe that’s the official motto of those extra seven states He was talking about during the election.  Note also the mention in the link of the fact that some are complaining about His habit of dropping the “Creator” bit when discussing a certain section of the Declaration of Independence.  
     
    Which begs the question: if He was the secret devoted Muslim so many people keep telling pollsters they think He is, would He do such a thing?  Not that this would help Him much in the esteem of His “enemies”.

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    • deegee says:

      It does raise a serious question, apart from the BBC ignoring ‘slips’ when committed by a favourite and broadcasting them when committed by someone they don’t like.

      Who checks the POTUS’s speeches? It’s possible he writes them himself, although that isn’t compulsory but does no one, for example from the State Department, the local embassy, check them for accuracy or cultural issues, before he delivers them?

      BTW there is considerable racial animosity in diversity in Indonesia from the dominant Malays against Chinese and darker skinned Melanasians.

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    • Millie Tant says:

      I remember when the US motto came up on the TV quiz programme Who Wants to be a Millionaire? (in which the contestant is shown four possible answers to the question and has to pick the correct one.)

      Here is an account of what happened:

      On a special Valentine’s Day celebrity edition of the show, which aired three days before the actual Valentine’s Day, Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen  and Jackie Llewelyn-Bowen reached the £1,000,000 question, which was “Translated from the Latin, what is the official motto of the United States?” The Bowens chose answer A, “In God We Trust,” but the correct answer was actually answer B, “One Out of Many,” which is the English translation for the Latin E pluribus Unum. Because they answered the £1,000,000 question incorrectly, they lost £468,000. However, the question turned out to be ambiguous, as “In God We Trust” is the legal motto for the United States; the phrase is found on many American monetary coins. Because of this, they were invited back to play again, reinstating their previously-lost £468,000 to bring them back up to £500,000. The contestants decided not to risk it this time and left with the £500,000.

      Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen<img src=”http://image.absoluteastronomy.com/images/topicthumbs/l/la/laurence_llewelyn-bowen.gif”/>Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen is an interior designer and television and radio personality best known for his appearances on the BBC television programme Changing Rooms…

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      • David Preiser (USA) says:

        This is actually a common misconception, even in the US.  I wouldn’t normally laugh at anyone who made the mistake, as I’ve done it myself in the past.

        But this is the Harvard-educated, infinitely more intelligent than ChimpyMcBushitler (at whom the BBC missed no opportunity to laugh), infinitely more educated and intelligent than the dreaded Sarah Palin (ditto), Constitutional Law professor we’re talking about.  If He wasn’t treated with such reverence in comparison to the treament His predecessors (and Palin) got from the BBC, I wouldn’t point it out.

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        • deegee says:

          There is nothing in Obama’s background to suggest he ever found American history something admirable or requiring study. As an overachieving student he probably topped the class in Civics (aka Social Studies) up to the point where it was no longer graded.

          Can anyone say with any certainty the President loves the country he is sup[posed to be governing?

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  19. Guest Who says:

    A new era (and record) in BBC blogging…?

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/dailypolitics/andrewneil/2010/12/im_much_more_worried_about_kin.html

    14 comments in 24 hrs and then… ‘closed’. 

    Must be the new ‘rules’, which are the same as the old rules that saw one of his posts reach a few months and almost 3k contributions, but are now… er.. more.. er.. ‘unique’.

    This one seems to be chugging along nicely, though:

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/ethicalman/2010/05/are_we_doomed_by_democracy.html

    Interesting insight at the end into what some at one of the myriad, overlapping, conflicting and ultimately risible BBC complaints system think the situation is… er.. should.. er.. might be.

    Experiences shared here would suggest otherwise.

    Tellingly, the topic of that post: ‘Are we doomed by democracy?’

    It would seem that the BBC not only has one of its famous views on this, but is acting on it.

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  20. Guest Who says:

    r4today BBC Radio 4 Today Listen to the full discussion between Tom Burkard and Polly Toynbee on the effectiveness of EMAhttp://bbc.in/hTGWwg
    Or.. don’t, if you think continually inviting on a raving hypocrite from a minor newspaper to spout on stuff she knows sod all about is really not what the impartial national broadcaster should be rigging daily.

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    • Guest Who says:

      r4today BBC Radio 4 Today Daniel Garvin of @UKUncut: “We consider tax avoidance by people who are millionaires or billionaires to be an immoral act”
      Polly? Any views? Personally or on behalf of your employers?

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      • Roland Deschain says:

        Today had some silly woman on from UK Uncut this morning, who spouted that Top Shop wasn’t paying enough Corporation Tax.  The obvious question, which surely a trainee journalist would have asked, was “How much tax do you think they should pay?”. 

        I would lay money that this would have totally flummoxed her.  Which was probably why it went unasked.

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    • Will says:

      This is an outrageous example of the BBC/guardian axis. Toynbee is allowed to whine at length unchallenged, but Burkard is subject to instant cross examination by Webb. The best bit is Burkard stating that he is a low income person & his daughter is coping well. Justin & Toynbee know better than his first hand experience, Toynbee accuses him of living in  “a realm of unreality” Classic!!

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  21. George R says:

    Britain: falling educational standards, and mass immigration.

    At least the ‘Daily Mail’ summary of the OECD report does mention this briefly:

    [Extract] –

    “The OECD said immigration played a factor in the UK’s low ranking. Some 10.6 per cent of students are from an immigrant background – the 14th-highest proportion in the list.”

    Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1336410/OECD-condemns-British-education-inferior-Estonias.html#ixzz17VUr6DwP

    Also:

    “Revealed: The schools where English is a foreign language for 80% of pupils”

    Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1333845/English-speaking-children-minority-inner-city-London-schools.html#ixzz17VZKr0bJ

    BBC-NUJ-Labour does not mention the impact of mass immigration under Labour and falling educational standards.

    “UK schools fall in global ranking”

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-11929277



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    • dave s says:

      Unintended consequences perhaps although it is pretty clear mass immigration was a politically motivated policy by the libleft and had everything to do with the irrational belief system that underlies modern liberalism ( as we understand it today)
      It is instructive to see that the east Asian countries dominating the OECD list do not have a noticeable immigrant population.
      Better not mention this and we can be sure the BBC and it’s fellow travellers will not do so.
      But this is only part of the reason for our failing schools. The real reason is the domination of the cult, and it is a cult, of liberalism throughout the teaching world. A hive mind adherence to irrationality and the absurd.
      Any parent who really cares should beggar themselves to educate their child privately or at home . The state system is beyond reform now and poor old Gove will soon find this out.

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  22. james1070 says:

    R5Live kept going on about the anniversary of John Lennon’s death. No mention of Lennon’s IRA fundraising activities. Give peace a chance.

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    • Martin says:

      Yes and the BBC also failed to remind people of what happened on December 7th 1941. It was that anniversary as well, I’m sure Muslims probably celebrated it mind.

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  23. David Preiser (USA) says:

    Stop the presses, the BBC News Channel is doing a report right now about the Ahmadi minority sect of Mohammedans in Britain are being persecuted by other Mohammedans.  Apparently they are receiving threats and local imams are calling for them to be killed.

    Many “mainstream Muslims™” do not consider them to be proper Muslims, according to the BBC report, so it’s open season.  Is it the “mainstream Muslims™” who are calling for the Ahmadi to be killed?  The BBC doesn’t say…..

    At least the BBC is willing to discuss prejudice and threats of violence by Muslims.  Fortunately for the editorial agenda, the victims are other Muslims.  But this doesn’t look good for the peaceful nature of “mainstream Muslims™”.

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  24. morpork says:

    I see the BBC are touting a programme about Pompeii by Mary Beard.

    Hmmm…I wonder if she’ll claim the Pompeiians had it coming to them in 79AD, as she did about the Americans with 9/ll? 
    http://thinkofengland.blogspot.com/2010/01/mary-beard-historians-and-evil.html

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    • David Mosque says:

      Mary Beard was Mrs Mosque’s tutor at Cambridge. Mrs Mosque advises me that her awful views were the same 20 years if that’s any consolation. Yet another lefty academic to be given free, unchallenged passage by the ‘impartial’ state broadcaster. 

      No change there then. Toynbee anyone?

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  25. Guest Who says:

    OK, a simple cock up (darn cuts), but funny…

    MailOnline MailOnline BBC bosses blunder: Nazi rally shown instead of Channel Islands’ weather forecast: A human error meant a news it…http://bit.ly/eFBjlg
    Godwin must be having conniptions: the Nazis, the Daily Mail and Aunty… all in glorious harmony!

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  26. john says:

    The Media Show BBC R4. 1.30 pm – 8th Dec.

    If you wanted to know why the Panorama programme critical of FIFA was aired just before the voting on the 2018 / 22 venues, then ALL IS EXPLAINED !

    The TV licence payers want to know about corruption no matter where it takes place.

    So there you have it !

    But England, well, er ! – don’t.

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  27. NotaSheep says:

    Before today’s PMQs it was clear that the BBC would not allow Ed Miliband to fail again, or to be perceived as having failed. An improvement in performance was needed and so the 5Live panel of experts was assembled: one Guardian journalist, an economist used by the last Labour government and John Piennaaaaaar. Not a Conservative in plain sight. Strange that!

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    • Bupendra Bhakta says:

      On the BBC news (radio) we had the segment from PMQs of Young Gordon’s angry-shoutied, pointy-fingered, leaning-on-lecterned, look-hang-on-ed, quite-franklied, glottally-stopped, lithped, down-with-the-kidsed, quote unquote attack on Cameron re tuition fees.

      I awaited with interest to hear Cameron’s easy put-down, but (of course) al-beeb cut it at the end of the question.  No right of reply then?

      Not only do they still shill for their old paymasters, but they (still)  do it so badly.

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  28. David Preiser (USA) says:

    Tim Willcox was just now asking fair enough, challenging (albeit a bit repetitive at one point) questions to Danny Alexander about the tuition fees scheme.  However, every time Willcox stepped on the end of Alexander’s sentences to pursue the line of inquiry, the damn BBC News producer had the young, low-paid person at the control board turn down Alexander’s microphone.

    It’s very obvious that the sound drops dramatically all at once the instance Willcox starts to speak.  As someone with many years of experience working with audio equipment, I know the signs (sounds) of someone lowering the volume.

    I don’t blame Willcox for this, although he could have been less eager to interrupt as Alexander wasn’t really dodging a question.  I blame the producer in charge for giving the order to deliberately silence a Government minister trying to explain a policy.

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  29. Chuffer says:

    You’ll never guess what Thomashxzs Shaftenacker did during his weather forecast at 1.30 ish tiday (Wednesday). He did an amusing Spoonerism. Tee hee. Muffled giggles all round. Oooh, aren’t we naughty at the Beeb?

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    • Millie Tant says:

      Someone posted in another place:

      “Is it just me or is this guy a smutty little adolescent ? Strange how he keeps making these ”mistakes”. Bring back Bill Giles !”

      Another poster asked whether he does these on purpose for Youtube. 

      A sad case of juvenilia, arrested development and Look at Me! Me! Me! syndrome.

      The worse culprits are those at the Beeboid Corporation who indulge him and his nonsense.

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    • Buggy says:

      I thought he’d be squirrelled away somewhere safe after starring in the previous episode of “Spot The Weather Twat”.

      Obviously not. Just like Piers Gaveston and Peter Mandelson before him, he’s back to charm and delight. Ugh.

         0 likes

  30. Bupendra Bhakta says:

    Wikileaks – I know it’s a scoop of outstandingly, staggeringly, gargantuan proportions (to the NYTimes/Guardian/BBC axis of feeble at any rate) – but are we going to get it every day. all day now on al-Beeb for the next oh decade or so,

    I mean the horse had been well and truly flogged by day 2 – no?

       0 likes

  31. Umbongo says:

    I (half) listened to Richard Black’s report from Cancun on Today this morning.  Oddly he didn’t mention this which Joe Bastardi posted on his blog http://www.accuweather.com/ukie/bastardi-europe-blog.asp?partner=accuweather at AccuWeather yesterday [my bold]

    THE LORD WORKS IN MYSTERIOUS WAYS…
    Dr. Roy Spencer has reported that the site of the climate conference, Cancun, had a record low of 54 this morning.
    Last year, Copenhagen cold, this year Cancun. You think someone is trying to tell them something (like this is still up for debate?)

    Obviously Richard was so involved in the group hug that this news escaped him.  But, silly me, weather has no relationship to climate.

       0 likes

  32. Millie Tant says:

    Slightly wandering off topic:

    Is it something in the water? In the week of Giggling Naughtie and a much-discussed slip implicating Spooner or Freud, it is not just the BBC which has been tripped up by a transposed consonant or an unfortunate idiom in the wrong context.  Look what Max Clifford came out with today while being questioned on Sky News. 

    As everyone probably knows, he has been doing the rounds robustly proclaiming the innocence of the Indian husband who has been accused (by one of the murderers) of having had his wife murdered in South Africa.

    So while being questioned about why his client was allegedly unwilling to return to South Africa and why he had retained Clifford to speak for him, Clifford said this: “Having had his wife brutally murdered…he wasn’t keen on going back to South Africa etc etc.”

    Now I know that people commonly say they have had their car stolen when they mean that they have had the experience of it having been stolen rather than that they have arranged for it to be stolen but…could the use of that idiom in this particular context have been any more unfortunate? Or perhaps more telling: Mr Freud up to his tricks again? When even as wily an old bird as Clifford can fall into such a trap, it gives one pause.  I wonder if the listening Beeboids giggled as much as they did at the  Naughtie gaffe or if they felt they had to suppress their mirth and put on a sorrowful face because this did not after all involve a hated Tory but one of their favoured types, an ” Asian” man?

       0 likes

  33. Will says:

    BBC1 6pm News reports on a most sophisticated ILLEGAL tunnel (the tunnel, equipped with ventilation, lighting and a pulley system, was 550m (1,800ft) long). For a mo I thought it must be between Egypt & Gaza. Silly me, that wouldn’t be thought ILLEGAL, would it? No this is twixt Tijuana & San Diego.

       0 likes

  34. Martin says:

    Sometimes I think the Tories are on another planet. I can’t stop laughing at Cameron and co moaning that no one understands their proposals on Student fees.  
     
    Well of course not!! the BBC spend all their time winding up the drug taking unwashed student scum (not that they need much) and of course today when Dame Nikki finally asked the obvious question “is this just about fees or the coalition?”  
     
    “Both” came back the reply from one of the many knuckle dragging ‘stoodunts’, of course, the day Cameron took office the drugged up SWP and other human dross were outside Downing Street chanting “Tories out”  
     
    Perhaps Cameron should ask the BBC why 99% of their coverage of this subject is about the protests and not the issues?

       0 likes

    • Millie Tant says:

      When youngsters are interviewed about tuition fees, they all seem to bleat about it being “ideological”. Now where did they all just happen to get that from? Is it because it has been repeated ad nauseam by Beeboids /Labour mouthpieces and the youngsters duly oblige by taking up the cry and repeating it parrotlike whenever the opportunity arises?

      Why doesn’t the Beeboid corporation discuss the question of funding university education? Well, take the day that the yobs attacked Conservative Party headquarters as an example. That night, Paxman actually said on Newsnight to the assembled yobs and Labourites in the studio that Newsnight had had a different programme planned with a number of guests to discuss the actual question of funding on that very night. However they had cancelled it and got the mob in instead. He didn’t say why. It is supposed to be self-evident why. Excitable Beeboids decided that the violence and mayhem were more important for them to discuss than the substance of the issue.

         0 likes

      • John Horne Tooke says:

        I have yet to hear a beeboid ask one of these unwashed “How will this affect you?”

        It is the obvious question for anyone with a bit of common sense. What these people are doing is political and therefore should be treated as such.

           0 likes

      • Martin says:

        Yes because it’s about ‘kicking out the Tories’ which is a BBC ideal along with the eco loons, SWP and unwashed vermin

           0 likes

  35. George R says:

    Mr. P. MASON, Father of the Chapel at BBC-NUJ-Labour ‘Newsnight’, indulges himself (at licencepayers’ expense) on his two most recent blog entries by extolling what he thinks are political virtues of:

    1. Ben Hecht – (Mason allows ONLY Hecht fans to write in a list of 50 essential books. Non-Marxists need not apply in this closed Masonic circle);

    2.) LSE students of 1968, who occupied the campus. Mason reckons that this action changed a lot for the better! Is he is up to date on the Islamisation of the LSE, both its funding and many of its courses? For all I know, he approve it.

    ‘A Degree of Influence’* by Robin Simcox, pp89-96

    * (Am I allowed to put this book on a list of 50 favourites, Mr. Mason? Of course not. I am not your approved political circle.)

    http://www.socialcohesion.co.uk/files/1238334247_1.pdf

    For more on Mason’s masonic machinations (Of Dec 2, and Dec 4):

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/newsnight/paulmason/

       0 likes

  36. George R says:

    Disinformation by Islam Not BBC (INBBC) again:

    -don’t mention – ‘Islam’, and Jihad’.

    1.) ‘Jihadwatch’

    Baltimore bomber “thought about nothing but jihad”

    2.) INBBC

    “‘Military recruitment base bomber’ charged in Maryland”

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11953514

       0 likes

  37. Deborah says:

    I do wish the BBC would ask any of the great unwashed students they keep interviewing,  that as the amount of money available to pay university fees is limited,  would they themselves be prepared to pay a significant amount more to enable students from a poor background to have lower fees.

       0 likes

    • John Horne Tooke says:

      Exactly right – and that apparently is the idea. If you leave university and get a job at the BBC where you will be showered with an almost bottomless pit of cash for your services, you will be expected not only to pay back your fess but also contribute to those who cannot afford it. Isn’t that what the socialists want? To help their poor neighbours?

      Every unwashed student interviewed by an even moderatley competant reporter would be totally demolished by common sense questions. But the BBC are only interested in which MP is voting with the government.  This comes in as a poor second compared to violent protests by people who think the world owes them a cushy life in academia.

      I had to hold down a job, provide for a family and pay for my tuition fees. In six years I went from NVQ to MSc with no help at all from the state.

         0 likes

  38. Philip says:

    The simpering Rosie Goldsmith finds a ‘new Obama’, for ‘Crosssing Continents’:  

    Socialist – check.  
    Ex-Communist – check.  
    Anti-Capitalist – check.  
    Gay – check.  
    Eco friendly – check.  
    Supporters waving red flags – check.  
    Anti-Berlusconi – check.  
    Runs budget at a deficit – check.  

    Expect much fawning from other quarters of the Beeb any time soon…

       0 likes

    • Craig says:

      Fittingly, this ‘new Obama’ was first spotted by Obamamaniac Mark Mardell back in 2006:

      He’s gay, and that’s a rarity for southern Italian politicians. But he’s a man to watch, a spell binder.

         0 likes

    • John Anderson says:

      add –

      spends taxpayers’  money on “green” projects – check

      The Goldsmith prog was pure BBC propaganda for leftie causes.

         0 likes

    • Millie Tant says:

      You say tomayto, I say tomato…ditto for check and tick.

         0 likes

      • Philip says:

        Actually, I say ‘tom-ah-to’ – the ‘check‘ is as in pilots/al-Beeb leftards reading from a checklist 😉

           0 likes

        • Millie Tant says:

          So do I…heh… but we tick each item on our checklist while Americans check (put a tick against) each item.

             0 likes

  39. Guest Who says:

    One’s morning blog surf is never complete without visiting the BBC’s “The Editors”, to view the market rate talents who control what we get to see and hear on their latest navel gazing deployments. Today does not disappoint:

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2010/12/are_foreign_correspondents_red.html

    One is pretty sure the mods will be in overdrive if not itching to close it soon, so get in while you can.

       0 likes

    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      The foreign correspondent may no longer be the only voice in a “networked world”, but he or she can be the most trusted voice. In an ever more complex world, they are far from being redundant.

      Most trusted what now?  Not in the US.  Too bad they haven’t been made redundant yet.

         0 likes

  40. Pounce says:

    The bBC and spot the difference.
    Woman caught on camera throwing cat in bin
    And
    Man caught on camera physically attacking his puppy
    It seems the bBC only reports on the woman I wonder why?

       0 likes

  41. DCP says:

    Anyone hear 5live breakfast this morning at around 0645?  Sheila Fogarty attempted to blame the shark attacks in Egypt on Climate Change.  Nearly fell out of bed laughing.

       0 likes

  42. Beeboidal says:

     Labour MP Gloria Del Piero put out a general tweet

    Clegg sold principles and party’s soul for a fancy title and a chauffeur – playing the role of David Cameron’s puppet http://bit.ly/eVzJKY 

    It would come as no surprise if Dame Nikki, who was doing a programme segment entitled “Have the Lib Dems lost credibility or is it about coalition, responsible govt and tough decisions?”, is a follower of this MP, who spent part of her career as a Beeboid . Nice of the Dame to personally inform her of the service he provided.

       0 likes

    • Millie Tant says:

      Hah! As if Labour can throw stones at anybody about chauffers and limousines. The last 13 years gave us the greediest biggest gravy-trainers and lovers of the high life at public expense that I ever saw. CXompared with the Labour shower, the new government is positively modest and even frugal when it comes to that kind of enthusiastic ostentation and revelling in luxurious accoutrements of the job.

         0 likes

    • Guest Who says:

      just read your tweet out on’t radio G’

      Of course you did, dear.

      The BBC’s role as a uniquely funded PR and broadcast medium on behalf of a single party could not be (made) clearer.

         0 likes

  43. David Jones says:

    Monckton thinks Cancun will be a success for the UN in its aim to form a world government. It is using the EU model to subvert democracy and take over.

     

    I usually add some gentle humor to these reports. Not today. Read this and weep. Notwithstanding the carefully-orchestrated propaganda to the effect that nothing much will be decided at the UN climate conference here in Cancun, the decisions to be made here this week signal nothing less than the abdication of the West. The governing class in what was once proudly known as the Free World is silently, casually letting go of liberty, prosperity, and even democracy itself. No one in the mainstream media will tell you this, not so much because they do not see as because they do not bl**dy care.

     

    The 33-page Note (FCCC/AWGLCA/2010/CRP.2) by the Chairman of the “Ad-Hoc Working Group on Long-Term Co-operative Action under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change”, entitled Possible elements of the outcome, reveals all. Or, rather, it reveals nothing, unless one understands what the complex, obscure jargon means. All UNFCCC documents at the Cancun conference, specifically including Possible elements of the outcome, are drafted with what is called “transparent impenetrability”. The intention is that the documents should not be understood, but that later we shall be told they were in the public domain all the time, so what are we complaining about?

     

    Since the Chairman’s note is very long, I shall summarize the main points:

    Finance: Western countries will jointly provide $100 billion a year by 2020 to an unnamed new UN Fund. To keep this sum up with GDP growth, the West may commit itself to pay 1.5% of GDP to the UN each year. That is more than twice the 0.7% of GDP that the UN has recommended the West to pay in foreign aid for the past half century. Several hundred of the provisions in the Chairman’s note will impose huge financial costs on the nations of the West.

     

    The world-government Secretariat: In all but name, the UN Convention’s Secretariat will become a world government directly controlling hundreds of global, supranational, regional, national and sub-national bureaucracies. It will receive the vast sum of taxpayers’ money ostensibly paid by the West to the Third World for adaptation to the supposed adverse consequences of imagined (and imaginary) “global warming”.

    ………… and on and on ……………… (continued)

     


       0 likes

  44. David Jones says:

    In short, there was to be a New World Order, with a “government” having at its command a “financial mechanism” in the form of unlimited rights to tax the world’s citizen’s directly, and a “facilitative mechanism” that would bring the rules of all formerly free markets under the direct control of the new UN “government”, aided by an already-expanding series of bureaucracies.

     

    At no point anywhere in the 186 pages of the Treaty draft do the words “democracy”, “election”, “ballot”, or “vote” appear. As the EU has already demonstrated, the transfer of powers from sovereign democracies to supranational entities brings those democracies to an end. At the supranational level, in the UN, in the EU and in the proposed world government, decisions are not made by anyone whom we, the voters, have elected to make such decisions.

    Don’t think that this is impossible; the EU has already done it.

     

    The intention is that, after not one but two international climate conferences, the second of them in Rio in 2012 on the 20th anniversity of the Earth Summit that began it all, the Secretariat will have become so wealthy and will have accreted so much power to itself that no one – not even the US Senate – will dare to resist ratifying the Treaty of Rio that brings democracy to an end worldwide and fulfils Lord Mandelson’s recent statement that “we are now living in a post-democratic age.”

     

    ……………………………………………….

     

    How can we, the people, defeat the Secretariat and keep the democracy we love? Simply by informing our elected representatives of the scope, ambition, and detail of what is in the Cancun agreement. The agreement will not be called a “Treaty”, because the Senate, particularly after the mid-term elections, will not pass it. But it can still be imposed upon us by the heavily Left-leaning Supreme Court, which no longer makes any pretence at judicial impartiality and may well decide, even if Congress does not, that the Cancun agreement shall stand part of US law on the ground that it is “customary international law”.

     

    What to do? Send this blog posting to your legislators. It is their power, as well as yours, that is being taken away; their democracy, as well as yours, that will perish from the Earth unless this burgeoning nonsense is stopped.
    Do read it.

     

    What on earth can we do? Richard North thinks revolution. Have we the spine? I doubt it.

     

    Care to comment Richard Black?

     

       0 likes

  45. David Preiser (USA) says:

    A few days ago, technology correspondent Maggie Shiels, one of the platoon of Beeboids in the US, reported her disappointment over George Bush’s recent appearance at the Facebook HQ.  Her personal disappointment that Bush wasn’t given a seriously hard time, and that he was allowed to get away with answering questions with anecdotes and make positive statements about various things, is made clear from her own choice of descriptive terms.  
     
    Bush was there to promote his book, hoping that Facebook would be a good way to do it.  Shiels is skeptical.  
     
    It turns out that Bush fans on Facebook are 13 times more active than worshipers of The Obamessiah.  Oh, dear.  
     
    Amusingly, the current President has over 17 million “fans” on Facebook, while His predecessor merely has a bit over 600,000.  But not even one tenth of one percent of The Obamessiah’s worshipers are active on His page, while at least one percent of Bush’s fans regularly interact with his page.  
     
    I’m sure this will not be noticed by either of the intrepid BBC technology correspondents.

       0 likes

    • John Anderson says:

      Yet another of the horde of people we are forced to pay for in the US.

      Never heard a single report from her,  as far as I know.    There is absolutely nil reason to base someone at high expense in Silicon Valley when techology reporting can be done just as well from the UK – viz The Register,  for example. 

      I expect she files about one story a bloody week.

         0 likes

  46. Millie Tant says:

    More from Beeboid favourite Frankie Boyle, this time on Channel 4, making tasteless “jokes” targeting a seriously disabled child. Note the arrogance of this publicly owned broadcaster refusing to apologise and the pathetic excuses given for this refusal.

    I think the Beeboid Corporation did at least condemn some of his more egregious comments on their programmes.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1337095/Katie-Price-refuse-apology-Frankie-Boyles-sexual-slur-disabled-son-Harvey.html

       0 likes

  47. David Preiser (USA) says:

    Oh, dear.  China has blocked the BBC website again.  This time its not about Tibet but they’re blocking everyone over news about the Nobel Prize going to that democracy activist they’ve had locked up for a while.

    However, while the BBC dutifully reports the Nobel people’s assertion that no way is this a criticism of China or anything, honestly, those with long-term memories uninfluenced by the BBC will know this is BS.  After all, the Nobel people have form on handing out prizes as slaps in the face of Governments.  They said so about Jimmy Carter, and the BBC sure had no problem reporting it then.  Why not remind us of it now, BBC?

       0 likes

  48. George R says:

    Politically conniving BBC-NUJ avoids a subject in its headline:

    “Royal car attacked in protest after MPs’ fee vote”

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-11954333

    Of course, the headline should read something like:

    ‘Violent mob attack royals.’

    Or, as ‘Daily Mail’ reports:

    “Terrifying moment Charles and Camilla were surrounded by a baying mob and their car attacked in tuition fees riot”

    Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1337088/TUITION-FEES-VOTE-PROTEST-Charles-Camillas-car-attacked-thousands-students-descend-Parliament.html#ixzz17efKwzX7

       0 likes

  49. james1070 says:

    The BBC’s favorite “right winger” Nick Robinson on the news claimed  the Coalition had lost the argument. Who the hell is writing his script. I was always taught that those who lose the argument resort to violence, like the terrorist NUS. No mention of the the NUS urinating on Winston Churchill’s statue. The BBC never asked the question why should the tax payer be forced to pay students to commit acts of violence and vandalism. And why isn’t the NUS billed for the damage?

       0 likes

  50. David Preiser (USA) says:

    Oh, my.

    Profanity, Anger Spill Over in House Democratic Caucus Meeting

    The frustration with President Barack Obama over his tax cut compromise was palpable and even profane at Thursday’s House Democratic Caucus meeting.

    One unidentified lawmaker went so far as to mutter “f— the president” while Rep. Shelley Berkley was defending the package the president negotiated with Republicans. Berkley confirmed the incident, although she declined to name the specific lawmaker.

    “It wasn’t loud,” the Nevada Democrat said. “It was just expressing frustration from a very frustrated Member.”

    Was that person a racist?

    Rep. Jerrold Nadler (N.Y.) was also overheard saying that “we can’t trust him” not to cave to Republicans and extend the tax cuts again in two years, according to a Democratic source.

    Is he a racist now?

       0 likes