Author Archives: David Preiser (USA)

BBC Censorship: ATF Scandal and Gun Control Edition

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A major ongoing scandal in the US is the revelation that the Dept. of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms (ATF) deliberately allowed more than 2000 assault weapons to be sold to arms traffickers to sell to Mexican drug cartels. The head of the ATF has now been “re-assigned” to a keep-shtum-and-you-keep-your-pension job in another department, and the bureau chief in Arizona, where most of these guns went walkies, has been sacked.

The BBC report about this lays out the barest details, dutifully following the official White House version of what happened. To be fair, other than the odd human interest story or local atmosphere and color piece, the Beeboids in the US don’t do investigative or original reporting, and mostly rehash what they find in the liberal media they read, and where their friends work. So it’s no surprise that it’s heavy on quotes from the White House and light on facts about what the scandal is really about.

I won’t say that the BBC has been censoring news of the scandal the whole time, as they’ve done a few other news briefs about it during the past year. Naturally, those pieces also stick to the official White House version of events and fail to report what’s actually been going on.

The official version is that the ATF started this “Operation Fast and Furious” to track guns to Mexican drug cartels, in the hopes of, as the BBC reports, “tracing them to arms dealers”. Now, sting operations happen all the time in law enforcement, so this wouldn’t be unusual. Except, the White House changed their story. A BBC article from March has a slightly different “official version”, that the goal was to track the guns directly to drug cartel leaders. Which makes no sense at all. Still, first it was to catch the gun dealers, then it was to catch the drug leaders. Not that the BBC bothers to question it, as it’s official White House policy, which they must obey at all times. All they tell you is that the now ex-ATF director, Kenneth Melson, testified in Congress that “mistakes have been made”.

There’s so much that the BBC doesn’t want you to know about this, it’s not even funny. Actually, there is one funny bit: not long before this scandal first came to light, the BBC dutifully reported a success story for the operation instead. More on that in a moment.

What I’m going to do here is talk about what this scheme was really about, which is not the official version, provide links to the BBC reports, and let everyone decide for themselves if the BBC simply parroted the official version they got from the newswires and the White House and censored a huge amount of information which turns the story on its head – and points directly to the President Himself.



First, what this is all really about: a covert plan to create bloodshed which the President and His Administration could use to advance His gun control agenda. No, I’m not making this up. As we all know, the official story – repeated by the BBC – is that 70% of guns (the President and Sec. of State Clinton used to claim it was 90% – also repeated by the BBC – but what the hell, it’s only ideology, right?) used in Mexican drug violence come from the US. Never mind about how that’s not exactly true, as we’re talking about the White House version of reality, slavishly reported by the BBC.

In this piece, Steve Kingston (Hey, Kingston: how come you can pronounce “Juarez” with a flourish of Spanish accent, but can’t pronounce “Houston” the way the native whites do?) actually talks to one of the ATF agents who let the guns go walkies. Although here, it’s about how lax gun laws allow people to buy weapons easily and sell them along. See where this is going? It’s a gun control agenda, and the blurb for the video about how laws in the US are “more relaxed”. What the BBC is doing is here is actively supporting the official White House version of events, providing propaganda for the ATF scheme. In case that wasn’t enough, the BBC did a separate full piece on that agent as well. Good public value for the license fee, eh? One has to ask, though: just how much does this BBC reporter really know about it?

In any case, here’s that example of the BBC helping out with a bit of White House propaganda on the scheme. They report this minor incident, yet suppress so much important news. Agenda? What Agenda?

It’s a given that the Left would like guns to be outlawed entirely, and that their goals are to have the strictest gun control laws possible. Indeed, the Left has been pressuring the Obamessiah Administration to get tougher on guns practically from the time He took office. Yes, another Leftoid complaint about another missed opportunity to force legislation they like without having to soil their hands and deal with Republicans when they had a super-majority. The same people who now demand bi-partisanship and working together, and frown at Tea Party intransigence. But I digress.

Long before He even ran for Senator, the President was on the board of the Joyce Foundation (what a shock: He threw some money their way this year), which has long been an advocate of banning guns. He also came from the notorious political machine of Chicago, which is one of the stricest places in the country. One cannot even own a handgun or automatic weapon within the city limits. In short, He has history on this.

Fast forward to March of this year, when this scandal was a mere blip on the radar in the mainstream media, and not many people were talking about this being something other than what the White House said it was. Jim Brady (Reagan Press Secretary permanently severely disabled when he took a bullet when that President was shot) and his wife, both leading activists with their own foundation, met with current Press Secretary (husband of BBC Washington correspondent Katty Kay’s friend and business partner) Jay Carney to pressure the Administration about getting a move on enforcing more gun control laws. During the meeting, the President Himself walked in, and was also asked to reassure them that strictest gun control was high on the Administration’s agenda. Apparently, it was. Only not publicly.

“I just want you to know that we are working on it,” Brady recalled the president telling them. “We have to go through a few processes, but under the radar.”

He knew. The President Himself knew about the whole thing, and no mistake. To borrow from Sandy Toksvig in a way she’d absolutely hate, He puts the other “u” in “gun control”. This is the Washington Post, ladies and gentlemen. There’s no way at least one Beeboid doesn’t know about this.

The dots begin to connect. When ex-ATF boss Melson was testifying before Congress about all this a while back, he said quite a bit more than the BBC let on. Among those “mistakes” he talked about were incidents where ATF agents were ordered to step aside and not bust gun traffickers. Which allegedly is what the whole scheme was about. And he didn’t mean ordered by him, either. Melson also said that one reason given to him – the head of the agency, remember – was that some of these people were working as informants for other agencies. Which means that this is so not just about the ATF. The FBI is involved, and the DEA is involved. All three agencies had to know in order to give such an order. This is bigger than the BBC is letting on.

Sen. Darrell Issa, on the other hand, who led the Congressional investigation into this whole thing in the first place, knows exactly what’s going on. The ever-faithful Washington Post claimed that the Administration told Issa all about it last year, and that he had no problem with it. Even the WaPo admits his aides say they didn’t give him any actual details, and Issa says they didn’t tell him any details at all. In fact, he still has questions about just how high up this goes, considering all the agencies involved and orders coming down from on high to the head of the ATF. Part of Melson’s testimony was to Issa privately, with Melson’s own attorney instead of the Government guys. Issa says there’s more to this that he knows about but can’t say until the Administration releases more documents. Melson says Attorney General Eric Holder is stalling. I wonder why? The BBC is uninterested.

Now, officially, the Obamessiah Administration says that this was a failure, an “oops”, and that neither Holder nor the President knew. That’s the story the BBC presents, without the slightest hint of anything else. That’s why Melson and the AZ guy got the boot, right? So why are some of the people busted by the ATF as part of this operation getting deals to cut their prison sentences way down? This includes – Hello! – the New Mexico mayor busted for arms dealing as reported in that BBC propaganda piece story about the ATF’s success in their mission that I mentioned above. Worse than that, why were the top three supervisors of the whole thing given promotions a couple weeks ago. Some “botched operation”. I wish I had made such successful mistakes.

Does this smell bad enough yet? Plenty of information out there, and the BBC is utterly silent, simply reporting the mainstream, President-supporting media take on it, which parrots the official line. In Melson and the AZ man, they found their scapegoat. Holder can pretend he didn’t know. And as we’ve already seen, the President knew. Lastly, here’s one of the ATF internal emails Issa released, where the Asst. Director of Field Operations, Mark Chait, says this:

Bill – can you see if these guns where purchased from the same Ffl and at one time. We are looking at anecdotal cases to support a demand letter on long gun multiple sales.

“Bill” is William Newell, the AZ guy who just got “re-assigned”. What a shock.

In the end, this Operation Fast and Furious was a scheme hatched at least near the very top, and was authorized by the President and the Attorney General, all with the goal of getting people killed so they could push their gun ban agenda. And the BBC is a willing accomplice, following that agenda, unquestioning.

Don’t trust the BBC on US issues.

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The BBC Solicits Advice On The US Economy

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BBC News Online has a little piece entitled “US economy: What can be done to stimulate growth?”

It’s actually not so bad, with two of the four economists interviewed taking positions which aren’t 100% in favor of more borrowing and spending. Although, there is an obvious bias on the part of the online editor who chose them. The first up, Robert di Clemente (a generally sharp guy) speaks more truth than the other three combined, and makes real points about why we are where we are. The other three either say “Please, sir, may I have some more QE”, or suggest that we may as well get around to doing more of it.

Naturally, one of them is the BBC’s favorite far-Left economists not named Paul Krugman, one David Blanchflower. I’m sure many people here have seen him over and over again on the BBC (type his name in the search field on this blog).

What’s interesting is that only di Clemente says outright that Government policies on jobs and growth have failed. He also tells us something that nobody has ever said on the BBC before: 40% of jobs losses have come from three industries: housing, automotive, and finance. Think for a second about what this means, as two out of three are very relevant to the UK.

The reason for all those job losses in the housing industry is obvious: the whole thing was bloated way, way out of proportion, to an unsustainable level, by specific Government policies. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the Government-sponsored sub-prime mortgage scheme all led to houses being far overvalued, and a massive construction boom by developers in the hopes of everyone getting to buy and sell and flip houses and buy-to-let, and all that. Does that sound familiar? It should. So when that bubble burst, of course there were going to be an awful lot of people out of work.

That doesn’t mean that we need to do something to raise the industry back up again to unsustainable levels so all those people can have jobs again, either. It means that many of those jobs should never have existed in the first place, and were actually based on an ethereal foundation. Things never should have gotten so out of hand. If many of those jobs hadn’t existed, it’s quite possible many of those now unemployed would have found work in other, more sustainable sectors, and would still have jobs now.

The automotive industry has been bleeding jobs for ages, and the bailout didn’t stop it from continuing. The loans and what amounted to taxpayer funding of union pensions didn’t add a single job, and hasn’t put a single person back to work. Nor can any QE scheme return the automotive industry to its former, unsustainable level. So again, Government policies did not and cannot bring back jobs.



Di Clemente also mentions the finance industry. I know what you’re thinking: “Hang on, the BBC told me that we bailed out the evil bankers so the greedy bastards who caused all our woes got off scott free and still got their massive bonuses, etc.” So how can there be unemployment in the finance industry? It certainly doesn’t jibe with the BBC Narrative.

In fact, 106 banks went bust in 2009, large and small, retail and investment. Last year, the number was 109. Some of these got bought out and absorbed into larger companies, which, or course, still means plenty of people made redundant. This doesn’t include venture capital firms, hedge funds, etc., which have also folded since then.

The other fascinating thing di Clemente mentions is that there are plenty of employers out there looking to hire, but simply can’t find the right skilled workers. Apparently all those liberal arts graduates with watered down degrees we’re churning out don’t have the right skills for real existing jobs. Does that sound familiar?

The next bubble to burst in the US is student debt. That’s another Government scheme artificially propping up an entire industry to unsustainable levels. Cracks are beginning to show, but it will be a couple years before it all starts to go south in the manner of the mortgage crisis. Watch this space, and don’t expect the BBC to tell you about it. It’s actually rather strange that the BBC has never mentioned this, considering how much energy they’ve spent telling you that student debt is terrible so the nasty Tories should abolish tuition fees like they do in wonderful Scotland. You’d think they’d be looking for some context which might back up their ideology. Only they can’t be bothered because they just know they’re right, so it’s not important.

In essence, di Clemente raises more interesting points in 340 words than an entire year of BBC reporting on the US economy. He basically blows all of Mardell’s and Flanders’ reporting out of the water. These are major issues, none of which are discussed openly and honestly by the BBC. He’s smart enough not to point his finger directly at the President, and instead blames the ideological divide in Congress. But it’s very clear from his statement which side he thinks is the problem, and it ain’t the heroes of the BBC. Why isn’t this man on speed dial instead of Blanchflower? Ah, I see I’ve answered my own question.

More damning is the fact that there are exact parallels in Britain for most of this. Yet the BBC never discusses it. Where’s the context? Why not look for lessons to be learned, BBC? Is it because you don’t like what you see and it will hurt the Narrative?

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BBC Censorship And The Economic Delusions Of Mark Mardell

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Andrew has already mentioned this (Pg. 3 of the open thread @ 9:28pm GMT) list of White House attack points on Rick Perry posing as an editorial blog post by Mardell, but now there’s a nice BBC censorship angle to add, so worth a full post.

The BBC US President editor wants you to know how to understand Rick Perry’s claims that his non-Left policies helped not only to keep Texas above water during the Recession/New Depression, but to actually become a business and jobs leader in the country. As Rick Perry is now more or less the leading Republican horse in the race (thanks at least in part to the President’s foolish desire to punch downwards), it’s Mardell’s duty to tell you not to believe what Perry says interpret the issues involved for you.

The main claim to fame here is that Texas creates lots and lots of jobs, right? Even the full power of the Mainstream Media and the White House propaganda machine can’t change that fact, so they need to instead spin it so that you think those jobs are not good and so don’t actually help the “miracle” Perry is claiming, or simply that Republican policies weren’t responsible at all for any success. So Mardell uses one of the older tricks in the book, and generalizes from a single anecdote.

He’s found a cardboard box manufacturer in Texas as his anecdote. The boss waxes enthusiastically about what a great business environment he’s found. Of course, as Mardell points out, his main reasons are geographical location and the availability of the labor he needs, neither of which Perry can possibly claim credit for. Hence the usefulness of this anecdote for the Narrative. The only policy one can point to as being a contributing factor is the clumsily worded “tax abatement”.

By itself, this is just an anecdote. Nothing else offered about any other businesses similarly successful no thanks to specific Republican policies. Yet Mardell expects that this is enough evidence, combined with his other White House talking points, that the Texas success story isn’t what it’s cracked up to be.



The other main White House talking point is that all those jobs Texas is creating are “low wages, in many cases.” Wrong. The fact is that, since the Recession/New Depression started, Texas has the 6th-highest rate of increase in hourly wages. This same piece at the PoliticalMath blog also shows why it’s a bit disingenuous for Mardell to point out that Texas’ unemployment numbers aren’t so hot. Many of the new jobs are taken by the hordes of people – legal US citizens from other states – who have flocked into Texas to find work. The unemployment figure is as high as it is because too many people who already live there aren’t getting into the workforce. You can probably look to the state’s southern border and guess why that might be.

Before any defenders of the indefensible try to tell me that the figures are being misrepresented because it’s the median and not the mean, and/or that merely adding a few millionaires and billionaires would skew the wages numbers in Perry’s favor, stop and remember that this is about hourly wages, not salaried folks and business owner income. So when Mardell says that the jobs are low paying “in many cases”, he’s the one being misleading, and deliberately so.

Amusingly, Mardell closes with this:

But there is a down side and a lot more to say. On Monday, I’ll write in this blog about those who highlight the problems, and those conservatives who see Texas as a model – not just for the US, but the whole world.

Um, if this blog post of his is supposed to be about the positives, I’d hate to see him discuss the negatives. Since it’s already Wednesday and he hasn’t come up with anything further, I’ll assume it’s proving a little more difficult than he thought to write about people who think a few positive lessons might be learned from Texas. Either that or he’s still recovering from the stunning blow of having to report that the President says regime change in Libya is a vital US interest. (Mardell didn’t actually attribute that to the President: he just stated it as fact. -ed)

The censorship bit? Well, a while ago, I posted about how the BBC censored news of a few US states which had actually improved their own economic situations with the lower-tax, spending reform policies espoused by the Tea Party movement and disparaged by the BBC. I said that it was wrong for the BBC to censor this news when it would have provided their audience with a very useful context in which to view the US debt crisis debate. I also posted about how the BBC similarly censored the same kind of news about Canada.

Now the BBC is censoring news about a US state which is heading for trouble because of the very tax-and-spend policies which inspired the Tea Party movement in the first place. Illinois lost the most jobs in the country in July, and unemployment numbers have been increasing for the last three months. Since the beginning of the year, 89,000 people have left the work force. Why? Because instead of cutting spending and reforming wealth redistribution, the Democrat Governor and Democrat Legislature increased taxes by a good bit in January: 46% increase on business taxes and a 66% increase on personal income tax. Do the math and say, “ouch”. By the way, no Republicans voted for it, as none were needed due to the Democrat super-majority of both houses of legislature. Does that sound familiar?

In short, the BBC is still censoring news that doesn’t support their Narrative on the US economy. And Mark Mardell is a dishonest broker of news on US issues.

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The Bias Of Katty Kay Revealed On MSNBC

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A couple days ago, BBC Washington correspondent and anchor of what’s left of BBC World News America, Katty Kay participated in a panel discussion on Chris “Thrill Up My Leg” Matthews’ show on MSNBC. Unlike the BBC, MSNBC has no Charter & Agreement requiring them to provide balance and remain impartial, and the panel is even more weighted to the Left: John Heilmann from New York Magazine, Katty, Helene Cooper from the New York Times, and Time Magazine’s Richard Stengel. The host himself is now infamous for his over-emotional statement on air of devotion to the President, and has spent much of the time since His election viciously attacking any opponent.

Before we get to the video, I have to say that it’s certainly not Katty’s fault that this is a far-Left echo-chamber, or that Matthews has a specific partisan agenda to push and assembled this panel accordingly. But she is responsible for her own words and behavior. Therein lies the danger of being a talking head on these panels. It’s all opinion-mongering, and there’s no escaping that the whole point of appearances like this is to give opinions on stories. Sometimes that’s not a big deal, like when a pundit is asked to predict how things might turn out, or explain a couple of angles a politician might take on something. But that’s not what’s going on this time.

Since she’s not actually on the BBC here, and is not performing any BBC-related duty, defenders of the indefensible can claim that she has no obligation to be impartial. All I can do is present this from the BBC’s own rulebook, and let people judge for themselves:

BBC News and Current affairs staff, BBC correspondents on non-staff contracts and freelances known primarily as presenters or reporters on BBC news and current affairs programmes, must remain impartial when speaking publicly or taking part in similar events, such as a public discussion or debate.

Now to the video:

Notice how Matthews misses Perry’s joke and claims this is embracing extremism. The first words out of the New York Magazine guy’s mouth are, “The Republican Party right now is a very ideological party.” And the Democrat Party isn’t? Matthews goes on to disparage Perry, and we can see the tone from the outset. Angry, extremist, mean, ideological. Matthews really piles on, blatantly misrepresenting the message of the movement: “We don’t believe in evolution. We don’t believe in Climate Change.” He says this is the language of the Tea Party. Nods of agreement all round, and no protest at all from Katty Kay. She agrees with the characterization that this is what the Tea Party movement is about. If she thought differently, she would have said something.

This has not and has never been the language of the Tea Party movement. The last two and a half years have been about fiscal responsibility. Katty actually later acknowledges this fact, but only after she says that the movement is all social conservatives. Once again I have to state emphatically for any lurking defenders of the indefensible waiting for a gotcha moment: Of course there are plenty of social conservatives in the movement, and of course these issues concern them. Yes, social conservatives have also tried to jump on the bandwagon and co-opt the movement’s energy for their own ends. But the inspiration, the driving force, the raison d’être of the Tea Party movement is fiscal conservatism and nothing else. Remember – and I sympathize with those who get their information on US issues from the BBC who were kept in the dark about this for months – the whole thing started as an anti-tax movement and grew into an anti-ObamaCare and anti-Socialism/Big-Government movement. Nothing else mattered. No social issues inspired this, none of the hundreds of spontaneous protests around the country were about social issues. It’s simply false to portray the movement and the millions of people supportive of it as social conservatives first and foremost. Yet the BBC Washington correspondent plays right along. For her to go along with it and abet Matthews’ smear is biased behavior, and, I believe, a breach of the BBC’s impartiality guidelines for correspondents.

Since a few genius pundits have been comparing Perry to Reagan, the discussion shifts to that idea. But things are different today than they were in 1980. “There seems to be a meanness of spirit,” Katty opines. Yes, she’s making a distinction between Reagan’s campaign and the rougher tone of today, but she’s also acting as if it’s only the Right which is acting this way. When did Katty ever frown at the President for saying “Punch back twice as hard”, or instructing His supporters to argue with opponents and “get in their face”, or for crying, “If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun”? Never, and she wouldn’t dream of doing so. In fact, she’s pretending here that it never happened. I suppose that’s to be expected, seeing as how the BBC has censored this news, not allowing you to know about it. This is a BBC Washington Correspondent revealing what she thinks about the Tea Party movement and the Republican Party, and it’s exactly as biased as we’ve all been saying about her work for the BBC.

At one point, Katty states that Perry’s joke was actually him being mean, and that the public doesn’t like that sort of thing. Clearly she misses the point, just like the rest of these Leftoids. From nearly the very beginning of the movement, the Mainstream Media and Leftoid blogosphere have tried to characterize Tea Party people as being angry and mean. People here may recall just how many BBC reports on the movement (just click on anything in the Tag Cloud on the right side of this page with “Tea Party” in it, and you’ll see what I mean) focused on “boiling anger”, etc. So this is nothing new. Then there was the racist angle, thankfully absent from this particular discussion. The thing is, many in the movement have taken the approach of humor with it.

For example, the host of one Tea Party event I attended was a black man, who greeted the crowd by saying, “Hello all you racist rednecks!”. Perry is doing the same thing here. And the Leftoids on the panel simply don’t get the joke, as they’re the very people who actually are making the smear which Perry’s playing on. The crowd in the video obviously gets it, but the BBC Washington correspondent very obviously doesn’t.

There’s also the inevitable mention of Katty’s arch-nemesis, Sarah Palin, who is never far from her thoughts. It’s much harder now for Palin to enter the race, apparently. Glad that’s straightened out.

I’ve made a quite a few posts and comments on this blog highlighting the bias of Katty Kay’s reporting and interviewing manner on the BBC. Her personal opinion revealed here in her capacity as a pundit reflects my charges exactly.

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Evan Davis Advocates For His Think Tank At Your Expense

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I hope everyone enjoys this brief segment on Today with Evan Davis. He discusses the new report from the Social Market Foundation which is highly critical of the Department of Work and Pension’s Work Programme to get the long-term unemployed back to work.

Now, normally I’d say that any organization which has “Social” anything in its title is Left-leaning. I’d also generally say that any organization which states that they are not in favor of free markets but rather open markets under the guiding hand of government (a step away from fascist corporatism) is Left-leaning. But they have George Osborne and a couple of other non-Leftoids on their board and as associates, so they get away with the “independent” label and I can’t complain that Davis should have described the foundation as Left-leaning when he introduced its director.

(Yes, I know the clip I’ve linked starts just after Davis mentions the Foundation, but I’ve listened to the full programme and there was no qualifier of any kind.)

However….

I can complain that there was something else missing from Davis’ introduction of the group, something that calls into question his very presence at the mic on this topic: Evan Davis is one of the board members of the Social Market Foundation.

Davis has even co-written a pamphlet for the organization about the pros and cons of gay marriage. Yet no mention at all that of any association with the group, never mind that he’s now on the board.

So the Social Market Foundation criticizes a scheme by the Conservative-Led Coalition, and one of their board members uses his position at the BBC not only to bring it up but to actually question the Government Minister in charge. The director of the SMF gets his say first, but then isn’t involved in any debate with Grayling. Only Davis challenges the Government, without mentioning his conflict of interest. And no challenge at all to the SMF director’s statement. His challenging questions to Grayling come off as advocacy for the SMF position.

At the very least, the Today producers should have made Davis recuse himself and had Justin Webb take the SMF’s side against the Government.

Your license fee hard at work.

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Your License Fee Hard At Work: BBC Arabic and Persian Edition

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Here’s one for you:

Proud to be American

With a sister who wears the hijab and a cowboymad Muslim father who dresses like John Wayne, Seema Jilani enjoys a diverse family life. The Texas-based paediatrician, who has worked in Afghanistan and Pakistan and written extensively on health and social issues, is an engaging contributor to a new BBC documentary, American Muslim: Freedom, Faith and Fear.

Sure, why not? The whole family is Muslim, but their clothing is diverse, so that counts as “a diverse family life” when seen through the agenda-tinted glasses.

Other participants include a fashion designer, an imam, a comedian, a Marine, a Republican congressman and a forthright newspaper columnist – all with something to say about Muslims who live in the Land of the Free. The illuminating 60 minute tv programme, to be accompanied by a World Service radio documentary, emerged from a competition that invited proposals for a collaborative project between BBC Arabic and BBC Persian.

Which means it’s meant to be targeted at Mohammedans in those regions, and not for your consumption. It’s nice, though, that the BBC is actually presenting these people with a positive image of the US, for a change.

‘The original idea was to concentrate on the Bible Belt where there are fascinating similarities between devout Christians and devout Muslims,’ explains BBC Persian reporter Karen Zarindast.

You mean like how they think of women as childbearers first and foremost, subject to the absolute rule of the husband, and their feelings about homosexuality, for example? I won’t hold my breath.


The remit later broadened out and the resulting programme, commissioned by Global News, will be shown on BBC World News, BBC Arabic and BBC Persian in the run-up to the tenth anniversary of 9/11.

I bet it did. But we’re not at the ‘fear’ part yet. The BBC Persian reporter involved says this:

Originally from Lebanon, he went to university in the US in the mid-80s and this was his first trip back. ‘It was interesting to return after so many years, and I have to say that I fell in love with the country all over again.’

Again, nice to see a positive image about the US from the BBC, for a change.

It’s a familiar sentiment. ‘Everyone we met, from the most recent Muslim arrivals to the surgeon who left Pakistan 30 years ago, told us how much they loved America,’ says Farah. Zarindast, who moved to the UK from Iran 15 years ago, and travels regularly to the US, where her mother and brother now live, was also struck by Muslims’ loyalty to their adopted land.

What shock, eh? People move here on purpose to escape the sh!thole Mulsim countries they live in, and don’t hate it as much as certain Beeboids do.

‘Muslims in America are better integrated than in Britain,’ Darius Bazargan notes. ‘The country is more of a melting pot where people go to escape repression and really value their freedom.’

Shall we examine why that is, BBC? Any future documentaries about what’s preventing Mohammedans from becoming better integrated in Britain? Or have you already decided that it’s down to the inherent racism of the indigenous population, full stop?

Not that Muslims’ love of the States means they are always loved equally in return, he points out. ‘There seems to be more Islamophobia now than immediately after the 9/11 attacks.

Do you think it might have to do with the fact that there have been a few more attempted terrorist attacks by Muslims since then, not to mention Maj. Jihadi Nassan at Ft. Hood? Nah: it’s the inherent racism of the indigenous population:

‘Attitudes have hardened since the election of President Obama. People know they can’t express anti-black opinions but think it acceptable to be anti-Muslim. In fact, [in the case of politicians] their ratings can go up if they appear to be anti-Muslim.’

There you have it: we’re still bloody racists, only we keep quiet about the blacks now. And just like Baroness Warsi said, it’s acceptable to hate Muslims at dinner parties instead. I’m going to go out on a limb and predict that not a single second of this is spent discussing any attempted terrorist attacks, or any incident which might even remotely have caused concern about Mohammedans wanting Shariah Law to take precedence over domestic US law in certain cases, or Mohammedan cab drivers in Minnesota refusing to pick up fares at the ariport if they have alcohol on them, or jihadi imams who are forced to leave. Nope, it’s all just racism.

And of course, the best bit:

In another side of the story, the documentary features white Americans who have converted to Islam as a reaction against Western materialism and the constant pressure to look slim and attractive. They include a woman who used to make her living photographing people in nightclubs and is now a devout Muslim.

You couldn’t make it up. It’s White Girl all over again. Remember, this is specifically meant for Muslim audiences in the Muslim World.

What you might call a step change…

What you might call pandering….

A positive message about Islam and Muslims, with a qualified mixed message about the US, and not even meant for you to see or even know about. All at your expense.

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The Knives Are Out At The BBC: It’s U.S. Election Time Again

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The second-most important election in human history is a mere 445 days away, and the BBC is already focused on informing you how awful the President’s potential opponents are. They’re especially focused on telling you how awful the people are who will vote against Him.

The BBC Narrative picks up right where it left off after the mid-term elections last November: racialism and fear-mongering about Christian Evangelicals.

The first sentence of Jane O’Brien’s report on the poll features her calling the winner, Michelle Bachmann, “the latest darling of the Tea Party”. I’m still waiting for a defender of the indefensible to show me an example of any Beeboid referring to a Labour or Democrat figure as anyone’s “darling”. It’s a pejorative, plain and simple, yet seems to be firmly established in the BBC style guide and is used time and again in this fashion with apparently full approval by the BBC’s editorial policy. And this is what’s used to start a BBC report allegedly intending to impartially inform you about a story.

Bachmann, O’Brien informs us, “narrowly” won the poll. How narrow? We aren’t told. Who came in second? We aren’t told. The next potential opponent of the President O’Brien mentions wasn’t even in the poll: Rick Perry. The only other name mentioned is Mitt Romney, who also didn’t even take part in the Iowa poll. Already the actual agenda is revealed here. This isn’t a report about the Iowa poll at all, or what the results mean: it’s about casting a harsh light on threats to The Obamessiah.

The BBC actually did a whole separate report on Perry already, so what’s the point of bringing him into what’s supposed to be a report about the Iowa scene? Iowa wasn’t the point at all, of course. It’s just an excuse for a BBC editor to tell his correspondent to do a quick report on who might be the potential threat to the President. Which they’re already doing elsewhere, as we’ll see in a moment. In other words, this was a complete waste of time, unless one has a specific agenda.

In fact, Michelle Bachmann won by a mere 152 votes. Congressman Ron Paul came in a close second. Tim Pawlenty came in third, and then dropped out of the race altogether. He never had much of a chance anyway. The three candidates pictured in this HuffingtonPost article aren’t even mentioned by the BBC at all. The actual results, out of a possible 16,892 votes:

1. Rep. Michelle Bachmann: 4,823 (29%)

2. Rep. Ron Paul: 4,671 (28%)

3. Tim Pawlenty: 2,293 (14%)

4. Rick Santorum: 1,657 (1o%)

5. Herman Cain: 1,456 (9%)

6. Write-in votes for Rick Perry, who wasn’t even a candidate yet: 781

7. Write-in votes for Mitt Romney, who skipped Iowa entirely: 567

8. Newt Gingrich: 385

9. Write-in votes for John Hunstman, Jr. who also skipped Iowa: 69

10. Rep. Thaddeus McCotter: 35

Notice who came in 5th, and remember it for later.

So Rep. Paul came in a very close second, barely off the margin of error, and not a single word about him from the BBC. Why? Quite simply because they’ve already written him off. Remember, the Beeboids believe that their mission isn’t really to inform you but to interpret stories for you, so you know what to think about them. You don’t need to know what actually happened at all. Paul has a devoted following. His advocates are very dedicated, hardcore, and like all extremely motivated groups are able to put a good number of bodies on the ground for things like this. That doesn’t mean his result here will translate into equal results on a national scale, but it’s worth telling you that. Imagine if he does rather better for a while than the BBC expects. He’ll be up there as a top contender, and you’ll all be going: “Who the hell is that? I thought Rick Perry came in second in Iowa or something?” Just like, for so many at the BBC, the Tea Party movement “came out of nowhere” (© Emily Maitlis during mid-term election coverage for BBC News on Nov. 2, 2010).

This is the inherent danger of trying to create, as the departed Matt Frei put it, “a rapport” with an entire country, rather than just straight-up reporting. The BBC should have just done a simple news brief on the actual results, with a couple paragraphs about the whos and whys of the top three or five. Job done, public informed, context provided for the larger picture, then move on to the big fish.

As others have already pointed out on the latest Open Thread, the first thing on Jonny Dymond’s agenda (after scoring some drugs, that is) is to tell you that the Iowa Straw Poll attendees are mostly white. Apparently he’s the new North America correspondent to replace Kevin “Teabaggers” Connolly, who has taken his own bias to the Middle East.

The reason to point out their skin color, of course, is simple: to create the impression that, whatever these voters want, it’s not “representative”, as Dymond makes sure to point out, of the rest of the country. Also, ultimately there is a racist subtext here, as we must always remember that racism is of course a primary motivating factor in opponents of the President. But, you may well ask, why didn’t Dymond or any other Beeboid cry “racism” about Herman Cain’s fifth place showing? Well, they don’t like him because he stated in the last debate that he didn’t want Shariah Law to become part of US law, and previously said that he’d want to know if any potential Muslim cabinet member of his supported jihad. You see, the BBC is capable occasionally of seeing past skin color when it suits them. But, as we saw over and over again in the BBC’s reporting on the 2008 Presidential election (the most important election in human history, from the way they covered it), and in their early reporting on the Tea Party movement, when it comes to a black man who holds the approved thoughts, any opponents have racism as at least a partial motivation. Like when Dymond describes the crowd as “white” in the same sentence he says they “really, really want to get rid” of the President. There is no escaping what he’s done here. Racism is clearly a card for them to play at the appropriate time, and their opinion on the matter is based on emotion and not facts.

Although, sometimes the BBC approves of and understands people who vote for their own ethnic group.

As for the demonization of the candidates themselves, note how Dymond and his editor frame their statements. Do the Beeboids ever use the term “red meat” when reporting on Labour or Democrat events? Dymond gets in an early scary code word: “revivalist” as a sort of subliminal set-up for the Narrative. It’s interesting that twice we hear the word “freedom” from the unnamed speaker celebrating Bachmann’s victory, yet the Narrative you’re given from Dymond and the rest of the Beeboids covering this is that religion is the key.

The problem is that the three vox pops featured have nothing to do with race or religion, but talk instead about economic concerns. It’s very clever how the BBC plays this. They give you the vox pops, the actual opinions of the voters, so they can claim impartiality in that they’ve provided the balance of opposing views. But Dymond and his editor bookend these statements with his racialist qualifier and then afterward by saying that Bachmann is popular because she’s a “social conservative”. Did anyone hear that given as a reason in the vox pops? No. It’s almost as if the BBC is telling you not to listen to them. The Beeboids sure as hell don’t, so why should you, eh?

Naturally, the bit of Bachmann’s speech they let you hear is the religious stuff. This is the BBC Narrative in action, making you forget all about the actual statements of the voters. Then he skips the rest of Iowa to talk about the same thing O’Brien did: someone they see as the real potential threat to their beloved Obamessiah, Rick Perry. In case there’s any doubt about the agenda here, the title of Dymond’s piece is about how the Republicans “lash Obama”. Do you need to know what happened? What the voters really want? What the candidates are really about? No. All you need to know is that they’re white, Christian, and are attacking the President. All this silly economics stuff the country has been talking about is by the by. Social Conservatism is the real issue here for the BBC. I guess that means Justin Webb’s book about its “strange death” was a load of BS? Nah, it was that kind of brilliant insight which got him the Today seat.

In case there are any lingering doubts about the BBC’s agenda here, and what they want you to think is the real problem, just read the first words at the top of their piece on Rick Perry:

Perry led 30,000 worshipers at a prayer rally

Yes, of course the excuse here is that the video clip is of Perry at a prayer rally. What about his actual track record as Governor of Texas? Did he turn the state into an Evangelical theocracy or what?

To his supporters, he’s the man who fixed Texas and can answer the country’s economic prayers. Could Rick Perry, who has announced his intention to enter the presidential race, overcome his doubters and end up in the White House?

Oops, the focus is on the economy here. Must switch gears.

The Texas governor ticks many of the boxes on the party’s wishlist. He’s a socially conservative Christian with a record of cutting spending, who can boast that he restored to health the finances of the second largest state in the US, without raising taxes.

There, that’s better. But hey, what’s that about solving the state’s economic problems without raising taxes? The BBC never mentioned this during the whole debt ceiling agreement saga. Curious.

Mr Perry also shares one important quality with his other main Republican rival, Michele Bachmann, who topped a straw poll in the crucial state of Iowa at the weekend. They can both fire up an audience, as he demonstrated a week ago at a prayer rally in Houston which left some of the 30,000 worshippers in tears.

Prayer. And, horrifyingly, he left people in tears over whatever Christian stuff he was talking about. See, it was okay when The Obamessiah went to church. It was okay when He spoke with black church leaders. Did anyone ever see such an emphasis on His Christianity? No. In fact, it had to be played down a bit because of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright problem.

Here’s the thing. I’m not saying that the religion and social conservative thing is a non-issue in the US, or trying to make you think that it’s not at all important to non-Leftoid voters or anything of the sort. What I’m saying is that it’s not the most important issue at all, and that over and over again we hear from the public that the economy is the number one concern which dwarfs all other issues, while the BBC continues to frame things as being the other way round.

Getting back to the piece on Perry, though, it’s amusing to see the BBC suddenly remember that someone was fixing economic problems with the kind of small-government attitude the BBC was denigrating so recently. The problem for the BBC here, though, is that Perry might start looking too good to the reader, so they make sure to bring out the big guns: he’s only “Bush on steroids”. This is enough to strike fear into the heart of any Beeboid, and they expect in your hearts as well. Actually, Bush was barely a small-government kind of President. He let Congress ramp up all kinds of debt under his watch, and was too powerless to stop Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and Frank/Dodd to blow up the mortgage bubble which led to all our current woes. But that’s not what the BBC wants you to remember. Just remember how much you hated Bush for being a Christian and a social conservative.

When it comes to Michelle Bachmann, the Beeboids are confused about what to do with her. They’ve already admitted that they can’t play her as a buffoon like they do with Sarah Palin. But they’re clearly scared of her, and it makes their reporting look a little silly at times. Rajesh Mirchandani (how many Beeboids are covering the US scene these days?) opens his report by speaking of her “fiery rhetoric”. And what bit of this rhetoric does the BBC provide for you in the video?

“Barack Obama will be a one-term President!”

Oooh, scary. This is only “fiery rhetoric” if one is a die-hard supporter of the President whom she’s trying to unseat. Surely with all the footage available of her the BBC could have found something a little stronger. That would mean, though, that they think this isn’t strong enough. Clearly they do, and went with it, which is a bit silly.

But hey, at least he only called her a “favorite” of the Tea Party movement and not a “darling”. Then Mirchandani is off to talk about Perry again. Redundancy ‘R’ Us at the BBC. That’s now three Beeboids making the exact same report but with slightly different words. The only thing different is the aegis under which each report is made. The results, though, seem to be exactly the same.

No discussion of the BBC’s coverage of the US (read: coverage of anything which might affect the President) is complete without the BBC North America editor, Mark Mardell. Just back from his hols, Mardell gives us an idea of the impression he’s gotten of the public mood.

The Republican race has moved a little closer to the finishing line while I’ve been taking a few days’ break on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. Bad timing, but it reinforced some of my views about next year’s election. More on that in a moment.

Um, has anything not reinforced his views on the US? Ever? Mardell says this about Bachmann and Perry:

They are tailoring their message to the times.

Are they, now?

But for all the Tea Party movement’s insistence that it is about fiscal responsibility and economic conservatism, these two candidates are both evangelical Christians, with a strong line on social conservatism. Perry signed a law that makes a woman about to have an abortion look at an image of her foetus. The stand out question to Bachmann in last week’s debate was whether she still believed, for religious reasons, that a woman should be “submissive” to her husband, and how that would touch the authority of the commander in chief.

Bingo! That’s all three elements on my score card: Evangelical Christian, social conservatism, and abortion. Narrative? What Narrative? What about the economy? Jobs? Small government? Nope, not interested. Scare-mongering against Christians is what works best. Wake me up when a Beeboid takes a similar tone about a Muslim candidate in Britain. But see, Mardell knows all too well what he’s doing, and has a handy riposte:

The right has attacked the media for focusing on such questions. But it is the media’s job to look at weakness, and it may be that social conservatism is not the priority of most Americans right now.

Yes, it may be. But that’s not stopping him as he simply doesn’t care. His opinions have been reinforced, remember. Mardell gives a brief description – in class war terms, naturally – of the area in which he vacationed, and then says this:

We didn’t meet anyone who was following the Republican race. But we did meet plenty of bewilderment at DC politicians and the state of the economy.

Well, thank goodness he didn’t run into any nasty old Republicans to ruin his vacation. And notice how he cleverly makes the problem into a bi-partisan one, shifting blame as always away from the President.

There was a couple running a bar who still seemed slightly surprised they were having their best three business years ever, but worried about what would happen next. There was the woman in the state park depressed and ashamed about the state of America, its education system, and the difficultly of setting up a business.

Whose fault are these oppressive regulations and taxes on small businesses, Mark? It sure ain’t the Republicans, who have been calling for less and less of it. But he still tries to play it as just a generic Washington problem.

There were late night drinks on the balcony of a motel with a Democrat who still had faith in Obama, but shook his head over the state of the economy.

They do seek out their own kind, don’t they? I’m sure Mardell doesn’t even realize what this says about him.

There is huge uncertainty in this country. Wise candidates will focus on that, as well as the more concrete issue of jobs.

Then why the constant focus on Evangelical Christians and social conservatism? Oh, that’s right, since the BBC audience can’t vote in US elections, the real agenda is to demonize the lot of them, and the voters along with them, so you know whom to hate and why when we don’t vote for The Obamessiah.

The stage is now set for future BBC reporting on the 2012 election. All these reports, all these Beeboids working on your dime, one clear Narrative.

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Whither Canada? More BBC Censorship

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Recently, I talked about a few states in the US that had actually taken strong steps towards fixing their own economies, even moving into surplus, by decreasing spending, entitlement reform, and tax breaks. The BBC censored all information about this, never told you. This is unfortunate, as it would have provided a useful context in which to consider the national budget situation. Ohio, Wisconsin, and South Carolina did exactly the same thing as what Mark Mardell claimed the extremist Tea Party movement forced into the national debate on how to deal with the budget crisis, and forced it on a President who wanted to spend, spend, spend, instead. Yet those states all seem to have made the correct decision. And the BBC remains silent, as it doesn’t fit the Narrative they want to tell about economic policy.

While the BBC is busily spreading blame around for the US budget fiasco and debt agreement (to everyone except the President, of course), it seems to have escaped the astute Beeboids’ notice that there’s another country in North America which seems to be doing a bit better. It’s right there in the title of the relevant section of BBC News Online: US & Canada.

Canada, as it turns out, is doing better than the US for pretty much the same reason. Has the BBC mentioned this at all? No they have not. It’s true that they didn’t have the same kind of sub-prime mortgage crisis, but as a largely resource-based export country, if others aren’t buying – particularly the US – they’re not going to do well either.

In April, the BBC had this to say about the major issues of the Canadian election:

Conservatives are seeking to make the economy the dominant issue in the election. Canada fared much better than the US during the recession, but unemployment is still high at 7.8%.

Mr Harper has promised to provide tax breaks for corporations and manufacturers and tax credits to encourage small businesses to hire new workers.

Mr Ignatieff opposes corporate tax reductions offered by Mr Harper, but Conservatives retort that eliminating the planned reduction in the corporate tax rate amounts to a tax increase, which would be harmful to the recovering economy.

Sounds familiar, no?


Liberals want to establish a cap-and-trade system to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and are also seeking increased funding for social services including for poor seniors, carers and early childhood education.

Mr Ignatieff has unveiled a plan to promote affordable housing and reduce homelessness. But the proposed funding comes from a public-private partnership fund for infrastructure investment which Liberals say is unproductive, but which city governments around the country argue is an important funding stream.

Does this boilerplate sound familiar? It should, as it’s the same way the BBC always champions the farthest Left social policies. Like they did in their Q&A about the US debt agreement.

The chief sticking points have been Republicans’ resistance to tax rises and calls for much bigger spending cuts than the Democrats favour, and Democrats’ desire to shield healthcare programmes for the poor and elderly and the Social Security pension programme from cuts.

The poor and elderly. Just another version of the “poorest and most vulnerable” who are always hit hardest by the latest policy on offer from the Conservatives.

Notice, though, that in the above brief description of Harper’s plans, the BBC News Online sub-editor grants space to his opponent on the Left for a rebuttal. Yet when it’s time to outline the Liberal plans, not only do they get a lengthier, more detailed explanation, but no space is given to any objection from the Right.

Harper and the Conservatives won, obviously, so how is Canada doing now? Well, the Canadian dollar spiked a couple cents higher than the US dollar after Harper and the Conservatives won the election – funny that, eh, BBC? – and after dropping down to a more normal level, has recently come back up to dead even with the US dollar.

On a local level, the Province of Saskatchewan followed the kind of sound fiscal policy advocated by the supposedly extremist fringe Tea Party, and changed their economy. In 2007, the Saskatchewan Party won a majority, after 16 years of rule by the liberal New Democrats. They won on a platform of tax relief, entitlement reform and deregulation, along with pledges to use the cash gained on education and road infrastructure. It seems to have worked because the province has since had an increase in people moving in, more jobs. Instead of throwing the cash around as “stimulus”, they paid off their debts, and Standard & Poor’s raised their credit rating to AAA in May.

So this is yet more evidence that it can be done the way the Tea Party movement suggests. Again, the BBC is utterly silent on something that doesn’t fit the Narrative.

Nationally, Canada’s debt is down to 35% of GDP, and the only reason it’s that high is because Harper did throw some cash around a couple years back at the start of the recession. But now the jobless rate is the lowest it’s been in two years, since they started adding jobs again after the financial crisis. Wages rose as well. Imagine that. Canada allows certain resource extraction techniques – fracking, for example – that the US won’t because of fealty to the environmentals, and so creates more jobs, and produces more. These aren’t difficult concepts, but are anathema to the BBC ideologues.

Even the New Democrats slashed spending to reduce the deficit, which was so bad that at one point, 36% of revenue was used to pay off interest on it. Eventually, Canada reduced its deficit by a combination of economic growth – not spending, but actual growth – and spending cuts. No draconian taxes, no new crushing regulations, no massive spending increases.

Basically, Canada is on very solid footing now, while the US is in the toilet. Canada followed sound fiscal policy, very much like that advocated by the Tea Party movement, has reduced its debt substantially, and is thriving. The US tried the opposite, and tanked. The BBC tried to tell you that it was a crazy minority trying to force this stuff into the conversation for ideological purposes. Not once did Mark Mardell or Stephanie ‘Two Eds’ Flanders or any other Beeboid provide the example of Canada as something to consider while trying to understand the debate in the US. Not once were you told that there have been success stories which contradicted the President’s agenda.

They’re trying to push the White House Narrative that the downgrade and current mess is all the fault of the Tea Party, without ever acknowledging that things would be even worse had we not voted in some people with a clue and forced Congress to face reality. It wasn’t going to happen otherwise, and instead of telling you that, the BBC has spun it the other way.

In sum, the BBC has censored news of economic success caused by conservative fiscal policy because it does not suit their ideology and the Narrative they want to tell you. You’re not given the information you need to form an opinion, and in fact are at times told the opposite of what’s true.

I always say you can’t trust the BBC on US issues, but now it seems that there’s not much to trust them on for anything to do with North America.

Speaking of which, Mark Mardell’s official title is “BBC North America editor”, yet when was the last time you heard him mention anything about Canada? In fact, when was the last time you heard him talk about anything other than the President and His plans and speeches? It’s been a while. Time for a new, more appropriate title for him. I’ll leave it open to everyone else for suggestions.

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COLD UNTRUTHS

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A British school party goes on an outing to a part of Norway where there are polar bears to study the effects of global warming. It’s so cold up there that the trip wires meant to protect campers from the bears are frozen. The result is that tragically, a member of the party is mauled to death and a polar bear is shot dead by these “conservationists”. Richard North paints the scene with his usual acuity. So what does the BBC do? Like a shot, it gets one of its climate zealots, Victoria Gill, to put together a background homily saying that such attacks “could become more common” because of “climate change”.

And of course, the now compulsory alarmism is thrown in:

Recent studies have suggested that climate change will trigger a dramatic and sudden fall in the number of polar bears.

Actually, Ms Gill, that’s not entirely true, because even ardent warmists think otherwise. But hey-ho, this is the BBC, the world’s most expensive platform for climate change claptrap. The report was both inevitable and unsurprising, I suppose, given the BBC’s activism, but I record it because I never cease to marvel at the utter dishonesty involved.

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U.S. Downgraded – BBC Reporting Fails

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It’s happened. Standard & Poor’s has downgraded the United States’ credit rating to AA+ for the first time in history. Worse still, they have a negative outlook on the country fixing things in the near future enough to restore AAA confidence. Earlier this week, Moody’s re-affirmed its AAA rating for the US, but also placed a negative outlook on maintaining that status. Fitch takes the same unhappy view.

Let’s be very, very clear here, clear enough to counter all BBC propaganda and ideological commentary (I hesitate to call it “reporting” at this point) on the debt agreement, and the entire process leading up to where we are now. As I’ve been saying for some time now, both S&P and Moody’s have stated explicitly that the debt agreement does not do anywhere near enough to lower spending enough to maintain their confidence in the country’s ability to right the ship.

Moody’s:

In assigning a negative outlook to the rating, Moody’s indicated, however, that there would be a risk of downgrade if (1) there is a weakening in fiscal discipline in the coming year; (2) further fiscal consolidation measures are not adopted in 2013; (3) the economic outlook deteriorates significantly; or (4) there is an appreciable rise in the US government’s funding costs over and above what is currently expected.

First, while the combination of the congressional committee process and automatic triggers provides a mechanism to induce fiscal discipline, this framework is untested. Attempts at fiscal rules in the past have not always stood the test of time. Therefore, should the new mechanism put in place by the Budget Control Act prove ineffective, this could affect the rating negatively. Moody’s baseline scenario assumes that fiscal discipline is maintained in 2012, despite pressures for fiscal relaxation that often precede general elections and the difficult negotiations that are likely to arise due to the scheduled expiration of the so-called “Bush tax cuts” at the end of that year.

“Fiscal discipline”. “Fiscal consolidation”. No mention of tax rises, no demand for increased “revenues”.

Fitch:

While the agreement is clearly a step in the right direction, the United States, as in much of Europe, must also confront tough choices on tax and spending against a weak economic back drop if the budget deficit and government debt is to be cut to safer levels over the medium term.

The increase in the debt ceiling and agreement on the broad parameters of a deficit-reduction plan support Fitch’s judgment that, despite the intensity and theatre of political discourse in the United States, there is the political will and capacity to ultimately do the right thing. In Fitch’s opinion, the agreement is an important first step but not the end of the process towards putting in place a credible plan to reduce the budget deficit to a level that would secure the United States’ ‘AAA’ status over the medium-term.

“A step in the right direction”. Does this sound like what the BBC told you on Tuesday? No, it does not. To them, this was forced on the President by the extremist Tea Party movement, out of a desire for “purity”. Notice they don’t say “raise taxes”, only that we must face “tough choices on taxing and spending”.

The review will focus on the U.S. sovereign credit fundamentals relative to ‘AAA’ peers and medium-term economic and fiscal prospects in light of Sunday’s agreement on cuts of nearly USD1 trillion over 10 years on discretionary spending and the establishment of a bipartisan, bicameral Congressional committee that will identify an additional USD1.5 trillion of additional deficit reduction by year-end.

Cuts in “discretionary spending”. Not bleed the rich.

And finally, Standard & Poor’s (Actual statement is in a PDF file)

We lowered our long-term rating on the U.S. because we believe that the prolonged controversy over raising the statutory debt ceiling and the related fiscal policy debate indicate that further near-term progress containing the growth in public spending, especially on entitlements, or on reaching an agreement on raising revenues is less likely than we previously assumed and will remain a contentious and fitful process. We also believe that the fiscal consolidation plan that Congress and the Administration agreed to this week falls short of the amount that we believe is necessary to stabilize the general government debt burden by the middle of the decade.

“Containing the growth in public spending”. “Fiscal consolidation”. Yes, they alone talk about raising revenues, but don’t say how or how much. In fact:

Standard & Poor’s takes no position on the mix of spending and revenue measures that Congress and the Administration might conclude is appropriate for putting the U.S.’s finances on a sustainable footing.

Revenues increase not only when the government raises taxes, but when business and industry pick up. Reaganomics – not Stephanomics – proved that. So S&P doesn’t particularly mean only that taxes must be drastically increased. And let’s be honest: only the massive, insane tax increase that the President was threatening not long ago would even put the tiniest dent in the trillions of debt. One could forcibly take all the wealth of every billionaire in the country, and that would barely even cover the one year’s worth of interest payments. Then next year, there won’t be any billionaires left, so that well will have run dry. Who else do you tax then? It’s simply not possible to do anything with the simplistic “tax the wealthy” prescription coming from the President in His speech on Tuesday, and from the BBC most of the time.

As a matter of fact, S&P is quite capable of upgrading a state when they reduce spending and get their house in order: like they did for Ohio. But that’s because a Republican Governor took care of things. There has been growth over the last year and more in Ohio because he reduced the regulatory burdens and extra taxes on business. The result is more revenue, and a stabilization of the state’s economy. So anyone who claims that S&P’s lowering of the US rating means specifically that the solution is to increase taxes is simply not telling the truth.

Most importantly, S&P says this:

Our revised upside scenario–which, other things being equal, we view as consistent with the outlook on the ‘AA+’ long-term rating being revised to stable–retains these same macroeconomic assumptions. In addition, it incorporates $950 billion of new revenues on the assumption that the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts for high earners lapse from 2013 onwards, as the Administration is advocating. In this scenario, we project that the net general government debt would rise from an estimated 74% of GDP by the end of 2011 to 77% in 2015 and to 78% by 2021.

Yes, if the evil Bush tax cuts on the wealthy expire, they project not quite $1 trillion more in revenue. And that’s a rose-tinted glasses view, hoping against hope that the business will actually still be there to provide that much. It obviously won’t be, the way things are going. Even then, even in this ideal situation, the debt will still rise and rise and rise. Not much of a solution, and no consideration given to how it might actually kill the business these taxes are meant to milk. In short, this is at best a drop in the bucket. And that’s their “upside scenario”, for heaven’s sake.

In fact, S&P was hoping for $4 trillion in cuts. Cuts. The debt agreement, the one the BBC screamed bloody murder about for a week or more, barely achieves 6o% of that, and that’s only if the ensuing meetings and negotiations achieve the absolute best, most-perfect case scenario. In other words, while the agreement is a step in the right direction, it’s barely half of one.

And hell, it’s not even a real step. It just starts the conversation we so desperately needed.

Now, let’s review the “reporting” of the BBC on the matter.

Mark Mardell:

“He’s been forced off His agenda. Remember, He came to office promising hope and change, and talking about spending to stimulate the economy, and to change the way America was.

Instead, He’s been forced down a path of spending cuts. He didn’t want any of this.

Yes, and thank goodness He was forced off this path of destruction. As we’ve seen, every single ratings agency would have trashed the country’s credit rating if we kept on spending like Mardell thought we should. Yet when a few US states fix their own economies with Tea Party-inspired policies (reduced spending, reduced burdens on business, entitlement reform, no new crushing taxes), the BBC pretends it doesn’t exist.

For the last two weeks, we’ve heard from the BBC that the Tea Party is wrong, that spending more – or the Ed Balls line of not cutting too much too soon – is the way to go, and that the Tea Party-backed Republicans were the ones being intransigent, an angry, extremist minority trying to force things their way. And thank @@#$ing God they did. Without them, things would be much, much worse. There’s really no other way to put it.

A review of the above statements by all three major ratings agencies shows very clearly that more spending cuts were and are desperately needed. And which party refused to cut more out of intransigence, BBC? Which party’s ideology prevented them from achieving the level of deficit reduction we desperately need? Why have you been championing the President’s ideology when it’s all turned out to be the wrong idea?

Most people here have watched the Tea Party movement rise from a smattering of tiny, local gatherings to a nationwide phenomenon that changed the face of Washington in less than two years. Most people here have also watched the BBC ignore it, then denigrate it, then ignore it again, then really lay into it in the most negative fashion. We were called everything from racists to extremists to nutters to teabaggers. Oh, how the Beeboids laughed and sneered. In contrast, every time a Left-wing organization started up, pretending to be grass roots or non-partisan, the BBC leapt into action immediately to inform you.

What do you say now, BBC? Your reporting and opinion-mongering has been proven 100% wrong about all of it. It’s time to get rid of the entire newsgathering operation in the US. They serve no purpose other than to be a foreign mouthpiece for the White House. All at your expense.

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