Category Archives: anti-GOP

Evil Republicans Want To Harm The Elderly And The Poor

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Or so says the BBC’s US President editor (the title “North America editor” bears no resemblance to the job he actually does: at best, his job title should be something like “political editor”, which he was for Newsnight a few years ago) when giving you White House propaganda disguised as analysis.

Fiscal cliff: What would Mrs Lincoln say to John Boehner?

You can already guess where this is going, no?

The Republicans’ rather huffy letter to US President Barack Obama made me think of a glorious moment in Stephen Spielberg’s Lincoln.

The letter, signed by House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, among others, says there has been a “status quo” election “in which both you and the Republican majority in the House were re-elected”.

They are claiming that this means the American people expect both the victors of the recent election to “come together on a fair middle ground”.

What a curious concept, eh? The House of Representatives and representational voting actually mean something? LOL.

It is reasonable to assume the White House see things rather more like Mrs Lincoln.

Her moment occurs at a White House reception when the president’s wife holds up a long reception line to give Thaddeus Stephens, a Republican leader in the House of Representatives, an almighty ear-bashing.

I cannot remember the exact words, but the gist of it is: “My husband is loved by the people, known to the people, he’s just been re-elected, and you are nobody – now just back off.”

Yes, just like our defenders of the indefensible implied after the election, l’état, c’est Lui. Votes for anyone but the President are worthless, and anyone who voted for their Representative to Congress should simply ignore the meaning of the term “representative”. In other words, screw you if you did not vote for Him and still think you voted for anything that matters. This is no longer a Constitutional Republic but is now a kingdom. I make no comment on how Mardell’s behavior resembles that of a wife defending her husband.

Mr Obama is betting that most Americans will feel the re-election of the president carries more moral weight than the re-election of the House.

Most, or just the small majority He won? Semantics mavens can parse this to the end of time, but the fact remains that the President won with less votes than in 2008.

He has been on Twitter repeating his demand for tax rises for the rich, opposition to deep cuts in education budgets, and so on.

Everything he has done has been about political positioning, not serious negotiating.

I’m glad Mardell has admitted this. The question is, why doesn’t He have to negotiate? Bill Clinton had to reach across the aisle after winning his second term. Why is this President exempt? What happened to all that desire for bi-partisanship and working together he’s been telling us for the last two years that the country really wants? I know, I know: we should work together so He gets His way. That’s why Mardell views the first two years of The Obamessiah Administration with its Democrat super-majority where they rammed legislation through without a single Republican vote as “a golden age”.

That has further outraged the prickly Republicans, who write of their shock that when Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner went to see them he proposed a plan that was in their view “neither balanced nor realistic”.

“Huffy”. “Prickly”. The Republicans earn Mardell’s scorn, but the equally stubborn and angry President doesn’t get labeled. Even though Mardell knows exactly what He’s doing, as he will reveal later on.

So, they have countered by backing a plan – already passed by the House – to cut healthcare for the future elderly and food stamps for the poor.

Oh, no! Hurting grannies and the sainted poor! Is that it, though? Is that really all there is to the evil Republicans’ plans? Mardell seems to think that’s a fair summation. Of course, it’s pure spin and not fair at all, but that’s irrelevant to the foreign bureau of the White House press office.

Here’s some reality. By the way, the President’s Plan For Us also cuts $400 billion in Medicare – “healthcare for the future elderly” – over 10 years, and the President’s refusal to address trimming entitlements of any kind – Social Security, “food stamps for the poor”, etc. – is really just kicking the can down the road. Again. The Republicans plan (an earlier incarnation of which Mardell described as “hardline”) is not so far off from proposals from the Simpson-Bowles Commission, which was ordered by the President Himself. Which He then blew off because He really had no intention of doing anything other than continue to spend. The Republicans’ plan, on the other hand, intends to cut $600 billion from Medicare, but partly by raising the age at which people enroll. Not exactly how Mardell portrays it. Cutting other entitlements will actually amount to linking it to a metric which will keep costs from rising so much. Once again, the BBC defines a freeze or a lower increase as a “cut”. It’s dishonest, partisan language, but that’s the BBC’s US President editor for you.

There’s a lot more to it than simply cutting support for the poorest and most vulnerable Yet that’s all Mardell sees, all he wants you to know.

And never mind the $700+ billion that ObamaCare is going to take from Medicare and Medicaid to pay for all the new bureaucracy, exchanges, new anti-depression programs, and the like. Forbes has analyzed it as having a 15 -1 cuts to new benefits ratio, which shows just how dishonest Mardell is being here. That’s already a done deal, so we can actually say that the President Himself is going to take $1.1 billion and more away from the poorest and most vulnerable, whereas if Romney had won, thus assuming ObamaCare gets repealed (or watered way down), and the Republicans’ budget more or less gets passed, the damage done to the poorest and most vulnerable would be reduced by two thirds. But never mind all that, as you’re meant to think that only nasty Republicans want to harm the poorest and most vulnerable for the ideological reason that the government shouldn’t do anything for anyone (see here and here).

I’m not here to debate which side is right or wrong. I’m illustrating how dishonest and partisan Mardell is being.

 They demand a response and serious negotiation. Mr Obama, a more aggressive president than in his first term, is manoeuvring them where he wants them, by getting under their skin.

This is nothing short of an outright lie. In fact, the President Himself said He would not release a plan until the Republicans did first. Which is rather bizarre considering that they passed a budget in the House twice in the last two years, whereas He’s never gotten one out of the gate (the Stimulus spending spree doesn’t count). Now that they’ve done so, it’s the height of dishonesty to claim that they “demand a response”. They’re only asking for what He promised. Mardell is simply presenting a false representation of the facts. It’s also very curious that the man the BBC expects you to trust most on US issues doesn’t see anything odd in the President refusing to offer a budget when we’ve all know for two years what the Republicans want.

He is claiming the public label of the man who wants tax cuts for everybody, forcing them to champion deep spending cuts. This is not yet about doing a deal – it is about defining how a deal is seen, when it is done.

In other words, the President’s true goal is not to fix the economy but to destroy the Republican Party. And Mardell has no criticism to offer, not even the slightest frown in His direction. All his scorn is reserved for his beloved Obamessiah’s enemies.

Don’t trust the BBC on US issues.

Mardell’s Mandate Muddle

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As the US Congress and the President head into negotiations over the looming never-ending budget crisis to figure out how to avert hitting the debt ceiling again, the BBC’s US President editor (a more accurate description than his actual job title) is on the case to give you his muddled view of how US government should work.

America’s fiscal suicide pact

He starts right in with the violent imagery, just to set the proper tone in which you should understand the scene.

America might be forgiven for thinking they suffered a concussion, instead of holding an election, on Tuesday night. The country now has double vision.

The violent imagery is supported by the now-obiligatory context of a deeply divided country, most-polarized-ever-ever-omg. And you’ll never guess whose fault that is.

Republicans in Congress have other ideas. House Speaker John Boehner is insisting tax rises for the wealthy can’t be allowed to happen.

Typical dishonest, class-war rhetoric, straight out of the White House propaganda machine. Actually, this comes naturally to Mardell, no prompting necessary. Boehner is insisting that no tax rises for anyone should be allowed. But since that includes the evil rich, it’s “accurate” to say that he doesn’t want tax increases for them. It’s not a particularly honest description of the proceedings, but I suppose it fits the BBC requirement for “accuracy”. Impartial it is not. Here’s what Boehner actually said:

Boehner today maintained that Republicans want to avert the fiscal cliff without raising any taxes and “in a manner that ensures that 2013 is finally the year that our government comes to grips with the major problems that are facing us.” Next year, he said, “should be the year we begin to solve our debt through tax reform and entitlement reform.”

The speaker added that he had a “cordial,” short conversation with Mr. Obama earlier this week and is hopeful that “productive conversations” can begin soon on the fiscal cliff. As he has for more than a year, Boehner said that he’s open to creating more tax revenue, by closing tax loopholes and eliminating some deductions, just not raising tax rates.

That last line sure looks to me like someone talking about increasing tax payments for the wealthy. Only a highly partisan, disingenuous person would describe Boehner’s position as refusing tax rises for the wealthy. Unless we’re playing semantic games about an increase in income tax rates as opposed to just increasing the taxes actually paid. Mardell cleverly left all that out and quoted this instead:

Speaking before the president did so this afternoon, he said: “Everyone wants to get our economy moving again. Everyone wants to get more Americans back to work again. Raising tax rates will slow down our ability to create the jobs that everyone says they want.”

He called on the president to lead.

So you really aren’t told at all the reality of what Boehner is thinking. Mardell continues:

Mr Obama did, but not in a direction that will delight Republicans. He is using the moral authority of his re-election to push his case. There is nothing new in his call for Congress to extend “middle-class tax cuts” at once. He’s said it repeatedly before the election.

But it’s different now. He has a renewed mandate and his demand has a fresh moral weight behind it. He pointed out even people who didn’t vote for him told opinion pollsters that taxes should go up for the richest.

And here’s where Mardell really starts to get it wrong. The President got fewer votes this time than in 2008. Almost 10 million fewer. Sure, Romney didn’t get as many as McCain did, but the difference wasn’t as great. So who actually did worse? Remember, we’re not talking about simply winning or losing: Mardell said “renewed mandate”, which requires much more than simply winning. Voter turnout was also substantially lower (except for places Philadelphia, which had a turnout that even Sadaam Hussein would have envied) The President may have dominated the Electoral College, but won the popular vote by only 2.5%.  Boris Johnson won his race for mayor of London by a slightly larger amount – 3% – but the BBC described that as a “tight margin”. Go figure. Anyone here expect Mardell to declare that Boris has a renewed mandate? Some projected counts (they’re still counting actual votes in places like Ohio and Florida) expect the President to crack that 3% mark, but that’s it. Still no mandate when it’s a non-Left politician.

When journalists make value judgments like this, it leaves the door wide open to personal opinions influencing their reporting. This is a classic example. In 2004, George Bush defeated John Kerry by just over 3 million votes. The President’s popular vote victory over Romney was – you guessed it – just over 3 million votes. You will not find a BBC report saying that Bush had a renewed mandate in 2004. You’ll find analyses stating that Bush supporters and Christians were saying that, but you will not find a BBC editor or reporter stating it.

Now that he’s established that the President is supposed to get His way, Mardell lays out the doom and gloom if Republicans don’t let Him.

There has to be an agreement. If the two sides can’t get behind a plan to cut the deficit there will be pretty horrible consequences.

The ugly phrase “fiscal cliff” has stuck, but it is more like a ticking economic timebomb. The two sides agreed to a suicide pact if they couldn’t reach agreement – tax rises and defence spending cuts the Republicans loathe – as well as other spending cuts that are offensive to Democrats.

The trouble is if the bomb goes off, it is not just the politicians who will be hurt. It is American economy that would explode, probably taking what’s left of the world economy with it.

This is more or less true, and nobody’s denying that we’re looking at trouble here. We then get a bit of “balance”, where the President says this, and the Republicans say that. He even allows that some Republicans might think they, too, have a mandate.

President Obama said that people had voted for action but he would refuse to accept any approach that wasn’t balanced and made the middle class suffer alone. He said there shouldn’t be a long, drawn-out drama.

The Republicans won’t play along, and he will presumably portray them as churlish bad losers who won’t accept the people’s verdict. They will doubtless point out they too (or some of them) also have a fresh mandate.

Note the qualifier. You’re meant to understand that they really don’t have one. So Mardell wraps up with this:

While both Mr Obama and Mr Boehner sounded consensual they were in fact restating their mutually exclusive positions.

They are heading for confrontation, but this is only the first act – they are both stating a hard line, before the give and take of negotiations. They do have to get a move on. The drama can’t run for long before it turns into tragedy for all of us.

Except we already know whom to blame, don’t we? Mardell has already told us: Republicans who want to protect the wealthy. (I remember back when this budget agreement was passed. The US President editor was singing a slightly different tune then.)

But spot the missing upper house of Congress. This happens over and over again with both Mardell’s “reporting” and other BBC coverage: they leave out the Democrat-controlled Senate. Again and again we hear about how it’s all Republicans blocking Him. What about the Senate? And you’re expected to ignore Democrats who side with Republicans on certain issues.

While actual spending is really allocated by the House of Representatives, the Senate also has to pass an agreed version of the budget for the country to actually have one. Yet, unbeknownst to BBC audiences because you were never told, the Democrat-controlled Senate never passed one. In fact, even the Democrat-controlled Senate (it’s worth repeating) unanimously voted against the joke budget proposed by the President Himself. Oh, and let’s not forget either – no matter how much biased Beeboids like Daniel Nasaw would like you to – that the Democrats controlled both houses of Congress for His first two years in office. No budget then, either. And Mardell once actually referred to that as a Golden Age, because the President was able to ram some things through without a single Republican vote. Who’s really to blame here?

But that’s just the bias part. Now here’s where Mardell really gets muddled.  The real problem with Mardell declaring the President has a mandate is that he’s presenting the whole thing as if the President is king. He does not appear to understand – or perhaps just doesn’t approve – of the way the US government is set up.

There are two issues here. First, is the way the government is split into three separate branches: the Executive (the President and Administration), the Legislative (Congress – both Houses), and the Judicial (the Supreme Court and the lower Federal system). This is what’s known as “Checks and Balances”, the idea being that no one branch has too much power. Never mind that one of the Democrat operatives the BBC had on the panel of their election night coverage didn’t understand that, and thought it meant Republicans weren’t allowed to vote for what they wanted, and the Beeboids were too ignorant to correct her. Mardell certainly doesn’t understand it, and thinks if the President wins – even by a “tight” Boris Johnson-style margin – He has a “mandate”, and the Republicans should bow to it.

The House of Representatives is what is says on the tin: a group of legislators who are there to represent their individual constituencies. They’re not State-wide representatives, like Senators are: they represent a single collection of 500,000 voters in their State. Same as the Electoral College. Representatives are not elected to do the President’s bidding: they’re there to represent their own constituency. If a Republican gets elected on whatever issues, that’s his or her mandate, not a directive to obey the President. Because different States have dramatically different population totals, some have a much greater presence in the House than others. When a State loses population, they lose representation in the House. If more people move there, they get more Reps. The total number of Reps. in the House can change with each election if the national population does. If it seems a bit unfair, it’s meant to be. Sort of.

But New York and California do not run the country, even if the popular vote makes it appear that they might. Nor should they. The House of Representatives is not a mirror of the Electoral College vote, even though their numbers are the same. The House – ideally – represents the wishes of their individual constituencies. Representatives are not meant to be a reflection of some national conscience. This is all connected to another US concept the BBC neither likes nor fully understands: States’ rights. I use the upper case “S” here and always to emphasize the point that most Founding Fathers considered their State to be their country, and wanted that independence preserved. Some of us still understand that. The individuality inherent in the House of Representatives is part and parcel of that concept.

This is also why the Senate, the upper house, exists. Each State gets two Senators, and that’s it. In this way, each State has equal representation. But that’s also why real spending is decided in the House. The Senate is much more than a rubber stamp, though, as they have their own agenda and powers. But that’s all for another time.

What I’m talking about here is the idea that – contrary to how Mardell presents it – an election victory for a President does not actually translate into carte blanche. To really be successful, a President must also bring his political party along for the ride to victory as well. Failing that, he must compromise, triangulate, as, for example, Bill Clinton did. Funny how you don’t see much comparison of The Obamessiah to Clinton these days. That would make Him look petty and partisan and incompetent, though, so the astute BBC analysts tend to refrain from doing it.

The Republicans in the House are there to do the job they were sent to do, not merely the President’s bidding. If they were voted in to avoid taxing us all into oblivion, that’s what they need to focus on. They’re also not required to bend over backwards to compromise if it means doing something they believe will damage the country. Politicians get voted out when they do too much their constituents don’t like. Just ask all the Dems and Big-Government Republicans who got kicked out in 2010 for voting for ObamaCare.

The other party must try to compromise as well. But you never hear the BBC complaining about President “I won”, or that the President is the one drawing a line in the sand with His tax rises for the wealthy. Mardell may write a sentence saying both sides must work together – and he even admits that the President only sounds like He wants to compromise, but doesn’t appear to be just yet – but only after he’s already set you up to assign blame for who won’t. And again: what about the Senate? And why has neither Mardell nor anyone else at the BBC examined why the President never got a budget passed while He had both houses under Democrat control? Could it be because that might force them to learn that Congress isn’t simply a vehicle for a President’s policies? Or perhaps because they might be forced to admit that the President’s own fiscal policies are so ludicrously extreme that even the Democrats won’t vote for it?

Mardell either doesn’t understand how the US government is meant to work, or simply doesn’t care. He pays lip service to the notion that both sides must compromise, but he’s already framed it in the context of Republicans being in the wrong. Yet he’s the man the BBC wants you to trust most on US issues. Don’t.

 

THE MORMON CANDIDATE [CUE SCARY MUSIC]

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There’s a John Sweeney film on BBC2 tomorrow (plus accompanying BBC online article) about Mitt Romney’s Mormon background. The BBC has therefore already done more investigative digging into a guy who isn’t yet the official GOP choice than it has into the shenanigans of the Obama administration these past three-plus years. Fast and Furious, cronyism, green boondoggles, Corzine… just some of the things BBC journalists have shown no interest in investigating.

If Sweeney’s article is anything to go by I think the intent is to create the impression that the GOP frontrunner’s faith makes him somehow weird. It’ll be interesting to see if Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D) – a convert to the Mormon faith – gets a mention in Sweeney’s film. An interview with a powerful Democrat Mormon would be interesting, but might not fit the agenda. We’ll see.

And here are some tweets from the film’s director James Jones:

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A DYMOND GEEZA!

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Here’s a rather wonderful instance of anti GOP bias from our old pal, Jonny Dymond in which he characterises Obama’s opponents as the Party of  “old white America.” Gosh, that sounds almost a tad…racist. It seems that Jonny has concluded that the Democrats have the election won so perhaps Romney, Gingrich and co should just give up now and keep Obama in the White House? No agenda being pursued here, clearly.

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DON’T MENTION THE "D" WORD

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Yesterday’s edition of the Today programme managed the impressive feat of reporting the jailing of Rod Blagojevich without mentioning that he’s a Democrat. This morning’s edition reported on MF Global boss Jon Corzine’s appearance before a congressional committee and, while pointing out that he’s a former senator, once again there was no reference to the fact that he too is a Democrat. And what of Corzine’s role as a major fundraiser for Obama 2012? It’s as if any reference has been banned from on high.

When a Republican is involved in a scandal the BBC makes the party affiliation the story’s hook. When Democrats are involved in scandals the BBC whistles, shuffles its feet and looks the other way.

How many times do you think we’d have seen and heard these clips on the BBC if, all other things being equal, the main characters were Republicans?

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SHOCKER: BBC JOURNO PRAISES U.S. CHRISTIANS

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Actually, not so shocking. They were the “correct” sort of Christians.

During a question and answer session at a conservative Christian college in Iowa on Monday Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum faced some opposition on social issues (health care and gay marriage) from a couple of Democrat students. BBC America’s Kate Dailey couldn’t contain her joy:


It’s not too great a leap to conclude that Dailey doesn’t feel quite the same way about conservative Christians.

(The tweet links to this article about the event by a CNN journalist whose own leanings are not difficult to discern).

Dailey also recently revealed what a big fan she is of Obama’s eldest daughter:


Time and again we see BBC journalists expressing their dislike of Republicans and conservative causes while cheerleading all things Obama and “progressive”. It seems the entire BBC America staff is on the same page politically, so it’s really no surprise that the BBC’s coverage from the U.S. is so completely biased.

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WITCHES COVEN….

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It was, of course, entirely predictable that the BBC would join in the left-wing attack on Christine O’Donnell. In an item entitled “A new broomstick”, the BBC indulges in the mockery of the new GOP Senatorial candidate. She is “a murky figure” apparently. Even worse she says evolution is “a theory”, oh and then again she believes masturbation to be unBiblical. That must REALLY gut the BBC. Can’t remember the BBC being quite as excited when Hillary Clinton revealed she talked to Eleanor Roosevelt. though they did get engaged when Nancy Reagan talked astrology! I have to say that I like O’Donnell, I admire the Tea Party  but she is getting the same treatment afforded to Sarah Palin. How vert DARE the electorate support these people?

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SUETONIUS AND GEORGE W BUSH

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Only on the GOP-hating BBC can one listen to an item which seeks to compare Richard Nixon to Caligula and which is openly contemptuous of George W Bush – all dressed up as a homage to the Roman historian Suetonius. 7.25am on Today. What a load of garbage from the Beeb

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A BBC First ?

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Radio Five Live discovers (admittedly somewhat late) that there are black conservatives in the United States. Shay of the Booker Rising group blog will be interviewed on the morning show from 9 am. 9 am ? That’s now !

Perhaps one day they could also discover Thomas Sowell, John McWhorter, Walter Williams and a host of others. I guess Larry Elder and Michelle Malkin might be too much for them. I think I did hear Shelby Steele on the BBC – once.

David Duke, Neturei Karta and Holocaust Denial.

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I do not have a means of checking the quotation from the Newsnight e-mail preview quoted in the following comment by “will” but have no reason to disbelieve it. In fact, in light of the post from Adloyada that follows, I have good reason to believe it. The comment from Will first:

Newsnight on Iran’s Holocaust Conference (from their e-mail preview)

In the face of international condemnation, President Ahmedenijad has hosted a conference in Tehran entitled “Review of the Holocaust”.

We’ve been speaking to some of the delegates who include the former Republican congressman and one time Grand Master of the KKK David Duke.

In Washington? No, he was a congressman in the Louisiana state government.

(Willful misrepresentation by Newsnight?)

& all Republican’s are closet KKK men? Well see who Duke overcame to win his state seat

In 1989, he ran as a Republican for a seat representing Metairie in the Louisiana State House of Representatives. He defeated fellow Republican John Treen, the brother of David C. Treen, the first Republican to be elected governor of Louisiana since Reconstruction, by a narrow margin of 51-49 percent. Duke’s victory came despite visits to the district in support of John Treen’s candidacy by President George H.W. Bush, former President Ronald Reagan, and other GOP notables.

– Wikipedia entry on David Duke

Now follows the post from Adloyada, who writes:

The BBC Radio 4 PM programme broke new ground this evening in offering David Duke airtime to justify his participation in the Iranian Holocaust conference on the grounds of “free speech” without alerting listeners to his Ku Klux Klan background, his convictions for fraud and his publication of virulently anti-semitic propaganda. It also gave an even more extended airtime opportunity to a leader of the Iran and Hamas supporting Neturei Karta, without letting its listeners know that the man was anything more than the rabbi of “an anti-zionist orthodox congregation in Vienna”.

Read the rest of the post to learn just how unrepresentative of Jewish Orthodox opinion Neturei Karta are.

I also note that the 2003 BBC article about David Duke that Adloyada links to seems to get his history wrong in just the same way as the email “will” quotes. The article says:

David Duke – who once held a seat for Louisiana in the House of Representatives

– I freely admit that the political system of Louisiana, which involves a “jungle primary” unlike any other in the United States, confuses me. But so far as I can see David Duke has never won office in the US House of Representatives. He has held office in the Louisiana State House of Representatives. There is a difference, you know. Oddly, a later sentence in the same article gets that aspect of things right:

Duke hit the Louisiana political scene in 1988, winning a seat as a Republican in the Louisiana House of Representatives after running on a “white rights” ticket.

But, wouldn’t you know it, that same sentence describes his party affiliation in such a way as to make the Republicans look as bad as possible. First off, Duke didn’t hit the Louisiana political scene in 1988 as a Republican – he first hit the Louisiana political scene in 1975 when he ran unsuccessfully for the Louisiana State Senate as a Democrat. He later ran for President, again as a Democrat. (And again unsuccessfully, in case anyone’s wondering.) Of course the BBC does not mention the official “reproval” from the Republican party nor the fact, quoted by “will” earlier, that the elder Bush and Ronald Reagan campaigned against Duke.

I would not bother quoting this old article at length were it not for the fact that the BBC seem to be making similar inaccurate statements now, possibly having got their “facts” from their earlier article.