Category Archives: BBC censorship

BBC Censorship: ObamaCare Fail Edition

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Remember when the BBC told you that ObamaCare was going to give health care coverage to 32 million people and save us all? Well – surprise! – it turns out that lots of people will actually lose their employer-provided coverage, and costs will go up, not down, so many will not be able to afford getting it on their own and will have to go on taxpayer-funded Medicaid. Which, by the way existed for decades before ObamaCare was a twinkle in Hillary Clinton’s eye (it was called HillaryCare when she tried it on when her husband was President), so the whole story the BBC told you about millions of people magically getting care all of sudden was a lie as well. In any event:

CBO: Health reform could cause people to lose workplace coverage

The above is from the JournoList-infested and Media Matters (which is funded by Soros and coordinates with the White House) lapdog, Politico, which we know the Beeboids read. Sure, Politico is trying to spin it so that their readers don’t worry about it breaking the Treasury and hurting taxpayers, but that’s kind of beside the point.

Another BBC daily read, the HuffingtonPost, spins that up front, and then admits ObamaCare will cover fewer people than promised. Unlike those who trust the BBC for news on US issues, readers of this blog will not be surprised that this will hurt small businesses and ordinary workers.

BBC: We don’t want you to know about it. Instead, here’s some news about George Clooney and Rosie O’Donnell. News about some idiot getting convicted for making his gay roommate feel bad enough to kill himself is far more important, and worthy of remaining on the main US & Canada news page for days on end.

Maybe they’ll get around to the issue when the Constitutionality of ObamaCare comes up before the Supreme Court in the next few weeks.

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BBC Bias And Wisconsin – Again

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So the Union-led petition to force a recall election against Republican Gov. Scott Walker has gathered 1 million signatures. That’s nearly twice what’s required to force the recall. Of course, that’s only if the signatures are valid. If you get your information on this story from the BBC, you’d have no idea there’s even a hint of impropriety. The BBC news brief sanitizes the whole thing, spins it to make Walker look bad, and even misleads the reader about the result of the recall elections from last summer.

Let’s start with how the BBC spins it to make Walker look bad.

The governor has become a conservative hero and put the Midwest state at the centre of the US labour rights debate.

The BBC News Online sub-editor decided to leave it as an anti-Unions thing, and censor the news that Walker balanced the state budget for the first time in ages. That’s actually what has earned Walker respect from conservatives. Curbing public sector union powers helped him do that, sure. But it’s about fixing the state economy, not just attacking unions. The BBC leaves out how this is about fixing the economy, leaving Walker looking like a villain. They do it again a couple sentences later:

The governor’s opponents are also angry at the $800m (£521m) in budget cuts to schools passed under him.

 But they leave out the fact that this actually improved things. Of course, the BBC has form on censoring news about this issue in Wisconsin. What the BBC didn’t want you to know at the time is that schools have saved well over $100 million since Walker cut down union power and passed his budget. In fact, one school district went from a major deficit to a budget surplus thanks to Walker’s plan. Instead, the BBC spins it so you think he hurt the schools. Does that sound familiar?
The BBC says this about the previous round of recalls:

Two Republican state senators were recalled in earlier elections.

What the BBC censors because it hurts the Narrative is that the other five Republicans kept their seats, and the Republicans kept their majority – albeit just barely – in the legislature. But that fact won’t help lead you to think that this new petition means the people of Wisconsin want the Republicans out, so the BBC leaves it out.

One last bit of anti-Walker spin is where the article mentions that he’s raised over $5 million for the fight, taking care to point out that half of it is from out of state. What the BBC doesn’t want you to know is that out-of-state Unions and other partisan PACs are pouring money into it for the Democrat cause. In last summer’s recall elections, Democrat-supporting groups from out of state even outspent Republican groups from out of state, to the tune of $23.4 million to $20.5 million. Does anyone think this time will be any different? So it’s grossly dishonest for the BBC to mention only Walker’s out-of-state money. But that helps the Narrative of “the hard-working innocent lambs against nasty Republicans and their moneymen”.

Now let’s look at the worst part of all this: the 1 million signatures. What the BBC doesn’t want you to know is that there’s most likely a massive amount of fraud going on.  The state board overseeing the whole thing has already admitted there’s going to be a problem with duplicate signatures. It sure doesn’t help matters that the far-Left group, One Wisconsin Now, actually encouraged people to sign multiple petitions, knowing that they won’t all be caught. One guy has even proudly claimed to have signed 80 times. Not a word about this from the BBC.

Then there’s the fact that the Government Accountability Board (GAB) is admitting they won’t be trying to dismiss all those Adolf Hitler and Mickey Mouse signatures if they have Wisconsin addresses and are dated properly. So there’s voter fraud built into the system, to help Democrats. But remember, kids, according to the BBC, only Republicans engage in voter fraud.  In fact, things are so bad that the GAB is hiring a bunch of temporary staff to sort through all this crap. The GAB, however, is an independent group. So when the BBC reports this:

Supporters of the governor are being trained to spot any duplicate or falsified signatures.

You have to say they’re lying. Only supporters of the governor are being trained? No, BBC, it’s the staff of the independent GAB. This is meant to create the suspicion in your mind that it’s only a Republican plot to disenfranchise honest Democrats, nothing to do with massive Democrat fraud. There isn’t even a hint of suspicion raised here, not a single eyebrow raised. Why do you think it’s going to take 60 days to sort this out?

Sure, it’s only an unsigned news brief, no time to mention all the details, right? So why are the details the piece does mention so dishonest? You can read about previous examples of BBC censorship and dishonesty about the goings on in Wisconsin here, here, and here. Don’t trust the BBC on US issues.

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BBC Censorship: Billions Down The Green Toilet Edition

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Everyone here is by now well aware of the Solyndra scandal, where the deadly combination of campaign cash influence and the Warmist ideology of Secretary of Energy, Steven Chu, led the White House to give over half a billion dollars to a solar energy company, owned by a top Democrat money man, which they knew was going to fail.  Several people (DB, John Anderson, and Cassandara King, to name a few off the top of my head) have posted comments about it over the last few months as the damning facts keep coming out, and I think it’s worthy of a full post.

The BBC has done exactly five reports on it (plus one brief mention during a Daily Politics segment on how government behavior might possibly drive up energy costs, and one even briefer mention in a story on Republican complaints about government spending).  Can’t say they’re censoring the Solyndra story, but it’s pretty poor reporting considering what they’ve left out. As far as I’m aware, the story has never made it to any of the flagship news-oriented programmes, and even these news briefs never seem to stay on the front US & Canada page very long, or get noticed in the Features & Analysis section.  In short, BBC News Online whips up a news brief every couple of weeks, and that’s about it.  Mark Mardell, the BBC US President editor, has never blogged about it, nor have any of the other correspondents dared bring it up.

But this problem is much more than just the one company.  The ideologically twisted Chu has thrown money at several failed or failing green energy companies, nearly all of which are connected to Democrats or Democrat campaign cash.  None of the battalion of Beeboids working on US stories has reported on any of them.  So now I’m going to tell you what the BBC doesn’t want you to know.

First, the money thrown down the Solyndra toilet was $535 million.  Even the BBC was forced to admit that the White House gave them the money even though they knew the firm wasn’t viable.  But notice that they censored the fact that the majority owner was the Kaiser Foundation, owned by one of the President’s top money men.  Since the subpoenas and Congressional investigation started, emails have come out showing that Kaiser was pressing the Administration for the money, even though they all knew the company was doomed from the start.  The best the BBC could do was admit that “a Democratic fundraiser warned that investors did not rate the chances of survival for the firm.”  They don’t want you to know – or, as difficult as this is to believe, felt that it was unimportant – that this particular Democratic fundraiser owned the company, and was the one pushing for the cash.

The House investigation is ongoing, and the most recent BBC report on it framed it as a strictly partisan affair, reporting that voting to subpoena the White House records on the loans was “along party lines”.  Pathetic.  So the BBC has massively played down any possibility of cronyism or political reasons for the loans, and tried to paint the investigation into this fraud as partisan behavior by Republicans.  The BBC’s coverage is mostly from the White House perspective.  The BBC has also censored news that the White House told Solyndra to postpone layoffs until after the November mid-term elections.

But as I said, this is just the tip of the Green Iceberg.

SolarReserve got $737 million.  That company part-owned by a firm run by Democrat Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s brother-in-law. Oh, and partners with another Kaiser Foundation company.  Cronier and cronier.  The company hasn’t gone bankrupt yet, but surely it’s only a matter of time.

SunPower, also in California, got $1.2 billion, thanks to lobbying from the son of a Democrat Congressman.  The company is now $820 million in debt, and rapidly heading down the green toilet.

Abound Solar, mostly owned by Democrat donor billionaire Pat Stryker, got $400 million.  So far, it seems the company hasn’t done much more than count the money.

Granite Reliable Wind Generation got $169 million.  That company is owned by CCMP Capital (NB: pdf file, pg. 29).  A former Managing Director of CCMP is none other than White House Deputy Chief of Staff, Nancy-Ann DeParle.  She was also head of the ObamaCare communications department back when the President was pushing for it.

The National Renewable Energy Lab in Colorado got $200 million from Steven Chu. A top Democrat Congressman from Colorado works with them (whatever that actually means).  It’s now failing.


Beacon Power in Massachusetts, who were supposed to be building storage devices to make the highly inefficient wind turbines more viable, has gone bust.  They got $43 million of taxpayer cash, now down the green toilet.  Beacon was first brought to the government’s attention by Democrats: Sen. John Kerry and the late Sen. Ted Kennedy.  Beacon is a spinoff of Satcon Technologies, who are cozy enough with the Democrats that they provided a fuel cell power plant for the 2004 Democrat National Convention.  That’s the one where John Kerry was the nominee.  Say no more.

Evergreen Solar got $5.3 million and SpecraWatt got $500,000 of that Stimulus money the BBC was so enthusiastic about.  That cash wasn’t directly from the Dept. of Energy, although it was from local authorities handing out Stimulus money allocated to them.  Both firms are now bankrupt.

Last, but certainly not least, is BrightSource, which got a whopping $1.4 billion in bailout funds from the Dept. of Energy. The principal investor is co-owned by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., co-conspiritor of Newsnight-trusted investigative advocate, Greg Palast. BrightSource was in deep financial trouble at the time, and the Dept. of Energy bailed them out.  The project for which it got the money is being led by NRG,

UPDATE:  I forgot to add that, while the NRG Political Action Committee sends campaign cash to both political parties, the majority of their cash goes to the Democrats.  Worse, the two top NRG bosses themselves seem to donate exclusively to Democrats.

To sum up:

Apparently something like 80% of the taxpayer cash doled out by The Obamessiah Adminstration to allegedly promote Green Energy and “green jobs” went to firms heavily involved with Democrats or Obamessiah campaign donors.  This adds up to nearly $4.7 billion thrown down the Green toilet, all for ideological and partisan reasons.  It’s a combination of irresponsible ideology and old-fashioned corruption.  Some may call it Venture Socialism, but I call it Crony Corporatism.  This is all hidden from you because it makes the President look bad. 

As the Solyndra investigation goes on, we’ll start hearing a lot more about this stuff, and the BBC will continue to hide it from you. I think the end result will be calls for Chu to step down. As the 2012 election looms and we approach next November, the President just might throw him under the bus. It’s not like this has been ignored by the press, either. The BBC figures this isn’t as important as Natalie Wood’s death or sexual abuse scandals in college football, or celebrity gossip.  But they won an award for their online coverage of the US, so what do I know?  Your license fee hard at work, I guess.  Still, one can only imagine what the BBC editorial decisions would be had this stuff happened while Bush was in charge.

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The BBC’s Dishonest and Biased Questions For Republican Candidates

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Saturday night’s Republican candidates’ debate was on the topic of foreign affairs.  In that spirit, the BBC asked PJ Crowley, a former State Dept. flack, to come up with a list of what the media likes to call “3 am phone call” questions, after then-Senator Hillary Clinton’s campaign ad that was critical about her opponent, when she was running for President, not being ready for major foreign policy decisions.  As this is the BBC handling a US issue, before we even get to the questions there’s a glaring bit of bias and dishonesty.

Right at the top of the page, next to his photo, the BBC describes Crowley as “Former US Assistant Secretary of State”.  Partially false.  He was actually the US Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs. The White House officially used that title for him,  In other words, he was a mouthpiece, not a policy wonk or actual diplomat.  His career has been entirely in Public Affairs, not actual policy making. Even CNN referred to him as “State Department spokesman”.  What’s that you’re saying? That CNN link reveals something else the BBC casually left out about Crowley?  You’re right.  They forget to mention that Crowley was fired for criticizing the unfriendly detention treatment of Pvt. Bradley Manning, the Wikihacker who stole all those documents and gave them to St. Julian to publish, in the hopes of harming US foreign policy goals.

The reason the BBC redacted the key part of Crowley’s title is to give you the impression that his opinion carries more weight than it should.  I have a screen shot in case of stealth edit.  So this piece is misleading even before it starts.  They even forgot to mention that Crowley worked for The Obamessiah Administration. So he’s partisan as well, but the BBC doesn’t want you to know about it.  Once again, a vox pops presented as an innocent commentator is anything but the way the BBC wants you to think. (They did mention it at the very bottom, which I missed. My thanks to Craig for pointing out my error)

Now for the questions.  I’m not a Republican candidate, but I’m going to answer them as if I were, just to highlight the bias.

Actually, before getting to the questions, just have a look at the sarcastic, dismissive way Crowley misrepresents the candidates’ various answers.  He even spends a moment belittling the candidates as being ignorant and bashing Bush (calling Musharaf his “BFF”).  So even before you get to the substance, you already know where this is coming from: an attack on the President’s opponents, full stop.

Okay, now the questions.

1. The IAEA this week says that Iran more or less knows how to build a nuclear weapon. Assuming when you become president, there is not yet evidence of an actual weapon, what will your policy be? Will you continue to contain Iran and add pressure through sanctions until it is clear Iran is constructing a bomb? Or are you prepared to act preemptively to prevent Iran from acquiring a weapon?

This is a “gotcha” question.  “Preemptively” can mean many things. It doesn’t have to mean bombing the crap out of Iran, which is what the question obviously implies.  Under my Administration, the US would only act “preemptively” if we had real proof that Iran was about to acquire an actual weapon, or had just acquired one.  But as I said, that can mean many forms of action, both covert and diplomatic, not just bombing the crap out of them, which is what you’re trying to catch me out saying.  So the question is designed for one particular answer, sorry you’re not going to get it.

2. The Bush administration invaded Iraq to eliminate suspected weapons of mass destruction. The Bush administration negotiated an end to the Libyan WMD programme, one of its signature achievements. You all have strongly indicated that Iran should never gain a nuclear weapon. Is the ultimate solution to declare the Middle East a nuclear-weapons-free zone, as called for under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty?

That’s a nice dig at Israel, isn’t it?  Let’s be honest about the subtext of your question.  When you say the “Middle East” as a region, that includes Israel, which is the only country so many people on the Left and in the media are really worried about.  How many times have we heard the whining about hypocrisy in allowing Israel to have nukes but not wanting Iran to have them.  Please rephrase the question more honestly.  Still, such a treaty in that region is sheer fantasy anyway, and not because Israel has secret nukes.

3. Most of you have said that Libya was not a vital interest to the United States and that you would not have militarily intervened. Does that mean you would have preferred leaving Gaddafi in power? If not, then why was Obama wrong?

On this issue, my position was different from that of most of these candidates.  Libya is a vital interest to the US because of the threat of Islamic fascism taking over if Gaddafi was removed.  I think we all know by now that’s what’s going to happen.  But that means the President was wrong to sit on his hands until Secretary of State Clinton and her staff had to convince him that it wasn’t working, and that he was going to continue to butcher his people and plunge his country into chaos.  That’s never good for US interests. Plus, there’s always an economic component to vital national interests: if Libya ends up being a reasonable, stable country on the road to prosperity, that can only be good for everyone. Since the question of military intervention became moot once Britain and France and their coalition were going to do it anyway, it was in the US’s best interest to at least take the diplomatic lead with rebels and any other potential new leadership faction.  That didn’t happen.  We sat on our hands out of fear of the usual complaints of US Imperialism. And look where it got us?  Another potential Mullocracy.  That’s not good for US vital interests.

4. President Bush achieved regime change in Iraq, but at a cost of about $800bn (£502bn). President Obama’s intervention in Libya, achieving a similar result, cost just over a billion. Keeping in mind our current financial situation, as President, what are the lessons learned from both experiences?

Total apples and oranges here.  Regime change in Libya was due to a whole host of factors, only one of which was US strategic bombing.  There was no rebel army waiting to move against Sadaam.  There are huge geographical and tactical differences between the two countries.  There was no Arab Spring-type scenario going on in the region at the time.  The only lesson to be learned here is that this question reveals a willful cluelessness and that the questioner has an agenda to push.

5. If the deficit super-committee fails, defence will take an even bigger hit than the roughly $430bn already planned. Congress may delay sequestration until after next year’s election. In 2013, are you prepared to enact deeper defence cuts to balance the budget? If not, please explain how, if Ronald Reagan could not raise defence spending, lower taxes and balance the budget, results would be different in your administration?

Another apples and oranges question revealing cluelessness and an agenda to push.  Under my Adminstration, there will be all sorts of cuts and reform that will mean we won’t have to decimate Defense.  Repealing ObamaCare alone with save nearly enough money to render this question moot. Furthermore, reducing the Departments of Education, Energy, and Health to shadows of their current selves, along with a complete dismantling and redefining of the EPA will save tens of billions. Getting rid of the insane amount of regulations which harm small businesses and curtail most others will help increase revenues and growth.  Reagan had a completely different economic situation, and didn’t have the massive, sclerotic bureaucracies we have now.  It’s ridiculous to compare the two situations.

6. Will any troops be in Afghanistan in 2016? If so, doing what?

Who knows?  A million things could happen between now and then.  Nobody wants troops there just for the sake of it. Next!

7. You have all declared you are strong supporters of Israel. Are the foreign policies of the United States and Israel identical? If not, name one area where you believe Israeli actions are contrary to US interests. What will you do to encourage a change in Israeli policy?

Another dig at Israel.  One could just as easily say that the foreign policies of the US are virtually identical to those of Britain, France, Germany, South Korea, and Gambia. All those countries surely have one area where we disagree. This question is asked from the perspective that having very similar foreign policy goals to Israel is a problem.  Why?  Ask me a more honest question, and I’ll try to answer it.

(Remember, this anti-Israel mug was the Spokesman for the State Dept. No wonder so many people have been worried that The Obamessiah is going to throw Israel under the bus.)

8. Do you consider climate change a national security issue? If not, as president, what will you say to the president of the Maldives when he tells you that emissions of greenhouse gases by China and the United States threaten the very existence of his country because of rising sea levels?

Climate Change is only a national security issue in that all these draconian rules and regulations forced on us by Warmists are causing serious damage to the economy, and to those of our strategic allies.  If the President of the Maldives tells me that my country is dooming the existence of his, I’ll tell him he’s full of it and needs to find another way to get my country to redistribute wealth to his.

9. Some of you have indicated a willingness to militarily intervene in Mexico to control violence perpetrated by drug cartels. Those cartels are battling Mexican authorities using weapons purchased in the United States, including combat weapons like the AK-47. If the war in Mexico threatens the United States, should we on national security grounds first restrict the sale of combat weapons that cannot be plausibly tied to individual security before putting troops in harm’s way at significant cost?

The reason those drug cartels are using weapons purchased in the US is because the ATF made that happen.  How can you not be aware of this?  Operation Fast and Furious and the rest of it has lead to how many deaths now?  That whole scheme was created specifically to cause the exact trouble you’re now using to demand stricter gun control.  The current Administration has the blood of US border agents and hundreds of innocent Mexican civilians on its hands, and you’re asking me about stopping something that’s happening only because the current Administration made it so?  You bet I’ll stop it, but not what you’re hoping for. Unbelievable.

(Of course the BBC has misled the public on this issue, and engaged in suppressing news which might make you better informed. So they can get away with such an unbelievably, disgustingly biased question.)

10. Congress is considering legislation that would require all terrorism suspects to be tried in military rather than civilian courts. Do you support this legislation? If so, given the strong record of open trials and convictions in civilian courts, why do you think they are not the appropriate venue for at least certain kinds of terrorism cases?

 Yes.  We’re at war. Different ball game.

Thank you for having me here today.  Don’t trust the BBC on US issues.

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#OccupyFail: You Know Your Movement’s Over When….

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For Twitter fans, it’s a hashtag: #OccupyFail

Here’s just a sample of what the BBC doesn’t want you to know about their favorite US political movement.

A Petri Dish of Activism, and Germs

The chorus began quietly at a recent strategy session inside Zuccotti Park, with a single cough from a security team member, a muffled hack between puffs on his cigarette. Then a colleague followed. Then another.

Soon the discussion had devolved into a fit of wheezing, with one protester blowing his nose into the mulch between clusters of tents.  

“It’s called Zuccotti lung,” said Willie Carey, 28, a demonstrator from Chapel Hill, N.C. “It’s a real thing.”

Seems to be spreading. No headlice in NYC yet.

Future of Occupy Burlington encampment uncertain after police clear City Hall Park to investigate man’s death 

The city closed half of City Hall Park and put a halt to all camping at the Occupy Burlington site Thursday night while police investigate a shooting in a tent that cost a 35-year-old man his life. Meanwhile, the movement’s participants mourned a member of their community and planned the future of the encampment.

Just a day after the joyful spontaneity of a Gogol Bordello performance Wednesday night at City Hall Park, Thursday’s shooting that police believe may have been self-inflicted spiraled into a tense confrontation between Burlington police and some protesters over access to the park.

UPDATE: BBC News Online found a moment to acknowledge this story, plus that of the murder in Oakland.  Naturally it’s written in defense of the Occupiers, total sympathy, no effort spared to portray them in the gentlest of lights.  Naturally, the BBC continues to describe it as a “protest against corporate greed and income inequality”.  This is only partially true, and true mainly of the Union organizers and middle-aged and part-time hangers on, who are just your average Leftoids.  As I’ve shown previously, the real organizers and hard-core Occupiers want an end to what they think is Capitalism, and an end to the entire US system of government and rule of law.  That the BBC continues to deny this is not surprising, but still pathetic.

 Mostly Peaceful Occupy Portland Rape Policy: “Nobody Should Contact the Police”

Video at the link.  We keep hearing that the Occupy leadership (when the BBC said this was a leaderless movement, they were misleading you) try to dissuade their fellow campers from going to the police.  Much better to do what they’ve done in Zuccotti Park and set up a women-only anti-rape tent, I guess. 

Man found dead in Pioneer Park, Occupy SLC ordered to leave both camps

The police were already on hand, as they had to turn up earlier to quell a pre-dawn riot that broke out amongst the little darlings of the BBC.

Elite Berkeley Students Upset They’re in the 1%, Throw Occupy Tantrum:

A clique of privileged U.C. Berkeley students, upset that they’re the top 1% of elite students in the state and thus disqualified from participating in the Occupy movement, could no longer contain their frustration on Wednesday and threw an Occutantrum, attempting to “occupy” a few square yards of the 1,200-acre campus. The police dutifully played their roles in the street theater performance, showing up in riot gear and looking scary so the privileged students could shout at them and feel properly revolutionary, as instructed by their professors. Following the script, the police repeatedly removed the handful of occupation tents so that the students could feel sufficiently wronged by authority figures and thereby earn their “Berkeley protest stripes,” which have been a requirement for graduation since 1964.

 Harvard Keeps Occupy Harvard Harvard-Only

The Harvard iteration of the Occupy protests is ironically, appropriately, and unwillingly now the most exclusive Occupy protest in the country. Guards closed and locked the gates to Harvard Yard in the minutes leading up to the inaugural Occupy Harvard general assembly, meaning that the tent city now built in front of the John Harvard statue will be as exclusive as the university itself. Only people flashing Harvard IDs were allowed in the Yard for the 7 p.m. protest, and Harvard police officers stood sentinel into the night to keep the riffraff out.

UPDATE: Apparently they’re so dedicated to the cause they…um…all went home to mater and pater for the weekend.

 Occupy Oakland 11_02_11 shut down Burger King

Video at the link.


Occupy DC becoming increasingly violent, police say

Mayor Vincent Gray and D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier on Monday said the Occupy DC protesters have grown violent, and the police department will adjust its tactics to ensure the public’s safety.

 SoCal Street Cart Vendors Hurting After ‘Occupy’ Group Splatters Blood, Urine

Coffee cart owner Linda Jenson and hot dog cart operators Letty and Pete Soto said they initially provided free food and drink to demonstrators, but when they stopped, the protesters became violent.

Occupy Thugs Taunt Black Security Guard

In which there’s not so much of what Katty Kay said was the Occupiers’ “love of humanity”, but more calling a black man a “slave” and telling him he’s “no one’s brother”.

Head and Body Lice Outbreak Announced at #Occupy Portland Squatters Camp (Video)

After all this, hands up anyone who thinks the majority of Beeboids still support these people, and would join them if they could.  My vote is yes, they still do, which is why Simon Wilson and Matthew Davis don’t think you need to know about this stuff.

During the first week or two of the Occupy activity, the BBC swooped in and did a number of gushing, positive reports.  After establishing the Narrative, and satisfying themselves that they’d gotten the word out and made sure the license fee-payers understood the correct version of events, the Beeboids got bored and moved on to more viable pastures.  They’ve ramped up their coverage of the US, spent more money and hired more staff, and all you get is an endless series of lightweight video magazine segments (some of which helpfully promote the BBC’s Lonely Planet commercial interest – at your expense), the latest Republican candidate faux pas and declaration that Romney is the “real winner here”, Mark Mardell’s slipshod analysis, Jonny Dymond’s one-dimensional drivel, and assorted celebrity gossip.

Does anyone feel that any of this makes you better informed about what’s going on in the US?  Or is that not even the BBC’s goal?

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BBC Censorship: Occupier Ugliness Edition

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Has anyone else noticed that the BBC has gone totally silent about the Occupy Wall St. movement in the US? With the exception of a couple stories about the violence innocent exercising of rights in Oakland, where they shut down a shipping port and attacked police were victims of unprovoked brutality from The Man, there has been scarcely a peep from BBC News for days.

After a flurry of encomia impartial reports on how nice and earnest and well-meaning the Occupiers are, the more violent and unhinged they became, the quieter the Beeboids got. Just two days after the original Occupiers hit Zuccotti Park, Daniel Nasaw tried to tie them directly to the Democrat/Union protests in Wisconsin (which the BBC also reported dishonestly), claiming that this was the “birth of a movement”.  It all seemed so wonderfully clear then, didn’t it?

The Occupier activity around the country is one of the most important stories going lately, especially since the Oakland City Council is about to cave in to the violence and now support the Occupiers. But the BBC seems to be censoring nearly all news of it. They’ve gone silent because they don’t want you to know about things like this:

Zuccotti protesters put up women-only tent to prevent sexual assaults

Zuccotti Park has become so overrun by sexual predators attacking women in the night that organizers felt compelled to set up a female-only sleeping tent yesterday to keep the sickos away.*

 Or this:

Occupy protest turns violent outside Washington Convention Center

UPDATE 11/7: Occupy DC becoming increasingly violent, police say

Citing injuries to five people outside the Washington Convention Center on Friday night, the mayor urged the demonstators to show restraint so that their protests are not discredited by violence.

“We will not tolerate behavior that jeopardizes public safety,” Gray said.

Lanier said in a statement that the protesters have become “increasingly confrontational and violent toward uninvolved bystanders and motorists.”
Related Examiner Occupy DC coverage
Jesse Jackson downtown Monday, compares Occupy to civil rights movement
D.C. police chief says Occupy protesters getting more violent

Four of the injured people appear to be protesters themselves. A fifth injured person was a 78-year-old woman who was knocked down while attempting to get around the Occupy DC’s blockade of a dinner for a conservative group Friday.

“That is no longer a peaceful protest,” Lanier said.

And this is coming from the DC police who generally support the Occupiers’ cause so much that the 911 operators hung up on a couple people inside the AFP event who called to complain about Occupiers blocking all exits and preventing people from leaving.

Or this:

Occupy Chicago protesters interrupt Wisconsin governor’s speech here

The Republican governor, who appeared before about 300 people at a public policy breakfast at Chicago’s Union League Club, saw his speech interrupted by union-backed Occupy Chicago protesters for about six minutes before they left the event.

Or this:

Occupy Boston Occupies Israeli Consulate

According to the Twitter feed of @kade_ellis, chants included, “hey hey, Ho ho! Israeli apartheid’s got to go!,” “long live the intifada! Intifada intifada!,” “not another nickel! Not another dime! No more money for Israel’s crimes!,” and “Viva viva Palestina!”

Or this:


A Chill Descends On Occupy Wall Street; “The Leaders of the allegedly Leaderless Movement”

On Sunday, October 23, a meeting was held at 60 Wall Street. Six leaders discussed what to do with the half-million dollars that had been donated to their organization, since, in their estimation, the organization was incapable of making sound financial decisions. The proposed solution was not to spend the money educating their co-workers or stimulating more active participation by improving the organization’s structures and tactics. Instead, those present discussed how they could commandeer the $500,000 for their new, more exclusive organization. No, this was not the meeting of any traditional influence on Wall Street. These were six of the leaders of Occupy Wall Street (OWS).

What on earth? The BBC told me that this was a leaderless movement, which is why the poor lambs had so much difficulty getting a clear message out to the media.

Occupy Wall Street’s Structure Working Group (WG) has created a new organization called the Spokes Council. “Teach-ins” were held to workshop and promote the Spokes Council throughout the week of October 22-28. I attended the teach-in on Sunday the 23rd.

According to Marisa Holmes, one of the most outspoken and influential leaders of OWS, the NYC-GA started receiving donations from around the world when OWS began on September 17. Because the NYC-GA was not an official organization, and therefore could not legally receive thousands of dollars in donations, the nonprofit Alliance for Global Justice helped OWS create Friends of Liberty Plaza, which receives tax-free donations for OWS. Since then, Friends of Liberty Plaza has received over $500,000. Until October 28, anybody who wanted to receive more than $100 from Friends of Liberty Plaza had to go through the often arduous modified consensus process (90% majority) of the NYC-GA—which, despite its well-documented inefficiencies, granted $25,740 to the Media WG for live-stream equipment on October 12, and $1,400 to the Food and Medical WGs for herbal tonics on October 18.

At the teach-in, Ms. Holmes maintained that while the NYC-GA is the “de facto” mechanism for distributing funds, it has no right to do so, even though she acknowledged that most donors were likely under the impression that the NYC-GA was the only organization with access to these funds. Two other leaders of the teach-in, Daniel and Adash, concurred with Holmes.

Ms. Holmes also stated at the teach-in that five people in the Finance WG have access to the $500,000 raised by Friends of Liberty Plaza. When Suresh Fernando, the man taking notes, asked who these people are, the leaders of the Structure WG nervously laughed and said that it was hard to keep track of the “constantly fluctuating” heads of the Finance WG. Mr. Fernando made at least four increasingly explicit requests for the names. Each request was turned down by the giggling, equivocating leaders.

And this is from an Occupier comrade.  Oh, dear, how the anarchists hate it when they get what they didn’t understand they actually wanted.  And only a couple weeks ago they all seemed so warm and fuzzy about their cute little group democracy.  I got the impression from my visit to Zuccotti Park that this is how it was going to be, and it turns out that I was right.

So how about it, BBC?  Where are you?  You were so sure this was an important movement only a couple weeks ago, yet now it’s as if you’re bored and have moved on. Reality not fitting the Narrative?  The double standard between the BBC’s coverage of the Occupiers and their reporting on the Tea Party movement couldn’t be more obvious.  Hey, maybe the BBC’s silence about all this now is a belated attempt to make up for the fact that they censored all news about the Tea Party movement for the first two months of its existence.

What disgraceful behavior for a news organization which claims to be superior to the rest of them.

* I blame Bloomberg and the NYPD for this and not the Occupy movement, to be honest, as they’ve let drugged out homeless men hang out in the park. Although their childish refusal to allow police to do their jobs inside their precious encampment is also a factor. There are rumors that the police actually direct the homeless there with promises of free food.  But that should be a scandalous story in and of itself: evil billionaire politician and oppressive authorities using a sick tactic to secretly undermine the sainted protest with no regard for safety or decency.  How about it, BBC?  Any of you dozen or so intrepid young digital media geniuses looking for a big scoop?  I won’t hold my breath.

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BBC Censorship: Katty Kay’s Nice Anti-Semite Edition

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Yes, I know, Katty was talking about the Occupiers in New York, but her report was meant to give you the idea that they’re all mostly nice, civic-minded, and righteous. Mark Mardell is still convinced that the Tea Party movement is driven by crypto-racism. So by his logic, we can use the following to state unequivocally that the Occupier movement is driven by anti-Semitism. Check it out, and wake me up when the same BBC which spent two years telling you we’re all racists because we opposed Socialist policies report this:

How about it, BBC? Any thoughts? If you tell me this is an outlier and not worthy of smearing an entire movement, then the majority of BBC reporting on the Tea Party is discredited. An amusing report on the LA scene can be found here. Note that the majority of the crowd is hideously white. But that doesn’t imply anything about their motives, right, BBC?

And this kind of anti-Jew sentiment was on display in New York as well. Curiously, Katty Kay and Laura Trevalyan failed to spot it. Or did they?

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The BBC Continues To Lie About History And Censor Calls For Ethnic Cleansing

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Apologies for the lengthy title, but there are two issues here which need to be covered, and I’m combining them into one post. First, the BBC’s continued attempts to lie and rewrite history.

Q&A: Palestinian statehood bid at the UN

Most people here will know exactly what’s coming, and I know this has been covered here many times before, but it’s even more important to call the BBC out on it now because of the looming UN fight over creating a State of Palestine. For the benefit of those who don’t know the BBC’s bias about the “West Bank”, here’s the map they use to explain history to the public:


Notice on the left, the BBC is claiming that there was such a thing as the West Bank (i.e. Palestinian) Territory before the 1967 war. They’ve just erased a chunk of Jordan from history. As we all know, that was part of Jordan at the time, a country at war with Israel. Why else would Israel have invaded? This map indoctrinates the public with PLO propaganda, that Israel invaded sovereign Palestinian territory. Your license fee is being used to promote false history and anti-Israel propaganda.

Reality, on the other hand, is not Israeli propaganda. This map of Jordan – from a non-partisan source – and environs showing the borders during part of the 1967 war in question is fact, not fiction:


Notice the clear border lines of Jordan encompass the area about which the BBC is lying. Yes, I am accusing BBC News Online of telling a lie. I don’t care what some Beeboids personally believe about nasty old Israel’s land grab or the plight of the poor Palestinians or anything else. This is historical fact, and the BBC is lying about it. How can there be an honest Q&A about the topic when one of the answers is a lie? Until they remove that first map and replace it with an honest one, my accusation will stand.

Needless to say, this propaganda demonizes Israel in the minds of the public. Most people are seriously uninformed about the facts of Israel and 1967 and the “Palestinian Territories”. When one tries to explain the facts to get past the emotions, one is then accused of spouting Israeli propaganda. This is how the BBC’s editorial policy and style guide is blatantly biased, causing them to demonize Israel at every opportunity, although the BBC disputes this.

It’s impossible to have a civil discussion, national or otherwise, about the situation when the national broadcaster promotes propaganda for one side and demonizes the other. This then promotes anti-Jewish sentiment, but that’s a topic for another time.

Now for the BBC Censorship angle. Last week, Maen Rashid Areikat, the Palestinian ambassador to the US, said that there should be no Jews in a State of Palestine:

“Well, I personally still believe that as a first step we need to be totally separated, and we can contemplate these issues in the future,” he said when asked by The Daily Caller if he could imagine a Jew being elected mayor of the Palestinian city of Ramallah in a future independent Palestinian state. “But after the experience of 44 years of military occupation and all the conflict and friction, I think it will be in the best interests of the two peoples to be separated first.”

Actually, this isn’t the first time we’ve heard about their desire for a Judenfrei Palestine. He said the same thing a year ago. Not only that, PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas said the same thing last year, and went further:

Almost no notice was taken of another pre talks decision that the PA chairman revealed, as he announced clearly that if a Palestinian Authority state is created in Judea and Samaria, no Israeli citizen will be allowed to set foot inside.The PA chairman also stated that he would block any Jewish soldiers from serving with an international force stationed on PA-controlled land.

“I will never allow a single Israeli to live among us on Palestinian land,” Abbas declared.

Judenfrei, Judenrein. And the BBC has steadfastly censored all of this. Justin Webb didn’t bring it up to the feckless Lord Levy on Today, it doesn’t feature in any BBC News Online report about Israel or the Palestinians, and it hasn’t been mentioned anywhere else on the BBC. If someone can show me one single example of it, I’ll post it here, shocked but grateful.

Without the truth and all the facts, it’s impossible to have a rational debate and reasonable understanding of the situation. Yet the BBC actively prevents that, promoting propaganda for one side, rewrites history, and censors the Palestinians’ desire for ethnic cleansing.

ADDENDUM: Here’s Katty Kay interviewing US Ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, in which Katty states uncategorically that only Bibi Netanyahu is the problem, and Amb. Rice corrects here. No surprise that this is Katty’s belief as she recently tweeted to her followers that this New York Magazine article – which blames Netanyahu and uncritical, “steadfast” support for Israel in the US Congress as the only obstacles to peace – is “All you need to know about the frosty relationship between Barack and Bibi.”

Why, it’s almost as if there’s a groupthink on this issue extending across the spectrum of the BBC.

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BBC Censorship: "Spot The Missing Book Report" Editon

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A few days ago, the media got wind of a new unauthorized biography to come out about someone who holds no public office, is not running for one, and had virtually no public profile until 2008. There were a couple of personal scandalous allegations, and the media turned into the usual shark feeding frenzy, including the BBC. That private citizen is, as we all know, Sarah Palin. The BBC reported that her husband wasn’t pleased with the allegations.

Sarah Palin’s husband Todd attacks biography for ‘lies’

It’s a small mention, but they reported it nevertheless. Notice also that the BBC also rushed to inform you back when this writer had moved in next door to Palin, and then added a follow-up story when she built a fence to maintain her privacy.

Now the media has got wind of a book about someone who does hold a public office and is currently running for re-election, but similarly had virtually no public profile before 2008. This book describes infighting and incompetence in that public official’s administration. The media is about to leap into a frenzy, and it’s troubling that public official enough to launch a strong response, and some of the administration officials quoted in the book are, like Todd Palin, not pleased with the allegations. The BBC has not reported this. Of course, that’s because this book is about the President.

Apparently, He has the one minor quibble with His performance:

“I think one of the criticisms that is absolutely legitimate about my first two years was that I was very comfortable with a technocratic approach to government … a series of problems to be solved.

And He also compared Himself to Jimmy Carter:

“Carter, Clinton and I all have sort of the disease of being policy wonks. … I think that if you get too consumed with that you lose sight of the larger issue.”

Oh, and apparently the White House was a sexist old boys’ club where women felt excluded and ignored. How’s that hopey-changey stuff workin’ out for ya, BBC?

More media coverage here and here, so you know the Beeboids know about it, and that it’s a story they would cover if it didn’t make Him look bad.

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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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