Category Archives: BBC censorship

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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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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BBC Q&A On US Debt Deal Is Really Q&BS

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I was going to leave this alone today, but it’s just too egregious to resist. Check out the BBC’s Q&A page for the debt crisis. We’ll just go Q by Q, as it were.

What is the proposed deal?

Under the the agreement, the US deficit will be reduced by at least $2.4tn over 10 years. The ceiling for US borrowing will be raised by about the same amount in two stages. A new Congressional committee to recommend further deficit-reduction measures is to be set up and report by November. Congressional leaders are hopeful the compromise will win the backing of both houses, but some Republicans and Democrats in the House of Representatives remain opposed for different reasons.

Even the White House’s own talking points have the debt reduction as $1.5 trillion. The BBC is using a worst-case (for Keynesians and Socialist fantasists) scenario. Funny, they’re usually much more accurate when parroting the White House dicta. In reality, the actual agreement doesn’t even hit the $1 trillion mark, and the rest of the spending cuts are hardly written in stone and may not even happen. All we know is that, like the People’s Front of Judea in a crisis, it will call for immediate discussion. So the BBC here is selling a molehill as a mountain. It’s more sexy that way, I guess.

What is the debt ceiling?

There is a legal limit on the total amount of debts the US government can can run up in order to pay its bills – including military salaries, interest on existing loans, and Medicare. The current limit is $14.3 trillion (£8.9tn).

The cap was reached in May. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was able to extend the expected day of reckoning to 2 August, by various tricks such as postponing payments into government pension schemes, and thanks to better-than-expected tax revenues.

Geez, BBC, why not just say the government bills include paying to keep puppies from being killed? How about mentioning all the various wasteful schemes like subsidies for cronies, instead of emotionally charged programs like Medicare and pensions? The way they have it, it makes all government spending seem absolutely vital.

Why can’t the Obama administration borrow more?

Because it is not in Mr Obama’s power. The debt ceiling is set by statute and can only be raised by Congress.

An overall borrowing cap was first introduced by Congress in 1917 to make it simpler for the government to finance its efforts in World War I.

Since then the ceiling has been raised dozens of times, and it is usually a formality.

Wrong answer. But the problem lies in the attitude behind the question. The BBC is asking this from the perspective that He should borrow more, full stop, no (other) questions asked. Instead, the question should be coming from the perspective that we’re deep underwater when it comes to debt and why shouldn’t He borrow more money, rather than why is He unable to save us all. This betrays the inherent far-Left mindset at the BBC.

And notice the tiniest, almost microscopic acknowledgment that there’s a fact outside of what they’ve been telling you about how raising the debt limit has been “routine”, and Mark Mardell’s lie on air that there has never been a vote against doing so. It’s now “usually” a formality. They still cannot bring themselves to tell you that every single Democrat – included The Obamessiah – voted against doing it in 2006 when Bush wanted to do it again. Come on, Beeboids, both the President and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid have admitted they voted no as a political ploy, as have others. How about it, BBC? Oh, wait, not helpful to His cause right now, is it? And it would put the lie to how the BBC told you He would be above all that partisan ugliness and bring peace and harmony to Washington, etc. And it would reveal that they’ve been lying to you the whole time. BBC censorship still in force when they really need it.

But that’s not even the whole BBC answer. Here’s the best part:

Perversely, Congress also sets the government’s spending commitments and tax-raising powers.

This puts the Obama administration in the impossible position of being required to spend more than it earns, while also being prevented from borrowing the difference.

“Perversely”. Ever heard of Checks & Balances, BBC? The system was created for the exact reason that no branch of Government, especially the Executive, should have unfettered power to do things like this. There’s a reason Congress makes these decisions and not the President. This isn’t Parliamentary Britain. So the BBC thinks it’s mean. But guess what? It’s not the system which put the President in the position of being unable to borrow as much money as He desires: He and the Democrats and Ben Bernanke did. To the BBC, of course, He can do no wrong, an agnus innocentus trapped in a world He never made. They really, tragically, do not understand how the US system works, never mind why it was made that way.

The Government isn’t obligated to throw money around until the end of time, for heaven’s sake. We are in this position largely because of choices made by a series of Administrations and Congresses. It’s not an accident, and it’s not the system that put us here. But since it makes their beloved Obamessiah look bad, blame must be shifted. Again, this is all written from the singular Keynesian perspective that we simply must borrow more and it’s never going to be a problem. The debt ceiling has only become an abstract concept seemingly without consequences because a series of Congresses and Presidents have screwed it up that way.

What is the problem this time round?

The financial crisis and the US’s fragile economic condition have caused government spending to soar, while tax revenues have suffered.

This has caused a big rise in the government’s deficit – its rate of borrowing.

The Republicans, who control the House of Representatives, say they want to bring the deficit back under control, and have threatened not to raise the debt ceiling unless a deal is reached.

Wrong answer again. Some might say we should never have jacked up spending so many times to keep expanding government that we’ve had to raise the debt limit so many times. But that would never occur to a Beeboid, because they are Keynesians and Socialist fantasists who simply don’t understand the reality of what’s been happening. Their belief system is pie in the sky. And who caused all the spending increases, plus the massive economic burden of ObamaCare, which will hit us after next year? The Democrats, who were in charge of both Houses of Congress until last November. And they never passed a budget the whole time, which is why we’re here now. Which the BBC keeps forgetting to tell you. But here they mention only nasty Republicans as a cause for strife.

What have been the positions of both sides?

Both sides accept that cutting the deficit is vital. In recent weeks several plans have been floated by one side or another and been batted down.

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.

A number of House Republicans – mainly newly elected staunch Tea Party fiscal conservatives – oppose raising the debt limit in any form.

Again, the whole thing is framed as if we must borrow and spend more, and only Republicans are the problem. How about the chief sticking point that the Democrats and the President want a ginormous tax increase, and not just on the evil rich? How about the chief sticking point that the Democrats want to spend, spend, spend, more than what’s physically possible? Nope, it’s all emotional shibboleths again, more images of Republicans holding a shotgun to the head of a cute kitten. What about the far-Left Democrats we’re hearing about today who want only more spending and are considering rejecting any plan if it cuts spending in their darling projects? Can this be any more one-sided?

The last three questions are hypotheticals about what would happen if we defaulted, etc. No need to go into that, as my real point here is the BBC’s bias about where we’re at now, and not in a hypothetical future. And it’s too aggravating to continue anyway.

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An Alternative Perspective Not Heard On The BBC, And Context For The Debate

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It seems like we’re about to get a deal of some sort to temporarily alleviate the debt crisis. I say temporarily, because there’s no telling how it’s all going to work out over the next two years. In any case, it’s not done yet, so it’s a couple days early to start mocking the BBC’s coverage with “Lo! The Conq’ring Hero Comes”. What I’d like to do is provide some examples of the exact same budget issue the country has been experiencing at the state level. The BBC has mostly ignored all of this. It’s important, though, to bring this up for two reasons.

1. Spending a moment on how individual states solved their problems provides some helpful context with which to understand the national debate.

2. The reality of what’s gone on at the state level basically puts the lie to what the BBC has been telling you about the national issue.

First up, Wisconsin. Many people here will remember the BBC’s wild-eyed coverage of what went on in Wisconsin a few months back, when a Republican governor was, as the BBC put it, trying to pass an anti-union budget. Searching this blog for Wisconsin-related content will provide plenty of evidence of the BBC’s biased coverage, telling you how awful Gov. Walker’s plan would be for honest public sector workers. I don’t even want to get into how the BBC censored all news of violent and hateful rhetoric from the Left, in stark contrast to the way they focused on every fringe outlier in the Tea Party protests they covered.

In any case, the state had the same budget crisis the country is facing: too much spending, not enough money coming in. The Governor and the Legislature decided to cut spending. The BBC wasn’t happy. So it’s important to check in now to see how things turned out.

Apparently, pretty well. It seems that, by saving money, the state was able to save lots of teachers’ jobs they were going to lose the way things were going. Not only that, but the state itself went from being deep in the red to nosing into the black. It’s possible, you see, if you don’t listen to the likes of Ed Balls or Harry Reid or Mark Mardell. I’ll let the Lt. Governor of Wisconsin, Rebecca Kleefisch, explain.

(After just looking at her and hearing the first three words out of her mouth, tell me Ms. Kleefisch wouldn’t absolutely drive the Beeboids like Justin Webb insane.)

Who’d have thought, eh? Not the BBC.

There’s something else they never told you about the situation in Wisconsin: the Democrats’ budget would have added $1.7 billion in spending, leading to a $1.4 billion deficit. Yet the BBC advocates against people who oppose this kind of thing. Mark Mardell has described the national version as “borrowing enough money to continue governing“. No other viewpoint on the issue is allowed without qualifying it as “extreme” or “right-wing” or “protecting the wealthy”. So Wisconsin is one example of the BBC’s ideology causing them to get it wrong when they reported on the beginning of the story, wrong in the middle, and then go silent when the result is something that goes against their ideology.

It would be very instructive in figuring out the national debate if one were to look at a concrete example of a success. No wonder the BBC censors it.

Let’s look at another example, one which the BBC barely touched on because there was no loud union agitating to support: Ohio. This state is worth looking at because it’s one of those bell-weather states, which many pundits watch to predict national voting trends (probably a variety of reasons for this, but that’s for another time).

Ohio hasn’t been doing well in recent years. Last year, unemployment was one of the highest in the country, and had a negative credit rating from Standard & Poors. However, last November, Republican John Kasich got elected – with the help of a Tea Party trend in the state, where they won a majority of Congressional seats and state legislature spots. Care to guess the result? The BBC won’t tell you, so I will:

After getting elected, Gov. Kasich (a former Congressman and then…*shudder*…a Fox News talking head) passed a budget which reined in spending. S&P raised the state’s credit rating.

Standard & Poors Ratings Services upgraded Ohio’s debt rating just one day after it put the United States on “creditwatch negative” on what it calls a rising risk of policy stalemate in the debt limit negotiations.

For Ohio, the rating was revised from “negative” to “stable” after Gov. John Kasich signed a new budget the ratings agency says will essentially balance the state’s finances for the next two years. S&P also said Ohio is experiencing a modest economic recovery which has stabilized revenue.

In making the upgrade, the agency also assigned a “AA+” long-term rating to Ohio’s $416.75 million general obligation bonds.

“After a significant decline through the recession, Ohio’s economy is steadily recovering,” according to S&P’s statement issued Friday.

Who could have imagined? No need to borrow more, no need for class war. Well, actually Ohio did repeal its estate tax. The class warriors hate that.

Contrary to the opinions espoused across the spectrum of BBC broadcasting, neither Wisconsin nor Ohio needed to borrow more money to continue governing, and spending cuts had positive effects. And none of that “too much, too soon” nonsense. Oh, and the credit rating went up not because of more borrowing but because of a solid short-term plan. Again, not what the BBC has led you to believe.

Texas, with its Republican governor and legislature, has had a budget surplus for like three years running. And that state has led the country in job creation by a long mile. And – oh, the horror – it’s a low-tax state. No wonder Rick Perry is a popular dark horse candidate for President these days. I know, the BBC never told you any of this.

How about Nikki Haley in South Carolina? Yep, now there’s a budget surplus. Is she a “Tea Party darling” too, BBC? Wake me up when they acknowledge her accomplishment. Same goes for Mitch Daniels in Indiana.

So there you have some reality, some context in which to understand the national debate on the debt crisis. Real solutions, real results, all the opposite of the BBC’s propaganda. Did any of these Governors send out the attack dogs like the President has? Did any of these Governors demonize their opponents the way the President has? No, for they are leaders, not mere instigators, and what’s more, have actual plans and sound policies, not just speeches and rhetoric.

This is the reality at the state level, and thank goodness the Founding Fathers had the wisdom to enshrine the level of state autonomy that they did. Too bad the BBC censors news of things that don’t fit their ideological agenda, while telling you the opposite is the only way to save the country.

Who’s being intransigent again, BBC?

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BBC Censorship: Did The President Violate Federal Law With His Fundraiser Appeal?

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On Monday’s open thread (Pg. 9, comment @ 10:09:20pm GMT), I mentioned that there was a question about whether or not the President violated federal law by filming a political campaign ad in the White House.

The Republican National Committee on Monday asked the Department of Justice to investigate whether the president’s reelection fundraising broke federal law.

In a letter sent to Attorney General Eric Holder, RNC Chairman Reince Priebus cited a fundraising video President Obama appears in that seems to have been taped in the White House.

Federal law makes it a crime for the president to solicit political contributions in a place of official government business.

Having now done a little research on this, I’ve found a few details. Firstly, there are apparently some parts of the White House which are off-limits for fundraising and campaigning activity, while other areas, mostly the residential parts, are okay to do these things. As a few defenders of the President in the media have pointed out, previous Presidents (Reagan and Bush! Boo!) have done it before from kosher areas. Naturally, that’s the first line of defense as well.

So the question is, was this appeal filmed in a restricted area or not? Video and photo evidence below the fold.

The White House defense is that it wasn’t. Their other defense is that it wasn’t actually a solicitation for campaign funds. Here’s the full video.

This seems to me to clearly be an appeal for attendance at a fundraising dinner. Attendance costs money, which goes to the campaign fund, ergo it’s an appeal for funds. I’m not an expert in law, of course, but I’m not the only one saying this.

So if we accept that it’s a fundraising appeal, the real question is: Was this filmed in a restricted area? The White House says no. But the evidence says Oh, hell yeah it was.

One of the restricted areas of the White House is the Map Room. It’s not on the residential floor, but is on the first floor, next to the Diplomatic Reception Room. It’s also the room from which the President makes His weekly addresses to the country. Which means this particular video really blurs the lines between His address to the public in His official capacity as President, and His capacity as a partisan figure asking for campaign support. Yet the White House says that’s not what happened.

Here’s a photo of the President in the Map Room preparing to appear on camera for something or other.


Notice that big red couch on the right. Notice especially the lamps with the blue and white base on either side of it. I apologize for the low resolution, but this is the only photo I can find which shows the relevant part of the room. But the important details are quite visible. The pictures hanging on the wall are maps, hence the name of the room.

Now look at the opening frame of the video above. See the the lamp with the blue and white base just off the President’s left shoulder (right side of the frame to the viewer)? See the bit of red sofa abutting the table on which the lamp is sitting? Over the President’s right shoulder (left side of the picture to the viewer), we see on the wall a map of the Arabian Peninsula. This sure looks like the Map Room.

The Map Room is off limits to solicitation activity. This video is clearly an appeal for funds. It was also clearly done in the Map Room. I expect this isn’t going to get much play in the media who are still slavishly devoted to Him, and even more devoted to stopping the Tea Party movement and the Republicans from winning in 2012. Obviously this will be dismissed in some quarters as a partisan attack, which means it’s not worth examining.

But the evidence is clear enough: the President violated the law here. Don’t expect the BBC to tell you about this unless it hits the front page of the Washington Post and the New York Times and MSNBC is calling for an investigation. Where these stalwarts of the Democrat media go, the BBC follows. And the BBC does not go where they fear to tread.

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More U.S. News The BBC Thinks You Don’t Need To Know

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The current top story on the BBC’s US & Canada News page is about the President meeting with the Dalai Lama. How many people really care? I realize that this will probably get pushed down the page within a couple of hours as new stories are posted, but why is this even worth reporting at all? Surely there are far more important issues to cover. It’s very revealing of the BBC’s newsgathering priorities that a non-functional meeting with someone who isn’t head of state and isn’t ever going to be one is more important than, say, the news that Standard & Poors just upgraded the state of Ohio’s credit rating because the Governor passed a budget that will mostly fix the state’s economic troubles. Oh, but that’s a Republican Governor, while the Democrat-led US is about to get spanked by S&P instead.

No, the Beeboids love the Dalai Lama, their favorite ex-feudal lord, and so anything about him is more important than mundane economic issues, especially when it makes Republicans look good.

What else is the BBC ignoring in order to make room for celebrity gossip, non-stories about LA road construction, and a non-story about a possible technical glitch in the statehood status of North Dakota (this last one is actually pathetic in that a real story worth reporting is mentioned as an aside near the end: the movement to break Southern California away from the destructive far-Left Northern half. But again, that would be a real story that makes Democrat economic policy look bad, and we simply cannot have that at the BBC.)?

Lots of stuff to cover this week. The BBC thinks you don’t need to know about the following:

Remember when the President signed that “landmark” ObamaCare into law, the one which the BBC championed for ages and lied to you about how it would provide free health care for all those uninsured? One of the President’s favorite anecdotes in His fight for it was about how His mother battled evil profit-driven insurance companies while on her cancer deathbed. The BBC included that anecdote in their report of Him signing the bill into law. Turns out that it’s a little white lie.

Book Challenges Obama on Mother’s Deathbed Fight

The White House on Wednesday declined to challenge an account in a new book that suggests that President Obama, in his campaign to overhaul American health care, mischaracterized a central anecdote about his mother’s deathbed dispute with her insurance company.

During his presidential campaign and subsequent battle over a health care law, Mr. Obama quieted crowds with the story of his mother’s fight with her insurer over whether her cancer was a pre-existing condition that disqualified her from coverage.

In offering the story as an argument for ending pre-existing condition exclusions by health insurers, the president left the clear impression that his mother’s fight was over health benefits for medical expenses.

But in “A Singular Woman: The Untold Story of Barack Obama’s Mother,” author Janny Scott quotes from correspondence from the president’s mother to assert that the 1995 dispute concerned a Cigna disability insurance policy and that her actual health insurer had apparently reimbursed most of her medical expenses without argument.

And the BBC will be silent.

While the BBC used to spend time searching for even a whiff of angry behavior from Tea Party groups and the Right, they always censor news of violence and violent rhetoric from the Left. Like in Wisconsin (remember Wisconsin?), where the Left is protesting against a non-Left State Supreme Court justice and has a big effigy of him being lynched at a lamppost. Nothing to see here as it’s not the Tea Party doing it, move along. There’s a whole story behind that about how one Justice attacked another in a “he said/she said” incident. The Left has behaved angrily and violently like they did when Gov. Walker was trying to pass a budget, but none of the intrepid platoon of Beeboids covering the US is interested in that kind of story.

Democrats in the US seem to be prejudiced against certain religious groups (just like the BBC), and are less likely to vote for a Mormon to be President. What a shock, eh? The BBC isn’t going to inform you about that kind of poll result because, well, you know….

Newly appointed Defense Secretary Leon Panetta – kicked upstairs from being CIA boss – just said that the reason the US went into Iraq was 9/11. Oops. BBC not interested. Gaffes are only worth reporting when George Bush or a Republican does it.

Tax-dodging GE boss Jeffrey Immelt saw 36,000 jobs cut at his company in the last two years, and even sent jobs overseas (well, to Mexico anyway), but now that he’s the President’s Jobs Czar he is scolding business owners to start hiring whether it hurts their business or not. Hypocrisy from The Obamessiah Administration? BBC not interested in telling you.

The BBC has done plenty of reporting on how the dictator of Syria is cracking down on his people and killing protesters, but they have not told you about how the US Ambassador spoke out – on Facebook, no less – and got praised for it – by Syrians.

When was the last time the BBC mentioned the name of one of The Obamessiah’s top campaign fundraisers, Tony Rezko? Not since last summer when his name came up in a news brief ex-Gov. Blagojevich’s criminal trial, I think. Rezko is in jail and Blagojevich has been convicted. Now Rezko’s partner’s trial reveals the possibility of illegal payments to The Obamessiah.

Daniel Frawley has been convicted on massive bank fraud charges (unrelated to the campaign money fraud of the other two guys), but his sentencing is being delayed because he’s apparently been secretly cooperating with prosecutors about something else: Blagojevich’s abuse of power, which landed the ex-Gov in jail.

Details about Frawley’s cooperation with the U.S. attorney’s office, the FBI and the Illinois attorney general’s office can be gleaned from a 65-page court deposition he gave seven months ago in a legal-malpractice lawsuit that he filed against his former longtime lawyer, George Weaver. In the lawsuit, Frawley accuses Weaver of having overbilled him and telling him to “withhold certain information from the government” when he was cooperating with authorities.

You may well ask, what information was that?

That sworn statement, given Dec. 1, 2010, is posted at suntimes.com/news/watchdogs. In it, Frawley talks about three meetings he’s had with law enforcement authorities since 2006. The deposition outlines how he secretly recorded Rezko, and it raises a new and unsubstantiated question about Rezko’s once-close relationship with Obama — an issue that dogged the then-U.S. senator during his presidential campaign four years ago.

A relationship which the BBC casually dismissed. Too bad they’re not so casual about Tory friendships, eh? But I digress.

Later in the deposition, Weaver’s lawyer, Daniel F. Konicek, asks Frawley about what specific information Weaver is supposed to have told Frawley to withhold from federal authorities.

“I’m assuming the information is about the payments made by Rezko to Obama, so we know we’re talking about the right conversation, right?” Konicek asks Frawley.

Frawley doesn’t answer. So Konicek presses him: “Am I correct it was about Obama being paid by Rezko?”

Frawley replies: “I’m not answering that question, based upon my attorney’s instructions.”

Yet another revelation possibly tying The Obamessiah to fraudulent activity in Chicago, and the BBC isn’t bothered. If Frawley is getting his sentence lightened because of this cooperation, then it’s worth paying it heed. BBC: ZZZZzzzzzzzz

On Friday, the President claimed that 80% of the public “support an approach that includes revenues and includes cuts”. The problem is that He made it up. No polls back up this claim, and actually 50% of the public would prefer a deal with either only spending cuts, or mostly spending cuts and very little tax increase (that’s what “revenues” are when they’re at home). The 80% figure comes from a Soros/MoveOn.org poll of only Ohio, Montana, Missouri, and Minnesota, and is not meant to represent the majority opinion of the country. The Obamessiah lied again. BBC: Look over there: Republican intransigence!

An email has been “leaked” revealing the Obamessiah Administration’s real goal of Operation “Fast and Furious”/”Gunwalker”/”Gunrunner”: passing more restrictive gun control laws.

“Can you see if these guns were all 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. Thanks Mark R. Chait Assistant Director Field Operations.”

Which is what I’ve been saying all along, and which the BBC has censored all along. Instead, when reality forced them to report on the heat the ATF has been getting over this scandal, they dutifully shifted blame away from Him. Since the BBC is ideologically set against private gun ownership of any kind, and must support Him at all costs, they’ve treated this story with the softest of kid gloves. When they haven’t buried the story completely, that is.

On Wednesday, the debate between the President and Republican House leaders got so heated that He walked out. The BBC reported that He told them, “Enough is enough,” but they censored out this part:

“Don’t call my bluff,” the president said. “I am not afraid to veto and I will take it to the American people.”

I guess that finely-tuned brain of His doesn’t know you’re not supposed to tell them you’re bluffing. Another Obamessiah gaffe hidden from you by the BBC. As the ABC report I’ve linked to shows, He’s willing to sink the entire country for His class war ideology, and the BBC is blaming only the Republicans’ ideology (and dishonestly portraying it as protecting the rich, full stop) instead.

That’s enough for the week, I suppose. Does anyone feel properly informed by the BBC about US issues? The solution to all this is simple: Shut down the BBC’s newsgathering operation in the US and replace them all with a news aggregator. You’ll be better informed about what’s going on over here.

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BBC Censorship: Blame The Republicans Only Edition

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While the BBC is whining about how the Murdoch Empire “cozied up to the Conservatives”, here’s some information showing how the BBC is the lapdog of another Government: that of the US. The other day, I posted about how the BBC isn’t telling you the whole story about the budget and debt negotiations between the President and the Republicans in Congress. I showed how the BBC was only giving you the White House side of the story, and leaving out information about what the President was actually doing. Here’s more.

The BBC included video of the President’s press conference warning about the dangers of not reaching a deal. The report itself makes the case that the President is doing everything He possibly can to reach a deal, offering up “sacred cows” that will anger His base, while the intransigent Republicans are merely obfuscating in order to protect the wealthiest people in the country.

What the BBC doesn’t want you to know is that the President in fact wants to raise taxes through the roof. They don’t want you to know, so they edited that bit out of His speech. Here’s the relevant bit the BBC censored:

He states very clearly that He will raise taxes on everyone after He is re-elected: “In 2013 and the out years”. Contrary to the BBC/White House angle, this is exactly what Rep. Boehner and the Republicans have been saying is the reason they backed out.

Now here’s video of the President doing a little more class war:

“We weren’t balancing the budget off of middle-class families and working-class families. And we weren’t letting hedge fund managers or authors of best-selling books off the hook. That is a reasonable proposition.”

This is class war talk, whether one agrees with the ideology or not. The BBC told us He was going to govern from the center, to bring us all together. They dismissed all those who claimed The Obamessiah was a far-Left ideologue, yet here He is showing His true class warrior stripes when the chips are down.

Of course, this isn’t the first time the BBC has edited one of the President’s speeches in order to create the impression they want you to have. They did it with His inauguration speech, too.

Then there’s the fact that in 2013 – again, after the next election, which means He won’t be affected either way – the true cost of ObamaCare kicks in. That’s now estimated at over $1 trillion and growing, maybe even up to $2 trillion, with no end in sight. Has the BBC ever told you about any of this? No, you have no idea. All you know from the BBC is the parable of how The Obamessiah brought free health care to the poorest and most vulnerable. In any case, He won’t budge on that, because, well, it’s basically His only accomplishment other than giving the order to invade a sovereign country and kill someone in cold blood without due process of law. The latter of which he’s done several times now, but only one made the headlines.

And that possible $2 trillion is just the government spending, never mind the expensive burden that will be dumped on small businesses – which employ more than half the people not working in the public sector, represent 99.7% of all private employers, and create more than half of US GDP (not counting government spending, obviously) – when their insurance premiums go up because of ObamaCare. It’s as destructive a policy as there is, something He forced through while knowing full well we had a massive debt crisis looming, and He won’t give an inch on it. Yet the BBC wants you to blame only the Republicans for being ideologically stubborn.

Regardless of which side of the issue one is on, it’s clear that the BBC is not reporting the whole story. They are censoring information on one side, and giving you only one perspective. The BBC is a White House propaganda organ and little else.

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U.S. News The BBC Thinks You Don’t Need To Know

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While they’re eager to tell you the latest updates from the White House spokesman, celebrity gossip, irrelevant death tattle, a human interest story about a US Communist who moved to the paradise of China, every new detail on a celebrity rape case, and a non-story about how a manufacturing increase really isn’t one (but it made for a good opportunity for a headline to mislead the lazy reader into thinking that The Obamessiah’s economy is on the mend), there are quite a few things going on in the US that might be of more interest and import.

The BBC’s North America editor has been rather silent since his last dismissal of a newly-declared Republican candidate for an election that’s 18 months away. One would think there are a number of issues on which he could comment. For example:

Public sector unions versus the Government is the biggest story in Britain right now (in between live coverage of Kate & Wils’ Canadapalooza, I mean). One would think that the exact same issue coming to a boil in a few US states would be worth your attention. Only the BBC has been silent about the events in Wisconsin and Ohio.

Many people here probably remember a few months back when the BBC actually did report on public sector union protests against the evil Republicans who (insert NUT/PCS talking point about attacking the poorest and most vulnerable here). As was pointed out here at the time, the BBC’s coverage was biased in favor of the unions and censored news of violence and unlawful behavior by union supporters which might harm the cause in the public eye. The point is, though, that the BBC though you should be informed about the union’s cause, all the way until they lost. Then….silence.

The problem for the BBC is that it turns out that at least part of Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s victory has, contrary to the protests at the time, in fact been good for schools. One school district even went from a $400k budget deficit to a $1.5 million surplus. Sure, there are about to be 354 teachers and a number of desk-jockeys laid off because of budget cuts, but there is also going to be a big increase in school vouchers. More independent schools equals more choice for students and parents, and more jobs for teachers: if they’re worth it.

Seeing as how this is directly relevant to what’s going on in Britain right now, this ought to be of interest to you. Except it’s on the wrong side of the Narrative.

In Ohio, another Republican Governor who defeated the incumbent Democrat in November just passed a major state budget in which he cut a lot of stuff and practically made up for a $6 billion+ deficit over the next two years – all without raising taxes. This is the exact opposite of what the President just recommended (and about which the BBC made sure to inform you), and the kind of plan which Justin Webb told you doesn’t exist.

If that’s not enough to make this story relevant, then consider that Ohio is considered by most pundits to be the poster child of “swing states”. Where Ohio goes in mid-term elections, so goes the rest of the country in the next general election. You can bet that Beeboids assigned to the US know all about this concept. They have no problem covering the early fits and starts of the election campaign itself (we’ve already had plenty of coverage of the Republican debate, speeches, appearances, Sarah Palin, etc.), but the BBC is going to be shy about mentioning this because Ohio made a major turn towards Republicans last November, taking the Governor’s seat, as well as winning most of the state’s Congressional seats, and a bunch of other top offices. And yes, the state legislature is majority Republican now. This budget is the exact kind of thing the Tea Party movement has been pushing for over the last two years and more, in a state which is often looked to as a weather vane for the country, and the BBC remains silent.

California has such severe budget problems that they’re practically bankrupt (when did you last hear about this from the BBC?), and need every last dime they can scrape up. So what did the State Legislature do? They passed a law requiring sales tax on online sales from Amazon.com. Sounds simple enough: install a new tax where none existed before, raise loads of revenue. Except Amazon told them beforehand that if the tax was enacted, they’d shut down the accounts of all the Amazon Affiliates in the state because it would Amazon’s profit (this was really about big brick-and-mortar retailers fighting their online competition). So when the tax went into effect the other day, about 25,000 people logged on to find out their accounts were shut down.

Result: The $151 million in income tax these people pay every year just vanished into thin air, in exchange for….um….no sales tax revenue for the state. California, by the way, is run by a far-Left Governor and a Democrat-controlled State Legislature. Whether one agrees with Amazon or California, this is a pretty major deal that has more informative news value than a special feature comparing Michelle Bachmann with Sarah Palin. Although that depends on what one’s newsgathering priorities are.

While Justin Webb can tell you that the Republicans don’t have a plan to reduce the debt, and only raising taxes on the rich is the way forward, nobody at the BBC is going to tell you that The Obamessiah’s plan to bail out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – the failed institutions which fueled the mortgage crash that led to the economic crisis we’re all still dealing with – will cost 2.5 times more than He said it would. $317 billion down the toilet, to prop up two failed government-funded organizations, which will only continue the damage they’re doing to the housing market.

His big stimulus package? All that “quantitative easing” Stephanie ‘Two Ed’s Flanders was sure would work? Didn’t do a thing. $2 trillion (!) down the tubes, all thanks to ideology. Not a word from the BBC. Again, this is exactly the kind of thing that fueled the growth of the Tea Party movement, and you can bet will be relevant in the coming election.

The BBC did find time today to mention that corn prices have dropped due to a bumper crop, suggesting that this is a sign that food prices will finally start to drop as well. Except they don’t tell you that ethanol subsidies have screwed things up so badly that both political parties voted at last to drop the massive tax breaks for ethanol farmers. These subsidies mean less people grow the corn we (and beef cattle) eat in favor of “dirty corn” for fuel, so food prices go up. The In this case, the Tea Party-inspired Republicans actually voted to raise taxes. One would think this kind of flip-flop is something the BBC would be eager to report with cries of “hypocrisy!”, never mind how it’s totally relevant to the story of a temporary drop in corn prices. Only they don’t think it’s worth your interest. Why?

Remember last week when the President announced he’d release 30 million barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in order to help reduce skyrocketing fuel prices? It turns out that He learned a lesson from last year’s Gulf Oil Spill and waved the Jones Act to allow foreign ships to come in and deliver it. One would have thought this is the kind of smart move the BBC would tell you about. Only they’d have to remind you of one of His errors they censored before, so never mind.

That’s enough US news for now, so I’d like to ask everyone here two questions:

1. Does the BBC, with all the staff assigned to the scene, keep you informed on US issues you think are important?

2. What kind of stories does the BBC ignore which you think they ought to report?

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Tea Party News The BBC Refuses To Report

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As the 2012 Presidential election gets underway (ugh, already?), it’s time for an update on what the Tea Party movement has been up to lately. The BBC has been utterly silent since begrudgingly admitting an influence on the 2010 mid-term results, so it’s well worth pointing out what they don’t think is newsworthy.

First, here’s some news which dispels the BBC’s accusations that the Tea Party movement’s primary motivation is racism:

Some Immigrants Turn to Tea Party

Lolita Mancheno-Smoak, an immigrant from Ecuador who once dreamed of becoming her country’s president, has found an unlikely home in the tea party movement.

When she launched her campaign for county school board last week at Brion’s Grille in Fairfax, Va., she was not alone — flanked by immigrants from Europe, Asia and Latin America who have joined tea party groups in the face of unrelenting criticism that the movement is isolationist and anti-immigrant.

How can this be? Mark Mardell even assured us that the whole anti-immigration issue was really about racism and nasty whites not wanting Hispanics coming in. But now Hispanics are welcomed in the Tea Party movement with open arms? No wonder the BBC doesn’t want you to know about this. This bit must especially cause a few Beeboid heads to explode:

Genaro Pedroarias, the national committeeman of the Republican National Hispanic Assembly of Virginia, said the tea party is a natural fit for many of northern Virginia’s immigrants from countries like Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua.

“Most Hispanics who come to this country come here to flee socialistic and oppressive regimes,” said Pedroarias, who is Cuban. “They are some of the most vibrant members of the tea party.”

Lin Dai Kendall, who left Honduras when she was 33, blames the U.S. immigration system for persistent unemployment among those who are here legally. She’s part Chinese, part Spanish and part Hispanic and doesn’t hesitate to call President Barack Obama a Marxist.

“These people want to call themselves progressive; I call them regressive,” Kendall said. “What is immoral to me is standing there with my hand out waiting for the government to support me.”

Oh, dear, oh, dear. The BBC just can’t report this, or their entire Narrative will be destroyed. Now for some more Tea Party news the BBC won’t tell you about.

There’s a serious legal challenge to ObamaCare in the 6th Court of Appeals, and the Cincinnati Tea Party is on the scene. The lawsuit to prove that ObamaCare is un-Constitutional is working its way up to the US Supreme Court. The BBC has been mostly silent on the entire issue, and only barely mentioned when the challenge started in the Virginia courts, prompted by the Tea Party movement there.

As the movement moves from strength to strength, it’s affecting local elections in Utah.

The Tea Party is here to stay in Utah’s political races

Even the über-partisan HuffingtonPost says that the recent Republican vote against raising the debt ceiling is a response to Tea Party concerns. The BBC didn’t mention that at all in their reporting on the issue.

Here’s another Presidential candidate poised to become a favorite of the Tea Party movement, and another slap in the face of the BBC’s lies.

Is it cos he is black?

Many in the Tea Party movement apparently support Israel. There was a Tea Party-centric event at last week’s AIPAC gathering. The BBC forgot to mention that in between attacks on Netanyahu and praise for the President’s desire to take Israel down a few notches. I guess this makes Tea Partiers even more horrific to the Beeboids.

I could go on and on, but suffice to say that the Tea Party movement the BBC hid from you, disparaged, ignored, then attacked and slandered, is very much alive and well and moving to have a major influence in 2012. And the BBC is silent.

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Everybody Draw Mohammed Day – 1st Anniversary

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What with all the noise about the US President selling Israel down the river due to a combination of naiveté, wrong-headedness, and a soupçon of anti-Israel sentiment, but apparently still not doing enough to please Hamas and Kim Ghattas, I missed out remembering that May 20 is the 1st anniversary of Everybody Draw Mohammed Day. Yes, I realize it’s officially over in the UK as I write this, but when I started there was still five minutes to go US EST. So there. The BBC is going to censor all of it because they bow to unjust demands of Islam on these things. Mark Thompson himself said that Islam gets special treatment.

I’m recognizing the day not out of any malice towards Islam itself, as I personally bear none (I’m aware that I’m in the minority here, but this blog is actually a pretty big tent). I do this in defense of individual religious freedom, something that is as relevant in the US as it is in Britain, even though my country doesn’t have an official state religion (If anyone tells me that Christianity is the official religion of the US, they’ll need to tell me which version before I start laughing).

The reason I say this is about individual religious freedom and not malice towards Islam is because I take the position that non-Muslims are not required to obey the rules of Mohammed. Why do I bother? Because of the continued pressure to avoid saying anything that offends Muslims. Except the real concern isn’t as obvious as having the freedom to burn a Koran (which is an act of malice towards the religion), but rather the freedom to do things that Muslims wouldn’t do without being told to stop because it’s offensive to their sensibilities. The vast majority of media outlets in the UK and US censored even the most innocent cartoons out of appeasement and fear. Freedom of speech was thus taken away from non-Muslims, who instead were forced to obey the law of a religion not their own.

I’m talking about things like preventing non-Muslims from having a plastic pig included with their childrens’ farm toy set, because pork is verboten in Islam. More food companies are shifting their products into halal compliance, in the US and in the UK, in spite of many non-Muslims’ objections to that particular method of butchering. It’s being forced on non-Muslim children by the school system as well. No option for both choices: only the Mohammedan option on offer, period. Then there’s telling non-Muslims they can’t eat in front of Muslims during Ramadan. Nobody’s going to ban eating a sandwich in any public sector workplace during Passover in order to avoid offending Jews who don’t eat leavened bread during that time, so there is a clear unjust double standard which cannot withstand the scrutiny of the laws of freemen. Nobody should be forced to obey the rules of a religion not their own, or even their own if they don’t want to.

Yes, the above examples are mostly a couple years old or more, but where’s the evidence that this no longer happens anywhere, all cases are solved and will never happen again?

I fully support offering halal or kosher or Klingon dietary options in an area where that’s what the majority wants, if it’s a commercial decision. If KFC or Domino’s want to have halal-only food in Mohammedan neighborhoods because that’s where the money is, it’s perfectly fine by me. But nobody should be forced by the government to obey the rules of another religion.

It’s in the spirit of continued religious freedom that I mark this first anniversary of Everybody Draw Mohammed Day. Muslims are forbidden from making graven images of people, most especially Mohammed, but non-Muslims can do whatever the hell they like in a free country. That is not an attack on Islam, but a defense of freedom against any form of fascism or oppression.

My contribution is below. Everyone is encouraged to add their own contribution or links to others. It’s not an attack on Islam, but rather a statement of individual freedom. Mohammedans are as free to make fun of me as celebrated artists are for such brave acts as dipping a crucifix in urine or producing a play featuring Jesus as a homosexual. I don’t care. Freedom, baby. Censorship is against the best interests of a free society.

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