Category Archives: obama bias

Stop the Presses: BBC Reports Obamessiah Gaffe! At Last!

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I had to pick myself up off the floor just now.  The BBC has actually reported a gaffe by The Obamessiah.  It’s another geography error.  He was in Kansas, but told the crowd it was great to be back in Texas.  Complete with video.

Of course, the BBC only reported it because He immediately corrected Himself. So it’s hardly even a mistake, right?  Safe to report. Unlike when He said He was in Asia when He was actually in Hawaii, or that He had visited 57 States, or said that Abraham Lincoln was the founder of the Republican Party (the BBC actually edited the error out before showing the speech to you!), or when he yelled “Don’t call my bluff!” during debt-ceiling negotiations with Speaker Boehner, or that He actually spoke out of turn during that toast to the Queen (rather than blaming the band), or wrote the wrong year in the royal guestbook, or showed that He doesn’t know the difference between King Arthur and Henry VIII, or when He confused a dead Medal of Honor recipient with a living one in front of the dead soldier’s unit, or when He talked about the building of an Intercontinental Railroad, or when He said, “The Middle East is obviously an issue that has plagued the region for centuries”.

This marks the second time ever that the BBC admitted that He made a gaffe.  The only other time they reported something was the only other time He admitted a mistake.  He made a joke about the mentally and physically handicapped on national television, and even the BBC had to acknowledge it.  Otherwise, they refuse to report His errors.

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BBC Surprisingly Unfazed About White House Shooting – I Wonder Why?

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The man supected of shooting at the White House last Friday had become obsessed with President Barack Obama, officials have told US media.
It is thought Oscar Ortega-Hernandez, 21, believed God had given him a personal mission to attack the White House, said law enforcement sources.
A US Park Police bulletin said he was “unstable with violent tendencies”.

You would have thought that someone bringing a rifle with him and shooting at the White House would have been on the BBC website’s loop for several days accompanied by a lorry load of speculative think pieces on the dangers of political violence in the US from an assortment of pundits and experts.

Not one mention of the dangers of violent rhetoric.

Could it have been because of the suggestion that this man had been hanging around the Occupy DC gathering? There is no evidence that he was a “member” of that “movement”…..but he might have listened to some of the rhetoric which could have echoed fiery outbursts in New York

Naturally the BBC goes for the safe option and doesn’t even wonder if there is any connection between the endemic violence in so many of the Occupy encampments and an “Obama obsessed” gunman firing a rifle at the Presidential residence.

I wonder why?

At least in the BBC website report of Rep. Giffords interview with the ABC’s Diane Sawyer they had the good grace not mention Sawyer’s sly and serpentine attempt to rehash the lies and innuendo pumped out by a complicit US/UK media associating the Tucson shooting with Governor Palin and the Tea Party….

cross posted at The Aged P

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Mark Mardell Is Depressed, But It’s Never The President’s Fault

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A couple of days ago, I commented on a previous open thread about Mardell’s latest journey amongst the great unwashed in search of more hope for the President’s chances of re-election. It was basic human interest stuff, anecdotes about how the economic crisis and continuing New Depression have hit black people hardest. He didn’t do any in-depth analysis in that piece, as it was just supposed to set the stage for his next, more profound installment, in which he said he’d find out why this is the case.

I gave my own two-cents worth about why black people have been affected most by unemployment in these times, wondering how Mardell would approach it seeing as how we have a black President and, according to all of Mardell’s previous reporting, none of it is His fault. To save people scrolling through the open thread to find the comment, I’ll reproduce that bit here:

It’s pretty obvious to someone who doesn’t live inside the bubble, but let’s see if Mardell discovers for himself that a far higher percentage of blacks work in blue collar and service industry jobs. These are always the first to go when the economy sags. I wonder if Mardell will understand the irony of the President’s penchant for attacking the rich, when it’s the rich who provide the bulk of the jobs in the service industry.

If rich people have less to spend, they don’t hire cars, they don’t have parties, they don’t go out to dinner as often, they don’t spend so much on vacation, they don’t buy more products so less needs to be manufactured, their businesses don’t have as many cleaners or secretaries or maintenance workers. I can say from personal experience and lots of first-hand accounts I’ve heard that the service industry in NYC has been hit very, very hard. When there are less of these kinds of jobs, there are a lot less employed black people.

And it’s not just the evil rich, of course. The unloved middle classes also spend money on all these things, and they’re tightening the belts as much as anyone right now.

Not to mention the fact that there are a lot of blacks in blue-collar government jobs, and guess which jobs get cut first in times of budget restraint.

Why blacks are overwhelmingly employed in the lower, more vulnerable job ranks is a topic for another discussion entirely. But the fact remains that they are more vulnerable, no matter who is in charge. We’ll see how Mardell deals with it.

As it turns out, in his next installment, Mardell has a partial clue. But he’s got other problems.

Success for a Chicago school in a poor neighbourhood

It’s kind of an odd title for a piece in which the success story is only the first part, while the rest is, as Mardell himself puts it, “depressing”. The first section is about the success of a new charter school in Chicago. I’m sure many here will enjoy the BBC actually reporting that one of these non-government schemes for education works very well for minorities, considering how they attack Michael Gove for his attempts to provide the same chances for success to minorities in Britain. In any case, Mardell starts things off with this bit of hope for the future, which is nice.

Then he gets into the details of unemployment. As it turns out, Mardell actually discovered that, as I said, blacks are especially vulnerable to public sector cuts as they are proportionally over-represented in government jobs. So good for him for actually doing a bit of research for a change. He missed out, though, on how so many of the service industry jobs held by black people vanish when everyone – evil rich and unloved middle class alike – tighten their belts due to increased taxation and economic recession. I suppose it might be too difficult for Mardell to admit that the evil rich and the sneer-worthy middle class actually provide lots of jobs. I have no problem with him adding the bit about “cultural and historical” reasons for blacks mostly having jobs on the low end of the scale, as it’s not exactly false. But it is a topic for another discussion, so he leaves it at that, as he should.

But the big problem for Mardell is when he learns this about his beloved Obamessiah:

‘The president is not God’

What’s this blasphemy? Who said such a thing? Another person whose criticism of the President is based on race? Er, no.

Robert Blackwell believes more enterprise is the answer.

He’s part of President Obama’s set, a good friend and a fundraiser.

Indeed, he once employed Mr Obama. Although he’s the same age as the president, with the same cool good looks, he could be Mr Obama’s younger brother.

“Cool good looks”? Is this superficial editorializing necessary? He just can’t help himself, even if he’s really suggesting that the job has seriously aged the President.

He is one of Chicago’s wealthy black professionals, who made his money out of a ping pong business before branching out into management consultancy.

He says the public sector cuts have hit hard.

“There’s no business that can absorb that community. Black companies are pretty small and neither government nor large corporations have a very good track record frankly doing business with blacks.

Therefore, there’s nowhere for these people to go who come off the public sector roles.”

New York has a big government department devoted specifically to help, guide, fund, and make contract connections for minority-owned businesses, and so does Illinois. You can bet every other state has a similar department. I guess we’re back to talking historically here and not bothered about the current situation, although I’m certainly not saying that everything is great and there’s a ton of business and job opportunities waiting for them at the moment. But this is really just to help paint the picture that blacks have it rougher than anyone else due to historical white oppression, so let’s not quibble over details, right? Still, I think I see where this is going. He’s not going to suggest that – quelle horreur! – the private sector is the only way to really create permanent jobs and that government can’t save the day, is he?

But Mr Blackwell says the challenge is really one of entrepreneurship.

“If blacks were to participate in proportion to their skill and population, we would have a lot more dollars in our community,” he says.

“We could hire people, we could take more risk. There’d be social capital. I think entrepreneurship is really the only way out. “

Oh, my goodness. This goes against just about everything we’ve heard from the BBC about how to create jobs in tough times. It also goes against Mardell’s own beliefs. How many times did he criticize the Tea Party for not believing the government should take care of everyone? The last time Mardell went amongst the blacks in a job center to ask how they were doing and what they thought, government spending was all the rage. How’s that hopey-changey stuff workin’ out for ya now, Mark?

While he has raised money for Mr Obama, he doesn’t seem like a fan of the president’s policies.

He says he’s a libertarian: he doesn’t think the government can create jobs and wants less red tape.

Sound a lot like what we’ve heard from the Tea Party movement. Yet when they say it, Mardell dismisses it as misguided and based at least in part on racism. Still, I give him credit here for not censoring this blasphemy and allowing you to hear it. It must have pained him greatly. But now for the most important question of all: Is this His fault?

But he doesn’t blame the president.

“Barack didn’t start this. I mean the economy was not in good shape when he came in,” Mr Blackwell says.

Whew! That was close. Is Mardell going to ask if the President’s policies made things worse, better, or the same? No way in hell. After all, when the President got His way with a Democrat-controlled Congress, Mardell thought it was a Golden Age. Instead, it’s time to protect the President.

“The other thing I think is the president is not God, which means he can’t control everything. If you believe in free enterprise, which I do, he has a limited role.”

“So he doesn’t create jobs, it’s the private sector that creates jobs.”

Few here do blame the president.

If they express a political view, it is that Congress is blocking Mr Obama’s policies: exactly the line the White House is pushing at the moment.

And exactly the line that Mardell and the BBC have been pushing. What about discussing if the President’s own policies have hurt job creation in the private sector? Nope, can’t have that. Mardell’s goal here is not to criticize the President. He’s here to find yet another way of telling you that none of this is His fault, and sure as hell isn’t going to suggest that blacks are always going to support the black man, regardless of what happens. It’s a fact, as far as Mardell’s concerned, that none of this is His fault, and that none of His policies have hurt the economy at all. No, they don’t blame Him, so neither should you.

Here’s another question glaringly absent from Mardell’s piece. It’s especially glaring considering the racial angle of the whole thing: what do these people think of Herman Cain? Instead, check out Mardell’s closing line:

But it remains a depressing fact that under the first black president, black people’s economic prospects have only got worse.

This is an intellectual failure. Black people’s economic prospects have gotten worse because the first black President was unfit for office, inexperienced, and has governed poorly, with the wrong ideology to create jobs and right the economy, or at least stop the decline. Every single one of His ideas has backfired, every single policy a failure in this regard. If you want a black President who might do something to help black people’s economic prospects, look to Herman Cain. And it won’t be cos he is black, but because he won’t be a far-Left ideologue pushing another misbegotten hyper-Keynesian spending bill.

But since he’s ideologically of the Left, all Mardell can do is focus on race.

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Although there is nothing to be gained, I will go on to visions and revelations from the Lord

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We all know what happened yesterday in the United States Congress, and that the President signed a debt relief bill that nobody really likes. We all know how the BBC spun it, and they continue to spin it that way today. Mark Mardell, BBC North America editor and faithful White House nunzio to Britain, was beside himself with anger that his beloved Obamessiah was made to look bad in all this. Anyone who caught his appearances on the News Channel would have seen him spluttering with rage.

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

Instead, He’s been forced down a path of spending cuts. He didn’t want any of this. He’s won some minor victories along the way, stopped it from being worse for Him than it could otherwise have been.

But I think the Tea Party are the big winners, that they…they don’t necessarily feel that, but they have forced this onto the agenda and got a lot of what they wanted.”

– Mark Mardell, speaking on the BBC News Channel on August 2, 2011, at 6:04pm GMT

No, Mark. Reality forced this on the agenda. All the ratings agencies said we needed to cut spending. The Tea Party just forced Him to deal with it, rather than continue the fantasy that is bankrupting our country.

Fortunately for the faithful, once it was all over, the President gave a nice class war speech, expressing His determination to raise taxes on the rich, and to focus on jobs. His faith rekindled, Mardell came out swinging with a new blog post about it.

Is it about the next step for the country, where Congress must go now, or what the next phase of the debate will be? Is it about the reaction of the US public, the mood in the country on which Mardell is tasked to report and inform you? No, of course not. As always, everything in the US is seen through the prism of The Obamessiah. How does this affect Him? How will He respond? Who cares about anything other than how the President is doing now? Is that really proper reporting? Is that responsible journalism?

In case there’s any doubt about Mardell’s focus and agenda, it’s all there even in the headline:

US debt limit: Barack Obama comes out fighting

Deal done. Crisis averted, a feisty president has come out fighting.

He’s been humiliated and blown off course by the Republican victory, compelling him and his party to swallow deep spending cuts.

But he used his short Rose Garden speech to insist that tax rises had to be part of the eventual solution.

Despite what the class warriors tell you, it’s simply impossible to raise taxes enough to make a dent in the debt. Even letting the Bush tax cuts for the evil rich expire would be a milliliter in the ocean. But never mind all that reality. Mardell has an agenda.

That is exactly why the Tea Party are grumpy about what looks like a clear win for them.

Not quite. The real anger is because the deal is, as we’ve discussed before, a wash, even in the best-case scenario. The amount of spending cuts might not even match the amount we’re now allowing the debt ceiling to rise again. That’s why Michelle Bachmann voted against it, and why a lot of non-Leftoids are not pleased with the deal, even as the Leftoid media is rending their garments in despair.

You see, they all take it as a defeat for the Keynesian, Socialist agenda, and for the President, because they weren’t allowed to spend even more. This deal doesn’t stop any of the ObamaCare expenses that are about to crush small businesses. It doesn’t stop any of the President’s Stimulus cash to Government General Motors’ unions, it doesn’t stop the subsidies to green energy boondoggles. In case Mardell has forgotten – or simply doesn’t understand – the debt ceiling was raised by a lot. Not because we need that money to pay the bills already due, but because the President and the Democrats already have these massive spending plans in motion for the next two years which will not be stopped. Is this a viewpoint you haven’t heard on the BBC? Do tell.

Maybe – maybe – the committee set up by the requirements of this bill will have something to say about that before 2012. But who knows? Yes, that does mean that Mardell is partially correct when he says this:

They fear tricks further down the line, and that after the special committee reports in November they will have to choose between tax rises swingeing cuts to defence spending.

This is dishonest, though. Mardell spins this as the Tea Party’s “fear”. He chose the word “tricks” because it makes the President’s opponents look paranoid and resentful. This isn’t honest reporting: it’s propaganda. Here’s what Mardell doesn’t want you to know:

It’s not the irrational fear of paranoid, angry extremists. The Democrats were saying that’s what they were going to do even before the President signed the bill.

“We live to fight another day in trying to get some additional revenues into this equation,” said Senator Mary Landrieu, a Louisiana Democrat.

President Barack Obama has recommended taxing the profit share — or carried interest — earned by private equity managers, venture capitalists and others at ordinary income tax rates and not the lower capital gains rate. He also has called for ending tax benefits for oil and gas companies and for capping the itemized deductions of upper-income Americans.

If that’s not enough for you, White House mouthpiece Jay Carney said it straight out:

“The suggestion that it is impossible for the joint committee to raise tax revenue simply is not accurate, it’s false,” White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said Monday.

Yet Mardell plays games and tries to make you think it’s only the paranoid suspicions of Tea Party types. He then says this:

Mr Obama said that money couldn’t be cut too abruptly and that spending on education and science had to continue. He argued for a “fair” and “balanced” approach: getting rid of tax breaks for the rich and gas and oil companies.

This sounds like something Ed Balls would say, doesn’t it? No wonder the Beeboids are so sympathetic.

This was a red rag to make the Republican bull rage… and it was intended as such. The more the Tea Party boil and steam, the more Obama’s own party will feel that it is not such a defeat after all.

Wrong. I’ve already explained above why the Tea Party people think this wasn’t such a smashing success. Oh, yes: neither did Moody’s who downgraded the US to a “negative outlook” anyway. How much of a fantastic deal is this, then? It ain’t. Unless the BBC wants to tell us now that Moody’s and S&P are Tea Party extremist ideologues too.

We’re upset because of reality, not because the President’s latest bit of rhetoric has blinded us with anger. What a joke. Mardell understands so little. All praise goes to Him.

The president then promised to put job creation first, saying cutting spending was not the only thing that mattered, and called on Congress to reach agreement after the summer on extending middle-class tax cuts, something Congress wouldn’t put in this agreement.

Mardell swallows the President’s promise on jobs whole. Ah, the power of faith. Does this promise sound familiar? It should, as the President said that job creation was going to be His No. 1 focus in His State of the Union speech in 2010.

But I realize that, for every success story, there are other stories, of men and women who wake up with the anguish of not knowing where their next paycheck will come from, who send out resumes week after week and hear nothing in response.

That is why jobs must be our No. 1 focus in 2010, and that’s why I’m calling for a new jobs bill tonight.

How’d that work out, BBC?

*sound of crickets chirping*

The rest of it is Mardell telling you all not to worry, the President “bounced back”, and will come back fighting and strong. Again, not news, not information. Just propaganda on behalf of the leader of a foreign country.

I have made a fool of myself, but you drove me to it. I ought to have been commended by you, for I am not in the least inferior to the “super-apostles,” even though I am nothing. I persevered in demonstrating among you the marks of a true apostle, including signs, wonders and miracles.

Oops, that bit isn’t from Mardell, although it ought to be. Remember back before the mid-term election, when he was traveling the country with his Hope poster, looking for signs of the faithful? Actually, the quote is Paul expressing his concern for the faith of the Corinthians (2 Corinthians XII: 11-12).

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The BBC Is A Foreign Bureau Of The White House Press Office

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We all knew this was coming, ever since former BBC North America editor Justin Webb fretted that the US was in denial of our massive debt and that we were veering dangerously off the cliff of default. Last we heard from his successor, Mark Mardell, the President was taking a $4 trillion “gamble”, which even the current BBC North America editor recognized was a partisan stance and an attempt to roll the Republicans. He’s been on a vacation ever since, no doubt exhausted after having to watch a couple Republicans announce their candidacy for President, and even attending a Sarah Palin rally. Hopefully he had plenty of scented handkerchiefs to hand.

First of all, let’s recognize the sickness, prejudice, and partisan bias which allows an entire professional news organization with an alleged dedication to impartiality not only to let a British Government official joke about “right-wing nutters” without challenge or rebuke while much of the human race is hearing about how someone they’re also describing as a right-wing nutter slaughtered nearly nearly a hundred innocents in cold blood, but then use the insult as a running gag in news reports to defame a political party and millions of US citizens.

Of course, this isn’t a surprise at all, as the BBC allowed another Beeboid previously assigned to the US (Kevin Connolly) to insult hundreds of thousands of people on air with a sexual innuendo, and has no problem leaving it up on the BBC website for posterity. And we don’t need to revisit Justin Webb’s viciousness and personal attacks on Sarah Palin.

UPDATE: In case there was any doubt about which side the BBC is on:

Republicans attack Obama as they push their budget plan

David Vance has already called your attention to Mardell’s bias in a post below, and John Anderson has provided in the comments plenty of evidence of alternative viewpoints which show that it’s really the President who is acting in partisan bad faith, as well as other examples of the BBC using the “right-wing nutter” epithet to influence their audience in a certain partisan direction.

So I’m going to address specific points Mardell makes, and demonstrate just how biased he and the BBC are when it comes to supporting the leader of a foreign country.

First, let’s consider Mardell’s remark about Cable’s insult.

If they are nutters, they are remarkably successful ones.

The truth is that Tea Party-backed Republicans are winning this fight over raising the debt ceiling.

At the risk of violating Godwin’s Law, I should point out that Hitler was also a remarkably successful nutter, as were Stalin and Kim Jong-Il. So calling them successful in no way detracts from their mental illness. My point is that Mardell is quite comfortable leaving the impression that people who agree with every single credit ratings agency concerned about the US fixing its economic plans are nutters. Are the experts at Moody’s and Standard & Poors right-wing nutters? They’re ready to lower the US’s credit rating if things don’t get even slightly fixed. One only needs to watch them and the markets to understand which side worries them. Mardell allows that the Republicans are winning the argument, but he makes it clear that they are wrong. His word games reveal his partisan bias.

It is far from over. But they’ve already won the argument that America’s debt has to be dealt with. They’ve wrung really deep cuts from Mr Obama.

This is just a stupid thing to say. The President Himself knows that the debt needs to be dealt with. He’s made statement after statement for weeks telling us we need to deal with it. I realize Mardell’s been on vacation, but this is unacceptable. Everyone in the country has known for ages that we need to do something. It’s stupid – there’s no other word for it – to say that the Republicans somehow won the argument that we need to do something.

What Mardell may mean – and I’m going way, way out on a limb and giving him the tiniest benefit of the doubt here – is that the Republicans have won the public over into thinking that they have a better plan than the President. Oh, hell, what am I thinking? Of course that’s not what he means. It was just a stupid thing to say, an attempt to appear impartial and give some kind of credit to his the President’s opponent without really meaning it.

As for having “wrung really deep cuts”, that’s hardly true at all. It’s really more like tiny cuts spread out over ten years. The problem for Mardell and his ideological fellow travelers is that, compared to the President’s plan which would actually increase spending, any cut looks deep. Worse, Mardell dishonestly frames this as only the President compromising with nothing given back by the nasty old Republicans. He then reinforces that perception.

They’ve probably stopped Democrats from putting up taxes as part of any final package. It is a pretty straight ideological fight between left and right.

This is where we being to stray into White House talking points. Now that His reputation as a centrist who brings people together is basically non-existent in the public’s mind, it’s in the President’s best interests to keep everyone thinking that both sides are being exclusively partisan. As long as everyone is thinking, “A pox on both their houses,” He doesn’t look like the only petty child in the room, and can get away with pretending that only He reached across the aisle. It’s pretty sad that it’s come to this, but that’s how it is.

So why the charge of nuttiness ?

It’s that Tea Party, again.

At least we’re not racists. For the moment, anyway. That will probably come tomorrow, after a couple sharp BBC News producers come up with an angle to show how the Norwegian mass murderer was a Tea Partier at heart.

The reason House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner and the Republican leadership is being so hard-line is because the Tea Party put the iron in their soul.

Those Republicans who took control of the House last year believe they were elected on a wave of popular revulsion at the size of the national debt and government spending.

“So hard-line”? Boehner’s plan is hardly that. It’s more of a compromise than anything the President has given, despite Mardell’s dishonest statement above that only the President has given back. In any case, notice how he’s just contradicted himself. Earlier, Mardell said that the Republicans had won the argument in these talks that we need to cut spending. Now he’s saying the Tea Party won that argument last November. Funny how the winning parties of some elections are allowed to think the voters elected them for a reason, while other winning parties are wrong to think so. By slyly qualifying it as the Republicans “believe” they were elected on this issue, Mardell denies the last two years and more of Tea Party protests, and denies the reality of November’s mid-terms. There is no doubt at all that fiscal responsibility was the number one issue which got all those Tea Party-backed candidates elected to the House.

Of course, we know what Mardell and the BBC believe: the real reason all those people across the country voted for the Tea Party-backed candidates is racism. He won’t say it yet, but what other issue was there? Abortion? Prayer in the schools? Blocking homosexual marriage? No, no, and obviously not.

They may be reading too much into their mandate, but they think that going back, that accepting a hike in debt with nothing in return, would be betraying their voters.

“Reading too much into their mandate,” eh, Mark? Like I said, what other issues were at the forefront of the election? He’s denying the last two and a half years of US activity on this issue. What the hell does he think everyone has been talking about? And what about listening to the ratings agencies which are telling them the exact same thing?

Hey, Mark: it’s not their imagination. And you’re contradicting yourself again. The whole point of Mardell’s editorial post – and the impetus for Cable’s sick joke – is that the Tea Party movement is now influencing the Republicans to the point that they don’t want to accept a debt hike. Well, the movement, and millions of other people who were concerned about the same issue, got them elected. So, hell yes, doing so would be betraying those voters, and it’s dopey to suggest otherwise. Hello? We’ve only been saying it loud and clear since February 2009, before there was even such a thing as a Tea Party movement. The Republicans are correct to think they’re following the voters’ wishes. They’re not following Mardell’s wishes, though, so he is obviously going to frame it as them being wrong. Again, his partisan bias prevents him from informing you correctly.

The current Republican plan has more than a little party politics in it. The debt ceiling would be dealt with in stages: a bit now, a bit next year.

This would stop Obama swallowing the problem whole and getting it out of the way before the election. The Republicans would make sure it repeated on him throughout 2012.

Okay, fair enough. But where is Mardell’s statement – in the interests of balance and impartiality, bien sur – about the whiff of partisan politics in the President’s plan? Not a word which might make Him look bad. Not a single acknowledgment from him or the BBC that the President is acting for partisan reasons. Instead, as we’ve all seen a number of times over the last few weeks, all the BBC tells you is that the Republicans want to harm the poorest and most vulnerable in order to protect the wealthy. Mardell and his colleagues could not be more dishonest about these budget negotiations. Oh, wait, I’m wrong: he can get more dishonest:

But the charge that they are a few chocolate bars short of a fruit cake is because some of them see dealing with the debt as more pressing than borrowing enough money to continue governing.

Behold the ideology inherent at the BBC. This is a purely partisan, Left-wing, über-Keynesian position. We don’t actually need to borrow more to continue governing. We don’t actually need to raise the debt ceiling to “continue governing”. We could do some real cuts that would make the current offering look like child’s play. The only reason the Republicans are even agreeing to a temporary rise is because they are – shock, horror – compromising and reaching across the aisle. In fact, Mardell could just as easily have said that the President has wrung real debt increases from the Republicans. Only that doesn’t sound so good, does it? Not helping the Narrative at all.

Here’s what Mardell doesn’t want you to know about continuing to govern. Oh, hell, he doesn’t know it himself, as he is a blind partisan who fervently adheres to Left-wing economic policies. We could make real spending cuts, cuts that would make the so-called “swinging cuts” laid out by George Osborne look like child’s play. But that can’t happen because the Republicans don’t control both Houses of Congress, and the President would veto any proposal with real spending cuts, or one that won’t kick this can past 2013, after the next election. Hell, He even vetoed a bi-partisan plan from the Senate that increased the debt ceiling. What He really wants to do is force the country either into default or having our credit rating downgraded so He can spend the next 18 months pointing His finger at evil Republicans for causing it. Only the BBC isn’t going to put it that way.

Oops, the BBC forgot to tell you why that happened, didn’t they? He rejected this bi-partisan plan because it would place the burden on the next debt increase squarely on His shoulders. Instead of voting to increase it again, the plan would set the debt limit to increase automatically unless Congress voted to stop it. But Congress will vote to stop it unless the President proposed an equal or greater amount of spending cuts. Which He’s clearly unable to do. That means He’d have to step up and be a man and take the blame for it Himself next time, and have to run a re-election campaign as the Debt Increaser-In-Chief. So He gave a bi-partisan plan – once which would have been acceptable even to Mark Mardell – the two-fingered salute. All to protect Himself. Yet Mardell and the rest of the BBC have the gall to tell you it’s only the Republicans acting partisan.

Then there’s the fact that the President doesn’t want to agree to anything that doesn’t kick the real can beyond the 2012 election. Does that sound familiar? It should. Unless, of course, you trust the BBC for news on US issues, in which case you wouldn’t know that the Democrats refused to pass a budget back in October – before the election – which would have prevented this situation we’re in right now. Only they didn’t want to do anything which would have made that mid-term loss even worse than they knew it was going to be. So they dodged their long-term responsibility for the hope of a short-term safety net in the mid-term election. Who’s acting out of partisan interest again, BBC?

The fact that Mardell made his ideologically-biased pronouncement on fiscal governance puts his subsequent quote of a Tea Party figure in the context that the man is wrong. So while he may be providing the “balance” of an opposing viewpoint (Gosh, Dave, Mardell doesn’t even quote the Dems here, what more do you want? -ed.), he’s providing it after he warns you that it’s wrong.

The entirety of BBC reporting on the budget talks has been biased in this way. And now they’re using a sick insult to frame it. At no time has the BBC been honest about the President demanding far more taxes after 2013. At no time has the BBC reminded you that we wouldn’t even be here if not for Democrat partisan behavior in October. At no time has the BBC told you that, despite the “routine”, in 2006 all Democrats in the House – including Senator Obamessiah – voted against raising the debt ceiling for purely partisan purposes. All you hear is the White House talking points, the perspective from the Left.

I’d like to close with an important statement from a celebrated US politician about the debt situation:

The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. Government can’t pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government’s reckless fiscal policies. … Increasing America’s debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that “the buck stops here.” Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better.

Sounds pretty reasonable, doesn’t it? This is what the adult in the room sounds like. The celebrated US politician who said it? Who is this nutter who, as Mardell put it today, sees dealing with the debt as a more pressing issue than borrowing enough money to continue governing? Senator Obamessiah in 2006, when He voted along purely partisan lines against raising the debt ceiling. (Sen. Obama, Congressional Record, S.2237-8, 3/16/06)

The BBC North America editor is a disgrace, and the BBC itself is nothing more than an extension of the White House Press Office.

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U.S. Government Shut Down Blues – A Dishonest BBC Song

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The BBC keeps reporting on the debt and budget talks between the President and the Republicans in the House of Representatives. The latest report covers the announcement by Moody’s that they’re going to review the US credit rating with an eye to downgrade it to a default risk.

My position is that the BBC has an ideological stance when it comes to government borrowing, spending, and debt. Stephanie Flanders has trumpeted the Keynesian solution on a number of occasions (just search her name on this blog and read the links to her pearls of wisdom), thinks the Greek bailout worked (yeah, I know, which one?) and at one point even told us that the US would never default.

With this in mind, let’s look at the BBC’s report on the Moody’s news. As everyone here knows, the problem is that the US is at an impasse regarding the debt ceiling. We either have to raise it, or do some serious cutting in spending right now. There are ideological opponents on each side, but there are also hard facts which are not debatable. The BBC says this about the President’s side of the argument:

He has said he is willing to countenance cuts to social safety-net programmes dear to Democrats, as long as there are tax rises for the rich.

Republicans have rejected the latter proposal, saying that would stifle investment and job growth.

This is false. In fact, it’s more than the class war stuff. As I posted the other day, the President said Himself that He wants to raise taxes on a lot more in 2013, which, you know, is what the whole budget deal is about. Yeah, the BBC censored that bit out of the speech video they showed you. So all you know is that Republicans are holding the country hostage over protecting the evil rich. But since it’s the White House Narrative, that’s what they’re going to report.

Now, about that debt ceiling:

When it came to the crunch in the past, Congress regularly voted to raise the debt ceiling, giving government access to the cash it needed.

How about some context, BBC? The current situation is unprecedented, and Congress never rubber-stamped (that’s implied by the BBC sub-editor’s choice of words) an increase when the country’s finances were in such dire straits. It’s completely dishonest to compare today with the past, and act as if the Republicans are somehow an anomaly and not the situation itself. But they do it anyway.

This year, however, newly empowered Republicans have demanded steep cuts in government spending in return for raising the limit.

“Newly empowered”, eh, BBC? I think we all know what that means: Evil Tea Party Influence. It’s funny, because the BBC and Obamessiah worshiper Mark Mardell initially claimed that the Tea Party hurt the Republicans in the mid-terms. But never mind that. I don’t need to remind anyone here what the Tea Party movement represents to the Beeboids. So back to BBC dishonesty.

Mr Obama has proposed a package of up to $4 trillion in budget deficit reduction over the next 10 years, but Republicans have rejected that and other proposals because it calls for raising taxes.

Again, false. I posted a few days ago about how this White House/BBC Narrative is also false. He’s not giving in on the entitlements at all. But the BBC doesn’t care, they just keep spinning for the leader of a foreign country. Notice also the appearance of “newly empowered Republicans” in a previous BBC propaganda piece report about the budget talks. I’d say this code for “Evil Tea Party Influence” has made its way into the BBC style guide, but it’s probably just the same Beeboid writing it. But still: Narrative? What Narrative, eh?

And then Keynes raises his ugly head again, in the form of Ben Bernanke.

In his testimony to Congress, Mr Bernanke said the Fed would renew stimulus efforts if the economy remained weak.

The Fed’s second quantitative easing programme (QE2) ended two weeks ago, and there has been much speculation about whether a QE3 programme is on the cards.

Now, to someone who is trying to follow reality and is not ideologically locked into policy, this might sound like the captain of the Titanic saying that he’s just going to cut another hole in the hull to help the water flow out the other side. At least the BBC didn’t censor news that people in the real world see it that way:

The dollar extended earlier losses against the euro following Mr Bernanke’s comments, with the euro rising more than a cent to $1.4088.

Now, if, as we heard before from the BBC, printing money and throwing it around increasing borrowing for more stimulus works, why would the dollar tank against a currency that’s the shakiest thing going when the Fed suggests more of it?

Analysts said that Mr Bernanke had only raised the possibility of a further stimulus, and was not saying that it was necessary.

Oh, right, it’s not really his fault, just stupid speculators over-reacting.

Alternatively, it could be because the previous “stimulus” efforts failed and only added another couple trillion dollars to the debt.

Morning Bell: Why Obama’s Stimulus Failed

Oops, my bad. That’s about how the first stimulus failed. Here’s something on QE2:

Obama’s People Admit Stimulus Failed Miserably In Creating Jobs

So we can see how….hang on…what the hell is this?

Democrats Press Obama to Include Stimulus in Debt Deal After Jobs Report

Democrats pressed for some form of economic stimulus in the debt deal President Barack Obama is negotiating with Republicans following a U.S. Labor Department report yesterday showing job growth slowing.

Senator Charles Schumer of New York, the chamber’s third- ranking Democrat, called for an “immediate jolt” to the economy by extending and enlarging a one-year payroll-tax cut that’s set to expire Dec. 31. He asked for action “as quickly as possible by including it in the final debt-limit agreement.”

You have got to be kidding me. No wonder we’re heading towards a Weimar-type situation. So it’s not Republican intransigence to protect the evil rich at all. And the BBC has told you none of this. All you know is the heroic Obamessiah has been trying to save us from ourselves.

Don’t trust the BBC on US issues.

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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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Jonny Dymond And The BBC Want To Inspire Your Hatred

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In the Open Thread, Anthony Masters calls our attention to Jonny Dymond’s hate-mongering piece about an alleged “explosion” in hate groups in the US because we have a black President. Stop me if you’ve heard this Narrative before…..

I say it’s hate-mongering and not reporting, because the intent here is to make you hate millions of people like me by falsely associating them with a few ugly extremists. This isn’t about raising awareness of anti-Semitism or racism: it’s about creating the impression in your minds that any opposition to anything done by a black President is due to racism and extremism rather than any legitimate policy concerns. There is no valid journalistic reason for this report.

Dymond’s only real source for this story is the Southern Poverty Law Center. Well, while it used to be a respectable advocacy group with a history of fighting the Klan, it’s come to resemble a far-Left hate group with a pro-Democrat agenda in the last few years. They started this Narrative that we’re all out to get the black man over two years ago, and don’t care about facts. They’ve become a propaganda outlet, so it’s only natural that the BBC would look to them for information.

Here’s all you need to know about the SPLC:

Southern Poverty Law Center Still Peddling Lie That Giffords Shooter Was Right-Winger


What a shock: it’s the same lie the BBC peddled. (Bias bonus: Rachel Kennedy tweeted a link to the HuffPo to support the lie.)

Unlikely Foes

A group of leading genocide scholars this month sent the center a stinging letter, obtained by Inside Higher Ed, that charges the center with getting out of a lawsuit in part by assisting “unscholarly and unethical” efforts to cast doubt on the Armenian genocide.

They’re even being sued over libel on this issue:

Scholar’s libel suit proceeds against Southern Poverty Law Center

Guenter Lewy’s very interesting libel case against the Southern Poverty Law Center can proceed in the District of Columbia, a trial judge ruled Tuesday.

This one is worth watching.

Lewy is an emeritus professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts. A survivor of German violence against Jews during World War II, Prof. Lewy has written numerous books and articles about the history of persecuted peoples. In 2005, the University of Utah Press published his book, “The Armenian Massacres in Ottoman Turkey: A Disputed Genocide.”

Dymond and the Beeboid who hooked him up with the SPLC probably have no idea. It’s not important to the Narrative.

Does the Southern Poverty Law Center think Barack Obama is spreading hate?

They’re adding 13 new groups to the list of hate groups for opposing homosexuality. Now some of those groups do appear to be a bit extreme, but others such as the Family Research Council and National Organization for Marriage are hardly outside the political mainstream, and still others seem to be condemned by the SPLC for no reason other than adhering to biblical teaching on homosexuality.

This is perfect fodder for Dymond. Don’t agree with the BBC’s core values? You’re an extremist and hater. (Unless you’re Muslim, that is.)

Liberals desperate to connect the Tea Party with domestic terrorism

Tea Party leaders say a series of reports by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) attempting to connect the Tea Party movement with domestic terrorists in the militia movement shows how desperate the left has become trying to stop the political juggernaut.

The group says individuals such as Glenn Beck, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann — all regulars at major Tea Party gatherings — have given widespread visibility for ideas espoused by the militia movement, or the “Patriot movement” as SPLC calls it.

No wonder Max Deveson or someone similar sent Dymond to the SPLC to form the foundation of his report. Too bad they’re not very reliable these days.

The SPLC said there was a big KKK rise in Rhode Island, but police found no evidence.

In short, the BBC had a Narrative they wanted to establish in your minds, the same one they pushed down your throats before the 2008 election, and the same one they shoved down after it about the rise of the Tea Party movement. Now that their beloved Obamessiah is in trouble, they’re doing the exact same thing again. They had a story they wanted to tell, so some Beeboid in the US hooked Dymond up with the SPLC. These people see racists and extremists in every closet, under every bed. Everywhere except where they really ought to look.

Where were they when Leftoids were calling for the lynching of a black Supreme Court Justice?

Don’t trust the BBC on US issues. Ever.

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How Many Wars Is A Nobel Peace Prize Winner Allowed To Have Before The BBC Will Raise An Eyebrow?

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The winner of the 2009 Nobel Prize for Peace is currently involved in military attacks on six different countries. Where is the BBC on this? Now the US President has even sent troops to invade yet another Muslim country: Somalia. Where are the BBC’s war correspondents? Where is the BBC North America editor to give expert analysis on why The Obamessiah isn’t a cowboy warmonger? Fortunately, Matt Frei is no longer around to tell you that He is a “reluctant warrior”.

In case anyone here relies solely on the BBC for their information, I’ll list the countries in which the US is currently militarily involved:

Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Yemen, Somalia.

Back when the President was dithering deliberating over whether to join in the war on Libya, Mardell sneered at those who wanted to see “an unapologetically aggressive America storming ahead, out front, leading those who have the guts to follow”. He also said that the President “didn’t want to be seen leading the posse to lynch the bad guy.” So what about now? Why is there no BBC discussion of how the US is blowing people up and targeting them for assassination without UN resolutions and without joining an international, NATO-led effort?

As Mardell himself said before hostilities against Ghaddafi commenced:

Many in Britain and the rest of Europe cheered when Obama was elected. They were fed up with the guy in the cowboy boots who shot from the hip. They seemed pleased with a US President who had no aspirations to be the world’s sheriff. Now, some are shaking their heads, looking for a leader.

So he is perfectly capable of criticizing people who wanted the President to go to war. Why, then, is he incapable of criticizing – publicly, anyway – the President Himself for not only going to a war that Mardell didn’t like, but taking war into even more countries than Bush could ever have dreamt of?

Just before the US joined in with Cowboy Dave and Sancho Sarkozy, Mardell explained that the White House’s reticence was due to the fact that nobody wanted to make the US look like it was doing more of that nasty old imperialist aggression. So why does the bombing of Yemen and invasion of Somalia not look like it? If it walks like imperialist aggression and quacks like imperialist aggression……

Mardell at one point tried to convince you that The Obamessiah made the UN more relevant by forcing them to make the moral decision to attack Ghaddafi. He said it was a big deal because now nobody would think the US was “dictating what happens in the Muslim world”. How about now, BBC? Why is invading Somalia or bombing Yemen without a wink at the UN different?

There’s no dithering deliberation when it comes to wantonly bombing the crap out of Muslims in other countries. And not a single raised eyebrow at the BBC. Mardell can be critical of people who urge the President into war, but he cannot be critical of the President Himself for invading countries without any prompting from an uncouth public.

It was a big deal when everyone agreed that there would be no troops on the ground in Libya, as if that somehow certified the humanitarian bona fides of the “mission”. So why is the BBC completely silent when the US sends troops in to invade another country altogether? I assume Mardell is on yet another vacation, but there are several other Beeboids assigned to the US, some of whom are allowed to give their own expert analyses on US issues. Where are they?

The BBC has no trouble running articles telling you about criticism of the French supplying weapons to the rebels in Libya, but cannot find a single person to criticize the President for ordering drone bombing runs in Yemen or Somalia, never mind Libya. The criticisms of His ramping up the war in Pakistan have been kept extremely low key as well. What a difference between now and when Bush was in charge.

As has been pointed out on this blog by so many people, there is also a marked absence of anti-war protesters. This isn’t the BBC’s fault (much), but surely there must be one curious Beeboid on staff who wonders why the anti-war crowd simply doesn’t care about how many innocents The Obamessiah kills or may kill with His warmongering. I think they simply view the bombings and killings differently because it’s Him. Somehow, He knows what’s best, and wouldn’t do it if it wasn’t good for all of us. He works in mysterious ways, ours is not to reason why, etc.

The BBC’s integrity when it comes to reporting on war has been severely compromised by their deep, unwavering bias in favor of the leader of a foreign country. Your license fee hard at work.

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The BBC Hits Obama Hard – Only Joking….

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Remember how the BBC regularly hit us hard every day with stories about the arrogance and inefficiency of the Bush presidency? So hard, in fact, that you would have thought we had become the 51st (or, according to Obama, the 58th) state of the union. Also how any mistake made by an officer of the administration was the President’s responsibility?

How times change.

Not much from the Beeb about the Gunrunner scandal involving the ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives) allowing Mexican drug cartel operatives to buy firearms from US gunshops, ostensibly to track smuggling routes.

Some terribly nasty people say that DoJ Eric Holder, who supervises the ATF was really looking for some juicy soundbites to boost the Obama administration ambition of imposing stricter gun controls in the US.

Dear me – how unchivalrous.

Naturally Holder and Obama knew nothing about Gunrunner – just as, apparently, the BBC knows nothing about Holder and the Black Panthers voter intimidation incident in the 2008 election.

Then there are those Congressional concerns about the legality of America’s involvement in Libya’s civil war. Not much at all apart from this classic from the highly professional and even handed Mark Mardell, highlighted by David Preiser recently at bBBC.

However the US media has been fairly slow to unleash much shoe-leather on both these stories, until recently – and it has been said that the BBC takes all its US cues from the New York Times and Washington Post.

So, whatever the reason we all know that it can’t be because the Beeb is still in the tank for Obama……that can’t possibly be the case…can it?

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