Category Archives: PRO OBAMA AT ALL COSTS.

Mardell Links to Conservative Publications, But Then Uses White House Propaganda to Defend the President

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First, let’s celebrate the fact that Mark Mardell has actually linked to two conservative publications in one blog post!  Must be a new record, and probably takes care of his quota for the next six months.  In any case, as usual, Mardell is wrong about most of what he writes, and pushes White House propaganda instead of the truth.  Although, there’s actually one – very rare – criticism of the President from the US President editor.

Whatever happened to the reset button?

Mardell reminisces about the pathetic “Reset Button” incident where Hillary Clinton was sent to Russia as part of the President’s attempts to prove to everyone that He’s not George Bush. He actually pokes fun at the translation fiasco, calling the whole display “cheesy”. It’s nice to hear him actually criticize something about The Obamessiah Administration, even if it’s nearly three years after the fact. He was still Europe editor at the time, so no record of his opinion then, although curiously his predecessor, Justin Webb, didn’t bother to comment on his blog. Actually, the first BBC report about it, from Paul Reynolds, censored news of the error, and it was only later after Hillary caught some heat in the US media for it that the BBC dared discuss it.

Obviously things are not going well these days between the US and Russia, so the BBC US President editor has to explain why it’s not really the President’s fault.

The first excuse is actually valid: Sec. of State Hillary correctly criticized Russia for the rigged election. There’s a hint of disappointment from the US President editor as well, which is pretty rare, about how His Administration spoke out against Russia much faster than against Iran or Bahrain. This is where Mardell links to the non-Left Washington Times (I had to look out my window to check for airborne pigs) for a negative opinion on the President’s reluctance to speak out against those governments.

It’s not really His fault that relations are bad right now, you see, because both Russia and the US have been in the middle of an election cycle. So naturally the rhetoric spikes up on both sides, ruffling feathers everywhere. This, of course, excuses the President for not having His Administration speak up sooner about Iran and Bahrain. It also kind of gives the idea that Hillary’s criticism wasn’t that serious, in part just a bit of noise to please the home crowd in an election cycle. An unintentional error by Mardell there, I think.

Then Mardell tries to prove that the President really has had some successes in dealing with Russia.  First, he tells us that Dmitry Medvedev is the President’s best friend among world leaders. That’s a really, really bad sign of His priorities and diplomacy if true. What’s funny is that this apparent fact makes Mardell and his Beltway buddies utterly confused about why Russia is reacting so strongly to Hillary’s scolding. Maybe Medvedev is actually useless and has no real influence and does not speak for Russia except as a figurehead to sign treaties? Anyone ever thought of that?

Now the spin really starts. Sensing that there’s concern about the President’s apparent lack of success in negotiating with Russia, Mardell points out what he claims are three successes.

First is the START Treaty. Mardell shamelessly links to the White House’s own propaganda page on it. He must be hoping that nobody has any idea that in reality the President caved in to Russia and told our allies in Eastern Europe that we were going to ditch the plans for a missile defense system there in exchange for Russia signing on to…um…agreeing to think about considering not making more nuclear weapons for a while. When even the BBC’s favorite rent-a-Leftoid from the US, Michael Goldfarb, says it’s not cool, you know it’s pretty bad.

Basically, we got schooled. Yet the person the BBC tells you to trust for an insight into US issues denies it and shoves actual White House propaganda down your throats instead. Couldn’t he find a nice JournoLista article about how it was a triumph?

Next up is the trumpeting of a joint-military action against some Taliban heroin traders. Here Mardell links to the second conservative publication (miraculous), the Telegraph, except instead of an “important agreement”, it’s apparently one operation and not much else. Grasping at straws there.

Lastly, Mardell portrays Russia agreeing to let yet another NATO country move military equipment (really just a step-up of a pre-existing agreement) through its territory into Afghanistan (a country they have an interest in keeping to heel) as a special success for the President.

Assuming that nobody bothered to look any of this up and his readers believe the propaganda, Mardell continues to defend the President.  It’s also not His fault because He really is pushing that missile defense set-up in Europe against Iran. Russia feels threatened and is behaving badly.  Wait: isn’t this the missile defense system the President caved on already? Anybody think Russia is really scared this time?

Another sad effort from the BBC US President editor.

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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 Censorship: Billions Down The Green Toilet Edition

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

To sum up:

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

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

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Mark Mardell Defends The President

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The BBC’s US President editor (“North America editor” is not an appropriate title, as he reports exclusively on the President and the US politics surrounding Him) has noticed that the President’s popularity and job approval has been at something of a low ebb.  Naturally, concerned that his audience might be worried, Mardell leaps to His defense.  Under the time-honored journalistic pretext of posing a question, he proceeds to give you the answer.  He’s got a defense for every single criticism of the President.

Is President Obama a good leader?

When President Obama was elected he seemed like a different kind of leader.

Only to those caught up in the cult of personality foisted on us by a complicit media.  Mardell himself came to the US as one of those true believers, excited by the possibilities.  He knows he was wrong then, but goes through a series of intellectual contortions to prove to himself otherwise.

Not just the first black man in the White House but a new sort of American president: thoughtful, reflective and determined to represent all of his country.

Again, only those caught up in the worship believed this for a moment.

Now, a year away from the next presidential election many people question what sort of leader he has turned out to be.

Many of you may question His leadership, but Mardell is here to set you straight.

One unkind critic said that he seemed like a 50-year-old man who has just got his first proper job, that he has had no experience of running any organisation and it shows in his management of the White House.

Unkind?  How about “honest”?  He is a 50-year old man who has had no experience of running any organization, and this is His first really challenging job.  What would a “kind” critic say, anyway?  Still, let’s hear some real criticism.

Republicans are of course the harshest critics. Ed Rogers, a veteran of the George H W Bush and Reagan White House told me: “I think Obama is not a very effective leader.

“I think he is a thinker and a ditherer to a fault. I think his leadership style does not lend itself to crisp decision making.

Those familiar with Mardell’s coverage of (for) the President will know this is one of the criticisms which most angers him.  No surprise that this is how he sets it up.

“I get the impression he anguishes before a decision, and even worse for a president, he anguishes after a decision. So, his team never has certainty.
“They never know if the other side is back in appealing to the president, they never know if they have gotten clear, certain decisions.

“And at the end of the day being president is about making decisions and sticking with them.”

Think about that for a second, before reading Mardell’s defense.

Of course in part Mr Obama’s initial appeal was that he did consider the facts, carefully and dispassionately.

That’s not what Rogers is saying at all.  Mardell is misrepresenting things.  The criticism isn’t that He is thoughtful and wanted to contemplate all the facts, but that He kept changing His tune afterward.   Try not to laugh too hard about the “dispassionately” BS.  Mardell obviously doesn’t get it, so starts his defense in earnest:

He was seen as the diametric opposite of his predecessor, President George W Bush, in the popular imagination a cowboy president who shot from the hip, trusting his first gut instinct.

Mr Obama, on the other hand, likes to get down with the details.

Remember, the criticism isn’t about whether or not the President considers the details, but whether or not He is capable of  making a firm decision.  Only Mardell still thinks this is about why it seems to take Him so long to make one.  We all know this isn’t true, but I’ll get to that in a minute.

The US President editor then gives us an anecdote from Jared Bernstein, a former adviser to the Vice President, who heaps praise on the President for being so deeply concerned and interested in real detail.  This is, of course, how Mardell shows you that He is so very different from that tiresome cowboy.

In order to drive this point home, we’re told that the President actually saved the US economy.

He makes the point that Mr Obama was faced with an immense challenge and says he stopped the economy going off the edge of a cliff.

Never mind that the initial round of TARP bailouts was begun before He took office, and that He kept Bush’s finance team essentially intact to continue that progress.  Praise Him!  Then back to the defense.

However, he accepts there is a perception of dithering:

“The guy has an amazing capacity to assimilate a lot of information. He really likes to solve a problem pragmatically – but from a perspective of being as well informed as he can be.

“He certainly doesn’t reach snap decisions. He is a pretty deliberative guy, but you put the facts in front of him he will reach a conclusion pretty quickly.”

Hmm. How does reaching a conclusion “pretty quickly” give the appearance of dithering?  In the case of going to war against Libya, for example, it turns out that the President wasn’t dithering so much as He actually didn’t want to do it at all.  He thought light sanctions and hard, Paddington-like stares were working, and had to be shown that it wasn’t before He gave the green light.  It’s why Hillary Clinton has said that she won’t be working for Him if He gets a second term.  Yes, I know the BBC never told you about that.

“I think what looks like excessive deliberation has more to do with the politics. The president might come to a decision on economic policy pretty quickly, but then you’ve got to navigate this Congress and that is a fairly tough equation, getting through all those road blocks.”

“This Congress”?  You mean the one with the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, and a Democrat-controlled Senate?  Or the totally Democrat-controlled Congress He had for the first two years which rammed through ObamaCare and Stimulus via backroom deals and end runs around the opposition?  You know, the one that Mardell called a “Golden Age”? What a load of garbage.  But Mardell thinks you’re all too stupid to remember that, and continues his “Trapped in a world He never made” defense.

But the president has to be a navigator, or at least know people who are.

Mr Obama does not seem to have a strategy for dealing with the sausage factory that is Congress. It has perhaps been his worst failure.

Seriously?  What about the billions thrown down the green jobs toilet, mostly to His Democrat moneymen?  What about the failure of the $1 trillion-plus Stimulus?

True, he not only got through economic packages which admirers would say saved the country, he also in the end got a healthcare package that has long been a dream of Democrats.

Mardell knows he can’t give the President too much credit for that because, as I said above, that was mostly the doing of the Democrat leadership when they controlled both the House and the Senate.  But now it’s time to pretend to criticize Him from the Left.

But it was so diminished that it offended his own side while enraging the right and helping the Tea Party to get off the ground.

Hello: the Tea Party movement was well “off the ground” by April 15, 2009, almost a year before ObamaCare was signed into law.  How can Mardell still get this wrong? And it can’t have been too much of an offense to supporters at the time, judging from the way the BBC lauded it.

The trail of sometimes grubby compromises that led to a deal made him look part of a Washington he said he had come to fix.

Yeah, that’s much worse than the fact that the President is the recipient of more money from the finance industry than all the Republican candidates combined, or that the CEO of GE is His Jobs Czar, or that He gave more than half a trillion dollars to a green energy boondoggle because it was backed by one of His moneymen.  But I digress.

Perhaps even more importantly it led to an unclear proposal that left many Americans confused and worried that it would leave them worse off.

Oh, God, we’re back to the Narrative that people don’t like ObamaCare only if they don’t understand it properly.

Mr Obama seems to lack the sort of special political skills you need to make sausages (Bismarck said you don’t want to know how sausages or laws are made).

It certainly doesn’t help when practically the first words out of His mouth as President when trying to work a deal with Republicans was “I won“.  There’s a difference between not having certain political skills and being an arrogant asshole.

He’s obviously not a thug nor, more oddly, a charmer.

“More oddly”?  Why does Mardell say that?

Undoubtedly he has buckets of charisma.

Oh, right.  Silly me.

Mardell then goes on to say that the President hasn’t been much good at reaching across the aisle, and – bizarrely – that not even “charming bully” Rahm Emmanuel could get both sides to work together.  To my surprise, though, he does acknowledge that critics on the Left don’t want Him to compromise at all.  Hey, what happened to all that Republican intransigence?  Never mind that, of course, as this is about how the President feels pressure from the Left to stay on course, and that’s why He’s not such a bridge-builder.  As always, Mardell has a defense ready for any charge.

He then moves on to the next section.

What made Mr Obama a unique political phenomenon was that he, quite literally, wrote his own story.

Er, no.  The media did that.  His book was promoted far and wide by them, and they didn’t even spend a tiny fraction of the effort checking into His past that they did on Sarah Palin.  More than anything else, though, it was cos He is black.  Let’s face it, that was the number one selling point.  No white neophyte politician with a vague background of association with questionable characters would have been catapulted to stardom in such fashion.

So Mardell is wondering what happened, how the bloom came off the rose.

Yet this master storyteller appears to have lost control of the narrative in office.

Uh-oh, please, not this again.

Some may think this is post-modern claptrap or simply a silly way to look at politics.

But part of being a leader, and especially an American president, is telling people in very clear terms what is going on, why it’s going on and what should happen next.

Mr Obama himself has said the best solutions to the economic crisis may not be the best story.

Damn.  If you don’t agree, it’s because the message hasn’t been made clear to you enough.  This is seriously wrong.  The President has been absolutely clear on all of His policies, and on all of His various messages.  Nobody doubts what He wants to happen or thinks is going on.  But Mardell still, after all this time, thinks that if we don’t think He’s doing a bang-up job, it’s only because He hasn’t made the Gospel clear to us yet.  Does anyone here think His Plan For Us hasn’t been made crystal clear over and over again?  And here comes more defense:

The plot twists of real life get in the way of a simple tale. The president – and just about everyone else – thought the economy would be showing stronger signs of recovery by now.

No, not everybody thought that.  Why else would the Tea Party movement have transformed the face of the House?  Lots of people knew things weren’t going to go well.  Now, why would we think that?

But the author of a critical book about the president’s handing of the economic crisis, Ron Suskind, says the disconnect is the problem.

“Even if the words of a leader are not along the lines of what people want if they match his deeds people say ‘Well, I may not agree with him, he’s a straight shooter’ and that gets you confidence points.

“Mr Obama has had trouble because of his brilliance at soaring rhetoric – inspirational rhetoric.

Wait….what?

“And often the caution that has abided his deeds, a kind of split-the-middle-let’s-find-some-middle-ground, even if there is not much coherence to it, a half of this and a little of that, often does not make sound, dramatic policy. “

Name me one big speech where the President wasn’t scolding His opponents.  This is Beltway BS.  The general public doesn’t think this way.  We’ve heard His message, and found it wanting.  Suskind, by the way, is not an impartial observer.  He’s an Obamessiah supporter who wrote an entire book shifting blame for the economy away from Him.  Even far-Left ideologue and JournoList founder Ezra Klein, who wrote the review I’ve linked to, can see that.  But Mardell isn’t going to tell you.  He, like Suskind, wants the President to go back to the “Yes We Can” stuff.

“When you are president, people always need to know what you would do if you were a dictator. What you would do. Not what’s possible or the realities of Congress or the limits on your authority.

“What would you do if you were dictator? People don’t know that about Obama. And that’s a problem. A weakness. And stylistically it is going to be hard for him to get that back.”

This is a joke, right?  Who here doesn’t know how that would go?  Any excuse to distract people from wondering about His competence.  And that’s the key here: a lack of competence.

Everything in Mardell’s piece is about blaming factors beyond the President’s control, or how people get the wrong idea because He doesn’t fit the typical Washington mold. As I said earlier, trapped in a world He never made.  In other words, not really His fault.  Don’t question His competence.

Mardell and Suskind both still think He’s brilliant, and potentially a great leader.  He’s already shown that He isn’t, but they can’t see it.  If He fails, it won’t be His fault. Mardell’s doing a whole series of this stuff this week, hoping for more Hope, and I’m not sure I can stomach it.

Come, let us tell in Zion what the Lord our God has done

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Sorry I’m a little late in getting to this, but life intrudes occasionally. I saw this the day it was posted, but didn’t have time to deal with it until now. BBC US President editor blogged about Libya and the death of Gaddafi. And it’s classic Mardell in full acolyte mode.

Gaddafi killed: A new kind of US foreign policy success

“Wow”, said Hilary Clinton as she was handed a Blackberry with the news out of Libya.

Gaddafi’s death will be a relief to President Obama and his administration. That’s on the fairly simple grounds that he backed NATO action, called for him to go, and now he’s gone.

Wait a second…..that’s not what I saw originally. I remember it well because I literally smacked my forehead, stood up, and walked away when I saw it. It’s the reason I went back to do this now. It appears that Mardell had a rethink and made a stealth edit. Fortunately, he can’t escape Google. The original post seems to be lost down the memory hole, but the opening line in question is still there:

The death of Col Gaddafi is a vindication of sorts for Barack Obama’s foreign policy, and the awkward US decision to ‘lead from behind’.

A vindication, eh? Killing Gaddafi in cold blood, without due process of law, is vindication of a foreign policy strategy? Did the BBC ever say that when Sadaam was put on trial by his own people, judged, convicted, and sentenced by his own people, that was a vindication of Bush’s foreign policy? I forget. What color is the sky on your planet, Mark? I wonder who told him to tone it down. But make no mistake: Mardell’s true thoughts were revealed in his original words. His beloved Obamessiah has been vindicated. Was it the not doing anything part that was vindicated, or the not having boots on the ground which led to a killing in cold blood without trial or due process of law that was the vindication? Yeah, whatever. Don’t bother wondering if we had put boots on the ground that Gaddafi might have been captured and granted his human rights, put on trial, etc. Nah. The Obamessiah knows best, regardless.

Has His Nobel Peace Prize been vindicated yet? FFS.

In any case, let’s recall the facts. Originally, the President didn’t want to get involved at all. In fact, He had to be dragged, practically kicking and screaming, into it. (There you go again, always wanting an unapologetically aggressive America storming ahead – ed.) At the time, of course, Mardell was trying to convince you that this was “deliberating”, not dithering. We know for a fact, however, that He really was dithering, and had to have reality shoved in His face before reluctantly agreeing to act (once again, Al Jazeera beats the BBC, eh? ) In fact, Sec. of State Clinton and her Department were complaining that it was basically amateur hour at the White House, and were thinking that the lights were on but nobody was at home. It’s also important to remember that the Libyan people themselves were asking for our help, and that Mardell himself was trying to big up The Obamessiah by saying that He felt a personal connection, an emotional attachment, to the Libyans’ cry for justice.

Okay, so back to the current post. Mardell explains that Gaddafi’s death will come as a relief to the President because that means the mission was a success. Naturally, what he really means is that ugly, barbaric United Statesians wanted him slotted, not that the President Himself would be so crass. But Mardell’s main point is that this represents the “Obama Doctrine”, of a less aggressive US. The fact that he has to then admit that we carried the main load of warmongering, and that the essential defeat of Gaddafi’s forces wouldn’t have been possible without US muscle is amusing, but then irritating because Mardell still maintains that it’s totally cool simply because we didn’t start it. I’ll leave it to others to explain how that makes sense, because I sure as hell can’t. Either we made it possible, or we didn’t, no?

Mardell’s main point here is that it’s a significant improvement over the Bush Cowboy years because the Muslims won’t view this as the nasty US imposing our will on the poor brown-skinned folk. There won’t be a generation of Libyans growing up the name “Barack”, I guess. He still sticks to his position that the President wanted to “lead from behind”, and not that He didn’t want to do anything at all. This is White House spin, and not the facts.

Let’s also recall now that Mardell himself was originally against taking action in Libya. He felt that the President frowning at Gaddafi would be sufficient, and tried to convince you that the President’s approach to this conflict was “very deliberate, very rigorous, rather academic.” It was a lie then, and it’s a lie now. The President didn’t want to do it, and had to be convinced by others to act. There’s a big difference between being unsure and trying to work it out and not wanting to do it, full stop. But Mardell constantly told you that the President was trying to figure it out anyway, and that only the uglier side of the US wanted to rush out, guns blazing.

In fact, Mardell was so against the notion that the US was going to save the day that at one point he even praised the President for making the UN relevant again. This is the same UN, mind, that’s now whining about how Gaddafi didn’t get his human rights affirmed before he was whacked. Who didn’t see that coming?

I won’t bother to get into a discussion about how US involvement was illegal anyway, because the President actually needed Congressional approval to send troops out in this case, where Libya wasn’t relevant to immediate US foreign policy and security needs, or that some people like St. Michael and St. Jon (Moore and Stewart) were displeased, as the BBC censored all of that. They’re both totally cool now because they support the Occupiers, so forget about old news that might make the President look bad.

Mardell continues his in blog post to reassure you that it’s great because the Libyans will think they did it themselves, and didn’t have it forced on them by Western Imperialists (he doesn’t use those terms, but that’s what he means). If that’s the case – if Gaddafi’s killing in cold blood vindicates that strategy – then why was it so great for the President to dither over it for weeks?

This is where it becomes clear that Mardell was spinning for Him the entire time. If the President’s plan the whole time was to bomb from afar and let the Libyans themselves do the heavy lifting on the ground, then why dither deliberate about whether or not to get involved? If “leading from behind” was the plan all along, why did He have to have His arm twisted to do it?

Even Mardell admits it, sort of:

In the end it was fear of being judged a moral failure that drove the decision.

Ah, yes. He wanted to be “on the right side of history”, right?

The president was told that thousands could die in a massacre in Benghazi and he wasn’t going to be held responsible for that.

Hell, even the odious, now departed, Matt Frei was worrying about that before Mardell was. And Mardell is still trying to tell you that this is a success story.

But if President Obama’s policy has been a success on its own terms, it leaves others in the US deeply worried. They don’t think their country should encourage, cajole, help and guide. They think it should lead – that it should be seen to lead in fact and in deed.

And if it doesn’t it is not clever – it is defeatist, and will inevitably lead to a diminution of power. They may raise their voices, not today, but when the dust settles.

It’s worth repeating: Forget that Sadaam was captured without harm, put on trial by his own people, and sentenced in a court of law by his own people, according to the laws of his own country. Mardell will hate that to his dying day, yet the cold-blooded killing of Gaddafi, without trail, without legal justice, is a success, a vindication, in his view. How twisted can you get?

In Mardell’s biased worldview, the President’s plan was a success, even if He didn’t actually have this plan and it was forced upon Him. Cold-blooded killing is vindication, whereas a trial according to the laws of the country concerned is Cowboy justice. No effort is spared at the BBC to praise Him and prove to you that He knows best.

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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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BBC Censorship: "Spot The Missing Book Report" Editon

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

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

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

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

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

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

And He also compared Himself to Jimmy Carter:

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

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

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

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How Insane Is Mark Mardell?

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This insane:

The president had waved a copy of his hefty American Jobs Act and told them the USA had to catch up with the likes of China and North Korea in spending on high-speed rail and education.

The President of the most successful, most prosperous country in the history of the world says we need to catch up with North Korea, and the BBC US President editor is fine with it. Doesn’t bat an eyelash.

Okay, I admit I’m being mean. Actually, this is a mad typo. There will probably be a stealth edit tomorrow once somebody points it out to him, so I’ve taken a screenshot. If/when this gets fixed, I’ll post it. Be honest: you thought for a moment that the President actually did say that, right?

The President actually said we should emulate South Korea by adding more teachers. Yay, more government spending. I guess it’s difficult to churn this stuff out, especially when one has to go out amongst the great unwashed in flyover country in search of the elusive Obamessiah supporters, so I’ll be charitable here and shrug off this nutty typo.

Anyways, there’s something about China’s high-speed rail that he doesn’t want you to know about. China’s high-speed rail project has so far killed 11 people, and injured a further 89 people. And it’s losing money hand over fist. And Mardell thinks it’s a good idea to emulate? What is it with Beeboids covering the US and China’s autocratic ways?

Mardell sees nothing fishy – or curiously neglects to point it out – in the President’s seeking out the most sympathetic white audience He ever had, back before the 2008 election, when He was still the world’s sweetheart: students.

The president was talking at Fort Hayes art and design college and one pupil, 18-year-old Mel Dodge, told reporters he was an aspiring lyricist and admires Mr Obama’s skills.

“He chooses his words so beautifully,” said the teenager. “That’s why I came out here today, just to hear that in person.”

That’s just the kind of spiritual boost Mardell needed. Actually, it’s a high school in US parlance. Which means some of them will be voting next year – like Mel Dodge – and the rest are potential noisemakers on His behalf. I know this is just a language barrier thing and not an attempt to mislead. But there’s something else fishy here.

As a high school it’s part of the state/city-funded school system in Ohio. His Jobs Plan For Us has a couple lines sending over $350 million specifically to Ohio’s largest school districts (not colleges). Including the Columbus area, which covers this school. Totally targeted pandering. Oops, Mardell forgot to mention that bit. There’s something else about Ohio he doesn’t want you to know:

Ohio is just about the most key swing state there is when it comes to national elections. The President has spent half of His domestic traveling while in office to swing states. He’s visited Ohio fourteen times. Mardell didn’t want to inform you of that lest you start thinking too much about how this was an election campaign stop, geared in part towards unions. But now there must be a semblance of non-partisanship:

He wasn’t so certain about the politics, unsure that the president’s jobs plan would work. He wanted to look at the Republican field as well before he decides how to cast his first vote.

Yeah, sure. Mardell also has a bridge downtown to sell you. His blogpost is just past its midway point, so it’s time for a party political advertisement.

If Mr Dodge is not convinced, it won’t be through lack of White House effort. Senior advisor David Plouffe is just the latest to offer to answer questions by tweet.

This advertisement was brought to you by the Campaign to Re-Elect the President. And your license fee.

I’ve just got a detailed White House email on the beneficial impact of the act on Montana. Why Montana, I know not, but I am sure 49 similar missives will soon be in my inbox.

Yes, Mark, we know you’re well-connected and on the Democrat mailing list. You don’t need to remind us. Oh, my apologies, I’m being rude. The campaign ad is still going.

The president will, I guess, be on the road until this is done or dead.

“I guess.” That’s very silly, and pretty disingenuous. We all know that’s what’s going to happen, because Jay Carney already told everyone last week that the President will “travel all over the country; we’ll be to a lot of different places.” As if he doesn’t know. Hell, the President’s travel schedule is given out to the press, and it shows that He’s going all over the damn place now, mostly to those magical swing states. Just how stupid does Mardell think his audience is? And it’s not partisan at all, no sir. No way you’re going to hear from the US President editor that the only job the President is concerned about creating is His own second term. That’d be a bit too much analysis. Instead, Mardell gives us one of the more obvious signs of his personal political bias:

He is portraying what is a series of pretty partisan, controversial proposals as plain common sense, that no-one of goodwill could resist.

No one of good will, eh? That’s a purely emotional phrase. Mardell is clearly giving an ideological position, supporting the President’s message. Anyone who doesn’t agree with throwing another half trillion dollars down the rabbit hole would resist, based on an entirely different definition of goodwill, but he doesn’t see it that way, and tells you so. So now it’s time to provide “balance”.

In fact, there is intense debate about his ideas.

There you go. One sentence, with a once-in-a-blue-moon link to a known right-wing pundit, Cal Thomas. If this was from elsewhere, I’d say that might remotely be enough to balance out Mardell’s preceding statement that this “debate” obviously means that there are some who are resisting, and therefore have no good will. But as this is a Mardell post, there’s more coming to support the President.

He got backing on Tuesday for more spending from the Congressional Budget Office’s director, who warned cuts could damage recovery.

He got backing, sort of. But the CBO’s “backing” isn’t quite how Mardell presents it. In fact, the CBO boss says that “changes in taxes and spending that would widen the deficit now but narrow it later in the decade.” Which is pretty much exactly what the SuperCommittee is going to do. Just like in Britain (not including union bosses and UK-Uncut and their fellow travelers at the BBC), nobody really thinks severe cuts are happening this instant or tomorrow. For the US, it’s all about 2013 and beyond, and remember, only in a best-case scenario will there be barely $1.5 trillion cut over the next few years, which is a fraction of the actual deficit we need to cut. That’s why nobody on the fiscally responsible side was really happy about the debt agreement. Hello?!!? Short-term memory, anyone?

The CBO isn’t backing the President in the way that Mardell insinuates, nor are they really repudiating the Tea Party idea and instead siding with Ed Balls and Stephanie Flanders. In fact, what the CBO really says is this (does Mardell think nobody clicks through his links, or does he actually not understand what the following bit means?):

“Attaining a sustainable budget for the federal government will require the United States to deviate from the policies of the past 40 years in at least one of the following ways,” he said. “Raise federal revenues significantly above their average share of GDP; make major changes to the sorts of benefits provided for Americans when they become older; or substantially reduce the role of the rest of the federal government relative to the size of the economy.”

Raising revenues doesn’t necessarily mean draconian taxes only. Growth in industry and consumption raises revenues as well, since that’s all taxed to the eyeballs. So “raising revenues” means a lot more than just taxing the rich even more. And what’s that about changing benefits for seniors? Oh dear, oh, dear. Sounds like austerity and cuts affecting the most vulnerable to me, and as Social Security and Medicaid are going to be just about the biggest government expense in the near and long-term future (aging Baby Boomers joining the rolls, longer-lived population in general), it’s pretty major. Again, this is way more in line with Tea Party ideals than with Krugman/Balls/Flanders. And that last sentence about reducing the role of the federal government speaks for itself, you betcha.

Remember: the CBO boss said “at least” one of these three methods. It’s pretty dishonest to put it as just cuts are bad, m’kay, full stop.

So is that what Mardell thinks supports the President? One could just as easily say that the CBO statement is more about what the SuperCommittee is going to do than about whether or not we should add another half-trillion to the deficit. Oh, hang on: the CBO boss actually was saying this to their faces. The link Mardell provides is about the CBO boss’s first appearance in front of their first official hearing. Nothing to do with supporting yet another Stimulus package at all! Wow. Let’s just shake our heads and move on.

But the president’s plan is ideologically objectionable to most Republicans, even more so now that he has revealed how it would be paid for: by taxing what they would describe as “wealth creators” and what Obama would call the rich, oil companies and corporate-jet owners.

It’s ideologically objectionable to Republicans, but not to anyone of “good will”. How biased can you get? Actually, the President has already caved on the corporate jet issue (perhaps Oprah had a word in his saucer-like?), but never mind. Mardell must have missed that memo. I think a less ideologically blinkered person would mention small businesses as well, as they provide the vast majority of jobs in the country.

This is bound to get messy. The White House has confirmed that they will accept parts of the bill being passed.

What’s that last bit supposed to mean? I thought compromise and bi-partisanship were supposed to be the new American dream? Why is he warning about compromise and bi-partisanship? Weird. Unless one would be unhappy with the President giving in one iota to the nasty Republicans.

The danger for Obama is a loss of his simple message.

What simple message? Where did we see a simple message? Mardell sounds like he drank the Kool-Aid here.

He could get drawn into the wrangling and the less attractive aspects of compromise. He needs all the clarity his lyricism and beautiful words can conjure.

So compromise is bad now. Curiously, only a few weeks ago it was the one thing that would have saved us from a credit downgrade. And just the other day Mardell was telling us about how ashamed someone was of Congress for their failure to work together. Now he thinks its best for the President if He convinces everyone to do things His way, without stooping to compromise. You know, that’s just what the other of his concerned voter in that post said. Funny, that. It’s almost as if there’s an agenda here.

By the way, that post of his saw Mardell visiting Democrats in Indiana, and he kind of forgot to mention that it’s another important election swing state.

In the end – wacky typos aside – this is all typical biased reporting. And sloppy and dishonest at that, one of Mardell’s worst. What’s the emoticon for putting one’s head in one’s hands and weeping quietly?

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BBC Censorship: ATF Scandal and Gun Control Edition

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Don’t trust the BBC on US issues.

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U.S. Downgraded – BBC Reporting Fails

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

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

Moody’s:

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

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

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

Fitch:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Most importantly, S&P says this:

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

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

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

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

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

Mark Mardell:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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