Category Archives: PRO OBAMA AT ALL COSTS.

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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We Have A Deal, But The BBC Casts Doubt On The Tea Party

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So the US Congressional leadership has agreed to a budget deal – the first real one since the President took office, as it happens – to temporarily stave off a default and financial ugliness. The agreement will raise the debt ceiling by $900 billion, and create and a cut of $1 trillion in spending over the next 10 years. Most media seem to be qualifying it as an “immediate” cut, but that seems rather silly as the actual cuts won’t happen immediately, and will be spread out rather thinly over time. And it’s pretty much a wash, so nothing is really fixed. However, the key factor is here that the agreement also requires the forming of a committee within the year to come up $1.5 trillion more spending cuts. Now that means something.

And no tax increases. We’ll have to wait and see how the vote goes on Monday, of course, but it’s hard to believe that Boehner would agree to this if the party whips hadn’t come up with the votes to pass it.

Sounds pretty much like the Boehner plan, which Mark Mardell described as having basically vetoed itself by not raising the debt ceiling even more, or raising taxes. On Friday, the BBC North America editor informed you of the White House talking point that it was wrong.

President Barack Obama says there is a way out of the mess, and he is clear it is not House Speaker John Boehner’s proposal.

He says the Republican’s plan has no chance of becoming law. It’s odds on the president won’t have to veto it, as the Tea Party seems to have done the job for him. He’s again urging people to tweet, ring, email their members of Congress and push them to reach a deal.

Has the BBC reported that Twitter fail yet? Today, he wrote this:

The sort of deal we seem to be looking at is, objectively a victory of the Republicans.

The Democrats take a lot of pain and can only hope to avoid the worst political damage. But the Tea Party members don’t get everything they want by any means and are quite capable of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

Mr Boehner’s people told me months ago that they knew there would always be a handful who would never support any deal. But that handful or rebels turned out to be a bucketful, sloshing with Tea Party enthusiasm. We will soon see the limits to their purity and the extent of their pragmatism.

So Mardell believes the vote could fail due to the “purity” concerns of the Tea Party movement. The negative connotations of that word really reveal his ideological bias.

Let’s how the vote turns out, and how the BBC covers it. Let this be the thread for discussion of the BBC’s coverage of the result.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Book Challenges Obama on Mother’s Deathbed Fight

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

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

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

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

And the BBC will be silent.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You may well ask, what information was that?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Can you see if these guns were all purchased from the same FfL and at one time. We are looking at anecdotal cases to support a demand letter on long gun multiple sales. Thanks Mark R. Chait Assistant Director Field Operations.”

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

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

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

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

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

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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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Mark Mardell and Andrew North Caught Spinning For The White House

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Just the other day, both Mark Mardell and Andrew North defended the President’s position that the current US involvement in the war against Libya is legal and He doesn’t need Congress’s permission to continue. Mardell’s contention was that it was just a political attack by His enemies, those nasty Republicans, looking for a cheap attack line. To further push the Narrative that there is no legal problem and it’s just a partisan talking point, Mardell suggested that Speaker Boehner was merely reacting to the Republican candidates bringing it up in the recent debate. In other words, the BBC’s explanation is: Republican monkey see, Republican monkey do. Nothing to see here, move along.

I commented on Mardell’s spin in a previous open thread here, and Craig pointed out in a reply that North took the same Narrative in another report.

Except as it turns out, there really is a legal issue. Both the Pentagon General Counsel and the State Justice Dept.’s (h/t John Anderson) legal adviser told the President that we’re in too deep, and that the situation meets the legal definition of “hostilities”. And The Obamessiah, He who was supposed to end Bush’s illegal wars and redeem the US, blew them off. He says He doesn’t need anyone’s permission to continue bombing the crap out of any Muslim He chooses. The silence from the anti-war crowd is deafening, as is the silence from the BBC asking why that is. But I digress.

It’s so bad that, not only has the New York Times reported it, but reality has once again forced the BBC to report it as well, Read this article and ask yourselves if it doesn’t mean that Mardell and North were lying. They’ve been caught disseminating White House talking points.

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