Daily Archives: May 7, 2012

05/7/12

VP Joe Biden gets smack down Sunday morning on Meet the Press

By: Jeffrey Klein
Political Buzz Examiner

This past Sunday morning, while a guest on NBC’s Meet the Press, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden was knocked back on his heels by a random act of journalistic integrity–when he was challenged to defend the Obama Usama bin Laden campaign ad, which questioned whether Gov. Mitt Romney would have made the same call to go.

David Gregory, the long-time host of the show, cornered Biden on how anyone could ask such a question, or imply that Romney would not have given the same order, according to a FOXNews article yesterday.

Then Gregory pivoted and pointed out that Biden himself had rolled out a new bumper sticker slogan, implying the same thing during a speech last month, declaring that under Obama, “bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive” — and followed up by asking the crowd whether Romney could have used that slogan “in reverse” if he were president.

At that very point, David Gregory rightfully skewered Biden; by saying … “it is striking that at ‘H’ hour of ‘D’ day for this operation you told the president don’t do it!”

“Then you say that Romney wouldn’t make the same decision?”

“I don’t know what Gov. Romney would have done if given the same information as Obama,” replied Biden–as if he had just been spanked by a rolled-up newspaper.

Perhaps it was Usama bin Laden who had Joe Biden accurately sized-up as an adversary, revealed in the material captured from his home that night by Seal Team Six members, according to an Associated Press article from yesterday.

Apparently, military intelligence analysts discovered that bin Laden wanted to shoot down President Obama’s plane, reasoning that an assassination would elevate an “utterly unprepared” Biden to the presidency and plunge the U.S. into crisis.

Little did bin Laden know that Barack Obama was only one step above Biden–at “totally unprepared” to be president–and that he already has our country mired in crisis.

05/7/12

Fox News Won’t Fire Black Racist Commentator

By: Cliff Kincaid
Accuracy in Media

Fox News contributor Jehmu Greene, a black feminist, says on her Twitter page that “love can build a bridge.” But racism, not love, was on display last Thursday when she called conservative Tucker Carlson a “bow-tying white boy.”

Greene, a Democratic Party operative who was the national director of Project Vote, a group with close ties to the corrupt ACORN organization, has not offered a public apology. There is no indication that her financial relationship with Fox News has suffered as a result of the racial outburst.

“Jehmu apologized to Tucker by phone after the segment,” Irena Briganti, Group Senior Vice President at FOX News Channel & FOX Business Network, tells Accuracy in Media.

This is apparently the end of the matter for Fox News.

Robert Lifson of American Thinker pointed out that if Tucker Carlson had ever called Louis Farrakhan “a bow-tying black boy,” he would be out of a job.

What’s more, Greene said on the air that she had not done anything wrong.

“Hey, hey, hey,” reacted Carlson, at the slur. “You can’t, wait. Whoa, whoa, whoa…You can use name calling all you like, but you’re ignoring the truth.”

“I didn’t call you a name,” replied Greene.

So calling somebody a “white boy” is acceptable to Greene.

As a Fox News Contributor, Greene is on the Fox News payroll and is paid to be a regular commentator on different programs.

At the time she was hired, ACORN whistleblower Anita Moncrief called Greene a Fox News “infiltrator,” saying, “Michelle Malkin, Glenn Beck and other Fox News personalities have been vilified in the mainstream media and threatened in their personal lives for exposing ACORN. It is an insult to them and average Americans to have a former ACORN insider using Fox News to espouse her liberal bias.”

Moncrief asked why black conservatives were not being hired by the channel to be commentators.

Conservative media critics of Fox News were subsequently cheered by the channel’s hiring of Deneen Borelli, a black conservative, as a Fox News Contributor. She wrote the excellent book, Blacklash: How Obama and the Left Are Driving Americans to the Government Plantation, and was recently interviewed by Roger Aronoff of AIM.

But Greene is one of several left-wing commentators also hired by the channel, reflecting what Fox News CEO Roger Ailes has called a “course correction” from the days when it was considered a platform for outspoken conservative opinions.

Other left-wing commentators hired by Ailes include Sally Kohn, a lesbian feminist, and Santita Jackson, daughter of race-baiter Jesse Jackson.

Glenn Beck came under strong criticism when he said on Fox News that he considered President Obama a racist. Beck was forced to apologize and later lost his program on the channel.

Greene’s hiring by Fox News came after sustained criticism by liberal groups such as Media Matters of the conservative programming at Fox. Ironically, one of the Media Matters complaints against the channel was that its commentators too often used “racially charged commentary” and “race-baiting” in criticizing the Obama administration and liberal policies.

“There is an obvious double standard according to which blacks needn’t worry about showing the kind of ‘racial sensitivity’ that is always required of whites,” says Jared Taylor of American Renaissance, an organization that is often criticized by the Left for examining racial issues from the point of view of white self-interest. Taylor’s book, White Identity, argues that whites should not be afraid to exercise the same rights as other racial and groups.

Taylor told AIM that the double-standard that guides media coverage of racial controversies excuses racially-charged comments like those of Jehmu Greene as well as Melissa Harris-Perry of MSNBC. “Last year,” he noted, “Harris-Perry complained that it was ‘racist’ merely for a white person to point out that only 53 percent of Americans pay income taxes.”

“I think that’s just racism,” Harris-Perry had said, arguing that calling attention to such figures is an effort to designate poor black women as the new “welfare queens.”

The Heritage Foundation points out that the percentage of Americans who don’t pay federal income taxes “now accounts for nearly half of the U.S. population” and that “most of that population receives generous federal benefits.”

The explicit racial slur from Greene came during an exchange with Carlson, who sometimes wears a bow tie, about Massachusetts Democratic candidate Elizabeth Warren claiming American Indian status at one point in her career but later dropping the designation.

Carlson, co-founder of The Daily Caller and a Fox News Contributor, ridiculed Warren’s claim of being an Indian and came out against racial preferences in hiring, saying, “…no one should gain advantage because of his ethnic background, period.”

Greene responded by saying, in part: “To question this woman [Warren] on her qualifications is going to be something that does appeal to…folks like you, voters like you, bow-tying white boys. But at the end of the day it is going to backfire…”
Fox News host Megyn Kelley said Greene’s slur was “an inappropriate name,” after the exchange on her show “America Live.” She said, “I want to apologize to Tucker and to our viewers for that. I wasn’t sure I heard what I thought I heard. And now I have confirmed—it was that. It wasn’t consistent with our standards and I do apologize on behalf of the program.”

AIM had asked Fox News spokesperson Irena Briganti if Greene would be fired for making the racist remark. That is when Briganti informed us about the private apology, which is apparently supposed to suffice.

Greene learned the art of public speaking and punditry at the Women’s Media Center founded by “Hanoi Jane” Fonda. Greene is the former president of the organization, which is said to be “devoted to making women visible and powerful in the media.”

She has accomplished that goal, with the help of Fox News, which is sticking by her.

Cliff Kincaid is the Director of the AIM Center for Investigative Journalism and can be contacted at [email protected].

05/7/12

Is the American Dream Dead?

By: T F Stern
T F Stern’s Rantings

While going through Facebook contacts this afternoon, one entry caught my attention over all the others. The Federalist Papers asked, “Is the American dream alive or dead? Do you expect that your children will be better off than you are?”

It’s not an easy set of questions to answer and it certainly deserved more than a casual, “Like” button hit; but here goes… The first part asked, “Is the American dream alive or dead?”

Define the American dream or we could be talking about apples and oranges; something we should be careful not to mix, it causes gas. Is the American dream home ownership, a new car in every driveway, minimum wage with 2 weeks vacation and health insurance coverage thrown in; as we have been led to believe or is the American dream something else?

No, the American dream has more to do with how we live our lives with a clear understanding of individual liberties and rights as protected by our Constitution than with the amenities of life. At one time we lived in a small apartment and never once felt as if our American dream was linked directly to the size of our dwelling. Sure, owning a home was on our “bucket list,” but if that never happened, then enjoying what we could afford didn’t diminish our accumulated success. The opportunity to work hard, or better yet, work smarter, provides and sustains my American dream. No, the American dream lives and will always live as long as my heart beats within my chest.

The second part of that general question points toward the amenities of life, “Do you expect that your children will be better off than you are?” I want my children to have as many blessings of “the good life” as are available. Their righteous desires coupled with their willingness to earn these amenities through honest efforts along with a reasonable return for those efforts are not favorable. Our current economic climate casts a dark cloud on such a future for them. America’s downward spiral towards imposed socialism under totalitarian rule disregards individual efforts in favor of the collective and the stage is set for imposed austerity.

For years we have been told to limit our use of energy consumption, learn to accept less use of air conditioning in the warmer months and to put on a blanket in the colder months rather than turning the thermostat up to a comfortable temperature. Smaller, more efficient cars are being foisted on the public as a means of avoiding environmental Armageddon; supposedly we just can’t afford the luxury of gas guzzling muscle cars. I’ll throw in those compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFEs) that are mandated to replace incandescent bulbs; it’s all part of eliminating individual choice and has little if anything to do with improving the quality of life.

If the U.N. has their way, and they have been marginally successful already, implementation of Agenda 21 will force folks to live in metropolitan areas, limit miles driven on our extensive and hard to maintain road systems and permanently alter individual freedom in favor of Sustainable Development. Instead of leaving such decisions up to the individual based on his/her ability to pay, the State will determine the size of your dwelling, where it should be located, the use of nearly every aspect of the human condition will be through permission of the collective and the needs of your community; it’s called “communitarianism” (spell check doesn’t recognize this new word in our vocabulary; either that or spell check prefers the old America and has a dream of its own).

Dismal as it may sound, the economic future of America isn’t something to look forward to. I hope my children are made of sturdy stock because the yoke of imposed serfdom we are placing on their backs will tax them physically and spiritually. Debt is a terrible task master that never sleeps and that is what we have bequeathed future generations.

I didn’t say that my children would forfeit their opportunity to experience the American dream, only the likelihood of their being able to enjoy creature comforts that are greater than I have been blessed to enjoy in the form of amenities. Prosperity and the idea of perpetual growth does not fit with our declining Dollar and a steady attack on the free market system in favor of “Social Justice,” wealth redistribution and socialism imposed by a totalitarian government which has turned a blind eye to God-given inalienable rights and our constitutional republic. (I love an occasional run on sentence; serves my high school English teachers a just reward for their efforts to contain my exuberance.)

God grant us the courage to face the realities before us with integrity and resolve that we restore this nation in favor of the Great Experiment envisioned by our Founding Fathers. May the American dream live eternally is the desire of my heart and the prayer on my lips. In the name of our Creator and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

This article has been cross-posted to The Moral Liberal, a publication whose banner reads, “Defending The Judeo-Christian Ethic, Limited Government & The American Constitution.”