11/2/12

Romney Falsely Labeled a Radical by Watergate Reporter

By: Cliff Kincaid
Accuracy in Media

Carl Bernstein was one of The Washington Post’s Watergate reporters who brought down Republican President Richard Nixon through the acquisition of inside information from the notorious source called “Deep Throat.” Still trying to make himself relevant decades later, Bernstein is now warning that Mitt Romney, one of the most moderate candidates to run for the Republican presidential nomination this year, is actually a dangerous radical who caters to the far-right.

Carl Bernstein on Mitt Romney’s Radicalism” is the headline over his Daily Beast article, as if Bernstein has performed a great public service by telling us that he has published the definitive exposé of Romney just days before the election. The piece is full of innuendo and distortions and even qualifies as laughable. Bernstein has lost his magic and has become a journalistic joke.

The article is based on anonymous sources who claim to be associated with the “moderate” wing of the GOP and are warning about the “crazy right” that might entice Mitt Romney to govern as an extremist as president. “Plainly put,” Bernstein says, “today’s Republican Party (and its Tea Party wing) represent the first bona fide radical political party to rise to dominance in Washington in nearly 100 years.”

At a time when we have a Democratic Party in power in the White House, led by a politician with links to communists and terrorists in Hawaii and Chicago, the Bernstein article has to be seen as ridiculous on its face. But Bernstein represents the mentality of much of the media who see the far-left orientation of the national Democratic Party as nothing unusual or worth commenting on.

Bernstein’s 2,100-word article is full of bizarre statements about Romney and the GOP.

Alluding to the Republican Party and the Tea Party movement, Bernstein writes, “It represents as extreme a shift in political philosophy as any of the radical ideologies that have prevailed in our history.”

Tea Party members oppose Big Government, excessive federal spending and debt. Bernstein is claiming that it is somehow “radical” to want to return to the founding principles of the United States and save America from financial bankruptcy and economic ruin. Who is the real radical?

Some of Bernstein’s other absurd statements include that the Republican Party is engaged in the “promotion of religious ideas as government policy.” He does not explain what he means, but if he is alluding to protecting religious liberty from government orders and mandates, Bernstein has it completely backward. It is the Obama Administration that is threatening religious organizations if they promote and enforce their own views on moral and social matters. “Life and liberty” has become the rallying cry of many churches as election-day approaches, in response to government intrusion into their internal affairs.

If Bernstein is referring to protecting human life from abortion, he has exposed himself as a religious bigot who objects to religious people having a political voice in our democratic process by working to extend human rights protections to the most innocent and vulnerable among us.

Indeed, Bernstein complains that Romney wants to overturn Roe v. Wade, as if this is somehow a truly radical approach and evidence that the Republican Party has moved dangerously to the right. Overturning Roe v. Wade would only return the issue of abortion to the people of the various states, where it had been previously. Roe v. Wade legalized abortion on a national basis and undermined the right of the people to decide these matters.

Bernstein also faults the “unrelenting anti-immigration stance” of Romney and the Republicans, when the GOP position has been against illegal immigration and in favor of secure borders.

It is troubling that a figure like Bernstein, considered a journalistic icon, would resort to such gross distortions of the record. Does he expect readers of The Daily Beast to take him seriously?

Going further, Bernstein argues that Romney wants to “eliminate environmental protection programs.” He does not explain what he means by this, either. He seems to think that he can throw around these charges, without evidence, and that people will accept his claims simply because he was the famous Post reporter who helped write the Watergate stories.

Needless to say, Romney does not want to “eliminate environmental protection programs.” What he has said is that he opposes excessive regulations that prevent development of America’s natural resources.

It is sad and troubling to see Carl Bernstein write such a buffoonish commentary. It demonstrates that he has a bias against the Republican Party and fact-filled journalism.

What many people may not realize is that Bernstein, who did indeed help bring down Richard Nixon, is a “red diaper baby,” the child of Communist Party parents. Professor Paul Kengor examines this fact about Bernstein in a fascinating American Spectator article noting that some of the red diaper babies became communists, like their parents, but others did not. The purpose of the article is to explore whether President Obama is also a red diaper baby and whether he ever gave up on the Marxist ideology that was drilled into him by communist Frank Marshall Davis and others as he was growing up in Hawaii.

Kengor writes, “If Barack Obama is a Red Diaper Baby, it doesn’t mean he’s a communist. I’ve met many conservative anti-communists who were born and raised Red Diaper Babies, only to flee their parents’ politics like the plague.”

Of course, there is no evidence of Obama ever renouncing his communist upbringing. He is certainly not a conservative.

“Bernstein is not a communist,” Kengor also declares, during the course of exploring this interesting topic. This fact is certainly worth noting. But Bernstein’s treatment of Romney in The Daily Beast does suggest that the famous Watergate reporter is a man of the far-left, and that he sees right-wing conspiracies where none exists. His Daily Beast article is worth reading, if only to gain an understanding of the mentality of much of the press today. They see Romney, not Obama, as the real Manchurian candidate.

Kengor has been pleading with the media to examine Obama’s Marxist upbringing, but they have chosen instead to deliberately cover it up. It is one of the worst examples of journalistic corruption in history.

Carl Bernstein, being a red diaper baby, is in the perfect position to investigate Obama’s background.

As a red diaper baby, Bernstein is usually identified as the author of Loyalties, described as “a memoir about his parents during McCarthy-era Washington.” His parents, Al and Sylvia Bernstein, were members of the Communist Party USA. He reveals in his book that liberal Democratic Senator Edward Kennedy helped him obtain government documents about his father’s case in particular. His father had been questioned about a possible relationship with Louise Bransten, a member of a Soviet espionage network.

This milieu would have been a good place to start with Obama. Bernstein could have requested an interview with the President to ask about Frank Marshall Davis’s impact on him. Davis was called before Congress to answer charges that he was a communist and refused to answer them. But his 600-page FBI file proves Davis was a member of the party, possibly engaged in espionage on behalf of the Soviet Union.

This kind of story, if it broke new ground, could have earned Bernstein a journalism award that could have rivaled his work on Watergate. Instead, it seems that he has spent his time talking to liberal Republicans and making up things about Romney and the Tea Party.

Regarding Watergate, it is worth noting, as journalist Victor Lasky pointed out in his book, It Didn’t Start With Watergate, that it was a scandal in which Nixon and his staff stood accused of using tactics employed by previous Democratic administrations. What’s more, Bernstein’s “Deep Throat” source turned out to be a former official of the FBI by the name of Mark Felt who had a grudge against the FBI and Nixon.

Paul Kengor points out in a new article on the liberal media’s treatment of various scandals, “The press detested Richard Nixon unlike any modern president. Sure, the liberal media went after George W. Bush, but nothing like the way it attacked Richard Nixon. Liberals’ hatred of Nixon was pathological. It dated to Nixon’s work in exposing [Soviet spy] Alger Hiss. As Nixon would say at the end of his life, the Hiss-Chambers trial forever forged a legion of unwavering Nixon enemies on the left. I’m not saying that Richard Nixon was an angel, but if you want to understand Watergate, you need to understand the hatred of Nixon by the liberal media.”

Now we see that hatred, directed against the Tea Party and the Republican Party, being expressed in print by a media figure still considered prominent in the field. Whether Romney wins or loses on Tuesday, the Bernstein article will remain as a case study of the anti-Republican and anti-Romney media frenzy.

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

11/2/12

Maryland’s Question 4: Proponents Push Overtly Fraudulent DREAM Act Cost Estimates

By: James Simpson
Accuracy in Media

“There is little information available on the number of additional students who might qualify for resident tuition, thus the general fund expenditure increase cannot be reliably estimated.”

Maryland Department of Legislative Services

November 6 is fast approaching and Marylanders are facing a plethora of ballot referendums to decide. None will have greater fiscal impact than Question 4, regarding in-state tuition for illegal aliens.

Over the past year, the Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley’s administration and others with a vested interest in the DREAM Act’s passage have led a choreographed effort to win on Question 4. This has included a barrage of frivolous lawsuits to silence, intimidate and financially ruin opponents, relentless public slander, and a chorus of support for the DREAM Act among the usual suspects. As we move closer to November 6, The Baltimore Sun reports that supporters and opponents are in a statistical dead heat despite O’Malley’s massive, well-funded and state-supported effort.

Prior to the DREAM Act’s passage in 2011, the Department of Legislative Services provided an extremely low-ball cost estimate based on a deeply flawed analysis. This year the governor covertly commissioned an “independent study” to further deceive taxpayers into believing the DREAM Act could even be a financial boon for Maryland.

As we go to press, even some in the media have become skeptical. Today, the Washington Post-owned Gazette newspaper issued an editorial opposing the DREAM Act. Citing much higher cost estimates asserted by DREAM Act opponents, they stated, “…many questions remain about the cost of enacting the tuition break,” and concluded, “A vote against Question 4 will allow more time to bring clarity and equity to the matter.”

In the popular “Hunger Games” book series, a character named Peeta is brainwashed by the Capital’s evil President Snow. He relearns fact from fake by asking his friends if the information in his mind is “real or not real.” In the analysis that follows, we separate fact from fake and show just how our own “Governor O’Snowjob” has attempted to brainwash Maryland taxpayers.

FAKE: The Maryland Department of Legislative Services estimated the DREAM Act’s initial budgetary impact at $778,400 in FY 2014, increasing to $3.5 million by FY 2016. These estimates assume 366 students costing $2,127 each in 2014. They do not explain the five fold cost increase to $3.5 million in 2016 except to say that there will be more students and cost per student will rise.

FACT: Maryland’s DREAM Act will cost at least tens, perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars per year and reduce available openings for legal Maryland residents at public universities. Legislative Services based their entire analysis solely on estimates of enrolled illegals at Montgomery College. They excluded Maryland’s 15 other community colleges because, “It is unknown how many students at other community colleges in the State may be undocumented immigrants.” Their analysis also completely ignored the cost of providing in-state tuition at Maryland public universities.

But even the Montgomery County cost estimate is low. Judicial Watch found that between 2007 and 2010, Montgomery College lost $7.9 million in revenues from students who “were unable to demonstrate, or failed to demonstrate that they were lawful residents of Montgomery County.” These students enrolled for a total of approximately 11,000 credit hours in each of those four years. If one assumes a normal credit load of 30 credits per year per student (15 hours per semester), we arrive at exactly 366 students, the estimate provided by Legislative Services. The annual cost, however, was $5,400 per student ($7.9 million/366 students/4 years). This roughly approximates the average difference between in-county, out-of-county and out-of-state tuition rates at Montgomery College ($5,472). Those rates differ at other institutions and may be more or less.

Montgomery College has a student body of approximately 26,000. 366 students represent 1.4 percent of the total. That may be high for some other community colleges so we will be conservative and assume that statewide, only 1 percent of the student body is comprised of illegals. There are approximately 150,000 students at Maryland’s 16 community colleges, which would imply an illegal student population of 1,500. At $5,400 each, cost for illegals to attend community college would thus be about $8 million per year, ($5,400 x 1,500).

The DREAM Act requires that illegals be counted as out-of-state students in determining the proportion of in-state vs. out-of-state enrollment at public universities. The Legislative Services report states, “The impact of this provision is a potential loss of the difference between in-state and out-of-state tuition and fee revenue for each undocumented student enrolled at a USM institution (except UMUC).” They assume this cost will be negligible. How?

The table below shows a weighted average annual cost difference of $12,688 between in-state and out-of-state tuition at affected universities. If 1,500 students take advantage of the program to attend Maryland universities, the cost could be as much as $19 million per year, ($12,688 x 1,500). The annual cost of educating 1,500 students at both community college and public universities would thus be $27 million. Four year cost would approach $40,000 per student.

Maryland Public Universities – In-state and Out-of-state Tuition and Mandatory Fees
Weighted Average Cost 2012- 2013 Academic Year[*]

(See chart at Accuracy in Media)

Student enrollment and resulting cost could be much higher. Following President Obama’s “Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals” executive order, CASA de Maryland Director Gustavo Torres signed up an estimated 1,000 illegal youths for the program in one day. He estimated 10,000 would eventually enroll, of which 8,000 to 9,000 would go to college. Based on our estimate of $5,400 per student, in-state tuition at community cleges alone for 8,000 students would cost $43 million per year. As we explain later, there may be 50,000 or more illegal students in Maryland.

Covering the out-of-state cost differential for 8,000 students at public universities would exceed $100 million per year. But this may not occur. While the total number of student slots available at each institution is fixed, Maryland’s public universities have broad latitude in determining the proportion of in-state vs. out-of-state students accepted. To avoid paying the excessive costs of providing in-state tuition to illegals, the universities will increase out-of-state enrollment, reducing the number of openings available to legal Maryland residents. Legal residents will be increasingly displaced as more of the diminishing number of in-state slots are taken by illegals.

And this is just the beginning. Financial aid and grants are now being provided to illegals in other DREAM Act states. It is virtually certain that the Maryland Legislature will begin adding those kinds of bells and whistles if the DREAM Act survives the upcoming referendum. Finally, increased enrollment may force colleges and universities to expand, requiring added facilities and teachers, and higher tuition rates. The result will be a hemorrhage of state coffers, as Governor O’Malley continues to build a nationwide voter base for his 2016 presidential aspirations on the backs of Maryland taxpayers.

O’Malley’s Fraudulent “Independent” DREAM Act Study

FAKE: In early October, one month away from the election, the University of Maryland, Baltimore County published a supposedly “independent” report expounding upon the DREAM Act’s virtues.

FACT: In a matter of days, the group Help Save Maryland revealed that this study wasn’t independent at all, but commissioned by Maryland’s Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation, likely with the governor’s interest in mind, if not at his behest.

FAKE: The study assumes only about 435 students per year would take advantage of the DREAM Act, that these numbers would not grow, and that the DREAM Act would not be a magnet for illegal aliens.

FACT: Our analysis suggested a conservative minimum of 1,500 students per year. CASA de Maryland’s Gustavo Torres is confident it will be more like 8,000 – 9,000. He is probably right. The Pew Hispanic Center has estimated that nationwide, “Children of unauthorized immigrants are 6.8 percent of students enrolled in kindergarten through grade 12.” In California, children of illegals in grade school represent an astounding 13.5 percent of the total.

According to the Maryland Department of Planning, 824,928 students were enrolled in Maryland K–12 public schools in 2011, the latest year for which actual data is available. Applying Pew’s national estimate of 6.8 percent suggests that more than 56,000 children of illegals attend Maryland K-12 public schools. Given Maryland’s burgeoning illegal population, it is reasonable to assume the actual figure is much higher.

Maryland has been an illegal alien magnet since the 1980s, when Montgomery County became a sanctuary destination for Salvadorans fleeing their nation’s civil war. Governor O’Malley’s sanctuary state policies have only exacerbated the problem. Montgomery County became a minority-majority county in 2010, with the county’s Hispanic population growing by almost 70 percent since 2000. Prince Georges County’s Hispanic population doubled in the same period.

FAKE: The report estimated a cumulative cost of $7.4 million for 435 students, which translates to about $17,000 per student.

FACT: Our analysis indicates the cumulative cost will be about $40,000 per student.

FAKE: The report assumes that every single DREAM Act student will obtain high paying employment in Maryland following graduation and excel at those jobs, increasing their earning potential to the tune of $96,500 per student. It also assumes that they will never leave Maryland.

FACT: At present, illegals cannot legally apply for jobs at all. Even if they could, current graduates from four-year institutions are having difficulty finding any jobs, let alone high paying ones, and adding illegals to the pool will only exacerbate the problem, making it even harder for legitimate job seekers. Finally, the report provides no justification to support its estimates.

This past July, UMBC President Freeman Hrabowski abandoned any pretense of “independence,” in announcing his support for the DREAM Act. He made this announcement at a UMBC rally conspicuously populated by students wearing CASA de Maryland t-shirts. Baltimore County Delegate Pat McDonough commented that it was, “improper for a public official who derives his pay from the taxpayers of Maryland to support an issue that will cost those same taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars in the future.” Hard to imagine how a widely touted study could really be “independent” given President Hrabowski’s widely publicized position on the subject, but as we have seen, it is neither independent nor accurate.

James Simpson is a former Office of Management and Budget (White House budget office) economist and budget analyst. He is currently a businessman and freelance writer. Best known for his exposé on the Cloward Piven Strategy of manufactured crisis, his writings have been published in American Thinker, The New Media Journal, Washington Times, FrontPage Magazine, Whistleblower, DefenseWatch, Soldier of Fortune and others. His blog is Truth and Consequences. Email James.

11/2/12

Obama presidency is so terrible, even an 8th grader gives him a ‘D-‘

By: Jeffrey Klein
Political Buzz Examiner

It really doesn’t take a lot of genius or deep research to discover why Barack Obama has completely failed as president of the United States; unfortunately, there are people who have a built-in conflict of [self]-interest, don’t really care or who exist in blissful ignorance.

This includes many, but not all, public and private sector union workers, college students, long-term government welfare benefit recipients, the Hollywood crowd, most alternative lifestyle types (LGBT), most in academia, and nearly everyone who relies on the mainstream media, comedians and/or talk shows for their ‘hard news.’

But then, just when your faith in your fellow man is at an ‘ebb,’ along comes Jenny Cantrell, an [obviously] poised, intelligent and eloquent 13 year old, 8th grade student, who chose to ‘grade’ President Obama for her YouTube-filmed stint as ‘teacher for the day’ at her middle school.

Video: Obama is so bad even a 13 year old can figure it out

At just over 300,000 views in just two weeks, a lot of people would seem to agree…that Jenny may have a great future ahead of her at FOXNews, delivering ‘fair and balanced’ coverage.

First up is the economy and jobs–perpetually the most important issue in the upcoming election for more than 65 percent of American voters.

Today, the Bureau of Labor Statistics Report for October was released at precisely 8:30 a.m. ET, and will be the last before the election day next Tuesday.

Most importantly it showed the unemployment rate ticking up to 7.9 percent, from the prior month of 7.8 percent, which is, in fact, higher than when President Obama took office nearly four years ago.

The only positive data was that the economy added a [slightly] better-than-expected 171,000 jobs–too bad that it was negated, as the number of unemployed grew by 170,000 during the same time period, according to a FOXNews article today.

Republican challenger, Gov. Mitt Romney weighed in on the news from a rally in Wisconsin and a written statement, saying:

That’s 9 million jobs short of what [Obama] promised. Unemployment is higher today than when Barack Obama took office … a sad reminder that the economy is at a virtual standstill.

And, former Bureau of Labor Statistics chief Keith Hall gave this gloomy outlook…

At this rate, we’re still talking nine or 10 years before the economy gets back to normal.

Jenny gave President Obama an “A” for having ‘gotten bin Laden.’

This is extraordinarily generous, considering that as an unremarkable–but most Liberal–U.S. Senator, and presidential candidate in 2008, he was outspokenly against the continuation of the ‘War on Terror’ in Afghanistan, as well as the interrogation techniques that produced the intelligence that finally led our special forces operators to him–in Pakistan.

But, she did gave President Obama a “D-” for his gross incompetence and negligence, in handling the Benghazi consulate debacle, wherein our U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens, his aide were murdered in a ‘terrorist attack,’ along with two former Navy SEALs who disobeyed successive orders from the highest levels in Washington, DC to ‘stand down,’ and instead sacrificed their lives in an attempt to save our people in crying out for help.

With extremely rare exception, only FOXNews has been investigating this troubling situation for the president, now known as ‘Benghazi-gate,’ which is becoming an increasingly accurate reference to the Watergate–a Nixon White House cover up of the botched burglary of the DNC campaign headquarters in Washington, DC. Unlike Benghazi-gate, not one person was hurt in the affair, but it resulted in President Richard Nixon being ‘forced’ to resign in August 1974, before the end of his second term, while several of his key staff members were prosecuted, convicted and imprisoned for a significant number of years.

When Jenny added up the grades for each man, Barack Obama received a ‘grade-point-average,’ or GPA, of just 0.92, or “D-“, which is commonly labeled “Very Poor” on the legitimate grading scales in academic circles.

Could this be an indication why Barack Obama has refused to ‘unseal’ his college transcripts?

On the other hand, Gov. Mitt Romney, who, unlike Barack Obama has made both of his [Harvard] college transcripts available, earned a GPA of 3.75 from Jenny, a level of scholarship that grants him the honor of ‘graduating’ Magna Cum Laude.

So, it would appear as though the choice would be clear:

A. The guy who has a demonstrably terrible four-year record, with a lousy GPA.

B. The guy with a tremendous 25-year track record of winning, and GPA of distinction.

The reality is that we are ‘hard-wired’ as humans to be attracted to success and go with ‘winners’–in school, sports and business.

However, there are people out there who are attracted to losers…so they can feel ‘equal.’

Is it any wonder then that Ms. Jenny Cantrell awarded her endorsement to Gov. Mitt Romney?