Gushing Immaturity: German Reporter’s Workout With Barack Obama

July 25, 2008 | Filed Under 00Publius Contributor, Democrats/Leftists, Elections, Foreign Policy, Media Bias, News, President, Society/Culture, Warner Todd Huston | 2 Comments

-By Warner Todd Huston

Apparently, Bild, a newspaper in Germany, hires 14-year-old, starry-eyed, fan-girls as reporters instead of serious grownups. Or, at least one would be excused in thinking this reporter was a rock-star struck teeny bopper upon reading her gushingly immature account of having an exercise work out with Barack Obama on the German leg of his trip. This report is so obsequious, so saccharine, that it is painful to read. The whole incident is really banal and uneventful in retrospect, but this reporter builds it into orgasmic proportions showing how the press, even in Europe, have allowed hero worship to overtake even the tiniest shred of journalistic integrity.

Judith Bonesky’s breathless account so overplays reality that it is sickening. Even the title shows that the writer was acting like a goofy child unable to restrain her boundless enthusiasm. Like a teenaged, Hannah Montana fan, Bonesky blurts out excitedly, “I worked out with Obama!” — yes, even with an exclamation point at the end. So much for objective, dispassionate reporting.

The excitable girl became all tingly in hotel a gym in which Barack began his work out session. The subtitle informs us that little Judy Bonesky “met Barack all alone – in the gym!” and that she has an “incredible account of… meeting” Barack. Then Bonesky writes that a “man in a suit” approached her in the gym and mentioned that Obama would soon arrive to start his work out. And, guess what? Bonesky happily says, “half past four and he actually arrives! ” (be prepared for a lot of exclamation points in this over emoted report.)

Bloomberg: Don’t Worry America, to Arabs Obama ‘Just an American With Muslim Middle Name’

July 25, 2008 | Filed Under 00Publius Contributor, Democrats/Leftists, Elections, Media Bias, News, President, Society/Culture, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off

-By Warner Todd Huston

Bloomberg News is acting as if they know how “many Muslims around the world” feel about Barack Obama. In Bloomberg’s considered opinion, Obama is “just an American with a Muslim middle name” and won’t “advance” the “interests” of Muslims. The main point that Bloomberg seems to be trying to sell is that Barack Obama’s Muslim past will not make him tend to bow to world-wide Muslim sentiment. Bloomberg is obviously doing their best to prop up the Obama campaign by trying to allay fears that Obama will be a disaster on foreign policy. This is a perfect example of agenda journalism disguised as news.

So, how do the folks at Bloomberg know what the world’s Muslims think about Barack Obama? Is it polls? Did they conduct extensive interviews or research on how Muslims feel about Obama? No, it seems more like Bloomberg’s opinion is loosely based on the opinions of the three Muslims they quote and a broad interpretation of one poll on Obama and one on Muslim opinion of the US in general. It seems a rather wild leap in logic from the “evidence” they present to assume that they have a firm grasp on the opinion about Obama of all the world’s Muslims.

Bloomberg gives us the doubt about Obama’s effectiveness for implementing policy favorable to Muslims exhibited by a 24-year-old Palestinian medical student named Wessam al-Ghoul. We are also treated to the disappointment that University of Toulouse (France) professor Habib Samarkandi had over a recent Obama foreign policy speech and similar disappointment from Egyptian writer Atef Ghamri. These three men represents Bloomberg’s extensive interviews.

Wow. Three guys to represent all of Islam! That was conclusive, and all encompassing “proof,” eh?

WaPo: As Obama Makes Gaffe After Gaffe, Let’s Talk About McCain’s ‘Flubs’

July 25, 2008 | Filed Under 00Publius Contributor, Democrats/Leftists, Elections, Media Bias, President, Society/Culture, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off

-By Warner Todd Huston

Remember when McCain said that he had visited all 57 States during his campaign? Then there was the time that McCain said “Well let me be absolutely clear. Israel is a strong friend of Israel’s.” Oh, and what about the time that McCain said “10,000 people died” in the Kansas tornadoes (death toll really 12). Crazy stuff, eh? Wait, let’s not forget when McCain said that Arkansas was a “nearby” state to Kentucky. Man was that a major flub showing a complete lack of knowledge of simple geography.

Hmm, wait a minute. I might be making a flub myself, here. Didn’t Obama make all those gaffes (and many, many more)? Why, yes, he did. So, why, amidst an ever growing list of Obama flubs and gaffes, did the Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz just pen a story titled “Is McCain’s Age Showing? Tongues Wag Over Flubs”? It’s as if the Obamessiah has spoken in flawless, if not mellifluous, English with nary a gaffe uttered throughout the campaign.

“We interrupt the nonstop coverage of Barack Obama’s overseas trip,” Kurtz writes, “to bring you some breaking whispers about John McCain.”

Why Google is the Biggest Threat to Americans’ Privacy:

July 25, 2008 | Filed Under 00Publius Contributor, Business, Congress, Democrats/Leftists, Economy/Finances, Google, Inernet, Media Bias, News, Scott Cleland, Technology | Comments Off

-By Scott Cleland

The Detailed Case from my House Testimony

In my testimony Thursday on Internet privacy before Chairman Markey’s House Internet Subcommittee, I documented for Congress the detailed case of how Google, which is subject to no Federal privacy laws, is the single biggest threat to Americans’ privacy today.

The evidence assembled here shows how Google’s mission and culture are hostile to privacy, how Google’s unprecedented scale and scope enable a breath-taking collection of intimate “blackmail-able” information, and how Google’s track record is not worthy of trust.

From my testimony:

Case Study: How Google Systematically Threatens Americans’ Privacy

To begin, I am not alone in believing Google’s privacy practices are a particularly serious consumer protection problem.

Privacy watchdog, Privacy International, ranked Google worst in its world survey on privacy in 2007 and described Google as “hostile to privacy.”
EPIC, CDD, and USPIRG filed suit with the FTC last year challenging Google’s privacy practices as deceptive trade practices.
*
Recently, a broad coalition of privacy advocates pressured Google to finally comply with California privacy law and put a link to their privacy policy on their home page.

First, Google’s mission is antithetical to privacy

Google’s megalomaniacal “mission is to organize the world’s information and make it accessible and useful.” Google’s mission is so uniquely antithetical to privacy–it actually warrants the creation of a new term: “publicacy.” Google’s unique and radical “publicacy” mission believes “the world’s information,” is (and should be) public not private. (Note the mission statement puts no qualifier on “information” other than “the world’s”.)
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Worshipping Idols

July 25, 2008 | Filed Under 00Publius Contributor, Family, News, Religion, Society/Culture, Thomas Brewton | Comments Off

-By Thomas E. Brewton

We must reject comfortable ritual and live the Christian life.

Sunday’s sermon at Black Rock-Long Ridge Congregational Church (North Stamford, Connecticut) was preached by Captain Brian Thomas, leader of Stamford’s Salvation Army unit.

An effective Salvation Army leader who desires to lead souls to Jesus Christ can’t mindlessly and endlessly repeat old rituals. In Captain Thomas’s case, that meant dropping the old Salvation Army standard of the brass band playing on street corners to draw the unchurched into church services. Not enough people in today’s circumstances respond.

Instead he went into the low-income housing projects and began bussing children to church services and bussing them back to their homes. Just as did the liberal-progressive educators led by John Dewey early in the 20th century, aiming to destroy our Judeo-Christian heritage and replace it with a socialistic society, Captain Thomas recognized that the future belongs to those who educate our children. They must hear the truth of the gospel in some venue, because our secular public educational system is busily inculcating them with godless materialism.
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Barack’s ‘Judgment’…

July 25, 2008 | Filed Under 00Publius Contributor, Democrats/Leftists, Elections, Foreign Policy, News, Security/Safety, Society/Culture, War on Terror, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off

Obama Hits a Wall! Will Media Highlight MAJOR Obama Gaffe in Berlin Speech?

July 24, 2008 | Filed Under 00Publius Contributor, Democrats/Leftists, Europe, Foreign Policy, History, Media Bias, News, President, Society/Culture, Warner Todd Huston | 1 Comment

-By Warner Todd Huston

Obama’s speech today in Berlin, hailed as a “major” address, has at least one major, glaring error that shows that nether Obama nor his handlers and speech writers were thoroughly familiar with the facts. Obama’s main theme was about the “walls” that separate all of us one from another. He claims that many of these “walls” have been taken down and hails that as progress. But in at least one instance he is wrong. In fact more walls have been built where Obama claimed they were taken down.

First the relevant section of Obama’s misconception (my bold for emphasis):

The walls between old allies on either side of the Atlantic cannot stand. The walls between the countries with the most and those with the least cannot stand. The walls between races and tribes; natives and immigrants; Christian and Muslim and Jew cannot stand. These now are the walls we must tear down.

We know they have fallen before. After centuries of strife, the people of Europe have formed a Union of promise and prosperity. Here, at the base of a column built to mark victory in war, we meet in the center of a Europe at peace. Not only have walls come down in Berlin, but they have come down in Belfast, where Protestant and Catholic found a way to live together; in the Balkans, where our Atlantic alliance ended wars and brought savage war criminals to justice; and in South Africa, where the struggle of a courageous people defeated apartheid.

(Full Obama speech transcript here.)

Obama claims that the walls built to separate Protestant from Catholic have come down in Belfast. Well, in fact, they have not. In reality MORE ARE BEING BUILT all the time.

A Quote in the Old Media…

July 24, 2008 | Filed Under Democrats/Leftists, Media Bias, News | Comments Off

-By Warner Todd Huston

Just a quick note to mention to all that I was quoted in the San Francisco chronicle in a story titled ‘Obamamania’ in Europe a sign of strong world interest in U.S. election, affairs, by Joe Garofoli.

Check it out. I am mentioned and quoted at the tail of the story.

Newspaper Misspells its OWN Name on Front Page

July 24, 2008 | Filed Under 00Publius Contributor, Democrats/Leftists, Media Bias, Society/Culture, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off

-By Warner Todd Huston

For a little humorous break from the world of hard news, we have the embarrassing story of the Valley News that serves Vermont and New Hampshire misspelling its own name on the front page of the July 21 issue.

The big oopsie was followed on July 22 with an egg-on-the-face, editor’s note apologizing to the readers for this ridiculous mistake.

Editor’s Note – Readers may have noticed that the Valley News misspelled its own name on yesterday’s front page. Given that we routinely call on other institutions to hold them accountable for their mistakes, let us say for the record: We sure feel silly.

Gosh darn it but don’t they look silly? Still, it’s great that they took the gaffe in good humor. After all, with a mistake that absurd, what else could you do?

MSNBC Prez Claims They’re Not Liberal On Purpose, But ‘You Can’t Trust A Word’ Fox Says

July 24, 2008 | Filed Under 00Publius Contributor, Democrats/Leftists, Media Bias, News, Society/Culture, Warner Todd Huston | 1 Comment

-By Warner Todd Huston

Once again MSNBC president Phil Griffin is claiming that his cable outlet is not liberal on purpose. (I know what you’re saying, if you believe that he has a bridge to sell you) In an interview with a TV reviewer for the Kansas City Star, Griffin once again made the claim that the extreme leftward tilt that MSNBC has taken over the last few years was a complete accident and that they aren’t “tied to ideology” like Fox News is. Griffin also attacked Fox News saying that, “you can’t trust a word they say.”

It all started when Aaron Barnhart of the Star asked Griffin for his reaction to statements made by Fox News executive John Moody who said that MSNBC only gained their current market share because of the “messianic ranting” of its anchors, Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews. This set Griffin off at the outset of the interview.

“Look,” said Griffin. “I totally respect Fox News and what they did. But it’s totally cynical. For them to say that is outrageous. They saw an opportunity years ago to create an ideological channel. And they did. I give them total credit. I tip my hat to them. They scored. But it was ideological and opportunistic. It was a business plan.

Ah, but you see, MSNBC is different. Their ideological tilt was purely an accident… so it doesn’t count.

President Bush and the Fat Lady!

July 24, 2008 | Filed Under 00Publius Contributor, Business, Democrats/Leftists, Economy/Finances, Foreign Policy, Government, Corruption, Media Bias, News, Society/Culture | Comments Off

-By Don Boys, Ph.D.

The fat lady was standing in the wings ready to sing while President Bush was speaking on July 15 to the American people attempting to assure them that the economy is sound and hoping they will not storm the banks to get their money. He was using his “bully pulpit” to cower us into submission. You will note that he will not use that “pulpit” on behalf of traditional marriage, immigration, protecting the unborn and other “hot” issues that a “compassionate conservative” should espouse.

On the same day in Europe, the bears were growling and “blood” was flowing in the streets. England is now entering a recession, a little ahead of the U.S. Professor Tim Congdon from the London School of Economics said the United Kingdom was “lurching from boom to bust,” and “it is going to get worse.” Roger Bootle from Capital Economics said Britain could be facing a “real economic crisis and a financial collapse.” Ambrose Evans-Pritchard reported on June 27, that Barclays Capital has advised clients to “batten down the hatches for a worldwide financial storm.” That was worldwide!

The London Telegraph declared on July 17, “European recession looms as Spain crumbles.” Pedro Solbes, Spain’s finance minister admitted that Spain “faces the worst economic crisis in its history.” The story used such buzzwords as “spiralling,” “worst crisis,” and “dire straits.” Italy, France, Portugal, and Germany are also bleeding.

Flight 93 Update…

July 23, 2008 | Filed Under Democrats/Leftists, Flight 93, Government, Corruption, Media Bias, News, War on Terror | Comments Off

9/11 date to be placed as star on crescent and star flag

Not all of us can make it to Pennsylvania next week to help Tom Burnett Sr. stop the re-hijacking of Flight 93, but if anyone needs another reason to try…

The crescent memorial to Flight 93 will have the 9/11 date inscribed on a separate section of Memorial Wall that is centered on the bisector of the giant crescent, in the exact position of the star on an Islamic crescent and star flag.

Check it out. As can be seen on our blogburst logo, there will be a copse of trees that sits roughly between the tips of the giant crescent (roughly in the position of the star on a crescent and star flag). That is the Sacred Ground Plaza, which sits just above the crash site. Inside the Sacred Ground Plaza is a two part Memorial Wall that follows the flight path down to the point of impact:

House Speaker Pelosi Claims Al Gore Invented Internet Technology?

July 23, 2008 | Filed Under 00Publius Contributor, Congress, Democrats/Leftists, Inernet, Media Bias, News, Society/Culture, Technology, Warner Todd Huston | 3 Comments

-By Warner Todd Huston

I’m sure by now we are all aware of the Netroots Nation conference that happened in Austin, Texas last weekend. Well, did you know that without Al Gore it wouldn’t have happened? That’s right, since Al Gore invented the Internet… I know, I know, that is the old Al Gore joke where he famously claimed that he invented the World Wide Web. Everyone knows that AL Gore had little to do with the Internet, of course. But at least one person, obviously one rather easy to bamboozle, still thinks Al Gore did invent the Internet. In fact she thinks he invented all the technology inherent in that Internet. And she is currently the Speaker of the House of Representatives, sadly enough.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi attended the Nutrooters gathering and, as reported in the Houston Chronicle, let loose with this gem while introducing Al Gore to those assembled: “Without him, there would be no Netroots Nation. There wouldn’t be the technology.”

Huh? Without Al Gore “there wouldn’t be the technology” to have an Internet based gathering like Netroots Nation?

She has to be kidding, right?

Nancy, um, I’d like to help you out, babe. See, Al Gore didn’t invent the Internet and he is NOT responsible for any of the technology that is connected with it. Not a single line of code did he write, not one piece of hardware was created by the former VP and current global warming snake oil salesman.

PCMag.com: Attack of the Geeks on John McCain

July 23, 2008 | Filed Under 00Publius Contributor, Democrats/Leftists, Elections, Inernet, Media Bias, News, President, Society/Culture, Technology, Warner Todd Huston | 3 Comments

-By Warner Todd Huston

Someone peed in Lance Ulanoff’s pocket protector and it must have been a Republican, because Ulanoff, one of PCMag.com’s chief geeks, unloaded on the “tech illiterate” John McCain in a July 16th article, insisting that McCain isn’t “tech savvy enough to run this country.”

Ulanoff is filled with all sorts of assumptions and with faux indignation that John McCain dares run for president even though he has admitted that he doesn’t know a whole lot about computers. Naturally, Ulanoff begins with the left’s favorite talking point du jour, that McCain is too old.

John McCain, the oldest presidential candidate this nation has ever had, has now proven, by his own admission, that he’s not tech savvy enough to run this country.

So, what is uber geek Ulanoff’s reason that McCain isn’t able to lead this country in a “tech” age? Why its because McCain says he can’t use a computer that’s why. Oh, and he’s old… let’s not forget that

The Panacea of the Oil Free Economy

July 23, 2008 | Filed Under 00Publius Contributor, Business, Dan Scott, Democrats/Leftists, Economy/Finances, Energy, Government, Corruption, Media Bias, News, Science, Security/Safety, Society/Culture | 6 Comments

-By Dan Scott

The one thing we can credit liberals for is their very creative minds. They have this ability to imagine whimsically how the world can be refashioned to suite their various constituencies and accompanying agendas. In all of these lofty goals liberals are extremely adept at selling a goal by glossing over the negative consequences of their advocacy. In glossing over the negatives, they sell the goal as having magical abilities to solve all kinds of problems, in the real world we call this a panacea. Panaceas are born of wishful thinking by people who lack the ability, knowledge, skill or education to come up with practical solutions. One such liberal panacea is the oil free economy advocated by the environmentalists.

Environmentalists these days are people who see any human impact upon nature as a despoiling of it. They tend also to believe they, being the stewards of the planet’s ecology, have the right to dictate, according to their knowledge, what is good or bad. More often than not, this knowledge is more of a display of their ignorance of nature, not the wisdom of understanding. Knowledge and wisdom are not the same, nor does it automatically follow with the accumulation of knowledge that wisdom results. Knowledge without wisdom is ignorance and when combined with self-righteousness results in arrogance. One of the foremost points of ignorance by environmentalists is that nature is static, that is what we see today is what nature intends to be there tomorrow, next year, the next decade, a hundred years from now and has always been so in the past. Nature demonstrates via weather it is constantly changing, climate likewise is not static in nature. Any cursory research of climate for the last 100,000 years reveals that it does CHANGE quite dramatically from the ice age to warm periods (interglacials) such as we now enjoy. This is also true of the ocean level where at the end of the last ice age it was some 450 feet lower than it was today. How many wildlife habitats were drowned by the rising of the oceans? It seems nature is all about CHANGE and destructive at that.
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School Choice Advocates: Act Now!

July 23, 2008 | Filed Under 00Publius Contributor, Democrats/Leftists, Education, Israel Teitelbaum, News, Society/Culture | Comments Off

-By Israel Teitelbaum

It was a sign of true leadership for John McCain to address the NAACP on the importance of parental choice in education. The NAACP has long opposed this, to the great detriment of inner-city youth, and others, who cannot afford good private schools. Competition will undoubtedly improve the quality and efficiency of education, just as it does for enterprise.

Now that school choice has become an issue in this presidential campaign, this is a most opportune time for voters to speak out and petition for their constitutional right to raise and nurture their children without government interference. A nation founded upon individual and religious liberty should not be financially coercing parents to send their children to government run schools.

There is now a proposal before members of Congress to sponsor the Civil Rights Act for Equal Educational Opportunity. This would require the states to equitably fund the education of children in public and non-public schools, while respecting the liberty of schools in hiring and provision of services.

We can change the tenor of this election campaign by calling upon our representatives in Washington, at 202-224-3121, and urging them to sponsor this legislation.
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Never Deported Illegal Murders Family

July 22, 2008 | Filed Under 00Publius Contributor, Crime, Democrats/Leftists, Family, Immigration/Immigrants, News, Race, Security/Safety, Society/Culture, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off

-By Warner Todd Huston

Another indictment against the so-called “sanctuary city.” A woman suffers her entire family murdered by an illegal alien and known convict because San Francisco shields illegals from Federal deportation. A husband and two sons are murdered over this illegal scumbag’s “road rage.”

DailyKos Thugs Bully Paper to Pull Netroot Nation Story

July 22, 2008 | Filed Under 00Publius Contributor, Democrats/Leftists, Inernet, Media Bias, News, Society/Culture, Warner Todd Huston | 1 Comment

-By Warner Todd Huston

Just as I finish a piece laughing at DailyKos for claiming that it is conservatives that feel they have to “create their own alternate reality” because of their “rigid ideology,” I find a story out of The Austin American-Statesman where the DailyKos forced that paper to pull a story that had a mildly satirical take on last weekend’s Netroots Nation conference in Texas. Apparently, the DailyKos folks didn’t like The Austin American-Statesman’s “reality” so the Kossacks flooded the paper with their insistence on creating a new one.

The original article by the Statesman’s Patrick Beach knocked the nutrooters for the so-called “surprise” Gore visit, said it turned into a “faint-in,” and that their general feeling was “terribly self-confirming,” among other snippy comments… fun, but snippy. The general tone of the piece was that of amusement at how seriously the nutrooters took themselves. And, even more galling to said nutrooters, this story was the front page editorial of Sunday’s edition. (Original, Google cached version of Beach’s piece.)

This did not sit well with the nutrooters in question.

So, What Should we Call The Media, Anyway?

July 22, 2008 | Filed Under 00Publius Contributor, Democrats/Leftists, Elections, Media Bias, News, Society/Culture, Warner Todd Huston | 8 Comments

-By Warner Todd Huston

Many of us have taken to calling the media establishment the “MSM,” or “Mainstream Media.” But is that a fair and properly descriptive monicker to bestow upon them? A New York Times Blogger pondered that very question on July 21 in a “The Caucus” blog entry — one that was a barely disguised effort to highlight and advertise the opinion of one Markos Moulitsas of the DailyKos.

Still, regardless of the origin of the question, it is an interesting point to ponder. With the failing of newspapers country wide, with the ever falling audience that the big three TV networks are seeing for their news product, and with the corresponding rise of the Internet as a news source, is the old media still properly to be called “mainstream”? Does it still represent the most common way that America gets its news, thereby deserving of the term “mainstream”?

Change We Really Need

July 22, 2008 | Filed Under 00Publius Contributor, Business, Democrats/Leftists, Economy/Finances, Elections, Government, Corruption, Media Bias, News, President, Society/Culture, Taxes, Thomas Brewton | Comments Off

-By Thomas E. Brewton

If Senator Obama’s magic change-wand truly works, the change we need is eradication from our society of the degraded and debauched ethos of liberal-progressive-socialism that led us to inflation and near collapse of financial markets.

It is currently fashionable for liberal commentators to denounce capitalist free markets as the culprit in the housing bubble collapse. That amounts to blaming the existence of law and a judicial system for causing crime.

When massive government intervention wildly distorts the signals and incentives in commercial, industrial, and financial markets, blame lies with the government. In the present crisis, blame attaches principally to nearly unbroken deficit spending since 1929, financed by the Federal Reserve’s expansion of the money supply faster than increases in real production.

Add to this government incentives for citizens to consume goods and services faster than they produce them.
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If Obama is a Committed Christian, When was he Baptized?

July 22, 2008 | Filed Under 00Publius Contributor, Democrats/Leftists, Elections, Media Bias, News, Religion, Society/Culture | Comments Off

-By Don Boys, Ph.D.

Senator Barack Hussein Obama claims to be a Christian; however, he gives no evidence of that. In fact, his heretical statement indicates that he, like many others, is simply a professor rather than a possessor of Christ. His revealing statement: “I believe there are many paths to the same place.” He is correct if one wants to go to Hoboken but not if one wants to go to Heaven. Christ is still the only way.

One does not have to be a Christian to be a good President, and a person might be a good President even if he were a Muslim. The big question: Is he lying and if so then we have every reason to question him before he gets to the Oval Office. It’s bad enough to have a liberal whose policies are like the elastic in an old lady’s drawers—stretching to fit any shape or circumstance but to have a liar in the Oval office (as we have seen before) could destroy us.

He went forward at Trinity United Church of Christ 20 years ago for membership but when was he baptized? Does Obama know that joining a church or being baptized have nothing to do with becoming a Christian? I have tried repeatedly to discover when he was baptized but without success. I talked and emailed Trinity and his website many times without success. The media person at Trinity told me that the church requires baptism either before applying for membership or at that time. So, was he baptized and if not, why not? Did his pastor at the time make special provisions for him? It’s a very simple question that can be easily answered. If he has never been baptized, why not?

These are the Torturing, Maniacs Obama Thinks he can Befriend

July 21, 2008 | Filed Under 00Publius Contributor, Democrats/Leftists, Elections, Foreign Policy, History, Islam, Islamofascism, Media Bias, News, President, Religion, Security/Safety, Society/Culture, War on Terror, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off

-By Warner Todd Huston

In 1999 a handsome, earnest young man named Ahmad Batebi defied Ayatollah Khamenei in Iran. His photo caused an instant sensation and became a symbol of the flower of Iran standing ready to oppose the oppression of the Iranian religious regime.

Batebi, 31, became an icon after he was photographed as a handsome young student waving the blood-stained shirt of a fallen demonstrator during mass protests against Ayatollah Khamenei, the supreme leader, and clerical rule in 1999. With his long hair and bandana, he embodied the new spirit of defiance in Iran.

Naturally, he was apprehended by his oppressors and imprisoned under a 15-year prison sentence. While in prison he was beaten with metal cables, suspended by his arms from the ceiling for hours and was constantly threatened with execution. It was demanded that he disclaim his treasonous actions on Iranian TV. Batebi refused.

The price of his defiance can be seen in the deep scars on his shoulders and arms — and other parts of his body hidden by clothing. In prison he was repeatedly blindfolded, beaten and deprived of sleep. Pulling up the sleeves of his T-shirt, he said: “I don’t know what they used to cut me, but they put salt in the wounds to stop me falling asleep.”

Fortunately, Ahmad Batebi found help among the Kurdish underground in Iran and he was able to make his escape to find refuge in America. It is reported that his pursuers chased him from Iran all the way into Iraq and issued the threat that they would eventually get him.

Ahmad Batebi was lucky to have escaped. Thousands of his compatriots have not been so lucky. They languish in prisons deep in Iran being tortured and murdered daily by order of the Ayatollahs.

These are the people Barack Obama imagines he can charm into becoming civilized humans.

Not Livin’ Large in Ohio, Folks Can’t Even Afford Meat?

July 21, 2008 | Filed Under 00Publius Contributor, Democrats/Leftists, Economy/Finances, Family, Government, Corruption, Media Bias, Society/Culture, Taxes, Warner Todd Huston | 4 Comments

-By Warner Todd Huston

That’s it. NPR has declared Ohio a disaster area. Things are so bad. NPR gravely warns, that folks in the Buckeye state can’t even afford to buy meat for their dinner tables anymore. It’s the end of civilization as we know it. Doom and gloom. Oh the humanity. It’s the end of the world as we know it… at least for one Ohio family that NPR found to act as stand in for the rest of the state. To NPR all of Ohio is the Nunez family. And what is NPR’ solution? Government aid, of course.

In a segment of All Things Considered (well, all things but common sense, anyway), NPR gives us Gloria Nunez whose family, we are told, was “built on cars.” NPR gives us all sorts of sobbing, rending of clothes, wearing of sackcloth and gnashing of teeth for the Nunez’, of course. But even NPR can’t hide some of the glaring problems that Gloria and her family have surely brought upon themselves.

In fact, her story sounds like the scene in the old Blues Brothers movie where John Belushi is on his knees pleading with Carrie Fischer to forgive him. There was a flood, he whined, locusts came, it was the end of the world, it REALLY wasn’t his fault, he swore to God. Similarly we get the tale that Gloria Nunez’ car broke down, she can’t find a job, she had a car accident that left her “depressed and disabled, incapable of getting a job.” She is now somehow forced to live on a “$637 Social Security check and $102 in food stamps.” Naturally, none of it is her fault. All the seeds for the common welfare tale are there.

Smart Hillary bides her time

July 21, 2008 | Filed Under 00Publius Contributor, Democrats/Leftists, Elections, News, President, Society/Culture | 1 Comment

-By Michael M. Bates

Hillary Clinton can be accused of many things. Stupidity isn’t one of them. Waiting in the wings, she’s ready to rescue her party if Mr. Wonderful continues to self-destruct.

Mrs. Clinton didn’t formally terminate her candidacy for the Democratic nomination; she suspended it. She didn’t officially release the delegates pledged to her; she merely asked them to support Barack Obama.

Clinton loyalists now demand her name be placed in nomination at next month’s convention. They point out that the Illinois senator wins only if he secures the support of numerous super delegates. Those superior beings can change their votes at any time, including the day of the balloting.
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The Gift

July 21, 2008 | Filed Under 00Publius Contributor, Education, Family, Religion, Society/Culture, Thomas Brewton | Comments Off

-By Thomas E. Brewton

Through Jesus Christ we have received the inestimable gift of the Holy Spirit as our counselor and comforter.

Pastor Steve Treash’s sermon this past Sunday at Black Rock-Long Ridge Congregational Church (North Stamford, Connecticut) was on God’s gift to us of the Holy Spirit.

Unlike the major imperial religions that appeared in the world before Jesus Christ, Christianity gives believers a personal relationship with God. In earlier religions the ruler was the only connection between his subjects and the gods. From Hammurabi to the Pharaohs, law was promulgated by the ruler in the name of the gods, and social order was handed down from on high through the ruler.

Christianity turned this upside down, making it possible for every individual to gain remission of his sins directly by accepting Jesus Christ as his savior and repenting. To aid repentance and sanctification, God manifested Himself individually to believers as the Holy Spirit.

To describe the gift, Pastor Treash’s main text was Acts 1:1-5.
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MSNBC Airs Video of Ledger’s Joker After McCain Intro

July 21, 2008 | Filed Under 00Publius Contributor, Democrats/Leftists, Elections, Media Bias, News, Society/Culture, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off

MSNBC Airs Video of Ledger’s Joker After McCain Intro
-By Warner Todd Huston

Nope, there isn’t any leftward tilt at MSNBC, is there? How could there be when MSNBC was introducing a John McCain clip during a “news” story and instead of the video of John McCain, up popped Heath Ledger as “The Joker.”

Our old pal Johnnydollar captured the video.

Of course, it is equally as possible that it was just plain incompetence in the control room, but anyone would be excused for thinking it is an Obamaidiot in the control room instead of just an average, everyday idiot!

And with the Obama clan’s famously thin skin, who doesn’t think he’d be “outraged” over this were it an Obama intoduction followed by a Joker video clip?

We report, you deride.

Obama: I’ll Be President For ‘The Next 8 to 10 Years’?

July 20, 2008 | Filed Under 00Publius Contributor, Constitution, Democrats/Leftists, Elections, Foreign Policy, Media Bias, News, President, Security/Safety, Society/Culture, War on Terror, Warner Todd Huston | 1 Comment

By-Warner Todd Huston

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, the reputed “Constitutional scholar,” just today said on CBS’s Face the Nation that he went to Iraq to talk to important leader that he expects to be “dealing with over the next eight to 10 years.” So, does this “Constitutional scholar” not realize that there is this little thing called the 22nd Amendment that holds a president to only two, four year terms? Um, that would be a grand total of only 8 years, Barack, not 8 to 10. Of course, the big question is, will we see this idiot gaffe race through the MSM as it would if a Republican had said it?

At the very least ABC’s Jake Tapper, one of the best political reporters in the biz, sure noticed. Tapper has a blog entry on his “Political Punch” blog all about it with an amusing side note about time travel added in just for fun.

Today on CBS’s Face the Nation, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., in Afghanistan, told the paparazzi-pursued correspondent Lara Logan that “the objective of this trip was to have substantive discussions with people like President Karzai or Prime Minister Maliki or President Sarkozy or others who I expect to be dealing with over the next eight to 10 years.

Tapper zings the presumptuous nominee a good one.

The notion that Obama will be dealing with world leaders for eighjt-to-ten years, possibly up through July 2018, suggests that either (a) he believes that not only will he be elected and re-elected, but the 22nd amendment will be repealed and he will be elected for a third term, OR (b) he was speaking casually and just meant two terms.

Tapper goes on to zing Obama several more times before this entry is done.

But, why is it that Tapper is seemingly the only denizen of the MSM ever willing to bring out these stories? Why does the MSM so constantly give the Obamessiah a pass? I’ll bet you can say why.

But here is a real point to ponder. What if John McCain had said he’d be president for the next 10 years? Wouldn’t the press and every late night comedian gin up the “he’s old and senile” jokes until those jokes would go through the country like wildfire?

Lastly, we have yet one more example of this man’s arrogance. He is beginning to carry on foreign policy before he even gets elected!

“And it’s important for me to have a relationship with them early, that I start listening to them now, getting a sense of what their interests and concerns are.”

You see, Barack, that is a president’s job! Have you been elected yet?

What do you think?

Reuters: Who Felled the Berlin Wall? How ‘Bout Bruce Springsteen! (No, They’re SERIOUS)

July 20, 2008 | Filed Under 00Publius Contributor, Democrats/Leftists, Foreign Policy, History, Media Bias, News, Security/Safety, Society/Culture, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off

-By Warner Todd Huston

In one of the most ridiculous examples of unbridled hyperbole, Reuters has decided that singer Bruce Springsteen is the one responsible for bringing down the Berlin Wall and ending the Cold War. Yes, that’s Bruce “Scorn in the USA” Springsteen, one of the most anti-American rockers on the scene. I know what you’re thinking, “But what about Ronald Reagan?” Forget it, man, it’s Bruce all the way as far as Reuters is concerned. Maybe it was his gravely warbling that Joshua-like brought those walls tumblin’ down, maybe his caterwauling is what turned the trick, but, quite despite any common sense and in a childishly, foolish and overly simplistic review of history, Reuters is sure that Bruce is the hero of Berlin. It is a great example of reductio ad absurdo if there ever was one, not that Reuters is aware of it.

This Reuters piece is so filled with nonsense, so blind to all the complicated political and social influences that really ended the Cold War, that it is hard to know where to start reviewing it. I can but shake my head at its simple minded analysis.

Seriously. Reuters really means it. Oh, don’t confuse them with all that economic and political history gobbledegook. It was one concert that ended a generation of communist oppression not the might of the US and its president determined to destroy the “evil empire.” It was “Thunder Road” and “Born to Run” sung in that less then melodic Springsteen style that brought the end to the Cold War.

Union Outsourcing it’s Own Web Design to Eastern Europe?

July 20, 2008 | Filed Under 00Publius Contributor, Business, Democrats/Leftists, Economy/Finances, News, Society/Culture, Unions, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off

-By Warner Todd Huston

Unions have been decrying outsourcing for years. The word “outsourcing” has been used as a boogieman to blame declining union jobs upon for the last decade. Unions, for their part, claim to desire to stand up against outsourcing — especially that of outsourcing jobs overseas — and wish to push the home grown alternatives to outsourcing jobs, namely keeping them in the country and under the control of the union.

Yet what have we discovered here on the blog? Why that the nation’s largest union, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) has outsourced the design of one of their own web pages to someone in Slovakia, that’s what.

We’ve waited to report this story because the webpage in question presented a time sensitive situation. The SEIU was trying to create what they were calling the “Take Back the Economy Day” and that day was to be July 17th. The SEIU hoped to spur people to “take aim at the special perks and tax loopholes that buyout firms depend on to get rich,” and get people involved to protest the success of “buyout firms” such as Kohlberg, Kravis and Roberts.

Well, July 17th has passed us by and we here on the blog are not in danger of accidentally advertising their event in time to assist anyone in joining their July 17th effort.

Tell The EPA You DON’T Want Their Meddling in the Economy Over Global Warming

July 20, 2008 | Filed Under 00Publius Contributor, Constitution, Democrats/Leftists, Economy/Finances, Global Warming, Government, Corruption, News, Society/Culture, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off

-By Warner Todd Huston

The EPA is looking to expand its powers even more thanks to the Supreme Court of the United States. It is about to meddle ever more in our national economic health with its claimed “fixes” to the non-existent “problem” of global warming.

But, we citizens have a chance to have our say. The EPA has opened up to public comments on their latest power grab. I urge each of you to email your insistence that the EPA lay off our economy with their anti-capitalist notions of fixing the non-existent problem of global warming.

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