Hear It Online

Social Justice and the case of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.

For over 30 years Universities have taught students that the world has been victimized by the United States.

This indoctrination has produced a generation of liberal leadership which is morally guided by a perverse strain of social justice which argues that enemies of the US are really only guilty of defending themselves from the evils of American Imperialism.

There is a perspective within the administration, and government as a whole, which really feels that 9/11 was a justifiable and predictable response to over a century of culturally insensitive capitalistic exploitation of the 3rd world.

As the good Reverend Jeremiah Wright said, “American’s chickens have come home to roost.” Victims families? Bah! Who are the real victims?

The Obama Administration does not confine its definition of victim to those who died during the Khobar Towers attack or 9/11 alone because in the liberal mind the US is guilty of far far worse.

The (mostly) unspoken liberal argument is that people who attack the United States certainly have a degree of justification in their hatred of this nation.

The least the Obama Administration can do is extend this nation’s laws to the people who seek to destroy it.

The Cold and Flu Season Grips the White House

The Cold and Flu Season. Normally this time of year is considered an annoyance by most people, perhaps a cash cow by the over the counter pharmaceutical industry.

This year is a little different. Yesterday, October 24th, President Obama declared swine flu a national emergency.

Nobody is immune from catching a cold or the flu, and this is true in a political sense as well. The decline in Barack Obama’s popularity since July has been the steepest of any president at the same stage of his first term for more than 50 years.

Does the Obama Administration have the political equivalent of a fever? What better place to take the temperature of the Obama Administration that the White House web site.

Deciding to look at President Barack Obama’s White House web site I launched my trusty web browser and pointed it to www.whitehouse.gov to see what may be ailing the Administration and what they’re doing to, in a manner of speaking, get ‘well’.

Nothing about the Iraq War or the Afghan War.

Nothing about bipartisan answers to the problems facing the United States, which was a theme of the Obama Presidential Campaign.

Nothing about addressing the Culture of Corruption in Washington, DC.

The impression that President Obama isn’t focused on the two wars, or fulfilling his moderate campaign promises, is killing him in the polls. The White House communication gurus don’t realize they have huge gaping political confidence holes on the President’s web site.

What are the issues the White House is working on a cure for?

First and foremost is ‘Health Insurance Reform’. This beast has a different name almost every week. Not so long ago ‘it’ went by the name of ‘Health Care Reform’. However, that was a week or so back and focus group research must have led to a rethinking of what to label a takeover of 1/6th of the U.S. economy.

To the left on the page is a column, or series, of ‘blog’ entries. These entries are fed out via RSS to any site or person that would care to receive them. No doubt this is an example of the Obama Administration’s fine tuned understanding of the New Media

Going through the blog entries from top to bottom one sees a story about President Obama signing a National Emergency Declaration concerning the H1N1 virus. Okay, here’s the ugly truth, the U.S. Government failed to manufacture enough vaccine, “The federal government had expected that 120 million doses of the H1N1 vaccine would be readily available by October end but the CDC will only have 27.7 million doses of the vaccine by the month’s end.”

So remember the same U.S. Government who came up 100 MILLION doses short of H1N1 vaccine this year still intends to take over the entire U.S. Health Care System.

Next up is a video, the President’s Weekly Address: Working with Small Business to Drive Recovery. The video as served from the Whitehouse.gov is unwatchable, coughs and gags, incredibly slow. Searching YouTube I found the Working with Small Business to Drive Recovery video and was able to view it without difficulty. The gist of President Obama’s Working with Small Business to Drive Recovery video address is that banks aren’t loaning money and that’s why the .

Next is a political damage control story directly related to the President’s Weekly Address. On Thursday, October 22nd, Christina Romer (Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers in the Obama administration) testified before Congress’ Joint Economic Committee that the 780 Billion dollar Economic Stimulus Package is a bust. In her piece Mrs. Romer uses a misfiring automobile metaphor to explain what she was really trying to say before Congress.

Following the apology by Christina Romer is blog cocktail by Brian Bond, President Obama’s Deputy Director of Public Liaison and point person to the LGBT community. Mr. Bond was the leader of the Victory Fund, The Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund is an American political action committee dedicated to increasing the number of openly LGBT public officials in US political life.

In brief, Mr. Bond writes about a series of efforts by the White House to placate the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender (LGBT) Community. If you aren’t aware the LGBT forces are unhappy with President Obama, specifically because President Obama hasn’t overturned the Military’s ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy. To remind the LGBT Community that President Obama is on their side Brian Bond writes about the steps the White House is taking to support the LGBT Community. This apparently includes tax payer subsidized housing and a Community Center for aging Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual and Transgender senior citizens. We are in the middle of the ‘worst economic downturn since the great depression’ but there is enough money to throw towards niche political groups?

There were two more ‘blog’ entries, one about clean energy and one more about the H1N1.

To the left of the blogs column was a column labeled Featured Legislation, there is no RSS feed for this content. It’s getting late in the day and I only scanned the Legislation.

One piece of Legislation immediately caught my eye, a Omnibus Public Lands Management Act was signed Monday, March 30, 2009. Having a background in ranching, oil and gas, as well as a short stint with the local Conservation District I was quite interested in the details of this legislation.

The article is written by a Jesse Lee. Who is Mr. Jesse Lee? Well, Jesse Lee is the Online Programs Director for President Barack Obama. My guess is that among many hats he wears he is the webmaster for Whitehouse.gov. And what are Jesse Lee’s qualifications? “Lee launched his political career as the author of a one-page anti-Iraq war leaflet distributed in cafeterias, coffee shops and libraries across the country. Lee got his start in politics running a popular Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) blog in 2003. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) snatched him up in 2006 to run The Gavel, the representative’s YouTube generation-friendly blog. In the months leading up to the 2008 presidential campaign, he ran the Democratic National Committee’s (DNC) rapid-response team“.

Interestingly enough the Omnibus Public Lands Management Act also included funding for the Christopher and Dana Reeve’s Paralysis Act, which boosts research and rehabilitation for paralysis. I don’t believe Jesse should have included the apostrophe, a Google search indicated as such. Possession of?

However I was more interested in reading the bill itself, so I clicked on the link to the legislation itself.

And received a 404 Page Not Found error.

Yup, the webmaster for Whitehouse.gov got the link wrong. Now that’s funny. Or sad. You be the judge.

Enough for one night. It’s time to ask what is known now that wasn’t known before the exploration was begun.

First, the Obama Administration is negligent in communicating with the American People on Iraq and Afghanistan goals.

Second, those things that are on the website seem to telegraph a state of short sighted damage control. Be it the economy, energy or pandering to a niche political group I certainly didn’t come away with a feeling that the White House really believes the choices made to ‘fix’ the economy are working or will work.

Third, the White House web master (Online Programs Director for President Barack Obama) is mediocre and likely in over his head.

Being no doctor I do know that to get well you have to correctly diagnose the problem.

The Obama Administration promised transparency and has reneged on that promise. There is no shortage of smoke and mirrors, but the Administration has fallen woefully short on results.

Cold and flu season has taken hold of the United States, and from the looks of things it will be some time before the Obama Administration starts feeling better about itself or anything else.

The only question left is asking the Obama Administration is suffering from the political equivalent of the flu, or something much worse.

Bill, Bernardine, Barack & Dr. Palmer

Anyone who has read anything I’ve written knows I hold a great degree of skepticism when it came to the promises and advertised goals of the candidate Barack Obama. It is my opinion that anyone who befriended William (Bill) Ayers and Bill’s wife Bernardine Dohrn shouldn’t be trusted.

To understand what the Democrat Party is now take time and read about Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn; They represent a microcosm of modern Democrat power-brokers. Their history is simply amazing, they are deadly caricatures who have charted the course of the modern Democrat Party. It is important to remember that Ayers and Dohrn are not the exception, they are the rule.

Here is an illuminating side story: In 1995 Barack Obama was chosen by Dr. Alice Palmer to move into the Illinois 13th District State Senate Seat, the office Dr. Alice Palmer held. Dr. Palmer made her announcement in the home of Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn. Alice Palmer had decided to run for Congress and it was her decision that Barack Obama take her place. Unfortunately for Dr. Palmer she came in third in the Democratic Primary and her dream of become a Congresswoman were shattered. In a last ditch effort to regain her old seat in the 13th Senate district she undertook the effort of filing 1,580 nominating petitions so that she could run as a candidate. Apparently Dr. Palmer believed Barack Obama would, out of some sense of political loyalty? In any event Barack Obama legally challenged the nominating petitions of all the other contenders, including those of Dr. Palmer, when he was done Barack Obama was the only candidate left in the race.

Mr. Hershinson's question - Health Care Reform and the U.S. Postal Service

On August 11, 2009 President Barack Obama held a Health Care Town Hall in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. During the Town Hall President Obama was asked the following question from a Mr. Ben Hershinson:

“Mr. President, you’ve been quoted over the years — when you were a senator and perhaps even before then — that you were essentially a supporter of a universal plan. I’m beginning to see that you’re changing that. Do you honestly believe that? Because that is my concern. I’m on Medicare, but I still worry that if we go to a public option, period, that the private companies, the insurance companies, rather than competing — because who can compete with the government; the answer is nobody. So my question is do you still — as yourself, now — support a universal plan? Or are you open to the private industry still being maintained?”

This was Mr. Hershinson’s question. President Obama began his answer by defining the differences between a ‘universal’ plan and ‘single-payer’ plan.

During this segment of his reply President Obama stated, “I’m not promoting a single-payer plan”.

President Obama then goes on to say, “I am promoting a plan that will assure that every single person is able to get health insurance at an affordable price, and that if they have health insurance they are getting a good deal from the insurance companies.”

So it is fair to conclude, from what President Obama said, that what President Obama does support is a public insurance company, a public option, that will compete against private insurance companies, “Now, the only thing that I have said is that having a public option in that menu would provide competition for insurance companies to keep them honest.”

Remember the original question:

“I’m on Medicare, but I still worry that if we go to a public option, period, that the private companies, the insurance companies, rather than competing — because who can compete with the government; the answer is nobody. So my question is do you still — as yourself, now — support a universal plan? Or are you open to the private industry still being maintained?”

It had been some time since Mr. Hershinson had asked his question. Perhaps President Obama had been stalling, formulating a reasonable response all the while he speaking.

Our President rephrased the question from Mr. Hershinson in the following way, “How can a private company compete against the government?”

Indeed, you don’t have to have a degree in economics from Harvard to understand you can have private insurance or public insurance but you can’t have both.

President Obama must have been prepared for such a question. It was inevitable that someone would ask how it would be possible for any private insurance company to stay in business competing against the U.S. Government. Doubtlessly this situation was planned for, an answered must have been formulated earlier.

After all, you never put yourself in a position to take a question you don’t an an answer for in politics.

What the audience heard initially seemed well tailored, a professionally scripted answer that would have done any populist proud:

“My answer is that if the private insurance companies are providing a good bargain, and if the public option has to be self-sustaining — meaning taxpayers aren’t subsidizing it, but it has to run on charging premiums and providing good services and a good network of doctors, just like any other private insurer would do — then I think private insurers should be able to compete. They do it all the time.”

Then President Obama said the darnedest thing:

“I mean, if you think about it, UPS and FedEx are doing just fine, right? No, they are. It’s the post office that’s always having problems.”

What? Why would the President of the United States disparage the most well known of government agencies? The USPS’s first incarnation was established by Benjamin Franklin in Philadelphia in 1775 by decree of the Second Continental Congress. It isn’t like the President just threw the Department of Education under the bus, it was the Post Office.

And the audience laughed. President Obama was right, who could worry about a public anything putting any private company out of business.

That’s ridiculous.

This analogy was carefully crafted. It wasn’t a slip, an accident, or unintended.

This analogy is a well crafted political tool designed to disarm opponents. This is the kind of thing that people take to water cooler conversations, even if you had never been aware of the Health Care Town Hall in Portsmouth chances are good you heard about President Obama’s slip up in admitting public institutions can’t compete with private enterprises.

Anyone who listens to Conservative Talk Radio was certainly made aware of President Obama’s unintended admission that the private sector provides good and services better than the public sector.

It was like ant poison, the ants take the bait home and consume it. Lovely. The Post Office gaffe is a reverse talking point. It’s a talking point your adversary takes comfort in, and it isn’t until to late that your opponent realizes the joke is on them.

Remember what I said earlier? You don’t have to have a degree in economics from Harvard to understand you can have private insurance or public insurance but you can’t have both.

That’s common sense, and when Conservatives make that argument it is a home run. The light comes on and people understand the real threat a public option represents.

Whatever else is true, if a public option comes into being it will only be a matter of time before private insurance is a thing of the past and all that will be left is single payer. Single payer will be the only game in town. Public option should scare people, and when explained for what it is it does.

That’s what makes the U.S. Postal Service gaffe such an effective tool, it makes the public option look weak and non threatening.

It wasn’t until today that I got it.

Today I was listening to the Sean Hannity radio program and a Liberal caller used the Post Office argument. This isn’t the first time I’ve heard a Liberal caller to a Conservative talk radio show use the Post Office argument. Sean, a bright guy, was put off balance by the analogy. Why would a Liberal seminar caller bring up the U.S. Post Office? On the surface it doesn’t make a lot of sense, until you see what the real purpose behind the talking point is.

This is how you handle the ‘post office can’t compete so don’t get all excited about the public option’ talking point.

First, it isn’t a apples to apples comparison.

There has been a U.S. Postal Service for over 200 years. FedEx and UPS came into existence as a response to problems the USPS had delivering business packages and important documents quickly.

But imagine that for over 200 years FedEx and UPS had been in existence, and had been doing quite well until recently.

Around 60 years ago people complained that not everyone could afford to mail packages and the federal government stepped in and set up a government program that would take care of the problem, but that program was mismanaged and is now broke.

Over the past 100 or so years each state had passed laws which created a different set of rules for each state’s FedEx and UPS offices.

It would also be illegal for the FedEx office of one state to send and receive packages from a different state. (This was President Obama’s analogy not mine)

Even worse, the rules the FedEx and UPS offices follow are extremely byzantine and only a lawyer could understand then. If a UPS or FedEx employee makes a mistake they could be sued. The susceptibility of FedEx and UPS offices and employees to frivolous lawsuits has resulted into there coming into existence an entire class of lawyers who profit from the situation.

It’s the year 2009 and it has become exceedingly expensive, nearly impossible, to mail a package or an important document.

What would you did to fix the problem?

As I wrote earlier FedEx and UPS came into existence as a response to problems the USPS had delivering business packages and important documents quickly.

It would not be logical to create a government run postal service to solve the problems that the government was instrumental in creating in the first place. That would be crazy.

While the Postal Service argument is a smart talking point it can easily be countered with the truth, once you understand what it really is.

And this takes us back to Mr. Hershinson’s question.

“I’m on Medicare, but I still worry that if we go to a public option, period, that the private companies, the insurance companies, rather than competing — because who can compete with the government; the answer is nobody. So my question is do you still — as yourself, now — support a universal plan? Or are you open to the private industry still being maintained?”

Specifically, the last part of the question:

“Are you open to the private industry still being maintained?”

Our President should have done Mr. Hershinson the honor of answering clearly and truthfully.

Diagnosing the Problem. Part 1: The Fourth Estate

Plan for tomorrow using the best information available to you today.

Plans based on good information work pretty good, you know what happens the rest of the time.

So the trick is being able to differentiate good information from garbage.

It is apparent that the leadership of the United States has been less than successful in selecting the best course for the nation over the past several years. Simply put – we suffer the from the results of well intended plans based on bad information. The wrong things have had priority, attempts to solve problems have failed in increasingly expensive terms.

The dollar is now the whipping child of international currencies. Official unemployment is nearing 10%. The United States Health Care system is on the verge of being Nationalized. We are involved in a floundering military operation in Afghanistan. Iran is less then two years away from developing a viable nuclear bomb. A tax on energy is being considered at a time when most people can least afford to give more to Washington.

How did this happen? Where did the bad information come from?

Well, where do we get out information? Who decides what’s important and what isn’t important? Even more importantly, who decides what is true and what isn’t true?

The Press and the Schools.

First, lets look at the Press. Also known as the Fourth Estate.

British politician Edmund Burke said there were Three Estates in Parliament; but, in the Reporters’ Gallery yonder, there sat a Fourth Estate more important far than they all.

What is the duty of the press? Wikipedia defines the duty of the press and journalists in this way: ‘Secretive power loathes journalists who do their job, who push back screens, peer behind facades, lift rocks. Opprobrium from on high is their badge of honor.’

(Opprobrium ~ Disgrace arising from exceedingly shameful conduct. The purpose of the Fourth Estate is to expose corruption.)

The press is supposed to root out corruption? When was the last time the press had that at the top of their list? Now days the press seems more intent in seeing Liberal Legislation enacted and is willing to turn a blind eye to any inconveniences that would stand in the way and launch scathing attacks against anyone who disagrees.

Some perspective is needed.

Historically the Press in the United States has never been neutral. Newspapers supported political parties and favored candidates. The illusion that the Fourth Estate is a unbiased trumpet of truth is a recent construct.

There have always been shamelessly loyal Democratic Newspapers and Republican Newspapers. Voters understood the favoritism of the local news outlets.

It is very important that people understand there was no golden age of journalism when the truth and only the truth was allowed to be printed. That is a myth.

There is an argument made today by legacy journalists that goes something like this, Have you noticed that over the last several years evidence can be found to support almost any conclusion you would like to draw?

What happened? (wring hands)

Most journalists like to then point to the internet. It used to be difficult to print anything, but now it’s easy.

Yes, the Internet represents a Paradigm shift in information sharing, and it arrived just in the nick of time.

No small amount of journalistic rancor is reserved for Talk Radio and Cable News.

With the advent of the Internet, Talk Radio and Cable News the Press is actually reverting back to a more balanced and healthy form. The ideological oligarchy that came into being after the Second World War is weakening.

Walk with me down memory lane.

In the time after the Second World War journalism was elevated from a profession that was regarded by most as slightly more honorable than circus work to something on par with clerking for a Supreme Court Justice on weekdays and staring in Hollywood on the weekends.

The news organizations learned a great deal from the war and were brim full of people who hit the ground running afterward competing for market share. The potential of Television was quickly realized, and soon TV news personalities became trusted family friends.

By the 1960’s the stage was set, what most people didn’t realize was the news organizations weren’t objective. Gone were the old men who ran the news organizations during the Second World War, the old men who built the trust of the public. What took the place of the pioneers were the graduates of eastern universities of the 1950s and these people wanted to change the world, not just report what was happening.

Looking back at the 1970’s it is laughingly obvious that what we now call the ‘legacy’ media had a Liberal agenda and was wholeheartedly slanting the news to sway public opinion to elect Liberal politicians.

The time before the Internet, Talk Radio and Cable News was a magic time for the ‘legacy’ media in that they set the table and told the people what to eat.

The people trusted the news organizations, and the people who came into power in these organizations during the 1960’s would take full advantage of this trust.

Then the 1980’s happened.

Between the 1960’s and the early 1980’s people didn’t question the ‘news’. Journalists wallowed in self righteousness and sanctimonious. I can remember John Chancelor (NBC Nightly News 1970-82) reading the news with open disdain for Ronald Reagan.

The remarkable thing was that Ronald Reagan was elected, the bias against Reagan in news organizations was awe inspiring. When I hear journalists today lamenting the level of incivility and discourse present in politics I am stunned, the hatred shown for Regan was institutional among new organizations and especially among the news anchors.

Ronald Reagan won election in spite of the news organizations, and fortunately this was the time in my life I became a news junkie. I loved watching the ABC Nightly New and the NBC Nightly New. The bias soon became apparent, even to a preteen with only two available television stations.

While other kids got up on Saturday to watch cartoons I looked forward to Sunday, because that was when Meet The Press came on. Pretty strange. I read Neweek and Time magazines.

I began to notice these news outlets were not neutral sources of information but champions of all things Democrat.

These news organizations were also lazy. If ABC had a story about killer bees coming up from South America than is was a good bet NBC would as well on the very same night. What I was a witness to was also advocacy journalism. News stories were thinly disguised arguments for gun control, or the need for environmental regulation. Homeless people would appear on que to demonstrate the heartlessness of Ronald Reagan’s domestic policies.

The plots were transparent and predictable. Stories explained how selfish Republicans were cutting taxes and people were suffering. Because of Ronald Reagan old people were condemned to eat dog food. Republicans would cause a nuclear war because Ronald Reagan was loose cannon who didn’t understand the intricacies of formal foreign policy.

The list went on and on. Nuclear Winter. Acid Rain. Vanishing Ozone. Dying Oceans. Homeless People. Gun Violence. Industrial Pollution. AIDS. Starving Africa. El Salvidor. Nicaragua.

Advocacy journalism hit the viewer hard in the stomach, and who could argue? The setup was always the same, present an issue in an emotional manner and leave the viewer looking to the Federal Government for a solution.

And if a ‘fact’ was deemed fit to print in the New York Times or divinely uttered by Walter Cronkite that was that. Who would dare challenge John Chancellor or Newsweek?

Luckily technology and legislation has transformed the Journalistic terrain.

The Fairness Doctrine was repealed in 1987 and Rush Limbaugh soon made his appearance .

Fox News came online in 1996 and is now the number one cable news network.

The Internet now acts, to a large measure, as a Fifth Estate that oversees the Fourth Estate. For example, in 2004 documents which CBS journalist Dan Rather used in story were demonstrated to be fabrications by multiple Internet ‘Blog’ sites. Dan Rather knows what opprobrium tastes like.

According to BBC journalist, Andrew Marr, ‘News is what the consensus of journalists determines it to be.’ That is a dangerous situation when a small number of people can make that determination.

The Diagnosis of the Fourth Estate reveals that an Ideological Oligarchy that came into being after the Second World War. That Ideological Oligarchy is weakening.

We must be vigilant and never allow the Ideological Oligarchy to come back into power through Federal Legislation and Censorship.

(I will address the Educational System in Part II when I get the time)