The Los Angeles Times, reeling from the deep cuts and unprecedented layoffs that have perfectly paralleled their self-inflicted loss of respect from all but the most radical leftists, finds themselves again willing to play the shill for their ideological brethren in the Obama camp at the expense of what is left of their own reputation. This time the once well-regarded paper has chosen to embargo from the people a videotape that they admit they hold in their possession that, by all accounts (including the reporter who is currently hiding the tape) shows Barack Obama at a celebration for the Arab/Islamic terrorist-supporter and longtime Obama friend, Rashid Khalidi.
Faced with the reality that the Times holds its own readership in disdain and sees itself not as an honest broker with the job of presenting the facts, but as partisans working on behalf of a particular ideology, forty Angelenos took to the streets in front of the Times' building in downtown Los Angeles this Thursday morning to make their voices heard and to demand nothing more than that the Times do its job as members of The Fourth Estate.
Just about every citizen engaged in the protest carried a sign, with messages ranging from the humorous "Free Tapette" to the personal "I'm From a Communist Country -- I've Seen This Before." (The latter making the slogan on a couple of tee-shirts for the Jewish Defense League -- "Never Again" -- only that much more poignant and powerful.)
Talk on the protest line was concurrently pessimistic and optimistic -- feelings that I share. Pessimistic about the horrors that an Obama presidency -- with a leftist-run media wholly in the tank on its behalf and a Congress led by the likes of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid -- would most likely bring down upon America, Americans and the world. Optimistic, however, that the same media that is withholding vital information it fears might upset Obama's plans to become the most powerful person in the world is also fudging the truth on the ground in this election, and that Senator John McCain is in good position to win the election in just four days.
Press coverage of the protest was -- as one would expect considering that it is the press itself that was being exposed by this action -- minimal. To their credit, there were a couple of reporters (TV and print) from local colleges and CNN did make an appearance, although the reporter seemed determined to interview no one other than a spokesman for the JDL in an effort, I presume, to spin the story as one of Jews against Muslims, not Americans demanding that the media do its job and present the American people with the facts that even they admit they hold in their possession.
From time to time, Times employees would gather on a balcony overlooking the peaceful protest and mock the people below, while one "editor" for the paper (who refused to identify himself by name) showed the same disdain and condescension for the men and woman (and a number of younger people) who had gathered that their peers at ABC and CBS News show to the Governor of Alaska and Joe the Plumber and other Americans who don't toe the line of their leftist ideology.
This show of arrogance and disdain did not appear to be dented one bit by the poll ratings for the news media that shows them held in even greater contempt today than is the Democrat Congress or by the plummeting circulation that has translated into the Times being forced to lay-off huge numbers of workers over the past several months alone.
There was one counter-protester -- a thirty-something with scraggly hair and one of those Che Guevara/Big Brother-looking Obama designs. When I asked him why he was protesting our merely asking for the Times to release information in their possession he offered one of the usual lines one hears from the other side, he called me a "racist."
Bottom line? The first I'd heard that the protest was going to become a reality was at eight o'clock this morning. I was told it only was officially scheduled around midnight last night. Considering how many people (remember, we're Republicans, not Democrats) have jobs and can't just "take the day off" (as Obama advised his followers to do on election day), it was a good event, and just the first salvo in what I suspect is going to be a long war against a media that no longer even feigns journalistic integrity and, instead, uses what's left of its currency to advance an ideological agenda.
The protest resumed at three p.m. with similar numbers and similar enthusiasm.
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22 comments:
It couldn't happen to a more deserving institution... okay, maybe the NY Times.
I wish I got the LA Times, then I could cancel my subscription, Okay, maybe the NY Time too. :-D
boo hoo
40? Seriously, not bad considering the aforementioned jobs most of us have. Nicely done, my friends!!!
As we all knew...Sayet a racist slime:
McCain's Disgrace
The McCain campaign has been throwing around so much mud and smears in recent weeks that it's easy to miss just how ugly and shameful their character assassination of Rashid Khalidi is. This is an entirely respectable, highly respected scholar. To go further into making a case for him would only be to enable and indulge McCain's sordid appeal to racism. For McCain, personally, to compare Khalidi to a neo-nazi, it's just an offense McCain should never be forgiven for. It's right down in the gutter with Joe McCarthy and the worst of the worst. Khalidi is in this new McCain set piece for one reason -- as a generic Arab, to spur the idea that Obama is foreign, friendly with terrorists and possibly Muslim.
No wonder the Times staffers were laughing at them.
Man, if Obama, the Chosen One, wins this election, get ready to have the non-liberal media (Fox, etc) attacked and perhaps even legislated against.
Who would have thought that american would have the ugly face of socialism shown to them just around 20 years after the same america brougth down the USSR ?
An 'Idiot Wind'
John McCain's latest attempt to link Barack Obama to extremism
Friday, October 31, 2008; A18
WITH THE presidential campaign clock ticking down, Sen. John McCain has suddenly discovered a new boogeyman to link to Sen. Barack Obama: a sometimes controversial but widely respected Middle East scholar named Rashid Khalidi. In the past couple of days, Mr. McCain and his running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin, have likened Mr. Khalidi, the director of a Middle East institute at Columbia University, to neo-Nazis; called him "a PLO spokesman"; and suggested that the Los Angeles Times is hiding something sinister by refusing to release a videotape of a 2003 dinner in honor of Mr. Khalidi at which Mr. Obama spoke. Mr. McCain even threw former Weatherman Bill Ayers into the mix, suggesting that the tape might reveal that Mr. Ayers -- a terrorist-turned-professor who also has been an Obama acquaintance -- was at the dinner.
For the record, Mr. Khalidi is an American born in New York who graduated from Yale a couple of years after George W. Bush. For much of his long academic career, he taught at the University of Chicago, where he and his wife became friends with Barack and Michelle Obama. In the early 1990s, he worked as an adviser to the Palestinian delegation at peace talks in Madrid and Washington sponsored by the first Bush administration. We don't agree with a lot of what Mr. Khalidi has had to say about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict over the years, and Mr. Obama has made clear that he doesn't, either. But to compare the professor to neo-Nazis -- or even to Mr. Ayers -- is a vile smear.
Perhaps unsurprising for a member of academia, Mr. Khalidi holds complex views. In an article published this year in the Nation magazine, he scathingly denounced Israeli practices in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and U.S. Middle East policy but also condemned Palestinians for failing to embrace a nonviolent strategy. He said that the two-state solution favored by the Bush administration (and Mr. Obama) was "deeply flawed" but conceded there were also "flaws in the alternatives." Listening to Mr. Khalidi can be challenging -- as Mr. Obama put it in the dinner toast recorded on the 2003 tape and reported by the Times in a detailed account of the event last April, he "offers constant reminders to me of my own blind spots and my own biases."
It's fair to question why Mr. Obama felt as comfortable as he apparently did during his Chicago days in the company of men whose views diverge sharply from what the presidential candidate espouses. Our sense is that Mr. Obama is a man of considerable intellectual curiosity who can hear out a smart, if militant, advocate for the Palestinians without compromising his own position. To suggest, as Mr. McCain has, that there is something reprehensible about associating with Mr. Khalidi is itself condemnable -- especially during a campaign in which Arab ancestry has been the subject of insults. To further argue that the Times, which obtained the tape from a source in exchange for a promise not to publicly release it, is trying to hide something is simply ludicrous, as Mr. McCain surely knows.
Which reminds us: We did ask Mr. Khalidi whether he wanted to respond to the campaign charges against him. He answered, via e-mail, that "I will stick to my policy of letting this idiot wind blow over." That's good advice for anyone still listening to the McCain campaign's increasingly reckless ad hominem attacks. Sadly, that wind is likely to keep blowing for four more days.
40 idiots. wow!
what a gift this woman is!!!
More 'Troopergate' Problems for Palin
By Jason Leopold
October 31, 2008
Sarah Palin faces another likely setback in an investigation into whether she entangled her duties as Alaska governor in a family feud with her ex-brother-in-law, a state trooper, according to a senior state legislator. But the new finding is not expected before next Tuesday’s presidential election.
Alaska Rep. Les Gara, a Democrat, said Palin, the Republican vice presidential nominee, faces an uphill fight in her hope to be exonerated by a state personnel board investigation that she requested in hopes of heading off a legislative inquiry.
“I think in the end the McCain campaign brought Gov. Palin a little more trouble than she bargained for by convincing her to have the personnel board investigate this,” Gara said in an interview. “Probably in retrospect, wasn’t a smart move.”
The “Troopergate” scandal erupted in July when Palin fired Alaska’s Commissioner of Public Safety Walt Monegan, who then blamed his dismissal on his refusal to succumb to pressure from Palin, her husband and her associates to fire her ex-brother-in-law, State Trooper Mike Wooten.
Initially, Palin welcomed an investigation by the Republican-dominated Legislative Council. However, after her selection as John McCain’s running mate in late August, she and the McCain campaign attacked that inquiry as a Democratic witch hunt led by Barack Obama’s supporters.
On Sept. 2, just a day before she accepted the GOP nomination, Palin took the unusual step of filing an ethics complaint with the state personnel board against herself regarading her firing of Monegan.
The McCain-Palin campaign apparently was betting that the personnel board, two of whose members were appointed by former Alaska Gov. Frank Murkowski, another Republican, would clear Palin of wrongdoing.
However, the board hired an independent investigator, Timothy Petumenos, a Democrat. Palin’s maneuver also failed to head off the legislative inquiry, which concluded on Oct. 10 that the governor had abused her power and violated state ethics law in her vendetta against her ex-brother-in-law.
Rep. Gara, who spoke with Petumenos about a separate complaint that Gara filed accusing the McCain campaign of trying to obstruct the legislative inquiry, told me that he believes the personnel board’s report will parallel the findings of the legislative inquiry.
Gara said Petumenos “is well respected and will conduct a thorough investigation based on the facts,” adding: “I think the findings will be similar.”
Petumenos took a two-hour deposition from Palin last week at a St. Louis hotel and is scheduled to review the issue with the personnel board on Monday, the day before the presidential election.
Shared Data
Two weeks ago, the Alaskan Legislative Council voted unanimously to share with Petumenos more than 1,000 pages of documents collected by its independent counsel, Steve Branchflower.
Petumenos's investigation is said to include at least two other ethics complaints against Palin, including a possible complaint by The Public Safety Employees Union alleging that Palin and her aides improperly accessed Trooper Wooten’s personnel files and illegally tried to get him fired.
Citizen watchdog Andree McLeod filed another ethics complaint, alleging that Palin secured a state job for one of her fundraisers.
While the personnel board’s investigation is playing out, Gara is pressing Attorney General Talis Colberg to appoint an independent investigator to probe whether operatives in McCain’s presidential campaign broke Alaska’s criminal witness-tampering laws.
Gara alleges that McCain’s campaign staffers influenced witnesses close to Palin to get them to withhold cooperation from Branchflower’s probe.
“I am concerned that the state’s criminal witness-tampering laws have been broken by certain staff for Sen. McCain’s presidential campaign,” Gara wrote in a letter to Colberg.
Gara said the McCain staff arrived in Alaska after Palin was picked as McCain’s running mate on Aug. 29 and spent the next month and a half trying “to stall or stop” the investigation by getting several senior Palin aides and her husband Todd to balk at giving depositions.
Gara noted that Palin’s aides had agreed in July to be deposed about the ”Troopergate” case. However, after Palin’s selection as the GOP vice presidential nominee, the aides reneged.
Colberg earlier spearheaded a failed effort by the Palin administration to get the state courts to quash subpoenas issued to members of Palin’s administration during the investigation.
Colberg, a close Palin ally, responded to Gara and advised the Democratic lawmaker to bring his concerns before the state personnel board, and ask the panel to further expand its probe of Palin by having Petumenos investigate.
“That was obviously just a stall tactic,” Gara said. “He’s not dumb. He’s just trying to avoid looking into it. The personnel board has no jurisdiction over criminal conduct to stop a legislative investigation, which is what I believe the McCain campaign was trying to do.
“For the Attorney General, the state’s top law enforcement official, to say ‘why don’t we have someone who has no role looking into criminal activity’ investigate this shows that the torn allegiances the attorney general has to his job and the governor.”
Attorney General Colberg is “choosing party politics over the rule of law,” Gara told me. “He’s the state’s top criminal law officer. It’s going to have to be the court of public opinion that convinces him this is a serious matter. But I will keep pushing him to investigate.”
Still, Gara said he had a conversation with Petumenos about investigating the witness-tampering allegations and Petumenos confirmed that he is not authorized to investigate criminal matters.
Petumenos “said he would politely remind Attorney General Colberg that he [Petumenos] doesn’t have jurisdiction to investigate a criminal matter,” Gara said. Colberg’s office did not return calls for comment.
Disciplining Palin
Gara said when the Legislative Council reconvenes in January – if McCain is not elected President – there will likely be calls to discipline Palin.
“These folks have offended a lot of Alaskans,” Gara said. “You can see it in the way they attacked a lot of people up here.”
Gara got into a heated exchange with Palin’s spokeswoman Meg Stapleton on the day the Branchflower’s report was released. Gara demanded that Stapleton apologize to Monegan and other state officials whom she had disparaged publicly. Stapleton refused.
“I think there will be calls by some members [of the legislature] to impose some sort of punishment, but I would much rather sit down with the governor and the attorney general and have them apologize to people and move on,” Gara said.
Meanwhile, Palin was hit with another ethics complaint last week.
Frank Gwartney of Anchorage sent a three-page complaint to Colberg “requesting that the state Personnel Board investigate Gov. Palin improper and illegal use of her official position for personal gain.”
Gwartney alleges that Palin misused her position by appropriating taxpayer dollars to pay for her daughters to travel with her on state business.
“The Governor’s children accompanied Palin on trips and to events that they were not invited to and to which their presence served no legitimate State or official business or purpose,” Gwartney’s complaint said.
Last week, the Associated Press reported that Palin charged the state of Alaska for commercial flights for her children and ordered changes to previously filed expense report to suggest that they were on official business.
Gwartney's complaint alleges, "The alteration of these documents constitutes an improper use of the Governor’s official position."
Palin charged the state $21,012 for 64 commercial flights and hotel accommodation for her three daughters after taking office in December 2006.
Taylor Griffin, a spokesman for the McCain/Palin campaign, characterized Gwartney's ethics complaint as a "political stunt," claiming that Palin “has always acted with the highest standards of ethics."
I can cut & paste too!
This is from Rush. Very interesting!
<<
I do not read comments on blog posts on websites, because when you do that, you find out how dangerously insane a whole lot of people in this country are. It can destroy your faith in America faster than anything unless you have a great resolve to be able to read this stuff and understand you're reading posts by a minority of people, but it really tests your mettle, folks. I never read these comments because they're just lunatics. But for some reason, this little piece last night intrigued me so I started reading the comments, and I got down to this one. Comment 25: Sarah P. writing to the Hill Buzz website responding to their story of how really well McCain is doing with angry Democrats, and the media is not covering. "Okay, I want to clear my conscience a little. Hopefully you could make a blog post to help some fellow Clinton supporters out. I worked for the campaign--" Obama, "--and I can't wait for this week to be over. I was doing it for a job. I was not a fan of any candidate, but over time I grew to love Hillary. The internal campaign idea, Obama campaign, is to twist, distort, humiliate, and finally dispirit you. We pay people and organize people to go on all the online sites and play the part of a Clinton or McCain supporter who just switched our support for Obama. We do this to stifle your motivation, to destroy your confidence. We did this the whole primary, and it worked. Sprinkle in mass vote confusion becomes bewildering, most people lose patience, they just give up on their support of a candidate and decide just to block out TV, news, websites, et cetera.
"This surprisingly has had a huge suppressing movement in vote turnout issues. Next, we infiltrate all the blogs, and all the YouTube videos, and we overwhelm the voting, the comments, all to continue the appearance of overwhelming world support for Obama. People make posts to the effect that the world has gone mad. That's the intention, to make you feel stressed and crazy and feel like the world is ending. We have also had quite a hand in skewing many, many polls." I don't know how they've done that. She doesn't describe how they've skewed the polls. "Some we couldn't control as much as we would have liked, but many we have spoiled, just enough to make Real Clear Politics look scary to a McCain supporter. It's worked, although the goal was to appear 13 to 15 points ahead. You see, the results have been working. People tend to support a winner. Go with the flow, become sheeple. The polls are roughly three to five points in favor of Barack. That's due to our inflation of the polls and pulling in the sheeple. Our donors are the same people who finance the mainstream media. Their interests are tied. Barack then tends to come across as Teflon, nothing sticks, and trust me, there were meetings with Fox News, the goal was to blunt them as much as possible. Watch O'Reilly, he's become much more diplomatic and fair and balanced and soft towards Obama. It's because he wants to retain the number one spot on cable news and have access to the Obama campaign.
"Now all the media want access, and they're expecting more, and that's why nothing sticks to Obama. The operation is massive, the goal is to paint a picture that is that of a winner, regardless the results. There is no true inauguration draft or true Grant Park construction going on. There will be a party, but we're boasting beyond the truth to make it seem like the election is wrapped up. Our goal is to continue to make you lose your morale. We worked hard at persuasion and paying off and timing and playing the right political numbers to get key Republican endorsements to make it seem even more like it was over and the world was coming to an end for you all. There's a huge staff of people working around the clock watching every site, every blog, we flood these sites, we have had a goal to overwhelm. The truth is here. I could go on and on, but you got the picture. I'm saying this because I know Hillary was better for the country, and I now realize this. I was too late by the time I connected to her.
"To me, Barack was just a cool young dude that seemed like a star. I didn't know him or his policies but now I understand more than I care to, and I realize his interests are more for him and the DNC and all working like puppets with Dean. I always thought a president wanted the better good for the country. The end result I see is everybody dependent on the government. This means more and more people voting for the DNC. This means the future is forever altered. I don't see this as America. So I'm now supporting McCain. Sarah Palin's a huge threat. Our campaign has feared her like you cannot imagine. If it seems unfair how she's been treated, well, it's because she has had a team working around the clock to make her look like a fool," meaning the Obama camp has had a team. "This is a big conspiracy. I'm so shocked. We released a little blurb the other day that Obama campaign was already working on reelection and now putting our efforts toward 2012. This was to make it seem like it was above us to continue caring about 2008. Trust me, it's alive. David Axelrod, Plouffe, very smart, but it's a sticky, ugly, not very truthful kind of intelligence. It's not over yet but I think the machine is working. It's a hill to climb. I'll be quitting my post on November 5th. My vote will be for John McCain. Fortunately, my position has been a marketing position. I don't feel I had any part of anything I'd feel guilty for, but I look forward to getting out of this as the negativity and environment upset me. PS, my name is not really Sarah but I am a female and I understand your plight."
This is a post to a website that's run by Hillary supporters that are desperately trying to get people to believe that Democrats in droves are abandoning Obama like this woman here from the Obama staff.>>
Duh...are you equating a rant by a fat, drug snorting pedophile with a news story which is being carried by all the major outlets?
Eagleburger Blisters Palin: "Of Course" She's Not Ready
October 31
A former Republican Secretary of State and one of John McCain's most prominent supporters offered a stunningly frank and remarkably bleak assessment of Sarah Palin's capacity to handle the presidency should such a scenario arise.
Lawrence Eagleburger, who served as Secretary of State under George H.W. Bush and whose endorsement is often trumpeted by McCain, said on Thursday that the Alaska governor is not only unprepared to take over the job on a moment's notice but, even after some time in office, would only amount to an "adequate" commander in chief.
"And I devoutly hope that [she] would never be tested," he added for good measure -- referring both to Palin's policy dexterity and the idea of McCain not making it through his time in office. (Listen to audio below.)
The remarks took place during an interview on National Public Radio that was, ironically, billed as "making the case" for a McCain presidency. Asked by the host whether Palin could step in during a time of crisis, Eagleburger reverted to sarcasm before leveling the harsh blow.
"It is a very good question," he said, pausing a few seconds, then adding with a chuckle: "I'm being facetious here. Look, of course not."
Lorione said...
I can cut & paste too!
This is from Rush. Very interesting!
vast left-wing conspiracy! ha!
If it seems unfair how she's been treated, well, it's because she has had a team working around the clock to make her look like a fool," meaning the Obama camp has had a team."
yeah, see, rush has to explain which team is trying "to make her look like a fool" because palin seems to think it's the mccain team preparing her as a scapegoat in the wake of their huge loss.
trini said...
"Duh...are you equating a rant by a fat, drug snorting pedophile with a news story which is being carried by all the major outlets?"
Trini, no one here quoted Barney Frank in this thread. Sheesh, keep up! Besides, if we eliminated everyone in the "major news outlets" who had any vices, we'd be getting our news from...um....hmmm...I'll have to get back to you on that one!
p.s. You can read the whole post yourself (w/o the Rush-filter) at http://hillbuzz.wordpress.com.
Scroll way down to "Confession of an Obama Blogger - by Sarah P (as posted to this site)"
(Not that I'm a Hillary supporter, but in this case, we're on the same side! )
Oh, yeah, I'm really going to bother with something the draft dodging anal cyst is using to make one of his festering "points."
(Why do I see an image of your head as I type that?)
And, believe me...we're not on the same side on anything.
Trini says: "(Why do I see an image of your head as I type that?)"
Wow. Such class.*
She further opines,"And, believe me...we're not on the same side on anything." I like kittens and springtime and freedom, I wonder if she does? :-) But I digress. The "we" refers to myself and the folks on "Hillbuzz"- Hillary supporters who are voting for McCain.
*I keep hoping Obama supporters can make cogent arguments without personally insulting those with whom they disagree-- but I am learning more and more that it is, perhaps, a lost cause. I still can't wrap my head around the dems considering themselves the party of tolerance and community while the conservatives are branded the haters. I read a LOT of blog commentary on a wide variety of sites and the VAST majority of crude, insulting personal attacks such as the above seem to be directed from the party of "peace, love & Obama" toward the party of the "warmonger" McCain. Of course, there are exceptions. There always are. But it's tilted pretty far that way. Fascinating. Maybe they just have more time on their hands? Maybe more conservatives would rather say something constructive or not bother saying something at all? Sure, we know how to sling barbs, but more at the politicians themselves than at fellow posters. And rarely it is as vile as insults the libs spew. I don't know about the rest of you, but I don't hate the liberals I know. I don't wish them ill. I don't delight in saying nasty things about them. We disagree- a lot. But can't grownups do that?
Now, the peabrain is pretending to be a Hillary supporter AND a conservative...what a stupid piece of protoplasm.
There, now you have another insult to whine about, though I can't possibly match what everyone, including many conservatives, call the slimiest campaign in recent history by McCain.
" I don't wish them ill. I don't delight in saying nasty things about them. We disagree- a lot. But can't grownups do that?"
You're not a grownup; you're a destructive pest, and I certainly do wish for the end of your pestilential movement. Can't a grownup identify you for what you are? To refrain from saying nasty things about nasty things like you would just be dishonest.
"Now, the peabrain is pretending to be a Hillary supporter AND a conservative...what a stupid piece of protoplasm."
Okay- earlier I thought I was not being clear. Now it's obvious there is a lack of comprehension. I am NOT a Hillary supporter.* However, I can live with a temporary alliance with those Hillary supporters who choose to vote for McCain/Palin....or heck, for anyone who isn't BHO at this point in the race!
*Thought I stated that pretty clearly when I said "(Not that I'm a Hillary supporter, but in this case, we're on the same side! )" but that's okay. I don't mind repeating myself. I have small children. I'm used to it.
p.s. Still wondering what Trini has against kittens and springtime. Oh yeah, I like chocolate-chip cookies too. How can anybody not side with those? :-) Sigh.
"Considering how many people (remember, we're Republicans, not Democrats) have jobs and can't just "take the day off"
That was the best line in the story and something I have been thinking for a long time.
I use to get so upset that places like Youtube are inundated with comments from the far left camp, and they are much more hateful and belligerent. Then I realized Democrats are sitting in front of youtube all day instead of working hard. Most Republicans are generally too busy working and being "family value" oriented to waste too much of their precious family and work time arguing with idiots on Youtube.
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