One of the most annoying sayings in American politics is "what happens in California will next happen in the rest of the country" as if California is always at the cusp of all the good ideas in politics. Well, apparently the Service Employee International Union (SEIU) is finding that old bromide not very helpful because its latest political coup failed to pass in California. So, in true never-say-die union thug fashion, the SEIU is reversing the truism. It didn't work in California, so they are trying to force it on the rest of the nation anyway.

The Wall Street Journal's Deal Journal has an interesting little story on how the SEIU is taking their legislative fight against Private Equity firms to Congress since they lost their battle in the California State House to force the PEs into stricter regulation.

It seems that the SEIU thinks that the PEs should have greater transparency in their investing practices. The SEIU imagines that it should be allowed to create rules for the PEs to reveal all sorts of information on their investments they currently don't have to disclose.

Of course, what the SEIU is trying to do here is use that info to root out what investments that the PEs have with non union companies and then use that info to try to pressure the PEs into closer involvement with unions.

In any case, the transparency law failed in Sacramento so the SEIU is now shifting focus to Congress to try and force the bill that failed in California on all of us.

It is interesting how the unions are trying to force other people to comply with more transparency laws when unions have always fought tooth-and-nail to defeat transparency laws when it comes to their own business!

Barack Obama has been fond of playing the race card in this campaign telling his enraptured audiences that Republicans will attack him because he's black, even though no GOP candidate or campaign has done so to date. But, Obama is a newcomer to the racemongering game when compared to Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean. True to form, in a recent interview Dean has once again called the GOP a "white party" attempting to make this campaign about race issues instead of candidates and platforms.

This is the sort of cynical, hate-filled garbage that Democrats have universally parlayed as campaign rhetoric since the 1960s. As recently as the August election in Tennessee's 9th District, for instance, a black challenger to a white, Jewish incumbent featured both racial and religious epithets thrown at the Congressman by the black, Democrat challenger. That obscene campaign barely rated a mention in the Old Media. The response by the Old Media to the ease with which Democrats resort to race baiting, though, also shows the impunity that Democrats enjoy on the issue. That Dean knows he can say such a thing and not feel he'd be taken to task for it proves not only that the Democrats are dividers and not uniters, but that the Old Media can be relied on to give them a complete pass on their divisiveness.

As an aside, it is such hypocrisy of Howard Dean to use race and his claim of "inclusivity" as a bat with which to hit at the GOP. Before becoming a candidate for president in 2004 and then the DNC Chairman, Howard Dean was the Governor of Vermont, a state with a .7% black population -- a whopping 3,500 black citizens. So, yeah, he ought to know all about working with minorities, why he's been up to his nose in them for decades.

Also, it should be noted that this isn't the only time Dean sought to divisively use race in his rhetoric by calling the GOP a "white" party. In 2005, Dean made a similar comment about the GOP when in San Francisco saying, "They all behave the same. They all look the same. It's pretty much a white Christian party."

Back in 2004, Dean also said that the only way to solve racism is to "educate" whites. "Dealing with race is about educating white folks," Dean was reported as having said as he attempted to "call out the white population" during the 2004 Primaries. Also in 2004, Dean told a crowd that he intended to tell the "white boys who run the Republican Party" to stay out of people's bedrooms.

Now, let's take a closer look at the Democratic Party itself. Let's see how diverse it might be?

On a page of the Democratic Party website there is a page called "Democratic Leaders" and there one can see many faces. There's Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), DNC Chairman Howard "Whitey" Dean himself, along with several other officers of the Party. These are the Party movers and shakers. Of the 16 people mentioned 15 are white and one, Vice Chair Lottie Shackelford, is black.

I, for one, am bowled over by the "diversity."

By comparison, need we remind everyone about the racial diversity of George W. Bush's cabinet? Colin Powell, Condi Rice, Elaine Chao, and several other representatives of America's minorities have made their mark there. Heck, even as far back as 1928 the Republicans put a man of American Indian lineage into the vice presidency. Charles Curtis, who's mother was a Kaw Indian and who grew up with his maternal grandparents, was the VP under Herbert Hoover.

Now, this incident happened in the afternoon of Friday, August 15 and thus far there has been little coverage of Dean's newest "whitey" comment. The Old Media seems to have taken a pass on Dean's latest effort at race baiting.

Of course, if it were a Republican that had brought up race in any way whatsoever, it would be leading every telecast and be emblazoned on the front page of every paper in the country.

In response to Dean, McCain campaign co-chairwoman Carly Fiorina said: “It is disappointing to see Howard Dean trying to use gender and race to divide voters. His comments are insulting, inappropriate and have no place in this election.”

No doubt. But the Old Media will fold their hand at this race card being played and will excuse themselves from the table, to be sure.

(Photo Image: FortHardKnox.com)

Peter Schweizer, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, has a new book out that is sure to drive the loony left, well, even loonier. In the new book Makers and Takers, Schweizer tells us "why conservatives work harder, feel happier, have closer families, take fewer drugs, give more generously, value honesty more, are less materialistic" than lefties in America.

This from his website:

• Seventy-one percent of conservatives say you have an obligation to care for a seriously injured spouse or parent versus less than half (46 percent) of liberals.
• Conservatives have a better work ethic and are much less likely to call in sick than their liberal counterparts.
• Liberals are 2_ times more likely to be resentful of others’ success and 50 percent more likely to be jealous of other people’s good luck.
• Liberals are 2 times more likely to say it is okay to cheat the government out of welfare money you don’t deserve.
• Conservatives are more likely than liberals to hug their children and “significantly more likely” to display positive nurturing emotions.
• Liberals are less trusting of family members and much less likely to stay in touch with their parents.
• Do you get satisfaction from putting someone else’s happiness ahead of your own? Fifty-five percent of conservatives said yes versus only 20 percent of liberals.
• Rush Limbaugh, Ronald Reagan, Bill O’Reilly and Dick Cheney have given large sums of money to people in need, while Ted Kennedy, Nancy Pelosi, Michael Moore, and Al Gore have not.
• Those who are “very liberal” are 3 times more likely than conservatives to throw things when they get angry.

The American left prides itself on being superior to conservatives: more generous, less materialistic, more tolerant, more intellectual, and more selfless. For years scholars have constructed--and the media has pushed--elaborate theories designed to demonstrate that conservatives suffer from a host of personality defects and character flaws. According to these supposedly unbiased studies, conservatives are mean-spirited, greedy, selfish malcontents with authoritarian tendencies. Far from the belief of a few cranks, prominent liberals from John Kenneth Galbraith to Hillary Clinton have succumbed to these prejudices. But what do the facts show?

Peter Schweizer has dug deep--through tax documents, scholarly data, primary opinion research surveys, and private records--and has discovered that these claims are a myth. Indeed, he shows that many of these claims actually apply more to liberals than conservatives. Much as he did in his bestseller Do as I Say (Not as I Do), he brings to light never-before-revealed facts that will upset conventional wisdom. Conservatives such as Ronald Reagan and Robert Bork have long argued that liberal policies promote social decay. Schweizer, using the latest data and research, exposes how, in general:

• Liberals are more self-centered than conservatives.
• Conservatives are more generous and charitable than liberals.
• Liberals are more envious and less hardworking than conservatives.
• Conservatives value truth more than liberals, and are less prone to cheating and lying.
• Liberals are more angry than conservatives.
• Conservatives are actually more knowledgeable than liberals.
• Liberals are more dissatisfied and unhappy than conservatives.

Schweizer argues that the failure lies in modern liberal ideas, which foster a self-centered, “if it feels good do it” attitude that leads liberals to outsource their responsibilities to the government and focus instead on themselves and their own desires.

Interested? Go to Amazon and pick up a copy of Makers and Takers.

Remember during Bush's run for the White House in 2000 when it was announced that Dick Cheney was his choice for vice president and the media meme became that Cheney added "gravitas" to the ticket? This is a small example of manufactured news. It wasn't the fact that Cheney added much to the ticket, but that the media universally adopted a single word to describe the effect that Cheney had on the race. This is an example of the herd mentality in the Old Media. Sometimes, like with the choice of "gravitas" in 2000, that herd mentality is somewhat innocuous. But, other times it becomes an impediment to truth. Paul Campos found such an impediment a few weeks ago with the ridiculous worry that Barack Obama was "too skinny" to become president.

Saying, "This is a cautionary tale about how journalism sometimes gets practiced in contemporary America," I find reason to agree with Campos' assessment. He came to the conclusion that the "contemporary media echo chamber" has come to operate by "mistaking its own weird little obsessions for the actual concerns of the audience it's supposed to be edifying."

The story Campos settles on was the silly notion that made the rounds that Barack Obama was too skinny to be president.

A few weeks ago, a Wall Street Journal reporter named Amy Chozick got a bright idea for a news story: In a nation where according to our public health authorities nearly two-thirds of the adult population is too fat, is Barack Obama too skinny to be elected president?

It turned out that Chozick's methods to "investigate" her story were less than satisfactory. In fact, she pretty much just made it up out of whole cloth.

Here's the method she employed to determine whether Obama's skinny physique might be a problem for him in the presidential race. She posted the following message on a Yahoo Internet message board: "Does anyone out there think Barack Obama is too thin to be president? Anyone having a hard time relating to him and his 'no excess body fat'? Please let me know. Thanks!"

And here the results she gleaned from this intrepid bit of journalism: A total of one purportedly substantive response from what Chozick characterizes as a Clinton supporter, but which reads like someone yanking Chozick's chain. Nevertheless Chozick quoted this source -- somebody going by the name "onlinebeerbellygirl" -- to confirm the thesis of her story: "I won't vote for any beanpole guy."

After using this dubious support for her contention, Chozkick's story made the whirlwind round of the Old Media for the next news cycle.

Yet within 24 hours this absurd exercise in creating news for the purpose of reporting it had taken on a life of its own. National and international media repeated Chozick's findings. The Times of London ran a feature on how some American voters were supposedly concerned about Obama's weight, citing (naturally) Chozick's piece as evidence.

A ridiculous story, of course. But, we've seen this repeatedly. The "fake but true" Dan Rather Bush Military document story is a perfect example. This story was made up out of known fake records, but was aired and echoed by a compliant Old Media anyway. We've seen it many times.

Unfortunately, this isn't a new thing. Fortunately, we are in an era when the Old Media can't get away with it as easily as they once did. Not that this has stopped them from trying.

But one more observation is apropos here. Notice that this round of opprobrium is against the Wall Street Journal, perceived bastion of conservatives. It should be no surprise that the WSJ is easy for some members of the media to attack. Let's see if they have the backbone to heap scorn on their pals over, say, the Edwards case. But, don't hold your breath.

Rush Limbaugh killed some church goers in Tennessee last July. That is the message from a Newsday.com columnist for a local New York newspaper chain. Now, I've listened to Rush Limbaugh many times. Because of my schedule, I cannot listen every day, so certainly I have not heard every word the man has ever uttered, but I am sure that you won't be able to find a time when he told people to go out and kill liberals. Neither have I ever heard Sean Hannity advocate murder. Michael Savage.... well, I haven't heard it but I almost wouldn't be surprised, almost. Still, even Savage is smart enough not to do so I am sure. Regardless of a complete lack of such incitement to murder made by these "right-wing Shock jocks," as she puts it, Jenna Kern-Rugile is sure that the killings of the members of the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville last July is the fault of Limbaugh, Hannity and Savage.

Her premise is that the "rhetoric of extreme right pundits" such as Limbaugh, Hannity, and Bill O'Reilly "might" have caused shooter Jim D. Adkisson, 58, to gather up his guns and perpetrate a murder spree on July 27 at the Unitarian Church in Knoxville.

Might the shooter have heard talk-show host Rush Limbaugh say that "liberalism is the greatest threat this country faces" and "the Islamofascists are actually campaigning for the election of Democrats" and that riots at the Democratic Convention would be "the best damn thing that can happen to this country."

Kern-Rugile also wonder "might the shooter" have listened to Hannity. She also notes that the killer had some conservative books in his home.

Some proof she has there.

First of all, calling O'Reilly, Limbaugh and Hannity "right-wing Shock jocks" is absurd. The woman's obscene rhetoric is itself beginning to make the lie to her claim of being an objective commentator on the subject. Worse, it seems to me this sort of loose theorizing is as much an example of hate as what she claims comes from her targets on talk radio.

But, even her example of Limbaugh's words are a far cry from advocating murder. For that matter, O'Reilly, Hannity, et al, all frame their discussions in the political arena, none of them saying that people should do anything other than vote the right way.

Even Savage, renown for saying "liberalism is a mental disorder," has never to my knowledge advocated violence. In fact, if he truly believes that liberals have a mental disorder the solution to that is medical help, not execution! Help, not death. the compassion of wanting to help the sick hardly seems to be a basis for a killing spree.

Without question the passions of political discussion should be tempered with common sense. The sort of emotions that inspire deep seated hatred needs to be carefully watched so that they don't rise to the surface and cause something like the spree in Tennessee. But, regardless of that we will see people of dubious mental balance act on their mental disorders no matter the influence.

But, here is the main problem with Kern-Rugile's piece. She doesn't seem to realize that the "hate" she so decries is infused in her side of the ideological aisle, as well. Apparently, Kern-Rugile has ignored the hate displayed by leftists on such sites as DailyKos, Huffington Post and the Democratic Underground. On any given day one can see the sort of hatred that could easily be turned to violence displayed on those sites. And the hate on such sites isn't the only manifestation of the sort of behavior that "might" cause marginally stable Democrats to under take killing sprees -- if we are to accept Jenna Kern-Rugile's concept, of course.

Recently, for instance, Cafe Press had to cancel a T-Shirt offering that featured the map of Red/Blue America on it with the words "Kill Republicans" emblazoned over it. (Cafe Press is an on-line company where users can sign up to sell their own T-Shirt designs) Early in August of 2005, Michelle Malkin reported on graffiti in New York City that proclaimed "I kill Republicans."

And then we can cite the efforts of legitimate Democrat supporting organizations for inciting hatred that might lead to violence. Just last October, when the SCHIP bill was being debated, the AFL-CIO ran a campaign that told its followers that a Bush veto of the SCHIP bill would hurt children. On the AFL-CIOs discussion of the health bill, one of the commenters on the page claimed that Republicans wanted to "kill children." Union member David Hulburt of CWA local 9410 wondered of Bush "How many children will your veto kill each day."

Using Kern-Rugile's logic, would it be surprising to find that such a person as Hurlburt might turn to murder to stop people from "killing children"? It would fit in quite easily with her assumptions, wouldn't it?

Obviously Kern-Rugile did not think her position through to its logical conclusion, that all high political passions could lead to violence. But, then, all human thoughts can be taken to such extremes. It doesn't have to be political. And that simple fact makes her whole point rather void of any legitimacy. After all, how many Jim D. Adkissons has there been since the rise of talk radio in the last 20 years? Looks like a grand total of one, to me!

(Photo of Limbaugh: Lighthouse Patriot Journal)

Donald Lambro had a great piece warning about the promises that Barack Obama has quietly made to the nation's unions on August 8. Of course, we have talked about it many times here on the blog, but the union's "card check" plan in their so-called "Employee Free Choice Act" is a bad, bad bit of policy that would deprive union members of one of the oldest benefits of a democracy: the secret ballot.

Lambro does remind us of Obama's union promises, but he makes two great points that I have not really seen discussed.

Firstly, Lambro mentions that Obama's union support has been quiet.

Obama doesn't talk about this issue much before general audiences, but it his No. 1 promise when he speaks to unions -- pledging that the so-called Employee Free Choice Act will become law in 2009 if he wins the presidency in November.

Unlike past candidates, Barack Obama has not used his union support very obviously in stump speeches. Its as if he is trying to hide from the general voting public his union support. This is an interesting observation.

Secondly, Lambro brings out a singular fact that should be talked about more often.

The House passed the card-check bill last year, but when it went to the Senate, it fell nine votes short of the 60 votes needed to end a Republican filibuster. With predictions of a six-seat Democratic gain in the Senate this year, Obama Democrats hope they can get just close enough to a 60-vote majority to pass this dangerous and very anti-democratic legislation.

If John McCain does not win and the GOP loses more seats n the Senate, a victory for the anti-democratic unions seems a sure thing. We anti-unionists should be discussing this thin wall blocking "card check" in the Senate far more often than we have.

Apparently the FEC just made a good ruling for our side. The Heritage Foundation has the report...

Blogger Freedom Reaffirmed

Bloggers and web site operators may support, oppose, link to, and work cooperatively with federal political candidates. This freedom was reaffirmed when the newly re-constituted Federal Election Commission released its first two enforcement cases August 12.

The Commission’s refusal to regulate blogging and internet sites is not new, but it is notable is that the pro-blogger decision was made within a week or two of the new Commission taking office. Of the scores of items on its docket, the new Commission chose to address this one first: quite likely because they wanted to send a signal to that bloggers are free to engage in politics

Specifically, the Commission said that Gordon Fischer, a former state political party chairman, did not violate election law when he maintained a web site and blog (Iowa True Blue) promoting Barack Obama and criticizing Hillary Clinton. (Our friends at CCP note that the complaint was filed by a Clinton supporter: observing that all too many FEC complaints are filed for political harassment

–Money that Fischer spent creating and maintaining the site was not regulated by the FEC.

–Even if Fischer coordinated (discussed the blog and postings) with the Obama campaign, the site remained free from Federal election regulation.

–A link to a campaign web site or video does not subject the site linking to the campaign to regulation.

–blogs and web sites may “republish” campaign material without violating election laws.

Bottom line: by making this case one of the first two it released, the Federal Election Commission reaffirms that bloggers and web site operators may support and oppose political candidates, republish or link to campaign material, and work as closely as they wish with campaigns in doing so.

The one activity that remains subject to FEC regulation is paying for an ad on someone else’s web site supporting or opposing a Federal candidate.

Jill Stanek has done yeoman's work on uncovering the fact that Barack Obama and his surrogates have been outright lying about Obama's constant votes against the Live-Birth abortion bills when he was in office in the State legislature. His claims have been a staple of Old Media reports from the beginning, but now that Stanek has revealed the truth we will have to see if the Old Media corrects the record or if they suddenly just go mum on the subject like they have so far.

The Born-Alive Infants Protection Act (BAIPA) both in the Illinois and Federal legislatures was meant to make illegal death by neglect of born but unwanted infants. These bills were opposed by the bulk of the Democrat Party because of the fact that the original bills could have been construed to say that a pre-birth fetus was a "person" that was protected by law. So, the bill in Congress was altered to address that concern by adding a "neutrality clause" that made it clear that the bill would not protect a fetus in utero.

As Obama continues to tell the tale, as a State Senator he said he voted against the Illinois bill because the Federal "neutrality clause" was not included and that therefore he could not support the Illinois bill. Turns out he is not telling the truth about this fact. Even worse, he knows better because he was part of the legislative committee that added that very "neutrality clause" to the very bill he voted against in 2003.

As Stanek found, Obama not only was part of that committee adding the Federal "neutrality clause" to the Illinois bill, he was the chairman of that committee.

The documents prove that in March 2003, state Senator Obama, then the chairman of the IL state Senate Health and Human Services Committee, presided over a committee meeting in which the "neutrality clause" (copied verbatim from the federal bill) was added to the state BAIPA, with Obama voting in support of adding the revision. Yet, immediately afterwards, Obama led the committee Democrats in voting against the amended bill, and it was killed, 6-4.

It strains credulity to believe that Obama was unaware that the "neutrality clause" was added to the bill if he was the chairman of the committee that put it in there, doesn't it? So we are forced to realize that Obama knows the truth but is trying to rewrite history and with the willing accomplices in the Old Media he has succeeded in doing so thus far.

Stanek points out that only two years after his "no" vote, Obama had developed his "change" version of history.

Less than two years after this meeting, Obama began to publicly claim that he opposed the state BAIPA because it lacked the "neutrality" clause, and that he would have supported the federal version (had he been a member of Congress) because it contained the "neutrality" clause.

Stanek has the whole sordid history on this affair, with links to the actual bills and umpteen news stories and legislative resources to prove her case. Go on over and take a look at her extensive research.

Now, this story is no matter of mere opinion. There is no possibility that Obama just has a different opinion on a controversial national issue than we do. As Daniel Patrick Moynihan once famously said, one is entitled to his own opinion but not his own facts. What we have here is Obama simply telling a lie and knowingly doing so. Will the Old Media continue to cover up for him like they have done for the last four years?

The L.A.Times had a great investigative story this week about typical union corruption. Before going into the story, I'll remind you that Barack Obama is promising the unions that he will gut the Office of Labor Management Standards responsible for rooting out and prosecuting union corruption. It seems Obama thinks unions are innocent until their corruption is ignored later.

Now, as to the Times story, what he have is typical union cronyism and corruption writ large. Paul Pringle of the Times give us "Union, charity paid thousands to firms owned by official's relatives" in which we discover the sort of union cronyism that we find in nearly every union everywhere, especially in the Service Employee International Union (SEIU).

California's largest union local and a related charity have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to firms owned by the wife and mother-in-law of the labor organization's president, documents and interviews show.

Bad enough that union chiefs are setting their spouses and other family members with businesses ready made to take union contracts that might be giving the union legitimate services, but it isn't just about favored companies getting favored contracts. It's also about waste of union members' dues.

The Los Angeles-based union, which represents low-wage caregivers, also spent nearly $300,000 last year on a Four Seasons Resorts golf tournament, a Beverly Hills cigar club, restaurants such as Morton's steakhouse and a consulting contract with the William Morris Agency, the Hollywood talent shop, records show.

In addition, the union paid six figures to a video firm whose principals include a former union employee. And a now-defunct minor league basketball team coached by the president's brother-in-law received $16,000 for what the union described as public relations, according to the union's U.S. Labor Department filings and interviews.

Naturally, the union head is giving the wide-eyed "who me?" response saying that he did nothing wrong. But, check out the improprieties the Times notes in their story.

• Payments to the company owned by Freeman's wife were among the local's largest single expenses last year. Payments by the charity, the Homecare Workers Training Center, to his mother-in-law's firm represented more than 10% of the nonprofit's total annual expenditures.
• A housing corporation that Freeman helped found as a nonprofit has not been granted the IRS tax-exempt status it sought and was suspended from doing business in California. It also has claimed on its website to have a "strong relationship" with the prominent California Community Foundation, which says it has no such relationship.
• The union spent at least $123,000 more on the fund-raising tournament at the Four Seasons Resort in Carlsbad than it received in reimbursements, according to Labor Department filings and interviews. Freeman said the event made money for the charity. The union's expenditures included $100,000 in payments to entities associated with former professional football star Eric Dickerson, which have been suspended from doing business in California. The payments were listed as donations to nonprofits, not as fund-raising expenses.
• The local's nearly $10,000 tab at the Grand Havana Room, a cigar lounge known for its celebrity clientele and invitation-only memberships, was for "lodging," according to the union's annual financial report. A Grand Havana spokeswoman said the club does not provide accommodations. Freeman declined to characterize the expenditure, and after The Times inquired about it, he said he had refunded it.

Of COURSE its legitimate to pay your family members such tremendous sums for "poverty fighting" when the members of your union paying you the dues to make these expenditures make average $9.00 and hour!

They man in charge of this profligate spending is a union chief named Tyrone Freeman and he makes $215,000 a year as union chief. He also racked up $41,500 in restaurant expenses last year, too -- far more than the largest number of his union members make in a year. And I'll bet he says that corporate heads make too much, eh?

Anyway, there's a lot more to this tale of waste and avarice. The Times did a great job of raising questions and reporting the lavish spending. Go on over and read this disgusting story of normal union behavior. And remember, Barack Obama wants to assist unions to do more of this sort of wasteful spending and wants to help union officials stuff their pockets with poor members' dues money.

So, why did the Old Media seem to miss the John Edwards Love Affair story? Well, maybe it was because the Old Media hadn't deigned to decide for us that it was "news" until after the New Media had chewed up and spit out the story for days and days? Apparently, that is what David Carr of The New York Times thinks, anyway. In an interview with CNN he alludes to the fact that he is used to the Old Media deciding when something is officially "news" and that maybe he and his contemporary journalists have lost that level of control they were used to enjoying. This fall from grace is being seen most readily in the Edwards story that the New Media had digested for a week before the Old Media got to it

CNN's Election Center Blog posted the Carr interview on August 10 with the headline "Edwards affair: Was media part of a 'conspiracy of silence'?" This CNN posting purports to explore why the Old Media seemed absent from the story for so long?

The CNN piece cites many factors from the fact that the Old Media has a disdain for National Enquirer stories to a claim that the Old Media is reticent to exploit sex stories. The former is a sensible precaution and the later an outright laugher. After all, the Old Media had no problem whatsoever in exploiting the rumors of George H.W. Bush's affair, Newt Gingrich's affair, Newt's successor to be Bob Livingston’s affair, the John McCain affair story, Larry Craig's restroom stall story, or Mark Foley's Page Scandal... but then again, THOSE are Republican sex scandals. The same delicacy the Old Media handles sex stories with as claimed by CNN does not exist for those sorts of stories.

There was one section of this CNN piece that was telling about John Edwards' character. The story recounts how the National Enquirer brought up the Edwards love child story last October and that, since the Enquirer had some incorrect assertions, Edwards used those inaccuracies to claim, "The story is false, it's completely untrue, it's ridiculous."

Edwards on Friday said he used the fact that the Enquirer story "contained many falsities" to deny it. "But being 99 percent honest is no longer enough," he said in a statement.

Of course, even in October, Edwards knew that the story was basically true even if the Enquirer got some of their facts wrong.

But wait a minute. Let's follow Edwards' logic here. So if a witness says he saw you rob a store and it was true. If he said you killed the clerk and that was true. If he said you had stolen a car to make your get away and that was true. But he said you had on a red shirt when in fact you had on a blue shirt then if you were to categorically deny the story you'd be in the right because you were "99 percent honest"? There's some nice John Edwards logic, eh?

Another funny part of this piece is where ABC correspondent Kate Snow was claiming that they "broke the story" officially when they got the John Edwards admission on TV.

"Until he called -- and it's on the record that he called us on Friday and said, 'I want to talk.' You know, that's what broke the story. He was willing to admit that he had been lying," Snow said.

What amusing arrogance. Everyone else in the world already knew the truth. But, because Edwards decided to tell ABC, why it was that interview that "broke the story."

The CNN posting goes on to give all sorts of Old Media excuses for why they waited so long to cover the story but they saved the most interesting one for last. It was a few quotes from New York Times columnist David Carr that is of special interest.

"I was taught when I was a young reporter that it's news when we say it is. I think that's still true -- it's news when 'we' say it is. It's just who 'we' is has changed," Carr said.

"Members of the public, people with modems, people with cell phones are now producers, editors. They can push and push and push on a story until it ends up being acknowledged by everyone."

Notice the arrogant assumption that only they have the official standing to let us know what the news is? That is where the Old Media comes from, for sure. They think they are the arbiters of what we, the great unwashed, should be allowed to know.

But, it is interesting that he is beginning to get the notion that the exalted place the Old Media used to hold up there on Mount Olympus is beginning to change. The lowly "members of the public" are beginning to change the Old Media's role and challenge their claims as the oracles of the news. Notice, by the way, that Carr refused to use the vulgar term "bloggers" preferring to say "members of the public, people with modems, people with cell phones" in place of the term "blogger."

Still, it is an interesting series of quotes on the Old Media and its changing role all coming sharply into focus with this major failure to report a story that everyone already knew -- everyone but the Old Media, of course.

(Photo credit: ABCNews)

Interestingly, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is spending thousands upon thousands of dollars on TV, radio and print ads helping Washington State's Democratic Gov. Christine Gregoire get reelected. This is the same Governor that the SEIU is negotiating a new contract with for state workers in that union. Naturally, Gregoire's Republican opponents are crying conflict of interest, and its hard to deny their charge.

Republican candidate for Gov. Dino Rossi is saying that this is a definite conflict of interest. “When you have one party, whether it’s Republican or Democrat," Rossi said, "that’s in power for so long, you end up with the appearance of institutional corruption, and that’s what this looks like.”

Rossi is also pointing to the favors Gregoire gave to Indian Casino owners for campaign support as a conflict.

The complaints don’t stop there. State Republicans suggest there is a pattern that started with a deal Gregoire made with Indian gaming tribes, which helped bankroll the second recount that put Gregoire into office.

The governor had approved a major expansion of gambling but scrapped a provision requiring casinos to give the state a cut of the profits — a provision demanded by every other state with tribal gaming.

“When you drive up a $2.7 billion budget deficit by treating those very, very well that contribute to your campaign and your re-election, that’s where the red flags go up,” Republican state Rep. Doug Ericksen said.

Naturally, neither Gregoire, nor the Indian tribe officials, nor the SEIU's officials wanted to comment on the story.

In any case, after the stolen 2006 election, its a sure thing that the GOP is looking for everything they can use to gain votes this time.

General Wesley Clark had one thing right during his tenure as a general in the U.S. military. He understood the portentous nature of the Russian's move to take control of the airport in Pristina, Kosovo at the end of the 1999 NATO engagement in Yugoslavia. He ordered NATO forces to gear up to prevent the Russians from taking the airport but was opposed by British Gen. Michael Jackson, at the time head of the Kosovo peacekeeping forces, who reportedly told Clark that he wouldn't help him start a third World War.

I don't know if Clark fully realized what the investment of the Pristina airport might have meant for future Russian actions, but he seemed to know then that it wasn't a good thing. In retrospect, we can see that, even though they backed down in 1999, it taught the Russians the lesson that they could act with impunity without fear of any real consequences. Later, though, the Russians found that they could not count out any action with Bush in the White House.

Now, let's face the truth about Russia. She has never, ever been part of the club. No Russian leader has ever seemed convincingly interested in joining the western world and act as a responsible member of an international community. Oh, there was that brief, shining hour when Boris Yeltsin came close, and then only just. But none before and certainly none after have been interested in joining the enlightened world. And, once again, we are seeing Russian belligerence hold true. In this case, instead of purely militaristic aims, we are seeing a Russia planning on an energy hegemony over Europe and willing to act the bad boy to achieve those aims.

Certainly the weakling states of the European Union haven't the guts nor the military to force Russia to behave herself. Just as certain, the members of the EU have no will to stop Russian plans to control all energy in the region. Only the U.S.A. has displayed the will to oppose moves such as Russia's in the world today and even that will is anemic.

George W.Bush certainly has butched up the feminine Clinton styled foreign policy that has infected America's projection of power. But even Bush's efforts have been only a little better than lipstick on a pig -- though in this case maybe it could be thought of as putting a helmet on that pig. To review, Bush certainly came out of the gate strong with the war on terror and his commitment to Iraq and Afghanistan has been steady, if not proving a bumpy ride. But, Bush has shown no spine with the rest of his foreign policy (Condi Rice being a major disappointment here). He has done practically nothing to counter Iran and his feckless policy has allowed North Korea and Pakistan to become bigger threats to the world. And he has certainly made major mistakes in trusting Vladimir Putin, Russia's newest Czar.

That is history up to the moment. Now for Obama blundering into the mix.

The former Soviet satellite state of Georgia is on Russia's hit list. Georgia has many internal problems and certain territories that are in dispute. Georgia has separatists who wish to stay out of Georgian influence and Russia is quite interested in fostering more such strife. Certainly, the Russians have had attacks on Georgia planned for many, many months and its all because of energy that Russia wants to totally control. Russia has never stopped imagining that it should control all those border states around her.

But, here is the thing. Georgia's president Mikheil Saakashvili has been watching the American elections closely. Like the rest of the world, what he sees is a man who presents and even weaker foreign policy stance than the feminized policies of Bill Clinton in the form of Barack Obama, the leading favorite to step into the White House in 2009. Saakashvili has observed the devotion to "talking" that Obama hails as some sort of panacea to world conflict and the Georgian president knows that this means that, regardless of past assurances, America cannot be trusted to help him protect his people should Obama become president. President Saakashvili understands that an Obama presidency will be a nod to the Russians that absolutely anything they do will be met with hotair and nothing else, effectively giving the expansionist Russians the green light to do what ever they want to do with no fear of reprisal.

Who can imagine that a president Obama would even have used American assets to help Georgian soldiers to get from the Middle East to their war zone at home as Bush did this week?

Plainly, it was president Saakshvili that precipitated this conflict by ramping up his own military presence in South Ossetia. But Russia used this small action as an excuse to crush the Georgians and by giving the go ahead to attack during the opening of the Olympics, Putin imagined that the world's attention would be so taken by the games that his over-the-top actions would not be much noticed.

But, the question remains, why did Saakashvili decide to attempt to pacify the separatists in South Ossetia now? The only answer can be that he is trying to solve his problem now while Bush is still in office so that if things escalate too badly he can appeal to American intervention. Saakashvili understands well that if he makes this move after Obama takes the White House, the Georgians cannot expect any help from what will surely be a weak American foreign policy and a gutted American military.

The Georgian president is on a timer. It's now or never. It's now to pacify separatists and take firm control of his troublesome territory before Russia has the ability to act with utter abandon. It's act now when he might have at least some hope that his American ally might to come to his aid. Now is probably his last chance to see America assist a struggling democracy against the grasping, anti-liberty Russian Bear. Once Obama gets in office, the world knows that the USA will likely not come to the assistance of any democratic nation striving to survive.

Once Obama gets into the White House bad actors the world over understand that they will be on the rise. And Mikheil Saakashvili understands this and made his move accordingly.

Obama's weakness has been the catalyst for this conflict.

Ken Marerro over at Blue Collar Muse has a nice round down on the low down of the guy living down to expectations, Bob Corker (R, Tenn.). It appears that Senator Corker is selling down the river the erstwhile GOP House members who made such a strong stand on energy last week. Corker is signing onto a Senate energy bill that is little else but a GIANT give away to the Democrats.

A friend emailed me about Bob Corker’s involvement in the Gang of 10. He asked, “What is Corker doing?” To quote Bob Corker himself, he is doing “…exactly what I came to the Senate to do.” To the host of Tennesseans who bemoaned the choice of Corker over Ed Bryant as our Senate choice in 2006, he’s doing exactly what we feared. In fairness, for two years Corker has been a pleasant surprise. However, he couldn’t have picked a worse time to begin living down to our expectations.

Just like GOP Senators in the Gang of 14 and judicial nominees, Republicans in Energy’s Gang of 10 are undermining GOP leadership and strategy. Mitch McConnell and GOP leaders have worked this issue for months with the backing of Republicans and Democrats; legislators and voters. Pressure was mounting on Democrats to surrender their sellout of Americans. Gas and oil prices were falling. Support for Energy Independence via drilling and R&D for alternative and renewable energy sources was growing. It seemed inevitable the GOP would get their vote and sooner rather than later. Now, thanks to meddling by Corker, instead of continuing to exploit flaws in Democratic policies, Senate GOP leaders might be forced to regroup and decide if they can even continue in the face of the Gang’s treachery.

It gets worse, of course. Hit up the Blue Collar Muse for the rest of this infuriating tale of Republicans that are more like... well, they are RINOs, let's face it.

So, here is a curious thing. I have been reviewing books at Amazon for a few years now and never had the occasion to have one censored by Amazon.com. But, I just had two reviews in a row deleted by Amazon and it has caused me to wonder how often other conservatives have their reviews summarily eliminated from the Amazon site?

I have noticed, of course, that leftists use Amazon quite well to give conservative books a bad Amazon rating. In the past, whenever I wrote a positive review of a conservative book, for instance, I would be loaded up with negative votes on the review by Amazon visitors. But whenever I wrote a review of a non-political book, I got favorable votes on my review.

But, up until now, I’ve never had a review completely deleted by Amazon.

The first review that was deleted by Amazon was for Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s failure of a book titled "Know Your Power: A Message to America's Daughters." This book is horrible and is horribly tanking at the booksellers.

I wrote the review on-line and posted it from the Amazon site. I did not save my review in a word document because I did not imagine that I would be censored. But, let’s just suffice to say I hated her trite piece of garbage. Still, I did not call her names but I did say this (and I paraphrase from memory):

Some may recall the oft quoted and badly mauled Shakespeare quote that goes something to the effect that we should “first kill all the lawyers.” Well, I would like to paraphrase that saying and direct it to a profession more worthy of such a genocide. It would go thusly: “First kill all the political book ghostwriters.”

I know, I know. I’m very clever. But, Amazon apparently didn’t think so because the on-line bookseller deleted my review. And without so much as a by your leave, at that.

The next one I reviewed was for a music CD called “Levittown, Go Out Dancing – Part II” (2008). This is a CD by Tony Carey’s occasional band Planet P Project. Carey is a self-loathing, ex-pat American that lives in Germany now and since 1983 his Plant P band has put out four albums.

His first one from 1983 was an 80s style pop album that sound OK even today, if not a bit dated with that typical 80s sound. The second, “Pink World” from 1984 began to show Carey’s obsession with Hitler and his hippie-esque worry over the bomb and western totalitarianism – as all the while he ignored, like every other hippie did, the worse totalitarianism of the Far East and Russia. Still, “Pink World” has some interesting Pink Floyd-like tunes that are listenable. The third album “1931, Go Out Dancing Part I” (2003), is a full-blown nightmare of hippie angst replete with Hitler speeches recorded into the songs. I began to sour on Planet P Project with that one.

And now we get to their newest one, “Levittown.” This one is a frontal assault on the evil, evil America that Carey left behind when he went to Germany, turning his back on his country. Still, he loves to whine about us, just the same.

Just as I was ripped off by Pelosi’s “book” I was similarly cheated out of good money for “Levittown.” And that is what I wrote in my Amazon review. But, Amazon didn’t want me to say so, apparently. My review was deleted unceremoniously.

So, now, I leave the assessment to you, kind readers. Was my review too mean, too harsh, not on target or somehow deserving of being deleted by Amazon? Is my opinion of this album not as legitimate as those who love it? Or is Amazon trying to shill for the left?

Here is what I wrote:

(Important notice! I have radically changed my mind about the review of this music. See the new review.)

Levittown? Try LEAVE IT Town!

Planet P Project has been steadily getting worse and this fourth album offering is the worst of them yet. Tony Carey's first Planet P Project album (un-inventively called the "Planet P Project") in 1983 at least had a great 80s sound that almost stands the test of time today and the double album "Pink World" (1984) was a really great album filled with tons of Pink Floydesque music. But the 2003 offering "1931" began the over-the-top, self-hating, nihilism that this new offering, "Levittown," loads up in spades.

There is lots of hand wringing and self-hate piled on top of finger wagging scolding of western culture and history in the lyrics of this ponderous album. Worse, Carey's vocals seem strained and sorrowful giving each tune -- and by each I mean EVERY -- a whiny character that seems to make a mockery of the harsh subject matter he is attempting to highlight. It all seems over wrought, petulant, and eye rolling.

With a sort of stilted narration in the song "The New Frontier," Carey tries to scold America for its wonderful economic growth in the Post WWII world, an economic growth that later improved the standard of living for the whole world. Naturally, like most with his anti-western point of view, he just complains and offers no solution to what he obviously sees as some sort of evil -- except the empty advice of "just fight it," what ever THAT is supposed to mean. Carey uses this whiny narration in several other songs but it ends up sounding like an attempt to impress with sonority instead of really being thoughtful.

"Fremont Street" sees Carey whining that his family should have been millionaires from Vegas land sales after the turn of the century (that apparently they somehow missed because his grandaddy was a "gamblin' man."). Unfortunately, he ends up sounding more like an envious complainer. Not only that but his whole worry about the bomb, such as in the song "What We Did," and the finger pointing at the USA as all that is evil in the world smacks of the failed tactics of the anti-western hippie set from the 1960s causing this album to seem dated and silly. Remember, all those hippies became stockbrokers or government workers in the 1980s, partaking quite easily in the so-called evil profits that Carey whines about in his "Levittown" tunes. Few ever kept to the claimed "principles" of the Counter Culture.

With "Where We Want You," Carey seems to blame the USA for the attacks on 9/11. This one was the most offensive of the bunch. Apparently we Americans just used "the big lie" and "found the common enemy" to force the lowly people to do our government's bidding. Also apparently, the planes flying into the Twin Towers was somehow a "big lie" that never really happened, or maybe was caused by the US government its hard to tell which Carey is positing. I wonder if Carey is scared by the black helicopters floating above his European home as he worries over 9/11 truther conspiracy tales? Naturally he seems to think all Americans assume "the devil himself wears sandals and a robe," too. This causes me to wonder if he sees anything at all wrong with people who use Islam as an excuse to chop off people's heads, stone gays to death, rape women and small boys and the like? After all, he has all sorts of complaints about America and the west, but doesn't seem to display any opprobrium of the East.

All in all, the entire subject matter of this album sounds as outdated and wrong headed as the failed ideas of the childish, nihilistic, troublemakers that shut down University campuses all across the country in the 1960s. The vaunted Counter Culture that ended up doing absolutely nothing but causing strife fills this backward looking and pointless collection.

I suggest passing this one up unless you hate America, too. I, for one, will also be passing up part three of Tony Carey's "Go Out Dancing" trilogy. Worse, I wish I hadn't wasted my time with this one. But, like I said, if you think America is evil... well, this one will fit the bill for you.

++++++++++

So, there you go folks. Was this so out of line that it should have been deleted by Amazon? And is Amazon deliberately deleting conservative reviews? And if so, how long has this been going on?