On Friday, August 1, the Press-Telegram of Long Beach, CA reported that the Teachers Association of Long Beach (TALB) has apparently been using general union funds to assist political campaigns of favored candidates for school board during the 2006 and 2008 campaign season. At least $110,000 was illegally used for political purposes.

An audit of the TALB's books seems to show that, along with the funds legally set up to be used for political purposes, the general fund was also used for political campaigning. This is illegal because in California, union members can request that their dues not be used for political purposes. If a member makes such a request his dues are supposed to go to the general union fund and not into the political accounts.

Along with the misappropriation of funds for political purposes, there are questions on the method used by the union to pay back past political campaign overruns. The union basically extorted it from the members and also used funds that were to go for campaigning in other years.

Hemming-Morse noted that in late 2006, the union began assessing teachers $6 per month for a special political fund dedicated to supporting the union's 2008 political campaigns. The union apparently paid off a portion of the 2006 loans by using a political fund that had been earmarked for the 2008 political races, auditors found.

Now, I bring this up not because I have any particular interest in the Long Beach teachers union. But, one can only imagine how widespread this sort of fraud is throughout the country. The laws that assure members that their money is going to fund general union operations instead of political campaigns is no where monitored. Who is to say how many union members' dues are going to political uses against those members' wishers?

My guess is that it is rampant. We need this matter looked into throughout the country.

By now, we are all familiar with the specious European efforts to bring President Bush up on charges of "crimes against humanity" because of the authorized torture he and his administration supposedly instituted. Oh, the Euros are in high dudgeon over their assumed sense of moral superiority in their claims against the evil, evil America. Despite the rapidly improving situation in Iraq, the calls to throw our national leaders into some Euroweenie calaboose have surged unabated. Yet, as these same hypocrites have been funding a supporting torture (not to mention financing the exportation of terrorism) for decades and now there is another report that points this little hypocritical fact out for all the world to see.

On July 29, The Guardian newspaper reported that two "leading human rights groups" are reporting that the Palestinian groups Hamas and Fatah routinely capture and torture members of each others organizations as well as Palestinians not known to be affiliated with any group.

Al-Haq, an independent Palestinian human rights group, said yesterday that more than 1,000 people have been detained by each side within the past year. An estimated 20%-30% of the detainees suffered torture, including severe beatings and being tied up in painful positions, said Al-Haq director Shawan Jabarin, citing sworn statements from 150 detainees. It said mistreatment had led to three deaths in Gaza and one in the West Bank.

Another human right group, Human Rights Watch, concurs that torture "is dramatically up."

Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch makes similar allegations in a 113-page report due out tomorrow. "The use of torture is dramatically up," said Fred Abrahams, a senior researcher for the group. The report found detainees in Gaza were held for shorter periods than those in the West Bank but the abuse was more intense.

And what is the response to this torture by the vaunted "international community"? They want to throw money at the Palestinians.

"The international community has pledged $8bn [£4bn] to the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and that gives them a heavy responsibility to make sure the security forces don't use torture and respect human rights," said Abrahams.

And what about the Brits? Those ninnies that are so sure that George W. Bush is a "criminal." They are following suit with the rest of the hypocrites by throwing money at the problem. "Gordon Brown announced a multimillion-pound increase in aid to the PA security forces during his visit to the region last week. The bulk of Britain's aid goes to the Palestinian civil police and the Presidential Guard..."

Now, let us look at a "report" from the same paper, the Guardian, from July 18 of this year penned by John McQuaid. "The evidence is mounting that top US officials - including President George Bush, vice-president Dick Cheney and former defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld - committed war crimes by authorising the use of "enhanced interrogation techniques" - ie torture," McQuaid asserted then. His prescription is for "Bush, Cheney or Rumsfeld" should face an "indictment from abroad" like former Chilean strongman Agusto Pinochet did.

Yes, the self-proclaimed "more civilized" International community is all about sending Bushhitler to jail with all their self-righteousness they can muster. Yet, the claim of torture against American officials is thin if not utterly unproven. On the other hand, the torture and abuse that Palestinians are suffering at each other's hands is not vague or unproven. Worse, it is fully accepted as fact by those very same hypocrites after President Bush.

So, where are these international busy bodies clucking their tongues at America while their tax money from their OWN governments is going to fund this very torture and abuse?

Where are the calls to bring Gordon Brown up on charges of torture? After all, he is funding it. Where are calls to bring the French and Germans up on charges of "crimes against humanity"? They are sending billions of dollars to the Palestinians and that money is being used to buy weapons, pay associates all of which and who are going to employ torture, provable, known torture.

But, all this goes to prove one point. The Europeans don't care about torture. Their only interest is in heaping hate and opprobrium on the U.S.A. That is all they care about. The rest is only a tool to be used to attack America.

Hypocrites one and all.

Talk about a puff piece, this Associated Press short is a story with absolutely no substance. Not only that but after seeing the headline and then reading the story, one is hard pressed to believe they belong together. This Amy Forliti puffery is incongruously headlined "Protesters expected to transform the streets outside GOP convention into marketplace of ideas," yet there isn't any discussion at all of any such "marketplace" or about any real "ideas" in the story. In fact, the only "ideas" are ages old, stale and losing their grip among more Americans everyday.

Oh, Forliti talks about protests filled with prosaic anti-war sentiment, ages old oil protests, anarchists and 9/11 truthers, but there is no discussion of real "ideas" in this piece. Nor does the piece discuss exactly who is organizing these protests, people who are themselves filled with the dead ideas of another era -- just for instance the United For Peace And Justice (UFPJ) is mostly a socialist organization and they are always a part of these coalitions of misfits.

After reporting that a retired 73-year-old doctor will parade about holding a styrofoam gravestone who will be on hand at the RNC convention in Minnesota and after talking about how a "philosophy professor" will agitate for 9/11 trutherism, the AP piece lets us know that these folks comprise a "marketplace of ideas."

Those are just a few of the images that demonstrators hope will capture the attention of delegates, journalists and others attending the Republican National Convention. Tens of thousands -- from anarchists and immigrants to advocates for the poor -- plan to use the streets outside the Xcel Center as a national podium, transforming downtown St. Paul into a marketplace of ideas.

In reality, the only "ideas" being offered by these activists are failed ideas that hold little interest for the average American and have been proven murderously wrong by the fate of the many millions who unhappily got in Stalin's and Mao's errant, perverted paths.

The AP gives us a quote by an ACLU member and one by a Minnesota schoolteacher named Meredith Aby.

"The Bush agenda has really angered all different groups," said Meredith Aby, a member of the Coalition to March on the RNC and Stop the War.

Besides the mysterious Coalition to March on the RNC and Stop the War, schoolteacher Aby also belongs to a socialist group called the Colombia Action Network that proclaims itself against the war on terror in general and anything Bush does in particular as well as pro international unionism. Now, I say mysterious about the Coalition to March because on none of the webpages for the several groups that are sponsoring these "marches" on the RNC convention will you see any "about" pages or any lists of what groups really belong to this "coalition." I guess transparency and honesty isn't their game.

Certainly the AP doesn't bother trying to investigate and let the American public know that communist and socialist organizations are a driving part of these "coalitions." One can only wonder if the AP knows that such a harsh light shined upon that little fact would tarnish the reputation of the group they are so glowingly writing about and that is why this AP story doesn't explore that aspect?

So, getting back to the headline, what "ideas" are these people brining to the "streets"? Well, we won't know by this story, that's for sure.

(Photo caption: " Anti-War Protest Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence," Photo credit: www.nyc.com)

A new 5-year contract between workers and the Tyson Foods poultry processing plant in Shelbyville, Tenn. has been negotiated in which the American holiday Labor Day has been eliminated as an official holiday to be replaced by the Muslim holy day Eid al-Fitr

According to a news release from the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, a new 5-year contract at the plant included the change to accommodate the hundreds of Somali Muslims who work at the plant .

Eid al-Fitr falls on Oct. 1 this year and marks the end of Ramadan.

Every American should be outraged.

First of all, we must realize that this union is only doing exactly what a union does: negotiate for the desires of its members. But, this is the problem inherent in the entire idea of unions. This union has just leant its hand to destroying American culture and supplanting it with a foreign culture. Worse, it is supplanting our American culture with one looking to the destruction of our own. If this sort of thing does not illuminate how unions are not looking out for the best interests of this country, what does?

And it isn't just the holiday switch.

The newspaper also quotes the union as saying two prayer rooms have been created at the Shelbyville Tyson Foods' plant " to allow Muslim workers to pray twice a day and return to work without leaving the plant."

In a day when a culture inimical to our nation is looking for every way it can to destroy us, Tyson Foods and its union have decided to give that culture a way to worm its way into our own. And a union is leading the way to our cultural erosion once again.

In a time of normal, peace loving days, this may not seem to be such a problem. We are not in those days.

Sadly, it is no surprise that a union leads the charge to our destruction.

Have you noticed that the old media standby story of the homeless has not been pursued much in the last four or five years? Some may remember how the media constantly bemoaned the state of the homeless during the Reagan and H.W. Bush years in office, and how the media constantly used this tale as a club with which to beat those two Republican presidents over the head. Folks like Rush Limbaugh, I recall, noticed how this standard media go-to story disappeared once Clinton became president and postulated that it would fast return once G.W.Bush took the Oval Office. But, the homeless has not made much of a media come back. In fact, that meme has virtually evaporated as a major media focal point. And there is a reason for that. Under the Bush administration, homelessness has actually decreased by 12% per year between 2005 and 2007.

David Frum of NRO found the lack of media attention of interest as it does us. He notes that this report of the amazing improvement of homelessness, due to the hard work of Bush appointee Phil Mangano, has generally been absent from the media. Saying, "I'll be very curious tomorrow morning to see where and how this story gets placed," Frum wonders if the story will make much ehadway in the old media. He notes that the story didn't make the Washington Post, but that The New York Times did pick it up (and I'll note the AP story as linked above, too).

As Frum says, praise and credit is due both Phil Mangano as well as president Bush himself for appointing Mangano and for allowing him to pursue his transformative program to affect change in the fate of the homeless.

We cannot yet say that Mangano has succeeded. But we can say that as with conservative ideas on crime in the 1990s, the Mangano approach to homelessness has transformed a situation once seen as hopeless by discarding orthodoxies once seen as unquestionable. He and the administration he serves deserve immense credit.

But, as the story develops in the media, there is little doubt that a negative spin is being placed on this welcome news. So far, I've seen two stories (Channel 5, WCVB in Boston, and the Associated Press) that carry a negative take on the news that will most likely become the media's theme. Here is the snippet in its simplest form from the Channel 5 report:

The report doesn't take into account the effects of the foreclosure crisis and recently slowing economy, which could increase the number of homeless families.

This isn't news. It's conjecture, if not an outright claim. But we will see it in every story, I'm sure.

In the AP story we also see it:

Some homeless advocates said HUD's emphasis on the decline in chronic homelessness paints too rosy a picture.

"It's not a true reflection of what's going on among the homeless population," said Michael Stoops, acting executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless. Stoops said there are always some homeless who are not counted, adding that people who are not chronically homeless are getting too little attention from the government.

The report does not take into account the effects of the foreclosure crisis and recently slowing economy. Stoops predicted both will increase the number of homeless families.

If the media bothers much with this story at all, and thus far reports have been far and few between, this will be the refrain most likely offered.

(Photo credit: www.5days.ca)

The School District in the City of Madison, Ohio will save $300,000 each year for the next 5 years by privatizing their school busses. Naturally, the union is trying to stop this savings by taking the city to court.

Apparently, the union contract for the school busses ran out and the city decided to privatize the system instead of continue with the union. Of course, this is a long term savings, too. It eliminates the healthcare costs and pension costs to the city, as well.

All good policy decisions, to be sure. Saving the tax payers hundreds of thousands of dollars in the process.

Naturally, the union is upset and are trying to take the city to court.

The 32-page lawsuit also alleges the school district breached its collective bargaining agreement with OAPSE when it terminated the bus drivers and other transportation employees and calls the contract, “a civil conspiracy by secretly devising a scheme to hire CBS” and also claims the board used code words such as “Phase 2” and “Phase 3” to strike the deal in secret.

This is one more example of why unions are not in the public's interest. Here the city is saving all this money for the taxpayers and what is the union doing? trying to destroy that savings.

It is outrageous that this union is trying to rip off the taxpayers like this. But, it should be no surprise.

The Washington Post's Deborah Howell has a howeller in the Aug. 3 edition of the paper revealing how shocked and amazed she was that her own paper had a lopsided tally of Obama photographs compared to how many McCain photos appear in its pages. Of course, the amusing thing isn't that the Post had far more Obama photos than McCain pics but that, regardless of the raw numbers staring her in the face, Howell still insisted it wasn't because of bias. Apparently it's just because Obama has a "great smile." I guess we can mark that trenchant observation as the best reason to cover political candidates as far as the Washington Post is concerned. It's a big win for a justification for hard news, surely.

Howell apparently was contacted by a retired USA Today reporter who alerted her to the singular fact that Obama's photo appeared more often than did McCain's in the paper's A section from June 4 to July 14. Howell got curious and replicated that study, but expanded it to the entire paper and found interesting results.

What we found: 122 photos of Obama have been published in the paper during that time to 78 for McCain, counting tiny to big. Most of those photos ran inside the paper; most on the politics page. The Page 1 photos are closer: Obama had nine to McCain's seven. Five of Obama's were above the fold; McCain had four. Obama also got more color photos, 72 to 49, and more large photos -- mostly those that spanned three or more columns, 30 to 10.

Howell also tried to see the numbers in a wider context.

To look at the phenom factor, du Cille went to the Merlin database to see how many pictures have been run of Obama since he first appeared in Post pages in 2003. That would be 1,109. McCain's pictures go back to the early days of the database, 1995, with 1,032 published. Obama is still ahead.

So, why this disparity? Howell has some excuses... er, I mean explanations.

• Obama is photogenic
• He is an historical candidate
• His backgrounds are more photogenic
• He smiles more

There you go, Debbroah. That's what I like, making a strike for serious investigation like that.

Howell has a bit of help from the the retired journo in this high minded investigation, too.

Benedetto also thought that the photos of Obama were "more candid, personal, artistic, and flattering. . . . There were few artistic photos of McCain. Most were traditional campaign shots....

I see. So, "artistic photos" are what we are interested in to illuminate the news? It isn't anything like, well, the NEWS that we are interested in?

Howell has another excuse: it isn't their fault.

The vast majority of these photos were not taken by Post photographers but by wire service shooters.

I see. Passing the buck, eh?

Then, in faux shock, the news team that brings us this Obamarama makes like they are chastened.

Ed Thiede, assistant managing editor for the news desk, said that the numbers are "eye-opening. We should be more cognizant." Du Cille and Thiede were both surprised at the numbers. Du Cille said, "The disparity in the numbers is indeed hard to reconcile. As photojournalists, we always strive to be fair. We have tried to be balanced, but it seems that in a large operation such as ours, we need to monitor the use of political images even more closely."

And Howell ends with this stern warning to her fellows...

But these kinds of discrepancies feed distrust on the part of readers, especially conservative ones, who already complain that The Post is all for Obama.

Here I'd like to suggest a reason why Obama gets such favorable photos. I'd like to suggest that, contrary to Howell's claims to the contrary, there is bias in his favor indeed. Even if we take Howell's excuse that the photos that come from stringers and wire service shooters tend to give a bit of cover to the paper, it is still bias influencing those shots. Those wire service guys are all going for the Obama as Messiah shots of which we've become so boringly familiar. They are looking for, competing for, those "artistic shots" of Obama looking beneficent, surround in light, sporting a halo even. And the papers eat these photos up and then clamor for more. And it's all driven by the photographer's personal bias and excitement for Obama on one hand, and their assumptions that their editors back in the office similarly want the newest and most Obamarific photo and will pay handsomely for them.

There is the bias right there. Its endemic in the entire process from star-struck photog, to moon-eyed photo editor, to sycophantic page editor, to the printer and out the door to a unsuspecting public.

Howell next says she is going to tackle the actual stories to see if there were more Obamaholic writers than those intoxicated by McCain's story. I am curious who she will blame this time? If it is the wire service photographer's fault for the overwhelming disparity in Obama photos, maybe Howell will blame the Obamasized dictionary writers who surely gave them too many Barackable words to use?

Why, it's all just too Obamalicious.

Here's one for you Obamamaniacs out there...

Most haughty Europeans look down their nose at we "violent Americans." They sniff the air at the ugly American and assume that they are, one and all, more "civilized" than we gauche colonials. Look at all the gun violence in America, they say. They tsk. tsk us for the deaths by gun. Certainly they are better than we?

Now shocking news emerges out of England this month. It is estimated that 25,000 stabbings have occurred in Jolly, more civilized ol' England in the last 12 months alone. You read that right, there have been 25,000 incidents of knife violence in England in the last year.

Worse, those numbers generally only include incidents where blood is drawn.

The count includes only murders, stabbings where blood is spilled and knifepoint muggings. If less-serious crimes like threats or illegal possession were included, numbers would be far higher.

And what is the government doing? Well, in truth it doesn't matter a bit what they are or are not doing. Since the common people have no right to defend themselves in England, they are like sheep to the slaughter.

Even as the English look down their nose at America's supposedly violent culture, they have themselves developed a worse case. But, this isn't just an English or American problem, it is a western problem. We are steadily becoming an anti-intellectual, anti-religious society and this is showing up in the brutality of our young who have been raised to imagine that they are each the center of the universe.

In the meantime, our youth are brutalizing each other with increasing rapidity with willful, licentious behavior. The west is slowly killing itself as the barbarians at the gate stand watching, salivating at our destruction.

So, I hate to say "we deserve it," but we are certainly all at fault for it. The west is bleeding itself to death.

Apparently, CNN decided that they didn't have enough video of rioting in their recent story on unrest in Belgrade, Serbia, so they decided to add in footage of rioting in Budapest to sexy up the story. I have to say, if the Kosovars intend to make the cut with CNN in the future, they'd better start rioting to the satisfaction of CNN's video editors. Either that, or CNN can start showing us all some truthful video with their stories. Whatever the case, CNN's misstep doesn’t just make them look bad, it makes all Americans look bad.

On July 30, CNN aired a report in their international news titled "Serb Ultranationalists Rally" in which footage of riots in two different cities and two different countries were edited together to represent the unrest in Kosovo. Serbian TV was a bit mystified by this embellishment, and rightfully so. RTS asserted that since CNN didn't have violent enough footage for their riots story, they "resorted to their favorite Hollywood trick" of "montaging and pasting together the sequences from Budapest and Belgrade protests" to accompany the story. (See foreign language report from Serbian RTS TV)

Naturally, since the original airing and posting on the Internet, and since people began to ridicule CNN for the melding of video of riots in different countries, CNN has removed the video without comment. Making matters worse, many now see a conspiracy where they originally just saw incompetence. A screen shot of the original CNN page clearly shows a snapshot of the video compilation.

For now though, the false CNN "montage" can still be seen on YouTube.com. And on that YouTube.com page one can find comments from one viewer saying that at the beginning of the video "you can see Hungarian flags and in the end you can see subway station (Belgrade isn't in Hungary and has no subway)." The same commenter also notes that all the rest of the video was from Belgrade. Other posters note several Hungarian and Serbian landmarks in the video paste job.

Here is the original CNN video footage as posted on YouTube.com:

Of course, what this sort of thing does is make America look bad to the whole world. CNN is not seen as "the left-wing media" by outsiders (even though it is). It is seen as the AMERICAN media. This sort of foolishness makes all of us look stupid for not knowing that Belgrade isn't Budapest, or for seeming to directly support one side or the other in the Serbian issue in our news reports, or all of the above.

(H/T byzantinesacredart.com)

(Photo credit: Der Spiegel Magazine)

Barack Obama is again unfairly throwing out the race card at an opponent. This week Obama was warning that his Republican opponents will assault him with racist attacks, but is dropping this warning even though no one has yet done so. On July 30th, Obama said at three different campaign stops in Missouri that McCain and his backers will attack him because he "doesn't look like all those other Presidents on those dollar bills." This isn't the first time that Obama has thrown out the race card at opponents that clearly did not play it first themselves.

For all his own sly use of the race card and his warnings that opponents will use his race against him, Obama claims to stand against racism in this campaign. This is a noble stance to take, naturally. Like Obama, any upstanding American should oppose using race charged attacks in political campaigns. Yet, for all his moralizing on the subject, why is it that Obama is staying silent as members of his own party -- not to mention his own race -- in Tennessee use racial slurs to attack another member of his own party? And why is it that the national media has ignored this story? Perhaps its because the candidate being attacked, Tennessee Congressman Steve Cohen, is not black but is Jewish? And perhaps its because his attackers are members of Tennessee's black religious community? And perhaps it is because the Congressional Black Caucus is funding Cohen's Democratic opponent, Nikki Tinker? And perhaps it is because Tinker is benefiting from this anti-Semitic attack against Cohen? Perhaps the media is hoping to hold out long enough for the issue to go away? And what of Obama?

These are vexing, but telling questions.

Last year, Steve Cohen ran for Tennessee's Ninth Congressional District against Nikki Tinker. During that campaign a black minister named Rev. George Brooks of Murfreesboro, Tenn., began to pass out fliers that told people that "Steve Cohen and the Jews HATE Jesus." Tinker refused to repudiate this flier in her support. At that same time, several other black preachers and ministers also attacked Cohen because he wasn't black. A Rev. Robert Poindexter is reported to have said about Cohen that, "He's not black and he can't represent me, that's just the bottom line."

Both Cohen and Tinker are supporting Barack Obama with Cohen, who came out fast and first in Obama's support, standing as an Obama super delegate. Despite this, Barack Obama has studiously ignored the race in Tennessee's Ninth District.

Neither Cohen nor Tinker expect Obama to weigh in on their particular race. As the Memphis Commercial Appeal reports, "Neither campaign expects Obama to endorse or influence in any other way the primary," and this seems to show that Obama is not willing to forcefully denounce the racist attacks that Cohen has been facing.

As Erick Erickson of RedState said on the 31st:

In Tennessee-9, Barack Obama has remained silent. He could, of course, practice what he preaches. He could transcend race and help the healing. Barack Obama could weigh in publicly for Steve Cohen. Barack Obama could denounce the anti-Semitism and racism (and blatant sexism) being hurled toward a sitting congressman.

Sadly, it looks like Obama is missing a chance, merely for political expediency, to call out real, not imagined or supposed, racist campaign tactics upon which to make a serious stand against racism in campaigns.

On the other hand, Obama himself does not seem to be above injecting race into his campaign. Obama has, of course, slyly used the race card several times in the recent past. Some may recall in January, during the Democratic Primaries, Hillary Clinton gave a clumsy response to a question about Martin Luther king, Jr. and civil rights saying that it took President Lyndon Johnson to finish King's work via legislation. Obama needlessly turned that into some sort of racist attack against himself and icon King. In April, Bill Clinton said that Obama won the South Carolina Primary like Jesse Jackson did decades earlier. Obama tried to turn this into a racist attack, too. Not to mention the March incident where Obama called his own grandmother a "typical white person" insinuating she was a racist and that, in turn, all whites are as well.

In reality, Obama's moralizing has appeared preemptive, not responsive to any attacks on him and has seemed cynical in its use. Still, the possible underhandedness aside, he clearly wants to stand against using racist attacks in this campaign and claims to want to stand up against such stuff. One would think that this example of racist attacks in Tennessee would be a perfect platform for him to make a stand against real racism happening right now. Sadly, Obama stays silent about these hateful actions against Steve Cohen.

Even worse, the national media has sparsely covered these anti-Semitic, racist and sexist attacks against Steve Cohen. Along with Obama, it appears the media is whistling through the graveyard, hoping Tinker will successfully defeat Cohen's bid for reelection and then the whole issue will just go away.

After all, any real nationwide attention on this would force the media to take sides between two Democrats and would also force Barack Obama to either stand up against anti-Semitic racism and against a black female candidate, or stand up for the black, female candidate turning a blind eye to anti-Semitic attacks on Cohen. But, if Barack Obama truly wanted to stand up against racism and if the media truly wanted to see racism attacked where it exists, both would comment on the racist attacks suffered by Democrat Steve Cohen of Tennessee.

Yet all remain mysteriously silent. This is a moral indictment on both the media and Barack Obama.

The Associated Press injected an editorial comment into the news... again. A few days ago, the AP issued a piece headlined Senate Republicans block heating aid bill, in which the AP made it seem as if Republicans don't care about "the poor" and are only interested in mere political partisanship. This report featured quotes showing how wonderful and caring the Democrats are but not a single quote from any Republican to explain their stance. It also clearly discounted the GOP position while positively spinning the Democratic position.

The story concerns the GOP's blocking of a Senate Democrat bill to double the Federal aid to "the poor" to subsidize their heating and air-conditioning bills. First of all, I wasn't aware that it was Constitutionally mandated that "the poor" get free air-conditioning, but that is another story. The editorializing comes in with the second paragraph.

Although a dozen Senate Republicans support the measure, most voted with GOP leaders who would rather spend the time trumpeting their call to expand offshore oil drilling before Congress takes six weeks off for vacation and the presidential nominating conventions.

What's with this offhanded "GOP leaders who would rather spend the time trumpeting their call to expand offshore oil drilling" business? If that isn't editorializing, what is?

This report also reported the hand wringing of "Indenependent" Bernie Sanders of Vermont -- who nearly always supports the Democrat Party line -- to the effect that the GOP is filled with meanies.

"Do we vote to keep the old, the sick and kids alive when the weather gets cold or very, very hot, or do we spend money on people who make huge campaign contributions? That is part of what this debate is about."

Nice populist blather.

And where is the GOP response to all this populist moralizing? How did the AP explain the GOP position in a fair and balanced way?

Well... they didn't.

The story is entirely flavored to paint Republicans as mean to the poor, uncaring about the people, and interested only in cheap political partisanship.

And that, folks, is the AP way.

(H/T NRO Media Blog)

Yes, there are two Americas. The one where John Edwards used to have a scholarship program that he intended to set up as an example for all of America to follow... and the one where he cancels that scholarship program. Is it because he isn't running for president any more? Since Edwards has other things to do now -- like hiding from the media in his mistresses' house and maybe getting a few $400 haircuts -- Edwards has pulled the plug on his pilot scholarship program in North Carolina. It was for the kids... now it isn't. As the media ignores Edwards' love child story, any takers if they will ignore this one, too?

In May of 2007, to great fanfare, Edwards rolled out his "College for Everyone" plan saying that this was a college plan for "any student wishing to work hard." At that time, the well coifed, two-time presidential candidate said that he wanted "every young person" to go to college and touted his new program then beginning at Greene Central High School in Snow Hill, NC.

At Greene Central High School in Snow Hill, North Carolina, Senator John Edwards today announced his plan to make college more affordable for millions of students. Edwards' College Opportunity Agenda includes a national "College for Everyone" initiative, which would pay for one year of public-college tuition, fees, and books for any student who is willing to work hard and stay out of trouble.

It was national news, then, of course.

But now that he no longer needs the publicity, the kids find themselves in one of those Americas where they have no more scholarship because John Edwards has yanked the one he was offering.

Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards is pulling the plug on a scholarship program he started at an Eastern North Carolina high school -- a program he once promised would be a model for the nation under an Edwards presidency.

It is said that the program was a great success and helped many of the kids at Greene Central to go on to college and all at a small cost of $600,000 over the last 2 years, small at least for the multi-millionaire, Edwards. But alas it is no more.

Some local reports have claimed that this scholarship program was a three-year program. But there was little talk of any three-year-lifespan when he announced the program.

In any case, the scholarships are gone, Edwards deciding not to continue the program. Let's sit back and see if the media report this one? Then again, maybe he is just that irrelevant?

(Photo credit: jalopnik.com)