NY Times Healthcare Poll - Fake, Phony and Fraud

When I saw the New York Times Healthcare poll the other day that claimed that there was massive support for Obama's healthcare plan, I was surprised becauase the poll didn't seem to fit with the number of people who were "happy" with their current plans and doctors. Apparently, the fix was in (from CNSNews):

A New York Times/CBS News poll released Saturday that showed broad bipartisan support for President Obama’s health care reform, over-sampled Obama voters compared to McCain voters, critics say.

The poll, administered June 12-16, found that 72 percent of respondents favored the creation of a government health-insurance plan that would compete with private insurers.

I have long been suspect of anything that is labelled to be fair form either CBS or the New York Times. But this is outright manipulation of data - propoganda to benefit the Obama agenda. But the facts don't match the poll. And the media is trying to ram healthcare reform down our throats.

“We are identical to where we were in 1993-94,” she told CNSNews.com, “with only 51 percent of respondents even in the Democrat-skewing poll saying the health-care system needs fundamental changes, versus 52 percent in January 1994. When the question becomes whether the system needs to be completely rebuilt, 34 percent say yes in the NYT/CBS poll, versus 38 percent in 1994.

Additionally, the vast majority of Americans are satisfied with their own insurance coverage, as they were at the beginning of the Clinton administration. Approximately 77 percent in the current poll say they are at least somewhat satisfied.

Read the entire article here.

It's real hope and change you can believe in. Except its fake.

---

White House mad at British press - because they can't control them!

Drudge linked today to a report from Politico that described Press Secretary Gibbs attacking the British press:

“I want to speak generally about some reports I’ve witnessed over the past few years in the British media. And in some ways, I’m surprised it filtered down,” Gibbs began. “Let’s just say if I wanted to look up – if I wanted to read a writeup today of how Manchester United fared last night in the Champion’s League cup, I might open up a British newspaper. If I was looking for something that bordered on truthful news, I’m not entirely sure it’d be in the first pack of clips I’d pick up.”

“You're not going to find very many of these newspapers and truth within 25 words of each other,” Gibbs continued.

I suspect he was talking about the fact that the British papers in some cases chose not to print stories that were either too inflammatory (prisoner abuse photos) or were not sufficiently loose toward the release of information that might endanger secret government programs aimed at keeping US and British citizens safer. The real joke in this story is that it is pretty clear to me where his real issue resides.

He doesn't like that the British press will not accept the Obama White House narrative without question. That is his version of "truth". It's also why I read a lot more of the British press the the US press anymore. When US journalists talk about the tingling up their leg when Obama talks, it is really hard to take the seriously at all.

So keep at it British press!

Read the Politico story here.

---

Powerline breaks major election fraud story!

Because there is no such thing as investigative journalism by media giants like the New York Time in regard to Barack Obama, Powerline once again broke a story about contribution fraud at Obama's web site:

More recently, incidents have been reported in which people have seen credit card charges surface suggesting they donated to Barack Obama when they did not. Matthew Mosk and Sarah Cohen noted one such incident earlier this week:

Now comes the story of Mary T. Biskup, of Manchester, Missouri. Biskup got a call recently from the Obama campaign, which was trying to figure out why she donated $174,800 to the campaign -- well over the contribution limit of $2,300.

The answer she gave them was simple. "That's an error."

Is the Obama campaign knowingly receiving illegal contributions?

It it indeed? Apparently, Powerline readers have been testing the site and have found a criminal lack of basic fraud checking at the Obama donation web site. Interestingly, the McCain has verification clearly in place.

Read the article here. The fact that the fraud is occurring is bad enough. The fact that no media organization will report on it is chilling. If this were John McCain, it would be front page news.

---

Orson Scott Card - A Democrat on the Economic Crisis and the Media

By Orson Scott Card October 5, 2008

Would the Last Honest Reporter Please Turn On the Lights?

An open letter to the local daily paper -- almost every local daily paper in America:

I remember reading All the President's Men and thinking: That's journalism. You do what it takes to get the truth and you lay it before the public, because the public has a right to know.

This housing crisis didn't come out of nowhere. It was not a vague emanation of the evil Bush administration.

It was a direct result of the political decision, back in the late 1990s, to loosen the rules of lending so that home loans would be more accessible to poor people. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were authorized to approve risky loans.

What is a risky loan? It's a loan that the recipient is likely not to be able to repay.

The goal of this rule change was to help the poor -- which especially would help members of minority groups. But how does it help these people to give them a loan that they can't repay? They get into a house, yes, but when they can't make the payments, they lose the house -- along with their credit rating.

They end up worse off than before.

This was completely foreseeable and in fact many people did foresee it. One political party, in Congress and in the executive branch, tried repeatedly to tighten up the rules. The other party blocked every such attempt and tried to loosen them.

Furthermore, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were making political contributions to the very members of Congress who were allowing them to make irresponsible loans. (Though why quasi-federal agencies were allowed to do so baffles me. It's as if the Pentagon were allowed to contribute to the political campaigns of Congressmen who support increasing their budget.)

Isn't there a story here? Doesn't journalism require that you who produce our daily paper tell the truth about who brought us to a position where the only way to keep confidence in our economy was a $700 billion bailout? Aren't you supposed to follow the money and see which politicians were benefitting personally from the deregulation of mortgage lending?

I have no doubt that if these facts had pointed to the Republican Party or to John McCain as the guilty parties, you would be treating it as a vast scandal. "Housing-gate," no doubt. Or "Fannie-gate."

Instead, it was Senator Christopher Dodd and Congressman Barney Frank, both Democrats, who denied that there were any problems, who refused Bush administration requests to set up a regulatory agency to watch over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and who were still pushing for these agencies to go even further in promoting subprime mortgage loans almost up to the minute they failed.

As Thomas Sowell points out in a TownHall.com essay entitled Do Facts Matter? "Alan Greenspan warned them four years ago. So did the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers to the President. So did Bush's Secretary of the Treasury."

These are facts. This financial crisis was completely preventable. The party that blocked any attempt to prevent it was ... the Democratic Party. The party that tried to prevent it was ... the Republican Party.

Yet when Nancy Pelosi accused the Bush administration and Republican deregulation of causing the crisis, you in the press did not hold her to account for her lie. Instead, you criticized Republicans who took offense at this lie and refused to vote for the bailout!

What? It's not the liar, but the victims of the lie who are to blame?

Now let's follow the money ... right to the presidential candidate who is the number-two recipient of campaign contributions from Fannie Mae.

And after Freddie Raines, the CEO of Fannie Mae who made $90 million while running it into the ground, was fired for his incompetence, one presidential candidate's campaign actually consulted him for advice on housing.

If that presidential candidate had been John McCain, you would have called it a major scandal and we would be getting stories in your paper every day about how incompetent and corrupt he was.

But instead, that candidate was Barack Obama, and so you have buried this story, and when the McCain campaign dared to call Raines an "adviser" to the Obama campaign -- because that campaign had sought his advice -- you actually let Obama's people get away with accusing McCain of lying, merely because Raines wasn't listed as an official adviser to the Obama campaign.

You would never tolerate such weasely nit-picking from a Republican.

If you who produce our local daily paper actually had any principles, you would be pounding this story, because the prosperity of all Americans was put at risk by the foolish, short-sighted, politically selfish, and possibly corrupt actions of leading Democrats, including Obama.

If you who produce our local daily paper had any personal honor, you would find it unbearable to let the American people believe that somehow Republicans were to blame for this crisis.

There are precedents. Even though President Bush and his administration never said that Iraq sponsored or was linked to 9/11, you could not stand the fact that Americans had that misapprehension -- so you pounded us with the fact that there was no such link. (Along the way, you created the false impression that Bush had lied to them and said that there was a connection.)

If you had any principles, then surely right now, when the American people are set to blame President Bush and John McCain for a crisis they tried to prevent, and are actually shifting to approve of Barack Obama because of a crisis he helped cause, you would be laboring at least as hard to correct that false impression.

Your job, as journalists, is to tell the truth. That's what you claim you do, when you accept people's money to buy or subscribe to your paper.

But right now, you are consenting to or actively promoting a big fat lie -- that the housing crisis should somehow be blamed on Bush, McCain, and the Republicans. You have trained the American people to blame everything bad -- even bad weather -- on Bush, and they are responding as you have taught them to.

If you had any personal honor, each reporter and editor would be insisting on telling the truth -- even if it hurts the election chances of your favorite candidate.

Because that's what honorable people do. Honest people tell the truth even when they don't like the probable consequences. That's what honesty means. That's how trust is earned.

Barack Obama is just another politician, and not a very wise one. He has revealed his ignorance and naivete time after time -- and you have swept it under the rug, treated it as nothing.

Meanwhile, you have participated in the borking of Sarah Palin, reporting savage attacks on her for the pregnancy of her unmarried daughter -- while you ignored the story of John Edwards's own adultery for many months.

So I ask you now: Do you have any standards at all? Do you even know what honesty means?

Is getting people to vote for Barack Obama so important that you will throw away everything that journalism is supposed to stand for?

You might want to remember the way the National Organization of Women threw away their integrity by supporting Bill Clinton despite his well-known pattern of sexual exploitation of powerless women. Who listens to NOW anymore? We know they stand for nothing; they have no principles.

That's where you are right now.

It's not too late. You know that if the situation were reversed, and the truth would damage McCain and help Obama, you would be moving heaven and earth to get the true story out there.

If you want to redeem your honor, you will swallow hard and make a list of all the stories you would print if it were McCain who had been getting money from Fannie Mae, McCain whose campaign had consulted with its discredited former CEO, McCain who had voted against tightening its lending practices.

Then you will print them, even though every one of those true stories will point the finger of blame at the reckless Democratic Party, which put our nation's prosperity at risk so they could feel good about helping the poor, and lay a fair share of the blame at Obama's door.

You will also tell the truth about John McCain: that he tried, as a Senator, to do what it took to prevent this crisis. You will tell the truth about President Bush: that his administration tried more than once to get Congress to regulate lending in a responsible way.

This was a Congress-caused crisis, beginning during the Clinton administration, with Democrats leading the way into the crisis and blocking every effort to get out of it in a timely fashion.

If you at our local daily newspaper continue to let Americans believe --and vote as if -- President Bush and the Republicans caused the crisis, then you are joining in that lie.

If you do not tell the truth about the Democrats -- including Barack Obama -- and do so with the same energy you would use if the miscreants were Republicans -- then you are not journalists by any standard.

You're just the public relations machine of the Democratic Party, and it's time you were all fired and real journalists brought in, so that we can actually have a daily newspaper in our city.

---

I am finally figuring out the Obama secrets

For months now I have been confused by the Obama secret. He somehow figured out a way to push Hillary aside against all odds. Hillary's team are excellent strategists and execute flawlessly. So what happened?

Number one, Obama has the ability to "sound" convincing. But the thing with that is a lot of politicians "sound" convincing. The press and commentators usually correct the record. For example, last week Joe Biden "sounded" convincing. And the news came out the next day that he outright lied 24 times. It's easy then. The issue with Obama is that outside of the blogosphere, no one questions him when gets "fluid" on his opinions.

Number two, he knows he won't be challenged. Barack Obama has the confidence that none of the major players will challenge him. I think that is why the Democrats were so anti-Fox early. With MSNBC advertising "chills up the leg" from formerly reputable journalists, he knows he is going to get a pass.

Number three, he doesn't need opposition research. When you look at what the media has tried to do to Sarah Palin, it is clear that they just aren't interested in researching Barack Obama. They won't even ask him questions on his two "memoirs". And about the "memoirs". Why is it that many trully significant historical figures don't even have "memoirs" and this guys has two of them and he hasn't done anything. Any no one asks why?

Number four, he has unlimited funds. This is where I think the situation is most serious. He has been very obtuse on reporting the details of his donors. Normally friendly news outlets are starting to question his donors like "good will". If he is funding his campaign with seriously illegal donations being funnelled through a series "same old Chicago mafia tactics".

Number five, substance. There isn't any. And no one challenges him on it.

---

An excellent new ad! Check it out.

No commentary necessary.

/a>

---

My own letter to the Presidential Debates Commission

There is a lot of outrage over tonights Vice Presidential Debate and specifically over the selection of an obviously biased moderator Gwen Ifils. What did she do? She has written a book praising Obama which has a scheduled release date of Inauguration Day. Forgetting how she feels about Obama, does it not sound like she has a financial interest in seeing him elected? Will he book party not be a flop if he and Biden are not elected?

Below is a letter I sent to Janet Brown, the Executive Director of the Commission on Presidential Debates. Her email is jb@debates.org.


To Janet Brown:

I am confused how the Debates Commission could sponsor a debate of the Vice Presidential candidates that features a “moderator” that has a financial interest in one side to the detriment of the other. From your own mission statement:


The organization, which is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, 501(c)(3) corporation


I surely do not have to explain to you what the words in your own organization’s mission statement mean. But I would expect that most independent observers would define a moderator who:

1. Has a clear financial interest in one candidate winning over the other
2. Has had formal complaints lodged against her in the past for
unfair treatment of both parties in a debate
3. Has recently received formal complaints about her actions involving one of
the participants of THIS debate


It is incumbent upon the Debates Commission to ensure that Gwen Ifill be removed as the moderator fo the Vice Presidential debate on Thursday. It would demonstrate that the Debates Commission actually believes in non-partisan basic fairness.


Regards

Dennis

---

A powerful email from The Corner

This was just posted at The Corner and I think speaks volumes for many of us. It is reprinted unedited in its entirety:

I've had it with the Left and I've had it with "conservatives" who haven't had it with the Left [Andy McCarthy]


I'm posting because it is indicative of the anger in lots of reader email I'm seeing:

The Ifill issue is front and center. Last night on Brit Hume's program, the consensus was that they all knew Gwen and she is a swell person, and of course she wouldn't do anything partisan. Just where the hell are these people coming from? Day in and day out, out here in the real world we see obvious bias, obvious double standards and yet the Republicans and a lot of the "conservative" media either don't see it, or if they do, they let it slide.

A few examples. Obviously the current flap of Gwen Ifill, Tom Brokaw, Jim Lehrer as moderators for presidential debates but never an O’Reilly, Hannity, Limbaugh or Brit Hume. Why not?

A special prosecutor is appointed to investigate firings of 9 prosecutors but none was or will ever be appointed to find out why Clinton fired EVERY single prosecutor when he took office?? Republicans stand mute on this and it is infuriating.

Chris Dodd, Barney Frank, Waters and the entire Black Caucus defend the running of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and prevent the very reforms which might have avoided the mess we are in today. Yet the MSM and Republicans are silent. Why aren't these guys investigated, forced to step down and prosecuted as was Tom Delay?? Again silence from the White House, McCain and other Republicans.

These are just a few of the things that infuriate conservatives outside the beltway and New York City. We have the Republican Party asking us for money, yet I haven't seen a single penny spent on demanding the Democrats adhere to the same standard Republicans are required to meet. Being a punching bag for liberals who constantly lie about you, constantly use inflammatory language (hate speech in some cases) and use any means necessary to gain power is no way to win elections. Yet this is the path the Republican Party takes time and time again. To say I am mad as hell about the Dems and the response of the Republicans to these liberal attacks is an understatement.

O’Reilly has an article on his web site that says “Conservative group drops Ayers, Rezko and Wright from their ad.” Why I ask?? These guys are terrorists, crooks and as anti-American as they come, yet those in a position to speak out remain mute!!

Enough. I don’t give a damn if the Fox media folk know Gwen and say she is a swell person. I don’t care if McCain thinks the Dems in the Senate and congress are his “good friends”, they sure as hell aren’t my good friends. In fact they work day in and day out to destroy all I hold dear, and tax me to pay for those in society who are too lazy and/or stupid to care for themselves....


10/02 01:42 PM

---

Palin hubby's DUI. What about Obama and cocaine?

The Palins have been subjected to a tremendous amount of negative piling on by the media. I think this is probably because the mainstream media has never bothered to ask a single difficult question of Barack Obama. For example, Obama said in his book "Dreams from my father":

"Pot had helped, and booze; maybe a little blow when you could afford it. Not smack, though."

I suppose the political experts saw his book as an "inoculation" against future attacks. But I don't think so if the candidate was a Republican. For example, was is just powdered cocaine or crack? Did he ever deal drugs in addition to using them? The amazing thing is that these questions have never been asked, much less answered.

Yes, Sarah Palin's husbands DUI is relevent. Hmmm. A candidates spouse's misdemeanor DUI is relevent but a candidate for President of the United States felony is not. What does this say about the NY Times, Washington Post and NBC News? Nothing good.

---