Sibby Online

Leader of the lying left

Excerpt from am American Spectator column by Patrick Hynes regarding Daily Kos being a paid consultant for Howard Dean:

But this isn't really about Markos Moulitsas Zúniga, whose sphere of influence never extended beyond the "Bush is Hitler" crowd. It's about Howard Dean, the sneaky little subversive who now wants to lead the Democrat National Committee out of the wilderness.

A whole new round of unanswered questions ought to anchor Dean's ascent to the DNC Chairmanship now. Questions like: Was Dean paying him when Kos wrote this little cutie in early April about contract workers who were murdered in Fallujah:

That said, I feel nothing over the death of merceneries [sic]. They aren't in Iraq because of orders, or because they are there trying to help the people make Iraq a better place. They are there to wage war for profit. Screw them.

How about when Kos said John Kerry and his campaign team "should be lined up and shot"? Does Dean endorse Kos's use of the phrase "racists thugs" to describe his rivals in the blogosphere? Does Dean support Kos's conspiracy theory that the "neocons" have a secret plan to prolong the terror war by strengthening al Qaeda, expressed thusly:

The lesson (of Berg's murder) is that not finishing the job in Afghanistan and invading Iraq with no good rationale gave Al Qaida and similar groups time to catch their breath, reorganize, and direct their efforts against a conveniently near target -- Iraq. This is the neocon "flypaper" theory in all its glory. It's working. The neocons WANTED it this way. And they got it. Congratulations.

Or what about Kos's expressed belief that George W. Bush is responsible for the beheading of Nick Berg:

The prison abuse didn't cause Berg's horrific murder. Bush's (inept) War, in all its glory, did. The Neocon agenda, in all its folly, did. The war cheerleaders now trying to use this for propaganda purposes, in all their idiocy, did. Congrats. Your war spirals ever out of control. Good luck trying to wash the blood out of your hands.

Moreover, in the interest of full disclosure, shouldn't someone ask Howard Dean if Kos is still shilling for him now that Dean is a candidate for DNC Chair? Kos claims to have folded his consulting outfit, but let's just say his credibility is shot.

Lest this seem like too much guilt by association, consider that as chairman of the Democrat Nation Committee, Howard Dean would be given the authority to hire scores of employees, consultants, and advisers to rebuild his party and combat the Republicans. The hiring of Markos Moulitsas Zúniga shows Dean has neither the judgment nor the temperament to fill those positions responsibly.

Dirty Harry HATES Michael Moore

Compliments of The Club for Growth blog:

From the New York Daily News:

Clint Eastwood squinted like Dirty Harry Tuesday night as he took aim at Michael Moore.

“Michael Moore and I actually have a lot in common - we both appreciate living in a country where there’s free expression,” Eastwood told the star-dotted crowd attending the National Board of Review awards dinner at Tavern on the Green, where Eastwood picked up a Special Filmmaking Achievement prize for “Million Dollar Baby.”

Then, the Republican-leaning actor/director advised the lefty filmmaker: “But, Michael, if you ever show up at my front door with a camera - I’ll kill you.”

The audience erupted in laughter, and Eastwood grinned dangerously.

“I mean it,” he added, provoking more guffaws.

Thanks to Adam Rozansky, the Club’s bookkeeper, for the pointer.

It’s better to be nice

From the Rapid City Journal:

South Dakota's Public Utilities Commission might have struck on the right regulatory approach to getting cell phone companies to put towers in sparsely populated areas: Kill them with kindness.

PUC chairman Gary Hanson told the state Legislature's Joint Appropriations Committee on Thursday that he and the two other commissioners have relied on their powers of persuasion rather than seeking laws to regulate wireless telecommunications in South Dakota.

"We've lobbied to get cell towers located in some areas. We're persuasive, and we don't go away," Hanson said. "We've made good friends at the wireless companies in order to coerce them, if I can use that word, to put up more cell towers across South Dakota. And we've been successful."

Property rights fight in South Dakota

From the Rapid City Journal:

The state Game, Fish & Parks Commission on Friday unanimously affirmed its controversial policy of allowing state conservation officers to enter private land without permission to check hunters.

In doing that, the commission almost certainly guaranteed a fight over the issue in the upcoming session of the South Dakota Legislature, where the battle will be waged by West River ranchers who consider GF&P's use of the "open fields" policy a rude violation of property rights.

The commission did offer a possible concession to ranchers Friday by announcing that it would consider allowing landowners to sponsor hunters on their property in a special license drawing.

But the open-fields issue was the highlight of the commission message, which will be delivered to the 2005 Legislature. GF&P's long-standing policy of entering ranch and farm ground without landowner permission to check hunters has been at the center of a storm of controversy between the outdoor agency and West River landowners, some of who claim GF&P has trampled their property rights.

Where is the outrage

Jon Lauck at SDP covered this Instapundit post regarding Markos Zuniga of Daily Kos was a paid consultant for the Howard Dean campaign.

Here is Hugh Hewitt’s response:

Is Daily Kos the new Armstrong Williams? Was Kos better paid than William? Will every blogger that has denounced Armstrong Williams over the past few days please send me links to their posts denouncing Kos?

I offer the same challenge to those who have been critical of Jon Lauck and Jason Van Beek for being paid consultants for the John Thune campaign, especially those on the far-left South Dakota blogosphere. Let’s here you also attack Daily Kos for only being a shill for Howard Dean while pretending to be an independent commentator. Let’s here about Daily Kos misleading people. Let’s here you say that Daily Kos may have been taken for a fair and balanced news outlet, instead of a paid advertising arm for the Democrat candidate who represented the blame America first loonies.

I can care less and not surprised that Daily Kos was paid by Howard Dean. I had a run in with these folks during the 2004 special election between Herseth and Diedrich. It was obvious that their agenda was pro-Democrat.

I also do not think the South Dakota left blogosphere will be critical of Zuniga. They care more about Democrats than they do about being fair.

AARP mistaken

I was not the only person who noticed Al Neuharth’s criticism of AARP’s position on Social Security. Excerpt from Gary Andres NRO column:

Writing recently in USA Today, Al Neuharth recognized this by noting that "the Bush plan would not affect current retirees and probably not be available to those still working who are 50 or older." Moreover, he argues, the plan "would be strictly voluntary and simply permit younger workers to invest some (maybe up to $1000 a year) of their Social Security payroll taxes into private retirement accounts. The AARP's ad blitz is trying to scare old folks into believing their Social Security payments are in jeopardy. Simply not true."

Andres also pointed out that the Democrats ideology has gotten old beyond its years:

It's as if AARP is stuck in a time warp, thinking the Democrats still control the levers of power in Washington, and that it necessarily needs to shill for liberal policies and politicians. How does kowtowing to a bunch of liberal politicians benefit real life senior citizens? It doesn't take bifocals to see the Great Society programs are no longer cutting edge and that Democrats don't hold a monopoly on retirement-security policies anymore.

Conservative bias means the truth

Ann Coulter’s column titled, "Liar, liar, now you're fired" is a must read on the CBS News Rathergate scandal. Here is the introduction:

If CNN doesn't hire them, Dan Rather and his producers can always get a job teaching at the Columbia School of Journalism. The Columbia Journalism Review recently defended the CBS report on George Bush using forged National Guard documents with the Tawana Brawley excuse: The documents might be "fake but accurate."

Dan Rather and his crack investigative producer Mary Mapes are still not admitting the documents were fakes. Of course, Dan Rather is still not admitting Kerry lost the election or that a woman named Juanita Broaddrick credibly accused Bill Clinton of rape.

Responding to Bill O'Reilly's question in a May 15, 2001, interview on "The O'Reilly Factor" about why CBS News had mentioned crackpot rumors of George Bush's drug use on air seven times, but the name "Juanita Broaddrick" had never crossed Dan Rather's lips (and was only mentioned twice on all of CBS News), Rather replied: "Juanita Broaddrick, to be perfectly honest, I don't remember all the details of Juanita Broaddrick. But I will say that – and you can castigate me if you like. When the charge has something to do with somebody's private sex life, I would prefer not to run any of it."

If only the press had extended that same courtesy to Mike Tyson! Rape has as much to do with "somebody's private sex life" as Bush's National Guard service does.

Admittedly, Juanita Broaddrick's charge against Clinton – that Bill Clinton raped her so brutally that her clothing was torn and her lip was swollen and bleeding, hence his parting words of "you'd better put some ice on that" – was not a story on the order of Augusta National Golf Course's exclusion of women members. But, unlike the Bush drug-use charge, which remains unsupported to this day, Broaddrick's allegations had been fully corroborated by NBC News – which then refused to air Lisa Myers' report until after Clinton's acquittal in the Senate.

Fortunately for Ms. Mapes, Rather also described Bill Clinton as "honest," explaining to O'Reilly, "I think you can be an honest person and lie about any number of things." This must have come as great comfort to Mapes, as she based an entire story about Bush's outrageous behavior in the National Guard on one Lt. Col. Bill Burkett.

After exposing Burkett’s background versus the Mapes efforts to protect his identity, Coulter ends her column with this:

If Fox News had come out with a defamatory story about Kerry based on forged documents, liberals would be demanding we cut power to the place. (Fortunately, the real documents on Kerry were enough to do the trick.) But the outside investigators hired by CBS could find no political agenda at CBS.

By contrast, the report did not hesitate to accuse the bloggers who exposed the truth about the documents of having "a conservative agenda." As with liberal attacks on Fox's "fair and balanced" motto, it is now simply taken for granted that "conservative bias" means "the truth."

Of course the lying left in the MSM imply the exact opposite when they use the "conservative" label.

Consumer Reports and abortion

From WorldNetDaily:

Consumer Reports is citing the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights in its defense of a report on birth control and abortion that has pro-lifers canceling their subscriptions to the magazine.

"[Consumer Union's] mission is to ensure a fair, just, and safe marketplace for all consumers, and we support the consumer's right to be informed (part of the United Nations charter on human rights)," reads an e-mail from customer relations staffer Michael Dempsey responding to complaints.

"As one way to fulfill our mission, we publish factual, scientifically based information on public health topics and on legally available products and services provided by the medical profession and health-care industry."

As WorldNetDaily reported, Consumer Reports, the respected periodical that has advised Americans on everything from new car purchases to which electric can opener to buy, published in its February 2005 issue a list of birth-control options that includes abortion, complete with a section describing how the procedure gets rid of a pregnant mother's "uterine contents."

Quote of the Day

By Glenn Reynolds:

And rather than talk about the demise of neutrality and objectivity in news reporting, it might be better to note that CBS's problems, and the problems with Big Media in general, stem from an obvious and heavy-handed lack of neutrality and objectivity, coupled with a dishonest -- and increasingly lame and obvious -- effort to pretend otherwise.

As the far-left MSM and the left South Dakota blogosphere join to attack bloggers paid by the Thune campaign, they really are missing the core truth. Receiving compensation from a campaign proves there is a lack of objectivity. Jon Lauck and Jason Van Beek never claimed to be objective, so they are at least honest. The Argus Leader refuses to admit their lack of objectivity. Their lack of honesty demonstrates their lack of credibility. Lauck and Van Beek maintained their credibility by being honest. They are conservatives and they are proud to admit it…and so am I.

Insight on the lying left

Here is some insight on how the left misleads:

DEMOCRATS HAVE a problem with the word "imminent."

Leading up to the Iraq war, President Bush carefully avoided calling Saddam Hussein an imminent threat to the United States. He said the dictator posed a "gathering" threat that had to be dealt with before it became imminent. This did not stop Democrats from setting up a straw man and arguing that Hussein should not be removed from power because he posed no imminent danger. Rather than address the real argument, they avoided it and created one that suited them better.

Now they are playing the same game with Social Security. President Bush has repeatedly said that Social Security must be fixed now to save it for future generations. He has based this assessment on sound research. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that Social Security pay-outs will exceed revenues in 2019. That’s only 14 years away. Yet Democrats continue to pretend that the program is not broken.

In the official Democratic Party radio address last week, U.S. Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., accused President Bush of trying to scare Americans into believing Social Security was in a crisis, "but the facts prove that there is no imminent crisis," he said.

Note the careful wording. Rangel did not say there was no crisis. He said there was no "imminent" crisis. That is the same word game the Democrats played with the Iraq war. It is a disingenuous argument. Rather than challenge what President Bush has actually said, they add the word "imminent" and challenge an assertion that no one is making.