Sibby Online

Mainstream Media’s lost credibility

SDP pointed out the movie “Shattered Glass”. WorldNetDaily has a column regarding the lost credibility of journalists. The column also pointed out the “Shattered Glass” movie:

In the last two decades nearly two dozen writers have been caught breaking the unwritten canons of journalism. And certainly the recent DVD release of Shattered Glass, the gripping and frightening story of Stephen Glass, a serial liar at the New Republic, is not likely to restore faith in the craft.

Glass' stories about computer hackers and drunken Young Republican orgies – all fabricated – are as legendary as the fictional notes, phony corporate websites and bogus business cards he created to cover his fraud. To the public, Shattered Glass likely will reinforce the Hollywood stereotype of journalists as sleazy and insensitive attack dogs with no regard for the truth, but it also should be a wake-up call for journalists.

"For me, I think it's editorial leadership," says Adam Penenberg, the former Forbes Digital Tool reporter who helped expose Glass.

Hillary’s Secret War against bloggers

WorldNetDaily has an introduction to a recently released book by Richard Poe called “Hillary’s Secret War”. The book shows the far-left concern for Internet Journalism:

Showing that Hillary Clinton and her operatives regarded the "unregulated" datastream of cyberspace as a threat to their power, potentially devastating in its ability to bypass the controlled, corporate media, "Hillary's Secret War" reveals why journalistic "dissidents" on the Internet were persecuted with special ferocity.

Mainstream news media spiked the story of Hillary’s secret war – and of the scandals she sought to conceal. But the courageous new journalists of the Internet underground defied the odds and exposed the shocking truth about history’s most corrupt presidency. This is their story.

Written with all the drama and tension of a gripping novel, this carefully researched book gives the inside story of how these modern-day patriots endured Hillary’s attacks, and emerged from the battlefield to become a sprawling, innovative news source reaching tens of millions each day. "Hillary’s Secret War" presents a tale of dogged courage and sacrifice, one of the greatest untold stories in the annals of journalism.

"Hillary's Shadow Team," says Poe, "will no doubt play a crucial role in smoothing the way for her planned return to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Likewise, the Internet will figure prominently in the effort to stop her."

FrontPage magazine has an interview with the author. Here’s an excerpt:

FP: How did Hillary persecute the New Underground?

Poe: In July 1995, Hillary’s Shadow Team produced a secret report which identified the Internet as a special danger to the Clintons’ power. The report proved prophetic when journalists such as Matt Drudge, Christopher Ruddy, Joseph Farah and, of course, David Horowitz, began using the Internet to publish stories that Big Media would never touch.

In February 1998, Hillary announced that the Internet needed an “editing or gatekeeping function.” By the time she spoke those words, Hillary was already hard at work putting her gatekeeping machinery into place.

Her most damaging attacks against the Internet came disguised as private lawsuits, brought by third parties. For instance, Hillary operative Sid Blumenthal sued Matt Drudge for $30 million in 1997, charging defamation. The lawsuit was clearly orchestrated by the White House. David Horowitz came to Drudge’s rescue, providing him with free legal representation, and got slapped with an IRS audit for his troubles. The case dragged on for years, but, soon after the Clintons left office, Blumenthal dropped his suit.

In September 1998, the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times sued Jim Robinson’s FreeRepublic.com for copyright violation. Like most message board operators, Robinson allowed users to post full-length newspaper articles on his discussion forum. However, unlike other message board operators, Robinson one day found himself deluged by cease-and-desist orders from Times Mirror, Dow Jones, Reuters and other leading news organizations. According to the Washington Weekly, the attack on FreeRepublic was coordinated by Debevoise & Plimpton – a law firm used by the Clintons and the Democratic National Committee.

The interview also brought up a connection between Ken Starr and Wang Jun:

It has been alleged that the Clintons had some sort of hold over Starr – that, in fact, Starr was “fixed,” either by threats, blackmail or perhaps mutual self-interest.

According to White House whistleblower Nolanda Hill, Starr’s team was thoroughly infiltrated by Clinton loyalists. Even Starr’s FBI investigators reported secretly to Janet Reno. This gave the Clintons enormous leverage to guide and manipulate the investigation their way.

Moreover, Starr had a conflict of interest. In his private legal practice, he represented a subsidiary of CITIC, a company owned by the People’s Liberation Army of China, and led by arms dealer Wang Jun, a Chinese military intelligence operative and a key player in the Chinagate scandal. The mere fact that Starr was on Wang Jun’s payroll should have disqualified him from serving as Independent Counsel. But, for some reason, Starr did not recuse himself.

Note my recent post where I found a connection between Wang Jun and Loral. I also found Linda Daschle lobbied for Loral and Loral was a major contributor to Tom Daschle’s 1998 Senate campaign.

Don’t forget about Gore

Joseph Farah has a column regarding a person that should not be over looked by the 9-11 commission:

Let's see.

President Bush has testified.

Vice President Dick Cheney has testified.

Bill Clinton has testified.

One name is conspicuously absent from the witness list of the 9-11 Commission.

Al Gore.

What does Al Gore know about events leading to the disastrous terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001?

Let me tell you the nation's newest media mogul contributed, in his own politically ambitious, selfish way, to the deaths of some of the victims of the terrorist attacks Sept. 11.

Following the downing of TWA Flight 800 in 1996, Gore was entrusted by President Clinton to investigate airline safety. He was named chairman of the White House Commission on Aviation Safety.

The Gore commission produced what most observers considered to be a tough preliminary report unveiled Sept. 9 of that year – one that included tough counter-terrorism procedures.

But within days, according to an insider on the commission, the airline industry jumped all over Gore. As a result, 10 days later, Gore sent a letter to airline lobbyist Carol Hallett promising that the commission's findings would not result in any loss of revenue.

In what can only be seen as a pure political payoff, the Democratic National Committee received $40,000 from TWA the next day. Within two weeks, Northwest, United and American Airlines ponied up another $55,000 for the 1996 campaign.

But the money trail didn't stop there. In the next two months leading up to the November elections, American Airlines donated $250,000 to the Democrats. United donated $100,000 to the DNC. Northwestern put $53,000 more into the kitty.

Over a month ago Rush Limbaugh also covered this:

But if the Clinton administration did all of this in 1996, then how did the Al-Qaeda guys sneak past this dragnet? Well, they used box cutters -- and of course that's George W. Bush's fault, because the Clinton team told them about box cutters. Richard Clarke probably wrote it down somewhere in his book. The truth is, the airline industry squawked and screamed about putting any of Algore's security measures into place, which brings us to the wife of Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle: Linda Hall Daschle.

Ms. Daschle was deputy manager of the FAA from 1993 to 1997, and her clients while a lobbyist include American and Northwest Airlines. Joe Farah of WorldNetDaily.com sums up how the airlines and their lobbyists jumped all over Algore after his preliminary report. Gore wrote to one lobbyist "promising that the commission's findings would not result in any loss of revenue," and the very next day the Democrat National Committee received a $40,000 donation from TWA. In the next two weeks, checks came raining in from Northwest, United and American airlines.

This is from my recent post on Loral-China-Clinton-Daschle cabal:

In one of those corporate-coddling moves for which the Clinton administration became infamous, President Bubba appointed Linda Daschle deputy administrator of the FAA, putting her in charge of regulating her once-and-future clients; and she wound up running the agency as acting administrator. This, of course, significantly boosted the Daschle family income by hyping the amount Linda could charge her clients when she left government service. She didn’t wait long to cash in. Example: While running the FAA, she awarded Loral Space Technologies (a major Democratic contributor that figured in the ’96 campaign-finance scandals) a nearly $1 billion contract from the federal government; after Linda passed through the revolving door to Baker, Donelson, Loral paid the lobby shop $740,000 in 2000-2001 for Linda’s services. When the FAA was pondering making mandatory a criminal-background check for all airport employees, Linda, who was then running the agency, vigorously opposed this common-sense move — echoing the position of the airline-industry lobby that had previously employed her.

In that post, I also pointed out Loral’s $13,500 contribution to the Daschle 1998 Senate campaign made the top 20 list. Number two on that list was Northwest Airlines…$44,150. (Don't forget about Gore.)

As SDP has pointed out, both Daschle and John Thune released their tax returns. The South Dakota media does mention the nearly $750,000 that Linda Daschle earned as a lobbyist. Will the South Dakota media report on the above troubling revelations concerning the Daschles' involvement in activities that diminished our national security? Will they follow the money trail?

Probably not. Here is why more and more serious citizens have turned to the Blogosphere:

And the people who are listening are Webloggers and other Web-based journalists who are recording this stuff for posterity. In the past, when someone like Andy Rooney went on Larry King's show, a comment like his was usually heard by the million or so who tuned into King's show, and then lost forever into the ionosphere, on its way towards the alien races in Contact and Galaxy Quest who tune in nightly to planet Earth's reruns.

But today, quotes such as Rooney's have a new audience: the Blogosphere, which is doing some of the investigative and analytical work that big media used to do in its heyday: the scandals that erupted when Senators Trent Lott and Christopher Dodd each apparently made racist comments began in similar fashions: each statement was first broadcast on C-Span (which in a way can be considered a new medium itself), picked up by astute bloggers, then by talk radio, and only then by TV news.

"If there's a problem besides bias with the evening news," Goldberg says, "it's a lack of intelligence. The reporters are intelligent -- that's not the problem. The news is not intelligent: they squeeze it into a minute and a half. They don't know anything about outsourcing, yet they do pieces about outsourcing. They do pieces on unemployment, but they know nothing about productivity problems.

"It's an unintelligent medium. With the best places on the Web, you can read things and say, 'Wow, I didn't know that! Why didn't I know that?!' Because you're not getting it if you watch the mainstream networks for your information."

Most of the folks who inhabit the Blogosphere are enlightened amateurs who have found that researching the media and politicians and yelling "gotcha!" when they're catch them lying can be tremendously rewarding when it's done right. As Roger Ailes once told Matt Drudge, "you don't need a license to report. You need a license to do hair."

Herseth uninformed

I just received a press release that was issued yesterday by the National Republican Congressional Committee:

TODAY'S DEBATE SHOWS HERSETH'S INEXERIENCE,

LACK OF UNDERSTANDING OF CRITICAL ISSUES

WASHINGTON-The National Republican Congressional Committee today released an extensive list of incorrect, uninformed statements Congressional candidate Stephanie Herseth made during a taped debate this afternoon. For your convenience Herseth's inaccuracies are listed in the order they arise during
the debate, which will be broadcast Wednesday May 5th at 8:00 p.m. on South Dakota Public Television.

"Stephanie Herseth needs to dust off her talking points from the 2002 election, which didn't help her anyway," NRCC Communications Director Carl Forti said. "Much of what she said today indicates that she has not been keeping up with major developments on critically important issues. It's unfortunate that voters in South Dakota will not see Stephanie Herseth engage in an informative, factual debate on important issues tonight."

AMONG HERSETHS MISTATMENTS TODAY:

NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND:

Herseth called for reforms to ease certification requirements for rural teachers.

ALREADY DONE: On March 15th of this year, the Department of Education relaxed the requirements in the No Child Left Behind law concerning rural teachers becoming "highly qualified." The law requires a highly-qualified teacher in every classroom by the end of the next school year.

Herseth criticized testing requirements for special education students.

ALREADY DONE: The Department of Education also relaxed the testing requirement rules for disabled children and for children who speak English as a second language.

HEALTHCARE:

Herseth called for the passage of legislation granting tax credits for the purchase of health insurance.

ALREADY DONE: Earlier this Congress, the House passed legislation sponsored by Rep. Bill Thomas (CA-22) that would give tax breaks to persons who invest in health savings accounts for medical expenses. That measure, HR 2596, was then rolled into the new Medicare Prescription Drug law, which Herseth would have opposed.

Herseth called for a solution to the problem of employers dropping retiree coverage.

ALREADY DONE: The new Medicare Prescription Drug law gave employers 28 cents for every dollar they spend on retiree drug coverage. This was an incentive for those employers to continue to offer their coverage to retirees and was the first time ever that Congress acted to slow a 20-year trend of employers
dropping coverage. Again, Herseth would have opposed this law.

Herseth called for increased reimbursement rates for rural healthcare facilities.

ALREADY DONE: Again, the same new Medicare Prescription Drug law that Herseth would have opposed called for increased reimbursement rates for rural healthcare providers and infuses billions of dollars into the rural healthcare system. As of the year 2000, South Dakota was home to more than 55 rural hospitals.

Herseth criticized the new Medicare law's asset test, which determines eligibility for additional benefits offered to low-income seniors. She said that life insurance policies counted as assets under the test.

SHE IS INCORRECT: Life insurance policies, burial savings, homes, and cars are all exempt from the assets test Herseth is referencing. Democrats in Washington are using this assets test claim to scare seniors and it looks like Herseth is too. Social Security's Supplemental Income program also has a similar assets test in place-but the one Herseth is talking about is three times more generous than that one.

TAXES:

Herseth called for an elimination of capital gains taxes if the proceeds from the gain were spent on renewable energy.

OH REALLY? Does this qualified support of capital gains tax relief mean she supports the idea all the time? Depending on what day it is, Herseth was either for or against the 2003 tax cut package. That legislation called for a reduction in tax rates on capital gains-which, according to Herseth's logic, could result in more investment in renewable energy.

VETEREANS FUNDING:

Herseth again said veterans' funding should GO BACK TO BEING MANDATORY.

SHE IS INCORRECT: Funding for the Veterans' Administration was never mandatory-ever. The NRCC has pointed this out to Herseth once before. Seems as if, like her partisan Democrat friends in Washington, she will repeat false claims long after they're proven untrue with no qualms about misleading people.

More on Loral

My previous post was on the sixth installment of an eleven part WorldNetDaily Jack Cashill series on his soon to be released book on Ron Brown. If you were troubled by the Loral-Chinese connection, you should be aware there is more. Here is an excerpt from the seventh installment:

Soon after Ron Brown returned from New York to pick up a reported $1.2 million from Loral CEO Bernard Schwartz, he learned he would be meeting – by order of the White House – with a character by the name of Wang Jun. The sheer bravado of Wang Jun's petition and the brazenness of the Clintons in welcoming him leave one awestruck.

Wang Jun chaired Poly Technologies, a company controlled by the People's Liberation Army. According to a Rand Corporation report forced from the U.S. Department of Commerce by a federal lawsuit, one of Poly Technologies' profit centers was the "importation and distribution of semi-automatic rifles for the U.S. domestic market." Between 1987 and 1993, the company and its affiliates sold more than $200 million worth of these guns in the United States.

When Clinton piously signed into law the banning of certain semi-automatic weapons in 1994, Poly Technologies only profited. They exploited export loopholes to circumvent the ban and ultimately resorted to old-fashioned smuggling. By 1996, these weapons were flooding the inner cities of California.

On the day of the Wang Jun meeting, Feb. 6, 1996, Brown confidante Nolanda Hill was staying at the Watergate Hotel. Brown only knew the meeting was to be about satellite export controls, as Wang Jun also owned a huge stake in a Hong Kong satellite company. Brown showed Hill the briefing book on the meeting. His task was to assure the Chinese that America intended to be a most friendly trading partner. If Wang Jun ever had any problems dealing with the United States, he could call Brown directly at any time. Hill was beside herself.

"You're putting us at risk with all this Chinese money and Loral crap," she told him. She and Brown were under so much scrutiny already, they could scarcely afford drawing any more heat. Hill implored him to pass on the meeting, but the White House had ordered him to go.

Note the 1994 ban on assault weapons had no impact on the bad guys. Gun control usually only restricts the rights of the law abiding, and actually benefits the bad guys. The ban is to sunset this year, and Tom Daschle voted in favor of an amendment to reinstate the ban for another ten years.

Daschlegate

My last post ended with a reference to the lobbying efforts of Linda Daschle. That provides a lead-in to a yet unreleased Jack Cashill book regarding Ron Brown. Here is a description:

The mysterious death of Ron Brown has caused much controversy and suspicion, and in this investigative book, Cashill takes a close look at Brown's checkered career as Clinton fund-raiser and commerce secretary and consequently exposes the Clintons' dirty, relentless practices for getting financial backing. Cashill answers the most trenchant questions surrounding Brown's rise and fall: Why did his plane crash? Why did the White House suppress an investigation? What was the purpose of Brown's trade missions? And what larger forces caused the Clintons to seek international cash? Using the case of Ron Brown's untimely death as a touchstone for the Clintons' unseemly and unsavory practices in the White House, Cashill explores the seedy depths of the most corrupt adminstration in American history during its two most desperate years and focuses directly on the machinations of the direst threat to today's political scene, Hillary Clinton.

Cashill has been providing snippets of his book on WorldNetDaily. The sixth segment of his eleven part series concerned Bernard Schwartz of Lorel. Here is Cashill’s opening paragraph:

No American had more sway over Clinton administration foreign policy than Loral honcho Bernard "Bernie" Schwartz. His money spoke with such clarity that, in early February 1996, the White House dispatched Ron Brown to collect a major chunk of it in person. No doubt, Schwartz could have mailed it in. But by sending a Cabinet member, the White House signaled both its respect for Schwartz and its recognition of his intent, namely to secure waiver approval for Loral's satellite launches.

If you have the intellectual capacity, read the entire Cashill column, and then order his book. For the rest of you, here is the cut to the chase:

This story merits its own book, but what deserves immediate comment is the willingness of the Clintons to risk everything to keep the cash pipeline open. Schwartz kept it open and full. Before he was through, Schwartz and Loral would donate roughly $2 million to the Clinton cause. Whether Schwartz gave additional money or favors off the books is a question that deserves asking.

A second question that deserves asking is just how much damage Schwartz, Berger and the Clintons did to America's national security.

A third question worth asking is whether Ron Brown's very real threats to expose these machinations led to his death.

So, why did I title this blog, “Daschlegate”? Here is the connection to Linda Daschle:

In one of those corporate-coddling moves for which the Clinton administration became infamous, President Bubba appointed Linda Daschle deputy administrator of the FAA, putting her in charge of regulating her once-and-future clients; and she wound up running the agency as acting administrator. This, of course, significantly boosted the Daschle family income by hyping the amount Linda could charge her clients when she left government service. She didn’t wait long to cash in. Example: While running the FAA, she awarded Loral Space Technologies (a major Democratic contributor that figured in the ’96 campaign-finance scandals) a nearly $1 billion contract from the federal government; after Linda passed through the revolving door to Baker, Donelson, Loral paid the lobby shop $740,000 in 2000-2001 for Linda’s services. When the FAA was pondering making mandatory a criminal-background check for all airport employees, Linda, who was then running the agency, vigorously opposed this common-sense move — echoing the position of the airline-industry lobby that had previously employed her.

Guess who was in the top 20 contributors to Tom Daschle’s 1998 Senate campaign…Loral.

Daschle busted on drugs

There is a National Review Online column by Sam Dealy that nails down the flip-flop of Tom Daschle on the Prescription Drug issue. Here is his opening:

The first phase of the much-touted prescription-drug reforms kicked in on Monday, and leading Democratic lawmakers opened fire on the program as a terrible waste of taxpayer money (never mind that they pushed bills estimated at twice the cost). Chief among their concerns is a provision that bars the federal government from negotiating directly with the pharmaceutical industry for lower prices.

“The Republican bill does nothing about escalating drug prices," said liberal Sen. Edward Kennedy (Mass.). "Republicans even had the nerve to include a specific prohibition on any role by the federal government in any negotiation on drug prices." Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (S.D.) called it an "indefensible provision" and said that "to deny the federal government from negotiating lower prices for prescription drugs for seniors is quite amazing to me."

Dealy then provides hard evidence on Daschle’s flip-flop:

In May 2000, Daschle submitted the Medicare Expansion for Needed Drugs (MEND) Act, the seminal language of which concerned "noninterference" by the government in the marketplace. "In administering the prescription drug benefit program established under this part," it read, "the [Health and Human Services] Secretary may not ... interfere in any way with negotiations between private entities and drug manufacturers, or wholesalers ... [or] otherwise interfere with the competitive nature of providing a prescription drug benefit through private entities."

The provision was one of Daschle's key selling points. "Our plan mirrors the best practices used in the private sector," Daschle said then. "For beneficiaries in traditional Medicare, prescription drug coverage would be delivered by private entities that negotiate prices with drug manufacturers. This is the same mechanism used by private insurers."

Here is Dealy’s analysis on how Daschle is playing politics with our health:

Of course, there's a very good reason for keeping Washington from negotiating prescription-drug prices. With Medicare's market demand for many prescription drugs estimated at 40 to 50 percent — and in some cases, as high as 95 percent — the arrangement has the makings of a textbook example for monopsony. Pharmaceutical companies and brokers, eager to earn the de facto stamp of approval that Medicare participation carries, would have no choice but to meet bureaucrats' hardball pricing demands.

With profit margins squeezed, there are fears that the pharmaceutical industry might shift the cost burden to the privately insured. More likely, however, the industry would seek to save money by cutting back on the more ambitious research and development of "miracle" drugs. The end result is that, as happened in Europe and Canada, America's pharmaceutical industry would be composed entirely of manufacturers rather than innovators. That doesn't do anyone any good.

Democratic leaders once understood the stakes involved in permitting the government to interfere with the market. Indeed, when the Senate overwhelmingly passed its version of the prescription-drug legislation last June with 76 votes, not a peep was raised by these Democrats — all of whom supported the bill — about the non-interference language. Now, sadly, out-of-power partisans in an election year hope to score political gain at the expense of Americans' health.

Let me remind you of Daschle’s propaganda campaign during January when he went negative on a $534 billion Prescription Drug benefit via a letter I wrote to the Mitchell Daily Republic:

There has been a number of letters to the editor in the wake of Sen. Tom Daschle’s 1/13/2004 Medicare Prescription Drug presentation. I too attended the presentation that consisted of a negative attack against America. While the taxpayers were at work, Daschle was telling seniors that the $534 billion entitlement the taxpayers were going to provide them was inconsequential.

What Daschle presented was the 20% reduction for those incurring $5,100 in drug costs and then argues the plan provided little. Then he glossed over the 95% coverage that kicks in for those whose costs are higher. That is where you find the meat of the benefits. For example, those who have a $1,000 per month in drug costs will receive over $7,000 in coverage. That’s over 60% in reduced drug costs and Daschle argues that is not enough. In 25 years, Daschle hasn’t got one cent in Prescription Drug coverage for Medicare. That’s probably why he didn’t want to fully explain it.

Instead of telling the whole truth, Daschle enraged the audience by attacking the American drug companies that provide the life sustaining products, which are the world’s best. As he promoted doing business in Canada, Daschle demonized these American companies (who provide jobs for many taxpaying Americans) and the lobbyists who represent them. What Daschle didn’t bring up was the fact that his wife Linda is a lobbyist and worked on behalf of Shering-Plough’s effort to extend its patent on Claritin. If Daschle truly believed lobbyists were evil, then he would have had his second divorce by now.

Disney gets cold feet

Disney is stopping distribution of Michael Moore’s latest anti-American movie. Note the report is from the New York Times that has a proven history of liberal bias:

Mr. Moore's films, like "Roger and Me" and "Bowling for Columbine," are often a political lightning rod, as Mr. Moore sets out to skewer what he says are the misguided priorities of conservatives and big business. They have also often performed well at the box office. His most recent movie, "Bowling for Columbine," took in about $22 million in North America for United Artists. His books, like "Stupid White Men," a jeremiad against the Bush administration that has sold more than a million copies, have also been lucrative.

Mr. Moore does not disagree that "Fahrenheit 911" is highly charged, but he took issue with the description of it as partisan. "If this is partisan in any way it is partisan on the side of the poor and working people in this country who provide fodder for this war machine," he said.

First note the class warfare comment. As his Bowling for Columbine movie was analyzed, many found it to be propaganda with many areas that were misleading and not true. The NRA’s analysis includes ties to the communist movement:

On Feb. 29, 2000, the nation and the world was shocked by the murder of 6-year-old Kayla Rolland at her school by a 6-year-old classmate.

Headlines from the March 1, 2000, Detroit Free Press--which covered every aspect of the case in depth--told the story: "Boy`s home `shameful`--Police find drugs in trash-strewn residence.` The lead of that story read, "The first grader started his days amid drugs, stolen guns, ammunition and scattered trash at his uncle`s home, where he and his 8-year-old brother were left by their mother a week ago."

Or this: "The family portrait: Crack, crime and jail--Boy`s pattern was cut by generations before."
The story said, "The boy`s father, Dedric Owens, is in jail for a parole violation. So is an uncle, Sir-Marcus Winfrey, on a stolen property warrant. The boy`s mother, Tamarla Owens, is `involved with drugs` and allegedly abused the boy`s older brother, according to court filings."

These were critical elements to understanding why this terrible event happened. But not one word of any of this sad depravity made it into Moore`s coverage. Instead, Moore launches into a truly weird rap about the conditions that led to the 6-year-old pulling the trigger.

"Tamarla Owens was the mother of the 6-year-old boy," Moore says in the film. "In order to get food stamps and health care for her children, Tamarla was forced to work as part of the state of Michigan`s welfare to work program.

"This program was so successful in tossing poor people off welfare that its founder, Gerald Miller, was soon hired by the number one firm in the nation that states turned to privatize their welfare systems. That firm was Lockheed Martin."

"With the cold war over and no enemy left to frighten the public, Lockheed had found the perfect way to diversify and the perfect way to profit from the people`s fears with an enemy much closer to home--the black mothers like Tamarla Owens."

This is his connection between Columbine and Flint and the military industrial complex--the engine Moore believes is running the Great Satan. And it`s his connection to white racism.

The film didn`t include a word about what the mainstream media had been reporting worldwide--just a riff about workfare, fear and race. Nothing about drugs, stolen guns, the crack house where the kid stayed.

Why would Moore leave these salient facts out? And where did Moore`s workfare rant come from?

Perusing a well-known Web search engine--Google--perhaps provides the answer. Type in the string, "Tamarla Owens" and you get a list of articles with headlines from the Detroit Free Press, the Associated Press and newspapers worldwide, all echoing the horrible truth about the abusive conditions the child/murderer lived under.

But there is one that jumps off the page--one that is much different than the others. The headline reads:
"Michigan school shooting: a tragic consequence of U.S. welfare `reform.`"

Click on the link and you find the article. There it is--point by point identical to Moore`s thesis. And at the top of the article is a masthead: World Socialist Web site. The date on the piece is April 28, 2000.

That site has a very good internal search engine. Type in "Littleton" and you get a series of articles and editorials on the Columbine murders--all saying precisely what Moore says about that as well.
The article, "A nation at war . . . with itself` refers to "the corrosive impact on this society of the death and destruction that America visits upon people beyond its borders."

Another article, "the Columbine High School massacre: American Pastoral . . . American Berserk" says, "The deed itself represented an extreme application of the selfish and inhuman attitudes that are commonplace in American society today . . . ."

That is exactly what Moore says in his movie, and it is what he says consistently in interviews, both before and since.

If you wonder who these seers are who share Michael Moore`s vision, click on the link, "About WSWS." Here`s what you get:

"The World Socialist Web site is the Internet center of the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) . . . The standpoint of this Web site is one of revolutionary opposition to the capitalist market system. Its aim is the establishment of world socialism."

So what on earth is the ICFI? The answer is just a click of the computer mouse away.

"The International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) is the leadership of the world socialist movement, the Fourth International Founded by Leon Trotsky in 1938 . . . ."

I have done the Google search for you:

Here is the link to the Tamarla Owens welfare reform story.

Here is the link to a Columbine story from WSWS.

I did another WSWS search on Michael Moore and found this story and this interview.

Yes, even David Horowitz called Michael Moore a communist on Foxnews, and he ought to know...Horowitz used to be one himself. The general public can't handle the "C" word, so far-left liberal is the label I use to describe these anti-American Marxists. Note I have used far-left liberal on Tony Dean, Tom Daschle, and John Kerry. Just to name a few.

Herseth busted

Remember my post that analyzed David Kranz helping out the Stephanie Herseth campaign by using negative campaigning as both a sword and a shield. The shield was used to protect Herseth from her true liberal position on tax cuts. The South Dakota Republican Party has provided hard proof (Herseth’s own words) on the obvious…Stephanie Herseth does not favor making the Bush tax cuts permanent.

Herseth is not seasoned enough in politics to pull off her con job. Or maybe it is just because those of us who understand the truth can see the flip-flopping Democrats for who they really are. The masses have not caught on, because the mainstream media will not cover issues in a balanced manner.

After watching Herseth and Diedrich debate, I sensed her insincere attempt to make herself out as a conservative. When her obvious liberal position on abortion come up, Herseth immediately became uncomfortable, because her true liberal colors were being exposed to conservative South Dakota. She was not chameleon enough to cover her position.

Daschle piling on

The Internet has been bombarded with a report titled, “Prisoner Abuse May Be More Widespread”. Since this is a negative issue, as I my previous analysis has stated, Tom Daschle will blame Republicans. Here is the excerpt:

As the committee met, Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., said on the Senate floor that he wanted to know why Bush hadn't been informed of the report, "Why, in other words, has there been this extraordinary disconnect, this unbelievable failure of communication, of oversight."

It will be interesting see if the AP will pick up this WorldNetDaily report that points out some of the 'widespread abuse' is Islamic propaganda:

Graphic photos appearing on Arabic websites of U.S. servicemen raping and sexually abusing Iraqi women were actually taken from American and Hungarian pornography sites.

Albasrah.net and a Tunisian website produced in France by Committee for the Defense of Saddam Hussein [Comité de Défonce de Saddam Hussein En Tunisie], posted not only the recently broadcast photos of U.S. troops abusing and humiliating Iraqi prisoners but additional ones of alleged group rape of women by American soldiers, some who are depicted holding rifles against their victims' heads.

The Tunisian site described the photos as the "unedited" versions of actual events and Albasrah ran the photos under the heading "The Abu Ghraib Prison Photos," indicating they had received the photos via e-mail.

A WND investigation has revealed that most of the photos are taken from the American pornographic website "Iraq Babes," and the Hungarian site, "Sex in War," which is linked to by the American site. Both websites are linked to by violent pornography sites and both describe Iraqi women -- played by "actresses" -- in vulgar terms.

It is sad to see how Tom Daschle will join with the “blame America crowd” and their propaganda, just to attempt to take political advantage. This is the negative side of Tom Daschle that South Dakota does not see…except for those who view the Dakota Alliance of bloggers. Stay tuned.