Honesty from the Press, after the deed was done
Via Newsbusters, White House reporter Carl Cannon, admits that the majority of the MSM was hostile toward Gov. Sarah Palin and “seriously failed to scrutinize Joe Biden, especially his fact-mangling and odd statements in the vice presidential debate.”
In the 2008 election, we took sides, straight and simple, particularly with regard to the vice presidential race. I don’t know that we played a decisive role in that campaign, and I’m not saying the better side lost. What I am saying is that we simply didn’t hold Joe Biden to the same standard as Sarah Palin, and for me, the real loser in this sordid tale is my chosen profession.
First off, thanks for admitting the glaringly obvious. Secondly, it’s pretty cowardly of Cannon to come out with this nine months after the election. Saying this publicly back in October 2008 would have show real guts and journalistic integrity. Cannon goes on to point out just how much of a free ride the press give Joey Biden, the Gaffe Master.
Sen. Biden, however, was in a place by himself when it came to bogus claims, absurd contentions, and flights of rhetorical fancy. He threw out several assertions that were so preposterous that – had Palin made them – they would have prompted immediate calls for McCain to dump her from the ticket.
The good senator from Delaware warmed up slowly, erroneously claiming that McCain voted with Obama on a budget resolution, and asserting wrongly that Obama wanted to return to the Reagan-era marginal income tax rates. He also embarked on an appallingly wrongheaded monologue about the constitutional history of the vice presidency. But when the talk turned to national security, presumably Biden’s purported area of expertise, he went completely off the grid.
…
To me Biden’s most discordant claims concerned his Animal House-like history lecture about the office of the vice president. It came while Biden was dressing down Dick Cheney, who was not present, for supposedly being unfamiliar with the Constitution. “The idea (that) he doesn’t realize that Article I of the Constitution defines the role of the vice president of the United States – that’s the executive branch – he works in the executive branch,” Biden said. “He should understand that. Everyone should understand that. And the primary role of the vice president of the United States is to support the president of the United States of America, give that president his or her best judgment when sought, and, as vice president, to preside over the Senate, only in a time when in fact there’s a tie vote. The Constitution is explicit….He has no authority relative to the Congress. The idea he’s part of the legislative branch is a bizarre notion invented by Cheney to aggrandize the power of a unitary executive, and look where it has gotten us.”Lord, would Tina Fey have had fun with this jumble of misinformation – if only Palin had said it! Article I defines the legislative, not executive, branch. The vice president is, indeed, mentioned there. What Biden finds “explicit,” hasn’t been so to previous vice presidents or to most constitutional scholars. Prior to the 20th century, vice presidents didn’t even have offices at the White House compound – they were housed in the Capitol. The notion that a veep’s constitutional authority is to provide advice to a president springs from Biden’s brow; it certainly isn’t mentioned, or even contemplated, in the Constitution, which doesn’t even say whether the vice president should receive a salary.
Should Joe Biden have known this stuff? Since he chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee, you’d hope so. But even if he didn’t, you’d think it would be news when he unleashed a veritable fount of misinformation to impugn Palin’s knowledge of the federal system while attacking a sitting vice president. It barely rated a mention in the collective mainstream media.
This isn’t “news” to anybody paying attention, but it is interesting to see a member of the DNC/MSM out his profession for blatant unprofessionalism. Of course, he is doing nine months after the election, and well before the next election cycle. Either way, I don’t think readers of the New York Times will ever know of Cannon’s confession.
Here is an impression of Gov. Palin from “Saturday Night Live” senior producer Marci Klein, that is more accurate than any mocking satire from Tina Fey, “This is the most confident person I’ve ever met.”
California banks say NO to state government IOUs
Major banks in California, including Wells Fargo and Bank of America, have announced that they will no longer accept IOUs from the bankrupt, spendthrift, California state government.
While Gov. Schwarzenegger may have slowed the pace of California’s decent into the third world, the reckless spending habits of the hard far left liberal democrat majority in the state legislature has predictably brought this once prosperous state to ruin.
The rest of the country should take note.
What is Joey Biden hiding from the American People?
Vice-President Joe Biden is joining our Dear Leader in a widespread effort to hide what they are doing from the American public.
We’ve especially noted Biden’s innumerable “private meetings” that are closed to the press because, well, they’re private.
And we’ve wondered aloud how this Democratic VP’s private meetings with unnamed people on unnamed subjects differs from the private meetings with unnamed people that his evil predecessor had that got so many Democratic senators and representatives worried about nefarious secrets.
Ya, the hypocrisy is pretty thick.
According to the White House schedule, Biden will not spend the remainder of the workday in private meetings that are closed press.
Instead: “The Vice President will spend the remainder of the day in meetings that are closed press.”
You get the difference, right?
What are those meetings about? What could the Obama administration hiding from the American people? What happened to the “transparency” our Dear Leader was supposed to bring to the federal government?
Friday B-Movie Pick: Rio Bravo
A great John Wayne Western. It’s now fifty years old, and is still a great movie. Good cast, besides the Duke himself, you have Dean Martin, showing that he really is a good actor, and Ricky Nelson as the cool as ice gunfighter and guitar player. Quentin Tarantino is a big fan of this film. If you haven’t seen it, check it out.
The World’s First floating nuclear power plant
Filed under: American History, energy, Nuclear Power, US Military
It’s not the one the Russians are building. Given the Russian’s record of failure with nuclear reactor’s and generally poor environmental record, any buyer’s are doing so at their own risk.
The world’s first floating nuclear power plant was built in the early 1960s by the United States Army Corps of Engineers. It was the MH-1A Sturgis, a converted WWII Liberty ship. The BBC falsely reported that the Russians were building the first floating nuclear power plant back in 2006, and other news agencies are still repeating their mistake.
Also posted at Urbin Technology.
I called the Chrome OS back in October
Google announced an OS based on Chrome, this is supposed be a seperate OS than Android, which is already shipping on smartphones and has been ported to netbooks.
The Chrome OS is also based on open source LINUX code, and Google plans on freely distributing the OS. This can’t make Microsoft very happy.
Back in October 2008, I noticed that Chrome had the potential to be a thin layer OS.
One of the exisiting theories is that Chrome is the first componet of a Google OS. Chrome is supposed to be the interface to the applications. If you look under the hood of Chrome, it is built more like an OS than a browser.
All it will need is a thin layer to access the hardware (boot, and then interface with video/storage/audio/periferal I/O(USB for a start)/network interfaces) and it’s pretty much good to go.
This would a thin client model with most of the applications out in the cloud, and as much of the data. as well.
Originally posted to Urbin Technology.
Cold reception in Russia
Our Dear Leader is not getting a warm reception in Russia. Very different than his campaign stop in Berlin, but then there was a free concert and free beer to draw the crowds there.
The Russian news agency Pravda had this to say about Barack Hussein Obama,
Obama: Deceiver, cheat, swindler, liar, fraudster, con-artist.
For once, Pravda is living up to its name.
If you have any doubts about how the Russian government feels about our Dear Leader, take a look at how Russian President Dmitry Medvedev greats the, ahem, so-called “Leader of the Free World.”
Russia gives Obama the cold shoulder
Clearly, the Russian government feels that Barry is a bigger chump than Jimmy Carter. They will be able to pretty much whatever they damn well please for the next three and half years, safe in the knowledge that BHO won’t lift a finger to stop them. In fact, they are counting on him rolling over and spreading for them when ever they snap their fingers.
Sadly, they are probably right.
Update: Chuck Norris sees a Obama/Carter connection as well. He isn’t as happy about it as the Russians are.
Further proof: During our Dear Leader‘s visit, Putin went out of his way to praise the hospitality and openness of former US President George W. Bush. Just his little way of pointing out that he doesn’t think very much of the current US President, Barack Hussein Obama.
Monday Book Pick – Altered Carbon
Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan
A delightful murder mystery wrapped in some really good SciFi. The hero, who really is not a nice man, finds himself back on Earth in a new body. A bit of suprise, since his last one was killed on another planet, involved in crimes that should have kept his consciousness in storage for quite a bit longer. It proceeds to get weird from there, but in a good way for the reader.
Obama’s continuing war on Inspector Generals
Our Dear Leader has a disturbing pattern of firing Inspector Generals, the people who are charged with uncovering corruption and waste of tax payer money.
He is still at it, this time it is Amtrak inspector general Fred Weiderhold. He was investing the federally supported company’s “meddling in financial audits and probes.”
Michelle Malkin has all the dirty details of this tail of corruption and cronyism.
All of the usual suspects are involved, Empress Michelle Obama, Joe Biden, and a cast of Obama political appointees who don’t care one wit about the Rule of Law in the service to the Lightbringer.
Constitution in Obama’s way
By way of Hot Air is this Jack Tapper story about our Dear Leader wanting to ignore the Rule of Law and bypass the Constitution.
With the clock running out on a new US-Russian arms treaty before the previous Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or START, expires on December 5, a senior White House official said Sunday said that the difficulty of the task might mean temporarily bypassing the Senate’s constitutional role in ratifying treaties by enforcing certain aspects of a new deal on an executive levels and a “provisional basis” until the Senate ratifies the treaty.
Bypass the Constitution? Well, Team Lightgiver doesn’t like the thing anyway, with it’s pesky concepts like limiting the power of government and ensuring the rights of individuals.
As Ed Morrissey points out, the democrats hold sixty seats in the Senate. Getting this passed should be no problem. Unless our Dear Leader thinks he can’t get a majority of his own party to approve this Charlie Fox of a treaty, which is why he is considering violating the Rule of Law. Not that he’s losing much sleep over that, probably because the MSM, with the exception of ABC’s Jake Tapper, not covering the story about the President of the United States, who swore an oath to uphold the Constitution, is publicly discussing violating Article 2, Section 2, of the Constitution.