Tag Archives: Obama

Rush Limbaugh blasts Motor Trend for Chevrolet Volt award, editor fires back

Rush Limbaugh just wants his internal combustion engine back. Just like the founding fathers envisioned when they invented cars at the Constitutional Convention. Or something like that. In any case, Limbaugh is unhappy with the liberal media at Motor Trend because they named the Chevrolet Volt their 2011 Car of the Year. Nov. 22, Motor Trend, quoting Limbaugh: “Folks, of all the cars, no offense, General Motors, please, but of all the cars in the world, the Chevrolet Volt is the Car of the Year? Motor Trend magazine, that’s the end of them. How in the world do they have any credibility? Not one has been sold. The Volt is the Car of the Year.” Motor Trend’s Todd Lassa quickly dismisses the specious “not one has been sold” argument by noting the Volt hasn’t yet gone on sale. Their decision to name GM’s plug-in electric as Car of the Year was based on test drives and other pre-sale reviews of the Volt. There’s perhaps a legitimate criticism here about all Car of the Year awards processes. These awards are given to new or completely overhauled models. Until we see how a car performs in real world conditions over an extended period of time, the pronouncements of automotive journalists are basically educated guesses. However, you don’t hear Limbaugh or anyone else raising a stink about past forgettable Motor Trend Cars of the Year. No one ever takes the magazine to task for fawning over the completely style-less 1995 Chrysler Cirrus or equally bland 1997 Chevy Malibu. Limbaugh’s beef with the Volt isn’t a question of automotive aesthetics or engineering. He just doesn’t like the Volt because it’s one of them librul eel-eck-trick cars that Muslim-Socialist Obama forced on the real ‘Mericans in Detroit. That an interesting theory. Interesting, in so far as it’s completely made up. As Lassa explains, the Volt was unveiled as a concept car in January 2007 and championed by GM’s in-house environmental skeptic Bob Lutz. At which point, Lassa suggests Limbaugh (soberly) drive one for himself. Nov. 22, Motor Trend: All the shouting from you or from electric car purists on the left can’t distort the fact that the Chevy Volt is, indeed, a technological breakthrough. And it’s more. It’s a technological breakthrough that many American families can use for gas-free daily commutes and well-planned vacation drives. It’s expensive for a Chevy, but many of those families will find the gasoline saved worth it. If you can stop shilling for your favorite political party long enough to go for a drive, you might really enjoy the Chevy Volt. I’m sure GM would be happy to lend you one for the weekend. Just remember: driving and Oxycontin don’t mix. Some might call that last line a cheap shot, but it’s hard to consider Limbaugh without factoring in his history of drug abuse. Back in the 1990s, even Limbaugh’s most hardened critics would concede the man had wit and style. Today, he seems more like another angry man looking to shout at clouds than anything else. From his “phony soldiers” comments to mocking Michael J. Fox’s Parkinson’s Disease to suggesting that Donavan McNabb – 32nd all-time quarterback rating, ahead of Troy Aikman and Bart Starr – was over-rated, Limbaugh’s rantings betray more than just controversial political opinions. They suggest a man divorced from reality. There’s some evidence that long-term Oxycontin addiction can permanently diminish brain function: Livestrong.com: Oxycontin abuse can result in problems in the brain and heart. For example, Oxycontin abuse can result in a build-up of cerebrospinal fluid in the brain, which puts pressure on the tissue. The increase pressure in the skull can cause changes in mental function, such as confusion. It seems reasonable to ask, after these increasingly regular controversies, if Limbaugh is still playing with a full deck. After all, he’d be the first to raise the issue if it was his political enemy, with a five year-plus prescription opiate addiction, making repeated baseless assertions about almost every subject under the sun. added by: TimALoftis

Justin Bieber Posts ‘It Gets Better’ Video

‘I just wanted to say there’s nothing cool about being a bully,’ singer says. By Gil Kaufman Justin Bieber in his “It Gets Better” video Photo: Warner Bros. Justin Bieber has joined the ranks of stars speaking out against bullying. The 16-year-old American Music Award-winning singer recently spoke to talk-show host Ellen DeGeneres about his own bullying experience, and in an “It Gets Better” clip that debuted on DeGeneres’ site on Monday, he urged his fans to take action if they see someone being bullied. In the 20-second video , Bieber, wearing a black T-shirt and backwards black baseball cap, says, “Hey guys, I’m Justin Bieber. I just wanted to say there’s nothing cool about being a bully. And if you’re getting bullied make sure to tell someone and, you know, it gets better. And if you’re a bystander, make sure to step in and, you know, help out.” The clip appeared to have been filmed during Bieber’s appearance on DeGeneres’ show earlier this month, when he discussed his own experiences with bullying. “Everybody goes through bullying,” he said on the show. “Everybody has, even me. On my YouTube page, there are so many haters. They just say crazy stuff. Like, I’m not mad, I’m 16 and I don’t have chest hair. I’m not angry about it at the moment. That will come. People are like, ‘Look at him, he puts helium in his voice before he sings.’ You just have to laugh at yourself. It’s funny.” His appearance on the show came shortly after he was reportedly bullied while playing laser tag in Canada in October. Bieber also had a similar message for those who see bullying going on around them. “There are so many bullies. It goes on so much,” he told DeGeneres. “I think that you should … especially if you are a bystander, you definitely should help out because it could be you next.” In the laser-tag incident last month, a 12-year-old boy allegedly used an anti-gay slur against Bieber after overzealously targeting the “Baby” singer during a heated match. Bieber joins a long list of stars and politicians who have joined the “It Gets Better” anti-bullying campaign, including President Obama , Secretary of State Hillary Clinton , Ke$ha, Nicki Minaj, Adam Lambert, Aubrey O’Day, Linkin Park’s Chester Bennington and Katy Perry, who dedicated her “Firework” clip to the campaign. Related Artists Justin Bieber

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Justin Bieber Posts ‘It Gets Better’ Video

Bozell Column: Bush’s ‘Gulag’ Now Acceptable

Our liberal scribes and pundits savaged the Bush administration as being a privacy-shredding, terrorist-suspect-abusing tyranny on the march. Now that President Obama is in charge, they lamely suggest that “the government” has failed, but with no president’s name attached in the blame game. For years, the media insisted that the terrorist holding pen at Guantanamo was a horrific stain on our global reputation. It was a “cancer” (CBS’s Bob Schieffer) and the networks uncritically aired Amnesty International quacks denouncing it as “the gulag of our times.” Any denunciation had the words “Bush” and “Cheney” inexorably attached. But now the outrage has died, and the story is being downplayed, since the Evil Bush is no longer the target. Take the case of Gitmo prisoner Ahmed Ghailani, who participated in the U.S. embassy massacre in Tanzania in 1998. When the federal judge crippled his trial in mid-October by omitting a witness, ABC and NBC skipped over it. “CBS Evening News” offered an anchor brief, with Couric calling it a “big setback for federal prosecutors.” Nothing was attributed to the Obama administration. read more

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Bozell Column: Bush’s ‘Gulag’ Now Acceptable

Pity the Prez: NYT Blog Hauls Out the ‘Distraction’ Meme Again (Update: Press Treated NoKo as a Distraction in April 2009)

I heard Rush mention this Caucus Blog item at the New York Times on his program today. It seems that the Times's Michael Shear is disappointed that Dear Leader is yet again caught up in a “distraction” (“Pat-Downs Ensnare White House in New Distraction”) It's headlined in the item's browser window as “Pat-Downs Ensnare White House in New Controversy.” Interesting edit, don't you think? If it's a “controversy,” the President owns it. If it's a “distraction,” well, it's an unfair intrusion. Clever. Shear wrapped it in a narrative whose theme was that “It all felt vaguely familiar.” Well, yeah. What's more than vaguely familiar has been the press's tendency to lament the distractions our supposedly otherwise focused like a laser beam chief executive must endure. On April 9, 2009 (at NewsBusters ; at BizzyBlog ), I noted that “The words 'Obama' and 'distraction' have both appeared in 2,425 articles in just the past 30 days; excluding duplicates, it's about 450.” In his blog entry, Shear listed many other awful distractions the president has encountered. What's interesting are how many of them escalated because of Obama or people working directly for him: read more

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Pity the Prez: NYT Blog Hauls Out the ‘Distraction’ Meme Again (Update: Press Treated NoKo as a Distraction in April 2009)

Feel Safe? This Little Boy Has Been Strip-Searched For Your Protection

This video has already gone around the world and back, but it is worth posting here to emphasize that this whole absurd TSA controversy has come about because of the government's refusal to admit the nature of the threat. If the TSA, and the DHS, and the State Department, and all the rest of them, acknowledged the reality of the Islamic jihad against the U.S. instead of ignoring and denying it, it would be possible to formulate some sensible screening policies. That is the easy solution to this problem, and one that will never be adopted. As I wrote here, the TSA wastes “huge amounts of time, money, and resources by pretending that everyone is an equal threat to launch a terror attack — Baptist grandmothers in wheelchairs just as much as young Pakistani Muslim males. The only answer at this point, and even it is not perfect, would be to institute Israeli-style profiling of air passengers. The Israelis have run an efficient and terror-attack-free air service for years, without all these invasive security measures. But to emulate them, of course, would mean to recognize in an official way that Muslims are a greater risk to commit terror attacks than Methodists or Mennonites. And in today's politically correct environment, the Obama Administration and the TSA would rather see another jihad mass-murder of American citizens on the scale of 9/11 or worse than do anything to suggest that.” added by: crystalman

The Two-Party Oligarchy Vs. The People

Watching Democrats complain about Republicans and Republicans complain about Democrats is like watching two Neanderthals throw rocks at each other while a pack of lions surround them. Dear Independent Media, Stop Contributing to Our Demise, It’s Time to Evolve! Independent news sites are excellent sources for in-depth information on many vital political issues. Most of them work hard to get the facts right and provide much needed context to move our national debate forward. However, they have a fatal flaw. There is a rule of war that many Independent media outlets are failing to understand: “Do not fight the last war.” In The 33 Strategies of War, Robert Greene calls this “The Guerrilla-War-Of-The-Mind Strategy.” “What most often weighs you down and brings you misery is the past, in the form of unnecessary attachments, repetitions of tired formulas, and the memory of old victories and defeats. You must consciously wage war against the past and force yourself to react to the present moment. Be ruthless on yourself; do not repeat the same tired methods.” When Progressive news sites complain about Republicans, or Conservative sites complain about Democrats, I can’t help but think that they are insuring their own demise, and the rest of the country’s for that matter. By buying into the Democrat versus Republican charade they have become the most important cog in suppressing any organized resistance. Based on personal experience, I understand how difficult it is for Independent news organizations to obtain funding. Unfortunately, most of the more popular “Independent” news sites survive by getting grants and donations from foundations and political organizations that will only fund them if they engage in partisan politics. However, they need to ask themselves a serious question: Are you doing this work to just collect a paycheck, and thereby maintain the very status quo that you appear to be against, or are you doing this to actually change the dire situation we find ourselves in? Given your deep understanding of current political issues, I find it incredibly hard to believe that you don’t see how global corporate interests have completely bought off both political parties. How betrayed do you have to be before you realize that both parties are against you? Our country has been robbed. Our future prospects are bleak. Trillions of dollars have been looted from the economy and no one in our government is holding the thieves accountable – Obama is not, the Democrats are not and the Republicans are not. They are all pivotal accomplices in the continued rape of our country. So stop deluding yourself into believing that only the opposing party is to blame. Focusing on one party as the source of our problems is journalistically lazy and intellectually na

NATO is ‘mafia’ and Obama a ‘snake charmer’: Castro

NATO is a “military mafia,” the war in Afghanistan is “genocidal” and US President Barack Obama deserves the prize for the “best snake charmer” who ever lived, Cuba's Fidel Castro has said. Read More: http://www.indiareport.com/India-usa-uk-news/toi/International/48042 added by: ashish_indiareport

Beck: Obama Will Blame Terror Attack On TSA Resistance

Fox News host warns that administration is preparing to exploit event to squelch resistance to airport security In little noticed comments made during an appearance on Judge Andrew Napolitano’s show on Fox News, Glenn Beck warned that the Obama administration wouldn’t hesitate to exploit a terror attack targeting airliners to blame the event on people protesting naked body scanners and TSA groping in airports. The Fox News host said that the government was deliberately provoking the American people to rise up so they could squelch the growing resistance with an iron fist, noting that Obama has failed to give a single speech addressing the TSA revolt even amidst the biggest holiday travel period of the year. “Let’s get people to rise up and say no scanners….something happens, the President then has the ability to finally give a speech on airport security and say ‘I was trying to protect you and these people stood up against these scanners, and these people died because of it….you have to stop listening, I’ll protect you,” said Beck, implying that the Obama administration would exploit a terror attack to blame it on those protesting against scanners and TSA groping in airports. Beck added that people in the Obama administration were probably having casual conversations surrounding the potential of a terror attack targeting airline travel along the lines of, “Gee, it wouldn’t be so bad, would it?” Beck made similar comments earlier this month when he suggested that the Obama administration was preparing to stage an event that would be blamed on opponents of big government. Discussing how leftists need violence to realize their political agenda, Beck featured a clip in which former Clintonite and Democrat operative Mark Penn said Obama needs an OKC bombing-style event to regain his popularity. “Remember, President Clinton reconnected through Oklahoma, right?” said Penn on Chris Matthews’ Hardball show. “And the president right now seems removed. It wasn’t until that speech [after the bombing] that [Clinton] really clicked with the American public. Obama needs a similar” defining moment, according to Penn. As we have documented, Penn is not the only prominent insider to invoke exploitation of terror as a means of reinvigorating the big government agenda. Back in July, former senior advisor to President Bill Clinton Robert Shapiro wrote in the Financial Times that only an OKC bombing or 9/11 style event could provide Obama with the opportunity to demonstrate that he is a strong leader. After reading a letter written by Tides CEO and founder Drummond Pike that encouraged advertisers to boycott Fox News in a thinly veiled threat that implied Beck’s rhetoric is leading to another OKC bombing, Beck stated, “They are setting up an Oklahoma City, they are claiming that one is coming and they’re already marked the one who caused it,” referring to himself. The resistance to TSA groping and naked body scanners is only accelerating as Thanksgiving nears and a national opt-out protest is less than 48 hours away. More and more cases of TSA abuse continue to pour in on a daily basis as Transportation Security Administration head John Pistole indicates for the first time that the agency may be starting to cave to the backlash. Pistole told CNN’s State of the Union yesterday that screening procedures would not be altered but in a subsequent statement acknowledged that the TSA needed to make airport security “as minimally invasive as possible,” in response to the building nationwide outrage and vows by numerous airport directors to ditch the TSA altogether in favor of private security. http://www.prisonplanet.com/beck-obama-will-blame-terror-attack-on-tsa-resistanc… added by: im1mjrpain

Body scanner CEO accompanied Obama to India

The CEO of one of the two companies licensed to sell full body scanners to the TSA accompanied President Barack Obama to India earlier this month, a clear sign of the deep ties between Washington politicians and the companies pushing to have body scanners installed at all US airports. Deepak Chopra, chairman and CEO of OSI Systems and no relation to the New Age spiritualist, was one of a number of CEOs who traveled with the president on his three-day trip to India, which focused primarily on expanding business ties between the US and the emerging Asian power. “I am honored to be selected to play a role in this very important cause,” Chopra said in a statement ahead of the trip. “Currently the trade between US and India is only one tenth of the amount of trade between US and China. There is substantial opportunity to improve the trade relations with India for mutual economic gain.” Chopra's company manufactures the Rapiscan brand of body scanners, currently being deployed across US airports. He joined the CEOs of such companies as GE, PepsiCo and United Technologies on the trip. http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/11/body-scanner-ceo-obama-india/ added by: CarlosBobthe3rd

Kanye West’s Dark Twisted Fantasy: Everything You Need To Know

As ‘Ye drops his unrepentant magnum opus, we look back on his most eventful year, from Taylor Swift to Twitter, from ‘Runaway’ to ‘Today.’ By James Montgomery Kanye West Photo: Stefania D’Alessandro/ Getty Images There is perhaps no album released this year that comes with as much emotional baggage — or backstory — as Kanye West’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, a 70-minute magnum opus of high emotion and even higher stakes. Born out of a 14-month period of intense personal struggle and immense public scrutiny, Fantasy is West at his most unhinged and unrepentant. But perhaps the album’s greatest accomplishment is that it perfectly mirrors the turbulent, trying times in which it was made: The beats are bigger, the boasts bolder, the highs higher and the lows, well, they’re practically subterranean. So, with Fantasy finally in stores, we decided to look back at the road that led to this day. From Taylor Swift to the top of the charts, it’s been quite a ride but, ultimately, ‘Ye survived and thrived. He pushed himself and the boundaries of hip-hop, and by doing so, transformed into arguably the most vital artist in music today. And he did it all without explaining himself to his (many) detractors. Hate him or love him, Kanye West is a survivor. And with his new album, he’s proved once and for all that he’s here to stay. On September 13, 2009, West crashed the stage during Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech at the MTV Video Music Awards, grabbing the microphone from her and famously proclaiming, “Yo Taylor, I’m really happy for you and I’mma let you finish, but Beyonc