Thursday, March 8, 2012

Crony Capitalism Update for Today

Even the Obama-worshipping apologists at the Washington Post found this newsworthy:
Big donors considering whether to work the phones raising money for President Obama’s reelection campaign might consider the fate of his 2008 bundlers. Many of them, it turns out, won plum jobs in his administration.
Obama campaigned on what he called “the most sweeping ethics reform in history” and has frequently criticized the role of money in politics. That hasn’t stopped him from offering government jobs to some of his biggest bundlers, volunteer fundraisers who gather political contributions from other rich donors.
More than half of Obama’s 47 biggest fundraisers, those who collected at least $500,000 for his campaign, have been given administration jobs. Nine more have been appointed to presidential boards and committees.
Let's not forget that Obama has taken in more cash from Wall Street fat cats, a.k.a. the 1%, than any political candidate in history.


 

Limbaugh, Maher, and the Outrage Double Standard

How much more cable news airtime will this manufactured controversy about Rush Limbaugh's dumb comments about the Georgetown law student/political activist take up?

It's times like these that make us thankful for alternative entertainment such as Netflix streaming.

Whether you like Limbaugh or not, the efforts to force his radio show off the air will likely fail. At the same time, why is it okay for the left to bad-mouth Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann, and other right-of-center women while the mainstream media stays silent? [What you hear next is the sound of crickets.]

For example, as many have pointed out, HBO's Bill Maher, who practically has a part-time gig as a CNN co-host, gave one million bucks to the Obama SuperPac.

Given Maher's history of "anti-woman" trash talking, shouldn't there be a media outcry for the Obama campaign to return that cash immediately? Moreover, will Palin (and others similarly situated) be receiving a phone call from the president [more crickets]?

Kirsten Powers, one of the few pundits whose cable news commentary made any sense on Super Tuesday, published a piece at The Daily Beast that makes this very point. Powers, a liberal, discussed her article on FNC:


In this video, two Capitol Hill Democrats who denounced Limbaugh make complete fools of themselves by refusing to condemn Maher's misogynistic outbursts:



Near the end of this interview, Bernard Goldberg talks about how the media ignores personal attacks on conservative women:  

Is an Israeli Attack on Iran Inevitable?

Now that it is an election year, President Obama let it be known this week that he is a strong supporter of the state of Israel. Despite this new bromance, he and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu aren't on the same page as far as the nuclear threat posed by Iran is concerned.

Today's New York Post contained this interesting claim:
The US offered to give Israel advanced weaponry -- including bunker-busting bombs and refueling planes -- in exchange for Israel's agreement not to attack Iranian nuclear sites, Israeli newspaper Maariv reported Thursday.
President Obama reportedly made the offer during Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to Washington this week.
Under the proposed deal, Israel would not attack Iran until 2013, after US elections in November this year. The newspaper cited unnamed Western diplomatic and intelligence sources.
This leak may or may not be just more posturing. Netanyahu said on FNC this week (see video below) that war with Iran is not inevitable. The prime minister added that "The paradox is that if they actually believe that they are going to face the military option, then you probably will not need the military option."


What is Obama's real record on Israel? Check out this video:



Even if privately applauded, a preemptive attack on Iran's nuclear facilities--and hopefully this can be avoided--could plunge the world into war, and/or destabilize the global economy, and unleash massive antisemitism, perhaps making it more fashionable as it were.

Speaking of antisemitism, the beauty of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution is that it gives everybody their say, including those who put forth the sick fantasy of Israel being an apartheid state.

Writing in the Jerusalem Post, Professor Eraim Karsh responds:
This charge, of course, is not only completely false but the inverse of the truth. If apartheid is indeed a crime against humanity, Israel actually is the only apartheid-free state in the Middle East – a state whose Arab population enjoys full equality before the law and more prerogatives than most ethnic minorities in the free world, from the designation of Arabic as an official language to the recognition of non-Jewish religious holidays as legal days of rest.
By contrast, apartheid has been an integral part of the Middle East for over a millennium, and its Arab and Muslim nations continue to legally, politically and socially enforce this discriminatory practice against their hapless minorities.