Read it.

It’s accurate that Obama doesn’t take money from oil companies; neither do his opponents, because corporate contributions are illegal. But Obama, like Clinton and John McCain, has accepted donations from oil and gas company employees — $222,309 in Obama’s case from donors from Exxon, Shell, Chevron and others, according to campaign-finance data. Two oil company CEOs have pledged to raise at least $50,000 each as part of Obama’s fundraising team.

Read it.

A more accurate headline would have been “Special Privileges for the Chattering Class”.

THERE’S NOTHING like a presidential campaign to help renew attention to the need for a federal law to protect journalists from being compelled by the government to divulge their sources.

Well, duh. They want favorable publicity in order to get elected.

Funny, I read the Constitution fairly thoroughly in Law School, and found no mention of this “people’s right to know”. Nor of any “journalists’ right to be accessories after the fact to crime”.

Read it.

The obvious implication, which the authors are too cowardly to spell out, is that McCain is a hypocrite promising relief to “working families” while actually benefitting “corporate fatcats”. Bias in our media? No, never.

 “I wish he’d be as aggressive with tax pork as he is with spending pork,” said Leonard E. Burman, an Urban Institute tax policy analyst.

Translation: “tax pork” is tax cuts designed to get the economy moving again. Notice that the Urban Institute, a leftoid think tank, is not identified as such. Would the Cato Institute or the American Enterprise Institute get that kind of pass? It is to laugh.

Read it.

Of course, we”ve always known he was a socialist.

Too bad there isn’t a Geneva Convention against stupidity.

Read it.

Why does this come as such a surprise? Nelson Mandela, and the ANC party he founded, are Marxist revolutionaries, a fact that they have never bothered to hide. Of course they would side with Mugabe, another self-proclaimed Marxist revolutionary — and other thug states around the world.
Rogue?  Certainly. Democrat? Only to the Washington Post.

Read it.

Guess I’m not the only one looking askance at the drivy-by media’s coverage.

Read it.

After all, voter fraud is so Democratic democratic. Gotta start these kids right, eh?

Read it.

Read it.

It wouldn’t surprise me to see somebody run for President just so it would get them a book deal. I even have the perfect name for the book: “Doing It For Real”. You saw it here first.

Jerk those tears!

Another example of the persistent drumbeat of the media campaign to use examples of personal irresponsibility as an excuse to increase government intervention.

Read it.

Show us your ribbon(s) and we’ll know how much you care.

Mickey Kaus is on the case.

It’s getting so that ‘journalist’ aren’t even bothering to disguise their lies any more.

Read it.

Makes you wonder what they teach in “journalism” school.

Read it.

 Case in point, Krugman has predicted economic recession in each of the last six years. That’s 24 consecutive fiscal quarters (we’re actually up to 25 now, and 26 if we keep our heads above water for the next 6 days) without a single reading of negative growth, despite Krugman’s perennial prophecies of wreck and ruin around every corner.

Read it.

Few things are more entertaining than regressives opining on what “conservatives” ought to be doing.

Read it.

Good news, for a change, although the Post, like most newspapers, is trying to circle the wagons.

WITH A 20-page opinion handed down March 7, U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton sent a shudder through journalists and their would-be sources.

And that’s a shudder that needs to happen. “Journalists” like to think of themselves as somehow observers standing outside of the process, ready to record and “tell the story” but not get involved. This is, of course, hogwash. They are involved, and the stories they tell are seen through the warped lens of people committed to “activism”, whether beneficial or not. The basic problem is that “journalists” are biased, but don’t realize it, and are unwilling to admit it because it would mean admitting that they live a lie.

Judge Walton’s opinion removes any protection that government news sources have come to rely on.

Including the ones that reveal legitimate secrets, which no editorial discussion of the matter has deigned to address. One gets the impression, from listening to the drive-by media, that there is no such thing as a legitimate secret. Those who cannot see the obvious implications for personal privacy are mentally deficient.

If allowed to stand, it would seriously impair the ability of journalists not only to expose malfeasance and corruption but also to provide thorough coverage of institutions such as the Justice Department.

In other words, they won’t be able to be as nosy as they’d like to be.  Hint: Whenever a “journalist” utters the phrase “the public’s right to know”, what they actually mean is “my right to stick my nose into your business and put it on the front page”. They don’t really give a shit about “the public”, because if they did they wouldn’t go around undermining the public good with their inflammatory reporting.

Read it.

The press has diversity? Who knew?

Read it.

What’s potentially dangerous is that in some foreign capitals, leaders are deciding to run out the clock on the Bush years and wait for the chance to make what they hope will be a better deal with the next president.

Well, can you blame them? And just whose fault is that, David Ignatius? Perhaps you and your liberal bunkmates?

Read it.

Just in case you were wondering. I know I was.

Read it.

Or so the Washington Post would have you think.

You can believe as much or as little of that as you care to.

Read it.

I’m shocked, I tell you, shocked.

Read it.

Truth is the first victim of modern narcissistic autobiography.

Read it.

Read it.

Read it.

This is such a classic example of east-coast Brahmin thumb-sucker “journalism” that it ought to go under glass at the National Bureau of Standards. When AlGore writes down his dreams for his shrink, this is the sort of thing he would write.

Lest anyone think that I’m harshing the mellow of a Real Farmer, the author is identified at the bottom of the piece.

The writer is a food and society policy fellow and director of Appalachian Sustainable Development.

Read it.

The Washington Post begins by assuming what it ought to be proving, and it goes downhill from there.

 THE ABSENCE of competitive congressional districts takes a toll on the political process.

Why? They never say.They just state it as if it were a law of nature. But it’s exactly wrong.

What is the purpose of a representative in a representative democracy? Is it not to represent the interests of his (or her) constituents? Of course it is.

Consider this: Is a Congressional district tailored in such a way that the vast majority of its population likes and will vote for the incumbent more or less representative than one in which the incumbent barely squeaks by (and thus can be said to truly represent only half-plus-a-smidge of the people in his district)? I suggest that it is.

An election is not a basketball game, in which it is more exciting when one side wins about half the time and the other side the rest. The goal of an election is to put the candidate in who best represents the majority of the people in the district. An ideal election would have the candidate (in a free and fair election) winning 100% of the vote, thereby signifying that every voter in the district preferred him to his opponent. And yet the Post and the other members of the chattering classes would react to such a result with horror.

Why? Because they haven’t any better notion of the objective of a representative democracy than a slug does. They just want a fight — prefereably a cliff-hanger — because it’s more interesting (and is a lot more fun for “journalists” to cover). And it sells more newspapers.

Think about that next time you hear the pot-thumpers complain about “uncompetitive” elections.

Read it.

No wonder Rush Limbaugh refers to Reuters as “al-Reuters”.

The Washington Post, of course.

It’s obvious what advantage accrues to the MSM like the Washington Post by having a “shield law” that excuses their reporters from the obligation that every citizen has to assist the police and courts in preventing and solving crimes, but what advantage accrues to the public? The opportunity to read all about it — after it happens, when it could have been prevented?

The fact that a “source” gave information to a reporter under a promise of confidentiality doesn’t trump a citizen’s obligations under the law, media mythology to the contrary notwithstanding. If reporters feel that strongly about it, they’re free to accept the consequences of breaking the law; they just want to skate free without consequence, privileged snoopers above the fray who don’t have the same duty to prevent crime that the rest of us do.

Do the public a service and slap the next “journalist” you see. You’ll feel better for it.

Read it.

Didn’t know there were so many slacker-dork ribbons out there. And now they’re making them into wristbands. Makes me long for the days of moving machinery.

Read it.

The Washington Post is shocked, shocked I tell you, to find that bureaucrats don’t like sharing information with the schlubs they govern.

Michael Kinsley demonstrates that he is as ignorant about war as he is about politics.

Sorry if the government hasn’t performed up to your expectations, dude. You’re about forty years behind the rest of us.

Read it. Now there’s a surprise. How is this news?

Read it. There are an amazing number of hate-filled moonbats in Berkeley. Could we not trade Berkeley to the Chinese for, say, Hong Kong? I’d be willing to throw in Seattle and Beverly Hills to sweeten the pot.

Read it. This seems to bother them only when their guy (or gal) is losing. The rest of the time they’re fine with their oxymoronic status.

Read it.

Read it. Actually, I’d say that’s a good sign. People are buying what they actually need rather than what the marketing industry is trying to convince them that they want.

How do you like that? People by consumer crap and the media is all over it, wringing their hands about how shallow people are. Then they cut back on the consumer crap, and the media are wringing their hands about how the economy is going to tank. I think they just like wringing their hands.

Sky is falling. Film at 11.

Read it. Of course.

Read it. *yawn* The Sky Is Falling; film at 11.

There is no recession. Deal with it. Certain politicians and journalists would like you to believe that there is a recession because if you believe that one, they can tell you another one, i.e. that they can fix what ain’t broke. It is an elementary fact of politics that you have to convince people that they need saving if you’re going to pose as their savior. This is not rocket science.

Certain people are getting hammered because they made silly economic decisions that are finally catching up with them. Clue: That’s the way the system is supposed to work. People who make bad decisions are — what’s the technical term? — LOSERS. The distinguishing characteristic of LOSERS is that they lose. Do the math.

Read it. Hint: A new one is born every minute.

For extra amusement, imagine what would happen if they tried that in a Muslim country.

Read it. The bears can move to Canada. Problem solved.

Steve Sailer is always worth reading. Heh.

The dweebs at tReason magazine are prime examples of “movement libertarianism” — sell the streets, but don’t drop the bomb. Feh.

Read it. Bear in mind that Michael Gerson is an allegedly “conservative” columnist at the Washington Post — although he sure reads like a Beltway liberal from here.

Note the assumption that if you don’t spend your time handwringing about AIDS, you lack “moral seriousness”.

Hey, Michael: People who keep their pants zipped don’t get AIDS. You can look it up.

Read it. But they’re sure as hell going to try.

Read it. My, what a surprise. Aren’t you surprised? I’m sure surprised.

Read it. The New York Times could use the exercise.

Read it. Whoa … Reuters may have a sense of shame after all. But probably not.

Notice how they published one of the more unhinged of the mail they undoubtedly got on the subject, just to point out that they were being magnanimous toward the Unwashed.

Read it. The Washington Post, of course, never saw a totalitarian intrusion into personal liberty that it didn’t like.

Robert Samuelson joins the tsk-tskers.

What is it with Americans and their homes?

What is it about being around the Ruling Class that gets everybody’s undies in a wad?

Read it. You don’t have to be a moron to be a journalist, but it’s certainly no drawback, either.

Mickey Kaus has an interesting take on the media and the housing crisis: When prices go up, that’s a bad thing, because it’s a “bubble” (Oh, no!) and housing is less “affordable” (Oh, no!). Yet when prices go down, that’s a bad thing too, because the economy is “suffering” (Oh, no!) and a lot of people can’t cash out the way they wanted to (Oh, no!). What’s a mother to do?