The Biden File: Spreading Hysteria.

It’s nice to see that the Vice President is such a calming presence.

100 down, 1,360 to go.

On Wednesday, April 29, President Obama will begin his 100^th day in office. I have my own opinions about how he has acted as Commander in Chief, but I am rather interested to hear yours. For this week, I would love it if you would give your thoughts about President Obama, how he has done and/or what you think about his policies. Just add them to the “Comments” Section.

Please feel free to be as pithy or long-winded, informal or formal or angry or happy as you like. On Friday of this week, I will give my assessment of President Obama.

Thanks all!

-John

Waterboarding is vital to our security needs.

So it seems as though we’re back on the whole waterboarding issue once again.

After President Obama released some top-secret Bush-era memos (memos that gave the government's first full account of the CIA's use of waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods) he has now left the door open to prosecuting the people that devised the legal justifications for allowing such activities to take place. These people would most likely be Justice Department officials, not CIA personnel.

My question is, “Why”?

Why is the President of the United States open to prosecuting people that have succeeded in keeping this country safe from another terrorist attack(s)?

Isn’t he interested in preventing attacks that could kill untold numbers of Americans?

I would imagine that he is, so why would he make it more difficult for our intelligence community to stop such events?

Oh… some of you still do not believe that waterboarding and other “harsh” methods of interrogation work?

Well you would be sadly mistaken, as you have to look no further than the CIA’s comments to CBS News regarding waterboarding for proof of its effectiveness.

According to those comments, waterboarding, in particular, helped stop a 9/11-style attack that was planned for Los Angeles. CIA officials went on to say that Khalid Sheik Mohammed, mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, planned to use East Asian operatives to crash a hijacked airliner into a building in Los Angeles in 2005.

He only gave up this information after he was waterboarded.

Additionally, President Obama’s own Director of National Intelligence, Admiral Dennis C. Blair stated, “High value information came from interrogations in which those methods were used and provided a deeper understanding of the al Qaeda organization that was attacking this country”.

But now you have many, including President Obama, claiming that we “lost our moral bearings” in these interrogations, rather than applauding our intelligence community for a job well done.

These people seem to think that our “harsh” interrogation methods that have been used (used in retaliation to a war declared on us, mind you) are somehow the moral equivalent to the deeds of the terrorists themselves.

I am sorry, but they are not and we are not sinking to the level of the terrorists by practicing such methods.

As military historian Victor Davis Hanson has said, when a country is at war (which we currently are) there is a level of barbarity that it needs to descend into in order to succeed. Our dissention into barbarity is marked by actions that can kill high numbers of people, treat prisoners cruelly and marginalize the rights of enemies. Those actions, when used to stop a greater amount of death and destruction, however, do not put us on the same moral plane as Al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad or The Taliban as they would do far worse if they possessed the resources and opportunities to do so.

Take the example given above.

Is waterboarding harsh? Unquestionably.

Is it cruel? Most definitely.

Is it torture? You could make a case for it, as Christopher Hitchens once did.

While waterboarding is all of those things… it was also very necessary in this situation, as it was responsible for saving an untold number of American lives.

The expectations and limitations that the Left wants to place on our intelligence community are completely unrealistic. They seem to have this ridiculous post-facto notion that if our intelligence officials aren’t perfect, then they’re not good. That is pretty shabby treatment for the people that keep us safe. It is also rather dangerous, as it places needless barriers in the way of these people gaining valuable information about our enemies and their intentions.

Listen, I wish we could gain information by merely sitting down and reasoning with these people, but that is impossible. These people, the terrorists we are currently at war with, are not a rational group of people, therefore, they do not respond to rational forms of interrogation. They are willing to die for a cause that has been started and led by a number of murderous madmen. What would lead anyone to believe that these terrorists would respond to standard interrogational techniques?

That leads me to another question, what is going to happen when we do have a prisoner that has vital information and simply won’t talk?

That’s a question that President Obama needs to figure out as, literally, thousands of American lives could be riding on his answer.

That’s all for now folks. Until next time, take care and be well.

-John

A New Low in Journalism

During the 2008 Presidential Campaign, I, like many, were simply appalled by the media’s absolute fawning and teenage-like crush over, then-candidate, Barack Obama. Everything from Chris Matthews’ leg tingle to Andrea Mitchell’s shameless shilling made me believe that the last bastion of the mass media’s journalistic integrity slipped away with the passing of Tim Russert.

Unfortunately for all of us, I was woefully incorrect. The new low hit yesterday during CNN’s and MSNBC’s covering of the tea party demonstrations around the country.

Whether you agree with the tea party campaign or not, it is still a valid form of grassroots, political opposition to the actions of our government and thus, should be reported that way.

Did MSNBC and CNN view it that way?

Absolutely not.

Instead of reporting it as a legitimate news story, they treated it like a crude sex joke at a frat house.

If you are not aware, “tea bagging” is slang for a sexual act performed between a man and a woman. I’m not going to describe it any further. If you want to find out what it is, just Google it.

In case you’re interested, here are some examples of what I’m talking about:

"It's hard to talk when you're tea bagging."-CNN anchor Anderson Cooper

"Tea bagging day for the right wing and they are going nuts for it."

"They want to give President Obama a strong tongue-lashing and lick government spending."

Also described the parties as simultaneously "full-throated" and "toothless" -MSNBC reporter David Shuster

Also, while not sexually charged, but equally delusional…

"I think you get the general tenor of this. It's anti-government, anti-CNN since this is highly promoted by the right-wing conservative network Fox."-CNN reporter Susan Roesgen

Seriously? This is what passes as “journalism” and “reporting” nowadays?

Listen, if someone like Keith Olbermann or Rachel Maddow wants to rant about the “simpletons” and “sheep” (their words, not mine) that attend these gatherings, that’s fine with me. They are political commentators, not reporters. It is their jobs to give their opinions on political stories, not report the news.

However, what happened yesterday shows that reporting the news has taken a back seat to political ideologues posing in the guise of legitimate news reporters and anchors passing their judgment on events, people and groups that they’re supposed to remain neutral towards. That is not political journalism, that is political activism.

Hmm…I can only wonder why CNN and MSNBC continue to lag in ratings.

Don’t believe me? See for yourself by looking at the cable news ratings from April 15 (the numbers in parentheses are the number of viewers…thanks Drudge!):

FOXNEWS 3,390,000
MSNBC 1,210,000
CNN 1,070,000
CNN HEADLINE 909,000

FOXNEWS O'REILLY 3,980,000
FOXNEWS HANNITY 3,239,000
FOXNEWS GRETA 2,947,000
FOXNEWS BECK 2,740,000
FOXNEWS BAIER 2,401,000
FOXNEWS SHEP 2,185,000
MSNBC OLBERMANN 1,499,000
CNNHN GRACE 1,336,000
CNN KING 1,292,000
MSNBC MADDOW 1,149,000
CNN COOPER 1,021,000

This also demonstrates the Left’s favorite pastime of trying to discredit a group of people that don’t follow their beliefs with ridicule and profanity.

I guess when you have nothing else to argue with, you can only resort to the lowest common denominator.

That’s all for now folks. Until next time, take care and be well.

-John

Yeah…we are the disrespectful ones.

During President Obama’s good will tour of Europe and parts of the Middle East, he made some rather striking comments about the U.S.’s actions and motives in the Middle East and the Muslim world in general.

When asked about relations between Israel and the Palestinians and the appointment of George Mitchell as special envoy, President Obama said, "What I told [Mitchell] is start by listening, because all too often the United States starts by dictating -- in the past on some of these issues -- and we don't always know all the factors that are involved. So let's listen."

He also went on to say that his administration would base relations with the Muslim world on “mutual respect”, something, he claimed, that past administrations did not do.

Hmm…let’s see here. Which administrations is he talking about?

He must not be referring to President Reagan who spent billions protecting the Afghans from the invading Soviet Union in the late 1970’s and through the 1980’s.

He can’t be talking about President George H.W. Bush. After all, didn’t President Bush free millions of Kuwaitis in Operation Desert Storm and provide hundreds of millions in aid to Jordanians, Egyptians and Palestinians?

How about President Clinton? Well, he can’t be referring either as he continued President Reagan’s support of Somalia, bombed European Christians to save Muslims in the Balkans, worked unsuccessfully, yet tirelessly, to achieve peace between the Israelis and Palestinians and lectured Russians about their brutal treatment of Chechnya?

Surely, he cannot be talking about President George W. Bush who freed tens of millions of Iraqis and Afghans from oppressive regimes by fostering democracy in each country, while providing incredibly generous amounts of aid for tsunami relief in Indonesia.

Not to mention the U.S.’s incredibly liberal immigration policy that allows untold numbers of Muslims to come here and become citizens.

So Mr. Obama, who are you referring to?

Perhaps he doesn’t know who he referring to. Perhaps he is so hell bent on trying to sound like the nice guy to the rest of the world that he’ll just blame us for all of the world’s ills.

If that is the case, which I suspect it is, that is not going to improve our relations with other countries. This approach will merely make it easier for the Muslim world to blame us for a litany of fictitious grievances.

I do have another question for President Obama about his “mutual respect” approach…when has the Muslim world showed us respect?

Besides blaming us for all of the world’s ills, the Muslim world has done the following to the U.S.:

November 4, 1979

Iran Hostage Crisis: The U.S. embassy in Tehran, Iraq, is seized by fundamentalist Islamic students; 52 American diplomats taken hostage and released 444 days later.

April 18, 1983

The U.S. embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, is destroyed by a suicide car bombing by Radical Islamic Jihad members; 63 killed, 120 injured.

October 23, 1983

A truck bomb is detonated near U.S. military barracks in West Beirut, Lebanon, and a second bomb follows; 241 Marines and 58 French paratroopers are killed.

September 20, 1984

A suicide bomb explodes at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon; 23 are killed and 21 injured, including U.S. and British ambassadors.

December 21, 1988

Pan Am Boeing 747 flight 103 explodes and crashes in Lockerbie, Scotland, when a bomb planted by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command and the Libyan government explodes; all 259 passengers are killed, including U.S. students and military personnel.

February 26, 1993

A rented van packed with explosives explodes in the World Trade Center’s underground garage; six people and an unborn child are killed, more than 1,040 are injured. The bomb plot includes a device designed to release cyanide gas that would kill emergency response crews and area residents, but the cyanide is destroyed in the fire.

April 14, 1993

An attempt to assassinate U.S. President George Bush in Kuwait fails.

October 4, 1993

Black Hawk Down: Two U.S. helicopters on a humanitarian mission are shot down in Mogadishu, Somalia, by militants trained by Al Qaeda using weapons supplied by Osama bin Laden and Mohammed Atef; 18 U.S. soldiers are killed, and some of their bodies are abused and dragged through the streets.

June 25, 1996

A truck bomb is detonated outside the U.S. Air Force complex Khobar Towers in Dharan, Saudi Arabia; 19 U.S. servicemen are killed and 515 people are injured, including 240 U.S. citizens.

August 7, 1998

Truck bombs are detonated almost simultaneously outside two U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, killing 224 and injuring more than 5,000. The attacks are carried out by 22 al Qaeda members, including Osama bin Laden.

October 12, 2000

A U.S. Navy destroyer, the USS Cole, is rammed by a small boat loaded with explosives in Aden, Yemen, killing 17 sailors and injuring 39.

September 11, 2001

American Airlines flight 11, en route from Boston to Los Angeles, is hijacked and crashed into the World Trade Center (north tower); United Airlines flight 175, from Boston to Los Angeles, is hijacked and crashed into the World Trade Center (south tower); United Airlines flight 93 from Newark to San Francisco is hijacked and crashes in southwestern Pennsylvania; American Airlines flight 77, en route from Washington to Los Angeles, is hijacked and crashed into the Pentagon. More than 2,900 are killed, and thousands more are injured.

Keep in mind folks, these are just the actions committed against us. There are, literally, hundreds of other terrorist activities committed by the Muslim world over the past four decades.

But we’re the ones that are disrespectful.

That’s all for now folks. Until next time, take care and be well.

-John

I am outraged over the AIG bonus situation!

Can you believe what happened with the AIG bonuses!?!?!?

I am sorry, but I find this situation absolutely unacceptable!

A bunch of greedy people, taking money that they did not earn for no other reason other than they could!

Oh… did you think I was talking about the people at AIG?

Wrong!!!

I am talking about Nancy Pelosi and her flock of like-minded conformists in Congress.

Over the past couple of weeks, everyone from members of Congress, the Treasury Department up through the White House have expressed their “shock”, “disgust” and “outrage” over the bonuses AIG executives recently received.

My question is, why are they outraged?

They are the ones that agreed to, and approved, these bonuses…then later tried to lie about their involvement. In fact, they only became “outraged” over this after the bonus plan was leaked to the media. What a great example of how bankrupt in ideology these people are.

Take Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. He claimed he only found out about the bonuses on March 10 of this year, yet he was discussing the bonuses with Congressman Joe Crowley on March 3. Even if he got the dates mixed up, these bonuses have been agreed upon for months.

Chris Dodd, one of the earliest and most outspoken critics of AIG’s bonuses, claimed for days that he was unaware that the bonuses were included in the plan. Then he did an about face and admitted that, not only did he know the bonuses were part of the negotiated deal with AIG, but it was him who inserted the language approving the bonuses into the document!!!

Whether you agree with the bonuses or not is another debate. What cannot be debated is that the government reneged on the deal, plain and simple.

Since Congress has been caught red-handed, their only recourse is to tax the hell out of these bonuses…90% as the Pelosi plan outlines.

This is hardly justice…in fact it is highly unconstitutional.

Taxation is deemed Constitutional because, in theory, what one pays into the government takes back in services provided by the government (i.e. protection from the military, Medicaid, etc.).

That is not happening here.

These people are not receiving any additional services from the government after they have been taxed through the nose. They are arbitrarily being singled out and for what? There is certainly no policy reason behind it.

It is being done to quash popular outrage…not over the actions of the people of AIG, but rather the actions of Congress.

So that means that the government can arbitrarily hammer people with high taxation any time there is popular outrage over some deed or issue. That is a pretty frightening reality.

There is a bigger problem that this latest spectacle exposes about what is really going on in the economy as well.

We are constantly hearing that the Fed is pumping billions and billions of dollars into the economy to unfreeze credit and get people lending again.

Well, if anyone had not noticed, liquidity is not the problem. There is more than enough money in the markets to revitalize the economy, it is just that a number of large financial institutions are merely sitting on it right now.

Why is that?

Well, they are scarred to death that if they come to any agreement to lend money or purchase assets, the government is going to come in, renege on the deals and impose unknown fees, regulation and punishment. After all, if it can happen to AIG, it can happen to anyone. This fear is paralyzing the markets as the Treasury Department and the Obama White House have become loose cannons when dealing with the economy.

I am also outraged at the depiction and the treatment of the workers at AIG for taking these “bonuses”. I put “bonuses” in “” because they are not really a bonus like most people understand them to be. They are standard parts of most financial executive’s compensation plans. A number of these “greedy” executives, agreed to work for an annual salary of $1, with the understanding that they would receive these bonuses.

As AIG chief Ed Liddy explained on the Hill last week, the people receiving retention bonuses were not the same people who launched AIG's unhedged housing bets that brought the company down.

Those people are gone.

Yet, you have people like Congressman Barney Frank and New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo treating these AIG executives as if they were criminals. As Holman Jenkins of the Wall Street Journal pointed out, Cuomo even went so far as to threaten those that do not pay the money back (money they are contractually entitled to) that he would publish their names.

It is this thuggish, bullying attitude that will continue to incapacitate the market and make scapegoats out of innocent people.

So, in closing, if you are outraged over these bonuses, please be sure to direct your anger properly towards the members of Congress, not the AIG employees. They are the ones that are truly responsible for these bonuses.

That’s all for now folks. Until next time, take care and be well.

-John

Quickie: He simply doesn’t get it.

While Iran is sprinting towards gaining the capabilities to develop a nuclear weapon and North Korea just successfully tested a long-range missile, President Obama is talking about disarming.

I don’t understand how he simply cannot grasp the concept that rogue regimes like these do not view disarmament as a “morally responsible” move, rather they see it as a sign of weakness… and you know what, they are right.

I have already discussed the flaws of soft power here and here, so I won’t get into a long discussion now, however, you all better start preparing for more stories like North Korea’s missile test and Iran’s increasing uranium enrichment in the near future with talk like this from the president.