(HT: Tom L. Lewis via an emailer):

Best 10 minutes of radio I have ever heard. As such, I’ll pass along the advice of the emailer: When you are finished listening, listen again.

It is amazing that this battle has been going on since before many of us were born. I didn’t know that Communists were so patient but the strategy makes sense… dumb-down the electorate via government schools and control of the media, then wait for any remnants of common sense to die out.

From Oklahoma City (video is at link):

POSTED: 7:09 pm CDT July 17, 2009
UPDATED: 12:30 am CDT July 18, 2009

Mastiff Stands By Boy, 4, During Solo Run To Sonic

A 4-year-old boy who disappeared has been reunited with his mother with the help of the family dog.

DeAndre Mathis crossed busy Britton Road to visit a Sonic restaurant. He eventually walked about four blocks away from his house, but his dog didn’t leave his side the entire time.

Police got a call about a lost child on Friday morning and picked DeAndre up. Moose, the family’s 1-year-old Mastiff, was with him.

DeAndre was letting the dog out and decided to go to the restaurant on his own, police said. He was found wearing one boot and one sandal.

Andrea Mathis said she got a frantic call from work that her son was missing. Her sister was baby-sitting him and fell asleep. She said she is happy that Moose served as his protector.

“I think that he is a good dog and I’m glad he was there to keep my son safe,” she said.

She said the details of her son’s adventure were pretty scary.

“They crossed Britton Road,” she said. “He almost got hit by a car and that is when someone called the cops.”

When police found the boy, he could only give his name, but Moose helped fill in the pieces. …..

Go here for the rest of the story.

No one can finish Saturday’s report by Sam Hananel of the Associated Press without knowing the side of the political aisle on which he resides (surprise — not — it’s decidedly on the left), and that he is more sympathetic to the interests of organized labor than he is to those of management at non-union firms.

Additionally, no one can doubt that Hananel, and perhaps his editor(s), have little respect for AP’s stated policies of relying on more than one source, attempting to avoid anonymous sources, and when using them, clearly describing “the source’s motive for disclosing the information.”

That’s a pretty remarkable achievement for a roughly 750-word report.

First, here are three word choice examples that give away Hananel’s political biases:

(1st paragraph) Organized labor is nearing a deal to salvage legislation that could aid the union movement, but it had to drop “card check” — a key component of the original bill that would allow workers to form a union by signing cards instead of holding a secret ballot vote.

Union members and their politician-supporters are the only ones who describe organized labor as a “movement” (Hananel is likely a union member). The AP writer could easily have substituted a neutral “their cause” for “union movement.”

(9th paragraph) Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, has been leading the compromise talks with five other Democratic lawmakers — including newly converted Democratic Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania — in hopes of reaching an agreement that could get 60 votes.

When did the Democratic Party become a religion? Specter is the “recently switched” Republican, and the Democratic Party is not a religious congregation (very, very, far from it).

(13th paragraph) Businesses groups that have spent millions on ads and lobbying campaigns railing against card check say its removal would not change their position. While card check has dominated the debate, business leaders say they were always more concerned about binding arbitration.

Only conservative groups “attack” and “rail” (meaning “to utter bitter complaint or vehement denunciation”) in lib-left AP-land. Liberals and leftists tend to only “protest” or “criticize.” Using the word “opposing” would have sufficed without casting negative aspersions, if Hananel had any intention of avoiding them.

The three anonymous sources Hananel cited are all single-sourced relative to each one’s claim:

(2nd and 3rd paragraphs)

A Democratic official familiar with compromise talks on a bill to make forming unions easier said union leaders are willing to drop the politically volatile card check plan to win over wavering Senate Democrats.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because negotiations are still ongoing.

(16th paragraph)

Another labor official, also requesting anonymity, said unions are comfortable that other parts of the bill would help unions level the playing field by allowing workers to organize without fear of threats and intimidation and end the stalling tactics some companies use to delay entering into collective-bargaining agreements.

(17th paragraph)

And another labor official who requested anonymity stressed that card check is not completely off the table and that no deal would be final until labor leaders check with affiliates to make sure they are on board.

Go to AP Watch for more commentary on this story’s improper use of anonymous sources.

There is only one anonymous source for each claim, and it is not possible to determine the source’s motives. I’m not saying he did this, but Hananel could have done pulled a Janet Cooke or Jayson Blair on this story, and, unless his editors, if they exist, insisted on verification, no one would be the wiser. The AP shouldn’t be allowing the obviously bias-charged words such as Hananel used to enter their reports and should be stopping a report with such heavy use of sloppy, credibility-sapping single anonymous sourcing before it gets out.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org

You don’t have to be one of South Carolina Mark Sanford’s few remaining supporters or sympathizers (and I am neither) to recognize the following AP headline as ridiculously, sarcastically biased:

While this headline might be good water cooler and late-night comedy fodder (perhaps that was the point?), it’s more than a little unprofessional, and beyond that more than likely inaccurate.

To headline that Sanford is “cheating” is to assume that he still is. How does Seanna Adcox or anyone else at AP know that? If they do, they owe us new evidence.

That isn’t to say that there isn’t a lot of justification for wondering whether it was a good idea for Sanford to publish an open letter to his state’s residents — and of course, the rest of the world — that moves from spiritual musings, to promises to do better with God’s help (NOT, as implied in the AP’s headline, passively having “God …. make him better”), to hope that a changed approach on his part will lead to a “far more productive last (legislative) session.”

The full context of where the AP would claim to justify the “God will make him better” portion of its headline follows:

…. life is indeed about way more than public standing or political views, it’s about recognizing that none of us are the arbiters of truth, that there are moral absolutes and that there is a God to whom we will all report for our actions.

My failure has been most glaring on this front, where no public apology can make wrong right. As a consequence, it is on this plane that I’ve grown the most over the past weeks – and where I’m committed to growing the most going forward.

I’ve been humbled and broken as never before in my life and, as a consequence, have given up areas of control in a way that I never have before – and it is my belief that this will make me a better father, husband, friend and advocate.

It’s in the spirit of making good from bad that I am committing to you and the larger family of South Carolinians to use this experience to both trust God in his larger work of changing me, and from my end, to work to becoming a better and more effective leader.

Sorry, Seanna and AP, that passage doesn’t justify the headline in what is supposed to be an objective report.

Additionally, for better or worse, Adcox’s claim in her report’s first paragraph that Sanford is “clinging to office” isn’t supported by the content of the rest of her report. The best she has is this assertion:

Some lawmakers have called for Sanford to resign, and one state senator plans hearings on whether state money was used to facilitate the trysts. A criminal probe found nothing illegal.

Name That Party trackers should note that Adcox identified Sanford as a Republican in the third paragraph.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

From the Netherlands:

July 16, 2009

They weigh less than 3 pounds, usually, and are perhaps 15 inches long. But they can remember.

The unborn have memories, according to medical researchers who used sound and vibration stimulation, combined with sonography, to reveal that the human fetus displays short-term memory from at least 30 weeks gestation – or about two months before they are born.

“In addition, results indicated that 34-week-old fetuses are able to store information and retrieve it four weeks later,” said the research, which was released Wednesday.

Scientists from the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Maastricht University Medical Centre and the University Medical Centre St. Radboud, both in the Netherlands, based their findings on a study of 100 healthy pregnant women and their fetuses with the help of some gentle but precise sensory stimulation.

On five occasions during the last eight weeks of their pregnancies, the women received a series of one-second buzzes on their bellies with a “fetal vibroacoustic stimulator,” a hand-held diagnostic device used to gauge an unborn baby’s heart rate and general well-being.

The baby’s responses – primarily eye, mouth and body movements – were closely monitored over the weeks with ultrasound imaging to gauge “fetal learning” patterns. The researchers found that the babies acclimated themselves to the sounds and vibrations to the point that they no longer bothered to respond – a process known as “habituation.”

“The stimulus is then accepted as ‘safe’ ” by the babies, the study said.

The team also found that the tiny test subjects actually improved these skills as they grew older, with those who were 34- or 36-weeks old clearly showing that they had become familiar with the hum outside the womb.

“The fetus ‘remembers’ the stimulus and the number of stimuli needed for the fetus to habituate is then much smaller,” the study said.

“It seems like every day we find out marvelous new things about the development of unborn children. We hope that this latest information helps people realize more clearly that the unborn are members of the human family with amazing capabilities and capacities like these built in from the moment of conception,” said Randall K. O’Bannon, director of education and research for the National Right to Life Educational Trust Fund. ….

Go here for the rest of the story.

Perhaps inadvertently, the text of the Associated Press’s earliest video coverage (scroll down the right frame at the link) of Walter Cronkite’s death would appear to say a lot about how journalists see themselves — and it’s not as objective communicators of what is occurring in the world:

Cronkite: “Hello, I’m Walter Cronkite.”

AP’s Diane Kepler, narrator: He was the most trusted man in America.

Cronkite (November 22, 1963): From Dallas, Texas, the flash apparently official. President Kennedy died at 1PM Central Standard Time, 2 o’clock Eastern Standard Time, some 38 minutes ago.

DK: Walter Cronkite, for many the quintessential TV journalist, has died. For most Americans he was the man to turn to on everything from the assassination of President Kennedy to what to think about the war in Vietnam.

Cronkite (1968): But it is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then would be to negotiate, not as victims, but as an honorable people, who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best they could.

DK: He covered battlefields, the coronation of Queen Elizabeth, and was a familiar presence to all of the presidents he covered. But it was his presence and his ability to tell a story with his Midwestern intonations that endeared him to Americans from coast to coast, always promising always to report an event the way it is.

Cronkite (apparently in the late 1950s or 1960, ahead of an interview with John F. Kennedy): Our interview with the Senator will be entirely unrehearsed. It will be spontaneous, it will not be edited. The questions have not been submitted to Mr. (John F.) Kennedy in advance. And I will be asking them of him for the first time.

DK: His familiarity led many to call him “Uncle Walter,” and even though he didn’t know them personally, he sometimes shared America’s enthusiasm on the air, like when man first walked on the moon.

Cronkite (July 20, 1969): “Man on the moon!”

Apollo 11′s Neil Armstrong: Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.

Cronkite: Boy!

Apollo 11′s Neil Armstrong: We’re going to be busy for a minute.

DK: Cronkite left the anchor desk in 1981, handing the reins over to Dan Rather. However, Cronkite wouldn’t soon disappear from the landscape. He backed then-President Clinton when he was suffering from the Lewinsky scandal. He also condemned former President George W. Bush’s decision to go to war in Iraq.

Cronkite: If the war we are fighting cannot be sustained with the people knowing what it takes to win that war, then we shouldn’t be there in first place.”

DK: Walter Cronkite, dead at the age of 92. Diane Kepling, the Associated Press.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

Gee, I’m so shocked…

Many of us have been criticized for calling out ”Objectively Unfit Mitt,” not just on his horrendous policies in MA, but also on his apparent practice of paying-to-play with regards to ”key” endorsements.

Turns out that David Keene, President of American Conservative Union (a man whose startling endorsement essentially kept Romney in the race last year) has gotten a taste for the ”pay to play” process in DC…

From yesterday’s Politico:

The American Conservative Union asked FedEx for a $2 million check in return for the group‟s endorsement in a bitter legislative dispute, then flipped and sided with UPS after FedEx refused to pay.In return for the $2 million, ACU offered a range of services that included: “Producing op-eds and articles written by ACU‟s Chairman David Keene and / or other members of the ACU‟s board of directors. (Note that Mr. Keene writes a weekly column that appears in The Hill.) “The conservative group‟s remarkable demand — black-and-white proof of the longtime Washington practice known as “pay for play” — was contained in a private letter to FedEx that was provided to POLITICO. The letter exposes the practice by some political interest groups of taking stands not for reasons of pure principle, as their members and supporters might assume, but also in part because a sponsor is paying big money.Maury Lane, FedEx‟s director of corporate communications, said: “Clearly the ACU shopped their beliefs and UPS bought.” In the three-page letter asking for money on June 30, the conservative group backed FedEx. Rebuffed, the group signed onto a two-page July 15 letter backing UPS. American Conservative Union’s logo is at the top, along with those of six other conservative groups.

Read the whole thing including the two letters involved, it’s unbelievable.

What a racket.  Why not just send them a proposal?  Why take the arrogant position that “this is how it’s gonna be if you want us on your side.”  No, no, no …you should be on their side because it’s the right thing to do.

And “strategists” wonder why there is such a disconnect between elected officials and the electorate?  Well how serious would you take a political ideology when those who are given donations to lobby on it’s behalf, can be bought?

The electorate is not changing, rather there are too many wolves in sheeple clothing who claim to fight for one thing but can be bought to bring about another.

Next time you get an email from David Keene @ ACU (host of CPAC btw, whose “Romney wins” straw polls are now extremely suspect), Ed Fuelner @ Heritage Foundation, Tony Perkins @ Family Research Council, Jay Sekulow @ ACLJ and countless others who unabashedly supported a man who governed to their collective, polar opposite, ask yourself what you really know – and don’t know – about them and how firm they are in their beliefs.

Due diligence should show actions and tangible results commensurate not only with the ostensible goals of these organizations, but with the billions of dollars they have taken in…

Most of all, before you give them a check or credit card in response to an emotional “help us fight the good fight” plea, ask yourself whether or not you think that these men/organizations would gladly give up the limelight , iconic adulation and HUGE incomes,  if it meant that their respective missions were accomplished.

To be clear, I am not admonishing the many sincere, diligent people who work for and support these organizations, rather their leaders.  Let’s face it, in many ways, they have become the very thing against which they started out fighting…an obstructive bureaucracy full of narcissists willing to sell their souls for a seat at the popular table of the day.

Perhaps that is why the fight has become so futile… it’s hard to fight that which you have become.

Additionally, I’d like to know when that particular strategy (of being bought-off) is going to start working in our favor.  That’s a rhetorical question of course because the strategy is akin to vying for liberal votes as a Republican…it fails every time it’s tried and all you come out with are more liberal Republicans, or ineffective blowhards as the case may be.

If you want to support someone or something, may I suggest starting locally?  Find out about your local political committees, join them if possible, support them if they are effective.  Meet (more than once) with any poor fool willing to run for a county or statewide position, look him/her in the eye and decide whether or not they are worthy of your hard-earned money.  That will not only motivate you to keep track and hold them accountable, but will eventually produce genuine leaders who more accurately reflect the communities they serve.

Our eyes must be wide-open and crystal clear if we are to increase our chances of turning things around in this country and that must always start with cleaning our own house…even when it means sweeping some of our most beloved “conservative characters” out the door.

Update: Here is the response from ACU’s EVP Dennis Whitfield.  And I agree with Excelsior (#2) in wanting to know who’s running that show.

Update #2: Here is a response from UPS.

Update #3: David Frum and Michelle Malkin weigh in as well…

If this wasn’t illegal, it was bad business on steroids that should result in a major overhaul at ACU.

It’s here.

It will go up at BizzyBlog on Monday morning (link won’t work until then) after the blackout expires.

Here is a slightly revised version of the column’s graphic (in appearance only; no numbers are different) that shows how the highest marginal tax rate will change for Ohio small business owners who are affected by the following (based on the Wall Street Journal’s assessment as of Monday of this week):

• the tax-rate changes anticipated in the health care bill;
• the automatic tax increase scheduled next year when the current tax-rate structure otherwise reverts to where it was in 2001 (this in known in common parlance as “repealing the Bush tax cuts”);
• the current highest marginal tax rate in Ohio;
• the current big-city municipal tax rate in the Buckeye State.

Bottom line, from the column: “Congress wants to make a very small percentage of people pay roughly 50% more to the federal government than they do currently and, depending on their state of residence, to take about one-third of what they currently live on — all to fund other people’s health care.”

Not included: If the affected person lives and works in different Ohio cities, both of which have municipal income taxes, that person will have to pay the full tax where he or she works, and very often part or all of the tax where he or she lives (i.e., many suburbs don’t grant full reciprocity for taxes paid where one works). That can add up to 1% to the marginal rates above for those in such situations.

From Phoenix, Arizona:

Jul 16, 2009 / 05:55 am

The Arizona Catholic Conference says the latest state legislature session was “truly extraordinary” and possibly the most pro-life session in Arizona history. …..

Characterizing the legislative session, which ended July 1, as “one of the most unusual and bitter legislative sessions in memory,” Ron Johnson of the Arizona Catholic Conference (ACC) listed legislative achievements in a “wrap-up” announcement.

Johnson said the ACC was “especially grateful” that Governor Jan Brewer signed into law the Abortion Consent Bill, which requires informed consent and a 24-hour waiting period before abortions, tightens parental consent requirements. The new laws also specify that non-physicians cannot perform surgical abortions and they provide conscience protections for health care workers and pharmacists.

According to Johnson, the provisions barring non-physicians from performing abortions were added because new information showed that nurse practitioners performed more abortions than previously thought.

A state ban on partial-birth abortions was also enacted, while an end-of-life measure preserves food and fluids for certain patients with guardians. ….

Go here for the full story.

The picture is from when the CBS anchor, who died Friday, told the nation on November 22, 1963 that President John F. Kennedy was dead.

The man who, decades after his retirement, said he missed setting the nation’s agenda  — thereby admitting that he did so while he was working — is going to a place where someone greater than you or I will, among many other much more important things, weigh how well he did that, and whether that was even his place.

Noteworthy Net-Worthies (wherein yours truly bravely attempts to restrain the compulsion to put in his 2 cents):

From Michelle Malkin’s latest column — “The Virginia-based Council for Affordable Health Insurance estimated that the administrative expenses of both programs (Medicaid and Medicare) last decade were 66% higher than those of private sector health insurance companies.”

Language of statist coercion, via the National Taxpayers Union — “the legislation empowers a very busy bureaucracy. The term “Secretary” — as in the Secretaries of Health & Human Services, Labor, Defense, and Veterans Affairs – appears 1,124 times in the bill. The Secretaries — along with Commissioners (199 references), Committees (76 references), and Boards (17 references) are busy conducting studies, developing methodologies, and receiving recommendations among other things — …. including requiring, limiting, penalizing, regulating, taxing, and enforcing their way to affordable health care for all.”

Leftists who question private funding sources for scientific studies, or well-designed polls funded by their ideological opponents, don’t seem to have a problem with a human rights org raising money in totalitarian countries. I wish that were an opinion. It’s an observation.

Kurt at FundMastery has posted Joe Crea’s column on statist health care that originally appeared here at BizzyBlog on Wednesday.

CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf: “Under current law, the federal budget is on an unsustainable path, because federal debt will continue to grow much faster than the economy over the long run.” David Walker of GAO was saying this for years under Bush while the GOP controlled Congress, and then after the Democrats took over. Almost no one listened. The Obama admin’s permanent spending ramp-up has objectively exponentially increased the unsustainability.

Patrick Poole at PJM — “An Islamic Hate Speaker Comes to Town (Columbus, OH).”

“There Will Be No Micromanagement” Update — “Obama Opposes House Plan to Protect Chrysler, GM Dealerships.”

WSJ, in an editorial, with analysis not seen at other establishment media outlets — “…. (the House health care bill’s) tax increases …. would take U.S. rates higher even than most of Europe. Yet even those increases aren’t nearly enough to finance the $1 trillion in new spending, which itself is surely a low-ball estimate. Meanwhile, the bill would create a new government health entitlement that will kill private insurance and lead to a government-run system.” Not-able-to-resist memo to IBD-bashers at yesterday’s post: Take that.

Joe Biden, today:

So here’s a simple test of the press’s integrity: Who will report this, and how prominently? Don’t tell me, in the midist of record deficits, plans for trillions more in taxes and spending, and cratering tax receipts, that it’s not news.

Early returns are not good. The Associated Press reported on Biden’s Alexandria, VA appearance where he made the statement. The quote is not in the story. Here are the first three paragraphs as of 3:34 p.m. (posted for fair use and discussion purposes):

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) — Vice President Joe Biden says there has never been a better time to overhaul the nation’s health care system because the industry now recognizes that helping the uninsured will ultimately bolster its bottom line.

Biden joined Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius at a health care forum in Alexandria, Va., on Thursday.

He told a group of nearly 200 people, mostly senior citizens, that he understands cynicism about drug companies’ promises to contribute billions of dollars in savings.

I don’t expect that the AP’s unbylined report will be updated. Prove me wrong, guys. I dare ya.

A related entry is at NewsBusters.org.