Category Archives: Matt Frei

BBC Spins For The White House Again

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I’m sure by now everyone knows about the looming swinging budget cuts that will happen automatically if no new budget deal is reached between the Republicans and the President. This is known as the “sequester”, and is the result of them kicking the can down the road a while back.

The BBC reports that the President doesn’t want this to happen, thinks it’s a bad idea, and has called on Democrat Governors to try and influence the elected Representatives and/or Senators in their States to cave compromise.

He warned the $85bn (£56bn) cuts would put thousands of teachers out of work and bring economic uncertainty.

The president has called on Congress to pass revenue rises and narrow budget cuts to avoid the automatic reductions.

The Democratic president will travel to Virginia on Tuesday to discuss the cuts’ impact on the defence industry.

“These cuts do not have to happen,” Mr Obama told a bipartisan assembly of governors at the White House on Monday. “Congress can turn them off any time with just a little bit of compromise.”

“Revenue rises”. Typical partisan language there. The Republicans refer to it as “tax rises”, of course, and the BBC uses instead the Left-wing terminology. Is the President offering to compromise as well? Don’t be silly. He doesn’t, and shouldn’t have to. According to Mark Mardell, when Congress is controlled by Democrats who don’t need to negotiate with Republicans to pass His plans, it’s a Golden Age.

Unsurprisingly, there’s another point of view that these cuts won’t really do much damage at all. In fact, spending will actually continue to rise and rise. The “cuts” just mean that the spending will rise slightly less than it would have otherwise. Does that sound familiar? Even Forbes admits this. Equally unsurprising is the fact that, not only does the BBC refuse to acknowledge this, but they even manage to quote a cuddly Republican, Sen. McCain, who says he doesn’t totally blame the President and is hoping for a compromise to protect the defense industry.

The BBC dutifully informs you that both sides of the aisle will try to blame each other. So, whose fault is this, really? The BBC reports it this way:

The budget cuts, known in Washington DC as the sequester, were devised in 2011 as an intentionally painful cudgel to encourage Democrats and Republicans in Congress to strike a deal to reduce the US budget deficit.

Note the passive voice, as if the cuts materialized out of thin air during some bi-partisan discussions. In actual fact, it was the President’s idea. He and the White House have been lying about it, and the BBC plays along like the good little propaganda organ it is.

Even the sainted Bob Woodward says so.

Woodward documents in his 2012 book The Price of Politics that team Obama first proposed the idea of the sequester. Expanding on his work in a Sunday Washington Post op-ed, he noted—as he has before—that both President Obama and his would-be Treasury Secretary Jack Lew lied on the campaign trail by saying the sequester originated with House Republicans. The White House has now ceded that fact.

The BBC doesn’t want you to know this, so they spin for the White House and deliberately mislead you. Defenders of the indefensible cannot impugn Woodward here. After all, not only is the above not from Fox News or Breitbart, but a previous book on the President by Woodward was lauded by the former BBC Washington correspondent and anchor of BBC World News America, Matt Frei. A diehard Obamessiah worshiper himself, Frei’s only concern then was that all the fascinating issues in the book might get in the way of the reader appreciating “the nuance of his finely-tuned brain”.

The cuts probably won’t be a big deal at all, and in fact will be considered a good start in some circles. The possibility of this is so great that Democrats and their lobbyists are worried about what might happen if there is no disaster. That’s in the Washington Post, not Fox News, not Breitbart. So the President has to do as much fear-mongering as possible, and work behind the scenes (i.e. get the Democrat Governors to do political cuts in the manner of Labour councils in Britain) to ensure as bad an outcome as possible. Is the BBC providing any analysis from this angle? Of course not. He can do no wrong. It’s not His fault, you see. And in any case, cutting government spending is a sin.

Your license fee hard at work, providing a propaganda outlet for the leader of a foreign country.

FREI’S TO GO…

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… but things will stay the same.

Matt Frei’s final edition of Americana before leaving the BBC gave him the chance to talk – once again – with one of his “favourite Washingtonians”, the Palin-hating conspiracy nut Andrew Sullivan. It was everything you’d expect from a BBC discussion on US affairs – Sullivan asserted (without any contradiction from Frei) that Donald Rumsfeld is a war criminal and that the highly partisan nature of politics in Washington is pretty much all the fault of the Republicans (who really should move to the left like Cameron’s – ahem – Conservatives). Their chat finished with some inevitable mockery of Sarah Palin.

Of course Frei’s departure won’t change a thing at the BBC (I noted in the comments that one of the first tweets sent by new Washington correspondent Adam Blenford after he started his new role was an approving link to Sullivan’s Daily Dish blog). The ongoing crusade against the American Right [cue scary music] continued this morning on the Today programme when Jim Naughtie discussed new BBC hate-figure Michelle Bachmann with Mark Mardell. The BBC’s North America editor, on-message as ever, took the opportunity to mention a three-month old gaffe from the prospective presidential candidate. Isn’t it amazing how these BBC US correspondents seemingly can dredge up every mistake ever made by any Republican of any note and yet never report a single one of the many verbal embarrassments from the mouth of Obama who is, y’know, actually president?  (My favourite recent one – Obama last month describing the “Teutonic shift in the Middle East”. Imagine the fun the BBC would have had with that one if it had been Bachmann or Palin. Instead, nothing.)

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The Post-American President and the BBC

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The President of the United States let slip a little revelation about Himself last week. I’ve been waiting for the BBC to say something, but there has been silence even on Twitter. Last Thursday, the New York Times published this:

Mr. Obama has told people that it would be so much easier to be the president of China. As one official put it, “No one is scrutinizing Hu Jintao’s words in Tahrir Square.”

The context for this was the President’s unhappiness with how tough being President of the US is these days, with everyone looking to Him for leadership on what to do about Libya, Bahrain, and all the other Mohammedan countries where the citizenry is protesting against their autocratic rulers. Not to mention (and the Times doesn’t, because they are trying to protect Him just as much as the BBC does) the difficulties He’s facing at home right now regarding the economy, Wisconsin and the unions, the Tea Party movement, etc.

Now, imagine for a moment if George W. Bush had said something about wishing he was an autocratic ruler who had the power to control the media and have opponents arrested and disappeared on a whim. The BBC would be all over it, and their North America editor would be writing scornful blogpost after scornful blogpost, to go with a couple of segments for Today.

The fact that they haven’t done this means that the Beeboids simply don’t see this as remarkable at all. Not only do they sympathize with Him, but Matt Frei actually once openly wished for Him to be an autocratic ruler as well.

Matt Frei: Sometimes you look at countries like China and you think, ‘Wouldn’t it be nice to be an autocracy in times like these?’

As DB said at the time, Matt Frei was heady with enthusiasm over the limitless possibilities for Change�™ at the dawn of The Obamessianic Age. The Beeboids certainly weren’t so enthusiastic for autocratic rule in the US back when Bush was elected. Have a look at their First 100 Days recap from 2001. It’s relentlessly negative. After reading that, get out the sick bag and remind yourselves of what the BBC put together for their beloved Obamessiah. Celebration after celebration.

Actually, I see something far worse in that quote. It reveals something about Him I was talking about here recently (pg. 8 on the Open Thread): He just isn’t interested in the US having a real leadership position in the world.

Right now, what many see as a lack of leadership and will over Libya is defended by Mark Mardell as pragmatism and a sign of His method of creating a better relationship between the US and the rest of the world. If we end up doing nothing and Ghaddafi kills more of his own people and ends up staying in power, Mardell accepts it willingly, because it would be His will.

The Obama administration is using the crisis as a test case. The key is whether the Arab world, the Muslim world will “cowboy up” and back some action. Although Mr Obama and Mrs Clinton have been crystal clear that UN backing is need, an invitation from the Arab League, or a coalition of Arab nations, to take action might tip the balance, as would an attention-grabbing massacre on the ground: at the UN there talk is of a “Guernica moment”.

If neither happens, Mr Obama may simply accept that an autocrat he has called on to go, is going nowhere.

In other words, sitting back and waiting for someone else to lead the way is not a sign of weakness or inability or – my personal opinion – lack of caring. Ironically, Mardell makes sure to tell everyone – again reading the President’s heart and mind for us – that He feels some sort of emotional connection with the protesters getting killed. Not sure how he squares that one when looking at himself in the mirror every morning.

Just the day before, Mardell was talking to Sen. John Kerry, who was the only high-profile Democrat really calling for the US to go in and do something (as opposed to Government officials talking about considering options or whatever). Even then Mardell was trying to shift blame away from Him. Other countries aren’t going to do anything, so why should He? Even as he acknowledges in the later post the irony of so many people who used to be hyper-critical of US intervention are now crying for us to do something, Mardell doesn’t see anything worth remarking about the President’s handling of the situation. Everything is either someone else’s fault, or something where He gets it right no matter what.

The thing is, what just might be the most damning part about that quote is the fact that the reason that we really do have what so many people either feared or celebrated: the first Post-American President.

The Beeboids can work to defend Him all they want, but what we’re seeing here is someone whose personal agenda has very little to do with having a success foreign policy which will strengthen the US. The reason He notes that nobody in Tahrir Square (or Tobruk, for that matter) cares about what Hu Jintao says is because He knows that China isn’t where the world looks for leadership in times of crisis. Whether the BBC likes it or not, the US has that position. And He’s squandering it, while they defend Him.

When Bush was in charge, we heard all the time about how he had weakened the US’s stature, and then we heard about how The Obamessiah would restore us to our rightful place. Now that He’s not actually doing it, the BBC is shifting blame and pretending it’s not happening.

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Matt Frei’s Partisan Humor

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Matt Frei simply cannot help himself. In his latest blogpost, he reveals his political bias when he says this:

I know John Boehner has the Tea Party Taliban breathing down his neck

Ha, ha, very droll. Just one more bit of slander from a BBC employee. I’m sure Helen Boaden is proud.

Not to mention the fact that Frei’s piece is generally a humorous dressing down of the new Speaker of the House. You know, I don’t recall Frei or any other Beeboid doing something even remotely similar about Nancy Pelosi, or, in fact, any Democrat. No, all their “humor” is reserved for Republicans.

And what a surprise – Nancy Pelosi made a snide remark about the size of Boehner’s gavel, just like Frei and BBC North America editor, Mark Mardell. However, Pelosi made her remark on the floor of the House of Representatives, while in session, as she handed over the gavel to him. Pretty crass, yet the BBC’s humor is reserved for the Republican who exhibited far more class than Pelosi or any Beeboid.

While Frei and Mardell and other partisans focused on superficial personal details of the Republican, they missed an opportunity to inform you of the difference between the outgoing Speaker and the new one. Pelosi gave a little speech before she handed the gavel over, and Boehner gave one after receiving it. Both speeches can be viewed in full here.

Pelosi’s speech was full of self-aggrandizement, celebrating herself. Not only that, but she crowed about the Democrats’ recent accomplishments, the very ones which led to her party getting soundly defeated last November, as if she has no connection to reality.

In contrast, Boehner was more humble, more grounded:

“The American people have humbled us. They have refreshed our memories as to just how temporary the privilege to serve is. They have reminded us that everything here is on loan from them. That includes this gavel, which I accept cheerfully and gratefully, knowing I am but its caretaker. After all, this is the people’s House. This is their Congress. It’s about them, not us. What they want is a government that is honest, accountable and responsive to their needs. A government that respects individual liberty, honors our heritage, and bows before the public it serves.”

Yet Matt Frei and his colleagues see fit only to ridicule.

As we’ve seen over the last few days, the Beeboids are deathly afraid of the non-Left’s new-found strength. They view Boehner and the Republican majority in the House as a threat to the President. In fact, they’re so afraid that they seem to be exaggerating reality. Frei’s interview with Tom Cole (video at the bottom of his post) is an example. Here’s his description of the interview:

Today, I spoke to Congressman Tom Cole of Oklahoma about the party’s plans for their new power.

Power? They control the proceedings in one House of Congress, not both, and certainly don’t control the Presidency. They can’t do all that much without actual bi-partisan cooperation. But the Beeboids are afraid.

Naturally, the first words out of Frei’s mouth are about the size of Boehner’s gavel. His line of questioning begins by assuming that the Republicans will be hyper-partisan. Then Frei sneers at Boehner’s humble speech. Rep. Cole, fortunately, corrects Frei every step of the way. Every single question is an attack, and nearly every answer begins with a variation of “No, actually….”

Matt Frei’s partisanship is clear. This is the man who leads the BBC’s nightly news broadcast targeted directly at the US (BBC World News America), and is a main conduit between the license fee payers and news about US issues. I’d say “caveat emptor”, but as you’re forced to pay for the BBC it’s not appropriate.

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Matt Frei’s Musings Are A Riot.

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Matt Frei mused during the violent student riots on Wednesday about what he saw as a relevant problem with higher education costs in the US.

Could UK students’ rage find echo in US?

Frei realizes there’s a disparity between the amount of money over which at least one student attempted manslaughter, and the amount required to attend a top US school. However, he doesn’t seem to understand the situation in the US, even though he actually states the problem himself.

Until now, Americans have tolerated this tuition-for-debt pact because they could expect to earn healthy salaries once they entered the job market. But graduates are standing in ever-longer lines for jobs that no longer exist.

The first sentence is more or less accurate. It’s not entirely true that absolutely everyone ends up in debt, as there are a variety of forms of means-tested grants for state schools, and all universities have various scholarship opportunities, not to mention the myriad other private and non-profit organizations which give out annual awards. All of that obviously exists to make up for the lack of a universal free ride in the US, which is one point any US student angry about tuition fees would not have in their favor. At least the UK students have that claim of unfairness. But that gets right to the heart of the problem, and why Frei misses it completely.

Frei is right that there’s a problem with jobs available for new graduates. In fact, as I’ve said before, there’s a looming higher education bubble in the US. But he seems to think that now students ought to be paying less for degrees for jobs that don’t exist, as opposed to the idea that maybe there’s no reason to get certain degrees in the first place.

Liberal Arts colleges will find that they have to shift their programs to more practical, career-path degrees, rather than the current, more abstract degrees. In addition, many schools are poorly run, and seem to exist primarily to enroll as many students as possible and milk them for all they’re worth, and don’t seem to care if they ever graduate. Does that sound familiar? Then there are the for-profit institutions which entice people to go into debt for their useless degrees. The US Government is already going after them, and the free market will take care of the rest.

The BBC covered the riots from a position of sympathy with the cause. That was evident from the way everyone who condemned the riots was asked if they at least understood the anger behind them, as if the BBC took the position that the cause itself was just, and the person condemning violence still needed to acknowledge this. Violence over free education for the next generation of (insert joke about useless bureaucrat coordinator here)? Is the public sector supposed to provide more jobs for these people? Will violence be justified if not?

So what about the next generation of doctors and lawyers those students were warning would disappear without free education? I don’t know about doctors, but there are a whole lot of law students in the US who were led down the garden path. There’s definitely a shortage of jobs for law graduates, and many law schools are in trouble. In fact, there’s some talk of the current law school system – in which students take on astronomical debt in the hopes of landing that high-paying associate position – as being unsustainable.

And there’s that BBC shibboleth again. If the cause of free education – or, in the US, lower priced – is worthy of violence, who is going to pay for all of it? If all those graduates can’t get jobs, what’s the point? How will they then pay taxes to cover the next generation? Matt Frei and the BBC aren’t interested. They’re stuck in juvenile divine right mode. As ever, the realities of sustainability escape them. This is a huge US story which has direct relevance to current events in the UK, yet the BBC doesn’t see it.

So Matt Frei, too, muses about violence for the wrong reason. He thinks that higher education prices should be lower so that students can continue to get useless degrees for which there is no work.

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BBC Mid-Term Election Epilogue

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Check out this election wrap-up by Matt Frei and Katty Kay, who co-anchored the BBC’s coverage of the second-most important election in human history. Their bias is there for all to see. Frei’s personal bias and unwavering support for the President gets even more outrageous in his blog post.

Their first point is about all the money spent on the campaign. I completely agree – as do most people in the US – that it’s gotten ridiculous, but Matty and Katty reveal their political bias here. The only names mentioned in association with high spending are Republican multi-millionaires who spent their own cash, both of whom lost their races. Katty calls this “divine retribution”, although Matty quickly corrects her editorializing. But two things are missing from their comments.

Ted Koppel actually pointed out to Katty on Tuesday night when she was whining about this issue that her comparison to British elections are completely unfair because the campaigns are of drastically different lengths. British general elections go for a few weeks, while the US production can start as early as anyone likes and seems to go on for 18 months at least these days. I don’t like it any more than Katty does, but that’s how it is. Then there are the dramatic differences in both geography and media outlets. Several states are larger than the entire area of the UK. Statewide candidates (for Governor and Senator) have a huge amount of ground to cover, and in some states have a large number of local media outlets to hit and local newspapers in which to buy a seemingly endless stream of full-page ads. This would cost far more money that the UK spends even if the election campaigns lasted the same amount of time. So they’re making a completely false analogy.

Secondly, notice that Matty and Katty do not mention the tens of millions George Soros spent on his pet organizations, nor the fact that Comedy Central donated several hours of free air time and got sponsors to spend a huge amount of cash on St. Jon Stewart’s “March to Restore Smugness”. Which seems to have been an epic fail on a much larger scale than any individual race. But the BBC has been totally silent on that, as it confuses the Narrative.

When Matty and Katty fret about gridlock, notice that Katty is concerned only that there will be no progress on her pet issues towards the Left. When she talks about making progress on the issues of energy and climate change, she is of course not concerned about progess in a non-Left direction.

Both Beeboids speak with great sympathy for the President, which really goes beyond analysis betrays their personal emotions. At one point, Frei tells the same lie he puts forth in his blog post, that the President is always admitting His mistakes and taking responsibility. In fact, his blog post opens with this:

President Obama is no stranger to contrition. At the beginning of his term, he didn’t shy away from saying that he had messed up, screwed up, made mistakes and so on. But he was apologising about the small stuff from a position of supreme confidence. The buck stops with me, he was fond of saying serenely, confident that the buck wouldn’t give him too much trouble.

Oh, really? Let’s remind ourselves of certain things the BBC censored from their reporting.

When it became glaringly obvious that the public was not happy with what ObamaCare was going to do to the country, the President took the same line of defense that the BBC and the EU mandarins took when the Irish voted against Lisbon: they just don’t understand it well enough. When the President accepted blame for people being upset, He said that it was His fault for not explaining it well enough. This isn’t the same thing as admitting an actual mistake. We heard the same thing from Him during His audience with St. Jon Stewart two weeks ago.

As recently as Sunday, the President was singing the same song:

“Making an argument that people can understand,” Mr. Obama continued, “I think that we haven’t always been successful at that. And I take personal responsibility for that. And it’s something that I’ve got to examine carefully … as I go forward.”

This is not the talk of a man capable of contrition, nor of one who will feel “chastened” by the election results.

In fact, any time there has been a mistake with His Administration, His first instinct is to blame someone else. Problems with the clean-up effort for the BP oil spill? Distract by blaming Bush for it in the first place. People unhappy with the Stimulus? Blame Republicans for not letting Him spend even more money. Caught up in a controversy over a criminal act by the Governor in His home state? Lie and say He hasn’t been involved. Air Force One causes an outcry by buzzing lower Manhattan near Ground Zero just to please a few wealthy donors? Blame somebody else. Can’t get every single bit of legislation rammed through Congress fast enough? Don’t admit it’s a mistake to be so impetuous at a crucial time: blame Fox News instead.

Where’s the contrition? Where’s the willingness to admit mistakes? It doesn’t exist. Matt Frei still has such huge respect for Him that he just imagines it does.

As for Matty and Katty fretting over gridlock in Washington, Katty does just barely admit that the President “doesn’t find it very easy to reach out to the other side”. Where were you in 2008, Katty? Oh, that’s right – back then the BBC was telling us that He was going to be bi-partisan and end the awful politics of Washington.

Instead, immediately after the taking office, the President was in a meeting with Republican leadership about His Stimulus Plans for Us. When Republicans complained about it, He dismissed them by saying, “I won”. This is not the attitude of someone willing to work together with anyone. But the BBC censored that news.

I guess Katty Kay should have encouraged her colleagues to take her own advice and not placed the President on a pedestal, as doing so makes it very difficult to report when He gets things wrong.

She didn’t say it in this clip, but on Tuesday night Katty couldn’t shut up about the one person not holding or running for any office: Sarah Palin. Here’s a little something from Katty herself which reveals her struggle with Palin Derangement Syndrome:

‘Katty, tell me they think Palin’s crazy’

In the blog post itself, Matt Frei still gets it wrong about the President’s efforts in closing Guantanamo Bay.

On day one, President Obama signed the bill to shut down Guantanamo Bay, using his left hand. “Get used to it!” he said. “I am a lefty.”

Wrong. It wasn’t a bill, but an Executive Order. Frei actually was closer to the truth in his Diary post from the time, when he said that the President expressed his “intention to close” Guantanamo within one year “with a flick of a pen”. Of course, we all know how well that’s working out for Him.

Frei also claims that, during the transition period before taking office, the President assembled His team “in a flash”. Also not true. Even the Washington Post was worried about how long it was taking Him, more than a month after He took office. I may make a mistake or misremember something I should have checked, but I’m not paid 100 grand a year to do this, nor do I have any research staff to help me.

This is the bias anchoring BBC World News America every night of the week, from the people whom you are expected to trust for news on US issues.

It’s The Policies, Stupid.

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Now that we’re approaching the mid-term elections in the US, the BBC has been ramping up the rhetoric against those who don’t approve of the President’s policies. In fact, to hear it from the BBC, it’s not His policies at all, but rather evidence of bad attitudes, inadequacies, and racism among His opponents.

In the last few days, BBC North America editor Mark Mardell has told us that it’s not the President’s fault at all, because the unwashed simply can’t relate to His intellectual behavior. When critics say He’s aloof and people don’t feel like He hears them, it’s not that His policies and statements clearly go against what most of the public wants and believes, but that He just hasn’t communicated the message in a dumbed-down enough fashion for the masses to understand.

Mardell has made other posts highlighting the “anger” of people dissatisfied with the current Government’s policies, as has Katie Connolly, which is an easy trick to disqualify those voices from the start. When someone is presented as angry, that context automatically reduces their credibility. The thing is, it was okay for people in the US to be angry when Bush was in charge; the BBC never looked for nefarious forces underlying that anger. Yet they do spend an extraordinary amount of effort trying to make it seem to their audience as if racism and extremism are the only things which would compel someone to oppose the President. It’s never because of His and the Democrat leadership’s policies. It’s just “the economy”, which is of course not His fault as it was inherited from George Bush. Does that sound familiar?

This Narrative is spread across the spectrum of BBC broadcasting, from BBC World News America to Newsnight to HardTalk to The Culture Show (h/t Oliver on the Open Thread).

Of course, it’s only natural that the BBC would take this position, because they can’t understand why anyone would oppose anything He and the Democrats have done. Even Matt Frei is concerned that the Coalition Government in Britain is taking a “gamble” with these austerity measures, as opposed to the spending and debt-increasing policies of the US President.

The problem is that the BBC has focused almost entirely on the vox pops angle. Mardell and other Beeboids have been traveling around the country talking to various people about their personal feelings. The only other views presented are from Washington Post or Time elite (JournoList) media figures, who, unsurprisingly, support the BBC’s Narrative.

So I believe it’s important to inform people about something the BBC has almost completely ignored: the policies themselves.

I’m sure everyone will remember just how much time and effort the BBC spent promoting ObamaCare (called “Health Care Reform” by the White House and the BBC). Can anyone recall the BBC spending so much time on the domestic policy of a foreign country? Yet, now that many of the predictions of its opponents (including myself) are coming true, there’s total silence from the BBC. It was the announcement of the ObamaCare plan which lit the fire under the Tea Party movement well over a year ago, which was played down as racism, even though the same people were opposed to it back when it was called HillaryCare. Was it racism when Clinton was President?

At the time, many of us knew that this wouldn’t work as advertised, and that it would harm the economy. We’re seeing that now. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office even says that ObamaCare “discourages work” because it gives people an incentive to stay unemployed. Does that sound familiar?

ObamaCare is about to hit small businesses with higher costs over health care, so much so that at least one business owner is opting to give all his employees a raise of $3000 pa ($250 a month) instead of taking a bath, because the Affordable Care Act supporters promised us that private insurance was going to be “affordable” at last. Principle Financial, one of the country’s largest providers, is getting out of the business altogether because of costs. Are they racists? That was one of the primary talking points of ObamaCare, about which the BBC spared no effort in reminding you.

Unfortunately, it has actually increased costs already. The BBC chose to censor that news. Is
one of the top health care organizations in the country now run by racists? There’s also the question of whether or not it violates the Constitution by forcing people to purchase a product from specific, government-approved vendors, health insurance in this case. Several states are challenging the law, including Florida. Are they all racists?

And it’s not just ObamaCare. Other things the President has said and done have caused harm, and the citizens have taken notice. For example, just a couple weeks after He was inaugurated, the President scolded companies for having conventions in Las Vegas, and told them not to go there. Earlier this year, he made a similar scolding comment about how it was wrong to go to Vegas when people ought to be paying their bills instead. It’s no surprise that these careless statements have compounded the pressures of a struggling economy on the city, as well as the state of Nevada. Unemployment is over 15%, and the people are not happy. Senator Harry Reid, one of ObamaCare’s chief architects (the President had little input Himself: it was created by Congress and “experts”) is fighting against a newcomer to keep his seat because of it. Is Nevada racist now? In 2008 they weren’t, 55% – 43%.

The other chief architect of ObamaCare, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, is also getting hit. Even Democrats are making campaign ads positioning themselves against her and her policies. Are all these Democrats racist now? Do they not blame the current Administration’s policies for harming the economy and damaging our future?

People are calling for reform and reining in government spending everywhere. Even in New York where, while writing this, I got a robo-call featuring former New York City mayor Ed Koch – a lifelong Democrat – telling me to vote for someone who has signed on to the New York Uprising Reform pledge. The call was paid for by the Republican Party, but if Ed Koch is in on it, things must be bad. He supported The Obamessiah during the election, and called Sarah Palin “scary”. How much more BBC-approved can you get? Is Ed Koch a racist now? Are we all racists now? Or is it about the actual policies?

The BBC wants you to think it’s the former, and not the latter, because they are ideologically biased in favor of His policies, and cannot accept that His Administration has made poor decisions, so they color their reporting accordingly.

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Cuba

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The very sad death of Cuban dissident Orlando Zapata Tamayo has come at exactly the wrong time for Matt Frei whose first report from his visit to the communist dictatorship is a typically clichéd “triumph over adversity” BBC item. At least someone at the Beeb was embarrassed enough to mention “the death of one of the country’s leading political prisoners” in the blurb under Frei’s video.

(Hat tips to various commenters)

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Matt Frei – Sneering Pompous Arse

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Leftie bigot Matt Frei’s contempt for Middle America is on full display in his latest shamelessly biased diary article in which he argues that the way to get those dumb rednecks to accept without question the new cult of MMGW is to target them through their current religion. The Telegraph’s Damian Thompson has already blogged a response which is well worth reading, although he put his views more succinctly on Twitter, offering this advice to Americans:

Wise words, I think you’ll agree.

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Re Motives

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Further to Natalie’s post, and with a tip of the hat to Deegee in the comments there, I think it’s worth having a couple of screen grabs to compare the subtle difference in the headlines, and the way concerns over political correctness suddenly vanish where a Jewish American immigrant is concerned (click pic to view) :

(Update – they’ve removed the quotes from the headline. Comparing the two I see the first draft was “US media report… not confirmed.” Fair enough in that case – my fault for not understanding the BBC’s often confusing conventions where quotes are concerned.)

Matt Frei has offered his take on the execution of John Allen Muhammad:

Despite the older man’s conversion to Islam, no-one really thought that the motive was religious, let alone that it was linked to the grievances of Islamic extremists…

When John Allen Muhammad died at 2111 on Tuesday evening, so did any chance of finding out what had really motivated him.

Frei doesn’t mention the decision by Muhammad’s family to suppress the release of his final letter:

In a statement read by the attorney representing the family of Muhammad, Charlene Paterson said, ‘this morning, the family would like to express remorse.”
She confirmed that the family is in possession of a letter, presumably from Muhammad, but said the contents of that letter would not be released.
“We have a letter. Right now we’re not prepared to disclose anything in that letter because it would be extremely inappropriate at this time.”
Paterson continued that, “the family is not comfortable disclosing any of the details in the letter at this time.”

There are of course a number of reasons why this letter could be “extremely inappropriate at this time”, but it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that Muhammad shared certain, ahem, ideological views similar to those of the Fort Hood killer.

Frei’s observations could turn out to be a tad Mardellesque in their presumption. Indeed, as Laban pointed out, there’s more than a little evidence to suggest Frei could be wrong already.

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