Well, it appears that the story that I mentioned regarding Hugo Chavez suggesting the US government set off the Haiti earthquake was incorrect. A rumour started by a Venezualan website managed to propagate itself through the world media. More here.
So apologies are in order.
However, it's interesting that as well as mainstream Spanish news and Fox news accepting this story, it was also propagated by Press TV and Prison Planet. It seems that this story panders to disparate prejudices from both those think little of Chavez or and those who think the US is capable of anything.
[Iran Press TV Latest] Many Americans maintain that the stimulus plan presented by US President Barack Obama to salvage the economy has been a waste of money, recent poll finds. Biggest grab for the boodle in history.
Results of a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll revealed on Monday that 3 out of every 4 Americans believed the stimulus money was wasted to a large extent, ... on shovel-ready projects, no less...
with 56 percent opposing the stimulus and just 42 percent still thinking the stimulus was a good idea. 42 percent got a dip at the boodle? That's more than I expected. Or maybe that's just the number who got a grab...
The poll further found that 63 percent of those surveyed believed that political reasons were behind the stimulus projects.
While 21 percent of the respondents said almost all the stimulus money has been wasted, only 4 percent remained to be supportive of the plan, saying no stimulus dollars have been wasted.
"One reason why the economic stimulus bill is no longer popular with the American public is the perception that a lot of the money has been wasted. Six in 10 believe that the projects in the stimulus bill were included for purely political reasons," said CNN Polling Director Keating Holland.
"Nearly three-quarters believe that at least half the stimulus money spent so far has been wasted, and one in five say nearly all of it has been a waste," Holland said.
The US economic rescue plan, formally known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, was hammered out by the Obama Administration to save the ailing economy by injecting USD 787 billion into the country's falling financial and industrial sectors.
The hefty bill gained no Republican votes in the House of Representatives and it was favored only by three GOP votes in the Senate.
Despite initial promise, the package has failed to create 2.5 million jobs and bring feasible economic recovery.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/26/2010 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11130 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Most Americans think stimulus dollars stollenwasted: Poll
#6
If the money had been spent on stuff that really does need to be done. Fixing roads and bridges is one good example then I really didn't have a problem with it. But we all know that it damn well wasn't
Alleging a plot to tamper with phones in Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu's office in the Hale Boggs Federal Building in downtown New Orleans, the FBI arrested four people Monday, including James O'Keefe, 25, a conservative filmmaker whose undercover videos at ACORN field offices severely damaged the advocacy group's credibility.
Also arrested were Joseph Basel, Stan Dai and Robert Flanagan, all 24. Flanagan is the son of William Flanagan, who is the acting U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Louisiana, the office confirmed. All four were charged with entering federal property under false pretenses with the intent of committing a felony.
According to the FBI affidavit, Flanagan and Basel entered the federal building at 500 Poydras Street about 11 a.m. Monday, dressed as telephone company employees, wearing jeans, fluorescent green vests, tool belts, and hard hats. When they arrived at Landrieu's 10th floor office, O'Keefe was already in the office and had told a staffer he was waiting for someone to arrive.
ACORN spokesman Kevin Whelan said the arrest calls O'Keefe's credibility into question, and used the opportunity to point out that he "edited (ACORN videos) to make things look as bad as possible."
O'Keefe on Thursday gave a speech to the Pelican Institute for Public Policy, a libertarian group in New Orleans.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/26/2010 17:40 Comments ||
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#2
This is not good news! These clowns stupidly and totally unnecessarily gave that fraud racket, ACORN, ammunition. It's hard enough to limit ACORN's influence with the White House behind them, and the majority of the media still unwilling to cover the story. Ugh!
#7
Yeah, sure ACORN. You guys were in trouble before these people filmed you. So you have no say regarding integrity. And neither does Landreau. Bottom line is, these boys need to understand they do not need to be crossing the line into committing a felony when trying to catch sleezy people who are creating felonies.
Ever since Scott Brown won Ted Kennedy's old Senate seat in Massachusetts, destroying the filibuster-proof 60-seat majority held by Democrats, pundits have been arguing about the fate of the health care reform bill. In a recent interview with ABC's Diane Sawyer, President Obama acknowledged that his push to get the bill through Congress has cost him political capital. But he is still determined to tackle health care reform and other "big problems," even if it costs him another four years in the White House: "I'd rather be a really good one-term president than a mediocre two-term president," Obama told Sawyer. "You know, there is a tendency in Washington to believe our job description, of elected officials, is to get reelected," he said. "That's not our job description. Our job description is to solve problems and to help people." Ever cynical, New York magazine's Daily Intel blog, noted that Obama "seems to have forgotten the third option ... being a mediocre one-term president." The interview was to air this morning on Good Morning America. The full transcript is available on the ABC News Web site.
#2
Ever cynical, New York magazine's Daily Intel blog, noted that Obama "seems to have forgotten the third option ... being a mediocre one-term president
He appears to be achieving exuberant mediocrity just past the quarter term. I doubt the home stretch will sea much improvement.
#11
Has there ever been a "really good one-term president"? The closest I can think of are Coolidge, Teddy Roosevelt, or Truman; and all of them were a-term-plus-some-fragment-of-a-deceased-predecessor's-term presidents.
Maybe Chester Arthur, but he was just a pleasant surprise, as everyone was expecting him to be another Fillmore, Tyler, or Johnson, and turned out to be more of an Adams.
There's the two Adams, but both of them were kind of failures on their own terms. John was chased out of town by a figurative mob, and John Quincy was a lame duck on the afternoon of his own inauguration. Same thing with Hayes.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
01/26/2010 12:28 Comments ||
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#12
Senate just said NO to that Federal Debt Commission thingy.........endorsed by Obama.
#15
Unfortunately, iff one believes as many Netters do that POTUS Bammer is a covert or closet PRO-ISLAMIST/MUSLIM ANTI-AMERICAN set up to weaken iff not destroy America, then by extension IMO one should believe that for Radical Islam to defeat America in the GWOT, POTUS BAMMER [etal.]. MUST AT MINIMA = IDEALLY BE A TWO-TERM POTUS FOR THE MILTERRS TO ASYMMET PREVAIL "GOING NUKULAAR" + GEOPOL DEFEATING OR DESTROYING AMERICA OUTSIDE OF NORMAL OR CONVENTIONAL BATTLE.
IOW, PRIORITY TO POLITICAL + ECONOMIC + DIPLOMATIC, ETC. NON-MILITARY WARFARE AS FOUGHT AND WON IN THE HALLS OF WH-CONGRESS + WASHINGTON D.C.
* 1990's NET - PRESENT > NETTERS = Once mighty Super/Hyper-Power America goes down for the count, NATO + Western World + Western Dem,ocracy, etc. -ISMS will follow, VOLUNTARILY ANDOR FORCIBLY.
Obama supporters are flooding unsuspecting newspapers with pro-Obama letters purportedly from average citizens -- with duplicate messages appearing in more than 70 publications across the nation.
One writer identified as "Ellie Light" has published identical form letters in newspapers around the country, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported. Light claims to have different hometowns within the respective newspaper readership areas. Each letter is nearly identical in grammar, style and subject.
Light's letters have appeared in many mainstream publications, including Politico.com, the Washington Times, USA Today and even Thailand's Bangkok Post.
Continued on Page 49
#4
I've lived in or around Baltimore for 27 years and this is the first time I've run across the Baltimore Chronicle. I looked at their web page and it looks like excerpts from Indymedia.
I can go another 27 years without running into them again, thankew.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/26/2010 11:01 Comments ||
Top||
#5
An insult to bird cage liners everywhere.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
01/26/2010 11:55 Comments ||
Top||
#6
"No, I'm the real Ellie Light!"
"No, I'm Spartacus ... Uh ... Ellie Light!"
#9
There was an article on this at the Mudville Gazette (it's the impossibly skinny article on the left, at least on my browser), and someone claiming to be Ellie Light responded.
A previous commenter noted that the real scandal wasn't that dozens of identical letters has been sent, but that they'd been published. It's hard to get a letter published. What was so special about this one that it got published dozens of times? "Ellie" replies that her letter got published because it was all thinky and stuff. Try it!
...signed Ellie J. Light...
Another Mudville commenter wondered if Ellie's middle initial was D.
The White House has asked the top Senate Democrat on military affairs to postpone announcing a hearing that would explore repealing the controversial law that bans openly gay people from serving in the military.
Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, was expected to have Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen testify before his committee on recent calls to end the Don't ask, don't tell' policy.
The hearing was expected at the end of January. Sources tell The Hill that even though it has not been announced publicly, the target date was Jan. 28, one day after the State of the Union address. But that would have required public notice ahead of the hearing.
Now the target date is expected to be Feb. 11, a source said.
Levin was told to hold off on announcing the hearing until after the president's address Wednesday, according to a Senate aide. Levin was also told that Obama will address the issue of Don't ask, don't tell' in his speech on Wednesday, but Levin does not know what's in the speech, the aide added. Levin also mentioned this in a huddle with reporters on Monday.
A source familiar with some details of the initial draft of the State of the Union said it would address the repeal of the controversial law. Obama has made it his campaign promise to repeal the Clinton-era law. Obama has come under increasing pressure from gay-rights advocates to move on the repeal.
Gay-rights advocates are eyeing the change in law for this year, but it is unclear how Obama will proceed. The Pentagon has moved slowly on the issue, and there have been reports of internal dissent on how fast changes to the law should be instituted.
Levin has always opposed Don't ask, don't tell,' and has said publicly he supports the repeal. Meanwhile, his House counterpart, Rep. Ike Skelton (D-Mo.), said he opposes the repeal. Skelton played a major role in crafting the controversial law. When President Bill Clinton wanted to lift the ban preventing gay people from joining the military, Skelton opposed the move. The end result was a compromise under which gay service members would have to conceal their sexual orientation.
Servicemembers Legal Defense Network encourages the president to address the repeal of Don't ask don't tell' and share his plan with the American people,' said Aubrey Sarvis, the executive director of SLDN, the organization at the forefront of the repeal fight.
#4
I spent 29 years in the military 6 in USMC, USMCR, 23 in the Army and Army Guard. 22 of the 29 was on some form of active duty.
I've had numerous obviously gay subordinates, peers, and in one case, superiors. Only once did any of them by word, deed or social behavior, make it obvious or significant, and never duty business hours. DADTDC makes perfect sense.
BUT... if flagrantly obviously behavior becomes an obstruction to good order and discipline, the existing system gives Commanders the tools necessary to remove the individual for the good of the service. No change is needed, and absent those tools, certain kinds of behaviors have the potential to emerge that adversely affect combat readiness, unit morale and cohension. The military isn't a go**am laboratory for people's sociology opinions. Leave it alone so we can continue to have the finest forces in the world!
#6
I've known people in the military that were gay. EVERYONE knew it, and almost everyone ignored it. They were good at their job, they didn't exhibit their differences to the detriment of the military or their job, and they didn't flaunt their differences. It was a "live and let live" environment, and everyone contributed. The only two times I've seen or heard of gays being kicked out of the military is when they violated the unwritten code: -we don't care as long as you're not overly obvious about your behavior". One was kicked out with a Bad Conduct Discharge (there were some other things involved that upgraded it that far), the other was politely asked NOT to re-enlist, and got an Honorable Discharge.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
01/26/2010 21:55 Comments ||
Top||
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Iran Press TV Latest] Many Americans maintain that the stimulus plan presented by US President Barack Obama to salvage the economy has been a waste of money, recent poll finds. 
Ever since Scott Brown won Ted Kennedy's old Senate seat in Massachusetts, destroying the filibuster-proof 60-seat majority held by Democrats, pundits have been arguing about the fate of the health care reform bill. In a recent interview with ABC's Diane Sawyer, President Obama acknowledged that his push to get the bill through Congress has cost him political capital. But he is still determined to tackle health care reform and other "big problems," even if it costs him another four years in the White House: "I'd rather be a really good one-term president than a mediocre two-term president," Obama told Sawyer. "You know, there is a tendency in Washington to believe our job description, of elected officials, is to get reelected," he said. "That's not our job description. Our job description is to solve problems and to help people." Ever cynical, New York magazine's Daily Intel blog, noted that Obama "seems to have forgotten the third option ... being a mediocre one-term president." The interview was to air this morning on Good Morning America. The full transcript is available on the A
