Sunday, March 28, 2010

'60 Minutes' Video: The Persecution of Nada Prouty

Last night I watched the The Changeling. It's a movie about how those in power can wrongfully persecute the innocent to save face. Nada Prouty is a patriot who was wrongly persecuted by the U.S. government. She was made a scapegoat for a failed war on terror. You see, this government can't say they are failures. They see terrorists and spies everywhere. Prouty was a victim of a witch hunt. Since it is easier to punish one of our own, especially if they fit the profile. That's what they did with Bruce Ivins. The government couldn't find the Anthrax killers so they persecuted an innocent man until he committed suicide out of desperation. We see the same heavy hand at work in the case of Nada Prouty. She is a another convenient scapegoat for the failures of those who claim to want to protect us.

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Transcript: 'Meet the Press' (3-28-10)

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Unemployment Rate in Teens at "Crisis:" Expert

What do you think these teens will up doing? You can bet nothing good:

More than 1 million young adults have become so frustrated in their search for a job, that they’ve given up and left the labor force, according to published reports.

According to the Economic Policy Institute, 1.3 million workers ages 16 to 24 left the labor force since the recession hit in December 2007.

That's about 6 percent of them, and it's nearly 3 1/2 times the exodus rate of workers ages 25 to 54, the Sacramento Bee reported.

The unemployment rate for young adults is at a crisis rate according to Dean Baker, a co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a nonpartisan economic and social research center in Washington, D.C.
...full article

Video: 'Face The Nation' (3-28-10)

Senator Jim DeMint trashes the President: He is "mocking" the American people. Also, Michelle Bachman:

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Transcript: Sarah Palin, John McCain Interview with Greta Van Susteren

This interview was in Keeping with FOXNews' custom of providing propaganda for the Republicans. Susteren serves them up:

VAN SUSTEREN: Well, you got there fast, Senator, because I just spotted you in the United States Senate not about 12 hours ago, so you move fast. So let's -- let me make the interview go fast, as well. Let me ask you the first question, Senator. If we -- we're 14 months into this new presidency. How would a Senator McCain/President McCain presidency with a Vice President Palin look different from what we're experiencing right now?

MCCAIN: Well, I think dramatically. And this president is governing from the left. It's a -enter right country. We would never own Chrysler, General Motors. We'd have never passed a $787 billion stimulus package. We certainly wouldn't have done this massive 2,730-page health care reform. It'd be just contrasting philosophies. And I'm sorry I was not able to do a better job, perhaps, in drawing that contrast because he was the most liberal senator in the United States Senate.

VAN SUSTEREN: Governor, how do you think that the presidency would look if the two of you had won and not the current administration? What would we be experiencing now?

PALIN: Senator McCain is a man of his word. And I think what we could have counted on and looked forward to was the transparency that John also talked about in the campaign that's so necessary in order to build more faith into our government. Constituents right now are feeling so disenfranchised and disenchanted because of the lack of transparency that the Obama administration has ushered in. John wouldn't have done that.

VAN SUSTEREN: Senator, one of the criticisms you've gotten over the years, and Governor Palin, as well, is from within your own party for reaching across the aisle. We got an enormous issue here in this country with the Democrats versus the Republicans here on Capitol Hill. What is the secret for bipartisanship? Had you -- had you won, would it be a different situation? And how do you know that?

MCCAIN: Well, I know that because I've worked with these people for years. And the fact is that you can have bipartisanship, as long as you don't betray principle. What the Obama administration is seeking is for Republicans to go along with his agenda. And obviously, they decided they didn't need bipartisanship. They just decided to ram things through, like the stimulus package and the omnibus bill and health care on a pure party- line basis.

I would have worked in a bipartisan fashion. You can as long as you preserve principle. Ronald Reagan was able to work with Tip O'Neill, a liberal Democrat from Massachusetts, but he always adhered to his principles. And you can compromise on details, but you adhere to your principles.

PALIN: And Greta, this is another case to candidate Obama -- candidate Obama not having a track record at all of bipartisanship, whereas John McCain has that record. I have that record as governor of Alaska being able to reach across party lines and the aisle in order to do what was right for constituents. Candidate Obama didn't have the record. That's coming home to roost today with his lack of bipartisanship that's hurting our country.

VAN SUSTEREN: Well, you know, it's sort of interesting -- and Senator, I'll throw this to you because you're the one who's up for reelection -- is that you get so much criticism within your party, or even someone within the Democratic Party when you do reach across the aisle. And yet now you're in sort of the awkward position of trying to -- you know, to get all those votes back for the very -- you know, for doing something that we ultimately want our leaders to do.

MCCAIN: The issue here in Arizona, Greta, is who's going to be most effective for Arizona? We have 40 percent of the homes underwater. We have probably one of the worst economies in the country. We have 17 percent real unemployment. What's on the minds of the voters in Arizona is jobs and jobs and jobs and the economy. That's what they want. That's what I'm working every day for. Of course, they're worried about national security and the men and women who are serving, and they're proud of having so many from Arizona and the military representation we have here. But it's jobs, jobs, jobs and the economy. That's what the people of Arizona want.

PALIN: And Greta, can I chime in on that, too? Just coming from a voter, the position that I'm in today, not holding any kind of elected office but as a voter -- you know what we say about bipartisanship in this atmosphere that we see right now in Washington, D.C.? We don't want our Republican -- our senators and our representatives to hold hands with the Democrats if the Democrats are going to keep growing government. And why - - why engage in bipartisanship there if the Democrats are doing the wrong thing? We want our Republicans to stand tall, stand strong for smaller, smarter government, for those principles that so many independents and those in the Republican Party have believed in all these years. We want them to stick with those principles.
...full show transcript

Transcript: 'This Week' Show (3-28-10)

Complete transcript. Excerpt below:

TAPPER: Good morning. I want to get to the president's big accomplishment in a second, but first, front-page headlines right now about Iran. What can you tell us about the reports that Iran is suspected of preparing to build two nuclear sites, defiantly against international law, and what is the Obama administration prepared to do about it?

JARRETT: Well, what I can tell you is what the president has said consistently, which is that we're going to continue to put pressure on Iran. The fact that the president and Russia are about to sign the START Treaty is a good sign that we're making cooperation and good progress with countries such as Russia. We're going to have a coalition that will really put pressure on Iran and try to stop them from doing what they're trying to do.

TAPPER: You're talking about we're going to have a coalition that will do that. The President Obama set a deadline for President Ahmadinejad of Iran of the end of 2009. We're now about a quarter of the way through 2010, still no major international cooperation putting pressure on Iran. You know a little bit about Iranian culture. Don't you think that this in some ways conveys weakness or the inability to rally international support?

JARRETT: Quite the contrary. In fact, over the last year, what we've seen, when the president came into office, there was a unified Iran. Now we're seeing a lot of divisions within the country, and we're seeing steady progress in terms of a world coalition that will put that pressure on Iran. So no, I think that we have a strong force in the making, and Iran will back down.

TAPPER: When are we going to see sanctions in the United Nations?

JARRETT: Well, we'll see. As I said, we have a START Treaty that's good progress. We have a number of countries, 44 countries coming to the United States at the request of the president to focus on nuclear proliferation, and as we begin to forge those relationships and they strengthen, that will enable us to put the pressure we believe is necessary on Iran.

TAPPER: OK. Turning to the president's big achievement of the last week, health care reform. Let me show you some numbers from today's Washington Post. Indicates that 50 percent of the American people oppose this new law; 46 percent support it. Those can't be numbers that you're happy about for the president's major domestic legislation.

White Men Shun Democrats

This explains why Republicans are using race (thinly disguised) as a political strategy. They believe that by attacking a black President that this will lead the way to the return to political ascendancy:

Millions of white men who voted for Barack Obama are walking away from the Democratic Party, and it appears increasingly likely that they'll take the midterms elections in November with them. Their departure could well lead to a GOP landslide on a scale not seen since 1994.

For more than three decades before the 2008 election, no Democratic president had won a majority of the electorate. In part, that was because of low support -- never more than 38 percent -- among white male voters. Things changed with Obama, who not only won a majority of all people voting, but also pulled in 41 percent of white male voters.

Polling suggests that the shift was not because of Obama but because of the financial meltdown that preceded the election. It was only after the economic collapse that Obama's white male support climbed above the 38 percent ceiling. It was also at that point that Obama first sustained a clear majority among all registered voters, according to the Gallup tracking poll.

It looked for a moment as though Democrats had finally reached the men of Bruce Springsteen's music, bringing them around to the progressive values Springsteen himself has long endorsed. But liberal analysts failed to understand that these new Democrats were still firmly rooted in American moderation.

Pollsters regularly ask voters whether they would rather see a Democrat or Republican win their district. By February, support for Democrats among white people (male and female) was three percentage points lower than in February 1994, the year of the last Republican landslide.

Today, among whites, only 35 percent of men and 43 percent of women say they will back Democrats in the fall election. Women's preferences have remained steady since July 2009. But white men's support for a Democratic Congress has fallen eight percentage points, according to Gallup.

White men have moved away from Obama as well. The same proportion of white women approve of him -- 46 percent, according to Gallup -- as voted for him in 2008. But only 38 percent of white men approve of the President, which means that millions of white men who voted for Obama have now lost faith in him.
...full article

Russia says U.S. Should Eradicate Afghan Opium

The Russians might have a point here. But they shouldn't be pointing fingers given their history in Afghanistan. Here we are fighting in the country that since our arrival has become the biggest poppy (which is the source for opium/heroin) producer, controlling most of the world's market. The heroin created with this crop ends up on the streets of America. How is this possible? I don't believe that our military would deliberately ignore the problem, or are in some kind of unholy alliance to allow the crop to grow without interference. Then again, what is being done? And why be in Afghanistan if we can't prevent this poison from growing under our very noses? One of the main reasons the Taliban have become so formidable is as a result of the drug trafficking they've become. What's ironic is that poppy production was almost completely wiped out during the period they ruled over Afghanistan. So it would seem to me that we should work harder to eradicate a plant that is costing U.S. troop lives in Afghanistan and young people on the streets of America:

Russia accused the United States on Sunday of conniving with Afghanistan's drug producers by refusing to destroy opium crops, the second time in a week Moscow has taken a swipe at the West over drug policy.

U.S. Marines have advanced into one of the main opium-growing regions of Afghanistan's Helmand Province since February, but have told villagers there they will not destroy the opium crop that is blossoming this month.

"We believe such statements are contrary to the decisions taken on Afghan narco-problems within the U.N. and other international forums," said a statement from the Russian Foreign Ministry released by the embassy in Kabul.
...full article

Swiss Casino Raid: Armed Gang Steals Hundreds Of Thousands Of Francs During Heist

Swiss Casino Raid: Armed Gang Steals Hundreds Of Thousands Of Francs During Heist

- This is a classic copycat crime. The media is going to romanticize this incident as they did with the German robbery.