A few days ago, John McCain introduced a bill to kill net neutrality. Today the Center for Responsive Politics (Opensecrets.org) posts a revealing statistic that should leave little doubt as to why McCain chose that path:
Opensecrets.org (10-28-09): No current member of Congress has received more money from AT&T, Verizon, telephone utility companies or telecom services and equipment companies than McCain. Together, AT&T and Verizon have contributed $733,450 to the senator (including for his 2008 presidential campaign) since 1989, while the industries have given him a combined $1.9 million in that time.
SEN. HARRY REID (12-7-2007): First of all, Joe Lieberman, Joe Lieberman is my friend, and he is a good Democrat, votes with us on everything, except the war. So Joe Lieberman is easy to work with.
According to a poll conducted by PoliticsHome, a firm created in 2008, "launched in association with Pollster.com," according to the website.
In the UK, 62% think he did not deserve it, versus 22% who do.
PoliticsHome interviewed 1430 adults in the US, and 1303 adults in the UK, by email between 9-11 October 2009. Results are weighted by party ID to reflect the both countries at large.
*Before Obama cultists whose feelings may be hurt by this poll pooh pooh PoliticsHome for being obscure and insignificant, have in mind that the prestigious Mark Blumenthal, a life-long Democrat, trusts them:
http://www.pollster.com/blogs/what_happened_to_the_politicsh.php
*the Taliban part is a joke, of course, but according to DNC logic, it's true.
The debate about whether President Obama deserved the Nobel Peace Prize is a subjective one. Opinions vary widely.
But other questions have clear-cut answers (also known as "facts); for example: Does "international" mean five people from the same country? No.
M. J. Rosenberg challenged the truth a few days ago when he said, of the Nobel Peace Prize:
"Essentially this award is a statement from the international community that it welcomes the United States assuming, once again, the role of world leader that it discarded eight years ago"
Again, that's incorrect. To call the group that chose the winner of this award the "international community" is like calling a civil war a "global war."
A likely rebuttal would be that the reaction of the international community --not the award itself-- has been one of approval. But
1) Rosenberg referred specifically to the award, not the reaction.
2) Politicians and newspapers (and other media) throughout the world (also known as the international community) are roughly split on this issue depending on their ideologies.
Please be more accurate next time. Thanks
Today in his daily column, Civil Libertarian blogger Glenn Greenwald gives props to Obama for changing the tone: His speech in Cairo, his willingness to talk to Iran, pressure to Israel to stop settlements, his moves to close Guantanamo, etc.
On balance, however, Greenwald sees lack of accomplishments, and little progress in the Muslim world, contrary to the assertions of the Nobel Committee. This award, he says, was "painfully ludicrous."
Excerpt:
When I saw this morning's top New York Times headline -- "Barack Obama Wins Nobel Peace Prize" -- I had the same immediate reaction which I'm certain many others had: this was some kind of bizarre Onion gag that got accidentally transposed onto the wrong website, that it was just some sort of strange joke someone was playing. Upon further reflection, that isn't all that far from the reaction I still have.
Excerpt:
GREENWALD (10-9-09): Beyond Afghanistan, Obama continues to preside over another war -- in Iraq: remember that? -- where no meaningful withdrawal has occurred. He uttered not a peep of opposition to the Israeli massacre of Gazan civilians at the beginning of this year (using American weapons), one which a U.N. investigator just found constituted war crimes and possibly crimes against humanity. The changed tone to Iran notwithstanding, his administration frequently emphasizes that it is preserving the option to bomb that country, too -- which could be a third war against a Muslim country fought simultaneously under his watch. He's worked tirelessly to protect his country not only from accountability -- but also transparency -- for the last eight years of war crimes, almost certainly violating America's treaty obligations in the process. And he is currently presiding over an expansion of the legal black hole at Bagram while aggressively demanding the right to abduct people from around the world, ship them there, and then imprison them indefinitely with no rights of any kind.[/div]
Excerpt:
As Der Spiegel put it in the wake of a worldwide survey in July: "while Europe's ardor for Obama appears fervent, he has actually made little progress in the regions where the US faces its biggest foreign policy problems." People who live in regions that have long been devastated by American weaponry don't have the luxury of being dazzled by pretty words and speeches."
"That's what makes this Prize so painfully and self-evidently ludicrous," he added.
I'm sick of everyone piling up on the highly popular Hamid Karzai. Let's provide context.
Barack Obama, a highly popular candidate last year, received 53% of the vote. Compare this to Karzai's feat, as reported in today's Washington Post:
In southern Helmand province -- where 134,804 votes were recorded, 112,873 of them for President Hamid Karzai -- the United Nations estimated that just 38,000 people voted, and possibly as few as 5,000, according to a U.N. spreadsheet obtained by The Washington Post.
That's close to 300% of the vote!
Now let's move forward.
M.J. Rosenberg does not trust progressive Nobel prize winner Paul Krugman, for some obscure reason; but thinks the late Willian Safire is a "terrific writer" who is also savvy and not a "dim-bulb."
That's the same Safire who said that Iraq had chemical weapons, falsely accused the Clintons of wrong-doing in the Whitewater pseudo-scandal, lied about John Kerry, etc.
Can Rosenberg name the "smart" things Safire has said in his life that outweigh the above-mention lies? I very highly doubt it. Don't quit your day job, Mr. Rosenberg. You are not very good as media critic.
I think it was my view and the view of other professionals who had been involved in elections that they had never seen a UN-supported election like this one, that is, with the level of fraud and the blatantly partisan behavior by the independent election commission.
