=== Todays Toon ===
James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. (born October 1, 1924) served as the 39th President of the United States from 1977 to 1981 and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office. Before he became President, Carter served two terms as a Georgia State Senator and one as Governor of Georgia, from 1971 to 1975, and was a peanut farmer and naval officer.=== Bible Quote ===
“He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted.”- Isaiah 53:3-4=== Headlines ===
NASA can put a man on the moon, but the space agency can't tell you what the temperature was back then, as it admits its data is worse than Climate-gate data.
Arizona rancher Robert Krentz was known as a good Samaritan who would lend a hand to illegals crossing from Mexico — but authorities say he was gunned down by one of the very people he often helped.Health Care 'Fix' Is In
Obama signs package of changes to health care overhaul, strips banks of ability to issue federal student loans
It's a Consumer March Madness
Consumer confidence rebounds in March after a steep February dip — are Americans finally spending?
'Bucket' Thief's Dying Wish Defense
Florida woman uses 'bucket list' excuse, saying bank robbery was something she wanted to do before she dies
Atom Smasher Hits Full Power, Sets Collision Record
The Large Hadron Collider directed beams into each other as part of its ambitious bid to reveal details about theoretical particles and microforces.
Scientists to Levitate Drops of Liquid to Study Glass
Physicists are building a levitation chamber to suspend a drop of liquid in mid-air and watch its atoms as it cools into glass.
Magnets Can Sway 'Moral Compass,' Say MIT Researchers
People's moral judgment can be altered by disrupting part of the brain according to a U.S. study, AFP reported Tuesday.
Angry dad worse than crims - law
TEEN sex assault victim's dad punches attackers, gets longer sentence than alleged rapists.
Facebook moves to protect tribute pages
FACEBOOK has taken its first official step to combat the vulgar "trolling" of online tribute pages.
Men mauled to death by pack of wild dogs
HAVING wild dogs eating parts of a town's citizens is simply unacceptable, says coroner.
Flames came from Qantas engine - witness
A SINGAPORE-BOUND Qantas flight has been forced to return to Sydney Airport due to engine troubles shortly after take-off.
Perks could be better, say asylum-seekers
SUSPECTED illegal immigrants say food is poor, DVDs are old and there's not enough XBox games.
T-Card is running late again
THE State Government's electronic ticketing system has been delayed yet again, with international consortiums furious that another deadline will be missed today.
Liberals clinch chance to govern Tasmania
TASMANIA is set to get a Liberal minority government after the Hobart seat of Denison was won by about 300 votes.
Brazen raid as robbers tunnel into bank
BANDITS tunnel into a Parisian bank vault and empty over 100 private safe deposit boxes.
At least 21 dead babies, foetuses found dumped in Chinese river
STAFF at a hospital in eastern China were suspended after the bodies of at least 21 infants and foetuses were found discarded in a river. Abortion is common in China, where at least 13 million births are terminated every year, due in part to the nation's so-called "one-child policy" which limits most urban couples to just one offspring.
=== Journalists Corner ===
"One Nation Under Debt"! We expose the truth behind the government's spending spree and ask, could America go bankrupt?
Total Hypocrisy?!One tea partier was savagely dismembered at a rally! So, why isn't anyone speaking out for him?
===
Guest: John Stossel
Should certain types of speech be banned? John Stossel weighs in!
===
Political Infighting!
States clash on whether to sue over health care! But, who's really looking out for the people?
=== Comments ===
Inciting Violence and Racial HatredBy Bill O'Reilly
On Saturday, Sarah Palin addressed a Tea Party gathering in Nevada. Authorities say 8 to 10,000 people showed up to hear Mrs. Palin hammer Sen. Harry Reid in his hometown:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SARAH PALIN: So Harry Reid comes from these parts. You know, he served on the state's Gaming Commission and what he is doing now is gambling our future. And somebody needs to tell him this isn't a crapshoot. Just a lot of this is being crap though.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
Obviously, the left despises that kind of rhetoric, and now there are charges that Sarah Palin incites violence and sows discord.
It's clear that some on the American left fear the Tea Party movement and that there is a media strategy to brand Tea Party people as racist.
Writing in The Miami Herald over the weekend, columnist Leonard Pitts says this about the Tea Party: "Their stated fears — socialism, communism, liberalism — are just proxies for the one fear most of them no longer dare speak ... it insults intelligence to deny that race is in the mix."
So you can see what's emerging. The most ardent critics of President Obama are going to be labeled racist and extremist. Ironically, the extremist label is used by some on the right against the president.
Last week's awful confrontation outside the Capitol where charges that the n-word was used by anti-Obamacare demonstrators signifies how intense this issue has become.
As "The Factor" reported, there is no proof of any racial invective, but we do believe harsh words were spoken by a few demonstrators.
The Tea Party would be wise to publicly disassociate itself from hateful rhetoric. I gave them this advice six weeks ago:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
O'REILLY: The Tea Party people themselves should be careful. Most Americans are not ideologues. They are just folks who want a fair system and a noble country. Every time a Tea Party person threatens to overthrow the government or other nonsense, the brand gets hammered.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
There is no question that the USA is now a divided country, and that's not all bad. We need to debate what kind of a nation we want to be.
But there is no place for racial invective or bogus charges of such. Sincere protest should be respected in America. It should not be branded as racist unless there is proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
Certainly that is not the case with the Tea Party. They are not responsible for loons who may lurk among them.
Finally, any media person using the race card should be called on it by you. Turn them off, cancel your newspaper subscription.
===
Obama's Health Care Bill Is Not What He Promised
By John Lott
Would Barack Obama and the Democrats have won in 2008 if he had promised what he ended up doing: to dramatically increase government spending and deficits, raise taxes on the middle class, hide special deals on health care, and make it impossible for people to keep their current doctors and health insurance plans?
As President Obama prepares to sign the reconciled health care bill into law and sell it to Americans, how does it measure up to what he promised? Unfortunately, the gap is huge, and he can hardly claim a mandate for what is in the final bill.
Start with the cost of the program:
"Obama promised that his plan's $50 billion to $65 billion price tag would be paid for by discontinuing Bush's tax cuts for those earning more than $250,000 a year." -- from candidate questionnaire during 2008 presidential campaign.The $940 billion health care bill just passed by the House is between 45 and 88 percent more expensive than Obama promised during the campaign. And this excludes the additional $208 billion so-called “doc fix,” which restores some of the cuts in Medicare reimbursements written into the bill to doctors. The latest Congressional Budget Office estimates indicate that the law won't be budget neutral -- increasing total deficits by $260 billion over the next 10 years, and this ignores many of the costs of the program. This promise of a smaller government health care program has disappeared the same way as his frequent campaign vow to cut the size of government. "Now, what I've done throughout this campaign is to propose a net spending cut," Obama pledged during the third presidential debate with John McCain.
Who pays the bill?
"For example, I'm on record as saying that taxing Cadillac plans that don't make people healthier but just take more money out of their pockets because they're paying more for insurance than they need to, that's actually a good idea. John McCain calls these plans Cadillac plans and in some cases it may be that a CEO's getting too good a deal. But what if you're a line worker making a good American car like the Cadillac? What if you're one of the steel workers who are working right here at Newport News and you've given up wage increases in exchange for better healthcare? Well, Senator McCain believes you should pay higher taxes, too. The bottom line: The better your healthcare plan, the harder you fought for your good benefits, the higher the taxes you'll pay under John McCain's plan. "And I can make a firm pledge. Under my plan no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes." -- from Obama campaign speech during September, 2008.So much for the promise not to tax high cost health insurance plans, the so-called Cadillac plans. That new tax alone increases taxes regardless of income. Ironically, Obama has done what he unjustifiably accused John McCain of doing. But the bill also imposes all sorts of taxes on everyone who uses medical care, again regardless of income. The long list includes an excise tax on medical devices, brand-name drugs, health insurance providers, tanning salons, and even paper manufacturers. The tax hikes at the end of this year, as the Bush tax cuts are phased out, aren't even relevant any longer to the health care program, for they have already been spoken for by the stimulus and other massive new spending plans Obama pushed through Congress.
Promises to strip out special deals from the health care bill
Just in the new reconciliation bill, 11 states and Washington D.C. are given $8.5 billion in special federal funds to provide health care coverage. Likewise, rural areas in some states, such as Oregon, got a last-minute deal to increase Medicare reimbursement rates. Various unrelated deals were made to buy the votes of some congressmen. For instance, take the additional water supplies given to central California to buy the votes of California Democratic Reps. Dennis Cardoza and Jim Costa. Or the promised push for legalizing illegal immigrants that was granted by the president to get the vote of Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D.-Ill.). And then there was the money for a single hospital in Connecticut, special funds for Montana, and the Louisiana Purchase (a $350 billion aide package one for Louisiana).
Transparency
“I respect what the Clintons tried to do in 1993 in moving health reform forward, but they made one really big mistake, and that is, they took all their people and all their experts and put them into a room, and then they closed the door. We will work on this process publicly, it will be on C-SPAN, it will be streaming over the net.” Obama during November 2008Just looking at the special deals listed above explains why voters worry about transparency and why Obama’s campaign promise to show everything on C-SPAN was so popular. But the one single broadcast -- where Obama and other Democrats were allowed twice as much airtime as Republicans -- does not fulfill his promise of transparency. Nor did the meeting show the type of horse-trading for votes that motivated Obama’s pledge and was rampant in the process. Obama also vowed during the campaign that voters would have five days to look at the final bill before he signed it, his attempt to let “sunshine” into the process. For the health care bill, he waited just for one-and-a-half days.
You don't have to change your doctor or health insurance plan
"If you like your plan and you like your doctor, you won't have to do a thing. You keep your plan; you keep your doctor. If your employer's providing you good health insurance, terrific. We're not going to mess with it." -- President Obama, June 23, 2009This promise seemed to be in every health care speech during the campaign and the beginning of Obama's presidency. But then the reality of the 40 percent tax on high-quality health insurance plans plus the massive number of new regulatory bureaus began piling up. Even the Democrat's Congressional Budget Office Director Doug Elmendorf pointed out that Medicare cuts could “reduce access to care or diminish the quality of care.” Indeed, the whole point of the taxes and regulations is to get people to spend less by no longer buying the best quality care.
Conclusion
There is a long list of other broken promises. For instance, he assured us during the campaign that he would not mandate that adults purchase health insurance. But would Obama and the Democrats have won election if he had promised what he ended up doing: to dramatically increase government spending and deficits, raise taxes on the middle class, hide special deals on health care, and make it impossible for people to keep their current doctors and health insurance plans?
John R. Lott, Jr. is a FOXNews.com contributor. He is an economist and author of "More Guns, Less Crime (University of Chicago Press, 2010), the third edition will be published in May."
===
Obama: Real Debate Please, Not Maoist Reeducation
By Liz Peek
The country is reeling from the worst recession in decades, a profound distrust of our financial institutions, massive unemployment, real anxieties about budget deficits and our country’s role in the world, and disillusionment with our political process. We need to continue a legitimate and honest dialogue about the shortcomings of Obama’s health care bill, not a Maoist reeducation of the masses.
There is a powerful narrative brewing about President Obama’s healthcare legislation. If you oppose the controversial bill, you must be:
A racist;
A crook;
A nut; or,
A Republican – ie, all of the above.
Never mind that as of today’s polling, more than half the country still doesn’t like the bill. Naysayers are simply misguided, and will be turned around by our insistent president, or his fans in the media. Editors at the New York Times, for instance, dismiss opposition as “narrow political obstructionism”, and have done their best to shield readers from the ugly impact of the bill. Even so, there are a few balky Americans who may require harsher reeducation, such as corporate leaders.
This week, several large companies announced that they will take significant charges to first-quarter profits in anticipation of higher costs stemming from Obamacare. The administration and law maker’s immediate reaction was hostility and skepticism, respectively, who brook no criticism of their handiwork. California Democrat Henry Waxman, head of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, plans to hold meetings next month “to investigate the effects of the law on big companies.” He has asked the CEOs of companies like Caterpillar, Deere and others to document the accounting behind the planned charges, implying that the write-offs were a political stunt. Has Mr. Waxman ever met an accountant? Unlike members of Congress, CPAs generally don’t engage in frivolous antics. A CEO actually has extremely limited authority over his income statement.
Whiny governors and mayors are next on the tutoring program. A front-page headline in the New York Times carried after the crucial vote warns “Some States Find Burdens in Health Laws.” Really? Now, there’s a shocker – except that state executives have been warning of such issues for months. With great surprise, the Times reveals that Arizona, for instance, will struggle to fund insurance for 350,000 children and adults that lost coverage as that state attempted to stem its $2.6 billion budget deficit. California has to find $500 million to meet the increase in Medicaid payments required under Obamacare. Texas, too, will struggle to meet higher Medicaid outlays. There was a reason that Ben Nelson wanted a special deal – the bill foists off onto the states giant new Medicaid obligations, which many will not easily meet.
Also alarming is the news that New York City will have to close public hospitals because of a looming $1.5 billion budget shortfall. The city’s Health & Hospital Corporation treated 452,000 uninsured patients last year. Budget-driven shut-downs will certainly make it harder to treat the thousands of new patients lining up to take advantage of their new health care coverage. President Obama and his admirers in the press have been unwilling or unable to imagine that fiscal problems facing states and municipalities should hamper federal largesse. Taxes raised to prop up Obamacare will limit monies available to maintain state or city programs – or to other destinations, such as jobs programs. In other words, it really is a zero-sum game. For ordinary citizens, paying higher state taxes feels just like paying higher federal taxes. President Obama continues to operate as though those pesky local budget issues sully a different planet.
Also in need of reeducation are those examining Social Security. Excitement over the passage of the health care bill has encouraged comparisons with other socially progressive, nation-changing legislation – like Social Security. It was probably just coincidental that the New York Times waited until the day after the health care vote to run a sobering front-page story about the fiscal challenges faced by Social Security. By mid-week, the paper reported that for the first time in its history, the giant entitlements program would likely pay out more than it takes in this year. That threshold could become “the first step of a long, slow march to insolvency.” Stories like that make readers anxious about the sustainability of large government programs – programs like, well, you can fill in the blanks.
Meanwhile, recent op-eds reveal how health care critics will be treated going forward. Writing in the Times, Charles Blow portrays tea-partiers and others opposing the bill as racist hate-mongers. Blow admits the tea-partiers may have “some legitimate concerns (taxation, the role of government, etc.) but its message is lost in the madness.” Blow dismisses anxieties about rising taxes and the expanding reach of government, of course. I wonder what the “etc.” stands for -- fiscal insolvency?
The country is reeling from the worst recession in decades, a profound distrust of our financial institutions, massive unemployment, real anxieties about budget deficits and our country’s role in the world, and disillusionment with our political process. We need to continue a legitimate and honest dialog about the shortcomings of Obama’s healthcare bill, not a Maoist reeducation of the masses.
Liz Peek is a columnist with the New York Sun, Foxnews.com and the Huffington Post. She is a graduate of Wellesley College with an honors degree in Economics and was the first woman to lead the National Association of Petroleum Investment Analysts.
www.Lizpeek.com
===
Selective Outrage, Bogus Claims of Violence Used Against Tea Parties
By Dan Gainor
No one should be threatened for serving this nation. But if Stupak, Frank and others can’t handle criticism and anger, then they are in the wrong business. And if the media can’t handle this war of words as referees, not players, then they should stay out of it entirely.
It’s obvious journalists think the tea partiers are a dangerous, racist, homophobic bunch of loons. It’s not just wacky MSNBC or the liberal Washington Post spreading this garbage. It’s nearly every major news outlet. Behind them, pulling the strings like Geppetto, is the core of the liberal movement – “progressive” websites, lefty personalities and Democratic politicians all making the same claim.
They are all wrong. In some cases, they are openly lying. In most cases, they are taking hypocrisy to epic levels.
First of all, claims that the tea party movement is made up of dangerous “extremists” are disproven automatically by events. Tea party groups have been around more than a year throwing hundreds or even thousands of protest rallies. Yet, less violence has actually occurred than you might see at an NFL game between rival fans.
Yet, the theme of Tea Party-violence is everywhere. It even led to claims that former Gov. Sarah Palin’s, R-Alaska, used a "threatening" political strategy map. That map was made to take "aim" at 20 congressional races, using crosshairs. Critics were upset by the use of crosshairs to indicate each race. It’s as if the media expect us to forget that journalists use “target” and “aim” in stories all the time or that we live in a nation where 1,740 stores operate under the “Target” name and use a bullseye as a logo. But the media combined Palin's map with Palin’s use of the word “reload” to paint her as a member of the fringe element.
New York Times columnist Paul Krugman called out Palin because he’s afraid of his shadow: “And Sarah Palin put out a map literally putting Democratic lawmakers in the cross hairs of a rifle sight.” MSNBC called it a “Dem Hit-list.”
Reporters could have found a much scarier quote from the campaign, like this one from a Philadelphia visit in 2008: “If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun.” Now that sounds threatening – except it wasn’t Palin or even Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. who said it. That's what then-senator, now-President Obama said on the campaign trail. But because it didn’t fit the media's theme, it was disregarded.
There are ample examples of scary left-wing comments and even left-wing violence. There are countless online instances of liberals calling for Bush’s assassination when he was president – photos of Bush with a target drawn on his photo. O,r even the movie “Death of a President,” which was made about his assassination. I guess that was all in good humor and high art along with the 6.3 million links Google finds connecting Bush and Hitler. Now comparisons of Obama to Hitler are supposed to be over-the-top. Were journalists asleep during all the lefty hatred of Bush?
Then, there’s actual left-wing violence, like the violent protests during the 1999 World Trade Organization conference. The violence got so bad, the media named it “The Battle in Seattle.” There was also left-wing violence at the GOP 2008 convention, turning the event into an armed camp. And there were union thug tactics at the town halls. And former CNN host Lou Dobbs was threatened and a gun was shot at his home.
Any liberal claims to non-violence are long gone. Once you cut that string, all that remains is media's hand-wringing and selective outrage over a few incidents. That doesn’t excuse actual threats to congressmen. But the media act like such threats only come from the right when they don’t. For the best example, let’s take the darling of health care reform Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich. Stupak’s complaints about threats and nasty calls were aired in five broadcast news stories after he switched sides in the health care battle.
But before he was for health care reform, he was against it. The calls and threats that time were so intense, he had to disconnect his phone. Total broadcast news stories about that? Zero. Look back at what Stupak told The Hill. “All the phones are unplugged at our house — tired of the obscene calls and threats.” All because he opposed Obama and the Democrats.
Who exactly was making those phone calls? Republicans?
Then there are media complaints about what protesters have said. There’s no doubt out of millions of protesters, a few might have said something inappropriate. If the media treated left-wing protest with the same fine-tooth comb, they’d be shocked by the results. The Democrat's high-profile claims of bigotry and homophobia both don't hold water. Civil rights leader Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., made claims that he heard a racial comment during his trip to the Capitol. But several audio and video tapes don’t confirm it.
Then there were complaints about an anti-gay slur reportedly made to openly gay Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass. This is particularly ludicrous because the media and Democratic members of Congress have been slurring the Tea Party movement with the gay “teabagger” comment for a year now.
The term "teabagger" excited lefties from alleged news personages, like Anderson Cooper, George Stephanopoulos and David Shuster, to Democratic Reps. Maxine Waters, Calif., and Anthony Weiner, N.Y., to a parade of liberal talk show hosts like Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow. Maddow and guest Ana Marie Cox went so nutty, that they used the word “teabag” at least 51 times in a 13-minute long segment of juvenile “teabag” puns.
That’s the common left-wing and media response to ordinary Americans trying to get involved in their nation’s government – abuse and lots of it. After 14 months of a battle where critics were repeatedly demeaned, labeled as racists, told their anger was uncalled for and that their movement was “Astroturf,” or phony grassroots. It’s no wonder they are angry. This, after Democrats told taxpayers Congress might OK a bill without voting on it, though most Americans oppose the bill.
That doesn’t excuse someone threatening violence, or saying “I’m going to kill you.” But people say that all the time without really meaning it. Fans say it to referees, parents say it to children and brothers say it to brothers – all in the heat of anger. That, along with mountainous piles of hate mail, are part and parcel to work in D.C. for both sides.
No one should be threatened for serving this nation. But if Stupak, Frank and others can’t handle criticism and anger, then they are in the wrong business. And if the media can’t handle this war of words as referees, not players, then they should stay out of it entirely.
Dan Gainor is The Boone Pickens Fellow and the Media Research Center’s Vice President for Business and Culture. His column appears each week on The Fox Forum. He can also be contacted on Facebook and Twitter as dangainor.
===
MPs insist Climategate just hot air
Andrew Bolt
Climategate was a lot of fuss about nothing, claims Britain’s parliamentary inquiry into the scandal:
The focus on Professor Jones and CRU has been largely misplaced. On the accusations relating to Professor Jones’s refusal to share raw data and computer codes, the Committee considers that his actions were in line with common practice in the climate science community but that those practices need to change…A remarkably generous finding.
Insofar as the Committee was able to consider accusations of dishonesty against CRU, the Committee considers that there is no case to answer.
The Committee found no reason in this inquiry to challenge the scientific consensus as expressed by Professor Beddington, the Government Chief Scientific Adviser, that “global warming is happening [and] that it is induced by human activity”. But this was not an inquiry into the science produced by CRU and it will be for the Scientific Appraisal Panel, announced by the University on 22 March, to determine whether the work of CRU has been soundly built.
===
Where did the climate crisis go?
Andrew Bolt
Peter Costello is amazed that climate alarmism can be switched off and on at will:
Last year, we were told, the most important issue for the country - for the planet - was greenhouse gas emissions. This meant the Senate had to pass the government’s carbon pollution reduction scheme.
It was so urgent it had to be legislated before the end of the year, and before the summit in Copenhagen… Kevin Rudd declared climate change ‘’the great moral and economic challenge of our time’’.
Now the legislation has become less important than getting 30 per cent of the GST from the states so the government can rearrange financing in the hospital system. Can a momentous moral challenge fizzle out like this? Or are you beginning to suspect all the crisis was politically driven?…
Our monthly Anglican newspaper broadly reflects the prevailing progressive left opinion. In the December issue, in the lead-up to the government’s self imposed timetable for securing the emissions trading legislation, it ran four extensive articles on the need for action over climate change. It published no contrary views.
In fact, the Copenhagen summit was given more column inches than Christmas, which is quite an achievement for a religious newspaper. But the issue has hardly registered in the newspaper since. Even though nothing has happened, the urgency has gone out of the campaign.
===
Save the planet! Scrap democracy
Andrew Bolt
Global warming really does appeal to the inner totalitarian. Take James Lovelock, the Gaia guru:
One of the main obstructions to meaningful action is “modern democracy”, he added. “Even the best democracies agree that when a major war approaches, democracy must be put on hold for the time being. I have a feeling that climate change may be an issue as severe as a war. It may be necessary to put democracy on hold for a while.”Before him, Clive Hamilton:
(T)he implications of 3C, let alone 4C or 5C, are so horrible that we look to any possible scenario to head it off, including the canvassing of “emergency” responses such as the suspension of democratic processes.Ditto from David Shearman and Joseph Wayne Smith, authors of The Climate Change Challenge and the Failure of Democracy:
Shearman and Smith argue that liberal democracy—considered sacrosanct in modern societies—is an impediment to finding ecologically sustainable solutions for the planet.And, of course, Venezuelan authoritarian Hugo Chavez:
We must reduce all the emissions that are destroying the planet… That requires a change in the economic model: we must go from capitalism to socialism.(Thanks to reader Bernie.)
===
Complicated politics explained
Andrew Bolt
Peter Hartcher, political editor for the Sydney Morning Herald, likes his politics kept hiss-boo simple:Obama is a reasonable, results-driven President, and his opponents are extremists.All of them.
Next week Hartcher explains the Middle East conflict.
(Thanks to reader Geoff.)
===
Who doubts Henry seems Labor’s man?
Andrew Bolt
Who could disagree with the Opposition’s new finance spokesman, other than to say he could have gone in harder?
ANDREW ROBB: On the question of Ken Henry, I do think that many in business at least see Ken Henry as a sort of de facto Treasurer.(No link to AM transcript.)
ALEXANDRA KIRK: Do you see him as partisan?
ANDREW ROBB: No, I am saying he is seen as a sort of a de facto Treasurer because I think there is no confidence in the ability or understanding of Wayne Swan and Kevin Rudd and Lindsay Tanner in the essential running of an economic programme in the country. But, in many respects Ken Henry is dictating many of the decisions and certainly I think that’s been the case over the last year or two and that leaves a perception that he is more partisan or that the Treasury is adopting a more hands on role than it might have in the past.
===
Labor asks: Who, us?
Andrew Bolt
These blokes seem to believe their own spin…
Graham Richardson on ABC1’s Q & A :===CHRISTMAS Island is clearly chock-a-block. So we have to build places here and I don’t mean somewhere out in the desert in South Australia with barbed wire and 45 degrees every day.Dennis Shanahan in The Australian on February 8, 2002:MANDATORY detention was introduced by Labor in 1992 when the wave of boatpeople was less than 500 arrivals a year and peaked at 1000 a year under Labor when hundreds were detained in the desert centres surrounded by barbed wire, where there were hunger strikes, suicide attempts and psychological damage.Where was Richo when the camps were built?From the Q & A website: RICHO served as a [cabinet] minister in a number of portfolios from 1987 to 1994.Kevin Rudd in parliament on March 16:IN November 1999 there were 14 boat arrivals, the highest number of boats in any one month on record.Phillip Coorey and Yuko Narushima on Page 1 of The Sydney Morning Herald yesterday:JUST over a week after goading the former Howard government for holding the record for the most illegal boat arrivals in a month, the Rudd government has taken the title with 15, one more than the 14 recorded in November 1999.
First a trial, only then the shaming
Andrew Bolt
Janet Albrechtsen on the media trial of Hey Dad! star Robert Hughes, publicly charged with sexually abusing his child co-star:
The media frenzy sparked by the allegations made by Sarah Monahan, the former Hey Dad! child actress, against her screen father Hughes a few weeks ago is the worst kind of Australian journalism. This is a textbook case of irresponsible media conduct that diminishes, rather than enhances, our democratic institutions…
Grant Williams, executive producer of [A Current Affair], says his show’s expose “CAUSED” a police investigation rather than hindered one… Woman’s Day and ACA may have sparked an investigation, but their conduct may have hindered a fair trial for a man accused in the media of abusing children. And if Hughes is innocent, the media has damaged his reputation beyond repair…
This is not about defending a pervert and trashing a victim. This is about protecting a justice system that depends on a professional police investigation and an impartial jury pool capable of judging the evidence, evidence that police and courts do not pay for…
Last Friday, a full 10 days after first telling Woman’s Day in a paid interview that she was abused by a man on the set of Hey Dad!, Monahan said that “she was headed straight to the police”, only after giving another (reportedly paid) interview to ACA.
Angela Kemp, who replaced Monahan on the Hey Dad! set, answered queries from The Sunday Telegraph by saying: “I just want to respect the agreement I have given to Woman’s Day.”
When asked whether she would go to the police, she said, “It’s not my intention.”
Others have also gone public with allegations against Hughes, including former actresses Megan Waters, Simone Buchanan and two daughters of a sound technician who worked on the sitcom’s set. There are no reasons to doubt their motives, but there is something terribly wrong if their public statements, egged on by media outlets desperate for more readers and more viewers, taint an investigation and possible prosecution....
And by the way, why did no one, no one at all, go to the police 17 years ago?…
The truth has yet to be established. We have courts to test evidence and juries to make that determination… There is a far greater public interest in ensuring a fair trial for an alleged pedophile than providing a media platform for the public to watch his fall from grace.
===
Blacks are for Greens to pet
Andrew Bolt
Aborigines battle the new colonialists, who decree them too inferior to know their own minds:
THE Kimberley’s peak indigenous body has attacked the “disgusting” tactics of green groups and out-of-town celebrities opposed to industrial development near Broome, accusing them of fundamental dishonesty and abusive, dirty politics.
The Kimberley Land Council also said the Wilderness Society and Save the Kimberley environmental groups were “pitting family groups against each other” in a bid to undermine traditional owners, who have made the tough decision to back a job-creating multi-billion-dollar gas hub at James Price Point on the Dampier Peninsular, 60km north of Broome.
Declaring Aborigines the first conservationists, KLC executive director Wayne Bergmann said it was “distressing” that Aborigines were being vilified as “developers” by green groups and said opponents needed to understand the damage they were doing to local indigenous people.
“Save the Kimberley and the Wilderness Society are pretending to champion the indigenous cause in order to bolster their own position and credibility,” Mr Bergmann said. “They’re not helping Aboriginal people...”
Celebrities such as John Butler, Midnight Oil drummer Rob Hirst and Missy Higgins have joined retired Federal Court judge Murray Wilcox in pushing to stop the gas hub, accusing the Barnett government of riding roughshod over the rights of local Aborigines.
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Our no-sweat moralists
Andrew Bolt
WHO knew being a saint could be this easy? Even a moron can now manage it, and - as we saw again last weekend - morons try.
Switch off your lights, and you’ve saved the planet.
Have a dance, and you’ve made poverty history.
Walk over a bridge, and you’ve ended Aboriginal suffering.
Or you can do all three at once - dance on a dark bridge - and usher in Paradise itself.
But hurry with that, because last Saturday’s ooga-booga Earth Hour made us seem stuck instead in a Hell of the smug and lazy.
Earth Hour. Could there be a better symbol of this feckless age in which seeming counts for more than doing? In which we pose as noble for having done something as pointless as it’s painless?
If I really thought man’s gases were heating the world so dangerously that, as Al Gore says, “the future of human civilisation is at stake”, I’d feel the call to do more than turn off some lights for just one hour a year.
But, no, on Saturday night, tens of thousands of your fellow citizens made a huge show about how good they were to do for one hour what they couldn’t be bothered doing for the other 8759.
So to save the planet from apocalyptic global warming, the lights on the Sydney Harbour Bridge were turned off. For one hour.
To save the planet from frying, government buildings were dimmed. For one hour.
Here and there, the houses of green activists went dark. For one hour - and even then the fridge was left running, because we can’t let the peas defrost just to stop Armageddon. I mean, be reasonable.
You see, this is really just about seeming, not doing. About “raising awareness”, and not actually fixing what we’re suddenly aware of.
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Rorting under Rudd’s nose
Andrew Bolt
The waste, the waste - and Rudd knew:
PROTESTING parents have hijacked plans to spend $3 million of taxpayers’ money building a duplicate library and hall at a school in Kevin Rudd’s electorate.
Nine months after Education Minister Julia Gillard told federal parliament that Holland Park State School was “delighted” with the “once-in-a-lifetime enhancement of its facilities”, her department has quietly agreed to let the school swap the unneeded buildings for eight new classrooms.
The switch was made after lobbying by the school’s Parents and Citizens Association, which warned the Prime Minister repeatedly last year about potential rorting of his government’s $16.2 billion spending spree.
P&C president Craig Mayne - who has since quit the post - blew the whistle on cost blowouts last year in two letters to Mr Rudd and five phone calls to his Griffith electorate office.,,
Mr Mayne, a former civil engineer who oversaw the building of his school’s hall for $200,000 under budget, said no other business would use the Queensland government’s “design and construct” contracts to build nearly $2bn worth of halls, libraries, classrooms and covered learning areas in 1200 state schools.
“What it will turn into is a `Do and Charge’ process, with final costs blown out to match available public funds for the job,” he wrote.
“We have sole operator project managers being paid $525,000 for six months’ work.”
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More boats, deaths, bills and detainees
Andrew Bolt
KEVIN Rudd’s more “compassionate” policy on boat people seems to have created a lot more misery instead.
More boats, more people locked up and more bodies in the sea.
Yes, as Rudd’s 100th boat docks at Christmas Island, note yet another example of how good intentions can bring disastrous results.
Oh, but remember the chorus of cheering from human rights activists when in July 2008, the Rudd Government wound back evil John Howard’s rules?
Take constitutional law expert Prof George Williams, a human rights activist and Labor candidate: “A clear break has been made from the Howard era ... This risk-based approach is more compassionate.”
What’s more, the onus of proof would be switched: rather than make boat people prove they were no threat, the Government would have to prove they were to detain them.
All sweet and well-meaning, of course. But one of the key differences between an adolescent and an adult, or a Leftist and a conservative, is to judge a policy not by the intentions but by the results.
So let’s do that adult thing and check the results of Rudd’s “compassion”. Before the changes, just 18 boats had come in six years, thanks to Howard’s “cruelty”.
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Abbott talks tough on boats
Andrew Bolt
It will be an election issue:
OPPOSITION Leader Tony Abbott has declared he will do “whatever it takes” to stop illegal boat arrivals if he wins office.
Another 70 boats carrying asylum-seekers are tipped to arrive before the federal election, expected later this year. The surge comes as failed asylum-seekers are being offered $1000 taxpayer-funded bribes and airfares to go home.
A group of 89 men who were transferred from Christmas Island to the mainland on the weekend were offered the cash, on the condition they drop any appeals.
As the boat people crisis deepens, the Coalition has again raised the prospect of restoring John Howard’s controversial Pacific Solution - transferring asylum-seekers to detention camps on small islands.... But the Coalition is determined to take a tougher approach on border protection to the election, including a form of temporary visa - a scheme also scrapped by Labor....
Of the 4386 unauthorised arrivals since the Rudd Government took power, just 146 have been returned home.
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