In what can only be viewed as an abandonment of fact for the purpose of Obama advocacy, the New York Times is reporting falsehoods about McCain campaign manager Rick Davis.  The denial from the McCain campaign is pretty categorical.

Today the New York Times launched its latest attack on this campaign in its capacity as an Obama advocacy organization. Let us be clear about what this story alleges: The New York Times charges that McCain-Palin 2008 campaign manager Rick Davis was paid by Freddie Mac until last month, contrary to previous reporting, as well as statements by this campaign and by Mr. Davis himself.

In fact, the allegation is demonstrably false. As has been previously reported, Mr. Davis separated from his consulting firm, Davis Manafort, in 2006. As has been previously reported, Mr. Davis has seen no income from Davis Manafort since 2006. Zero. Mr. Davis has received no salary or compensation since 2006. Mr. Davis has received no profit or partner distributions from that firm on any basis — weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, bi-monthly, quarterly, semi-annual or annual — since 2006. Again, zero. Neither has Mr. Davis received any equity in the firm based on profits derived since his financial separation from Davis Manafort in 2006.

Further, and missing from the Times‘ reporting, Mr. Davis has never — never — been a lobbyist for either Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. Mr. Davis has not served as a registered lobbyist since 2005.

Though these facts are a matter of public record, the New York Times, in what can only be explained as a willful disregard of the truth, failed to research this story or present any semblance of a fairminded treatment of the facts closely at hand. The paper did manage to report one interesting but irrelevant fact: Mr. Davis did participate in a roundtable discussion on the political scene with…Paul Begala.

Again, let us be clear: The New York Times — in the absence of any supporting evidence — has insinuated some kind of impropriety on the part of Senator McCain and Rick Davis. But entirely missing from the story is any significant mention of Senator McCain’s long advocacy for, and co-sponsorship of legislation to enact, stricter oversight and regulation of both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — dating back to 2006. Please see the attached floor statement on this issue by Senator McCain from 2006.

It’s not just misreporting but non-reporting that the Times is guilty of; both of the positive things that McCain has done, and of the negative connections to Obama.  Michael Goldfarb, in this statement, lists a few, but also the full Ayers connection that Mark linked to earlier.  If this tenuous connection to Fannie and Freddie is worth reporting on, certainly that should as well. 

The advocacy journalism of the Times is their right.  Pretending to be nonpartisan is not.

Charlie Martin has gone as far as getting the URL http://www.palinrumors.com/ to point to his ever-updated list of rumors about Sarah Palin.  Since last I visited there, there have been new ones added.  Here are a few (and details are on the site):

#72: No, she didn’t try to charge rape victims personally for rape kits.

#76: No she didn’t institute a “windfall profits” tax on oil companies.

#79: No, Palin didn’t eliminate or “void” the Alaskan WIC program as Newsweek claimed.

#83: No, she did not cut the Special Olympics funding in a recent budget, except in the Washington sense of “didn’t increase it as much as someone wanted.”

#84 Yes, she did bill the Alaska State Government for per diem on days when she was “home.”  But that’s the way the law is written, and even doing what other governors did, she still had expenses one-third to one-fifth of the previous governor’s.

Bookmark that page.

From the Patriot Post, a compendium of quotes regarding the current credit & mortgage crisis, and the bailout being debated.  Quite a number of different takes on it, looking at it from different aspects. 

(By the way, the Patriot Post can come to your inbox 3 times a week.  It’s a good read.)

“Financial institutions are not being bailed out as a favor to them or their stockholders. In fact, stockholders have come out worse off after some bailouts. The real point is to avoid a major contraction of credit that could cause major downturns in output and employment, ruining millions of people, far beyond the financial institutions involved. If it was just a question of the financial institutions themselves, they could be left to sink or swim. But it is not.” —Thomas Sowell

“The credit crunch and foreclosure problems are failures of government policy. In fact, what we see now is a market correction to foolhardy government policy. Congress’ move to bail out lenders and borrowers who made poor decisions will simply create incentives for people to make unwise decisions in the future.” —Walter Williams

“[A]s lawmakers debate buying up hundreds of billions in assets, they should realize that the government’s aggressive meddling in financial decision-making is what got our economy into this mess in the first place. The long-term answer isn’t more federal control, it’s a return to free-market principles.” —Ed Feulner

“Crisis is the friend of the State. The politicians are desperate to be seen as ‘showing leadership,’ so we’re surely in for a new round of government interventions.” —John Stossel

“When the Forbidden Fruit was handed to Adam and Eve, they were allowed the moral choice to accept or decline. I know people who have refused to feast on the money tree. They live simply, within their means, and seem far more content than those who are trying to horde their wealth while clinging to the ladder of ‘success,’ terrified to let go. That isn’t real living. The Puritans rightly saw that as covetousness.” —Cal Thomas

When even the New York Times suggests that we might be winning, or indeed may have already won, the major part of the war in Iraq, that’s saying something.

When I left Baghdad two years ago, the nation’s social fabric seemed too shredded to ever come together again. The very worst had lost its power to shock. To return now is to be jarred in the oddest way possible: by the normal, by the pleasant, even by hope. The questions are jarring, too. Is it really different now? Is this something like peace or victory? And, if so, for whom: the Americans or the Iraqis?

The answer is, “Yes, all of the above.”  Could it break down at a later date?  Yes; no peace this side of eternity is eternal.  But I would be extremely surprised if it breaks down back to rape rooms and all out firefights among Iraqis in some sort of true civil war.  (One militia a la Al Sadr does not a civil war make.)

This article, according to the bottom of the web page, appeared only in the local New York edition of the paper, as if only New Yorkers would be interested in it.  When the news agrees with the editorial page, it’s on the front page.  When it doesn’t, it’s relegated to a spot somewhere around the Parade magazine insert.  That’s what passes for “balance” at the New York Times.

The Washington Post claimed that a recent McCain ad, tying Barack Obama to Franklin Raines, former CEO of Fannie May, was based on “flimsy” evidence.  Problem is, the source for the information was the Washington Post itself. 

Rusty Shackleford’s Jawa Report blog is reporting that the first link in his suspected chain of command in the Palin smear viral video has admitted to producing the video.  However, it appears that Ethan Winner is falling on his sword, claiming full and sole responsibility for the production of the video.  Shackleford isn’t convinced, and he spells out why.

Developing…

This report from Rusty Shackleford has been all the rage on the right side of the blogosphere today.  It links viral video with false claims about Palin back to a PR firm that Obama and the DNC have used, though it was made to look like a grassroots effort.  Most telling is that shortly after this scam was exposed by Shackleford, the videos came down and accounts were deleted.

The connection to Obama himself may be tenuous, but there is a better link to his chief media strategist.  It helps the the voiceover artist used is the same one used on other Obama ads.  Yeah, it smacks of conspiracy theories, but Rusty lays it all out (with screenshots and video, especially for the stuff that has since disappeared).  He reports, you decide.

Is this something that only political junkies would even notice?  Perhaps, but in the Internet world of MySpace, Facebook, and YouTube, campaigns have to sometimes answer charges that don’t make it into the mainstream media.  Although in this case, the New York Times and a number of liberal pundits did pick up and run with the charge that Sarah Palin had been a member of the Alaskan Independence Party, a secessionist group.  A big enough deal was made out of it that even FactCheck.org had to debunk the rumor.

Is this the “change” and “hope” and new kind of politics that Obama has promised his supporters?  They may have been sold a bill of goods.

One of the problems I have with socialized healthcare is that it takes the responsibility for payment out of the hands of the person getting the care and places it in the hands of a massive bureaucracy that has, depending on the system, either a monopoly on being the payer or at least one of the larger ones.  As such, it has an incentive to cut costs, but its incentive isn’t nearly as personal as an individual payer.  The larger the bureaucracy, the less concern for the individual. 

I’ve noted before how this led to the state of Oregon denying cancer medication to a woman, but still gave her coverage for physician-assisted suicide.  It also leads to a British medical ethics expert suggesting that the elderly should take the same route, for the good of society.

Elderly people suffering from dementia should consider ending their lives because they are a burden on the NHS and their families, according to the influential medical ethics expert Baroness Warnock.

The veteran Government adviser said pensioners in mental decline are “wasting people’s lives” because of the care they require and should be allowed to opt for euthanasia even if they are not in pain.

She insisted there was “nothing wrong” with people being helped to die for the sake of their loved ones or society.

The 84-year-old added that she hoped people will soon be “licensed to put others down” if they are unable to look after themselves.

Her comments in a magazine interview have been condemned as “immoral” and “barbaric”, but also sparked fears that they may find wider support because of her influence on ethical matters.

Lady Warnock, a former headmistress who went on to become Britain’s leading moral philosopher, chaired a landmark Government committee in the 1980s that established the law on fertility treatment and embryo research.

(A tip of the Blogger’s Fedora to Right Wing News.)

The “leading moral philosopher” in Britain is asking people to die for the good of the state.  What an insane world we live in.

…in a single two-panel cartoon at Red Planet Cartoons.  The problem seems to stem from folks defaulting on home loans.  It’s easy to label the lending institution “greedy” and go from there, but there’s a whole lot more to it than that.  One big-government program has spawned this new big-government bailout. 

Those with short attention spans will miss the larger picture.  The larger picture is the more important one.

Though “stealing” would be more the verb I’d use.  In Obama’s latest ad running in the southwest, with narration in Spanish, he ties McCain to Limbaugh and then quotes Limbaugh on immigration issues.  It calls McCain two-faced and a liar.  But as Jake Tapper of ABC News discovers, the ad itself is where the deceit is.

The Obama camp draws a very tenuous link between Limbaugh and McCain to start the smear.  Essentially, they say, they both supported the Minutemen.  Well, except McCain didn’t, and Limbaugh has openly and loudly disagreed with McCain on immigration for a long time. 

And then the two quotes from Limbaugh are out of context, one in the extreme.  They took a quote from Rush’s sense of what American immigration law would be if they were like Mexico’s.  He paraphrased protest laws for foreigners in Mexico by saying, “shut your mouth or get out”, and the ad makes it sound like he’s speaking to immigrants. 

Tapper’s article has the full context for the quotes and both sides of the story on the “lies”.  Karl Rove would be proud. 

Oh, and someone please tell Ed O’Keefe of the Washington Post that his entirely uncritical reporting on this new ad does a disservice to his readers (but a rather nice service to Obama). 

Used to be that Google would allow pro-abortion groups to advertise with them, but not anti-abortion ones.  The threat of legal action in the UK has shown them the error of their ways.

Christian and other religious groups opposed to abortion were allowed to advertise on Google for the first time from today, after the search engine capitulated in the face of a legal challenge.

Google had banned pro-life religious groups from buying adverts against search terms such as “abortion” and “abortion help” but was forced to abandon its policy after it was accused of breaching equalities legislation.

The challenge was brought by the Christian Institute, a cross-denominational pressure group, who said that Google’s change of heart was an acknowledgement of the rights of everybody to hold an opinion on the subject.

Mike Judge from the Christian Institute said: “Google were taking adverts from pro-abortion groups, and our view is that was a free speech issue. What we want to do is set out the acts in a pretty factual and pretty sensible way”.

Google had been taken to court by the Christian Institute earlier in the year, arguing that its policy was in breach of the Equalities Act of 2006. Initially, Google said it would fight in the courts, but changed its mind over the summer. Its new policy applies globally.

Acknowledging that the issue of abortion was “an emotive subject”, Google said that it reconsidered its policy following the Christian Institute’s challenge, and said it would be “creating a level playing field and enabling religious associations to place ads on abortion in a factual way”.

The United Nations continues to get stonewalled by Iran, and intends to commit the situation to further study.  In the meantime, there’s good evidence that Iran’s nuclear program is more than just for “peaceful purposes”.

Iran is continuing to stall on UN investigation into its disputed nuclear programme, refusing to provide access to documentation, individuals or sites which could reveal the true nature of its activities, the UN atomic watchdog said Monday.

Furthermore, the Islamic republic is defying international demands to suspend uranium enrichment, a process that can be used to make the fissile material for an atomic bomb, the International Atomic Energy Agency said.

The United States warned Iran could now face possible new sanctions in the wake of the IAEA’s findings.

The agency complained that it was making little headway in its investigation into allegations that Tehran had, in the past, been involved in studies to make a nuclear warhead.

The IAEA “regrettably has not been able to make any substantive progress on the alleged studies and other associated key remaining issues which remain of serious concern,” said the restricted report, a copy of which was obtained by AFP.

Read the rest of this entry

…by Francis Cianfrocca, aka “Blackhedd”, at Redstate.  His explanation of the situation that the Fed found themselves in with regard to AIG is, for the most part, readable by a non-financier. 

He also addresses the anger some are feeling about the government bailing out another huge firm, and against the top brass of that company.  In addition, he touches on how this affects free-market capitalists and the eggshells the government is now walking on in this regard.

A good read.

First, the New York Times, from July 3, 1984, on Geraldine Ferraro and the question of experience.

Where is it written that only senators are qualified to become President? Surely Ronald Reagan does not subscribe to that maxim. Or where is it written that mere representatives aren’t qualified, like Geraldine Ferraro of Queens? Representative Morris Udall, who lost New Hampshire to Jimmy Carter by a hair in 1976, must surely disagree. So must a longtime Michigan Congressman named Gerald Ford. Where is it written that governors and mayors, like Dianne Feinstein of San Francisco, are too local, too provincial? That didn’t stop Richard Nixon from picking Spiro Agnew, a suburban politician who became Governor of Maryland. Remember the main foreign affairs credential of Georgia’s Governor Carter: He was a member of the Trilateral Commission. Presidential candidates have always chosen their running mates for reasons of practical demography, not idealized democracy. One might even say demography is destiny: this candidate was chosen because he could deliver Texas, that one because he personified rectitude, that one because he appealed to the other wing of the party. On occasion, Americans find it necessary to rationalize this rough-and-ready process. What a splendid system, we say to ourselves, that takes little-known men, tests them in high office and permits them to grow into statesmen. This rationale may even be right, but then let it also be fair. Why shouldn’t a little-known woman have the same opportunity to grow? We may even be gradually elevating our standards for choosing Vice Presidential candidates. But that should be done fairly, also. Meanwhile, the indispensable credential for a Woman Who is the same as for a Man Who – one who helps the ticket.

(Emphasis added by NewsBusters.org.) 

And now, the New York Times, from September 11, 2008, on Sarah Palin and the question of experience.

It is well past time for Sarah Palin, Republican running mate, governor of Alaska and self-proclaimed reformer, to fill in for the voting public the gaping blanks about her record and qualifications to be vice president.

[…]

Voters have a right to hear Ms. Palin explain in detail her qualifications to be standby president with no national or foreign policy experience. More is required of any serious candidate for such a high office than one interview with questions put by one selected source.

The paper of record can’t seem to get its story straight.  Any wonder the old media is losing its credibility?

From Bruce McQuain at Q&O, comes a quiz:

1.  Who identified and tried to fix what presently ails Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae 5 years ago?

2.  Who opposed the plan, saying they were not in any kind of financial crisis?

McQuain gives a hint as to what the answer to #2 is; the same folks who say Social Security is just fine, and Medicare is doing well, too.  Bruce has a link to a contemporaneous New York Times article that explains the proposal and the smack down. 

Remember this when Dem…er, certain politicians try to place blame for this and try to use it as a campaign gimmick.