Where Are My Keys?

Nice priorities, Mr. Olbermann..

Was flying back home last night, and channel-surfing Frontier and their lineup of 24 DirecTV offerings.  Watched coverage of the Ft. Hood shootings on Fox, CNN, and MSNBC.  Then the O'Reilly/Olbermann/et al shows came on.

I found it interesting that Countdown began not with the terrorist attack in Texas, but with coverage of the Tea Party march on D.C.  So instead of talking about the actual murders and injuries happening that very day in Texas, Olbermann instead chose to talk about "veiled threats" and how the Tea Partiers might cause violence.

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Nice grasp of the news, Mr. Olbermann.

As a related story, some folks are not impressed with how the President handled the shootings at Ft Hood:

After news broke out of the shooting at the Fort Hood Army post in Texas, the nation watched in horror as the toll of dead and injured climbed. The White House was notified immediately and by late afternoon, word went out that the president would speak about the incident prior to a previously scheduled appearance. At about 5 p.m., cable stations went to the president. The situation called for not only his trademark eloquence, but also grace and perspective.

But instead of a somber chief executive offering reassuring words and expressions of sympathy and compassion, viewers saw a wildly disconnected and inappropriately light president making introductory remarks. At the event, a Tribal Nations Conference hosted by the Department of Interior's Bureau of Indian affairs, the president thanked various staffers and offered a "shout-out" to "Dr. Joe Medicine Crow -- that Congressional Medal of Honor winner."  Three minutes in, the president spoke about the shooting, in measured and appropriate terms. Who is advising him?

Anyone at home aware of the major news story of the previous hours had to have been stunned. An incident like this requires a scrapping of the early light banter. The president should apologize for the tone of his remarks, explain what has happened, express sympathy for those slain and appeal for calm and patience until all the facts are in. That's the least that should occur. 

Keep in mind that the above excerpt came out of Chicago.

The view is a tad different when you sit in the Big Chair..

Remember how we were told what a bad guy Bush was for using FISA wiretaps to protect the Country?  What say those on the Left now, when "their guy" is using the same defense as Bush?

In Shubert, the plaintiffs seek to recover damages for what they allege was illegal surveillance of them carried out under the NSA's program. The Obama administration's submission in support of its motion to dismiss the case makes clear that the Bush administration (and we, for that matter) were right all along about the importance of the program and the potential for injury to our national security posed by leaks about it. Here are some of the factual allegations in an affidavit submitted in support of the motion by Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair. You can read the declaration in its entirety here:

3. ...[I]t is my judgment that sensitive state secrets are so central to the subject matter of the litigation that any attempt to proceed in the case will substantially risk the disclosure of classified privileged national security information described herein and will therefore risk exceptionally grave damage to the national security of the United States. ...

13. First, I am asserting privilege over information that would reveal whether particular individuals, including the named plaintiffs in this lawsuit, have been subject to the alleged NSA intelligence activities. Disclosure of such information would cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security. The NSA cannot publicly confirm or deny whether any particular individual is subject to surveillance activities. ...

14. Second, I am also asserting privilege over any other facts concerning NSA surveillance activities, sources, or methods that may relate to or be necessary to adjudicate the plaintiffs' claims, including, but not limited to, allegations that the NSA, with the assistance of telecommunications companies, has indiscriminately intercepted the content and obtained large quantities of communications records as part of the Program authorized by the President after 9/11. ... As noted above, my privilege assertion encompasses (1) facts concerning the operation of the now-defunct Terrorist Surveillance Program, including any facts needed to demonstrate that the TSP was limited to the interception of the content of one-end foreign communications reasonably believed to involve a member or agent of al Qaeda or an affiliated terrorist organization, and that the NSA does not otherwise conduct a dragnet of conduct surveillance as the plaintiffs allege; and, to the extent relevant, (2) information concerning whether the NSA obtains communication transactional records from the telecommunication companies.

15. As the NSA indicates, ... the NSA's collection of the content of communications under the TSP was directed at international communications in which a participant was reasonably believed to be associated with al Qaeda or an affiliated organization. Thus, as the Government has previously stated, plaintiffs' allegation that the NSA has indiscriminately collected the content of millions of communications sent or received by people inside the United States after 9/11 under the TSP is false. I concur with the NSA that to the extent it must demonstrate in this case that the TSP was not the content dragnet plaintiffs allege, or demonstrate that the NSA has not otherwise engaged in the alleged content dragnet, highly classified NSA intelligence sources and methods about the operation of the TSP and other NSA intelligence activities would be disclosed or at risk of disclosure which would cause exceptionally grave harm to national security.

Note the propositions that are stated or implied by Admiral Blair's declaration and by the Obama administration's motion to dismiss: 1) The NSA's Terrorist Surveillance Program was vital to our national security. 2) The TSP was carefully targeted, as the Bush administration maintained all along, at international communications that involved a person reasonably believed to be a member or agent of al Qaeda. 3) The Bush administration could not defend itself in detail against the false claims that were made about the TSP because doing so would have disclosed vitally important secrets about our means and methods of fighting terrorists. 4) Leaks about the NSA program threatened to compromise a program that was vital to our national security. 5) While the TSP in its original form is now "defunct," the NSA's current programs--referred to as "other NSA intelligence activities" by Admiral Blair--are so closely related (I suspect they are virtually identical) that disclosures about the TSP would still imperil our security.

Classy move by the MSM..

Obama has decided that Fox News isn't news, so he has cut off access to his Administration to Fox reporters. 

The other Networks did the right thing, and told the Administration to open up to all Networks, or they wouldn't do the interviews.  I do have to agree with the Hot Air guys in their assessment of why they may have acted that way:

The other networks deserve the praise they’re getting for standing up to the Baby-in-Chief, but if they had acquiesced in this freezeout, a precedent would have been set that would have been eagerly used by future Republican presidents to close them off too. And don’t think they weren’t all keenly aware of it.

Could this be the beginning of change in how the President is covered?  I hope so.

I'm still trying to figure out why Obama continues to play this game.  If he keeps it up, the MSM will hold his feet to the fire, so they aren't shut out when a Republican is in the White House.  If he backs down, then it will upset his base.  It's been said that in a fight, you only fight "up", as fighting an opponent that is "under" you only gives more light to that position.

Did pettiness and childishness get the best of Obama?

If this had happened on Fox..

We'd be hearing up and down how "we all look alike to you" from the black community.  But since it happened on MSNBC, it's an innocent mistake, right?

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What about the salaries of the guys at Fannie and Freddie?

Pay Czar will slash paychecks at bailed out firms.  Well, some of them.

The seven companies that received the most assistance will have to cut the annual salaries of their 25 highest-paid executive by an average of about 90 percent from last year, said the person, who spoke on condition of anonymity because it has not been announced.

This person said Wednesday that the Treasury Department will announce the deep pay cuts within the next few days.

Kenneth Feinberg, the special master at Treasury appointed by Obama to handle compensation issues at the seven firms getting exceptional assistance from the government's $700 billion financial bailout package, is making the pay decisions.

The seven companies are: Bank of America Corp., American International Group Inc., Citigroup Inc., General Motors, GMAC, Chrysler and Chrysler Financial.

Total compensation for the top executives at the seven firms will decline, on average, by about 50 percent, according to the person familiar with the administration's decision.

At the financial products division of AIG, the giant insurance company which has received taxpayer assistance valued at more than $180 billion, no top executive will receive more than $200,000 in total compensation, the person familiar with Feinberg's plan said. The administration also will warn AIG that it must fulfill a commitment to significantly reduce the $198 million in bonuses promised to employees in its financial services division, the arm of the company whose risky trades caused its downfall.

The pay restrictions for all seven companies will require any executive seeking more than $25,000 in special benefits -- things such as country club memberships, private planes and company cars -- to get permission for those perks from the government.

Since this only affects the top seven firms, it makes me think Freddie may be #8.  Will any reporters ask the Administration why they are stopping at only seven?  Why not the top 25?  Top 50?

How much is the new head of Freddie making, anyway?

The pay package given to Freddie Mac's new chief financial officer should have sent a message from Washington to corporate America about how executive compensation standards must change. Instead, it did just the opposite.

The government-controlled mortgage finance company is giving CFO Ross Kari compensation worth as much as $5.5 million. That includes an almost $2 million cash signing bonus and a generous salary that could top $2.3 million.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency, which oversees Freddie Mac, approved the pay package. A spokeswoman pointed to a statement that justified the agency's approval of the pay, which was done in part because the amount was comparable to what others in the financial services industry make.

Actually, Freddie and Fannie don't fall under the guidelines, because the monies they received didn't come from TARP.  So they don't have to play by the same rules.  What is interesting is that Ross Kari (the new head of Freddie) came from Fifth Third Bancorp, where he was CFO:

When Kari joins Freddie Mac on Oct. 12, he will receive a base salary of $675,000 and is entitled to an additional $1.66 million in cash for the year. The company said Kari will be paid in installments, but did not specify the timing of those payments in a Sept. 24 securities filing. The company declined to comment beyond the filing.

Kari will also receive performance-based pay at the board's discretion. The target amount for that cash compensation is $1.16 million, but what is actually given to Kari could be higher or lower.

His cash signing bonus totals $1.95 million and will be paid out in semi-monthly installments over the year. That money is supposed to cover what he forfeited in stock options and grants when he left Fifth Third Bancorp, where he served as CFO since last November.

Freddie Mac also said it would immediately allow him to sell his home to the company, waiving a 60-day offer period that is required for other executives. It did not, however, specify which of his homes would be covered; Kari has residences in Ohio, Oregon and Washington State, according to the filing.

No doubt that Kari is an able executive and has a hard task at hand. Before his 10-month stint at Fifth Third, he worked in the executive ranks at the insurance company Safeco and Wells Fargo.

Let's take a look at the Companies that have received the largest portions of TARP money, shall we?

Company	Bailout Funds Received (as of 1/14/09)
Citigroup	$45 Billion
AIG	$40 Billion
JPMorgan Chase	$25 Billion
Wells Fargo	$25 Billion
Bank of America (incl. Merrill Lynch)	$25 Billion
General Motors	$14.4 Billion
Goldman Sachs	$10.0 Billion
Morgan Stanley	$10.0 Billion
PNC	$7.6 Billion
U.S. Bancorp	$6.6 Billion
GMAC Financial	$5.0 Billion
SunTrust	$4.9 Billion
Chrysler	$4.0 Billion
Capital One Financial Corp.	$3.6 Billion
Regions Financial Corp.	$3.5 Billion
Fifth Third Bancorp	$3.4 Billion
American Express Financial	$3.4 Billion
BB&T	$3.1 Billion
Bank of New York Mellon	$3.0 Billion
KeyCorp	$2.5 Billion
CIT Group Commercial	$2.3 Billion
Comerica Incorporated	$2.3 Billion
State Street	$2.0 Billion
Marshall & Ilsley	$1.7 Billion
Northern Trust	$1.6 Billion
Zions Bancorp	$1.4 Billion
Huntington Bancshares	$1.4 Billion

Fifth Third is on there.  And so is Wells Fargo.  So the guy who had a hand in putting at least two Companies on the top bailout list is now making a hefty salary at a bailed out firm that doesn't have any compensation constraints.

Must be nice to have those two Companies on your resume, and get a sweetheart deal on your compensation package from the Obama Administration.

How in the world can his pay package (not to mention even being considered for the job in the first place) ever be justified?

Free Speech?

Not when it's Fox News.  Harsanyi gives his two cents:

Then again, does biased political coverage disqualify one from reporting legitimate and useful news stories? Fox News may not be able to unsheathe the intellectual rigor of Obama favorites David Letterman and Jay Leno, but it has covered numerous stories in the past few months that would have otherwise gone unnoticed.

Remember that ACORN's penchant for aiding the child-enslaving pimp set was a valid story. Uncovering the radical ramblings of Van Jones — a man tasked with creating "green" jobs, though he had never created a job for anyone but himself — was legitimate enough for the czar to abdicate his crown. The National Endowment for the Arts' attempt to politicize art was genuine enough to elicit a White House apology.

And whatever its intent, Dunn's inane admission that all-star mass murderer Mao Tse-tung was one of her "favorite political philosophers" (insert Hitler for Mao, a Bush administration figure for Dunn and stir) is a story worth hearing.

Hey, Mao was no dummy. That's why Dunn is probably employing the noted dictator's notion that one should "Despise the enemy strategically, but take him seriously tactically." In this case, it is precisely the legitimacy of the stories Fox News covers — rather than the bias of the station — that drives the administration to conflate news with opinion.

The public doesn't need to be reminded that Fox News is a right-wing cable news network any more than it needs to hear that MSNBC is a left-wing network. We can handle all the opinions.

In reality, the symbiotic relationship between right and left continues. Good for Fox News. Good for Obama.

Even so, it doesn't change the fact that the nation's most dominant government entity — an entity that allegedly represents all Americans — is using tax dollars and its considerable influence to try and squash a privately owned news organization that disagrees with it.

And you wonder why newspapers are going broke..

Hard to believe, when they deliver hard-hitting stories such as these:

A New York State Trooper pulls over a vehicle near the three-way intersection on Joslen Boulevard in Greenport Monday. The reason for the stop and the outcome of the investigation remain unknown.

I'd usually type "read the whole thing" at this point, but I've already posted the whole thing.

What I said to get elected, versus what I've done once in Office..

Leftie Eugene Robinson is pissed at Obama:

President Obama's brief display of drive-by compassion Thursday in New Orleans was, for me, by far the worst outing of his presidency thus far -- and the biggest disappointment.

I covered Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath -- the flood in New Orleans that drowned a great city, the storm surge in Mississippi that erased whole communities, the devastation, the agony. For weeks afterwards, I had trouble sleeping. I couldn't forget the scenes I'd witnessed or the stories I'd heard.

More than a year later, I covered a Senate subcommittee hearing in New Orleans on the lagging reconstruction effort. I watched as a young senator who was thought to be considering a presidential run -- that would be Barack Obama -- used his Harvard Law skills to eviscerate Bush-era officials for not doing enough to rebuild and revive the Gulf Coast region.

So it was strange and disheartening that Obama would wait nine months to make his first visit to New Orleans as president. It was stunning that he would spend only a few hours on the ground and that he wouldn't set foot in Mississippi or Alabama at all. But worst of all was the way he seemed to dismiss the idea that his administration could and should be doing much more.

I know that local officials say the Obama administration is more responsive and more effective than the Bush administration, but that's not saying much. What says more is that New Orleans still doesn't have an operational full-service hospital. And that an adequate flood barrier is still not in place.

"I wish I could just write a check," Obama said. If that was his message, he should have stayed home. We now know that our government can make hundreds of billions of dollars available to irresponsible Wall Street institutions within a matter of days, if necessary. We can open up the floodgates of credit to too-big-to-fail banks at the stroke of a pen. But when it comes to New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, well, these things take time.

I doubt these are the priorities Obama wants to be remembered for.

Hey, Mr. Robinson.  You got sold a bill of goods last year.  Welcome to reality.

We have been unable to verify, but we won't apologize for airing the unsourced "quotes"..

Dance, monkey.

Think this little tidbit was launched by Schuster, or that the order came down from on high? I hope Limbaugh's lawyers have a field day with these guys.

"How many radicals will it take?"

Great question, Glenn.  Van Jones.  Bill Ayers.  Kevin Jennings.  Reverend Wright.  Anita Dunn.  At what point do the people surrounding you, helping to "push" your vision start to drag you down?  This lady is/was Obama's Communication Director.  She's the one waging war on Fox News.  Is she a credible, trustworthy person, after watching this video?