MORE SCORN FOR CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS AS DETAILS OF SWITCH LEAK

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by JOEL B. POLLAK 2 Jul 2012 550POST A COMMENT

As Breitbart News suggested last week, it appears Chief Justice John Roberts did, in fact, switch his vote on the Obamacare decision under pressure from President Barack Obama, the Democrats, and the mainstream media. John Fund at National Review has more details today--including evidence about a bizarre address by Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), chair of the Judiciary Committee, that singled out Roberts himself:

Indeed, Senator Patrick Leahy (Vt., D.) , the chair of the Judiciary Committee, suddenly took to the floor on May 14 and directly addressed Roberts, urging him in harshly partisan tones to uphold Obamacare and maintain “the proper role of the judicial branch.”

Stewart Baker, a partner at the Washington law firm Steptoe & Johnson, writes at the Volokh Conspiracy that he found the whole campaign against Roberts weird and unusual, given that the justices’ conference vote on Obamacare had been held six weeks earlier. Why “would the chair of the Judiciary Committee risk the appearance of trying to harshly strongarm the Court when his remarks wouldn’t make the slightest difference?” he asks. “The Leahy speech reads like it was written for an audience of one. It offers flattery and it offers threats, all of them personalized to appeal to Chief Justice Roberts alone.”

Fund adds that the White House likely benefited from leaks at the Court, and almost certainly knew of Roberts's switch--just as it almost certainly knew of the initial vote to throw out the individual mandate in March:

The week before the Supreme Court announced its decision, the White House was clearly hinting to many in the media and on Capitol Hill that they expected a 5–4 opinion that would hinge on the taxing-power issue. Did someone leak? Sunday on Face the Nation, Jan Crawford of CBS News said that two reliable sources told her that Roberts originally voted, in late March, with the four conservative justices to invalidate the individual mandate. According to Crawford, Roberts suddenly changed sides some six weeks later and then resisted “a month-long desperate campaign by the conservative justices to bring him back to the fold.”

I’ve learned from my own sources that after voting to invalidate the mandate, the chief did express some skepticism about joining the four conservatives in throwing out the whole law. At the justices’ conference, there was discussion about accepting the Obama administration’s argument, which was that, if the individual mandate was removed, the provisions governing community rating and guaranteed issue of insurance would have to go too but that the rest of the law might stand. The chief justice was equivocal, though, in his views on that point.

The more the public learns about Roberts's decision, the more people are likely to hate it. Fund notes that even David Brooks of the New York Times agrees that Roberts "had to get to a certain result, and he was going to find a way by hook or by crook." It's a conclusion that aptly expresses how Obamacare was conceived, how it was passed, and now how it has been upheld by one of the worst decisions in recent years. 

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/07/02/More-Scorn-for-Chief-Justice-Roberts-as-Details-of-Switch-Leak

http://conservativebyte.com/2012/07/more-scorn-for-chief-justice-roberts-as-details-of-switch-leak/

BLOGGERS SPOT MORE DEAD CHILD FAKERY BY HAMAS; CNN FOOLED

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by JOEL B. POLLAK 18 Nov 2012, 6:01 AM PDT 0POST A COMMENT

Hamas has once again apparently been caught faking an image of a dead Palestinian child--this time using a child likely killed by its own rocket fire and claiming that an Israeli attack was responsible. CNN's Sara Sidner ran a full report on the child's death, strongly implying that an Israeli bomb had been responsible.

The dead child was paraded before the cameras during the visit of Egyptian prime minister Hisham Kandil, who kissed the dead child in the presence of Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniyeh. But even the New York Times was suspicious.

Bloggers such as Elder of Ziyon quickly pieced together the evidence of Hamas fakery:

The IDF did not launch any airstrikes in Gaza while Egyptian PM Kandil was in Gaza...

If it was an Israeli missile, you can be sure that it would have been shown to the media! Furthermore, PCHR, which is keeping track of everyone killed in Gaza (and which admits that most of the dead have been "militants,") did not list Mahmoud Sadallah or Aiman Aby Wardah in their list of victims of Israeli airstrikes, although they even include one person who died of a heart attack.   

Put this together with the fact that Hamas and other terror groups were firing rockets throughout Friday morning while the IDF did not, plus the fact that over 100 rockets have fallen short in Gaza (both using past performance and IDF statistics as proof), and the fact that the shrapnel in the video matches almost exactly the shrapnel damage we have seen from rocket fire into Israel, and it is very clear: this child was killed by Gaza rocket fire, not by Israel. 

Hamas has a well-established pattern of faking civilian deaths in Gaza, even as it seeks civilian deaths in Israel (and fakes that, too, pretending it is firing at military targets). Last week, Breitbart News caught Hamas using a month-old photo of a dead Syrian boy and claiming he had been killed by Israel--a double irony, since the Assad regime that killed the boy hosted Hamas for years before the outbreak of the Syrian civil war.

The international community has reinforced Hamas’s pattern of fakery by applying a double standard to Palestinian civilians killed by Israel and Palestinian civilians killed by Hamas. When Israeli artillery inadvertently killed civilians in Beit Hanoun in 2006, the world sprang into action with accusations of “war crime”; when errant Palestinian rocketshave struck civilians in Beit Hanoun, the world has said nothing at all.

Not every civilian death in Gaza is faked, of course. But almost every civilian death can be attributed to Hamas, which deliberately fires rockets from civilian areas and hides its weapons caches in mosques and homes. Since Operation Cast Lead in 2008-9, Hamas has smuggled in more rockets that endanger the local Palestinian populace, and whose only purpose is to target Israeli civilians. Hamas bears the moral burden of this war.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2012/11/18/Bloggers-Catch-More-Dead-Child-Fakery-by-Hamas

I trust David Petraeus, Do you?

PETRAEUS ON BENGHAZI: IT WASN'T ME

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by JOEL B. POLLAK 26 Oct 2012 543POST A COMMENT

Central Intelligence Agency director David Petraeus has emphatically denied that he or anyone else at the CIA refused assistance to the former Navy SEALs who requested it three times as terrorists attacked the U.S. consulate in Benghazi on the night of Sep. 11. The Weekly Standard and ABC News report that Petraeus's denial effectively implicates President Barack Obama, since a refusal to assist "would have been a presidential decision."

Earlier today, Denver local reporter Kyle Clarke of KUSA-TV did what the national media largely refuses to do, asking Obama directly whether the Americans in Benghazi were denied requests for aid. Obama dodged the question, but implied that he had known about the attacks as they were "happening." 

Emails released earlier this week indicated that the White House had been informed almost immediately that a terror group had taken responsibility for the attack in Benghazi, and Fox News reported this morning that the two former Navy SEALs, Ty Woods and Glen Doherty, had been refused in requests for assistance they had made from the CIA annex.

Jake Tapper quoted Petraeus this afternoon denying that the CIA was responsible for the refusal: "No one at any level in the CIA told anybody not to help those in need; claims to the contrary are simply inaccurate."

As William Kristol of the Weekly Standard notes, that leaves only President Obama himself to blame:

So who in the government did tell “anybody” not to help those in need? Someone decided not to send in military assets to help those Agency operators. Would the secretary of defense make such a decision on his own? No.

It would have been a presidential decision. There was presumably a rationale for such a decision. What was it? When and why—and based on whose counsel obtained in what meetings or conversations—did President Obama decide against sending in military assets to help the Americans in need?

Earlier today, Charles Woods, father of Ty Woods, called the White House's explanations for events in Benghazi a "pack of lies" and implied that those in the administration who could have helped, but refused, were guilty of "murder." He added:

My son violated his orders in order to protect the lives of at least 30 people. He risked his life to be a hero. I wish that the leadership in the White House had the same moral courage that my son displayed with his life.

Also today, the State Department shut down questions from reporters about Libya at a press briefing in Washington. The administration, as a whole, seems to have decided to say nothing further about Benghazi until after election--except for Petraeus, who was directly implicated by charges that the CIA failed to help, and who was thereby compelled to provide a response that points, inexorably, to the man in the Oval Office.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2012/10/26/Petraeus-on-Benghazi-It-Wasnt-Me

FACT CHECK: TOP TEN WORST LIES BY JOE BIDEN IN VP DEBATE

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by JOEL B. POLLAK 12 Oct 2012, 5:28 AM PDT 55POST A COMMENT

Once again, Joe Biden lied his way through a Vice Presidential debate--just as he did in his contest with Sarah Palin in 2008. This time, the media caught a few of Biden's worst "malarkey" moments--as did his opponent, Paul Ryan, when he could get a word in edgewise. 

Here are the top ten worst lies told by Biden during the debate:

10. "With all due respect, that’s a bunch of malarkey....not a single thing he said is accurate." At the outset of the debate, Biden tried to paint Ryan as a liar--when Biden, in fact, was the one lying. Ryan had pointed out: 1) that the White House had distanced itself from the Cairo embassy's apologies on 9/11; 2) that Obama had failed to speak up for Iranian protestors in 2009; 3) that the Obama administration called Syria's dictator a "reformer"; 4) and that the Obama administration is imposing defense cuts and projecting weakness. All of that is true.

9. "The president has met with Bibi [Netanyahu] a dozen times....This is a bunch of stuff." While they have met several times--not a dozen--that includes a meeting at which Obama made the Israeli prime minister enter the White House through a back entrance, refused to take a picture with him, and left him on his own for dinner. Specifically, Ryan had criticized Obama's refusal to meet Netanyahu in New York last month, and to tape talk show interviews instead--a clear snub that sent the wrong signal, again, to Israel's enemies.

8. "Just let the taxes expire like they’re supposed to on those millionaires." Biden's "millionaires" are actually households earning more than $250,000 a year, which includes many middle-class families with two earners, and small business owners in particular who report business earnings as personal income. Biden and Obama have repeatedly labeled those earning over $250,000 as "millionaires and billionaires," distorting the actual impact of their tax plan on the non-millionaires it would hit hardest, who create a vast proportion of small business jobs.

7. "You know, I heard that death panel argument from Sarah Palin. It seems that every vice presidential debate, I hear this kind of stuff about panels."Biden's cheap shot against Palin was an attempt to diminish both her and the man sitting across from him. But Palin never talked about "death panels" in her debate with Biden, for the simple reason that Obamacare had not yet been proposed. Nor did Ryan mention "death panels"--he had addressed the undeniable fact that Obamacare proposes a board to impose cost controls.

6. "The congressman here cut embassy security in his budget by $300 million below what we asked for." Biden's lie about Ryan's budget was an attempt to dodge responsibility for lax embassy security--and to cover up that the Obama called for new cuts to embassy security just days after the 9/11 attacks. Ryan's proposal, which called for a 19% overall decrease in non-defense discretionary spending, does not even mention embassy security--the Obama campaign merely made up that number by applying 19% across the board.

5. "No, they are not four years closer to a nuclear weapon." Biden's attempt to lie about the glaring reality of the Iranian nuclear program fell flat. Iran is indeed four years closer to a nuclear weapon, and the Obama administration--believing it knew better than its predecessors--tried to reinvent the wheel on talks with Iran, causing frustration to our allies in Europe and the Middle East. Meeting after meeting this year has failed to produce results, and the loophole-filled sanctions, while hurting Iran somewhat, are not stopping its nuclear program.

4. "No religious institution, Catholic or otherwise...has to be a vehicle to get contraception in any insurance policy they provide. That is a fact." No, it is not a fact--it is the opposite of a fact, and saying "that is a fact" does not make it any less a blatant lie. The Obama administration is forcing religious institutions to provide contraceptive and abortion drugs through their insurance policies. That is the reason several dozen religious institutions are suing the administration to defend their First Amendment freedom of religion. 

3. "It came from this man voting to put two wars on a credit card...I was there. I voted against him." Biden voted for both the Iraq war and the Afghanistan war. He did not vote for George W. Bush's plan to extend coverage of Medicare to prescription drugs (though he voted for an earlier, similar proposal), nor did he vote for the Bush tax cuts. But he voted for both of the wars he derided last night. To quote Bill Clinton's speech to the Democratic National Convention: "It takes some brass to attack a guy for doing what you did."

2. "What we did is we saved $716 billion and put it back -- applied it to Medicare." Biden repeated the lie the Obama administration has been telling since before Obamacare passed in 2010: that cuts to Medicare today were savings that extend the life of the program. They would be--if the same $716 billion wasn't also being used to pay for Obamacare. As Ryan pointed out in 2010, and again last night, you can't double-count the same cuts. Taking $716 billion out of Medicare means exactly that--and hurts, not helps, the program's solvency.

1. "Well, we weren’t told they wanted more security again." Biden lied through his teeth about the fact that the administration--specifically, the State Department--had been told again and again that security on the ground in Libya, and in Benghazi in particular, was inadequate. The day before, in Congressional hearings on the Libya attacks, former regional security director Eric Nordstrom described his frustration with having those requests turned down by the government bureaucracy: "For me the Taliban is on the inside of the building."

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/10/12/Fact-Check-Top-Ten-Worst-Lies-by-Joe-Biden-in-VP-Debate

http://conservativebyte.com/2012/10/top-ten-worst-lies-by-joe-biden-in-vp-debate/

Is Chris Plante (WMAL.com) have it right? Do dems have a math problem?

MEDIA PUT 18,000 IN NOT-QUITE-FULL 5,000-SEAT ARENA FOR OBAMA IN WISCONSIN

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by JOEL B. POLLAK 22 Sep 2012 228 POST A COMMENT

President Barack Obama is having trouble drawing large crowds on the campaign trail. At the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, his campaign was forced to move his acceptance speech from the 74,000-seat Bank of America Stadium to the 20,000 Time Warner Cable Arena, citing weather as the excuse. But the media are always eager to help--for example, putting 18,000 people inside a 5,000-seat arena at an Obama event in Milwaukee on Saturday.

The contradiction was first noted by battlegroundwatch.com. Local media, including theMilwaukee Journal-Sentinel, reported that Obama had addressed "supporters who filled the 5,000-seat BMO Harris Pavilion, along with thousands more who sat in bleachers and stood on the pavement beyond the protection of the roof, even as wind and rain lashed down in the latter moments of the near 30-minute speech." 

The pavilion was not "filled"--a local reporter for Patch.com filmed empty seats in the bleachers at the side of the arena (see above). Nevertheless, the Journal-Sentinal played it safe, putting attendance at roughly 5,000-plus, a small but respectable turnout.

That's not how national media covered it. Darren Samuelsohn of Politico reported that the president addressed "a crowd the Obama campaign estimated at 18,000 in a city park overlooking Lake Michigan" in an attempt to "lock up" Wisconsin.

Laura Meckler of the Wall Street Journal--whose news section, according to UCLA professor Tim Groseclose, is the most liberal of any major mainstream outlet--repeatedthe campaign's 18,000 claim without even revealing the source of the official-sounding estimate. 

Both outlets described the location of the rally as a "park," without revealing the name of the arena itself, which would have given the game away.

The images provided by news wires are predominantly close-up shots such as the one above, showing Obama surrounded by a small circle of supporters. Only Getty Images has a wider shot, similar to images at the left-wing message board Democratic Underground that show the inside of the arena. That's a full-ish arena, but nowhere near 18,000 people. 

There seem to be no images at all of the 13,000 people who supposedly made up the difference outside the BMO Harris Pavilion. 

(I'll be happy to correct this article if anyone can find any.)

Meanwhile, the nation is being told that Obama drew a massive crowd--nearly the size of the crowd at his acceptance speech in Charlotte--in a crucial swing state six weeks before the election is over.

If Obama were really doing so well, why would the media have to resort to such distortions? 

And why would he be in Wisconsin in the first place?

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2012/09/23/Media-Put-18000-in-5000-Seat-Arena-for-Obama