After last night’s Republican debate over national security and foreign policy, CNN called upon Tom Foreman to check some of the facts asserted by the candidates, in a segment entitled “Keeping Them Honest.”

It soon became clear that Foreman and CNN were not interested in checking the candidates’ facts–which were correct in each case–but in checking their opinions, while misleading viewers about the candidates’ honesty.

First, Foreman checked Mitt Romney’s list of the Obama administration’s proposed defense cuts. Foreman had to admit that “He’s got all the numbers right. All of those cuts are correct, the ones he named.” Yet he objected to Romney’s alleged exclusion of “context” such as the fact that the U.S. spent $700 billion on defense, “more than the next 17 nations combined.” Hence he rated Romney’s statement “true, but incomplete.”

That’s not fact–that’s Foreman’s own apparent opinion that Obama’s defense cuts are irrelevant as long as the U.S. remains the world’s pre-eminent military power. Foreman begged the question of whether we are spending as much as our potential enemies, rather than considering America’s existing commitments and unique leadership role. It was, essentially, an anti-war critique of Romney’s view–not an analysis of his facts. (more…)

But, but, we were promised that if he was elected the world would love us. What happened?

Barack Obama’s visit to Brazil had a very unpromising start after police had to quell riots against the U.S. in Rio de Janeiro with rubber bullets and tear gas.

The U.S. President landed in the capital of Brasilia with his wife and daughters, visiting the country on a mission to re-assert trade links with Latin America.

But the day before he landed Brazilian military police fired on 300 demonstrators who had gathered outside the U.S. Consulate in Rio.

[...]

Mr Obama’s visit to the region’s economic powerhouse is the centrepiece of his effort to re-engage with neighbours no longer content with being relegated to Washington’s ‘backyard’ and where the United States faces rising competition from China.

But after the riots he was forced to cancel an outdoor speech that he was set to give in a Rio square.

(more…)

The reality doesn’t match up to the Governor Parnell’s claims. The number of oil companies filing with the Alaska Department of Revenue has doubled indicating that competition has indeed increased. Alaska has the second most business friendly tax set-up — up two spots since the passage of ACES. Additionally, a report from Governor Parnell’s Department of Revenue indicated that 2009 yielded a record high in oil jobs. Even more recently, the newest employment numbers from Alaska show that oil job numbers were higher in January 2011 than in January 2010, indicating that jobs are growing at the seasonal level. Parnell argues that state revenues are in jeopardy, but it is estimated that his proposal would reduce revenues by $100-200 million. Governor Parnell is right on other issues, but the numbers tell a different story than he asserts when it comes to ACES. (more…)

Fill ‘er up folks. Gas prices in Southern California have hit $4.59 a gallon.

Oh, the media has finally started covering “Pain at the Pump” but they are not giving us the real reasons for the jump. Unrest in the middle east has given the cabal of President Obama and the media, “cover” to blame others for the spike to the stratosphere.

The real reasons are three-fold, with unrest in the middle east being the least of the three.

1)      Devaluation of the dollar. The incessant printing of money by this administration began the rise of gas prices months long before the middle east blew up. I’m no Alan Greenspan, but I can figure out that if oil prices are tied to the dollar, and you print more dollars, the oil price will go up, up, up.

2)      An energy policy that calls for less drilling for oil at home, not more.

3)      Unrest in the middle east. (more…)

Columnist Cynthia Tucker of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, a 2007 Pulitzer Prize winner, has found the enemy and he is us. During a recent episode of the Chris Matthews show, Tucker decided that because we are “addicted to petroleum” we are our own enemy just as much as communism was our enemy during the Cold War.

Tucker characterizes our “addiction” to oil as an “external threat” — just like communism was — and presents oil as an enemy that we should defeat. Tucker also makes excuses for Obama saying that it’s “harder” for him to call on Americans to sacrifice because of this addiction.

Leave it to a member of the Old Media to construe capitalism, progress, a growing standard of living, and even our own fellow citizens to be as great an enemy as an antithetical foreign system that was sponsored by those who once promised to bury us. Leave it to a member of the Old Media to pinpoint our own system as the enemy. (more…)

“Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?” Alexander Pope asked in his Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot. Well, on ABC’s “This Week” show Sunday, a mere 277 years later, we learned the answer: George Will does. With gusto.

The poor butterfly was “Real Time’s” Bill Maher, making his maiden voyage as a member of the political show’s roundtable, and the merciless wheel of torture was the ever-anatomizing mind of George Will. There’s no need to recount the incident—odds are you’ve seen it by now. And if not, you can read about it—and relive it—in this excellent analysis by Brad Schaeffer on this very website.

To be honest, Mr. Maher’s talent for self-immolation is so highly developed that Mr. Will had little to do other than ask two clarifying questions and watch Maher try to free his flailing self-pinned wings. The logorrheic Maher had fallen prey to his own intemperate mouth. Hoisted on his own petard, Maher forgot that vanity is not just a character flaw—it’s one of the Seven Deadly Sins. You can put vanity ahead of truth in the comedy arena with near-certain impunity, but you’re bound to pay a heavy price when you relegate truth to hind teat in the Sunday morning political ring with heavyweights like George Will punching back.

What lesson can be learned from the Maher meltdown? Or in the parlance of today’s telespeak, what’s the “teachable moment” in all of this? Let’s get out our Maher microscope and take a look. (more…)

President Obama just opened some U.S. offshore areas for offshore oil drilling. But don’t hold your breath for a 2010 “Offshore Drilling Rush!”  by the oil companies like the 1893 “Oklahoma Land Rush” by the Sooners.

… keeping the Pacific Coast and Alaska, as well as the most promising resources off the Gulf of Mexico, under lock and key makes no sense.” — House Minority Leader John Boehner.

Lest we forget, that California Pacific Coast is hard-core Nancy Pelosi country.  No sooner had President Bush lifted the executive ban on oil exploration in the outer Continental Shelf back in summer of 2008 than Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi put the kibosh on its prospects.

“(In California) we learned the hard way that oil and water do not mix on our coast,” she said back in 1996. Ms Pelosi was referring, of course, to the famous Santa Barbara oil spill of 1969, an event that serves as the Alamo of the anti-drilling cause.

Webster’s defines a “provincial” as: “a person of local or restricted interests or outlook.”  This is not a term the MSM generally uses for a San Franciscan millionaire feminist legislator who owns vineyards and a French-monikered resort. Then what else to call Nancy Pelosi (and most of her wealthy constituents)? (more…)

During his State of the Union address, President Obama tossed a couple of sops to popular opinion, promising to support: A) nuclear power, and B) offshore drilling. James Hudnall did a brilliant job of dismantling Obama’s atomic promises, pointing out that even if the President happened to be uncharacteristically sincere in this case, no new nuclear plant will be built in a dog’s lifetime, even if the pooch happens to one of those little yip-dogs that seem to live forever. Based on what we have seen of his administration so far, the same is true of Obama’s newfound commitment to offshore drilling.

Suspending reality for a moment, let’s assume that burning fossil fuels will indeed result in catastrophic climate change. According to the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, “we can’t drill our way out” of this supposed problem.

Actually, we can.

Burning natural gas is a much less intensive carbon intensive way of generating energy than burning any other fossil fuel. There are a couple of reasons for this. When you burn coal, just about all of the energy generated comes from turning carbon into carbon dioxide (a chemical reaction that releases heat). When you burn natural gas, the energy comes from two reactions: one that turns carbon into carbon dioxide, and another that turns hydrogen in water. Thus, from the start, natural gas generates less greenhouse gases for the same amount of energy produced. (more…)

Hope springs eternal for the future of the journalism whenever I eat at Tomboy’s Burgers. It’s not only the gloriously greasy burgers and hearty, artery-clogging breakfasts that draw me to Manhattan Beach a couple of weekends a month.  It’s the Los Angeles Times and the off chance that those who produce it will wake up and give what should be a great paper new life.

Only a matter of time now

I only read the Times at Tomboy’s, and I can only do so because there is usually a forlorn copy of it lying between the hot sauce and utensils.  My subscription lapsed years ago–I’m a casualty of the Times’s limp writing and consistent lefty spin–but something inside me still hopes to one day open up that paper and once again find something worth reading.  That did not happen on New Year’s Day.  Not by a longshot.

On New Year’s Day, the Times’s lead editorial was its annual 40 or so “Wishes for the New Year.” It was truly thought provoking, except the thought that was provoked was, “who the hell writes this stuff?” (more…)