Blogger Daniel Froomkin drew quite a following during the Bush years, authoring a blog for the Washington Post entitled “White House Watch“. Froomkin began assailing the Bush Administration so much that even WaPo’s own ombudsman was forced to address the extreme bias.

Suddenly, however, the Washington Post has decided that it has no need for a blog dedicated to scrutinizing the White House. Apparently the concept has “run its course“.

In a move sure to ignite the left-wing blogosphere, washingtonpost.com columnist Dan Froomkin (author of the “White House Watch” blog) has been let go by the news organization, POLITICO hears. In so many words, Froomkin was told that his blog had essentially run its course.

Froomkin’s work for the Post has, at times, been amongst the most popular, but he has also ruffled some feathers, including former Post ombudsman Deb Howell, who used a column to field complaints over the labeling of Froomkin’s “highly opinionated and liberal” “White House Briefing” column, which was subsequently changed to “White House Watch.” …

Froomkin was a frequent target of the right, but the left welcomed his voice within the Washington Post’s umbrella and Froomkin said that his mission was to “watch the White House like a hawk.”

Froomkin tells Ed Morrissey that he’d be just as willing to watch over a Democratic administration like a hawk, and he’s eager to run the blog through the Obama Administration. But the Washington Post doesn’t seem to care. Apparently it just isn’t interested in the Obama Administration being under the same level of scrutiny that the Bush Administration faced. Funny that.

Yes, really. They’re praising his concentration, poise, strength, and dexterity. They are actually swooning over his killing of a fly in the middle of an interview. You didn’t think there was another level of ass kissing besides what we’ve seen so far? There is, my friends.

Keep in mind that many of these videos are uploaded to YouTube hastily and in other languages (not all Persian), so full descriptions aren’t always available. I’m posting quite a few videos in a row, so be forewarned that several feature violence and blood. It’s the cold, harsh reality of the situation in Iran and needs to be seen by the world. Without further ado:

American journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee have been sentenced to 12 years in a North Korean prison camp after the kangaroo Central Court confirmed them as “grave threats” against the dictatorial regime. They were convicted of “hostile acts” and illegal entry into the communist country.

They were arrested in March after allegedly crossing into North Korea from China.

The trial comes amid growing tensions over North Korea’s nuclear programme which is prompting US-led sanctions.

“The trial confirmed the grave crime they (the reporters) committed against the Korean nation and their illegal border crossing as they had already been indicted and sentenced each of them to 12 years of reform through labour,” state-run KCNA news agency said in a brief report.

The news agency gave no further details.

No, it wouldn’t now, would it. Reports have actually indicated that Lee and Ling were captured while on Chinese soil, though Pynongyang insists that the reporters for Current TV had illegally entered the country. The DPRK court has mastered Orwellian Rhetoric 101:

It said the court, after a five-day trial, “sentenced each of them to 12 years of reform through labour”.

Exactly what, if anything, the United States will do in response to the severe sentence for a non-existant crime isn’t clear. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has called the charges baseless, but so far the response has been restricted to rhetoric only.

The user, “backscatter712″, purchased a device that permits him/her/it to shut off televisions anywhere he/she/it is. How will it be used? To shut out dissent from media outlets that refuse to toe the liberal Democratic line:

It’s a simple device, which looks sort of like a car’s keyless entry remote, with a single button that causes it to emit the infrared “Power off” codes for every brand and model of TV it knows about, which is to say about 95%+ of TVs in existence.

Yeah, it’s time to get aggressive when it comes to people playing FOX News in businesses, doctor’s offices and other public places.

Yes, how dare those people broadcast the most-viewed cable news network in their private businesses. If they don’t use some lefty propaganda network, well, then they deserve to be messed with. Because that’s progressive and tolerant, you know. We should understand and hug terrorists while shutting out our fellow Americans for daring to disagree.

How bad is this idea? Fellow a few DUers attack the idea:

funny idea, but kinda nazi esque in you wanting to control what is on every TV

Response from the poster:

Yes, I fully intend to be an asshole about this.

I’m sick of seeing fascist, murder-inciting propaganda coming from FOX News, and every time I see it, either the TV’s owner will make FOX News go away, or I will.

So call me nazi-esque.

Turn your channel to an Obama propaganda stream or it’ll be shut down. Some more comments:

I’d say it’s more like a citizen’s arrest. I believe the OP wants Faux to be turned off

for the good of everyone…not a simple, personal pet peeve. I’m all for it. Wish I could afford one right now.

And:

People are perfectly free to turn the TV back on, this device does not permanently damage anything.

It just temporarily silences a source of great aggravation for a lot of us, I personally don’t think that businesses should promote a political world view to their customers, it’s bad business to do so.

But showing MSNBC with its Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermanns is just dandy. Americans should cringe at the mere thought of silencing a source of political dissent. More:

63. So we should hold our fire because we might damage a cheap-ass TV? What next?

And:

Kiss my ass, if you don’t like it, suck it. I damned well am going to unilaterally decide to turn off other people’s FAUX Noise. This is an omelet for which I’m willing to break some eggs…

Clever.

You get the general idea. They don’t like what’s being said on Fox News (ie. dissent from the Obama Administration), so they’ll turn off private televisions in private offices where it’s being shown. They’re admittingly silencing dissent from their political view. Someone should tell these people that Orwell’s 1984 was a warning — not an instruction manual.

Via The Corner.

One of the most crucial aspects of true national security today is a missile defense shield. Until we’re capable of protecting America from any rogue nuclear state that wants to effectively hold us hostage under the threat of hitting us with a nuclear-armed ICBM, we’re left exposed to insane dictators with equally insane agendas. We can retaliate for a strike on our soil, yes, but you’re still left without the option of actually stopping the missile before it kills Americans.

Chuck Devore, Republican candidate for U.S. Senate from California, discusses Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA)’s stance on the issue. Let’s just say, it’s a less than ideal record.

It takes some serious shilling skills out to out-spin the Associated Press. The LA Times apparently has some serious shilling skills. Unemployment under President Obama is apparently termed “funemployment”. You know, for the fun in not having a source of income to pay the mortgage.

For the ‘funemployed,’ unemployment is welcome

These jobless folks, usually singles in their 20s and 30s, find that life without work agrees with them. Instead of punching the clock, they’re hitting the beach.

Michael Van Gorkom was laid off by Yahoo in late April. He didn’t panic. He didn’t rush off to a therapist. Instead, the 33-year-old Santa Monica resident discovered that being jobless “kind of settled nicely.”

Week one: “I thought, ‘OK . . . I need to send out resumes, send some e-mails, need to do networking.

Every week since: “I’m going to go to the beach and enjoy some margaritas.”

What most people would call unemployment, Van Gorkom embraced as “funemployment.”

While millions of Americans struggle to find work as they face foreclosures and bankruptcy, others have found a silver lining in the economic meltdown. These happily jobless tend to be single and in their 20s and 30s. Some were laid off. Some quit voluntarily, lured by generous buyouts.

Buoyed by severance, savings, unemployment checks or their parents, the funemployed do not spend their days poring over job listings. They travel on the cheap for weeks. They head back to school or volunteer at the neighborhood soup kitchen. And at least till the bank account dries up, they’re content living for today.

“I feel like I’ve been given a gift of time and clarity,” said Aubrey Howell, 29, of Franklin, Tenn., who was laid off from her job as a tea shop manager in April. After sleeping in late and visiting family in Florida, she recently mused on Twitter: “Unemployment or funemployment?”

The Department of Labor is scheduled to released the latest funemployment numbers tomorrow. Over 500,000 Americans are predicted to have become funemployed during the month of May, bringing the national funemployment rate to over 9%.

Via Ace.

Uh huh. Because it’s not like OBL ever criticized Presidents Bush or Clinton. Suddenly criticism from the bearded man in a cave shows that he’s afraid of the person he’s criticizing? Because I recall him pretty visciously attacking Bush at the same time the media talked about Bush’s failed policies against OBL and how Al Qaeda was on the rise. But suddenly criticism shows fear. Gotcha.

CAIRO – A day before President Barack Obama is to deliver a speech here seeking goodwill with the Islamic world, al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden tried in a new message Wednesday to convince Muslims they should hate him.

The message was the second from al-Qaida in as many days criticizing Obama. Analysts said the PR offensive shows the terrorist organization worries the new president will succeed in improving America’s image in the Muslim world and undermine the group’s anti-American jihad, or holy war.

“Obama’s election is just about the worst thing that could have happened to these guys,” said Tom Sanderson, a terrorism expert at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. “They knew right away that his election undermined a key part of their argument that the U.S. was anti-Islamic, that the U.S. was racist.”

I’m no doctor, but I can diagnose Mr. Sanderson with Fuckingstupiditus. Their argument doesn’t change suddenly because a black man won the presidential election. In case Sanderson hasn’t noticed, jihadists aren’t terribly concerned with someone’s supposed racism. As Ace says:

Yes, that was a key part of their argument. Everyone knows that jihadist Arab and Pakistani Muslims hate racists. They hate them almost as much as they hate Jews. And black Africans.

The spin gets more and more pathetic.

Behold, a South American socialist dictator marveling at how far-left our American president has become. Apparently even Fidel and Hugo can’t believe how quick our dissent into socialism is coming along.

During one of Chavez’s customary lectures on the “curse” of capitalism and the bonanzas of socialism, the Venezuelan leader made reference to GM’s bankruptcy filing, which is expected to give the U.S. government a 60 percent stake in the 100-year-old former symbol of American might.

“Hey, Obama has just nationalized nothing more and nothing less than General Motors. Comrade Obama! Fidel, careful or we are going to end up to his right,” Chavez joked on a live television broadcast.

We’re well on our way to that point, Hugo. And we have yet to approach card-check, the additional regulations of the private sector likely to come out after the recession ends, environmental regulations that would make tree huggers wince, socialized health care, and the tax-hikes required to pay for all of this endless spending on welfare programs. By 2012, Chavez will look like Milton Friedman by comparison.

And yet those who even dare to bring up “Obama” and “socialism” in the same sentence are mocked as reactionaries, labeled racists, and have just about every other smear in the book applied to them. Don’t expect the attitude of a complicit mainstream media to change just because a South American socialist leader sees the same thing now, either. After all, many in the media, Hollywood, and general left-wing establishment admire where Chavez has brought Venezuala. They’ve been yearning for an American president who’ll do the same to the United States for years.

It would appear they’ve finally got what they’ve wanted.

It was a little too far for a simple nod, as demonstrated by President Obama when he nodded to Brian Williams. Hey, it’s NBC. Just be glad he didn’t kiss Obama’s ring.

Via Hot Air.