LA Times Upset By People Exercising Their Protected Rights

The great unwashed residing in the formerly great state (and my former and I hope future home) of California voted down five propositions that would have increased taxes and yes on one that would have rewarded state legislators for poor performance. God bless them.

The LA Times sees it a bit differently:

Californians are well known for periodic voter revolts, but on Tuesday they did more than just lash out at Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Legislature over the state's fiscal debacle.

By rejecting five budget measures, Californians also brought into stark relief the fact that they, too, share blame for the political dysfunction that has brought California to the brink of insolvency.

Rightly or wrongly, voters in the special election refused either to extend new tax hikes or to cap state spending. They also declined to unlock funds that they had voted in better financial times to set aside for special purposes.

Nearly a century after the Progressive-era birth of the state's ballot-measure system, it is clear that voters' fickle commands, one proposition at a time, are a top contributor to paralysis in Sacramento. And that, in turn, has helped cripple the capacity of the governor and Legislature to provide effective leadership to a state of more than 38 million people.

When has any governor or legislature provided effective leadership? But I digress.

There's no more democratic way of deciding issues than to have people vote for them. California was at the forefront of increasing democracy and bringing it to the people in choosing the proposition vote.

The Times is too damn ideological to see exactly what they are saying is not only anti-democratic but anti-American as well. They would never, ever write that a major cause of the budget deficit in the state is high spending, coddling illegal aliens and a bloated state bureaucracy; instead they lash out at the voters who were only doing what people in other nations fight and die to do...vote.

Don't even begin to think that this is all about the vote yesterday. It goes back to Prop 8 when the state voted against gay marriage that really pissed the editorial board at the Times off.

The statist mindset has set in in every newsroom even more in Obamanation.

Just another example of why the sorry rag called the LA Times is in bankruptcy.

Reason #195 the LA Times is Bankrupt

The LA Times parent company is in bankruptcy as we speak. Of course, they've been pretty much bankrupt for years in an editorial and hypocrisy sense but we all knew that.

But today, their editorial board has outdone themselves. Follow the line of thought here:

The release of dozens of new, graphic images of detainees being abused by their American captors would almost certainly reignite international rage. It could lead to an angry backlash in the Middle East and to more jihadi recruits, as the Abu Ghraib photographs did in 2004. It could even lead to new outbursts of violence at a moment when the Obama administration was finally hoping to put the last eight ugly years behind us.

Pretty much what I've been saying up until the last half of the last sentence. Letting these photos be released would kill American service personnel. But then they go far off the rails into the fever swamps of the left:

It's terrible that the president was faced with such an unpalatable choice, but it's just one of the many awful results of the culture of torture and lawlessness put in place by the Bush administration. This country has already alienated allies and seen its moral standing crumble. Now, as we try to get to the bottom of what happened during those years, we have to acknowledge that doing so might put us in further danger.

If some photoshopper created a picture of Bush waterboarding KSM in the Oval Office, the Times would probably run it. Their hatred of Bush runs long and deep. Poor Obama, he's left a difficult decision by the evil Bush junta and has opted wrong. Perhaps if the Times actually vetted Obama, they'd have noted that he's not the best decision maker having voted present most times when he even bothered to vote at all.

Anyway, it gets better:

Photographs are part of the historical record. Think of these images: black men hanging from trees in the American South; emaciated concentration camp survivors; prisoners shackled into cramped "tiger cages" in South Vietnam. Would this be a better world without those photos?

Got that? Waterboarding is akin to lynching blacks, Hitlers concentration camps and the treatment of POW's in Vietnam by the Times' reckoning. Let's see, Jews were systematically exterminated while Abu Zubaydah was waterboarded. They sound exactly the same to me. In the mind of the Times editorial board, they are. Bush was Hitler and Cheney was Robert Byrd or some other KKK'er in their minds. I guess the fact that waterboarding isn't torture and even if it were never was designed to kill or liquidate civilians is beyond their capacity of understanding.

Trying to cover up atrocities because someone might be angry isn't right and won't work. Instead, the Pentagon should release the photos while making it clear that the U.S. repudiates such barbaric behavior and is committed to dismantling the culture that allowed it to occur.

Hasn't Obama spent the last three months apologizing to the world about everything we've done over the last eight years? The Times joins in with the rest of the netroots because these pictures are like porn to them. They get off on America portrayed as evil and that's why they want them released.

I would guess that views like this will ensure the continued slide into irrelevance and eventual dissolving of the paper. Good riddance.

$175K Offered For Obama/Ayers/Khalidi Video

There's got to be another copy of this incriminating video and I'm thinking the guy or girl who gave it to the LA Times has it. Nobody with an iota of intelligence would give that tape up without making a copy and I'm sure that 175-large could help them out quite a bit. Here's the story:

Just got off the phone with an individual who has agreed to throw in another $25,000. This person checks out and has identified him/herself as a Freeper who uses the handle joinedafterattack.

This need not be the same video as the L.A. Times has. Just video that shows the event is what we’re looking for.

FOX News just reported that the known Jew-bashing contents of the video along with the L.A. Times refusal to release it has now become a part of Sarah Palin’s stump speech.

Man, the Times is going to come out of this looking really bad. A paper that is laying folks off left and right can't be doing what they're doing.

I wonder if the Obama campaign has info on who gave up the tape and I wonder if it provided by the Times. I also wonder if the Obama campaign offered to buy $175,000 worth of advertising from the Times today.

Is the LA Times/Obama/Khalidi Tape the October Surprise?

Could be and McCain had nothing to do with it.

This is anecdotal but I tripled my daily average yesterday and it was purely for people searching for the LA Times Obama tape. Granted, I'm no Instapundit but my trends do follow the stories of the day pretty regularly.

People are intrigued by this tape and anyone who has raised kids knows that if you declare something off-limits or don't let them have it, it becomes their sole focus. It's not much different with adults who have information such as this withheld, their interest is piqued and not being able to look at the tape just makes them believe that the LA Times and has something to hide that could swing the election.

I would bet the Obama camp is glad the (other) Times is not releasing it but in not doing so, the pundits start chattering and the candidates start asking why knowing full-well that America is aware that the media is in the tank for Obama.

How ironic would it be if the media, which is doing Barack Obama a major service by withholding a video that was most-likely an Israel bash-fest, would cause the election to tilt because of their protection of Obama? They've handed McCain a present he never expected and, with polls starting to tighten, it could be just what he needed this last week.

The Times is now saying they are not releasing the video because it was obtained by a confidential source and they don't lie to their sources. That's fine, let Sarah Palin hammer Obama and connect him and Khalidi in every speech she makes over the next six days. I'm guessing the Times will eventually give in and give some lame excuse like their source gave them permission to release it.

I'm hoping the LA Times hangs on to it though and the outcry becomes a din. If they do release it, it will most probably be on Friday (the traditional bad news document dump day) and just enough votes are reversed to give McCain Pennsylvania and Ohio. People in the states who "cling to guns and religion" will have second thoughts about a man on the verge of becoming POTUS who has not only cozied up to domestic terrorists but those who made it standard operating procedure to murder innocent civilians attending a seder and kids at a local bar.

Right Pundits has good background and indispensable Charles Johnson has been hammering this--and the Times--for the last few days.

Also see Zombie's latest on the other connections Obama seemed to have while matriculating at Columbia. Zombie is doing the work the media should have done over a year ago.

BTW, where's Patterico been on this? The LA Times has generally been his private whipping post.

Update: This guy claims to have two quotes from a "reliable source" that would explain the LA Times hesitancy (take with the usual grain of salt, etc...):

Saw a clip from the tape. Reason we can't release it is because statements Obama said to rile audience up during toast. He congratulates Khalidi for his work saying "Israel has no God-given right to occupy Palestine" plus there's been "genocide against the Palestinian people by Israelis."

It would be really controversial if it got out. Tha's (sic) why they will not even let a transcript get out.

Emphasis mine. That would indeed be quite inflammatory if the tape contains what this source says.

This piece from the Irish Times offers the Palestinians view of our election and their support of Obama but also contains this interesting tidbit:

Tarif Khalidi, professor of Arabic and Islamic studies at the American University of Beirut observed, "I would very much like to turn my back on the American election. The very fact that our fate hangs on a few American individuals is very upsetting.

Hopes pinned on them are invariably disappointed. Obama was a very good friend of Rashid [Khalidi, a cousin who assumed the Edward Said chair at Columbia University]. But Obama shed all his Arab and Muslim acquaintances."

Evidently not soon enough, Professor as his relationship to your cousin Khalidi may just turn this election.
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LA Times Still Dodging Khalidi-Obama Tape Release

I would say that 80% of the hits I have today are searches for Obama/LA Times/Tape or something to that effect.

It's getting play as Howie Kurtz weighed in today but seems to have missed the point.

Charles Johnson has thoughts along the same lines as I did yesterday that the LA Times is missing a golden opportunity to gain some credibility back and maybe to stem the tide of readers that have stopped subscribing.

This may well be the most egregious behavior we've yet seen in a campaign season defined by complete media bias against McCain. More here.