Supreme Court Finds Obamacare Constitutional

In a huge win for the American People the Supreme Court today decided that the ACA, called Obamacare by Republicans is Constitutional. This decision puts a major torpedo in the Conservative right wing scow, and has major implications in the Presidential race.

Sunrise over the Supreme Court. I doubt it is the dawn of a new era – but it is a small ray of hope.

Supreme Court Upholds ObamaCare

The Supreme Court upheld President Obama’s health care law today in a splintered, complex opinion that gives Obama a major election-year victory.

Basically, the justices said that the individual mandate — the requirement that most Americans buy health insurance or pay a fine — is constitutional as a tax.

Chief Justice John Roberts — a conservative appointed by President George W. Bush — provided the key vote to preserve the landmark health care law, which figures to be a major issue in Obama’s re-election bid against Republican opponent Mitt Romney.

Obama is expected to comment on the decision within the next two hours.

The government had argued that Congress had the authority to pass the individual mandate as part of its power to regulate interstate commerce; the court disagreed with that analysis, but preserved the mandate because the fine amounts to a tax that is within Congress’ constitutional taxing powers.

The announcement will have a major impact on the nation’s health care system, the actions of both federal and state governments, and the course of the November presidential and congressional elections.

As lawyers examined the details of the various opinions, political analysts quickly predicted at least a short-term political boost for Obama.

Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, said “you can hear the sigh of relief at the White House” over a big plus for Obama.

“It allows the president’s signature achievement to stand,” Brown said. “Since politics is the ultimate zero-sum game, what’s good for Obama is bad for Gov. Mitt Romney.”

Brown also noted that the ruling allows the Republican “to continue campaigning against the law and promising to repeal it.”

Another War in the Middle East?

Syria seems determined to play the ” let’s declare war on a foreign somebody and the folks at home will come together” card.

It probably is not a real good idea to be shooting at the Turkish military. Not only because Turkey still has an army which has the ability to kick ass and take names…

But going to war with Turkey brings in the NATO Alliance – including the US, which includes at least 6 countries which could lay Syria to waste without breaking a sweat.

Maybe they should pick a fight with another neighbor?

A Turkish Air Force F4E Phantom similar to the one shot down by Syrian forces.

Turkey says Syria fired at second Turkish plane on Monday

Turkey said on Monday Syrian forces had fired towards a Turkish military transport plane involved in a search for an F-4 reconnaissance jet shot down by Syria last week, but the second aircraft was not brought down.

The disclosure of the second incident came on the eve of a NATO crisis meeting that Turkey summoned to address the shooting down of its F-4 jet, which Ankara has described as an unprovoked attack in international airspace.

Despite deep frustration among many NATO countries over the conflict in Syria, where the opposition says President Bashar Assad’s crackdown on an increasingly armed popular uprising has killed 14,000 people, it’s highly unlikely the military alliance will take armed action against the Arab state.

The unarmed RF-4E reconnaissance jet was shot down a mile (1.6 kilometres) inside international airspace on Friday, and two Turkish pilots are still missing, the Turkish government says.

Syria has officially acknowledged shooting down the F-4 phantom jet after it violated its airspace, but insists it only identified it as a Turkish fighter after the fact.

“What happened was an accident and not an assault as some like to say,” Syrian foreign ministry spokesman Jihad Makdissi told the Al-Watan pro-government daily on Sunday.

“Turkish Jet, which was downed by Syrian forces, had violated Syrian airspace.” the Syrian Foreign Ministry spokesman Jihad Maqdissi said Monday.
He added that Syria “could take positive steps if the Turkish government takes similar steps.”

Syrian FM spokesman also indicated “The rescue efforts are underway with the coordination of all sides. We found the wreckage of the jet and Turkey was informed about it.”

But Turkey said that the incident would “not go unpunished” but it did not intend to go to war over it.

Politico Reporter Fired For Telling Truth About Romney

White reporter interrupts the Pressident of the United State in the middle of a speech shouting absurd questions… And his publication nearly breaks a leg in the rush to defend the poor “put upon” reporter.

Black reporter tells the truth about Romney…And they fire him.

Politico Reporter Suspended Over Romney ‘White Folks’ Dig

Politico has suspended White House correspondent Joe Williams following his implication that Mitt Romney is only at ease among “white folks.” Williams told Martin Bashir on MSNBC yesterday that Romney is “very, very comfortable … with people who are like him,” Thus he can be “awkward” in town hall meetings, but “when he comes on Fox and Friends, they’re like him, they’re white folks who are very much relaxed in their own company.” Daily Intel points out that a Romney penis joke Williams made on Twitter only added fuel to the fire. And so Politico responded. Williams’ comments “fell short of our standards for fairness and judgment in an especially unfortunate way,” Politico bosses wrote in a staff memo. “An unacceptable number of Joe Williams’ public statements on cable and Twitter have called into question his commitment to this responsibility,” they noted. “Following discussion of this matter with editors, Joe has been suspended while we review the matter.”

Now – couple of things here. What’s the deal with folks saying stupid things on Twitter? Are people actually stupid enough to believe you can’t make a complete jackass of yourself in only 148 characters?

Second – What Joe said is that Romney is only comfortable around folks like himself – Not that he is a racist like most conservatives.

Not sure how that is grounds for “suspension”. Is Politico trying to say it is superior to the Daily Caller because it polices its journalists? I think a 20 second read would obviate the need for that excuse.

Washington Beltway UFO!

The Military got folks all in a dither last night, moving one of their secret “drone” planes down the highway. Apparently the aircraft’s unusual shape snarled traffic for hours (which isn’t much of a trick on the Capital Beltway which seems to stay in permanent gridlock.

Moving pictures of ET no less…

UFO On The Beltway? Aircraft On A Truck Sparks Curiosity

Don’t worry, the strange object seen just outside the nation’s capital Wednesday night wasn’t a UFO. It was a drone.

A strangely-shaped saucer-like aircraft was seen in D.C.’s Maryland suburbs around 11 p.m., causing traffic backups and speculation about government coverups. Photos, like like this one widely circulated on Twitter, show the mysterious object being driven along the Capitol Beltway near College Park on the back of a truck.

Officials identified the flying machine to WTOP:

Maryland State Police at the McHenry Barrack have confirmed the aircraft seen on the Beltway was a military airplane being moved from West Virginia to Naval Air Station Patuxent River in Southern Maryland.The plane is 82 feet long, 32 feet wide and 14 feet high. The X-46B is the same type of military vehicle that crashed earlier this week near Salisbury, Md.

The vehicle that had crashed was also a drone. The Patuxent River Naval Air Station is home to a large drone program.

This time the drone was spotted on the highway. Matt Funk, lead test engineer, told NBC4/WRC-TV that “in the coming months” the drone will be seen “flying over the base and surrounding area along the Chesapeake Bay.”

Funk identified the aircraft as a one of Northrop Grumman’s X-47B drones, a type of aircraft often mistaken for a UFO, not an X-46B as was reported by WTOP. And the drone that crashed earlier in the week was Northrop Grumman’s RQ-4A BAMS-D, according to media reports.

When asked about the discrepancy in the type of aircraft, a representative from the Maryland State Police told HuffPost that there’s “nothing in the paperwork that mentions what type of aircraft it was.”

Yup! Besides Aliens imported from the other states in Congress (some of them are too stupid to be human!)– We got our very own Area 51 right here on the Chesapeake Bay!

Attack of the Arachnids – Indian Village Overrun By Poisonous Spiders

Wow – this one is like something out of a 80′s horror movie. For reasons unknown, villages in part of India have been swarmed by a previously unknown type of Tarantula…

Mysterious Poisonous Spiders Invade Indian Town

Swarms of never-before-seen spiders descended upon a cultural festival in the northeastern Indian town of Sadiya last month, biting several people and leaving two dead. The arachnid “invasion,” as the Times of India called it, caused a panic among festival-goers who reportedly jostled one another and tripped over benches in an effort to escape the venomous spiders.

A spider suspected to be a new species of tarantula in Tinsukia, Assam state, India, is shown, May 30, 2012. The hairy spiders were first noticed about a month ago across Tinsukia district’s grassy plains and dense jungle forests north of the Brahmaputra River.

Scientists from Dibrugarh University and Gauhati University have not been able to identify the spiders, which resemble tarantulas but may be a new species altogether. Ratul Rajkhowa, a professor of zoology at Cotton College in the city of Guwahati, told the Times that the spiders could be black wishbones, a species native to Southern Australia. If that’s the case, the spiders’ venom would not be deadly but could, in some individuals, cause severe allergic reactions that may result in death. The individuals who died after being bitten by the mysterious spiders were reportedly cremated before autopsies could be performed, and scientists have yet to test the toxicity of the spiders’ venom.

The sudden infestation nevertheless remains a concern for both scientists and Sadiya residents, as venomous spiders are not native to India’s Assam region, where the attacks occurred.

British naturalist Vejay K. Singh told the Times that, while swarms of spiders are rare, ”a certain anomaly in conditions may provoke an unusual surge in breeding populations…usually after flooding when the spiders search for dry and higher ground.” Post-flood spider swarms in Australia last March left farmlands blanketed in spiderwebs, while in Pakistan millions of spiders enveloped trees  following last year’s devastating floods.

Specimens of the Sadiya spiders have been sent to the Indian Society of Arachnology in the state of Maharashtra for identification.

Best Get Out of School For the Day Note, Ever!

President Obama Gives 5th Grader Best Absence Note Ever

President Barack Obama hosted six separate fundraisers in Minnesota and Chicago on Friday. But before he counted his new-found cash, Obama made an official presidential visit to a Honeywell factory in a Minneapolis suburb.

There, he was introduced by Ryan Sullivan, a new employee at the factory. Ryan’s son Tyler missed school to see his dad introduce the president, so Obama wrote him what just may be the best absence note ever collected by a 5th grader. Try punishing the kid for truancy now.

Revenge of the Rust Belt

So now that US Industries have woken up – and finally started realizing that producing many products is cheaper in America…

Where are the new factories going?

Turns out, a majority of them are moving right back where they came from…

The Rust Belt.

During the 80′s and 90′s a lot of American business followed the cattle herd mentality in migrating manufacturing to China – or the next “best” onshore location – the American South. Now I don’t know if it was because at the time, Wall Street was sucking up all the smart MBAs with promises of making millions – or a failure in groupthink…

But a whole bunch of somebodies forgot to put the ancillary costs of offshoring into the equation. From lead laced toys damaging babies, to diaphanous intellectual property protections, to drywall which killed people because of the use of cheaper – poisonous chemicals… The real cost of manufacturing in China is much higher than the wage level would indicate. Thank goodness some folks finally got a clue.

The issue in the South is productivity. American productivity far surpasses that of any other country – and is significantly higher than Chinas. So while the payroll part of manufacturing in China is cheaper – the cost per completed piece is actually higher. Same issue in the South. When you start looking at where your educated workforce is…

It isn’t by and large …There. Meaning productivity is again higher in those old tried and true rust belt states. Further is the cost of conservatives. That is – as long as southern conservatives are dedicated to fighting the Civil War – the number of discrimination lawsuits, and level of employee friction is going to be through the roof, hampering full productivity. Lastly – as recent laws introduced and passed by conservative red state legislatures – such as the anti-immigrant legislation in Georgia where the state’s agricultural workforce was decimated…

You don’t know what stupid, business killing thing they are going to come up with next. Like declaring war on your largest foreign customer.

It’s early – but the “Rust Belt” right about now is looking pretty damn good.

The Revenge of the Rust Belt: How the Midwest Got Its Groove Back

We’re not used to thinking of the old industrial Midwest as a beacon of good news. Just the opposite. It’s Exhibit A in the story of America’s economic decline — a land of hollowed-out factory towns and shrinking cities. There’s an entire genre of photography dedicated to Detroit’s decaying cityscape alone.

Yet, it may be time to rethink that view. Because there are signs that the heart of the rust belt may be finally shaking off its rust.

For the past thirty years or so, there have been two great running narratives about American manufacturing, both of which have been disastrous for the Midwest’s economy. The first has been about the disappearing factory worker — how by shipping some jobs abroad and replacing others with machines, companies have figured out ways to produce more goods with millions of fewer employees on their assembly lines. The second narrative has been about migration — the decision by companies to move production away from once-booming industrial centers of the north, to southern states with weaker unions and lower wages.

Both of those trends, it appears, may have drawn to an end. 

“Not in My House” Tamron Hall Smackdown of Republican Jim Carney

Damn! Don’t bring this crap into MY House!

MSNBC host Tamron Hall whups Rethugy rear end in this clip.

MSNBC’s Tamron Hall handily shut down guest Tim Carney on Friday, in an exchange so fiery that she immediately began trending on Twitter.

Hall asked Carney about Mitt Romney’s testy reaction to a reporter asking about marijuana on Thursday. Before addressing the question, he alleged that she and the rest of the media were focusing too much attention on the candidate’s past — including his bullying of two classmates in high school.

“What you’re doing here is a typical media trick,” Carney charged. “You hype up a story and justify the second-day coverage of the story.”

That set Hall off. She began to tell him that he didn’t have to “answer a single question” she asked or “accept the invitation to come on” and speak. Carney tried to interject, but she told him, “You’re kind of in my house,” and proceeded to smack him down for over a minute.

“You’re not gonna come on and insult me, you’re not gonna come on and insult the network when you knew what we were gonna talk about,” she concluded. “Done.” With that, she cut to another guest.

Hall immediately became a trending topic on Twitter, as people reacted to the segment. Viewers called her a “badass” and a “hero,” and said that she “schooled,” “filleted,” “checked” and “ripped a layer of skin off” Carney.

“Not in my House”…Indeed. Baby – you can have a pair of the BTx3, Made in America by Union labor, steel toed, Size 13 Brogans…

Anytime you want!

Reports of Shots Fired Near White House

Apparently an abandoned car and “machine gun” have been found at the scene, although it is unkown what the target may have been at this point…

Apparently, Constitution Avenue, which is some distance across parkland was shut down for a period of time.

Shots fired near White House

Shots have been fired between two cars near the White House, U.S. Park Police confirms.

Sgt. David Schlosser of the U.S. Park Police said Friday evening that the agency received a report of shots fired near 16th Street and Constitution Avenue, NW, between The White House and the Washington Monument, at about 9:30 p.m.

He said that shortly afterward, officers located an abandoned vehicle several blocks away on the ramp to the nearby Theodore Roosevelt Bridge. Authorities tell ABC7 News that an AK-47 assault rifle was found.

He said police are looking at “involvement of this vehicle in the situation,” but didn’t know whether a weapon was recovered. He said police suspect another vehicle was involved.

Constitution Avenue is closed between 15th and 17th Streets. U.S. Park Police and Security Service are on the scene.

Police are looking for bullet holes and haven’t confirmed that shots were actually fired. He said The White House is a fair distance away and doesn’t appear to have been the focus.

President Barack Obama was observing Veterans Day with a basketball game aboard a Navy warship Friday. Obama’s stop in San Diego was the first leg of a nine-day diplomacy mission he’s embarking on, to Hawaii, where the U.S. is hosting an economic summit for the Asia-Pacific, and from there to Australia and Indonesia.

Foreclosing on the Dead in Spain

Damn…And you thought things were tough here in the US of A… In Spain there is going to be an upsurge in “homeless” dead people.

“Occupy” the Graveyard, anyone?

Spanish Cemetery Warns Of Evictions For Nonpayment

Pushed for space, a Spanish cemetery has begun placing stickers on thousands of burial sites with lapsed leases as a warning to relatives that their ancestors face possible eviction.

Jose Abadia, deputy urban planning manager for Zaragoza in Spain’s northeast, said Monday that the city’s Torrero graveyard had already removed remains from some 420 crypts, and reburied them in common ground.

He said the cases involved graves whose leases had not been renewed for 15 years or more. Torrero, like many Spanish cemeteries, no longer allows people to buy grave sites, instead leasing them out for periods of five or 49 years.

Abadia said 7,000 of Torrero’s 114,000 burial sites’ leases had run out, many of which occurred because relatives – or caretakers – had died themselves, or moved house and failed to renew the contract.

In other cases, family descendants no longer wanted to pay for relatives’ plots, he added.

Abadia said the cemetery began stepping up its search for defaulters around two years ago, with relatives or caretakers given six months to respond.

The stickering campaign was planned to coincide with the Nov. 1 Roman Catholic holiday, on which people customary visit graveyards.

He said that since then hundreds of people had rang to make inquiries about the status of their relatives’ burial sites.

It’s a case of cemetery management, “not to make money” as graveyards have limited space, he said.

Andy Rooney

Anyone who was ever a 60 Minutes fan knows the wit of Andy Rooney. For decades Andy’s 3 minutes at the end of the show alternately amused and pissed off his listeners with wit, a sense of the absurd, and his ordinary guy persona.

CBS commentator Andy Rooney dies at 92

 Legendary CBS News commentator Andy Rooney, known to millions for his witty essays on mundane topics, died Friday night in New York. He was 92.

He had been hospitalized after suffering complications following minor surgery last month.

“It’s a sad day at ’60 Minutes’ and for everybody here at CBS News,” said Jeff Fager, chairman of CBS News and the executive producer of ’60 Minutes.’ “It’s hard to imagine not having Andy around. He loved his life and he lived it on his own terms. We will miss him very much.”

Rooney made his last regular weekly appearance on “60 Minutes” on Oct. 2. A few weeks later, CBS announced he was in a hospital.

Rooney’s colleague and longtime “60 Minutes” correspondent Morley Safer told CNN Saturday that Rooney worked to the very end and that he would not have wanted it any other way.

“That’s the way to go,” Safer said. “The only thing better than three weeks would have been three minutes.”

Correspondent Steve Kroft reflected on the length of Rooney’s storied career.

“What a life: ninety-two years of doing what you love to do while engaging and entertaining millions and millions of people,” he said.

And Lesley Stahl, also Rooney’s colleague on the show, called him “our poet laureate.”

“He was the Oracle of West 57th Street, an everyman if everyman wrote like a dream,” she said. “He was the most popular member of our team, loved by the audience, and far more loved by all of us than he knew.”

Rooney got his start in journalism as a writer in the Army and went on to spend nearly six decades at CBS, half behind the camera as a writer and producer and then as an on-air commentator in 1978 when he joined “60 Minutes.” His commentaries earned him the title King of Grouch.

On looking for a job, he said: “We need people who can actually do things. We have too many bosses and too few workers. More college graduates ought to become plumbers or electricians, then go home at night and read Shakespeare.”

Atlanta Woman Arrested and Jailed Wrongly For 2 Months

It took the Police 2 months to figure out this woman wasn’t the suspect they were after?

While the news crew apparently had no problem finding the woman they were after!

Apparently the Police didn’t even bother to confirm the identity of the woman they had arrested, Ms. Culpepper, with the victim to make sure that they had arrested the right person.

Woman spends 53 DAYS in jail because she was ‘mistaken for another woman with the same first name’

A woman has claimed she was jailed for almost two months because of a mix-up with another woman with the same first name.

Teresa Culpepper was locked up after police suspected her of being involved in an aggravated assault.

Despite not having the same surname as the alleged suspect, as well as a different birth date, she was held for 53 days.

Her lawyer Ashleigh Merchant said police in Atlanta held her simply because her first name matched that of their prime suspect.

‘She had medical records. She had numerous other documents that showed her name and proved her actual identity, but nobody bothered to check, and they arrested her and took her to jail,’ said Ms Merchant.

‘Her birth date didn’t match. Her address didn’t match. Her description didn’t match. Other than the name Teresa, nothing matched.’

Ms Culpepper was released after the victim of the alleged assault appeared in court to reveal Ms Culpepper was not the person who assaulted her.

Another Rat Goes Down – Ghadaffi Reportedly Killed

This one from the Tripoli Post. There are unconfirmed reports that Muhhhamar Ghadaffi was killed  when NATO planes struck a convoy in which he was travelling trying to escape.

Russia TV is broadcasting a photo, claiming is it Ghadaffi (warning – graphic!)

Breaking News: Unconfirmed Reports That Al Qathafi Captured, Killed

Unconfirmed reports from Libya indicate that the former Libyan dictator Muammar Al Qathafi has been captured and killed. This comes after the revolutionaries took Al Qathafi’s hometown of Sirte, and the final stronghold of his loyalists.

A senior NTC official has said that Muammar Al Qathafi has died of his wounds after being captured near Sirte and that the head of his armed forces, Abu Bakr Younis Jabr has also been killed.

At first, the National Transitional Council’s field commander, Jamal abu-Shaalah, reportedly said that Al Qathafi had been seized, but it was not clear whether he was dead or alive. Another NTC official, Abdel Majid, was quoted saying: “Al Qathafi is captured and is wounded.”

First reports stated that Al Qathafi was wounded in both legs and that he had been carried in an ambulance towards hospital

But then Abdel Majid was reported saying that Al Qathafi was trying to flee in a convoy that had been attacked by NATO warplanes, and that Abu Bakr Younus Jabr had been killed during Al Qathafi’s capture.

Majid said NATO warplanes struck the convoy and hit four cars as it headed west. Ahmed Ibrahim, a cousin and adviser of Ql Qathafi, was also captured.

He went on to say: “He’s captured. He’s wounded in both legs … He’s been taken away by ambulance.” He added that Younis Jabr, the head of Al Qathafi’s armed forces, was killed during the capture of the former leader.

The news came shortly after NTC claimed capturing Sirte after weeks of fighting.

The NTC top officials have not yet confirmed Al Qathafi’s capture. Neither NATO nor the US state department could confirm the reports of the capture of Al Qathafi who has not been seen since NTC fighters seized Tripoli, the Libyan capital two months ago.

Sources have told tripolipost.com that Al Qathafi’s body is being taken to a hospital in Misurata so that the medics could confirm or not that the dead body belongs to the former Libyan leader.

Meanwhile in Benghazi, crowds gathered in the streets have started to celebrate the reports of Al Qathafi’s capture.

Sources to the NTC were said to be very cautious and must make doubly sure that A Qathafi has been captured. The suggestion should, at present, be taken with a substantial pinch of salt after earlier question marks over the “capture” of Al Qathafi’s son Seif.

The first hints that Al Qathafi could have been captured was given by National Transitional Council’s information minister, Mahmoud Shammam, when he appeared on Al Jazeera and stopped short of confirming the claim, which is being widely reported on Libyan TV…

Now – if we could only follow suit and put a few of our own war criminals in jail (preferably without the bloodshed) who lied us into an illegal invasion of Iraq.

MSM Coverage of Obama Biased Negatively

News coverage of President Obama is biased towards the negative, explaining why he is having such a difficult time getting his message across, or getting credit for the accomplishments of his Administration. This isn’t the first time this has happened. If you will remember back to the 2000 Presidential Election cycle, the MSM all but crowned Bush President 11 months BEFORE the actual election. The MSM spent a lot of time tossing Bush softball questions and giving him the benefit of the doubt.

They are doing it again, this time in support of a stable of Republican mental midgets and moral degenerates who, under no circumstance could be considered “Presidential material”. It is time to fight back, at least for fair media coverage.

 

Study finds harsh media coverage for Obama

President Obama “has suffered the most unrelentingly negative treatment” of all presidential candidates over the past five months, according to a study released Monday from the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism.

Pew found that Mr. Obama was the subject of negative assessments nearly four times as often as he was the subject of positive assessments. It found he received “positive” coverage nine percent of the time, “neutral” coverage 57 percent of the time and “negative” coverage 34 percent of the time.

The study, which was conducted using a combination of “traditional media research methods [and] computer algorithms to track the level and tone of coverage,” cuts against the widespread conservative claim that the “liberal media” aides Mr. Obama and other Democrats while attacking Republicans.

Pew says it looked at coverage from more than 11,500 news outlets, including local and national broadcasts, news websites and blogs.

Mr. Obama’s negative coverage could be explained in part by the fact that he is “covered largely as president rather than a candidate,” Pew said – and coverage of him is linked to the struggling economy.

Among the Republican presidential candidates, Pew found that Rick Perry has received the most positive coverage of all the candidates, with 32 percent positive coverage. He was followed by Sarah Palin (31 percent), Michele Bachmann (31 percent), Herman Cain (28 percent) and Mitt Romney (26 percent.) Palin, a vocal critic of the media, ultimately decided not to seek the GOP nomination.

Perry had the best ratio of any candidate, with 32 percent positive coverage to 20 percent negative coverage, a 12 percent net positive ratings in terms of coverage. He was followed by Palin (with 9 percent net positive coverage), Bachmann (8 percent net positive), Cain (5 percent net positive), Ron Paul and Jon Huntsman (both with 4 percent net positive coverage.) Pew found that Cain surged in positive coverage starting in late August – even before he did so in the polls.

The only candidate who received more negative coverage than Mr. Obama was Newt Gingrich, whom Pew found was the subject of negative coverage 35 percent of the time. That can be attrubited in part to his early stumbles, including his criticism of the House GOP Medicare plan and the decision by top staffers to abandom Gingrich’s campaign. While Pew found that Mr. Obama received just nine percent positive coverage, however, Gingrich received 15 percent positive coverage.

The candidates with the worst coverage ratio were Mr. Obama (25 percent net negative coverage), Gingrich (20 percent net negative), Rick Santorum (3 percent net negative) and Mitt Romney (1 percent net negative.)

As Politico’s Keach Hagey notes, Pew found that Mr. Obama had widely positive media coverage during his first 100 days in office, with 42 percent positive coverage and 20 percent negative coverage.

China Tiangong-1 Launch Animation Set to “America the Beautiful”

Somebody over there in China goofed on this one, setting the background music of the video animation of the Launch to America the Beautiful.

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Rocket’s red glaring error: China sets space launch to America the Beautiful

The lift-off was flawless. The orbit immaculate. But while China‘s leaders were celebrating the triumphant launch of Tiangong-1 space lab on Thursday, viewers of state television footage were treated to a bizarre choice of soundtrack: America the Beautiful.

To mark the launch, the Chinese space agency and China Central Television (CCTV) released aproud animation, set to rousing orchestral strains, of the “Heavenly Palace” thrusting skyward, lofting above the Earth and docking with a Shenzou crew capsule.

The only problem being that the backing music in question is America the Beautiful – more or less an unofficial national anthem of the United States. The Guardian spotted the blunder after picking up the video from the Reuters news agency while covering the launch.

America the Beautiful, which was composed by a New York church organist in 1882, has long been a favourite of US patriots. It has been proposed as the national hymn and a replacement for The Star-Spangled Banner as anthem.

It could hardly be more different from the music associated with the launch of China’s first rocket in 1970. That satellite transmitted the Cultural Revolution anthem, The East is Red, extolling the virtues of the Communist party and Chairman Mao.

The choice of soundtrack for the Tiangong launch raised several questions. Is this the work of an idealist seeking to usher in a new era of transPacific cooperation, a nationalist who wants to colonise American culture as well as outer space, or simply a propaganda gaffe?