posted March 27, 2011 11:41 AM            

Staffers with Vice President Joe Biden confined an Orlando Sentinel reporter in a closet this week to keep him from mingling with high-powered guests gathered for a Democratic fundraiser.

Reporter Scott Powers was the designated "pool reporter" for the vice president's Wednesday visit to the massive Winter Park, Fla., home of developer and philanthropist Alan Ginsburg. The veep hadn't arrived yet but most of the 150 guests (minimum $500 donation) had. They were busy noshing on caprese crostini with oven-dried mozzarella and basil, rosemary flatbread with grapes honey and gorgonzola cheese and bacon deviled eggs, before a lunch of grilled chicken Caesar and garden vegetable wraps.

Not so for Powers. A "low-level staffer" put Powers in a storage closet and then stood guard outside the door, Powers told the DRUDGE REPORT. "When I'd stick my head out, they'd say, 'Not yet. We'll let you know when you can come out.'"

And no crustini for Powers, either. He made do with a bottle of water to sip as he sat at a tiny makeshift desk, right next to a bag marked "consignment." Powers was closeted at about 11:30 a.m., held for about an hour and 15 minutes, came out for 35 minutes of remarks by Biden and Sen. Bill Nelson, Florida Democrat, and then returned to his jail for the remainder of the event.

Powers' phone didn't work in the closet, but his Blackberry did, so he fired a picture of his impromptu prison to his editors, who posted a short blog item on the lack of freedom of the press under the veep's control.

Powers didn't mention his confinement in either of his pool reports that day, saying only that "press coverage was limited to a single pool reporter, filing on behalf of all local media, who was allowed to listen to the remarks but not given an opportunity to talk with anyone at the event."

On Friday, Powers said, the home's owner called him. "He said he had no idea they'd put me in a closet and was very sorry. He said he was just following their lead and was extremely embarrassed by the whole thing."
http://drudgereport.com/flash7.html

"extremely embarrassed by the whole thing"

posted March 27, 2011 11:56 AM            

Right! Check

Vice Prez Joe O'Biden!

Right! Check

The Vice President’s office did not respond to requests for comment.

Right! Check

Vice President's staff lock journalist in a closet for hours during a fundraiser to stop him talking to guests
By Simon Neville
Last updated at 4:12 PM on 27th March 2011

The White House website proudly says ‘President Obama is committed to creating the most open and accessible administration in American history.’

But try telling Vice President Joe Biden’s staff that, after they held a local reporter in a closet for hours after he was invited to cover a Florida political fundraiser because they did not want him talking with the guests.

As the unaware $500-a-head invitees dined on caprese crostini with oven-dried mozzarella and basil, rosemary flatbread with grapes honey and gorgonzola cheese, grilled chicken Caesar and garden vegetable wraps, veteran reporter Scott Powers was locked away.

The Orlando Sentinel reporter was ushered into the closet inside wealthy property developer Alan Ginsburg’s Winter Falls mansion, after being told that Joe Biden and Senator Bill Nelson had not yet arrived.
They were due to speak to the audience to raise money for the 2012 elections.

He was told he could only come out when the politicians were ready to give their speeches.

Powers told The Drudge Report: ‘When I'd stick my head out, they'd say, “Not yet. We'll let you know when you can come out.”’

The party was being held for Democrat senator Bill Nelson. Powers emailed from inside the closet: 'sounds like a nice party'
After 90 minutes he was allowed out to hear Biden and Nelson speak for 35 minutes, before being taken back to the closet for the remainder of the event.

From inside his temporary prison Powers emailed his office from his cell phone: ‘Sounds like a nice party.’
When Ginsburg – who has supported both Democrat and Republican candidates in the past – learnt of the treatment that took place in his house, he called the reporter.

Powers said: ‘[Ginsburg] said he had no idea they'd put me in a closet and was very sorry.
‘He said he was just following their lead and was extremely embarrassed by the whole thing.’

But some guests were shocked by the Vice President’s staff.

One emailed the paper saying: ‘I was in attendance at the Fundraiser and enjoyed a nice lunch.

‘If I had known there was a reporter stuffed in the closet, I would have been compelled to stand up and demand answers.
‘I would also like to know if this is actually legal to treat people like caged animals. I’m disgusted by these actions.’
Florida state law says kidnapping entails ‘forcibly, secretly or by threat confining, abducting or imprisoning another person against her or his will and without lawful authority.’

Alan Ginsburg's home was awash with 150 guests - none of whom seemed to know Scott Power was being held guard in the closet
Powers said of his treatment: ‘It was frustrating and annoying that I was not given a chance to do my job fully and properly.

‘This was an extreme, and extremely inappropriate way of handling the press… it was essentially a rude and uncomfortable way to treat a reporter.’

He attempted to play down his treatment calling it ‘hardly unusual or shocking’ and confirmed that he received an apology from Ginsburg.

But the Vice President’s staff emailed him an apology which he said ‘I found far less satisfying than Ginsburg’s.’

The incident is especially embarrassing for the administration because it comes at a time when the White House has been condemning the treatment of journalists trying to report in Libya.

posted March 27, 2011 05:17 PM            

Well gee Quinnie, do you have any idea how many Americans are on "Food Stamps"? The number exceeds 40,000,000..Forty Million.

And, do you know how many people O'Bomber wants to add to the subsidized health insurance rolls? That number in computed to be between 32 and 50 million.

And, do you know what percentage of the US workforce is out of work, underemployed or have given up on finding a job? That percentage of the US workforce is about 17%.

And, do you know that virtually everything O'Bomber has done..in bailouts, in taking over US industries, in increasing the numbers of government employees, in shutting down drilling and exploration for American oil, in cramming O'BomberCare down America's throat...has cost American jobs, increased the National Debt, weakened the US Dollar, driven up the price of energy, increased the cost of health insurance and made citizens MORE dependent on government?

Isn't the outcome of every Socialist, Communist, Collectivist state...a nation of "wards of the state"; dependent upon the state for the food they eat, the clothes they wear, the health care they receive and the roofs over their heads?

posted March 28, 2011 11:32 AM            

Curse the luck! Here we have a great news story about unlawful confinement and an attack on freedom of the press at a political fund raiser featuring the Vice President of the United States, and we have the wrong damn V.P. in office. This is so not news!

The New York Post brings us the story of Scott Powers, a veteran political reporter for the Orlando Sentinel acting as pool reporter covering the Vice President, who was confined in a closet by Joe Biden's security team at a fund raiser for Democrat Senator Bill Nelson. Powers was held in a small closet for 75 minutes and prevented from mingling with the paying ($500 a head) guests at the Winter Park, Florida estate of Alan Ginsburg.

"First off, it was a bad thing that they wouldn't let me interact with other guests," 11-year Orlando Sentinel newspaper veteran Scott Powers, 51 told the Post today.

"It was silly and stupid and it annoyed the hell out of me. And second, it was a highly inappropriate and demeaning place to put someone."

"They told me, ‘you wait in here until the vice president comes,' and every time I stuck my head out, they'd say ‘he's not here yet.'"

"I guess they didn't want me to get any state secrets."

After Joe Biden arrived, Powers was escorted to the room where the V.P. was to speak. He was given a "Bob Uecker seat" at the rear of the room where he strained to get a glimpse of Mr. Biden over the 150 Democrat supporters in attendance.

With the fund raiser winding down, Powers was given an apology by Mr. Ginsburg. "He said he had no idea that the VP's team put me in his closet," Powers said. "It was a nice apology, gracious." In stark contrast to the "gracious" apology from his host, Powers received an email from Biden's press secretary which he described as "something less than heartfelt," adding that "It was one or two sentences, like, sorry it happened to you."

Oddly enough the Orlando Sentinel didn't feel this incident was particularly newsworthy, although they did post a picture in the Political Pulse Blog that Powers took of his segregation cell with the caption "life of the reporter is not always easy." Now that the story has leaked out, the Sentinel has provided further coverage, not about the incident, but rather the big news that Good Morning America aired an interview with Scott Powers this morning.

Imagine if you would, that a similar incident had happened while Dick Cheney was vice president. Page one, banner headline, "V.P. Dick Cheney has Reporter Imprisoned During Political Fund Raiser at Wealthy Republican's Luxurious Florida Estate." The remainder of the front page would features articles such as "Sen. Biden calls for Cheney's Impeachment," "Sen. Obama Outraged over Cheney's Assault on Freedom of Press," "Sen. Durbin Demands Investigation," and "Sen. Clinton says Cheney's Behavior Inexcusable."

posted March 29, 2011 11:35 AM            

March 29, 2011
Our New-Age Saboteurs
By John Pechette

I humbly suggest the following neologism: Progluddite (pronounced like troglodyte). Definition: a misinformed, misguided political ideologue who believes that technological regression will force humanity to build a New Age Utopia.

On its face, the word Progluddite seems nonsensical. It is an oxymoronic pairing of Progressive (one who is interested in new ideas) and Luddite (one who rejects new technology). However, the word is merely a reflection of the self-contradictory nature of progressive notions. Progressives believe that political, social, and economic progress can only be achieved by instituting the failed, shopworn nineteenth century socialist program inspired by Karl Marx. Progressives also believe that mankind's selfish use of efficient, modern technology will lead to a global environmental apocalypse.

The technological advancement that had the greatest benefit to humanity was the gradual transition from muscle energy to chemical energy. Production via muscle energy was slow, grueling, and inefficient. The cost of goods produced by muscle energy was relatively high and made more than bare subsistence unaffordable to all but the upper classes. At first, the progress from muscle to chemical energy was slow. Mankind relied on primitive wind-driven and water-driven machines for many centuries. Over time, these machines were refined, and eventually sped up industrial production and agricultural processing, placed more goods and more food in the marketplace, and made both more affordable. Wealth and health increased.

Then the external-combustion engine was introduced. The Newcomen Engine harnessed the power of steam to pump water out of mines. James Watt made major improvements to the Newcomen design, and suddenly humanity had a portable, powerful, and versatile energy source. Locations of factories and mills were no longer constrained by access to strong winds or swiftly-running water. The cost of industrial and agricultural products dropped and health and wealth took a great leap forward.

This technologically-driven advancement in the general welfare was not universally welcomed. In England, the Luddites, skilled laborers who had been displaced by machines, burned wool and cotton mills. In France, workers who were replaced by automated Jacquard looms threw their wooden shoes (sabots) into the machinery in an attempt to damage them. These workers were obviously unable to see the larger picture: that increased production lowered the prices of goods, which in turn increased demand, which then led to industrial expansion and more jobs. That small group of workers was, indeed, temporarily harmed, but it and everyone else in the society eventually benefited from better technology.

The inventors of Industrial Socialism, Karl Marx and Freidrich Engels, were philosophical Luddites. In reaction to the perceived excesses and inequities of the Industrial Revolution, they attempted to destroy the social and political machinery of the modern Capitalist State. They sought to do this by providing an historical and ideological justification for the great Workers' Revolt. To that end, they posited that inexorable historical tides would bring the triumph of Communism. What they failed to recognize is that Communism is not progressive, but is, in fact, regressive. Their Workers' State represented the reestablishment of feudalism: workers would be vassals within industrial fiefdoms, with few rights and many duties. The workers' committees that they envisioned as the rulers of the Communist State, were in fact nothing more than updated Medieval Craft Guilds: monopolistic, inflexible relics of the muscle-energy past.

Today's Progluddites have irrational technological taboos and preferences: they hate nuclear power and the internal combustion engine and love 'clean, sustainable' and inefficient energy sources. The taboo technologies are clearly more productive, and the so-called sustainable technologies are nothing but updated versions of the Medieval energy sources our ancestors discarded.

Progluddites, however, are not interested in productivity or efficiency. High productivity is conducive to individual liberty and free choice, whereas low productivity is more conducive to collectivism. Progluddites believe that individual liberty and free choice are dangerous. Progluddites believe that, if only our political and economic culture became collectivist, the modern consumerist society would cease to exist, all excesses and inequities would be eliminated, and humanity would save itself from a technologically-induced disaster.

The Collectivist Utopia envisioned by Progluddites is not modern in concept: it is purely feudalistic. In their Perfect State, a Progluddite Oligopoly, a cadre of Leftist experts, would have dictatorial powers and the vast majority would be vassals serving the interests of their self-anointed rulers. Our future under the thumb of the Progluddite Elites would be identical to the past in which our Dark Age ancestors suffered. Once again, the mass of mankind would be born with a saddle on its back, to be ridden by a favored few who are booted and spurred; once again mankind's lot would be one of tyranny, stagnation, poverty, drudgery, cold, and hunger. But Progluddites, because they exist on a higher moral plane, and rule by virtue of a New Age Divine Right, would be exempt from the rules that they force upon their inferiors.

posted March 29, 2011 02:48 PM            

Just for your information, it's the working poor in Wisconsin who are providing all those high salaries, gold plated pensions and gold plated health insurance policies for the wheezing, whining, shrieking union members who, on average, make more money than they do.

Oh, and they elected Conservative Republicans to do something about that.

One more thing. It's demoscats, including Barack Hussein O'Bomber who are acting like Kings and running roughshod over the wishes of voters. Voters who put an end to demoscat ideas of Kingship when they kicked lots of them out of office last November and elected a Republican...mostly Conservative House of Representatives.

posted March 29, 2011 05:06 PM            

and i'm not big on big govt either, but to balance the crooks trying to tie up ALL the money we need SOMETHING!! the free market you so cherish is all but gone...to wall street.

you keep getting collectivism mixed up with what has been done with that impulse. personally i like my space and yet i accept that we are all in this together, no way out of that! while you think all we have to do is give big money its head and it will rain down on us...as if it has done so in the last decades (not!)...

i'm for a happy medium which is what this country is supposed to be. but there are no "collectivist" kings. its an oxymoron! and i hardly see that obama's administration has turned everything over to the people, the collective or anything of the sort.

meanwhile the republican house is trying to strip the epa of its power to regulate pollution on every level...shame on them, hiding behind all the other shite that it going down right now. all the while chiding obama for being on "vacation" translate: trade negotiating trip while they were on recess..