Video- First Lady Michelle Obama in Haiti

Raw Video: Michelle Obama Visits Haiti

Video- The Baja Earthquake From Space

Via Gawker, this is why Gotta hasn't been able to post for a while. Everything's fine, just intertube issues.

An NOAA weather satellite captured dust rising from the ground in Baja California at around 3:30 p.m., presumably kickued up by this afternoon's 7.2 magnitude earthquake. Click through for a time-lapse animation.

(via Arizonanewsnet)

Video- GWB wipes his hand on Bill Clinton’s shirt after shaking hands with Haitians

Wow, just freaking wow. Via Think Progress.

Raw Video: Quake-Stricken Chile in Ruins

Alot of this crap happening lately.

Cartoon of the Day

Click to enlarge, via.

Mid Day Distraction

US Christian group arrested in Haiti on child trafficking charges

By GottaLaff

This is not exactly what true Christianity is about:

Haitian police detained 10 members of a US Christian group after they allegedly tried to leave the country with more than 30 children who survived the country's devastating earthquake. [...]

Police had arrested five men and five women with US passports, as well as two Haitians, as they tried to cross into the neighboring Dominican Republic with 33 children late Friday, Haitian authorities said. [...]

The Americans were members of an Idaho-based charity called New Life Children's Refuge, said Social Affairs Minister Yves Christallin, adding: "This is an abduction, not an adoption." [...]

Patricia Vargas, head of an international center caring for the youngsters, said that officials at the Haitian Institute of Social Welfare, which deals with adoptions, told her "most of the kids have family."

Some of the older children had spoken to aid workers and "say their parents are alive, and some of them gave us an address and phone numbers," she said.

The US embassy confirmed that ten US citizens were being held for "alleged violations of Haitian laws related to immigration."

At least they were caught. This time.

UPDATE, via an e-mail alert from the Associated Press:

Haiti prime minister says US Baptist group knew it was wrong to take children out of country.

They knew.

Doctors Skirt Red Tape to Save Haitian Kids

By GottaLaff

The Hippocratic Oath is alive and well in Haiti:

Doctors skirted a bureaucratic logjam to save the lives of three critically-ill child victims of Haiti's earthquake on Sunday, flying them to U.S. hospitals on a private jet to avoid a military suspension of medical evacuation flights.

A 5-year-old tetanus victim, a 14-month-old boy critically ill with pneumonia and a baby with third-degree burns were sent to Children's Hospital of Philadelphia by the aid group Partners in Health, based in Boston.

The airlift had been in doubt after the U.S. military stopped medical evacuation flights on Wednesday night because of because of an apparent dispute over where seriously injured patients should be taken for treatment.

"This is a good day. These are three children who would have died if they had stayed here," said Luis Ivers, Partners in Health's clinical director in Haiti. "It's the little successes like that that keep us going here."

We need a whole lot more little successes, and we definitely need to keep things going there.

Haitian Americans Overwhelmingly Approve of Obama, U.S. Response

Unfortunately there isn't that much confidence in Haiti itself.

The Miami Herald this morning reports on a new poll of Haitian-Americans by the Miami based Bendixen & Amandi, which finds both deep loss -- 59% of Haitian-Americans say they lost a loved one in the earthquake -- and overwhelming appreciation for U.S. government action.

Pollster Fernand Amandi sent over the fuller results of the survey, which interviewed 400 Haitian-Americans, most of them in Florida and New York. It shows more approval of American action than you'll find almost anywhere, on any issue: 96% of Haitian-Americans approve of the job Obama is doing.

Haiti appeal from Planned Parenthood hit

Because women aren't more vulnerable after a natural disaster? I'm sure there haven't been any rapes or women just without the minimal contraceptive resources, correct?

Pro-life groups are accusing Planned Parenthood of taking advantage of the humanitarian catastrophe in Haiti to promote a pro-choice agenda.

Days after the devastating Jan. 12 earthquake, the International Planned Parenthood Federation Western Hemisphere Region (IPPF/WHR) sent out a fundraising appeal to help rebuild two clinics that were destroyed in Port-au-Prince and Jacmel.

The clinics are operated by PROFAMIL, a "member association" that provides "sexual and reproductive health services," including abortions. The fundraising post said that PROFAMIL is setting up a temporary stationary clinic and mobile-health units to provide "basic first aid, as well as obstetric care and family planning."

Outrage over the appeal quickly spread through the pro-life community and its related blogs. Rita Diller, national director of Stop Planned Parenthood, said on LifeSiteNews.com that the group was "using the disaster and the suffering in Haiti to raise money to perpetuate itself."

Ahem, that would be the point lady, they're just trying to rebuild what was already there providing services. Asswipes.

Video- President Obama Thanks Red Cross for Haiti Efforts

Video- Clinton Bush Haiti Fund PSA

What is the deal with GWB always looking like he's smirking? I mean, even he wouldn't be all hapslappy over this situation. Is it the shape of his mouth or what?

Satan's letter to Pat Robertson

By GottaLaff

When Pat Robertson blamed Haiti's pact with the devil for the earthquake, he struck a chord... a chord from hell in the key of hot.

The devil felt compelled to respond.

Satan's letter to Pat, in part:

If I had a thing going with Haiti, there'd be lots of banks, skyscrapers, SUVs, exclusive night clubs, Botox -- that kind of thing. An 80 percent poverty rate is so not my style. Nothing against it -- I'm just saying: Not how I roll.

You're doing great work, Pat, and I don't want to clip your wings -- just, come on, you're making me look bad. And not the good kind of bad. Keep blaming God. That's working. But leave me out of it, please. Or we may need to renegotiate your own contract.

Best, Satan

You can read the rest here.

H/t: jazzcattrio

Reports: Blackwater is "protecting" in Haiti

By GottaLaff

For those readers who aren't on Twitter, this comes to us via Jeremy Scahill:


Nice. Good. This should go a long way to improve their image. Why not just send Karl Rove out to defend President Obama's policies while they're at it?

And these thugs are on the government payroll why again? Oh, wait. I know. Our military is stretched tighter than Joan River's face.

Meanwhile, on his web site, Jeremy reports the welcome news that Jan Schakowsky is preparing legislation to ban Blackwater:

Schakowsky says Blackwater has “severely damaged the credibility and security of our military and harmed our relationship with other governments” [...]

As multiple scandals involving Blackwater continue to emerge almost daily, Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence is preparing to introduce legislation aimed at ending the US government’s relationship with Blackwater and other armed contracting companies.

You can read the whole thing, including Schakowsky's letter, here.

And good for her. That's long overdue.

If you need some background on who these criminals are, read my Blackwater for Dummeez primer here.

VIDEO: Obama, Bush & Clinton Stand Shoulder To Shoulder On Haiti Relief Funds

By GottaLaff

This covers most of the event:

CNN does it right in Haiti. Fox on the other hand...

By GottaLaff

James Rainey over at the L.A. Times has a piece out that reflects the mood of the Twitterverse specifically, and most of us here at TPC generally, meaning: ClusterFox is not a news network, and when it comes to Haiti coverage, CNN wins:

CNN's determination to stick with the news stands in stark contrast to its competitors, particularly Fox News, that in prime time have increasingly been committed to building their brands with political commentary over straight reporting.

And by political commentary he means propaganda.

When critics accuse Fox of being a tool of the conservative political movement, the company's executives counter that they deliver serious news during much of the day.

And by serious news they mean propaganda.

But its prime-time headliners expose the values of the entire operation, and this week they've given abysmally short shrift to the biggest crisis in the world.

Why dwell on one of our closest hemispheric neighbors in its hour of dire need, when -- like both Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck -- you can conduct prolonged, frothy promotional interviews with Fox's newest contributor, Sarah Palin?

Why focus on all that misery, if, like Hannity on Wednesday, you can engage conservative virago Michelle Malkin in a soaring conversation about the Obama administration's "culture of corruption."

Virago. Excellent word. Mental note: Remember the word "virago" and use it often.

Bill O'Reilly played his no-Haiti card too, managing a gripping discussion Wednesday with Bo Derek about the threat to the West's wild horses.

Bill-O is limited that way. See Interview: Palin, Sarah.

[MSNBC] dedicated more than two hours to the quake in its three major prime-time shows, compared with less than seven minutes presented by Fox's biggest stars Wednesday night, according to the liberal media watchdog, Media Matters. [...]

No matter how much CNN succeeded in delivering the story, it will never make me stomach the self-promotion that it and other outlets insist on weaving throughout their coverage.

Now we're talkin'. TBPNTOTV!!!* is notorious for that, or I wouldn't have spent all that time and effort mocking them.

Can we please get through an hour without heaping praise on our correspondents' valor (however real it may be)? Maybe Gupta can't be stopped from playing both reporter and doctor (he is a neurosurgeon, after all), but how many times are we going to have to watch that video of the good doctor bandaging the head of a 15-day-old girl?

Well, now you're being harsh. Everyone knows that Gupta thrives on camera time. Of course, saying he's into health issues is stating the obvious. His own health and well-being would suffer if he were forced into reduced exposure on the Tee Vee Machine. In fact, for Sanjay, being on air is a pre-existing condition. It's common knowledge that he is covered under a Cadillac plan for that very thing.

Good thing he can afford it.

This was a longish piece, which you can read in its entirety here. And seriously, congratulations to CNN for doing what its name says it should do, cover the news.

*THE BEST POLITICAL NEWS TEAM ON TELEVISION!!!

Cartoon of the Day

Amen. Click to enlarge, via.

AUDIO- Rush Limbaugh to "closed-minded, bigot blockhead" caller: "You have "tampons in your ears"

By GottaLaff



Ain't he a class act? Well, half of that is true. He's nothing but an act.

George Clooney To Host Haiti Telethon, Simulcast On MTV, ABC, NBC, HBO, CNN

By GottaLaff

Will Lost* viewers get angry? Will MSNBC jump in? Will ClusterFoxers complain about... well, everything?

Leah Greenblatt reports for Entertainment Weekly:

On Friday, Jan. 22, George Clooney will host a live telethon to benefit earthquake victims in Haiti. Clooney’s rep says the telethon is now set to air on all of the MTV channels worldwide, along with ABC, NBC, HBO and CNN. The show will air 8-10 p.m. ET.

*No, I have no idea on which night Lost airs. I was simply quipping my fool head off.