Daily Archives: February 1, 2013

2012 Election, Media

Cable News Ratings, FOX Still #1

Once you get past headlines like Fox News Sees Its Worst Ratings Since 2001, and Fox News Ratings Hit 12-Year Demo Lows In January Cable News Figures, you might be curious, like I was, to see what that’s about? Come to find out, according to Nielsen Media Research, the ratings people, January marked “11 consecutive years of FNC’s dominance as the #1-rated cable news network.” What?

As a matter of fact, after the re-election of The One, I tuned out, not just to FOX, but to all of it. ‘It’ being the euphoria that the mainstream media was enjoying with the post-election burial of another Republican campaign, as well as the high of Obama’s second inauguration. It figures that the 51% wasn’t watching FOX either. They were watching everyone else. Turns out, that’s exactly what happened.

A MSNBC show Rachel Maddow jumped up from 14th a year ago to 10th in prime time. Beating FOX’s Studio B and the 11 p.m. re-run of The O’Reilly Factor. Just from reading the headlines and the progressive talking heads, you can see them jumping for joy. With the help of President Obama, they’ve finally buried FOX. Well, not.

JANUARY 2013 NIELSEN RATINGS (7 day week):

TOTAL DAY:

FNC: 1,029,000 total viewers; (209,000 in 25-54)

MSNBC: 491,000 total viewers; (160,000 in 25-54)

CNN: 448,000 total viewers; (135,000 in 25-54)

PRIMETIME”

FNC: 1,617,000 total viewers; (267,000 in 25-54)

MSNBC: 790,000 total viewers; (235,000 in 25-54)

CNN: 664,000 total viewers; (200,000 in 25-54)

Every once and awhile, it pays to look behind the headlines. Or just read it here.

Egypt, Middle East, Politics, War On Terror

Senate Says YES To Weapons Sales To Egypt

The U.S. Senate tabled the Paul Amendment to H.R.325, the debt limit bill. The amendment, introduced by Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) would have prohibited the U.S. government from selling F-16 military aircraft, M1 tanks, and similar military weapons to the Egyptian egypt_arms_transfergovernment. The amendment failed, 79-19.

On the motion to table the amendment, which effectively kills it, all Democrats with the exception of two, voted Yes. Two Democrats did not vote; John Kerry and Patty Murray.

Voted YES: Republicans that voted with the Democrats in favor of the weapons transfer were: Lamar Alexander, Kelly Ayotte, John Barrasso, Roy Blunt, Richard Burr, Saxby Chambliss, Thomas Coburn, Thad Cochran, Susan Collins, Bob Corker, Michael Enzi, Lindsey Graham, Orrin Hatch, John Hoeven, Mike Johanns, Ron Johnson, Mark Mark, John McCain, Mitch McConnell, Lisa Murkowski, Robert Portman, Patrick Toomey, Roger Wicker

I contend that some of these Republicans are RINOs. But all of them have no spine to stand up for what is right, and acted recklessly with advanced military hardware. What is right is to not send these weapons to a country that hasn’t recovered from its last overthrow, and is poised to go through yet another one, where radical Islamists in the name of the Muslim Brotherhood are in power. To ignore that reality would be to our, and Israel’s, detriment. What is right is to wait until the dust settles and we have some assurance that these weapons would land into friendly hands, not making the Middle East a more dangerous place for our ally, Israel. The over 200 of these F-16’s that that Egypt already has is plenty for an unstable regime.

The following Republicans voted in favor of blocking the weapons transfer.

Voted NO: John Boozman, Daniel Coats, John Cornyn, Michael Crapo, Ted Cruz, Deb Fischer, Charles Grassley, Dean Heller, Mike Lee, Jerry Moran, Rand Paul, James Risch, Pat Roberts, Marco Rubio, Tim Scott, Jefferson Sessions, Richard Shelby, John Thune, David Vitter.