Category Archives: Media

Media, Politics

Tucson Memorial Service And Pep Rally

Most people I’ve heard comment about President Obama’s speech at what was supposed to be a memorial service thought that what the President said was fitting and appropriate. The only thing that turned off people, including myself, about the event was that the crowd there treated it more like an event than a solemn memorial service.

Speaking to that popular reaction, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs commented . . .

“I will say that I read the speech several times and thought that there wouldn’t be a lot of applause if any. I think many of us thought that. But I think there was a celebration, again, of the lives of those who had been impacted. Not just at that grocery store but throughout the country. And I think that, if that is part of the healing process, then that’s a good thing.”

There is a reason too why the audience got pumped up like it did. What I don’t see a reason for is why anyone in the administration, including Robert Gibbs was surprised? What is even more amazing is how the [APPLAUSE] sign on the jumbotron went totally unreported if not unnoticed by the media.

The jumbotron had the President’s text of the speech on it. OK. Including an [APPLAUSE] prompt. What? Here’s the picture of that, and the story that goes with it.

In the least reported story with the largest audience possible, try this. As to why the service happened when it did you have to consider the time it takes to get the t-shirts printed. You know, the ones that were put on the seat-backs. The message ‘Together We Thrive’ came from Obama’s Organizing for America website. The ‘event’ was planned more as a political rally for Obama than a memorial service for the victims, survivors, and their families. The motivation? Let’s just say, like his former chief of staff said, you don’t want to let a crisis go to waste to advance your political agenda. Or in this case, your ratings in the polls.

For argument’s sake, everyone who thinks that the media would have turned their heads if an R were president raise your hand.

Links:

Media, Politics

SOTU Seating, Just Fine The Way It Is

Have you heard the latest game playing out in some Democratic circles?  Senator Mark Udall (D-CO) is suggesting that our representatives break with over 200 years of tradition of sitting within their own political party to listen to the State Of The Union address by the President and instead, mix up the seating without regard of political party.

Responding to Sen. Udall’s idea, Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) said . . .

“I appreciate Senator Udall’s thoughtful suggestion and believe it is worth serious consideration. We need to look for more ways to be bipartisan. This morning I spoke with Democratic Whip Hoyer and Senator McConnell about the proposal and we will discuss it further next week. After this tragedy, it’s important for our country to see that we all stand together as Americans and this could be one way to demonstrate that.”

Well, I don’t see a need to be bi-partisan. That’s why there are elections. If the minority party sees the light, or has a change of heart, then they can show their support by supporting legislation proposed by the majority party. And if they don’t, they can count on their boss, the American people, to re-hire or fire them at the ballot box. That’s the way it works.

Faking ‘bi-partisanship’ creates legislative mud instead of solving problems. The location of where they will sit has nothing whatsoever to do with bipartisanship and everything to do with theatrics.

Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD5) has another take on it.

“a gesture like this won’t make partisanship disappear, nor should it — democracy is built on strong disagreements between the parties.” But he added that it would “help end the political theater of repeatedly seeing one side of the aisle rise in applause, as the other sits still.”

An observation is in order. It is Democrats that are proposing this idea. Where is the pressing need to veer from tradition, and for such a nonsensical reason? And why now?

The media, as represented by New York Times writer Michael D. Shear, has another angle on this seating change.

In the wake of the shootings in Tucson and calls for greater civility in political discourse, the symbolic move could minimize the imagery of one side of the chamber’s standing en masse to applaud, while the other side sits on their hands.

Another observation. It is apparent that the purpose of this charade is to mask from the American people the results of the November election. The American people deserve to see the changes they made at the ballot box and not mix it up into some sort of political soup. Remember what the President said at his first meeting with Republican leaders after his election? He said ‘elections have consequences.’ Actually, a lot of people have said that, but coming from President Obama himself gives him all the motivation he needs to start showing what he calls bi-partisanship, by actually doing the will of the American people. Because since the election, President Obama has denied that his party’s shellacking had anything to do with his policies.

In his letter, Udall added . . .

“The choreographed standing and clapping of one side of the room — while the other side sits — is unbecoming of a serious institution,” he wrote. “And the message that it sends is that even on a night when the president is addressing the entire nation, we in Congress cannot sit as one, but must be divided as two.”

What this statement and his idea says to me is that he and his party have no intention of doing the will of the people. The SOTU is the President’s platform to set the stage for the coming year. The power to do the will of the American people is in his hands, regardless of where our representatives sit. And the American people deserve to see it in black and white. Or if you will, left and right. And that is what these Democrats don’t want the American people to see.

Fairness Doctrine, Media, Politics

Fairness Doctrine Is Out Of Wind

1 Comment

For those who believe that reinstating the Fairness Doctrine, or anything like it, will reduce violence, consider this.

The Fairness Doctrine was in place from 1949 to 1987. In the “era” of the Fairness Doctrine we saw the following:

  • 1950 – An assassination attempt on U.S. President Harry S. Truman occurred on November 1, 1950. It was perpetrated by two Puerto Rican pro-independence activists, Oscar Collazo and Griselio Torresola.
  • Nov. 22, 1963 – President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas by Lee Harvey Oswald, a communist.
  • February 21, 1965 – Malcolm X assassinated in Manhattan’s Audubon Ballroom by three members of the Nation Of Islam. Radical Islamists.
  • April 4, 1968 – Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee by James Earl Ray.
  • June 4, 1968 – Robert F. Kennedy assassinated by Sirhan Sirhan, another Islamic extremist, in Los Angeles.
  • September 5, 1975 – An assassination attempt on President Gerald Ford by Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme, a follower of Charles Manson, who pointed a Colt .45-caliber handgun at Ford. Larry Buendorf,[118] a Secret Service agent, grabbed the gun and managed to insert the webbing of his thumb under the hammer, preventing the gun from firing.
  • September 22, 1975 – An Assassination attempt on President Gerald Ford by Sara Jane Moore, while standing in a crowd of onlookers across the street, pointed her .38-caliber revolver at him.[120] Just before she fired, former Marine Oliver Sipple grabbed at the gun and deflected her shot.
  • December 8, 1980 – John Lennon was assassinated outside Lennon’s Dakota apartments by Mark David Chapman.
  • March 30, 1981 – Assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan by John Hinkley outside the Hilton Washington hotel.
  • Post Fairness Doctrine 1987 – 2011:
    January 8, 2011 – Assassination attempt on U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords In Tuscon, Arizona by Jared Loughner. An insane anarchist.
Graphic graciously lifted from rushlimbaugh.com.

Not one of these murders or attempted murders were connected in any way to everything that the Left would like to attach to right-wing talk radio.

Where ‘hate talk’ is concerned, Air America Radio and its derivatives wrote the book on it. They believed that the more vulgar and hateful they would get, towards their political opponents, would build an audience. Spewing hate like they did merely drove them out of business.

Not that they have mellowed (Mike Malloy), but the popular tactic now on the Left is to just do whatever they can to discredit, call names, and make personal attacks to conservatives whose ideas they cannot deal with. Doing that spares them from debating in the arena of ideas, where they lose every time.

The fact that they just got a ‘shellacking’ in the mid-term elections just infuriates them, causing them to go all out to attack those whom they fear most. It also distracts the public from the dismal shape the economy is in after all this so-called stimulus.

Link: Will Reviving The Fairness Doctrine Reduce Violence?

Economy, Media

Good News, Jobless Claims Rise

In a nutshell, the propaganda wing of the West Wing is still saying ‘the economy is now on a sustainable growth path.’ New unemployment claims rose 18,000 last month. And the four-week average of unemployment claims is 410,750.

The number of people continuing to receive unemployment benefits fell by 47,000 to 4.1 million in the week ending Dec. 25, the department said. That doesn’t include millions of long-term unemployed who are receiving extended benefits from the federal government . . . {emphasis added}

and

Bad weather can also make it harder for laid-off workers to apply for benefits.

So I guess we can expect more. But hey

[A]pplications are far below their peak during the recession of 651,000, reached in March 2009.

All of which sort of belies the headline of the story. “Jobless claims rise, but positive trend intact; Economist: The jobs market, ‘the recovery’s caboose, is starting to catch up‘”

In their mind, the fact that there was only 410,750 new jobless claims last week is good news.

Considering the retail industry is reporting disappointing results in December, there isn’t going to be a whole lot of hiring going on any time soon. This is because the retail industry depends on the last 6 weeks of the year to turn the loss they carry all year into what they expect will be their year-ending profit. Thus the term Black Friday. This year, we had a Black Friday in name only, because if the ink is in the black, it isn’t to the point that any hiring will be going on until next Christmas season. Compounding the business climate is that fact that the FUD Factor is still alive and well. Another not insignificant condition that forces businesses take the cautious route.

Don’t worry, be happy.

Economy, Europe, Immigration, Media, Politics

Obama To Focus On The Economy; Believe It, Or Not

Breaking news from the Associated Press, ‘Obama pledges economic focus during next 2 years.’ Sounds eerily similar to his presidential campaign doesn’t it?  Two years later, there remains only a marginal, if any, net increase in full-time permanent jobs, and unemployment is still going up.

Providing zero analysis, not only is this story nothing more than a press release from Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, but it is apparent that the Associated Press has no memory of its own either.

‘What do you mean no memory?’ you ask?

Aug. 1, 2009 – May 7, 2010: “I Will Not Rest . . .”

Dec. 4, 2009: Obama puts renewed focus on job creation

Jan. 21, 2010: Obama to focus hard on economy after Democratic loss

Dec. 22, 2010: Obama pledges economic focus during next 2 years

That President Obama is still working on the economy is evident. What is becoming more evident is that the American people mistakenly thought he was going to create jobs and stimulate the economy. Unfortunately, his goal to ‘remake America’ is a longer term project.

He must first dismantle our free-market economy which necessitates unemployment going higher, which necessitates unemployment compensation going longer, which creates a growing population (not counting millions of undocumented Democrats from Mexico) more dependent on the government. That, coupled with more industries coming under the control of the federal government and viola, we’ll be just as broke and socialist a nation as any one in Europe. Under Obama, the days of unemployment under 5 percent are over and gone. The new norm will be somewhere between 10-15 percent. And if he can do it in one term, all the better. To him, that would be Mission Accomplished.

How long does it take before hearing what you want to hear takes a back seat to seeing the results that you want to see?

China, Immigration, Media, North Korea, Politics, Russia, Venezuela

Hugo Chavez, Dictator For A Year

In a lame duck session that upstaged (as in much worse) our lame duck session here in the United States, the Venezuelan lame duck session just gave Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez (the hemisphere’s idiot) the power to make laws by decree for one year. As in, without the input from the legislature. This action totally undermines the newly elected legislature set to take over in three weeks. A legislature with enough power to put the brakes on some of Chavez’s socialist initiatives.

First on his agenda is to get control of the internet, having already taken over broadcast media. Saying that his government should protect citizens against online crimes. In his little communist mind, an online crime would be disagreeing with him and/or his policies. Like this blog post for example.

Chavez’s congressional allies are considering extending the “Social Responsibility Law” for broadcast media to the Internet, banning messages that “disrespect public authorities,” “incite or promote hatred” or crimes, or are aimed at creating “anxiety” in the population.

Whether or not they will admit it, the folks in Washington have a huge problem with Chavez and his band of gypsies and anti-capitalists. With his proclaimed disdain for the Unites States, supporting the world’s worst regimes and making way in Venezuela for a combination of a hostile Russia, Cuba, Iran, China, and North Korea in our own hemisphere does not portend for a peaceful (by any measure) future. Toss in an extra boost for the drug lords, al-Qaeda, and a lack of border security at home, and we are looking at a future of unrest and tumult.

Links: Venezuelan legislature grants Chavez decree powers | Chavez defends plan for Internet regulations

Economy, Media, Politics

Dems Message For Food Stamp Recipients: Eat Less, part 2

The sequel to this post from four months ago was played out today, when President Obama signed into law a bill called the ‘Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act.’ It is curious why the AP writer of this story did not offer up the name of the bill he signed and instead felt it necessary to justify it in her headline.’

In this audio capture of ABC News radio today. ABC’s spin on it is ‘It’s not costing anything.’ Well, not really ABC. What he said was it was fully paid for. I suppose that’s what they mean by a ‘free lunch.’ And dinner.

President Obama said ‘It won’t add a dime to the deficit. Some of the funding comes from rolling back a temporary increase in food stamp benefits. . .’

Audio clip from ABC News: Michelle’s feed the kids program

So where does the rest of it come from? The food stamp program.

So the self-proclaimed champions of the poor, the less fortunate, the working people, who continually whine about Republicans legislating on ‘the backs of’ the working people are actually taking food ‘from the mouths of’ the hungry.

One might ask, why can’t the president find a way to ‘pay for’ extending unemployment compensation?

Link: Obama: Nutrition bill vital to children’s future

Economy, Media, Politics

Obama’s Tax Package Challenges Media

This is just so rich in Obama-speak that I don’t know where to start. Let’s start with that, for the last 10 years, Democrats, including President Obama, have been harping on George Bush and the ‘Bush tax cuts,’ which are to expire at the end of this month. They accused Bush of ‘lining the pockets of the rich on the backs of the poor.’ That’s their class warfare game. Nothing new with that. And for the last year running up to the mid-term election, Obama has said repeatedly that he and the Democrat majority we’re ‘looking forward.’ We’re not going back to ‘the failed policies of the past.’ You with me so far?

Not sure if the President is living in Fantasy Land, or if he thinks the American people are, but President Obama just said the tax-cut deal he negotiated with Republicans will determine whether the nation’s economy ‘moves forward or backward.’

Obama is only giving the appearance that he understands that raising taxes during a recession is counterproductive to growing the economy and creating jobs. And that cutting taxes are actually stimulative to economic and job growth. Trust me on this, he is not capable of that level of economic understanding. He understands two things, he needs to get re-elected in two years, and he wants you to think that he now ‘gets it.’ Improving the economy is not what he wants. If it was, he would not have spent two years of over-reaching into redistributing, spending, and borrowing other people’s money.

This President would like us to believe that his extending of the current tax rates are tax cuts, when they are not. They are a continuation of the current tax rates, instead of tax increases when they expire. He also wants us to believe that he is doing this in order to move the economy forward. Further, he says it has the potential to create millions of jobs. He also said if it fails, Americans would see smaller paychecks and it would result in fewer jobs. Still with me?

Keeping the current tax rates on a temporary basis just maintains the FUD factor and kicks any economic recovery further on down the road. It won’t create an investment climate, especially when the only job category that is showing signs of an increase is in the government sector, adding to our overhead. The fact is, under the current tax system, we have lost millions of jobs since President Obama took office two years ago. And now, he wants you to believe that this same tax system has the potential to create millions of jobs. What he is doing is setting us up for failure.

Why would the President want to set us up for failure you ask? So in two years time, when he wants to be re-elected, he can say ‘hey, I tried it their way and it doesn’t work.’ Our community organizer President cares more about political expediency than the welfare of our economy and the American people.

The challenge for the legacy media is this, how can we now support the President on what we have demagogued for the last ten years?

Link: Obama: Tax deal could yield ‘millions of jobs’

Economy, Media, Politics

Will An Articulate Republican Please Stand Up?

That class warfare and wealth envy play very well from the Left’s playbook is no surprise. Especially to the dumb masses. From Obama on down, and with the help of the media to carry the water for them, ‘tax cuts for the rich’ seem to be the mantra. Well, that and Republicans don’t want to extend unemployment benefits, yet they want tax cuts for the rich. And at Christmas time no less. Grinch!

There are two truths that blow the Left’s demagoguery out of the water, that the media has no interest in exposing. First, regarding extending unemployment. Regardless of what Nancy Pelosi (D-Ca) says, Republicans have no objection to extending unemployment. After all, it would be a spending bill. And, like all spending bills, must be paid for. That’s according to Nancy Pelosi and her party’s PayGo legislation. The concept of PayGo was to not increase the debt. So pay for it already. Pay for it by cutting some other spending from somewhere else, or better yet, pay for it from the hundreds of billions of dollars that are still unspent from the porkulus bill. Pay for it. As a matter of fact, why not throw in an extra $100 as a stocking stuffer. There’s enough money to do it. Republicans would pass it. But, Democrats would lose their demonization tool. Sorry, can’t do that.

The next truth is that cutting taxes increases revenue. Not only does it increase revenue, but the percent that the evil rich pay actually goes up, not down. It is not, contrary to popular opinion, a cost. And certainly nothing that has to be borrowed, like Ms. Pelosi says. And it does not increase the debt. Cutting taxes is an incentive to produce. Cutting taxes leaves the money where it will be of most use. With the people who earned it. The Left quotes the CBO on tax cuts as being a cost. That’s because, by law, the CBO has to calculate everything as a static, zero sum game. They can not, by law, consider changes in behavior or consequences in the market place that a tax law or tax adjustment would cause. This is a fallacy in real life. They assume that by raising taxes by X percent, that they will actually get X percent more in revenue. And if taxes are cut by X percent, then the revenue will be decreased by X percent. Well, sorry Nancy. History and the laws of free-market economics tell a contradictory story.

Thomas Sowell writes . . .

Over that long span of time, there have been many sharp cuts in tax rates under Presidents Calvin Coolidge, John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. So we don’t need to argue in a vacuum. There is a track record.

What does that record say? It says, loud and clear, that cuts in tax rates do not mean cuts in tax revenues. In all four of these administrations, of both parties, so-called “tax cuts for the rich” led to increased tax revenues— with people earning high incomes paying not only a larger sum total of tax revenues, but even a higher proportion of all tax revenues.

But when confronted with this concept, President Obama acknowledged that yes, even though revenues increased, that it was more important ‘to him’ to go the wealth envy route in the name of social justice and fairness. So while Democrats claim to want to increase revenues, they really don’t.

So, where are all, or any, Republican leaders in Congress talking about this? Grow a pair and tell it like it is. Show the Democrats for the class warfare demagogues that they are. Preferring to keep people down rather than lift them up.

Link: Can Republicans Talk? |  Can Republicans Talk?: Part II

China, Economy, Energy, Florida, Media, Pensacola, Politics

Florida’s No-Energy Policy Is No Energy Policy

It’s not surprising that the St. Petersburg Times would come out with an editorial supporting the President’s about face on opening up 25 million acres of land off of Florida’s coast to oil exploration. They also thought that shutting down ALL oil drilling in the entire Gulf of Mexico by ALL oil companies was a good idea too! It reflects the knee-jerk reaction to pressure from the environmentalist lobby who, last I checked, does not produce energy.

Critics of the plan, like State Senate President Mike Haridopolos, are right to say that the Florida ban will cost jobs. It is preventing jobs from being created. Forget that ‘saved or created’ nonsense. This, like the rest of Obama’s economic policies are preventing jobs from being created and the economy from recovering.

Out of the lost wages and earnings, all of which BP is responsible for replacing, the Times did not give a number of jobs lost due to the leak. And didn’t BP put thousands of people to work (because of the leak) all over the Gulf coast to do the cleanup work? Sorry to say, but devastating hurricanes create jobs and work too! This is no more a justification for lax safety procedures than a hope for another accident. Point is, we can recover from accidents and disasters.

The jobs lost by extending this Florida waters moratorium another 12 years is real. Likewise, the jobs lost from our president and Ken Salazar putting the drilling moratorium in effect for all drilling in the Gulf in the wake of the 4/20 BP rig explosion was ignored by the St. Pete Times. But, that is to be expected of them.

It’s been 15 years since the Clinton administration put the kibosh on ANWR development, which would have long been producing energy by now had that not happened. Now we’re to wait twelve more years for Florida and the Eastern U.S. to use its resources?

Time is long overdue for an energy policy that gets some. In every area. How many new nuclear generating plants have opened in the last 20 years? How many new refineries have been built in the last 20 years? Did you know that 57% (that’s more than half for those of you educated in government schools) of our electrical energy comes from coal? How many new coal-fired electrical generating plants have been built in the last 20 years? So President Clinton made our nation’s only low sulfur coal reserves (the largest in the world) off-limits, handing China a monopoly. And banning oil development off our East and Gulf coasts, leaves OPEC to profit. Buying coal from China and oil from OPEC is not good for national security, nor is it a good energy policy.

Long story short. Unless you expect the energy industry to make environmental guidelines, don’t expect the environmentalists to make energy policy.

Link:    Shelving expanded gulf oil drilling is responsible course |  Oil spills kill jobs