Tag Archives: Politics

2010 Election, Media, Politics

MSNBC Supends Olbermann

1 Comment

Right on the heels of the lowest viewer ratings in their category, pMSNBC suspends Kieth Olbermann indefinitely and without pay.

Keith Olbermann, MSNBC’s primetime firebrand host, has been suspended indefinitely for violating the ethics policies of his employer earlier this year when he donated to three Democrats seeking federal office, MSNBC announced Friday.

The offense being a violation of NBC’s ethics policy. Ethics policy? There’s a joke there somewhere . . .

The offense was donating $2400 each to three Democrat(ic) candidates. The network policy requires the news division employees to get permission before making political donations because (here’s the funny part) it ‘could be deemed as a conflict of interest.’ CNN says that they have a similar provision in their rules of engagement.

Were it not in the network’s ‘ethics policy’ I wouldn’t have a problem with him wasting his money on anyone trying to run for office. But to think that it took this little incident to call their attention to a potential conflict of interest issue has me ROTFL. Don’t they ever listen to what he says on the air? I would expect that he had a payroll deduction arrangement going to the DNC for crying out loud.

Where MSNBC is concerned, it is too little too late. Between Olbermann and Chris Matthews, it is no surprise that their ratings are down to employees, friends, and relatives.

Link: CNN; Olbermann suspended for Dem contributions

UPDATE 11/7/2010: Indefinite = 2 days. Olbermann back on Tuesday.

UPDATE 11/8/2010: Chris Hayes, editor of The Nation, a liberal magazine, tapped Friday by MSNBC to fill in for Keith Olebermann as host of the prime-time political show “Countdown.” Turns out, he gave money to two Democratic campaigns in recent years. Now, following that disclosure, MSNBC says Mr. Hayes won’t get the gig after all.

2010 Election, Florida, Politics

Alan Grayson’s Representation Died Quickly

Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL), the man who made a fool of himself and his party when he said on the House floor that the Republican health care plan
 was for sick people to die quickly, was voted out of office on Tuesday. Voters in his district decided it was his representation that they wanted to die quickly. They elected Daniel Webster, a Republican 56% to 38%.

He has an explanation as to why he lost so big. He said it was because Democrats were too appeasing to Republicans over the last two years. What? I guess that if by appeasement where Obama’s signature legislation is concerned, Obamacare, you mean that you shut out Republicans from any input in the creation of the bill and not allow any amendments, then yes, they were appeasing.

I’m not a doctor, but I’ve seen doctor shows on TV. And it seems to me that Alan Grayson needs some counseling for Post Election Stress Disorder.

Link: Rep. Grayson: Dems lost because of ‘appeasement’

2010 Election, Politics

We’re All Bigots Now

Republicans added two magnificent new black faces to the Congress with Allen West in Florida, who beat sore loser Ron Klein 54.3 percent to 45.7 percent (with 97 percent counted, Klein wouldn’t concede), and Tim Scott in South Carolina, who crushed Democrat Ben Frasier, 65-29.

Republicans also launched two new Hispanic stars this election: Sen.-elect Marco Rubio from Florida and the new governor of New Mexico, Susanna Martinez. And we got a bonus Sikh — Nikki Haley, the new governor of South Carolina. MSNBC is still searching for the “Republicans are racist” angle in all of this.

Read all of Ann Coulter’s article here.

Economy, Politics

Get Ready For Inflation, And Then Some

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernake said he will ‘help’ the economy again by buying down our unsustainable debt by $600 Billion. He says the Fed will buy bonds to do it. OK fine. Except for the fact that they will be printing money to pay for it. That is called monetizing the debt. Something that Bernake said he would not do. There’s a nifty word for it. They call it Quantitative Easing.

For the Fed, it grows on trees.

The result of crushing debt will cause one of two things to happen. Declare bankruptcy and start over. A move that would have worked and would have been a lot cheaper if the banks, Freddie, and Fanny were allowed to do it a couple of years ago. But now, the Obama administration and Congress has increased the debt to the point that our country and foreign countries are affected, not just companies. Foreign countries would have a meltdown if we were to declare bankruptcy. OK, maybe that should still be on the table. That will teach them to believe our leaders in Washington. I mean, if China said two years ago, “no, we’re not buying your debt any more. You need to live within your means,”  we wouldn’t be looking at hyper-inflation being just around the corner.

The other option is to just print more money. What Bernake did today. Gee, all that will do will cause your savings, earnings, and investments to shrink to levels that would mean you can forget about retiring. You’ll have to work until you die, because a dollar will be worth less than a quarter, if we’re lucky. And, our debt that China, Russia, and other countries are holding will be just as worthless. And Obama just doesn’t understand why companies aren’t hiring? Maybe it’s because the need to survive is taking priority right now.

Why is all this happening? Because we have economic imbeciles in Washington that think you can put a fire out by putting gasoline on it. Some of them got thrown out yesterday. But there is still a lot of unfinished business there.

Links: Ben Bernake: Impeach Me – I’m A Damned Liar in [Market-Ticker] | Fed will spend $600B in latest bid to help economy

2010 Election, Politics

Election Is Over, You’re All On Probation

3 Comments

The people have spoken. Republicans regained majority control of the House. Question for President Obama is two-fold. Have you heard the voice of the American People? Will you listen to them?

This mid-term was a dramatic shift in power from one party to the other. But it was not a Republican victory as much as it was a victory for conservative principles. Over the last 12 months and culminating tonight, we have witnessed the ascension of conservatism in America, caused mainly by the direction that President Obama is leading us. Republicans are on notice, just as much if not more than Democrats, to get back to basics as described by the tea party movement.

Starting today, Republicans and Democrats are on probation. It’s not just the spending and debt issues that have brought the economy to its knees, but the role of the federal government that threaten to bring the American people to their knees. The message to Washington is to fix it or pay the price in 2012.

Related link: What A Conservative Is

2010 Election, Media, Politics

In Denial, The Excuses Begin

Pennsylvania Gov. Ed (Fast Eddie) Rendell (also former DNC chairman) is but the first today to offer an explanation for the anticipated Democratic losses in today’s mid-term election. No doubt others will follow.

His excuse is typically nuanced. A new take on ‘we just didn’t get the message out.’ Rendell says their message was blurred. ‘We’ve got to learn to explain and communicate what we’ve done a lot more clearly,’ he said. Acknowledging the Obama effect on the anticipated poor results, Rendell also said ‘expectations were unreasonably high’ for Barack Obama when he took the presidency. Do ya think? That’s code for, this is what you get when you run on smoke like hope and change and have the media pumping you up to be America’s Messiah. The empty suit has fallen to the floor.

No Eddie, it’s not because your message was not clear. It is because the folks don’t like the message they hear or the policies they see. In living color Eddie, here’s why.

And from the Huffington/KOS/Ring of Fire crowd, we’ll know doubt hear that it’s because Obama is black.

Link: Pa. Gov. Rendell: Democratic message was blurred

2010 Election, Politics

Tomorrow Is Election Day, And Freedom Day

Tomorrow is Election Day. Before you head to the polling place, take a moment to remember March 21st, when the Pelosi Congress cast its vote for Obamacare. The enduring image of that day is one of Congressional Democrats arrogantly dismissing the pleas of thousands of Americans gathered outside the Capitol Building begging them not to inflict this disastrous bill on us.

In the end this bill wasn’t about health care reform; it was about control and government mandates and fines for not purchasing a government-approved insurance plan. The bill jeopardizes the very thing it was supposed to reform. Every day we hear about doctors leaving the Medicare system; increased premiums with talk of price controls; rationing becoming standard practice; and panels of faceless bureaucrats deciding which categories of treatment are worthy of funding based on efficiency calculations (which I called a “death panel”).

Continue reading Tomorrow Is Election Day, And Freedom Day →

Florida, Politics, Uncategorized

aSide Order

Candidate for Governor of Florida Alex Sink, caught here breaking the very rules that the person sending the text message on her Blackberry had proposed.

She promised an ethical administration, and promptly fired the guy on the other end of the Blackberry. To keep her promise, seems like there’s only one more person to fire.

But let’s be positive. Vote for Farid Khavari for Governor of the State of Florida. No BS, now kowtoing to political party machines. Just sound solutions.

Why the tea party movement? And why now?

Honoring our fallen veterans every summer evening for the last 38 years. A touching tradition at Cape May Point, New Jersey.

2010 Election, Florida, Media, Pensacola, Politics

Pensacola News Journal Pulls Political Opinion Piece

The article by columnist Mark O’Brien entitled Hayward is a candidate of hype was pulled from the PNJ website late yesterday. It no doubt had something to do with a barrage of hate-mail from Hayward supporters, or the fact that Hayward was the newspaper’s endorsed candidate, or that one of the papers’ major advertisers is a contributor to the Hayward campaign. Or all three.

From memory now, since I didn’t save a copy, O’Brien wrote an opinion piece on Hayward that was less than flattering but all based on substantiated fact. Including his receiving campaign contributions from the Levin Papantonio law firm and their involvement in the BP lawsuit, and subsequent comments made by Hayward on the campaign trail. Not mentioned in that article, is Papantonio’s participation in a class action suit against BP. At any rate, aside from a columnist, O’Brien is also an opinion writer. Much the same as Juan Williams does, or did, double duty as a reporter, columnist, and opinion commentator for NPR and FOX News. O’Brien does both opinion and reporting functions.

The pulling of this piece from their website without comment shows the priorities are less about journalistic integrity than political and financial expediency. It’s no secret that the Levin Papantonio law firm is a big advertiser in the paper. It takes a willing suspension of disbelief to think that that was not part, if not all, of  Executive Editor Richard Schneider’s motivation.

Seems like only a couple days ago that the subject of journalistic ethics and objectivity came up. At issue there was who was paying the bills for the reporter. This brings a new twist to the topic which is, who is paying the bills for the paper?

Former link location: Hayward is a candidate of hype

Update Nov 1, 2010: Correction in today’s PNJ.

In Sunday’s column, Mark O’Brien erroneously stated that mayoral candidate Ashton Hayward III had urged the Pensacola City Council to hire the Levin Papantonio law firm to pursue possible legal action against BP for the April 20 oil spill.

Hayward did not specify any law firm when he urged the City Council to consider legal action.

Apparently everything else in the article was correct.  If you entertain conspiracies of coincidence, Johnson provided Hayward the cover that he needed. Both he and the candidate are allied to the law firm that was hired. Whether by contributions or the Emerald Coastkeepers club, the end result is the same. LP is on the case.

At least the paper did not attempt to deny the genesis of the article, that ‘Hayward is a candidate of hype.’

Economy, Media, Politics

Obama On GM, More Words, Just Words

1 Comment

Harken back sixteen months ago when President Obama said this, ‘What I have no interest in doing is running GM,’ concerning the GM bailout and government ownership of 60% of the company.

Enter a little no spin zone with this little ditty from Reuters . . .

The Obama administration and GM executives say the White House has stayed good to its pledge to refrain from meddling in the day-to-day management of this 102-year-old industrial enterprise . . .

OK, that is if you don’t count the administration putting their own people on the Board of Directors, closing product lines, closing dealerships, and telling them what kind of car to make.

Now with an impending IPO of the new and improved BM (Barack Motors), or for the record, GM, we find that it is still the administration calling the shots.

Don’t you know the M.O. by now? We’re supposed to pay attention to what Obama says instead of what he does. He is counting on the dumb masses never finding out that he is an empty suit filled with Karl Marx stuffing.

Link: Special Report: For GM IPO, the government is back-seat driver | Reuters.