Complicit Media

There are many examples of how our national press/media has been derelict in its duty to uncover deception and hunt for truth.  One could even say that the largest media outlets have even been complicit in covering up uncomfortable facts, while perpetuating misdirection, rationalization, and actual falsehoods.

Is there, honestly, anyone who could say a Republican President would have been treated the same?

How about a President of the United States who takes pictures of himself during a public funeral for an esteemed political figure?

It is very sad for our country.

If you're lucky or persistent...

There is a sad reality in our national "mainstream" media today.  They lean so far left that they have abdicated their role as fact-checkers or reporters of truth.  The people who only listen or watch their broadcasts are sadly uninformed or purposely misinformed about reality.  One can use other resources to find information, but it requires making an effort--many don't bother.  

According to the media, only white people can be racist or commit hate crimes.  And those who are classified as "white" could change depending on the view of the media.   It's a warped view.

The media is encouraging the dumbing-down of information.  I'm seriously worried about the condition of our gene pool--it seems to be getting very shallow.

Wise Words about Fear Mongering

Charles Krauthammer is an intelligent, articulate writer who often makes lots of sense.  I'm putting his latest piece here in its entirety.

Deseret News Metro 03/03/2013, Page G02

Obama making sequester look like Armageddon WASHINGTON — “ T HE WORST-CASE SCENARIO for us,” a leading anti-budget-cuts lobbyist told The Washington Post, “is the sequester hits and nothing bad really happens.” Think about that. Worst case? That a government drowning in debt should cut back by 2.2 percent — and the country survives. That a government now borrowing 35 cents of every dollar it spends reduces that borrowing by two cents “and nothing bad really happens.” Oh, the humanity! A normal citizen might think this a good thing. For reactionary liberalism, however, whatever sum our ever-inflating government happens to spend today (now double what Bill Clinton spent in his last year) is the Platonic ideal — the reduction of which, however minuscule, is a national calamity. Or certainly should be. Otherwise, people might get the idea that we can shrink government, and live on. Hence the president’s message. If the “sequestration” — automatic spending cuts — goes into effect, the skies will fall. Plane travel jeopardized, carrier groups beached, teachers furloughed. The administration has every incentive to make the sky fall, lest we suffer that terrible calamity — cuts the nation survives. Are they threatening to pare back consultants, conferences, travel and other nonessential fluff? Hardly. It shall be air-traffic control. Meat inspection. Weather forecasting. A 2011 GAO report gave a sampling of the vastness of what could be cut, consolidated and rationalized in Washington: 44 overlapping job training programs, 18 for nutrition assistance, 82 on teacher quality, 56 dealing with financial literacy, more than 20 for homelessness, etc. Total annual cost: $100-$200 billion, about two to five times the entire domestic sequester. Are these on the chopping block? No sir. It’s firemen first. That’s the phrase coined in 1976 by legendary Washington Monthly Editor Charlie Peters to describe the way government functionaries beat back budget cuts. Dare suggest a nick in the city budget and the mayor immediately shuts down the firehouse. The DMV back office stacked with nepotistic incompetents remains intact. Shrink it and no one would notice. Sell the firetruck — the people scream and the city council falls silent about any future cuts. After all, the sequester is just one-half of 1 percent of GDP. It amounts to 1.4 cents on the dollar of nondefense spending, 2 cents overall. Because of this year’s payroll tax increase, millions of American workers have had to tighten their belts by precisely 2 percent. They found a way. Washington, spending $3.8 trillion, cannot? If so, we might as well declare bankruptcy now and save the attorneys’ fees. The problem with sequestration, of course, is that the cuts are across the board and do not allow money to move between accounts. It’s dumb because it doesn’t discriminate. Fine. Then change the law. That’s why we have a Congress. Discriminate. Prioritize. That’s why we have budgets. Except that the Democratic Senate hasn’t passed one in four years. And the White House, which proposed the sequester in the first place, had 18 months to establish rational priorities among accounts — and did nothing. When the GOP House passed an alternative that cut where the real money is — entitlement spending — President Obama threatened a veto. Meaning, he would have insisted that the sequester go into effect — the very same sequester he now tells us will bring on Armageddon. Good grief. The entire sequester would have reduced last year’s deficit from $1.33 trillion to $1.24 trillion. A fraction of a fraction. Nonetheless, insists Obama, such a cut is intolerable. It has to be “balanced” — i.e., largely replaced — by yet more taxes. Which demonstrates that, for Obama, this is not about deficit reduction, which interests him not at all. The purpose is purely political: to complete his Election Day victory by breaking the Republican opposition. At the fiscal cliff, Obama broke — and split — the Republicans on taxes. With the sequester, he intends to break them on spending. Make the cuts as painful as possible, and watch the Republicans come crawling for a “balanced” (i.e., tax hiking) deal. In the past two years, House Republicans stopped cold Obama’s left-liberal agenda. Break them now and the road is open to resume enactment of the expansive, entitlement-state liberalism that Obama proclaimed in his second inaugural address. But he cannot win if “nothing bad really happens.” Indeed, he’d look both foolish and cynical for having cried wolf. His incentive to deliberately make the most painful and socially disruptive cuts possible (say, oh, releasing illegal immigrants from detention) is enormous. And alarming. Hail Armageddon.

Believing Polls? Hardly.

I was reading today about how polls are taken.  Most of them require land phone lines and people who are willing to answer the call, and the questions.  I don't answer when I get a call (I know my mother doesn't either).  It makes me wonder just who does.

Then there is the writing of the poll questions.  They can be skewed to solicit certain kinds of responses.  After all, they are multiple choice so the choices can be whatever the poll taker wants the results to show.

Think how you would answer the old standard, "Have you stopped beating your wife?"  What if your possible responses were:  1) Recently    2) Maybe next week   3) Not yet.

The pollster could therefore state that almost all respondents were beaters, but some had stopped and a small percentage would be stopping soon.  Hardly realistic, but an accurate representation of the poll results.

Since most polls are media related, it is little wonder that they run liberal.  That's why I'm skeptical of their results.

Media spin

The Mainstream Media is trying hard to make sure Barack Obama wins the 2012 election.  There is very little written or spoken on the major networks that is not glowing about him.  On the other hand, the microscope never wavers from Mitt Romney.  Things he says--no matter what the subject--are dissected, criticized, and enlarged for days.  President Obama can say whatever, even things that are proven false or misleading and he is almost never called on it.  He's golden.

Mitt Romney can say nothing that is positively reported by the major networks or national press.

Kathleen Parker provided an excellent example from a couple of months ago:

 I left out her entertaining account of how that make-believe strategy session may have sounded.

Romney said he would repeal Obamacare because he has always says that.  How would the pundits have described his speech if he had modified it to fit what he thought his audience wanted to hear?  They would have pilloried him as a deceiver.

I'll conclude with more of Kathleen Parker's words about the use of the word Obamacare:

I agree.

One more example from the newspaper today:

It's not just me who has noticed.

Thinking about the next two months

I'm glad the Conventions are over, but if you watched you saw there was little doubt about the mainstream media's liberal bias.  I suppose that if you lean far left yourself, you likely thought everything was fair and normal.  The "talking heads" that felt the need to tell us what we just heard picked apart all the speakers at the Republican Convention and waxed poetic about those at the Democratic Convention.  

If the media were trying to be really fair, talking to Al Sharpton after the RNC would be countered by Rush Limbaugh at the DNC.  That would be equal treatment.

I only hope that the next two months will go quickly.  I have read that many people now get a lot of their information from the Internet and/or social media.  Maybe that is partly because they realize that most of the regular media are viewing the election from just one angle, one restrictive prospective.

I hope people will read, study, and investigate before voting.  Those who just believe the sound bites (many of which will be misleading or deceptive) are the people I worry about.

Thinking about taxes

Thinking about taxes.  After all, it's April.  I heard someone suggest once that every citizen should get a vote in an election, but in addition, those who pay income taxes should get an additional vote for each specified amount of taxes paid.  I think it's an idea that has value.  But then, I'm one of those people who also thinks voters should have to show proper identification too.

There was a good article about the economics of our current level of deficit spending.  The last few paragraphs are worth reading.  Especially since the President is trying so hard to make people angry with those who have managed to be successful.



There are far too many people who don't want their handouts to stop.  Having a job is much harder.

Disturbing misogyny

A number of things in the presidential race media coverage have struck me. There are two that I found particularly annoying.

First, the double standard of an already disturbing misogyny. A conservative radio personality reacted to a D.C. college student's complaint that she needed help paying for birth control. He called her a slut.

Okay, I don't know much about that student--and I suppose neither did he--so the name calling was unacceptable. I guess he has since apologized, but the liberals and their accompanying media went nuts. As though they had no idea he ever said anything controversial.

Then something really interesting happened. A liberal woman wrote a column saying that the liberal left was just as bad--maybe worse--at misogyny and racism. She named names and gave examples. A news commentator/entertainer has repeatedly demeaned Hilary Clinton, referring to her as a "she devil," "Nurse Ratched," and "witchy," among other things. A liberal radio personality said Sarah Palin "set off a bimbo alert" and called Laura Ingraham "a right-wing slut." Another (whose name you would recognize) said that a conservative commentator "should have been aborted by her parents." The same man called Michelle Malkin "a mashed-up bag of meat with lipstick" and thought it appropriate to discuss Carrie Prejean's breasts on his MSNBC show.

I pulled a paragraph from her article:

But the grand pooh-bah of media misogyny is without a doubt Bill Maher—who also happens to be a favorite of liberals—who has given $1 million to President Obama’s super PAC. Maher has called Palin a “dumb twat” and dropped the C-word in describing the former Alaska governor. He called Palin and Congresswoman Bachmann “boobs” and “two bimbos.” He said of the former vice-presidential candidate, “She is not a mean girl. She is a crazy girl with mean ideas.” He recently made a joke about Rick Santorum’s wife using a vibrator. Imagine now the same joke during the 2008 primary with Michelle Obama’s name in it, and tell me that he would still have a job. Maher said of a woman who was harassed while breast-feeding at an Applebee’s, “Don't show me your tits!” as though a woman feeding her child is trying to flash Maher. (Here’s a way to solve his problem: don’t stare at a strangers’ breasts). Then, his coup de grâce: “And by the way, there is a place where breasts and food do go together. It’s called Hooters!”

The author of the article is Kirsten Powers. You can look the whole thing up if you are interested.

I wonder if these men say these things about their wives and daughters. I also wonder why there is so much difference in the reaction of those who hear it. When is it ever okay to debase women just because they are female?

My second annoyance will have to wait until my next post. This is enough for one day.

Tired of the Occupiers.

I am tired--no I am very tired--of the media's coverage of the silly antics of young people with nothing more productive to do than camp out in a public place and complain about their lot in life.

These "99 percenters" have tents, sleeping bags, money for food, cell phones, cameras, and nearby sanitation facilities. How do they think all that came about? I took this quote from an article, sadly I don't remember just where. It does make some good points about the silliness of the occupiers.

Protesters don't really have a coherent message except they seem to want what someone else has earned. They feel entitled to more somehow. Why? Yes, some of them took out loans to attend college. So what? No one required them to. They could have worked their way through like lots of us did. But loans were easier. Oh, I'm beginning to see a pattern here.

The media tries to compare the "occupy" movement with what they called the Tea Party. There is little in common. The occupy protesters are just entitled young people who feel like they should have more possessions and less debt, but don't know what to do about it. I have a few ideas, but they wouldn't want to hear them. These ideas would involve responsibility, sacrifice, and work (perhaps for less money than they "deserve" for a while). Maybe they could earn enough to pay a few income taxes. ICK.
The Tea Party had well-specified goals: small government, less intrusion into private lives, lower taxes. But the media tried very hard to diminish coverage and vilify citizens attending meetings supporting those goals.

I'm wondering how long this self-indulgent foolishness will continue when the weather gets seriously wet and cold. Maybe all these "dedicated" campers will find it uncomfortable enough to go back to their dry and heated homes.

With the exception of some "reality show celebrities," and I use the word celebrities very loosely, and the rare people who are born into wealthy families, those with a lot of money worked very long and hard for it. I guess that idea doesn't appeal to everyone.

Borrowing a good comic strip

This Non Sequitur comic appealed to me because of the liberals in government and their continued belief that increasing taxes will provide them with money to solve problems.

An op ed piece in the newspaper today made this even clearer:

Government intervention may look good to the media but its actual track record-- both today and in the 1930s--is far worse than the track record of letting the economy recover on its own.

Americans today are alarmed that unemployment has stayed around 9 percent for so long. But such unemployment rates have been common for years in Western European welfare states that have followed policies similar to policies being followed currently by the Obama Administration.

These European welfare states have not only used the taxpayers' money to hand out "free" benefits to particular groups, they have mandated that employers do the same. Faced with higher labor costs, employers have hired less labor.

Thomas Sowell, Hoover Institute, Stanford University

Taking money from people who earned it, filtered through the government, to give to those who have done nothing to earn it does not work. Never has, never will. But apparently it is a theory that liberals are not willing to give up on.

Disregard reality

The main stream media's reporting about the on-going budget "talks" in Washington is canted toward the left, so it is important to find articles that lean the other direction. Thomas Sowell makes some valuable points:

So much of the political candidates are about the quick and easy slogans, whether or not the candidate even means or believes them. President Obama himself was a master in 2008. Let's try and find some truth.

Wait, the government got less tax money when the top income tax bracket was 73 percent? Why confuse the voters with truth? Talking points are used in discussions of government-controlled health care, gun control, rent control, welfare, and many other programs while reality is ignored.

only acceptable tolerance

I have posted before about how the side that constantly preaches that we should all be more tolerant (the left) is, in fact, extremely intolerant of differing viewpoints. Their version of tolerance is only acceptable as long as everyone agrees with their opinions.

This became very obvious when the "leadership" started discussing instituting the "fair doctrine" rules. What bothered them is that liberal talk shows mostly failed, while conservative talk shows flourished.

Then there was the case of the commentator (Juan Williams) who was on both NPR (public funding involved) and Fox. He stated an opinion on a Fox show and was fired from NPR. He has given opinions on his NPR show that some executives at Fox Network likely didn't agree with, but, unlike the liberal left, Fox must have felt he actually had a right to say what he thought. Imagine that.

I am only familiar with the Mallard Fillmore comic strip. I don't think I have ever seen or heard its author, but apparently he too ran afowl (pun intended) of a left-leaning boss. I sincerely hope he can continue the strip. After all, Doonesbury has been running for years, but I guess it's okay since it leans in the correct direction.

What can I say?

Church and State

An odd connection just came to me. The Constitution of the United States states that the government should stay out of religion: the separation of church and state. It actually was written to keep government from forcing its citizens into any certain belief--one of the reasons the pilgrims left their homes to come here.

The intent of this amendment has been warped by government--mostly liberal and the ACLU--to oppose any and all religion. We have heard about the lawsuits to prevent nativity scenes on public property, the Ten Commandments posted in government buildings, and even the term, Merry Christmas. Locally, a district court just ruled on a lawsuit brought by a group of atheists from Texas. Apparently, the white crosses along side Utah roads showing where Highway Patrol troopers died, show a preference for Christianity. It is ludicrous enough to be almost funny. What other kind of a monument would signify that someone had died? Some atheist speeding along the highway would be worried that he wouldn't be treated fairly because troopers' families paid for memorial reminders?

Then, there is the media brouhaha about the building of a mosque close to ground zero. Much of the liberal left have been calling for tolerance, fairness, religious freedom. Don't they get the hypocrisy? Where are the atheists now? What if a place built for the religion that led to the deaths on 9-11 offends the people who pass it? Not the same thing? Why not? Does it depend on who is offended?

Finally, Islam has NO separation of church and state. It seems strange that the same leaders who make such a huge deal out of ours, don't seem to be concerned about that.

Media Bias, oh yeah.

It is illuminating to pay attention to the differences in the way the general, mainstream media treats President Obama compared to its treatment of President Bush. Every time President Bush made a verbal slip (like everyone does) the major newspapers and television networks made fun, derided, and generally fileted him. Not so President Obama.

The differences, naturally, apply to the rest of us. Those who seem to be in agreement with this administration and supportive of its fiscal policies--or lack thereof--are off limits for taunting or deprecation. On the other hand, those who raise questions, voice concerns or displeasure, or seem to lack the appropriate awe at the liberals' greatness have targets on their foreheads.

One more for today. See if you don't find the truth in this too.

Dose of Reality from Sonja Schmidt