What Liberal Bias in the Media?

Yesterday, I had to recheck my program guide because I thought that the so-called mainstream media had morphed into Fox News, Info Wars, and the Drudge Report. In fact, Fox News Sunday’s coverage of the administration’s Obamacare problems was pretty tame.

David Gregory of ‘Meet the Press’ tried to grill Leader Pelosi, but she’s been on a few talk shows and was ready. David let Senator Ayotte slide when she said that Republicans wanted to work on a bipartisan healthcare bill. I think that would be news to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. It wasn’t until later in the show when, Mike Murphy, republican strategist, revealed that the GOP is sitting on the sidelines cheering all the failures but won’t say it publicly because a lot of people have lost their healthcare coverage.

It seemed like all the talk shows were using the same script that started early last week. "Will this disastrous roll out be Obama’s Katrina or Iraq? " A democrat quickly pointed out that no one has died because the website is not working. I think the opposition party is trying to mask President Bush’s failures by falsely comparing administrations. History will judge the Affordable Care Act and President Obama because it takes more than a news cycle to evaluate the final results.
‘ABC This Week,’ took it to another level implying that the president’s problems at home would transcend as weakness in our negotiations with Iran. That’s a lot to get into, but Howard Dean pretty much stopped that talk when he said it was the president’s tough sanctions that brought Iran to the table in the first place. It was also brought out that the president would have a tough time passing the immigration reform. You think? Speaker Boehner said that issue would not come to the floor in 2013 and that did have a thing to do with the Obamacare.

This morning, MSNBC’s 'Morning Joe’ with Joe Scarborough summarized the weekend talk shows and to no surprise, Joe Scarborough, emphasized the negatives. Joe said that the 39 Democrats who voted for Fred Upton’s bill scared the White House. That was the theme all weekend but Lawrence O’Donnell and Chuck Todd shot that down. When the White House let it be known that Fred Upton’s bill would be vetoed, it made it a political safe vote for the Dems. Now, if 100 Democrats would have voted for it, that would have been a different story. Joe Scarborough tried to mock Leader Pelosi’s statement that her party would “stand tall” behind the Affordable Care Act but Chuck Todd disagreed saying they voted for it, and it is in their best interest to own it. That’s so true, in the 2010 election the 32 blue dogs who voted against ACA all lost their election but all Democrats who voted for the law were reinstated. That just proves that voters still like politicians who stand on principal.

It is just my unprofessional opinion, but I think that this White House relationship with the media has been strained since the Justice Dept. threw a wide net around their fellow journalist Fox News’s James Rosen’s phone calls. I saw Andrea Mitchell attacking the president’s credibility on a lot issues after that.

It’s fair to say that no one would want to watch CNN explain how the insurance companies are trying to profit off the latest missteps in rolling out Obamacare nor do people want to hear about the successful signups. The talk-show hosts and reporters have company sponsored health care policies, so how can they know the joy people are having by purchasing insurance for the first time in their lives? I would be satisfied with some stories about states denying their citizens health care just to satisfy their ideological principles.

We have to live with the media coverage we have and it doesn’t do any good to long for the days of Walter Cronkite because the audience, times, and expectations have changed.
Who knows, next Sunday the media may do a story about CBSs, Lara Logan, using fake whistle blower, Dylan Davies, account of what happen in Benghazi

Short and Sweet Mr. Fielder

Gabriel Franks and John Schlembach did a great job of debunking the contents of a letter -to -the- editor written by Steve Fiedler of Victoria,so I will continue where they left off.

Mr. Fiedler said the president's inept handling of the Syrian civil war has showcased his hypocrisy. The president brought up the threat of a strike on Syria's chemical weapons had more to do with Assad's use of sarin gas than anything else. 

Mr Fielder is not aware of the 1993 Chemical Weapon Convention where 189 countries signed an agreement to outlaw the production,stockpiling and the use of chemical weapons. The United States has always been the country all other countries look to to enforce these rules. The president voiced his concern and what his intentions were for violating that agreement on his watch. He call call him an autocrat if he wishes but it is my opinion that any other president would have done the same;judging by previous events.

Those on the right are saying that if we would have supported the rebels two years ago, we would not be in this predicament. I'm not so sure of that because when we invaded Iraq,al Qaeda was not there but they inserted themselves into the war shortly after.

There is not a satisfactory answer for inaction after 100,000 were killed with conventional war weapons and an immediate condemnation after chemical weapons are used. It certainly not because some elite supporters of President Obama want it that way. We've had this question before when the people of Rwandan were slaughtered and there's no doubt that question will come up again.

Mr. Fielder said the president was compelled to strike Syria and that he compromised the mission's effectiveness by pre-announcing the details. That's laughable because Syria doesn't have the ability to stop the cruise missiles that would have been launched.

It's obvious Russia and Syria did not want these strikes because they were the first to blink.

I'm glad the president brought the issue to Congress because now,this will be the normal course of action before we go to war. We found out that America and the rest of the civilized world   are war weary. 

I'm reading about the events of Benghazi and what I've read nothing could have been done to save the lives of those four Americans just like others before them. This event has the right wing in a feeding frenzy hoping to weaken President Obama and have enough left over to derail the  candidacy of Hillary Clinton. I think it shows a lot of disrespect for the people who died in their sleep by sarin gas to compare them to an attack on our embassy. It's as if we have to choose between Americans dying and senseless killings. What chapter and verse does that come from?

Mr. Fiedler,you have lost the last two elections,so you are in no position to give advice. 

I think community organizers are to be admired not mocked besides President Obama worked in that capacity after he graduated from Columbia. You and Sarah Palin can make fun of community organizers but neither of you will attain the accomplishments of President Obama. 

I was for the miltary strikes in Syria because I trusted the military and the president and I was overjoyed when Obama decided to go through Congress. Having said that,diplomacy without the use of force is the best solution ,so I don't know how people like Steve Fiedlercan be so dismiissive. I lied,I knew when I saw the right wing boiler plate language in his letter. There wa the mention of Obamacare,socialist,community organizer,guns,Benghazi and hypocrisy.  

 

A Weekend Roundup of the Sunday Talk Shows

David Gregory host of "Meet the Press" did his homework and it showed.  He blindsided Mitch McConnell  by producing  a tape from 25 years ago that showed that early in his career the senator believed that such groups -- on the left and the right -- should be subjected to tougher scrutiny. these were his words back then “ Early in his Senate career, however, the Kentucky Republican seemed to believe that such groups -- on the left and the right -- should be subjected to tougher scrutiny"There are restrictions now on the kinds of activities that, for example, 50(c)(3) and (4) organizations,charitable organizations, can engage in that are being abused -- not just people on the right, but most of the so-called charitable organizations who are involved in political activity in this country, who are, in my judgment, involved in arguable violations of their tax-free status and violations of the campaign laws, happen to be groups on the left." Senate Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell was over matched and visibly angry that he was ambushed like that. I was surprised when Mitch McConnell agreed with the actions the Justice Department took to go after leakers.

David Gregory was not through, he then challenge the words of Peggy Noonan by saying “Peggy Noonan, you wrote something that struck me in your column on Friday. I want to ask you about it. "We are in the midst of the worst Washington scandal since Watergate. The reputation of the Obama White House has gone from sketchy to sinister. They don't look jerky now, they look dirty. The patina of high-mindedness the President enjoyed is gone." I have to say, Peggy, what you don't talk about here is an administration for a man that you worked for, who led the Iran-Contra scandal with Iran, the secret war, and lied to Congress and all the rest. Overstatement here?” She was dumfounded and squinched  looking for an answer and then he asked the same of Bob Woodward, who continues to play both sides of the fence depending on what network he is on. Bob Woodward is showing his age and his  Watergate claim to fame is quickly vanishing.

Fox News Sunday was just an extension of a GOP strategy meeting.  Chris Wallace did his part by asking White House spokesman Dan Pfeiffer questions about the president's whereabouts when  Benghazi was being attacked.  I did notice that not one question was asked  about the role that President Bush appointee ,Doug Shulman,played in all of this.  In fact I didn’t  hear any republican mention Doug Shulman. They were on message by saying that" how can you trust the IRS to manage its function in Obamacare  when they can't even manage the nonprofits? "

When someone is locked into their frame of mind, logic doesn't stand a chance.  People like Chris Wallace, Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski, Bob Woodward, Peggy Noonan, are hung up on when the president knew the details of the events that transpired.  The obvious answer is that there is no correct answer because when the president said he learned about them by reading the newspaper, it gave fodder to his enemies.  They can say that he's lying, disengaged, or incompetent.  After Watergate,  Congress made sure that the Internal Revenue and the Justice Dept. would operate without input from the White House.  If the president said  that he learned about it during the political campaign; his enemies would have accused him of using his influence to get the outcome he wanted or to postpone the findings until after the elections.  Darryl Issa, knew that the Inspector General was in the process of auditing the IRS and decided to wait on the results before responding, as did the White House.

I think the IRS could solve the abuse of the 501(c ) (4 ) by using the structure that’s used for deducting contributions, and the criteria used on other forms  where income phase outs are used. Let’s set the social welfare requirement at 90% and ask the applicants to report their total income and percentage used for social welfare, naming the organization, address, the amount donated, dates and require a receipt.  The receipt doesn't have to be presented unless audited.  That puts the onus on the applicant and not the Internal Revenue.





This is picture is Hillary pictured with her dear friend, the late Ambassador Stevens .....,Mr. Bankston.Your words were irresponsible,political, and stupid  “Perhaps if Clinton's daughter decided to follow mom's footsteps and become a foreign service agent and was posted in an unfriendly country, Hillary would understand exactly how it matters. Nah, that won't happen."
Carl Bankston, Victoria

After You are Proven Wrong…Just Say You're Sorry

There's no penalty for making wild accusations; it's a common political strategy, and it seems to be accepted in our everyday life because it doesn't cost a thing.  I saw a good example of that this morning when Vern Buchanan(R-FL) who's on the House Ways and Means Committee say that Obamacare would add a trillion dollars to the debt when the CBO just said that it would decrease the deficit.  Not one person on the  “Morning Joe” panel corrected him.  That's how it works; imagine a person going to work, hearing that  unchallenged sound bite and then  takes it for the absolute truth.

House Ways and Means Committee grilled the outgoing acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller.  This is the governing body that oversees our tax laws; shouldn't they also  be interested in those groups who violated their tax-exempt status?  Let's say a couple of rogue employees rifled through some CEO desk draws and found some evidence of wrongdoing.  Yes, the employee should be punished but do we ignore the evidence they found because it was obtained illegally?  Yes the people who were singling out conservatives need to be fired for incompetence but the law needs to be revised so so it does not happen again.  It's not about paying taxes because those involved are non-profits; it's all about that special clause in the 501 [c][4] that allows them to keep their donor’s name a secret. Those groups can then transfer some of that cash(without reveling names) to their political PAC where donor’s names are required. The employees were guilty of profiling. I would bet that 9 out of 10 applications to become a 501[C][4] came from conservative groups.  They were overwhelmed and chose to use a shortcut such as profiling.

The afternoon I saw Megan Kelly of Fox News and Rep. Jason Chaffetz discussing the Benghazi incident.  They were trying to disprove that Benghazi didn't have any security was because Congress did not provide the money.  I never thought it was because Congress didn't provide the money, especially after I learned that Benghazi was a CIA outpost under diplomatic cover.  The CIA had 30 people, and Ambassador Stevens had seven diplomats.  I also know that Ambassador Stevens turned down military protection two times.  The Marines only guard the sensitive documents ,it's up to the State Department to provide security for the embassy.  The frail Libyan government would have to approve of a standing army in Benghazi.

People like David Gregory live in a bubble because he thinks he was speaking for the average man this morning, when he was complaining about the 0.9% surtax, he was playing for health care.  That tax is only for people with a combined income of $250,000 or more.  I disagree when a lot of people say that latest incident by the IRS will have a devastating effect on how people look at the IRS.  I've heard stories of IRS incompetence all my life but unless the next three congressional hearings find something new; this issue will go way pretty fast.

I often wonder if people like Michelle Bachmann know that the country is laughing at them or does she really believe that repealing  Obamacare for the37th time is an accomplishment.  I also wonder why John Boehner thinks it’s appropriate to jail someone for the IRS fiasco but not for the Wall Street crash of 2008.

The only way we can get the truth is to hold those people accountable if they lie.  The media needs to stop  mimicking Hollywood and just report the news.  A young reporter got his chance to query  the president, but he wasted it,  by asking the president if he was aware that he was being compared to Nixon. 

Last night I heard Richard Engel say that someone in our government told the AP intricate details about a bomb we obtained from a terrorist group in Yemen.  There is the public has a right to know, but it must constantly be weighed against the need to classify some information. 

Calm Down…Take a Deep Breath

I'm as little ashamed of myself for calling the last three controversies… scandals.  I didn't go as far as Miki Brzezinski, David Gregory, Chris Matthews or Andrea Mitchell by saying the president has to get out in front of this, or it will derail his presidency.  Yesterday was one of those days where Chris Matthews was hyperventilating so much that he wouldn't let his guest get in a word in edgewise.  He kept saying that the president needed a James Baker type to keep the media and Republicans in check.  As David Axelrod reminded us yesterday, the same people got all upset because they thought the president looked weak during the BP oil leak.  David Axelrod said the president came back and won another election.  The pundits are not accustomed to the managerial style of President Obama.  He's a cautious person, who's not warm and fuzzy or superficial, so he's not prone to "hair on fire" decisions.  He doesn't really care what the media or his enemies think.

You can throw out the history books when you talk about President Obama because he's not an arm- twister like Lyndon Johnson, a political animal-like  Bill Clinton or a charmer like Jack Kennedy.  He does like to campaign, and he's more about big policy that he is about trivia matters.  The fact that he doesn't play the  normal belt way politics came back to haunt him because he could not get background checks passed, although it had 90% backing from the American people. He doesn't care if he angers his base in order to cut a deal but by now he ought to know that the GOP will never make a deal if they think it will help his presidency.  Yesterday Jon Stewart asked former Republican Senator Olympia Snowe if anyone  objected when Mitch McConnell said that the GOP would oppose anything Obama wants.  She said no, but she did vote for his stimulus package.

Since the 100 emails prove the administration was not covering up anything in Benghazi, people like Karl Rowe are now trying to say that the president is disengaged.  Republicans like to point to the testimony of the whistle blowers as proof that the four Americans didn't have to die but that is shameful and disingenuous.  It might've been a planned attack for the terrorist, but the consulate was not prepared nor did they have a military force that could reach them in time.  There was plenty of blame to go around between the State Department and the CIA, but the talking points should never have been the primary focus because, as Hillary Clinton famously said, " what difference does it make?" This issue will not go away for the Republicans because they think they can use this against Hillary Clinton in 2016.

This morning Willie Geist of MSNBC " Morning Joe," said that we don't know what the White House's involvement is in the IRS controversy or how high this went up the ladder.  That's right but why is he assuming that it does.  The GOP said that they lost the 2012 election because the president gave out free stuff, so now is it because 298  501(c) (4)applications were held up?  The Usa Today had a headline that Joe Scarborough kept raising for all to see yesterday that read"  IRS gave liberals a pass" but two liberal groups were denied tax-exempt status.
 
The media has a legitimate complaint about the actions of the Justice Department, but they get an "F" for their reporting this week.  For one, ABC thought they had the goods on the administration but Jonathan Karl didn't do his due diligence because he didn't read the emails he received from a source before he said  that he had the "smoking gun." This afternoon Jack Trapper of CNN was visibly angry because the president didn't apologize for the actions of the Justice Department and Atty. General Eric Holder ‘s" non answers." Reporters need to report the news and not be part of it.  We certainly don't want the government to suppress the news but if reporters want support from public, then they have to remain professional and just the report vetted news.

How ironic, the IRS, the government and the media could never win a popularity contest  but right now their credibility is at stake. 

Benghazi ..Witch Hunt or Serious Investigation?

I've never watched Fox and Friends, and it certainly feels strange posting a clip  showing them asking the right questions about a massive cover-up. It's already been proven that nothing could have been done that night that would have prevented the death of Ambassador  Stevens. The new whistleblower, Chris Hicks, will contradict assertions from the Obama administration, that no one was ever told to stand down and that all available resources were utilized. Hicks is saying  a fly over by American aircraft would have stopped the second mortar attack because the terrorist would be frighten away. 

As you will notice in the clip, Represenative Chaffetz praises the intelligence (CIA) but doesn't answer if General Petraeus was involved in the cover up. He can't admit that they if there was a cover-up,  a lot of higher ups had to be involved.

This morning Joe Scarborough was all over this new revelation like white on rice.   He quoted Mike Hucklebee, who said that this incident will prematurely end Obama's second term. Mike Huckabee, who used to be a preacher, sure does have a penchant for spreading unchristian like rumors. 

This incident has been investigated to the satisfaction of many, and the Accountability Review Board laid the blame on the State Department as it should have. Susan Rice paid the price of relaying false talking points on the five Sunday talk shows saying that the incident was a protest and not an act of terrorism. A lot of people think it was done for political reasons, and I can't disagree with that but I never thought that the administration was trying to say Al-Qaeda was dead. They kept saying that Bin Laden's Al-Qaeda leadership had been dealt a crippling blow, and that sect  was on the run.

The GOP wants the smoking gun that  deals a severe blow to President Obama's foreign policy credentials. They really want the White House records detailing the president's whereabouts and actions after he was told that Benghazi was attacked. They want their version of President Bushes continuing to read " My Pet Goat" after learning that American had been attacked. They want to prove that the president went back to sleep and never raised any serious questions. If they can't get those records, they will settle for damaging Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential run.  

 

It’s been 3 weeks now

It's going on three weeks now but I can't remember a time in my life when I've seen as much resentment to the results of a presidential election from the losing side. I've seen petitions for sessions filed in all 50 states, I also heard of a woman who tried to run over husband because he didn't vote for Romney, a Montana lawmaker (Ron Paul fan) asking to be paid in gold because he lost faith in our currency and then there were those students at the University of Mississippi who burned Obama signs. I can't remember democrats doing any of those things when our candidate lost.

We've gotten to the point to where we consider the protest nonsense a common occurrence and the talk shows hardly mention them. The talk shows are more interested in the future of the new GOP, the fiscal cliff and who knew what and when, in the Petraeus and Benghazi incidents.

The subjects that I mentioned and were all discussed without any general consensus.

This morning David Gregory came up with theory about Benghazi which I haven't heard before but I believe it has a lot of truth to it. I believe senators Lindsey Graham and John McCain hate the administration's policy of having a small footprint in Libya. They wanted a larger military presence in North Africa, Iraq and Afghanistan. "There was already bad blood between U.N. Secretary Susan Rice and John McCain over us leaving Iraq. She also mocked McCain's trip to Iraq ("strolling around the market in a flak jacket"), called his policies "reckless" and said "his tendency is to shoot first and ask questions later. It's dangerous."Today John McCain is the highest-ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, but he will no longer hold that position after January because he has been termed out. That's why he wants a brand new Watergate style committee but his colleagues don't see a need for that. I also believe that the CIA was involved in illegal activities and the terrorist attack in Benghazi blew their cover. I don't agree with Senator Graham's point about the administration doctoring the talking points to give the president a political edge. I believe anybody that can read a newspaper knew that the raid on the consulate in Benghazi was a terrorist attack and selective talking points from the White House were not going to change anyone's minds. Again, anyone with a brain knows that elements of Al Qaeda will be around for a long time despite the president's efforts to kill more of their leaders. The American people are not as gullible as some try to make them out to be. If the president withdraws the nomination of Susan Rice to be the next secretary of state; this issue will go away.

The panel on "Morning Joe" tried to make Nancy Pelosi's reluctance to give an inch on and raising the tax on the top 2% as part of the problem. Even Glenn Hubbard, Mitt Romney's top economic adviser, now says the wealthy need to pay more in taxes as part of a budget settlement. Raising the top rates 3or 4% for the top 2% will raise the necessary revenues for a short term fix. The market's just want to see the framework for a solution that doesn't send us back into a recession. The legislators will not have time to tackle a tax reform plan in the lame duck session. The emphasis still needs to be on jobs and growth and reforming Medicaid and Medicare. Once the economy comes back, the American people will have to decide how to pay for the goodies we want. Taxes will inevitably have to be raised on the middle class as part of the solution but not right now.

The trickle down supply side economic theory has run its course and so has the" makers and takers" mantra. I don't think it's going to be easy to convince the GOP constituencies that 47% of American citizens are not lazy or do not want to be productive. There's too many people like Representative Paul Ryan who preach “if you do all the right things, you too can be successful like me" not knowing all the barriers that face the most vulnerable in our society. I was surprised to hear an entrepreneur of a multimillion dollar company say that he needed government resources to pay for job training or else he would have to shut down. I can remember when corporations paid for job training, benefits and still offered a pension.

I'm fairly confident that a bargain will be struck between the political parties to avert our current fiscal cliff but it will be eventually replaced with a brand new one.

I’m reading a good book which I received for my recent birthday called “Who Stole the American Dream?" By Hedrick Smith. The book is about the steps big businesses took to take the reins of economic prosperity away from the middle class. Big businesses got together to form strong lobbyist groups to counter the strong worker unions of the 1970s. They lined the pockets of the politicians who would go out and try to convince us that there was such a thing as " clean coal" and energy efficient corn ethanol. Meanwhile they got out of their union contracts with new lenient bankruptcy laws. They then replaced, pensions with 401K's and made their employees pay more for their health insurance and benefits. Today's businesses do not see the value of higher compensation, which reduces turnover costs, increases employee consumption and productivity. We have so many resources that we will always be an economic giant but, unless we raise the minimum wage substantially, we will constantly see the high unemployment figures and slow economic growth. Yes, a tight market usually demands higher wages but the it's a known fact that we need to change our current economic model to one that suits the world we are living in.

Happy Thanksgiving