Tag Archives: MSNBC

WHY ARE OBAMA’S VOTER POLLS SO STRONG WHEN HIS RECORD IS SO BAD?

Posted on September 13, 2012 | 2 comments

It’s the media, stupid!  If you are a Conservative, how much time do you spend watching MSNBC?  And when you do, do you believe anything they say?  But what if it were all true?  And you believed it.  It would be a whole different world.  You would detest FOX News and be disgusted by Republicans.  Welcome to that world, you may not be of it but you are in it.

Fast and Furious never happened, Solyndra was a vast right wing conspiracy to spread dirt on Obama, and the President is a friend of Israel because he said so.  Tea Party demonstrators spat on Black Caucus members and screamed anti-gay epithets at them as they strolled from their offices to the State House.  Christianity is a threat to our freedoms and Republican obstructionism is the reason the economy is anemic and unemployment is so high.  If you are unable to see how hard Obama is trying to improve the world, if you can’t see that his steps are the correct ones, there can be but one reason and one alone for your blindness – racism.

If you are a modern Democrat, these are your beliefs.  Your media reinforces them.  You spend little or no time with media that doesn’t.  There is no neutral objective media any longer, none.  There is no comfortable place you can go to hear the other side of an issue.

Obama is a very charismatic man.  Women fainted at his 2008 campaign speeches; men get tingles up their legs.  Delegates cried listening to his 2012 acceptance speech.  His blackness satisfies a longing in the Liberal heart for release from guilt.  He is a force for good.  Therefore, any opposition to Obama is a force against all that is fair and right.  Put this all together and you see the man can do no wrong.  The Right dubbed him Messiah for a reason and the left has never denied it.

President Obama says the financial crisis that brought the economy down was created by the policies of his predecessors and was so devastating it was impossible to clean it up in four years.  And the word of a Messiah is truth.  The worse the economy is now, the more important it is not to put the people  back in office that caused it.

For the “True Believer” the joblessness, soaring debt and the poor economy only reinforces the need to re-elect the President.  But there is another much more alarming reason for the strength of the President’s polls.  The United States may have reached “Tocqueville Time.”  But that’s for another post.

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Posted in Economy, Opinion

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FOUR MORE YEARS…PLEASE

Posted on September 7, 2012 | Leave a comment

It was more interesting to watch the audience than to listen to the President’s pleading for four more years to accomplish what he couldn’t do in the first four. MSNBC scanned the audience and focused on the Delegates frequently throughout the speech. The Delegates appeared to be a somewhat motley group of folks. There were a lot of teary people among them particularly (but far from only) when Gabrielle Gifford was brought out on the stage. We can only wonder how many of those in the great hall and watching on television felt a deep pang of animosity toward Republicans for the horrible atrocity suffered by the former Congresswoman. How many remembered that Jared Lee Loughner was not a denizen of the Right, but a wacko from the Left who hated Gifford because she was too far to the Right to match up with his ideals.

The audience was notable for being heavily black. Blacks make up about 14% of the population but the ratio at the Convention appeared to be more than double that. Make of it what you will, but it was not a good cross section representation of the general population.

I saw deep emotion in many faces, black and white, man and woman. The nation is in bad shape and we all know it, but who is to blame? Once a Messiah always a Messiah in the minds of a true believer. High unemployment, the weak economy heavy debt and whatever else ails the country must be due to Republican policies because Messiahs don’t fail.

The speech itself was all about how insurance companies, banks, oil companies and people whose accomplishments brought them wealth are all bad. Only government is good.  It was straight out of that “Manifesto” book.

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IF I BELIEVED

Posted on August 31, 2012 | Leave a comment

If I believed that what MSNBC broadcasts was the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, and if I believed the New York Times was honorable in its journalistic ethics then I would absolutely despise Republicans and everything they stand for.  There is very little ethical difference in the fourth estate ethics between outright lies and lies by omission.  The paper is particularly guilty of the latter.  The New York Times does more than claim to be the newspaper of record; it is the newspaper of record.  As such it has a responsibility greater than any other to record all the news and report it accurately.  It has failed this responsibility miserably.

In his final column, Arthur Brisbane, who very recently resigned his post as Public Editor wrote mostly about the papers steady financial demise which he blamed entirely on the rise of new media, namely twitter.  There was nary a word about the effect that content may have had on readership.  Brisbane acknowledged,

The Times’s “believability rating” had dropped drastically among Republicans compared with Democrats, and was an almost-perfect mirror opposite of Fox News’s rating. Can that be good?

Is this statement not bias itself?  Nonetheless, Brisbane is acknowledging that the paper’s perceived integrity trending downward and he does not hesitate to use the word “drastically” while inferring that an integrity rating equivalent to FOX Is bad.  Then Brisbane confirmed what has become very obvious.

Across the paper’s many departments, though, so many share a kind of political and cultural progressivism — for lack of a better term — that this worldview virtually bleeds through the fabric of The Times.

The Times is bias.  Brisbane is jut reporting it.

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THE FALL OF CNN

Posted on August 1, 2012 | Leave a comment

Truly objective journalism no longer exists.  The public doesn’t want it.  That’s the opinion I come to after seeing the sorry financial state of CNN .  It’s not that the network was scrupulously objective; they were not.  Nevertheless, the network’s attempts at neutrality have been honorable.  However, as a result they operate in the nether land of soft reporting.  CNN offers neither steak nor veggie platters so viewers go elsewhere for their daily feed.

FOX owns the right; its audience is loyal.  The audience is also big because FOX is honest.  MSNBC owns the left.  Its audience is very loyal but it’s small because MSNBC programming is more extreme and less honest.  If FOX’s audience is multiples of MSNBC’ audience, then isn’t FOX main stream and MSNBC something else?

There was a time when journalists saw themselves as on the front line of history with a solemn duty to record it accurately.  Now, Howard Zinn’s philosophy seems to rule the day.  Zinn taught that a journalist’s duty is to record or distort history in a manner that [the journalist believes] will lead to a better world, the truth is less important than the higher goal.  Good objective journalism breathed its last breath on June 14, 2008, the day Tim Russert died.  The nation lost a great man that day and a tradition died with him.

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THE SAD STATE OF MSNBC

Posted on June 7, 2012 | Leave a comment

This composite video of Walker night on MSNBC reminded me of Saddam Hussein’s Minister of Public Affairs declaring victory while you could see enemy tanks rolling into the city over his shoulder.  The final tally was 53 to 46 in favor of Gov. Scott Walker.  The margins were even wider than that at the time Ed Schulz was calling it close.

The Democrat’s suffered a resounding defeat in this nationally significant election in one of their own solidly blue states.  Does Larry O’Donnell truly believe “the really big winner is President Obama”?  Gov. Walker “may be indicted”, indicted for what, winning an election?

It is unimaginable what the reaction will be at MSNBC on November 6 if Obama is losing badly from start to finish as the Democrats were here.

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Posted in News, Opinion, Uncategorized, Videos

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THE NEW YORK TIMES, MSNBC, DAN RATHER, KEITH OLBERMANN AND THE LOT

Posted on May 30, 2012 | 3 comments

It is easy for conservatives to fall into a gloom and doom trap.  Patriotism, Christianity and even capitalism are openly and widely ridiculed and rebuked.  We see nations in Europe falling into insolvency brought on by unsustainable spending rates with the United States following suit.  We are a democracy and have chosen a man to lead us who doesn’t believe in us.  Mom, apple pie and the flag are no longer sacrosanct.

Are we really doomed?  Is decline inevitable?  Is the light shining on a hill going out?  Sometimes the signs of hope lie in the signs of failure.

Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations argued that the collective wisdom of large masses of people over time far surpasses the intelligence of a few elites, no matter how astute the few may be.  In a free market society markets follow the collected wisdom of the people.  You buy the car you think is best.  You buy the clothes you like.  You shop at the stores that carry the goods you need at prices that represent fair value to you.  Those who offer real value succeed, those who don’t, fail.

It is no different with the media.  Whether it is time or money you are spending, you spend it where there is value.  The New York Times is failing fast.  The Times is selling assets left and right just to stay afloat.  The newspaper industry is a troubled one but given its history and prestige the Times should not be in the trouble it is.  But their content has become shoddy and biased beyond all reason.  John Hinderaker at the Power Line blog says “The Times is the newspaper equivalent of MSNBC.”  I have had the same thought myself.  MSNBC has but a fraction of the audience of FOX.  The people are free to choose.  As long as a majority see little value in the tripe put out by outlets selling the ideology of the uncompromising left, their failure is a sign of hope.

But I don’t wish them failure.  I wish them wisdom.

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Posted in Political philosophy

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NBC FAILS TO APOLOGIZE FOR WHAT IT DID

Posted on April 8, 2012 | Leave a comment

Steve Capus,president of NBC News apologized for a mistake.  What mistake?  It would be the height of naivety to believe that such careful altering of the tape was a mistake and not a deliberate act.

A respectable news agency will have zero tolerance for dishonesty of this sort.  Steve Capus is the captain of the ship; he is the one who should go, not just some anonymous producer who got caught exposing the extent of bias that appears to exist throughout the network.  At an upright news outlet a producer would know he was risking his job if he doctored a tape in a way to give an allusion opposite to the truth.

NBC is becoming MSNBC lite.

An aside.  False apologies are common place.  When an apology takes the form “I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings” it is not an apology at all. It’s an expression of regret that the offended person doesn’t agree with the offender.  A: You are an ugly pig.  B: You owe me an apology. A: I apologize because you were offended when I pointed it out.

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ROMNEY 48% – OBAMA 43%

Posted on March 13, 2012 | Leave a comment

Chris and Ed, those friendly chaps over at MSNBC were a bit less vitriolic this week.  It’s because they have turned giddy, giddy with delight over the sense that the Republicans no longer have a ghost of a chance in November.

The Republican candidates have destroyed each other.  Romney will be the nominee and the Tea Party folks will never vote for him because they think he is a Liberal.  There are serious issues that need attention, the nation is deep in debt, people are out of work and need help but all the Republicans want to talk about is how to stop people from having sex.  Rush Limbaugh, the primary spokesman for the Republican Party, delivered the decisive blow with his disgusting remarks about a female college student.  No self respecting woman, regardless of Party will ever vote Republican after that.

Well now, Chris and Ed, you still don’t get it, it seems.  Still living in that bubble I guess.  I would love to burst your bubble but I can’t.  I tried.  It’s too thick.  Funny thing about that bubble, those of us on the outside can see in, those of us who take the trouble to do so at least. We see what you stand for and we don’t like it.  But you never seem to understand what just what it is we stand for and then you object to it anyhow.  I think you need to get your bubble fixed.

The Tea Party didn’t rise up to promote conservatism.  Its members were too busy enjoying life and family (including sex) to spend time doing that.  The Tea Party rose up to save the country from a complete transformation to the Left.  The Tea Party is what happens when a trend goes too far for too long and needs to be stopped.  The vote will not be for a candidate, though one may wish it could be.  Whoever the nominee may be will not change that.  The vote isn’t even against Barack Obama, though I’m sure you won’t understand that.  The vote will be against the arrival of a collective state and a soft tyranny.  And it’s a vote against bankruptcy as well.  Obama is less a culprit than a culmination.

Rush Limbaugh is Rush Limbaugh; he is unique; he is solitary.  He is not a spokesman for the Republican Party.  Republicans are no more likely to vote Democratic because of some disgusting remark Limbaugh makes and apologizes for than are Democrats likely to vote Republican because of some even more disgusting remarks that Bill Maher makes and refuses to apologize for.

Bye the way, Romney is leading Obama 48 to 43 according to a current Rasmussen poll.  Santorum is not doing so well but he is ahead of Obama.

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MSNBC SUSPENDS PAT BUCHANAN INDEFINETLY FOR TELLING THE TRUTH

Posted on January 9, 2012 | Leave a comment

Suicide of a Superpower, will America survive to 2025 is the name of Pat Buchanan’s latest book. 

“Our government is engaged in the manic pursuit of equality of rewards, as it seeks to erect an egalitarian utopia that has never before existed.  Less and less do we Americans have in common.  More and more do we fight over religion, morality, politics, history, and heroes. And as our nation disintegrates, our government is failing in its fundamental duties, unable to defend our borders, balance our budgets, or win our wars.”

Truths like that are too inconvenient for MSNBC to tolerate.

MSNBC president Phil Griffin said that Mr. Buchanan argues in his book that the “European and Christian core of our country is shrinking,” which is damaging the nation “ethnically, culturally, morally, politically.”  The book also contains a chapter titled, “The End of White America.”  Mr. Griffin said these ideas aren’t really appropriate for national dialogue, much less the dialogue on MSNBC.

Griffin is right about one thing.  MSNBC is not a place of open dialogue.  Pat Buchanan is a misfit in a network that features Chris Matthews and Ed Schulz in prime time.  However, Buchanan’s ideas are not just appropriate for national dialogue, they are precisely the concepts we should be discussing.

Is Buchanan right?  Is he wrong?  We would never know if Griffin and his book burners controlled the day.  Thank God, they don’t.

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PORTRAITS OF AMERICA

Posted on December 15, 2011 | Leave a comment

The New York Times featured a front page story in last Sunday’s edition entitled The American Archipelago, an obvious take-off on the Gulag Archipelago by Alexander Solzhenitsyn.  Solzhenitsyn’s book is the depressingly accurate first hand story of life and death in the vast system of forced labor camps in the Soviet Union where millions died at the hands of Josef Stalin.  The Times author compares our current prison system and finds parallels with the atrocities of a heartless totalitarian dictator like Josef Stalin.

Please note this is a front page story in the leading newspaper in all of America and read around the world.  To a citizen in Europe for instance, the New York Times is the most knowledgeable and the most reliable authority on life as it really is in the United States.  They may not trust our government but they do trust the New York Times.

“Keep America American” may not be a very catchy slogan, but who can condemn the idea of seeking to preserve the great American culture?  Chris Matthews did by characterizing the Mitt Romney slogan as call for return to the days of the Ku Klux Klan.  Matthews’ vision of the country of his birth must be similar to that of a certain Reverend who preached at a certain church in Chicago.

The New York Times equates our imprisonment of a few terrorists who plotted to kill us with Stalin’s policy of committing large numbers of his own people to death solely for the purpose of solidifying his own power.  Matthews’ message on MSNBC is that Americanism is best exemplified by a hooded mob of racist lynchers.  With reporting like this, it is no wonder that Fox News has found such success.

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