I noticed an article this past week suggesting that CNN may swap out conservative journalist Kathleen Parker of 'Parker Spitzer.'
According to the piece, CNN's ratings trail even those of the hapless MSNBC on weekday evenings. Moreover, Parker Spitzer had an average of 468,000 viewers in December, while Fox News' O'Reilly Factor had 2.6MM and MSNBC had 874,000. How bad to you have to be to lose to MSNBC in an evening slot?
I couldn't discern from the Journal article whether or not CNN had done viewer, or non-viewer research as to why the program is failing. But what struck me as odd is that Parker is the one being rumored as gone, rather than the bad-boy of governors, Eliot Spitzer.
From misbehaving as a barely-legal goon when AG of New York, to cheating on his wife and embarrassing himself, her, and the state of New York as governor, you'd think maybe the CNN management would reconsider using this tainted liberal.
However, ever in keeping with liberal mindsets everywhere, they're going with their gut and canning the conservative.
Talk about denial....
Friday, January 14, 2011
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Eric Cantor For Speaker- Again!!!!!
The Wall Street Journal's editorial page noted earlier this week that John Boehner quietly deep-sixed Paul Ryan's attempt to force money cut from budgets to be sequestered in an untappable account until the fiscal year's end. Further, use of the money would be subject to a full House vote.
This way, Ryan reasoned, individual committee fiefdom's couldn't play bait and switch with budget cuts, using supposed-savings to grease other wheels in sub- or committee votes.
Before Ryan knew what was happening, according to the Journal, Boehner quickly gaveled the question to a voice vote and defeated it.
This is deeply troubling. Some say that Boehner appreciated the Tea Party movement early on and accommodated it. I never bought this line.
What Boehner did this week signals, to me, that my worst fears are coming true. Unless and until Boehner is braced, 24/7, by Eric Cantor on one side and Paul Ryan on the other, he's going to cave back into the arms of waiting old-line spending bulls in the GOP House caucus.
New brooms sweep cleanly. I always felt, and continue to feel, that Boehner's membership in the GOP House leadership that lost control of the chamber four years ago should have prohibited his becoming Speaker.
Eric Cantor is the obvious new face who should have been elected Speaker. Boehner's antics with floor votes and bushwacking his own Budget Committee chair, Ryan, tells you he's no true Tea Party friend, nor has he gotten religion about changing the way things are done in Washington.
This way, Ryan reasoned, individual committee fiefdom's couldn't play bait and switch with budget cuts, using supposed-savings to grease other wheels in sub- or committee votes.
Before Ryan knew what was happening, according to the Journal, Boehner quickly gaveled the question to a voice vote and defeated it.
This is deeply troubling. Some say that Boehner appreciated the Tea Party movement early on and accommodated it. I never bought this line.
What Boehner did this week signals, to me, that my worst fears are coming true. Unless and until Boehner is braced, 24/7, by Eric Cantor on one side and Paul Ryan on the other, he's going to cave back into the arms of waiting old-line spending bulls in the GOP House caucus.
New brooms sweep cleanly. I always felt, and continue to feel, that Boehner's membership in the GOP House leadership that lost control of the chamber four years ago should have prohibited his becoming Speaker.
Eric Cantor is the obvious new face who should have been elected Speaker. Boehner's antics with floor votes and bushwacking his own Budget Committee chair, Ryan, tells you he's no true Tea Party friend, nor has he gotten religion about changing the way things are done in Washington.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Liberal Media Attacks On Conservatives Regarding Arizona Shootings
It's an unfortunate, and expected, outcome of the tragic shooting deaths and woundings in Tucson over the weekend that liberal media pundits have immediately blamed conservative politicians and media personalities.
I actually watched some of Monday night's MSNBC program featuring Keith Olberman. This was after I saw part of Bill O'Reilly's Fox News program. O'Reilly aggressively responded to Paul Krugman's New York Times editorial. Part of that text, which I found here, reads,
"We don’t have proof yet that this was political, but the odds are that it was. She’s been the target of violence before. And for those wondering why a Blue Dog Democrat, the kind Republicans might be able to work with, might be a target, the answer is that she’s a Democrat who survived what was otherwise a GOP sweep in Arizona, precisely because the Republicans nominated a Tea Party activist. (Her father says that “the whole Tea Party” was her enemy.) And yes, she was on Sarah Palin’s infamous “crosshairs” list. [...]
You know that Republicans will yell about the evils of partisanship whenever anyone tries to make a connection between the rhetoric of Beck, Limbaugh, etc. and the violence I fear we’re going to see in the months and years ahead. But violent acts are what happen when you create a climate of hate. And it’s long past time for the GOP’s leaders to take a stand against the hate-mongers."
Right now, I'm listening to Glenn Beck's Monday evening program. I missed the live telecast, but correctly figured he would focus on Krugman et.al. using the shootings as an excuse to politicize free speech. I was correct.
For his part, Olberman, when I tuned in, was interviewing some minor liberal at an outfit called, I believe, the Southern Poverty Law Project. Olberman quizzed the guy on whether right wing pundits and the GOP were inciting violence, which, of course, the interviewee confirmed. Without any evidential cites, of course. Then Olberman's stentorian voice solemnly declared that Sarah Palin's website had put the Arizona Congresswoman who was shot, in 'crosshairs' for electoral defeat. Nevermind that the webpage to which I provided the link above reproduced a DailyKos page also targeting the Representative in its own crosshairs.
By now, you, as have I, have probably learned that the shooter was, sadly, an unstable, mentally ill person whose political leanings, whatever they were, didn't have any obvious connection to his violent acts.
Beck coolly reminded his viewers of how the liberal media got the recent case of the black female HUD(?) employee all wrong by jumping to conclusions in advance of having the facts. And on Monday evening, one of O'Reilly's guests reminded his viewers that when the Muslim Army colonel shot up Fort Hood, the liberal media reprimanded the public not to assign any causality to his religious beliefs. Now, however, they are all over conservatives for alleged responsibility for the Arizona violence.
Need you know more to see how one-sided the liberal media forces are? How they look for the potential in any situation to muzzle conservatives and restrict free speech?
I actually watched some of Monday night's MSNBC program featuring Keith Olberman. This was after I saw part of Bill O'Reilly's Fox News program. O'Reilly aggressively responded to Paul Krugman's New York Times editorial. Part of that text, which I found here, reads,
"We don’t have proof yet that this was political, but the odds are that it was. She’s been the target of violence before. And for those wondering why a Blue Dog Democrat, the kind Republicans might be able to work with, might be a target, the answer is that she’s a Democrat who survived what was otherwise a GOP sweep in Arizona, precisely because the Republicans nominated a Tea Party activist. (Her father says that “the whole Tea Party” was her enemy.) And yes, she was on Sarah Palin’s infamous “crosshairs” list. [...]
You know that Republicans will yell about the evils of partisanship whenever anyone tries to make a connection between the rhetoric of Beck, Limbaugh, etc. and the violence I fear we’re going to see in the months and years ahead. But violent acts are what happen when you create a climate of hate. And it’s long past time for the GOP’s leaders to take a stand against the hate-mongers."
Right now, I'm listening to Glenn Beck's Monday evening program. I missed the live telecast, but correctly figured he would focus on Krugman et.al. using the shootings as an excuse to politicize free speech. I was correct.
For his part, Olberman, when I tuned in, was interviewing some minor liberal at an outfit called, I believe, the Southern Poverty Law Project. Olberman quizzed the guy on whether right wing pundits and the GOP were inciting violence, which, of course, the interviewee confirmed. Without any evidential cites, of course. Then Olberman's stentorian voice solemnly declared that Sarah Palin's website had put the Arizona Congresswoman who was shot, in 'crosshairs' for electoral defeat. Nevermind that the webpage to which I provided the link above reproduced a DailyKos page also targeting the Representative in its own crosshairs.
By now, you, as have I, have probably learned that the shooter was, sadly, an unstable, mentally ill person whose political leanings, whatever they were, didn't have any obvious connection to his violent acts.
Beck coolly reminded his viewers of how the liberal media got the recent case of the black female HUD(?) employee all wrong by jumping to conclusions in advance of having the facts. And on Monday evening, one of O'Reilly's guests reminded his viewers that when the Muslim Army colonel shot up Fort Hood, the liberal media reprimanded the public not to assign any causality to his religious beliefs. Now, however, they are all over conservatives for alleged responsibility for the Arizona violence.
Need you know more to see how one-sided the liberal media forces are? How they look for the potential in any situation to muzzle conservatives and restrict free speech?
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Democrats' Lies Regarding The Financial Consequences of Repealing Obamacare
It's been very frustrating to see Congressional Democrats and their out-of-office colleagues lying to the public every chance they get regarding the true costs of, and repeal of, Obamacare.
No less a public moment than John Boehner's assumption of the House gavel as Speaker allowed Frisco Nan to give an uncharacteristic major speech upon her demotion, complete with lies involving the cost of the recent health care monstrosity.
Howard Dean has been hectoring every conservative in sight on every cable program on which he can appear with lies involving the alleged $230B 'cost' of the repeal.
But the facts are quite different.
What one needs to understand is that the CBO is directed to assess the economic consequences of the bills it is given, not the reasonability of the bills' assumptions or projections.
In the case of Wonderboy's health care, all sorts of financial deceptions were employed to game an alleged reduction of government spending by imposing public health care and covering millions of new citizens.
Among the deceptions were:
-double counting $398B Medicare and Social Security revenues
-moving the so-called 'doctor fix' into a separate bill, so that the added-back costs of not imposing Medicare program cost controls on doctors' fees was not included in the health care bill.
-adding unrelated income tax hikes on dividends and capital gains, as well as other taxes, so that the bill would appear to be generating government revenues.
-counting 10 years of tax levies in the bill but only 6 years of provided health care services.
-failing to provide for the landslide of dumped, formerly corporate-provided health care consumers into apparently-cheaper government plans, thus overwhelming services and causing losses on the unrealistically-low initial government premiums.
The gross total sums of these financial deceits make any claims of saving taxpayers money ridiculous and simply false.
What's really disappointing is that we have elected officials, and former elected officials, widely spreading these lies as if they were solemn facts. No matter that these Democrats know they are abetting US financial self-destruction. The goal of a universal, public health care entitlement is more important to them than the continued health of the Republic.
No less a public moment than John Boehner's assumption of the House gavel as Speaker allowed Frisco Nan to give an uncharacteristic major speech upon her demotion, complete with lies involving the cost of the recent health care monstrosity.
Howard Dean has been hectoring every conservative in sight on every cable program on which he can appear with lies involving the alleged $230B 'cost' of the repeal.
But the facts are quite different.
What one needs to understand is that the CBO is directed to assess the economic consequences of the bills it is given, not the reasonability of the bills' assumptions or projections.
In the case of Wonderboy's health care, all sorts of financial deceptions were employed to game an alleged reduction of government spending by imposing public health care and covering millions of new citizens.
Among the deceptions were:
-double counting $398B Medicare and Social Security revenues
-moving the so-called 'doctor fix' into a separate bill, so that the added-back costs of not imposing Medicare program cost controls on doctors' fees was not included in the health care bill.
-adding unrelated income tax hikes on dividends and capital gains, as well as other taxes, so that the bill would appear to be generating government revenues.
-counting 10 years of tax levies in the bill but only 6 years of provided health care services.
-failing to provide for the landslide of dumped, formerly corporate-provided health care consumers into apparently-cheaper government plans, thus overwhelming services and causing losses on the unrealistically-low initial government premiums.
The gross total sums of these financial deceits make any claims of saving taxpayers money ridiculous and simply false.
What's really disappointing is that we have elected officials, and former elected officials, widely spreading these lies as if they were solemn facts. No matter that these Democrats know they are abetting US financial self-destruction. The goal of a universal, public health care entitlement is more important to them than the continued health of the Republic.
Monday, January 10, 2011
The Constitution, Federal Government & Individuals
Fox News' contributor and program host, former judge Andrew Napolitano, often repeats his contention that in the Constitution, the federal government doesn't have a direct relationship with the individual. Specifically, he advances the view that the Framers did not intend for the federal level of our government to intercede through or around the states to establish direct relationships with all individuals.
It took income tax to do that.
Now we have massive federal intervention in the lives of individuals, rather than the federal government perhaps legislating services to be furnished by individual states, along with the provision of funding. The obvious large programmatic examples are Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and, at least in the past, ADC.
Why is this? And aren't these programs really radical departures from the limited federal government as much for their direct connection with individuals as their establishment of expectations by individuals of direct benefits from Washington?
Come to think of it, was the federal draft for military service in the 1860s also an instance of improper reach by the federal government through the states?
Whether one agrees with Napolitano, or not, it's refreshing to consider his contention, i.e., that somewhere in the history of the US from its early years to now, qualitatively different powers became part of the federal government. And one of the hallmarks of this qualitative change has been its construction of individual relationships with individuals which, prior to that, gave us a different type of government.
One wonders if so much of the Progressive movement depended upon this individual connection. Without it, the federal government is more sterile, less focused upon legislation that, as Napolitano often notes, is unconstitutional on its face, because it does not apply to all Americans.
It's probably wishful thinking to hope we can ever turn this clock back. But I suspect it would do a great deal to reduce federal power and spending if we could.
It took income tax to do that.
Now we have massive federal intervention in the lives of individuals, rather than the federal government perhaps legislating services to be furnished by individual states, along with the provision of funding. The obvious large programmatic examples are Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and, at least in the past, ADC.
Why is this? And aren't these programs really radical departures from the limited federal government as much for their direct connection with individuals as their establishment of expectations by individuals of direct benefits from Washington?
Come to think of it, was the federal draft for military service in the 1860s also an instance of improper reach by the federal government through the states?
Whether one agrees with Napolitano, or not, it's refreshing to consider his contention, i.e., that somewhere in the history of the US from its early years to now, qualitatively different powers became part of the federal government. And one of the hallmarks of this qualitative change has been its construction of individual relationships with individuals which, prior to that, gave us a different type of government.
One wonders if so much of the Progressive movement depended upon this individual connection. Without it, the federal government is more sterile, less focused upon legislation that, as Napolitano often notes, is unconstitutional on its face, because it does not apply to all Americans.
It's probably wishful thinking to hope we can ever turn this clock back. But I suspect it would do a great deal to reduce federal power and spending if we could.
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