©2011 Brian Fairrington, Cagle Cartoons
Christmas Shopping 2012
November 30, 2011 by Leave a Comment
Media Checklist: Scratch Cain, Newt To Go…
November 30, 2011 by 21 Comments
One might think from the breaking news that a woman has claimed she had a 13-year affair with presidential candidate Herman Cain that someone is being seriously exposed as a hypocrite. That would be the press. The media can’t deny they continue to display a lousy double standard. For Republican candidates, scandal news is instant. For Democrats, it’s eventual, if at all!
Ginger White’s charges sound a lot like Gennifer Flowers in 1992 saying she has a 12-year affair with Bill Clinton. So many in the press pounce on Flowers as unequivocal evidence of the media’s sense of balance. After all, they will remind us, just look how we covered that scandal!
Yes, look. Because it’s a wonderful exercise in media disinformation. Political junkies remember that Flowers held a <ital>press conference<ital> carried live on CNN on Thursday afternoon, January 23, 1992. It had all the elements for snappy news. She played audio tapes of phone conversations with Clinton. Despite all this, the first network mention was a brief mention by NBC’s Lisa Myers – more than 24 hours later. Other than that, the three broadcast network morning and evening newscasts waited to breathe the name “Flowers” for four days.
And then they dismissed the scandal as a non-scandal. On ABC, anchorman Peter Jennings (who had four wives) set the tone: “At several stops today, talking about Gennifer Flowers, Governor Clinton denounced what he called ‘trash for cash’. And there appear to be quite a few people who agree.” Jennings declared a quick ABC poll found only 26 percent wouldn’t vote for an adulterous candidate. “But our polling unit points out that at least half of those people who said no are Republicans and unlikely to vote for Governor Clinton anyway.”
The networks rewarded Clinton with all this tolerance because, as liberal journalist Hendrik Hertzberg explained at the time, reporters loved Clinton’s potential: “[T]hey think he would make a very good, perhaps a great, President. Several told me they were convinced that Clinton is the most talented presidential candidate they have ever encountered, JFK included.”
Read More at newsbusters.org By Brent Bozell, Newsbusters
Video: MSNBC’s O’Donnell Asks If Media Is Too Critical Of Obama
November 30, 2011 by 14 Comments
I have to ask what criticism? MSNBC and the other voices in the lamestream media are not objective journalists, they are propagandists for the Obama re-election campaign. From the Washington Post tweeting for dirt on Gingrich to NBC searching for unemployed Atlanta women who will claim and affair with Herman Cain, the coverage of the Republicans has been a jihad against conservatives by the media.
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Why The Democrat’s Plan To Win In 2012 Is Pure Delusion
November 30, 2011 by 6 Comments
The “Path to 270” (Pt270) plan denies the realities of the very demographics it uses and the only honest feature of its make up is an acknowledgement that White people are not going to vote for Democrats any time soon.
Pt270 believes Obama can magically cut Democrat loses among college grads to 15% instead of the 30% beating they got in 2010 when unemployment among college graduates was 4.2%.
A Gallup poll of college graduates finds 11% unemployed or under-employed which is 2% above the national average. It would be an amazing and quite unlikely feat to keep Democrats loses down to “only” last year’s 30%.
The next dream from Pt270 is the one where Obama and the Democrats abandon trying to appeal to Whites without college degrees – 72%- are and replace those lost voters with White the 28% that have college degrees. Aside from the lopsided numbers comparing one to the other, only 49% of college grads self identify as liberals – and there open to considering the Democrats as candidates they could support.
The plan next describes how necessary it will be for Obama to lose the White vote by “only” 17 points (58/41) as John Kerry did in 2004. Obama’s 12 point losing margin (55/42) among White voters was only good enough to get him a 7.2% winning margin overall. Considering he would have to cut the 30 point White voter beating Democrats took as his surrogates last year by 2/3, pulling out a victory looks like a tall order if not an outright impossibility.
The “Enthusiasm gap” and the Occupy Wall Street factor
Perhaps the most important piece of data left out by the authors of Pt270 left out of their equation is the yawning voter enthusiasm gap between the two Parties. In this crucial measurement Republicans lead by 21 points among those motivated to actually go out and vote.
The spectacle of Chicago’s streets exploding in violence during the 1968 Democrat Convention left an indelible brand on the Democrats as lawless thugs who would resort to anarchy to force their will on the nation. The Occupy Wall Street people have announced that they will be back in the spring ready to do battle with our police forces. In 1968 the old media had to show what was going on and did so reluctantly. Today’s new media will cover every brick thrown and every cop spat upon. The internet will provide pictures of OWS people defecating on American flags and being arrested for selling drugs. If the authors of this plan believe Obama can withstand all of this and still be reelected they are delusional.
Obama Admin. Seals Court Records Of Border Patrol’s Murder
November 30, 2011 by 15 Comments
The Obama Administration has abruptly sealed court records containing alarming details of how Mexican drug smugglers murdered a U.S. Border patrol agent with a gun connected to a failed federal experiment that allowed firearms to be smuggled into Mexico.
This means information will now be kept from the public as well as the media. Could this be a cover-up on the part of the “most transparent” administration in history? After all, the rifle used to kill the federal agent (Brian Terry) last December in Arizona’s Peck Canyon was part of the now infamous Operation Fast and Furious. Conducted by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), the disastrous scheme allowed guns to be smuggled into Mexico so they could eventually be traced to drug cartels.
Instead, federal law enforcement officers lost track of more than 1,000 guns which have been used in numerous crimes. In Terry’s case, five illegal immigrants armed with at least two semi-automatic assault rifles were hunting for U.S. Border Patrol agents near a desert watering hole just north of the Arizona-Mexico border when a firefight erupted and Terry got hit.
We know this only because Washington D.C.’s conservative newspaper got ahold of the court documents before the government suddenly made them off limits. The now-sealed federal grand jury indictment tells the frightening story of how Terry was gunned down by Mexican drug smugglers patrolling the rugged desert with the intent to “intentionally and forcibly assault” Border Patrol agents.
You can see why the administration wants to keep this information from the public and the media, considering the smugglers were essentially armed by the U.S. government. Truth is, no one will know the reason for the confiscation of public court records in this case because the judge’s decision to seal it was also sealed, according to the news story. That means the public or media won’t have access to any new or old evidence, filings, rulings or arguments.
Ezra Klein: From ‘Journolist’ To Liberal Activist
November 30, 2011 by Leave a Comment
Media Bias: In the early days of the Gulf War, pundits marveled at the specter of Iraqi troops surrendering to journalists. Well, now it’s even worse: Journalists are giving the Democratic Party its talking points.
The Washington Post’s 27-year-old star blogger Ezra Klein has been called “whiz kid,” and “brat packer” and a “wunderkind.” Now he’s actually advising Democratic chiefs of staff, briefing them last week about the supercommittee in Congress, according to a report by Fishbowl-DC on MediaBistro.com.
That means the relatively novel idea that bloggers can be placed on an equal footing with reporters in congressional briefings has been one-upped: Bloggers like Klein are now giving the briefings.
That’s because Klein himself sports the imprimatur of one of the most vaunted news organizations in the world, the Washington Post. He’s supposed to have the Post’s high standards. But instead of reporting the news, even at a slant, as bloggers do, Klein takes bias beyond that. Instead of commenting on news, he makes it.
The problem here is not just that he blurs the lines between journalism and activism. It’s that the Post is perfectly content with it, and Klein himself says that such activism is actually part of his media ethos.
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About That “Racist” Romney Ad….
The Democrats have unveiled Barack Obama’s re-election strategy. They’re going to insist all Republicans are — wait for it! — racists.
The most recent ad hominem attack comes after Mitt Romney released an advertisement underscoring Obama’s dismal economic record. Veteran Democratic strategist Tad Devine told the media last week the commercial is “clearly an attempt to bring back Rev. Wright and race.”
How precisely is that, Tad?
Devine claims the ad shows two scenes featuring only black people. One shows black women walking in the background, and another “appears to be a congregation of African-American people,” Devine claims. “In the first scene there are no white people at all, in the second…it is all African-Americans except possibly one person, [whose race] you can’t really tell.”
In fact, Devine assures us, “There is no other rational explanation for that scene other than to suggest a racial reference, and most likely invoke Jeremiah Wright.”
Other race-baiters have jumped on the bandwagon. Emory University professor Drew Westin claimed the spot’s racism is “subliminal,” as Romney’s scenes show him speaking to all-white crowds. “For Romney, there isn’t a black person in the background in any of the scenes he’s in,” Westin alleges. “It’s inconceivable that his team didn’t think to make sure there was at least some diversity in the crowds he was speaking to unless the goal was to juxtapose subliminal black people against white people for Romney.”
The only problem is these claims are thematically and factually fraudulent in the most obvious way. The ad is clearly about the nation’s deteriorating economy. Since this is a subject Obama’s handlers understandably wish to change, the Democrats predictably clutched the race card.
More to the point, both Devine and Westin’s comments are bald-faced lies.
The first “offending” scene may be seen in the video above at the 17-second mark. It lasts approximately 2.5 seconds. The second is a dizzying pan-shot of an indeterminate crowd at the 20-second mark that lasts less than one second. A video capture proves this scene includes at least one white person.
As to Westin’s allegations, in Romney’s speech at least one black woman is clearly visible behind him for five unbroken seconds, from :52 to :57. She appears to be sitting in front of a man of East Asian ethnicity.
Devine’s comments raise an interesting question: What if the Obama campaign had released a 30-second ad about Jeremiah Wright? If Republicans should be considered “racist” for allegedly raising Obama’s membership in an all-black, Afro-centric church, how racist must Obama have been for belonging to it?
How racist is Obama for inspiring a headline in the UK Daily Mail that reads, “Obama Campaign Abandons White Working-class Voters in Favor of Minorities and the Educated”?
What about his ongoing program of “stealth reparations”?
May one question Obama’s priorities for holding the White House’s first country music concert this month, after hosting celebrations of Stevie Wonder, Black History month, Motown, and Hispanic music — forcing flyover country whites to wait at the end of the proverbial line behind more reliably Democratic-voting demographic groups?
Secondly, why is the Obama campaign targeting Mitt Romney, whose formidable war chest still sees him mired at 25 percent support in the GOP primaries? As Niall Stanage reported in The Hill, “Many Democrats seem confident President Obama will face former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in November 2012 — and they are happy enough about that.” Stanage added, “The pro-Obama forces have already focused their crosshairs on the former Massachusetts governor, whom they think has weaknesses they can exploit in the fall.” To date, former White House deputy press secretary Bill Burton’s Priorities USA has spent more than $300,000 attacking Romney, and zero dollars on anyone else.
The Democrats believe Romney is a man they can beat, and they do not want to wait one more moment to begin the defamation.
Earlier this week, Floyd Brown collated a series of headlines about Obama’s re-election strategy, which consists of non-stop negative campaigning — because it is all he has left. “This is going to get ugly,” Brown wrote. “Saul Alinsky ugly.”
Tad Devine’s comments may be cited as proof that not only will 2012 Democratic rhetoric be repulsive, it will also be mind-bendingly stupid.