Things are coming apart

What’s New Today 

Story #1 tells of a former CBS producer who is fed up trying to defend the liberal bias in the MSM.  #2 relates how frustrated the MSM is trying to trick Romney into going off message and not staying on the economy.  The economy is the loser for Obama so they don’t want Romney talking about it.  #3 has Jimmy Carter back in the news showing us all he wasn’t just a horrible president, but he’s also a horrible ex-president.  #4 is all about Obamanomics and how it’s fared.  #5 gives you a dictionary of what the Democrats actually mean when they say certain words.  

Today’s Thoughts

“We can be outspent and still win — but we can’t be outspent 10 to 1 and still win.”  Barack Obama in an urgent fund raising letter.  Love the exaggeration.

“They all pretend like they’re part of the 99 percent, but they’re not; they’re part of the 1 percent,” Adam Corolla said of Hollywood’s liberal elites. “They’re all incorporated, they all have tax attorneys, believe me.” 

1.  Liberal Media Bias

For former CBS producer Greg Kandra, the selective editing of a segment that was shown on Andrea Mitchell’s show on MSNBC of Mitt Romney’s remarks after going to a Wawa convenience store for the first time was the last straw. He is now “done” defending his former colleagues and denying the existence of liberal media bias.

Kandra, who is also a Catholic Deacon, took issue with Mitchell on his Deacons Bench blog to express his outrage:

I’m tired.  Truly. I’ve grown weary of trying to defend the indefensible and explain the inexplicable. For years, people have stomped their feet and pounded their fists and snorted “Liberal media bias!” and I’ve always tut-tutted and shooshed them and said, “No, no.  Calm down.  They meant well.  It was just a misunderstanding.  A mistake.  These things happen.”  I spent over 25 years working in the oft-reviled Mainstream Media and I saw up close and personal how the sausage was made. I knew the people who wielded the knives and wore the aprons, and could vouch (most of the time, anyway) for their good intentions.

But now?

Forget it. I’m done. You deserve what they’re saying about you. It’s earned. You have worked long and hard to merit the suspicion, acrimony, mistrust and revulsion that the media-buying public increasingly heaps upon you. You have successfully eroded any confidence, dispelled any trust, and driven your audience into the arms of the Internet and the blogosphere, where biases are affirmed and like-minded people can tell each other what they hold to be true, since nobody believes in objective reality any more. You have done a superlative job of diminishing what was once a great profession and undermining one of the vital underpinnings of democracy, a free press.

Good job.

I just have one question:

What the hell is wrong with you guys?

http://www.aim.org/don-irvine-blog/former-tv-network-producer-upset-with-andrea-mitchell-says-im-done-denying-liberal-media-bias/

The press has earned the disdain and mistrust of the general public.  This is again a horrible reality for the Democratic Party.  They had the press in their back pocket, but now almost everyone knows it and they don’t believe them anymore. 

2.  MSM trying to trap Mitt Romney

…It's a trap. 

The media currently coordinating with the White House knows it's a trap. 

Thank God, though, Mitt Romney knows it's a trap and refuses to play.

 

As a result, the media's narrative focus has now laughably turned away from immigration policy and towards Romney refusing to talk about anything but the economy. 

This is a media narrative borne of desperation for two reasons:

1. Polls show that the last ten days have done nothing to move the needle in Obama's direction.

2. If the focus stays on the economy, Obama loses. 

Time's Michael Crowley bared all of the corrupt media's backside this morning with a high-profile feature titled: "One-Note Mitt: Is Romney Too Focused on the Economy?"…

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2012/06/26/Time-Romney-Economy

Did the author mention it’s a trap?  Somehow I’m reminded of Uncle Remus and Baer Rabbit asking not to be thrown in the Briar Patch. 


3.  Jimmy Carter accuses Obama of Human Rights violations

A former U.S. president is accusing the current president of sanctioning the "widespread abuse of human rights" by authorizing drone strikes to kill suspected terrorists.

Jimmy Carter, America's 39 th president, denounced the Obama administration for "clearly violating" 10 of the 30 articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, writing in a NY Times op-ed on Monday that the "United States is abandoning its role as the global champion of human rights."

"Instead of making the world safer, America's violation of international human rights abets our enemies and alienates our friends," Carter wrote.

While the total number of attacks from unmanned aircraft, or drones, and the resulting casualties are murky, the New America Foundation estimates that in Pakistan alone 265 drone strikes have been executed since January 2009 . Those strikes have killed at least 1,488 people, at least 1,343 of them considered militants, the foundation estimates based on news reports and other sources.

In addition to the drone strikes, Carter criticized the current president for keeping the Guantanamo Bay detention center open, where prisoners "have been tortured by waterboarding more than 100 times or intimidated with semiautomatic weapons, power drills or threats to sexually assault their mothers."…

http://news.yahoo.com/jimmy-carter-accuses-u-widespread-abuse-human-rights-154057442--abc-news-politics.html

Jimmy Carter was a horrible president and an even worse ex-president.  The man is a complete fool.

4.  Obamanomics:  the verdict

One of the consequences of all the stimulus and subsequent QE is that long time traders of our markets know they are screwed up. Consistent printing of money and 0% interest rates world wide have created their own economic imbalances. As the saying goes, there is no free lunch.

Economists such as Taylor, Cochrane, Zingales, Rajan and Murphy have said as much over the past four years. Turns out, they were right and the Keynesians are wrong.
 
The government stimulus had a multiplier effect of 0. It did nothing for job growth or GDP growth in the US. Combine the inefficiency of US fiscal policy with the continued implosion of Europe, and you have a world wide malaise. In China, because of macro economic effects, wages are rising, costs to produce are increasing. Companies are also wary of both the poor property rights system and the lengthened supply chain. China is slowing down.
 
The economies of the world aren’t going to contract because of government spending decreasing. They are going to contract because the continued machinations of the world’s central bankers have screwed up the costs of capital normally paid by the markets. The money that they have printed hasn’t gone into the productive marketplace. Instead, it went to shore up balance sheets and sits.
Money isn’t turning over. There is no velocity….

http://pointsandfigures.com/2012/06/26/watch-out-for-more-deflation/

There’s a lot in this article that needs to be understood.  Keynesian economics doesn’t work and it never has.   

5.  Political Dictionary 

Since this is an election year, we can expect to hear a lot of words -- and the meaning of those words is not always clear. So it may be helpful to have a glossary of political terms.

One of the most versatile terms in the political vocabulary is "fairness." It has been used over a vast range of issues, from "fair trade" laws to the Fair Labor Standards Act. And recently we have heard that the rich don't pay their "fair share" of taxes.

Some of us may want to see a definition of what is "fair." But a concrete definition would destroy the versatility of the word, which is what makes it so useful politically.

If you said, for example, that 46.7 percent of their income -- or any other number -- is the "fair share" of their income that the rich should have to pay in taxes, then once they paid that amount, there would be no basis for politicians to come back to them for more -- and "more" is what "fair share" means in practice.

Life in general has never been even close to fair, so the pretense that the government can make it fair is a valuable and inexhaustible asset to politicians who want to expand government.

"Racism" is another term we can expect to hear a lot this election year, especially if the public opinion polls are going against President Barack Obama.

Former big-time TV journalist Sam Donaldson and current fledgling CNN host Don Lemon have already proclaimed racism to be the reason for criticisms of Obama, and we can expect more and more other talking heads to say the same thing as the election campaign goes on. The word "racism" is like ketchup. It can be put on practically anything -- and demanding evidence makes you a "racist."…

http://townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/2012/06/26/a_political_glossary

A good op-ed piece showing how the left likes to use and abuse language. 

Financial crisis: Democrats reaction, "What me worry?"

We know there is a problem: Do Something!!!

"MY WORST EXPERIENCE WAS THE FINANCIAL CRISIS OF SEPTEMBER 2008," House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan said Tuesday in response to a reporter's question about Democrats' attacks on the budget he unveiled earlier in the day.


"WHAT IF THE PRESIDENT AND YOUR REPRESENTATIVE SAW IT COMING AND COULD HAVE PREVENTED IT FROM HAPPENING?" RYAN SAID. "WHAT WOULD YOU THINK OF THEM IF THEY DIDN'T?" A hush came over the audience at the American Enterprise Institute, where I am a resident fellow.


It was Ryan's way of saying that the financial meltdown arrived largely without warning, while THE IMPENDING FISCAL CRUNCH IS LIKE A RUNAWAY FREIGHT TRAIN.


"THIS IS THE MOST PREDICTABLE CRISIS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY," he went on. "We are on our path to a debt crisis" like those we've seen recently in Europe, with the national debt as a percentage of gross domestic product rising, under President Obama's budget, past the 90 percent danger point on its way to 800 percent.

http://washingtonexaminer.com/politics/2011/04/ryan-steals-march-obama-fiscal-crisis-looms#ixzz1IkCZEwbU


This crisis is predictable. What also seems to be predictable is that the Democrats would rather try to use this politically than to address the problem. This is a must read.






New compromise to avert government shutdown: $40B in cuts

Speaker John Boehner’s office refused comment, but several individuals, Republican and Democratic, confirmed that THE OHIO REPUBLICAN HAD RAISED THE $40 BILLION NUMBER AT A MORNING MEETING AT THE WHITE HOUSE WITH THE PRESIDENT.

That translates into a $1.048 trillion top line for nonemergency appropriations, an $80 billion reduction from Obama’s 2011 budget request and more importantly, an additional $7 billion on top of the target in House-Senate talks.

Administration officials expressed frustration with the demands, and there are growing complaints the speaker keeps “moving the goal posts” as he tries to appease conservatives in his party.

“It seems every step we take, it’s something just to poke us in the eye,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who was part of the same White House meeting. “THEY ARE NOT TRYING TO ARRIVE AT THE FINISH LINE. IT APPEARS THAT THEY’RE GOING TO DO EVERYTHING THEY CAN TO SATISFY THE TEA PARTY.”

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0411/52585.html#ixzz1IkcsPqBD


I think a better analogy for Harry Reid’s comment is that the Democrats are running a marathon, but want to stop the race after the first 100 yards.



Congress spends over 20% of their time taunting the other side

Three of their categories were well known to political scientists. Over the years, they have come up with a GRAND UNIFIED THEORY OF CONGRESSMEN which holds that there are three primary ways a legislator expresses him- or herself.


The first is credit-claiming. That involves a legislator trumpeting his own role in securing a bridge or a dam or some other thing voters want. “ ‘The government did this thing. It’s because of me,’ ” King explained.


The second is position-taking. This is the thing that “Schoolhouse Rock” and civics classes teach you is the point of congressional speechifying. “ ‘I’m at this point on the ideological continuum,’ ” King said.


The third traditional category is “advertising.” It might be recognizing some hometown team or dignitary, a nonpartisan effort to get one’s name out there. “ ‘Look at me! I’m a member of Congress!’ ” King said.


But, he said, some news releases he and his team studied didn’t fit neatly into the three traditional categories.


“They’re a different thing. To say that the only thing members of Congress do is advertising, credit-claiming or position-taking, that’s not right,” King said. “Because sometimes, they just stand up there and taunt the other side.”


Now, it’s not earth-shaking news that legislators like to insult each other. But what King did is quantify how much they do it: more than a quarter of the time. He found taunting was most common in members whose districts were “safe” — strongly held by their party.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/27percent-of-communication-by-members-of-congress-is-taunting-professor-concludes/2011/04/06/AF1no2qC_story.html?hpid=z1


Surprised?



Obama’s 2012 election strategy

…. Even the most optimistic of economists and the Federal Reserve itself predict that the ECONOMY WILL NOT HAVE COMPLETELY TURNED AROUND BY NOVEMBER 2012, AS THE UNEMPLOYMENT RATE WILL REMAIN AROUND 8-9%. THE ANNUAL BUDGET DEFICIT WILL STILL BE IN THE $1+ TRILLION RANGE AND THE TOTAL NATIONAL DEBT WILL HAVE INCREASED OVER $5.4 TRILLION DOLLARS DURING OBAMA'S FIRST TERM (more than the debt from the founding of the country in 1789 through 2001). There is also a consensus that the Middle East will still be in turmoil, the threat of terrorism markedly higher and our foreign policy in shambles.

There is little option but to replay the 2008 campaign.

Therefore the White House will, as its primary tactic between now and November 2012, FOCUS ON RE-INSTITUTING AND RE-ENFORCING THE "CULT OF PERSONALITY" STRATEGY SO SUCCESSFUL IN 2008 (particularly against Hillary Clinton) while contrasting Obama against the dull and bland personality of any of the Republican candidates. Secondarily and in concert with the once-mainstream media and the unions, the well-worn and threadbare accusations of the nominee as being mean-spirited and in league with the "rich" will be on full display. In reserve will be the heavy artillery of racist accusations to be used to create headlines and sidetrack the Republicans whenever the opportunity, real or imagined, presents itself….

http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/04/obama_reelection_and_the_cult.html

I don’t think this will work. Obama ran on hope and change in 2008. It was a “cult of personality” but it was a cult of an unknown personality where everyone could imagine who he would be. Now we know who he is and the failures of his first term will destroy any hope of recreating 2008. This may be his best shot, but it won’t be enough.


Europe feels strain as US alters Libya policy

Transatlantic relations are being tested by the US’s refusal to lead the military mission in Libya, with figures on both sides of the ocean depicting THE CONFLICT AS A WAKE-UP CALL FOR EUROPE’S MILITARY AND POLITICAL ESTABLISHMENTS.

BRITAIN AND FRANCE ARE STRAINING TO FILL THE GAP LEFT BY WASHINGTON’S DECISION TO PULL BACK, as Europe’s military ambitions are tested.

The Pentagon said on Tuesday that it had flown 1,600 sorties since operations began on March 19 and WOULD NO LONGER BE INVOLVED IN AIR STRIKES AGAINST LIBYAN TARGETS. It would continue support missions, such as aerial refuelling, and would remain on alert for emergency strike missions, if requested by Nato.

Defence experts maintain that the US move has a longer-term significance, since it signals that Europeans cannot rely on Washington to provide security in crises in their neighbourhood.

“What we’ve seen in Libya is hugely significant,” said Lord Hutton, a former defence secretary in the last Labour government. “The US has been saying for 10 or 15 years that it wants the Europeans to share more of the security burden and we have to heed that lesson. WE SHOULD BE DOING MUCH MORE IN EUROPE. WE CANNOT GO ON EXPECTING THE US TO TAKE THE LEADING ROLE…..”

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7b076c8e-5fb4-11e0-a718-00144feab49a.html#axzz1IgRZmqzz


Now here is something I can support President Obama on.



Liberals on the run from voluntary tax

Moonbats are cheap. And they prove it again every year at this time when the Commonwealth of Massachusetts gives them the chance to personally raise their own income taxes.

Your average liberal would give an illegal alien the shirt off your back. Not his back, but your back. Just ask them. They sit in Starbucks and angrily blog about how AmeriKKKans who work don’t pay their “fair share.”

They harrumph, what about the children?

But you know what they say. Money talks, you-know-what walks.

So far this tax season, the state Department of Revenue has received 1,971,000 returns.

And of those 1.971 million filers, EXACTLY 862 HAVE CHECKED THE BOX TO PAY AT THE OLD, HIGHER 5.85 PERCENT RATE RATHER THAN THE CURRENT 5.3 PERCENT RATE.

THAT WORKS OUT TO APPROXIMATELY ONE-25TH OF ONE PERCENT OF FILERS making the selfless gesture — somewhat lower than the percentage of moonbats in the population, wouldn’t you say

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1328675

If this surprises you, you obviously don’t pay any attention to human nature. Liberals like to think they are more compassionate and giving, but evidently they aren’t. BTW, that figure is .04%.

Accountable and Unaccountable America

….There is Accountable America and then there is Unaccountable America. In Accountable America liberal lawyers sue Wal-Mart for discrimination against women employees based upon statistical patterns of promotions. IN UNACCOUNTABLE AMERICA, 50 PERCENT OF COLLEGE KIDS NEED REMEDIAL INSTRUCTION WHILE HIGH SCHOOL TEACHERS DEMONSTRATE OVER THEIR COLLECTIVE BARGAINING RIGHTS. In Accountable America President Obama tells BP to post $20 billion on account to pay for oil spill damage and BP asks, "What's the account number?" IN UNACCOUNTABLE AMERICA SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER CALLS A SPENDING CUT OF $0.06 TRILLION IN A $3.8 TRILLION BUDGET "EXTREME…."

http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/04/unaccountable_america.html


I can hardly wait to hear what Schumer calls a $6 trillion dollar cut in spending over 10 years.



Jimmy Carter strikes again

…. Beginning with a statement to the people of Cuba, HE HAD NOTHING TO SAY OF THE LACK OF FREEDOM IN CUBA. He made brief mention of his visit with American Alan Gross, who is being held in a Cuban jail for providing support for democracy activists in Cuba, but then immediately EQUATED HIM WITH THE SO-CALLED CUBAN FIVE, WHO ARE IN JAIL IN THE US FOR SPYING. Carter apparently sees no difference between an American who is working on a transparent U.S. government funded democracy project and guys spying for the Cuban dictatorship. Indeed, CARTER REFERRED TO THEM AS “THE FIVE CUBAN PATRIOTS” and explained that he had met with their mothers and their wives. He never called Gross a patriot. He went on to make clear that HE HAD PRIVATELY PETITIONED BOTH GEORGE W. BUSH AND BARACK OBAMA TO RELEASE THESE SPIES…..

http://bigpeace.com/pschweizer/2011/04/05/jimmy-carter-disgraceful-in-cuba/

Jimmy Carter is an embarrassment to this country.