media coverage

October 4, 2009April 18, 2020

It is so obvious it makes me sick

Like dragging ones feet across the carpet on a cold dry day and then getting a jolt when touching anything, I get to a point where some things in life and the world become so obvious to me I wonder why it seems I am the only one who sees it and why can’t I get others to see it too. When others get that way they get ulcers or fly into a rage – me? I beat my head on a wall and write about it in my blog. Here is the latest obvious crap flaking my pie crust.

1. Where’s the change I voted for? It seems even with a new administration in Washington and the bullies out of power in Congress, we were to see actual real change. I’m still waiting. The Health Care reform debate is a prime example. It’s been obvious for years that we must end the monopoly by private insurance companies who profit from the pain and suffering of their customers. We don’t tolerate it for any other industry except health insurance.

Now it seems both spineless Democrats and the GOP bullies are planning a big wet kiss to the insurance companies along the same lines as we saw when the Medicare D pharmacy plan came out – huge payments to big insurance companies for crappy coverage for those least able to afford any medical bills in the first place. Can you say Donut hole?

Republicans have lied about the reform from the beginning – just plain lied – and our fourth estate and even Democrats just let them do it.

Here are the facts 40 MILLION people have NO insurance and approx 40,000 DIE each year because of having NO insurance.

What kind of human would allow that to happen? Republicans for one and Democrats who accept money from the insurance industry.

Polls show overwhelming public support for reform and a public option, yet some in Congress let the money do their thinking for them. SHAME ON THEM!!!!

2. Passing off “talking points” as news. What boils my blood almost as much as the GOP lies about health care reform that go unchallenged is the general incest that goes on within the Washington DC media complex.

We had an election in November and the Democrats won handy majorities in both houses and have the White House but you wouldn’t know it if you watch or read the mainstream media that comes out of DC.

It seems that the Sunday talk shows and political news in print supposedly needs to have a 1 to 1 “balance” of left and right views. While it seemed on some Sundays, former VP Dick Cheney, or for some odd reason, his daughter, was allowed to basically give a monologue about his version of events when he was President and approved of the criminal torturing of human beings among other GOP centric discussions.

Do you remember tug-of-wars from your childhood? I remember the adult in charge lining up us kids by height and then going down the line, alternating which team we would be on, to ensure that neither side was unfairly stacked. That notion of balancing the sides to make things fair has morphed in modern media to this simplistic binary equation of Republican vs. Democrat. But it’s a false equivalence, because it assumes a completely valid argument on both sides, and as we chronicle daily here at C&L, rarely do we see sensible, much less valid, arguments coming from the right to make the “balance” actually informative. Instead we get death panels, socialicommunistmarxism, concern trollism over deficit spending and the Olympic Games.
Sunday Morning Bobblehead Thread

The point again is this assumes that both sides have equally valid arguments and in some cases, like the health care debate, this is not even close. The lies about death panels, lack of public support for a public option, and “socialized medicine” told by the right are lies. Lies are not valid arguments.

Only a few years ago if you dissented against the President your words were treasonous and you should be “sent to Gitmo” or worse, where regular people wearing T-shirts saying “Bush Sucks” were detained by police when they showed up to protest Bush in public. Since November if you bring a gun to an event the President is appearing, it’s called “free speech” and you want to “take back your country” from a black guy and his uppity ways.

It kind of has an Orwellian “doubleplusgood” ring to it all.

3 Finally, who the hell is Kim Kardashian? What has she done to merit any mention in the press? I had to look her up in Wikipedia and just as I guessed she is famous for no real reason. She didn’t land a plane in the Hudson, she didn’t cure a disease, and she doesn’t contribute to society in any memorable way.

If she was someone of substance I could see why she would be newsworthy but unless I missed her winning an Oscar recently then her celebrity worth is very small compared to the amount of press she gets.

I’m just fed up with narcissism being passed out as something important. I don’t care about her or any other “celebutante” and I’ll now have to spend time scrubbing the taint from this blog. UGH!

And THAT is this edition of my Obvious rant….

February 5, 2009April 18, 2020

Why do Congressional Republicans hate America?

Well we know from their “leader” and gas bag Rush Limbaugh that he wants President Obama to fail. Now we find out that Congressional Republicans are being jackasses about the proposed stimulus bill. The question is why? It’s because the 2010 elections are coming up and Republicans think they can get elected again if the attempt to save America is defeated or damaged enough not to work. They want President Obama to fail too. I think it is nothing but petty bullshit from a party that has no idea how to help the struggling economy and were in fact responsible for screwing the hooch in the first place.

The Republican playbook is about standing in opposition, knowing full well that the Democratic Congress is going to pass a stimulus package. Their next step is to go home and sell to what’s left of their constituencies the notion that if we had listened to them, things would be far rosier. As a minority, a control group is unlikely to emerge that can disprove false numbers based on false rhetoric. They can go back and campaign in two years whether or not Obama’s plan creates anywhere close to the number he hopes and tell the world, and claim that their plan would have provided double the number.
The minority role in government should be about balancing the need of their constituencies with real ideas that create a stronger way of finding a solution. In the modern era of politics Rush Limbaugh style, it is all about spewing hate and misinformation in the guise of governing for the good of the people. The very people that the Obama plan will help most, are the very same people that are being preached to by the likes of Limbaugh and his puppets in Congress.
Republicans Clearly Are Willing to Let This Country Collapse if They Think it Will Win Them Elections

And the media – also known as the Villagers – come along for the fire sale because…. well because they are so insulated in their little GOP controlled bubbles, they think spewing discredited GOP talking points is being objective.

The networks like to have the same tired debate format with the same hired analysts debating with “sound and fury” that usually “signifies nothing” to most of America. Last week the media chose to have Republicans like John Boehner, who helped create the situation we’re in, dominate the airwaves, which does nothing but muddy up the discussion on our rapidly failing economy. And which leads Villagers like Chuck Todd to proclaim that Republicans have won the spin wars. It’s a “spending bill” now.
Why is it called a “spending bill”? Because the Villagers have decided that the Republicans have won the PR war over the stimulus package. How does that tired argument help this country in a time of crisis? I know the spin wars play a role when messaging is concerned because Americans get a lot of their news through the TV and the elitists get aroused by all this nonsense, but it’s killing us. Please Stop It. C&L has often documented how the media tries to elect our politicians, (They chose Bush over Gore, How did that work out?) but now they are trying to decide how this very important stimulus package will be dealt with.
Please, where’s the meat? Stop playing games with our lives. Put people on who can explain it coherently. Economics is complicated. Sound bites aren’t enough. Obama was elected to bring change to the economy, not to debate the merits of tax cuts all over again. We had that discussion for 18 months and Obama won. Tax cuts lost. Why is the media ignoring that fact? John McCain ran on tax cuts to save us and he lost. Now he’s telling his supporters that he’s going to vote NO on the stimulus plan and wants them to sign a petition. You lost the election badly. Democrats have solid majorities everywhere you look, but not when it comes to the media that is supposed to inform us and not play “spin wars’ with the country.
Why aren’t there hundreds of economists on my TV explaining the stimulus package?

So how does that go again – the media has a liberal bias???? Excuse me while I laugh.

The fact is 1 or 2% of the proposed plan might be considered “pork” – that is not directly related to stimulus spending – yet that tiny portion of an 800 billion plus bill is getting 90% of the focus along with more talk about a worse plan like more tax cuts.

At least there is one Democrat with a spine to tell the truth and get airtime at the same time:

In the past few days, I’ve heard criticisms that this [stimulus] plan is somehow wanting, and these criticisms echo the very same failed economic theories that led us into this crisis in the first place, the notion that tax cuts alone will solve all our problems, that we can ignore fundamental challenges like energy independence and the high cost of health care, that we can somehow deal with this in a piecemeal fashion and still expect our economy and our country to thrive.
I reject those theories. And so did the American people when they went to the polls in November and voted resoundingly for change.
President Obama

I know we will have a stimulus bill passed but I fear it might be watered down too much because the Dems missed the PR boat.

September 28, 2008April 18, 2020

Local media coverage the day before the big McCain rally in Columbus

Here are some media reports related to McCain’s rally set to be held in Columbus on Monday the 29th. Both articles are from the Columbus Dispatch – which normally endorses GOP candidates.

Along with Sen. Barack Obama, Sen. John McCain has embraced a $700 billion bailout of the nation’s troubled financial industry.
In a telephone interview with The Dispatch from Washington yesterday, McCain said that Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke convinced him that the rescue plan is necessary.
“I’m sure everybody understands that this was something that just had to be done,” McCain said. “I’m kind of sorry in a way, but the tone of voice that Bernanke and Paulson used about this crisis, I’ve never heard anything like it in the years that I’ve been in public office, or alive.”
McCain and his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, will appear at a rally this morning at Capital University. In advance of the visit, McCain talked with The Dispatch about the financial crisis and other topics:
Dispatch: Some commentators criticized you for what they called erratic statements and actions last week heading into negotiations on rescuing the economy. Describe how you played a productive role in all this.
McCain: I’ll leave that up to others to make that judgment. This was an issue that was transcendent. I suspended my campaign and came back to Washington because I thought that it was vital to do so. Sen. Obama said he was available to discuss the issue by phone. I didn’t want to phone it in. I’m proud that we were able to get this done, and I’ll give the credit to everybody else.
McCain tells ‘Dispatch’ that bailout is emergency measure ‘to stop bleeding’

Didn’t want to phone it in? It seems McCain going to Washington to butt in the talks actually caused them to break down.

Palin is ideal for southwestern Ohio, with her tough talk and conservative stances on issues such as guns and abortion, said Ryan Barilleaux, chairman of Miami University’s Political Science Department. However, he is surprised by the level of enthusiasm.
“Earlier in his career, John McCain seemed to go out of his way to poke people in the eye, conservatives in particular, and they resented that,” he said. “But now he’s kind of redeemed himself.”
In the town of Monroe, where voter turnout in 2004 was about 80 percent, Ernie Wilson has been cutting hair at Ernie’s Hair Place for 50 years. As the election draws closer, political talk heats up, and Wilson said he hears quite a bit about Palin.
“The one thing I hear all the time is that when she got elected (governor), she said she was going to change things, and she sold that state jet right away,” he said.
Sitting in Wilson’s waiting room, William Murphy, 66, is among the Democrats who scratch their heads at the obsession with Palin, whom he calls “probably the most-inept vice-presidential candidate we’ve had.”
“She’s a fresh face, but they didn’t know nothing about her,” said Murphy, an occupational safety consultant from Monroe.
Palin’s shine has dulled a bit since the Republican National Convention, as some of her assertions, such as her opposition to the “bridge to nowhere,” are rebutted and her experience is questioned.
But folks seem more concerned about Obama’s background. Some are very bothered by his affiliation with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, his controversial former minister. A few mentioned Obama’s race as a factor.
Jayne Keys, 51, a restaurant controller from Wilmington, questioned Obama’s experience but called Palin a “refreshing face who will bring a lot to the table.”
Asked about Palin’s lack of experience, Keys’ husband, Don, responded: “She’s not running for president. My anticipation is that (McCain) would last for eight years, and she would gain eight years of experience.”
Palin energizes Republicans in their Cincinnati-area stronghold

Cindy McCain did a satellite interview with one of our local TV stations (WBNS Channel 10) ahead of the McCain rally in Columbus on Monday. Notice in the video how the anchor focuses on the tax increase for those making more than $250,000 and giving short emphasis on the tax cuts for the middle class under Obama’s plan. He frames it that way twice in the video. He mentions Palin’s bad interview with Katie Couric last week but spins so Cindy can be a cheerleader.

A few months ago I had to write a letter to the station and complain about their biased reporting favoring McCain and there was only a short mention of the Obama event just after the convention when he stopped in Dublin.

The video does have some comments from Gov. Ted Strickland in Obama’s favor.