‘Independent’ NLRB My Foot: Obama Agency Pounds NLRB To Destroy Business’ Right To Locate In Right To Work States

The White House has been hiding behind the assertion that the National Labor Relations Board is an “independent” agency, and that they have nothing whatsoever to do with the lawsuit attacking Boeing for building a new plant in right-to-work state South Carolina:

White House Dodges Questions About NLRB’s Complaint Against Boeing
Posted by: Carter Wood under Briefly Legal, Economy, Labor Unions on May 11, 2011 @ 6:43 pm

From today’s White House press briefing conducted by Jay Carney:

Q    Boeing CEO Jim McNerney, who chairs the President’s Export Council, said the National Labor Relations Board suit against his company for building a plant in a right-to-work state is a fundamental assault on capitalism.  I’m wondering is the President aware of the issue, and does he think the government should be involved in how businesses allocate capital or resources?MR. CARNEY:  Well, it’s obviously been in the news, so we are aware of it, but I would refer any questions about it to the NLRB because it is an independent agency, and we do not get involved in particular enforcement matters of independent agencies.

Q    The President has weighed in on outside issues before, though.  I mean is this something — it’s also coming from someone who is chairing the Export Council, who’s saying this is hurting job creation.

MR. CARNEY:  I don’t have a reaction to this from the President.  And I think the fact that he’s weighed in on outside issues doesn’t mean that he will weigh in on an independent agency’s enforcement action.

Carney then changed the subject to tout the President’s record on the auto industry and hail the growth of manufacturing.

Well, first of all, let me take a moment to ask a question: why is Obama dodging this issue rather than claiming credit for it?  Because it’s wrong; it is un-American; and this radical hard-core union agenda action will hurt the economy by forcing businesses to locate overseas.  If they can’t build factories where they want to in America, then they will go overseas to where they have the freedoms our soldiers fought for.  Amazingly, communist China is actually far more free market and pro-capitalist than the Obama administration.

Now let me get to my main point.

Like absolutely everything else from this lying president and this lying White House, BULLCRAP.  Not only is it absolutely true that Obama has weighed in on virtually every issue under the sun – including bizarre issues such as the “stupidity” of the Cambridge Police Department in Massachusetts – but we now have it in WRITING that the NLRB is anything but an “independent agency.”

Let’s take a look at just how “independent” the NLRB actually is.  First, we find that the agency’s top officials are literally partisan political hacks out there taking partisan political sides to attack Obama’s Republican opponents.  Then – given that obvious appearance of any lack of “independence” – the White House’s OMB literally orders the NLRB to take down the attacking memo and demands that they clear everything with them first.  Which actually goes about as far as you can go to demonstrate that the National Labor Relations Board – which Obama PACKED with radical leftist union types by bypassing even a Democrat-controlled US Senate – is marching to Obama’s drumbeat.  And then, if that isn’t enough, when the NLRB did Obama’s bidding to take down the partisan hack memo, the notice basically said, “The content in this statement has been removed. For further information on this subject, please see what our Messiah Obama says, as we’re really just his minions anyway.”

“Independence” my butt:

Obama official ordered labor board to pull rebuke of GOP budget
By Kevin Bogardus – 05/29/11 07:40 AM ET

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) had an independent agency take down a stinging press release aimed at the House Republicans’ budget proposal, according to a newly released document.

In an e-mail obtained by The Hill under a Freedom of Information Act request, an OMB official told a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) officer she should have checked before sending out a Feb. 18 press release titled, “Top NLRB officials respond to House budget proposal.”

The NLRB statement slammed what was then the GOP’s proposed continuing resolution to fund the government for the rest of fiscal year 2011.

On the day the labor board’s statement was published, Michael Lazzeri, OMB’s examiner for the NRLB, wrote to Shanti Ananthanayagam, the labor board’s budget officer, and asked her to take it down.

“In case didn’t get my vmail. That press release needs to come down from your website. In the future you guys have to clear that stuff with us,” Lazzeri wrote to Ananthanayagam in the e-mail.

The press release quoted NLRB Chairwoman Wilma Liebman and Lafe Solomon, the board’s acting general counsel, as saying the funding cuts would lead to agency delays and “would occur at a great cost to working people and responsible employers trying to survive in this difficult economic climate, and would have the potential to destabilize relations between labor and business.”

They also said the proposed budget cuts would reduce the agency’s annual funding by 18 percent, or $50 million, which could lead to furloughs for all of the labor board’s 1,665 employees for 55 workdays.

The press release was subsequently taken down. In its place on the labor board’s website is a bland statement that says, “The content in this statement has been removed. For further information on this subject, please see the President’s Statement of Administration Policy (SAP) regarding the budget, which can be found on the OMB website.”

OMB asking the labor board to take down the press release was first reported by The Huffington Post.

Asked why the press release was taken down, a spokeswoman for the labor board referred questions to OMB.

“In accordance with longstanding clearance procedures in Circular A-11, agencies are asked to clear such comments through OMB. In this case, the language on budget-related legislation had not been cleared, so it was taken down,” said Meg Reilly, an OMB spokeswoman.

Circular A-11 is a memo sent by OMB to federal agencies regarding the president’s budget proposal. The memo states that communications to Congress or the media about the president’s budget proposal need to receive clearance from OMB before being sent out, including “proposed press releases relating to the president’s budget.”

Despite the fears the labor board expressed in the original press release, the Republican-proposed budget cuts for the agency did not come to pass.

In the compromise deal to prevent the government shutdown, the labor board’s annual $282 million budget received only a 0.2 percent haircut — a reduction in line with other administrative agencies. The cut took $500,000 from the NRLB’s fiscal year 2011 funding.

Further, an amendment to the continuing resolution by Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.) that would have defunded the labor board entirely failed to pass earlier this year. Sixty House Republicans voted against axing the labor board’s budget in a 176-250 vote.

The agency has recently become a source of controversy. NRLB’s April 20 complaint against Boeing for allegedly retaliating against union workers has incensed GOP lawmakers and business groups.

Under scrutiny is Boeing’s decision to establish a second production line for its new Dreamliner jet in South Carolina — a right-to-work state that generally prohibits mandatory union membership or dues — instead of in Washington state, where Boeing has unionized operations.

The labor board cited statements made by Boeing executives expressing fear that work stoppages could hurt production as the reason the complaint was issued.

Republicans in both the House and Senate have threatened to hold up Solomon’s nomination as general counsel over the Boeing complaint and are pressing the NRLB to hand over the documents that explain the reasoning behind it.

Democrats have defended the labor board from the attacks. They say it is an independent agency that is performing a law enforcement action and should be free of political pressure.

The complaint is set to go before an administrative law judge at a June 14 hearing in Seattle.

“Should be fre of political pressure”?  In the age of Obama?  Not likely.  He is a fascist.  Fascism is simply one viral species of socialism.  And “NAZI” stood for “National Socialist German Worker’s Party“).  Obama is waaaaaayyyyyy on the left side with the SEIU Andy Stearns (“Because workers of the world unite it’s not just a slogan anymore“; and “We’re trying to use the power of persuasion. And if that doesn’t work, we’re going to use the persuasion of power “) and SEIU Stephen Lerner (“There are actually extraordinary things we could do right now to start to destabilize the folks that are in power and start to rebuild a movement“; “you could put banks at the edge of insolvency again“).  The mantra of Obama’s labor union buddies is “Forget about the law.”  These are people who are perfectly willing to “Get a little bloody” to get their way – no matter who else gets hurt or how badly. And Obama has been deeply involved behind the scenes in stirring up rowdy unrest in states like Wisconsin and Ohio.  Obama is one of them.

And to the extent that Obama is dishonest about his deep involvement in hard-core leftist union agenda issues, that aint a good thing.

Obama, the White House, and Democrats in general ROUTINELY lie.  These are the type of people who disingenuously, falsely and maliciously attack Republicans with “Mediscare” tactics when in fact Republicans are trying to save Medicare while Democrats are intent on seeing the system collapse into total bankruptcy while they attack anybody who tries to prevent that documented future fact from happening.

The National Labor Relations Board case – again, said board packed by Obama behind the US Senate’s back – against Boeing is a case against business.  It is a case against freedom.  It is a case against America.  It is a case against everything this country stands for.  It is certainly a case against the right to work without having to say “Yes sir” and “No Ma’am” to a union boss.  The unions want to have the power to shut down any business that doesn’t toe their socialist line – as they have repeatedly done with Boeing.  They would rather corporations relocate all their operations overseas than see those corporations build plants in right to work states.

I can understand why this fascist president wouldn’t want the American people to really know what he stands for and what he is doing to destroy their way of life.

 

Most Americans Finally Blaming The Most Irresponsible President In History

One could conclude – based on rhetoric alone – that George Bush never left office, and Obama never actually ascended to the presidency.

After all, according to the Obama narrative, only one man is responsible for anything these days.  And that man is George Bush.

Obama isn’t “responsible.”  He’s completely irresponsible.

Obama has never once taken the “The Buck Stops With George Bush” sign off of his desk.

Since we all know that the buck stops at the highest political office, and since we all know that Obama keeps passing the buck off to George Bush, we can therefore know that Obama really isn’t our president.  Whether he produces his damn birth certificate or not.  Given the fact that leadership is ultimately about taking responsibility, and Obama refuses to take any responsibility whatsoever, he’s clearly not the POTUS.  And since Bush is apparently STILL responsible for everything, he becomes our defacto president even nearly two years after actually leaving the office.

Well, Barry Hussein may never accept responsibility for the failure of his policies, but at least more Americans are finally saying that this is Barack Obama’s sucky economy, rather than agreeing with Obama that he had nothing to do with anything.

From Rasmussen:

48% Blame Obama for Bad Economy, 47% Blame Bush
Monday, August 02, 2010

For the first time since President Obama took office, voters see his policies as equally to blame with those of President George W. Bush for the country’s current economic problems.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 48% of Likely U.S. Voters now think Obama’s policies are to blame for the continuing bad economy, up three points from last month. Forty-seven percent (47%) say the recession that began under Bush is at fault.

With voters across the country expressing stronger belief that the economy is getting worse rather than better, these new findings spell potential bad news for Democratic candidates this fall. The president is already planning to limit his campaign appearances with candidates because of potential voter backlash.

In June and last October, 45% blamed Obama’s policies for the country’s ongoing economic woes, the previous high finding on this question. The number who blame Bush is down from 62% in May 2009 when Rasmussen Reports first began tracking the question regularly. Only 27% faulted Obama at that time.

As is often the case, Mainstream voters and the Political Class have wholly different viewpoints on this question. While 61% of Mainstream voters now blame Obama’s policies, 87% of the Political Class say the bad economy is due to the recession that began under Bush.

Fifty-five percent (55%) of men blame Obama’s policies for the current economic problems, while 52% of women think Bush is the cause.

Among voters not affiliated with either major party, Obama is now chiefly to blame by a 52% to 44% margin.

That last paragraph is particularly significant.  Independents OVERWHELMINGLY blame Obama over Bush for the worsening economy.

And if that news isn’t revealing enough, Gallup/USA Today just came out with a poll showing Obama at only 41% approval – the lowest of his presidency.  He’s now flirting with being in the 30s.

I don’t really care what Democrats think about Obama vs. Bush.  The Democrat Party can be rightly defined as the party of moral idiocy.  But we are finally seeing rank-and-file Americans who are not involved with political ideology looking at going on two years of failure and false demagoguery and coming to the correct conclusion about whom to hold responsible.

When the economy appeared to be improving, Obama starting talking about his “summer of economic recovery.”

From Politico:

Obama, Biden declare ‘Recovery Summer’
By MIKE ALLEN 6/17/10 5:06 AM EDT

Vice President Joe Biden today will kick off the Obama administration’s “Recovery Summer,” a six-week-long push designed to highlight the jobs accompanying a surge in stimulus-funded projects to improve highways, parks, drinking water and other public works.

David Axelrod, a senior adviser to the president, said: “This summer will be the most active Recovery Act season yet, with thousands of highly-visible road, bridge, water and other infrastructure projects breaking ground across the country, giving the American people a first-hand look at the Recovery Act in their own backyards and making it crystal clear what the cost would have been of doing nothing.”

But then we got all kinds of lousy economic news to rain turds all over Obama’s “Mission Accomplished” summer of recovery tour.

We got news like this:

Steep decline in GDP growth raises alarms
By Don Lee, Los Angeles Times
July 31, 2010

Reporting from Washington — U.S. economic growth slowed sharply in the spring, stoking concerns about a weak job market, a drawn-out struggle for the unemployed and growing financial pressures on millions of American families.

The nation’s gross domestic product grew at an annualized rate of 2.4% in the second quarter, falling from an upwardly revised 3.7% expansion in the first three months of the year, the Commerce Department said Friday.

While many economists had expected growth to moderate, the reported decline was a jolting 35% below the previous quarter. Gross domestic product is the value of all goods and services produced in the economy. […]

In the wake of Friday’s report, a number of economists downgraded their growth forecast for the second half of the year to as low as 1.5%, an anemic rate that would likely push the unemployment rate above June’s 9.5% figure.

Commerce officials also revised downward some prior growth figures for real GDP, which is the inflation-adjusted value of all goods and services produced in the U.S. The government Friday said real GDP grew 5% in the fourth quarter of 2009, down from a previously reported 5.6%.

Overall, the new data painted a picture of a deeper recession than previously believed.

Government spending and inventory adjustments have powered the economic recovery that began last summer, and they juiced up the second quarter as well. But economists expect tighter public spending, particularly by budget-strapped state and local governments, to be a drag on the economy in the coming quarters.

Many private economists projected that the unemployment rate would rise to 9.8% or higher by the end of the year.

And today, we learned that housing prices were down, factory orders were down, and consumer spending was down.  As the LA Times put it:

U.S. consumers did not boost their spending in June and their incomes failed to increase, further evidence that the economic recovery slowed in the spring. And Americans saved at the highest rate in nearly a year.

Personal spending was unchanged in June, the Commerce Department reported Tuesday. It was the third straight month of lackluster consumer demand. Incomes were also flat, the weakest showing in nine months.

The disappointing report on spending and income was among a raft of data released Tuesday that confirmed the economy ended the April-to-June quarter on a weak note.

Factory orders dropped 1.2 percent in June to a seasonally adjusted $406.4 billion, the Commerce Department said. It was the second consecutive decline after nine straight months of gains. Lower demand for steel, construction machinery and aircraft dragged down the figure.

And the number of buyers who signed contracts to purchase homes fell in June. The National Association of Realtors says its seasonally adjusted index of sales agreements for previously occupied homes dipped 2.6 percent to a reading of 75.7. That was the lowest on records dating back to 2001 and down nearly 19 percent from the same month a year earlier.

Last week the government said economic growth for the second quarter slowed to 2.4 percent. Many analysts believe it will dip further in the second half of the year as high unemployment, shaky consumer confidence and renewed troubles in housing weigh on the year-old economic recovery.

What’s funniest of all – if anything is funny during a complete failure’s destruction of what had been the greatest nation in the history of the planet – is that Obama was literally still congratulating himself when the bad news came dumping down:

President Obama was in New Jersey yesterday killing time before his appearance on ‘The View’. So he stopped at Tastee Subs and held a small business summit, pushing for legislation to increase funding to the Small Business Administration. In between sound bytes on jobs and bites of Tastee’s super-sub special, more bad economic news came rolling Obama’s way.

And then all of a sudden the Obama administration is all, “Oh, crap! Stop looking at our “success”!  No!  Don’t look at our “recovery summer”!  We don’t want to take responsibility after all!  Start looking at Bush again!  He’s the only one who is actually RESPONSIBLE!”

So now – after Obama patted himself on the back and congratulated himself for his mission accomplished, all of a sudden we’re back to the “Bush recession.”

BIDEN LAMENTS ‘BUSH RECESSION’…. Vice President Biden appeared on NBC’s “Today” show earlier, and used a line I don’t recall leading White House officials using before, at least not lately.

Ann Curry noted that the administration has been blamed for high unemployment rates, and asked, “Has this administration done enough?”

Biden replied, “Let me put it this way: there’s never enough until we restore the 8 million jobs lost in the Bush Recession. Until that happens, it doesn’t matter. I mean, it matters, but it’s not enough.”

Which is to say that, according to the Obama administration, George Bush is to blame for all the jobs HE lost, PLUS all the jobs that OBAMA lost.  After going on two years in office, Obama still isn’t responsible for anything at all.  Oh, except for that brief period when it looked like maybe things were looking up and Obama could suddenly be “responsible”.

When Bush left office, unemployment was 7.6%.  Barry Hussein promised that his massive stimulus would save the day.  He assured the American people that he understood what was wrong, and that he had the solution.  His administration promised that if the stimulus (which started out at $787 billion, then got revised upward to $862 billion, but which will actually cost taxpayers $3.27 TRILLION) was passed, unemployment would not go over 8%.

From NPR:

President Obama is being forced to wade into a domestic economic debate that just won’t go away: As the unemployment rate rises, there have been calls for a second round of stimulus spending.

Obama is in a difficult position. He has to defend his $787 billion economic stimulus package at a time when there are few visible signs that it has had an effect. Unemployment is at 9.5 percent, even though the White House predicted in January that with the stimulus bill, it would rise to only about 8 percent.

And the LA Times article cites economists as now predicting that unemployment will rise to at least 9.8% – or higher.  Which for the record is a lot higher than 8%.

It’s not enough to say Obama was incompetent.  He lied.  He pitched himself as Mr. Wonderful, and utterly failed to live up to all of his false promises.

In October 2008 I wrote an article which quoted Chief Executive Magazine as follows:

In expressing their rejection of Senator Obama, some CEOs who responded to the survey went as far as to say that “some of his programs would bankrupt the country within three years, if implemented.” In fact, the poll highlights that Obama’s tax policies, which scored the lowest grade in the poll, are particularly unpopular among CEOs.

And I had cause to cite that article again recently, as Obama pursued the incredibly demagogic rhetoric that said we had to go forward with his “change” rather than backward.  Lest you don’t see the obvious flaw, allow me to point out that Germany went forward with Hitler’s “change,” too.  And then there was Stalin’s “change,” and Pol Pot’s “change,” and Castro’s “change,” etc.

To argue that moving forward to “change” is somehow intrinsically good is intrinsically stupid.  It is the very worst kind of moral idiocy.  And that “logic” has repeatedly justified the most evil outcomes in the history of the human race.

The CEOs – whom unlike the Obama administration actually understand something about business – have turned out to be right.  And Obama has turned out to be completely wrong.  Over and over and over again.

Obama pitched his entire campaign for presidency on “hope” to go along with his nebulous “change.”  Sadly, the American people didn’t understand that there isn’t and can be no hope in the progressive agenda of Barack Hussein.  There is only increasing government control over more and more of our lives.

It should terrify you that Obama is well on the way to the three-year plan toward bankruptcy that the CEO’s predicted of an Obama presidency.

Pelosi And Democrats Block BP Oil Spill Investigation

Democrats really want to get to the bottom of the BP oil spill and all the failures of leadership and action thereafter.

In other related news, I have decided to sell the Golden Gate Bridge in a closed bidding process.  Just send me your bid, and I’ll let you know whether you’re the lucky winner.

From before the disaster – when Barack Obama received more money from BP than any politician over the past twenty years – to after the disaster, Democrats ought to be ashamed of themselves.

And their shame is showing:

Pelosi Blocks Oil Spill Investigation
by  Connie Hair
07/28/2010

The latest version of the CLEAR Act is slated for a floor vote in the House this week as Democrats look for ways to use the Gulf oil spill as a means to pass elements of their unpopular energy agenda.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) stripped out authorization for an independent investigation into the Gulf disaster.

The Natural Resources Committee unanimously passed the amendment in committee markup July 14 offered by Rep. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) that would establish a bipartisan, independent, National Commission on Outer Continental Shelf Oil Spill Prevention.

Unlike the commission set up by President Obama — packed only with environmental activists and no petroleum engineers — the commission unanimously approved by the Natural Resources committee would be comprised of technical experts to study the actual events leading up to the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

Not a single member of the committee voiced opposition at the bill’s markup.  The Senate has also approved an independent commission.

“To investigate what went wrong and keep it from happening again, the commission must include members who have expertise in petroleum engineering.  The President’s Commission has none,” Cassidy, the amendment’s author, told HUMAN EVENTS after the announcement.  “It defies common sense that this amendment passed unanimously in committee, only to be deleted in the Speaker’s office.”

Rep. Doc Hastings (R-Wash.), top Republican on the Natural Resources Committee said the Obama’s administration’s commission was set up to protect the President.

“By deleting the bipartisan, independent oil spill commission that’s received bipartisan support in both House and Senate committees, Democrats have shown they are more interested in protecting the President than getting independent answers to what caused this tragic Gulf spill.  Some of the biggest failures that contributed to the Gulf disaster are the direct responsibility of the federal government and by deleting this bipartisan, independent commission, Democrats ensure that only the President’s hand-picked commission will be digging into any failures of his own Interior Department appointees.  There is widespread agreement that no member of the President’s commission possesses technical expertise in oil drilling, and several are on the record in opposition to offshore drilling and support a moratorium that will cost thousands of jobs,” Hastings said.

The bill also sets up myriad regulations and new standards and laws for drilling that have nothing to do with offshore drilling.

“Even more outrageous is this bill’s attempt to use the oil spill tragedy as leverage to enact totally unrelated policies and increase federal spending on unrelated programs by billions of dollars. What does a solar panel in Nevada, a wind turbine in Montana, uranium for nuclear power, or a ban on fish farming have to do with the Gulf spill? Nothing — but the spill is a good excuse to try and pass otherwise stalled or unpopular new laws,” Hastings said.

Another member of the committee, Rep. John Fleming (R-La.), pointed out the hand-picked Obama commission is just getting underway with no findings or recommendations made.

“This ‘fix it’ bill is being rammed through without an accurate and full understanding of what actually went wrong. The Presidential Commission is just barely beginning its work, no investigations are yet concluded, and the failed [blowout preventer] still on the ocean floor, yet we are voting on a bill without knowing what went wrong,” Fleming said.

“Furthermore, at a time when Washington should be focused on creating jobs, this bill will do just the opposite by hampering future energy development and stifling job creation along the Gulf Coast,” Fleming added.  “This knee-jerk legislation — coupled with the Administration’s damaging Moratorium on offshore drilling — will worsen, not help, the situation.”

Yet the House is poised to vote this week on the CLEAR Act, likely Friday.

“This bill has less to do with preventing another spill than it does preventing domestic energy production,” Cassidy said.

UPDATE: House Republicans released bullets on the CLEAR Act this morning breaking down some of the measures included in the bill, including:

–     Imposes job-killing changes and higher taxes for onshore natural gas and oil production. It fundamentally changes leasing onshore by the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management, which affects not just leasing for natural gas and oil, but also for renewable energy including wind and solar. Forest Service and BLM leasing are shoved into the three new agencies that are replacing the former Minerals Management Service (MMS).

–     Creates over $30 billion in new mandatory spending for two programs that have nothing to do with the oil spill (the Land and Water Conservation Fund and the Historic Preservation Fund). In the version of the bill headed to the House floor, Democrats added brand new language that expressly allows this $30 billion to be earmarked by the Appropriations Committee.

–     Raises taxes by over $22 billion in ten years – with the taxes eventually climbing to nearly $3 billion per year. This is a direct tax on natural gas and oil that will raise energy prices for American families and businesses, hurt domestic jobs, and increase our dependence on foreign oil. This tax only applies to U.S. oil and gas production on federal leases – giving an advantage to foreign oil and hurting American energy jobs.

–     Requires the federal takeover of state authority to permit in state waters, which reverses sixty years of precedent. The mismanagement, corruption and oversight failures of the federal government are being used as justification to expand federal control by seizing management from the states.

–     Allows 10% of all offshore revenues – an amount possibly as high as $500 million per year – to be spent on a new fund controlled by the Interior Secretary to issue ocean research grants (ORCA fund). There is no requirement that the fund is used for the Gulf region or anything related to oil spills or offshore drilling. These funds can be earmarked.

If this wasn’t yet another way that Democrats are scheming to implode this country, it would be hilarious.  This bill is akin to my shooting you, and then using the shooting incident to pitch my gun-ban agenda.

You DO have to applaud the Democrats for their creative use of oxymorons.  I mean, to take a bill that deliberately prevents any kind of transparent independent investigation, and call it the “CLEAR Act,” is really something else.

Don’t forget to bid on my bridge.  You might be able to win it cheap!

And you can trust me not to rip you off, of course.  Because I’m at least as honest as Nancy Pelosi.

Oops.  My bad.  Nancy Pelosi famously promised to “drain the swamp,” but then she helped fill it instead.  So I’d have to be a total slimeball indeed not to be as honest as Nancy Pelosi.

In Hindsight Of Massachusetts, Who Presented The Truth: Obama, Or Fox News?

A lot of things will change because of the election – mostly by Independents and even Democrats – of Republican Scott Brown in Massachusetts.

A lot of things that Democrats and the lamestream media believed were irrefutably true have been shockingly and conclusively demonstrated to have been totally false.

Did the voters in even the bluest of blue states like the Obama agenda?  No.  Did they like his health care boondoggle?  No.  Did they like the Democrats’ massive spending?  No.  Did they like the huge tax increases they see coming?  No.  Did they like the way Obama was handling terrorism?  No.

And that is now a carved-in-stone fact.  It follows the reality demonstrated by the previous statewide elections in Virginia and New Jersey.  Three states that voted for Obama in large numbers have now turned against him and ignored his personal appeals to vote for Democrats.

Pretty much exactly what Fox News was accurately reporting all along.

The mainstream media, the Democrat establishment, and the Obama White House have been lying to you.  They have been spreading propaganda.  They have advanced demagoguery.  They have broadcast their agenda rather than reality.  Fox News, virtually alone, has been reporting the facts all along.

Barack Obama promised that he would change the poisonous political dynamic and create a new era of bipartisanship.  Back in March of 2008, the New York Times correctly identified this as the CORE of Barack Obama’s promise to the American people.  But he lied.

Did Obama even attempt to live up to his core promise?  Not even close.

“Don’t come to the table with the same tired arguments and worn ideas that helped to create this crisis,” he admonished in a speech.

That speech – with that hard core partisan attack – was delivered within less than THREE WEEKS of his taking office.  Obama was claiming that Republicans didn’t even have a right to present their ideas, much less have any of their ideas or contributions considered.  Some attempt at “bipartisanship.”

And it wasn’t long before he expanded his demagoguery to include ordinary Americans and the Fox News network.  Obama attacked Tea Party demonstrators who were already unhappy with the direction Obama was leading the country, and he attacked the only news network that was reporting the actual truth:

At first it was reported that President Barack Obama wasn’t even aware of the nationwide Tea Party protests that occurred on April 15. But now he’s out criticizing them and the Fox News Channel.

In a town hall meeting in St. Louis on April 29, Obama was asked about fiscal discipline and entitlement reform. In his response, he took a shot at the Fox News Channel and the tea party movement, insisting he’s “happy to have a serious conversation” with them.

“So, when you see – those of you who are watching certain news channels that on which I’m not very popular and you see folks waving tea bags around, let me just remind them that I am happy to have a serious conversation about how we are going to cut our health care costs down over the long term, how we are going to stabilize Social Security,” Obama said.

As has now been conclusively demonstrated in three separate statewide races in states that Obama had easily carried, the Tea Party protesters represent the will of the people, and Obama represents what the people don’t want.

Obama said, “we need a leader who can finally move beyond the divisive politics of Washington and bring Democrats, independents and Republicans together to get things done.”  And then he launched one attack after another against the American people and the press that was accurately reporting the facts.

Obama was like a pathological narcissist who couldn’t emotionally handle even the most legitimate criticism from Fox News.

Interviewed on CNBC Tuesday, President Obama vented his displeasure with FOX News, the cable network whose own senior vice president of programming has called it “the voice of the opposition” to the Obama administration. Here’s Obama:

“First of all, I’ve got one television station entirely devoted to attacking my administration.”

Clearly referring to FOX, the president continued:

“Well, that’s a pretty big megaphone,” he said. “And you’d be hard-pressed, if you watched the entire day, to find a positive story about me on that front.

“We welcome people who are asking us some, you know, tough questions,” he continued. “And I think that I’ve been probably as accessible as any president in the first six months — press conferences, taking questions from reporters, being held accountable, being transparent about what it is that we’re trying to do. I think that, actually, the reason that people have been generally positive about what we’ve tried to do is they feel as if I’m available and willing to answer questions, and we haven’t been trying to hide them all.”

But Obama was lying then, too.

This is the guy who is on video promising on at least eight separate occasions that he would put the health care debate on C-SPAN.  He didn’t.

The Obama-led Democrat “negotiations” (read ‘bribe sessions’) have been so closed and so secretive that even senior Democrats confess that they have been “in the dark.”

In fact, his lack of transparency and openness is literally comical.  This is the administration that literally had this: “a workshop on government openness is closed to the public.”

A separate laughable incident of Obama’s total lack of transparency comes via the LA Times blogs:

After a recent public sighting, fears had mounted that the one-time, long-term senator might rebel against traditional White House strictures and start acting on all the administration’s oft-promised promises of government transparency and official openness running back into 2008.

But the VP’s public schedule today puts all those fears to rest. […]

DAILY GUIDANCE FOR THE VICE PRESIDENT, Thursday, January 14, 2010:

In the morning, the President and the Vice President will receive the Presidential Daily Briefing and the Economic Daily Briefing in the Oval Office. These briefings are closed press.

At 11:30 AM, the Vice President will meet with Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood to discuss the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. This meeting is closed press.

Afterwards, the President and the Vice President will have lunch in the Private Dining Room. This lunch is closed press.

At 1:00 PM, the Vice President will meet with Iraqi Vice President Adil Abd al-Mahdi in the Roosevelt Room. There will be a pool spray at the bottom of this meeting; gather time is 1:45 PM in the Brady Briefing Room.  [But note: the LA Times defines “pool spray” as “a coded message to media that a few select members will be allowed in to take pictures briefly — possibly for only a few seconds — as Biden and his guest pretend to continue their previously private conversation as if the meeting was open.”]

(UPDATE 2:20 p.m.: The White House issued its own report on this closed meeting. Both paragraphs are added below at the end of the VP’s schedule.)

Then, at 2:15 PM, the Vice President will meet with Earl Devaney, chairman of the Recovery Act Transparency and Accountability Board. This meeting is closed press.    ###

In October, Democrats hypocritically touted their transparency immediately ahead of a closed-door meeting in which they secretly hammered out details of their ObamaCare boondoggle.

There have been a LOT of secretive closed-door meetings from this most transparent of all administrations.

CBS eventually and correctly concluded that “Obama Reneges On Health Care Transparency.”

Fox News was so far ahead of CBS on that story that it was like a cheetah racing a goldfish at a dog track.

Obama dramatically escalated his demagoguery in October:

Updated October 19, 2009
White House Urges Other Networks to Disregard Fox News

Senior Obama administration officials took to the airwaves Sunday to accuse Fox News of pushing a particular point of view and not being a real news network.

The White House is calling on other news organizations to isolate and alienate Fox News as it sends out top advisers to rail against the cable channel as a Republican Party mouthpiece.

Top political strategists question the decision by the Obama administration to escalate its offensive against Fox News. And as of Monday, the four other major television networks had not given any indication that they intend to sever their ties with Fox News.

But several top White House officials have taken aim at Fox News since communications director Anita Dunn branded Fox “opinion journalism masquerading as news” in an interview last Sunday.

White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel told CNN on Sunday that President Obama does not want “the CNNs and the others in the world [to] basically be led in following Fox.”

Obama senior adviser David Axelrod went further by calling on media outlets to join the administration in declaring that Fox is “not a news organization.”

“Other news organizations like yours ought not to treat them that way,” Axelrod counseled ABC’s George Stephanopoulos. “We’re not going to treat them that way.”

Asked Monday about another Axelrod claim that Fox News is just trying to make money, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said that while all media companies fall under that description, “I would say sometimes programming can be tilted toward accentuating those profits.”

But by urging other news outlets to side with the administration, Obama officials dramatically upped the ante in the war of words that began earlier this month with Dunn’s comments.

So Obama official after Obama official, and then Obama himself, denounce Fox News as “pushing a particular point of view.”

For Fox News, that “particular point of view” has been the truth – something the Obama administration utterly fails to comprehend.

What Obama wants is for Fox News to advance the same pro-liberal propaganda that so much of the rest of the media has dumped onto the airwaves like cafeteria slime.

Again, the proven, documented results of elections in Virginia, New Jersey, and now the incredible result of Massachusetts, prove that Fox News was telling the truth about what was going on all along.

The replacement for White House communications director Anita Dunn – who attacked the credibility of Fox News even as she declared that mass-murdering communist tyrant Mao Tse Tung was one of her two favorite philosophers — is right back to playing the demagogue for Barack Obama.

Based on their reaction, it is readily apparent that Obama cannot see through his ideological propaganda, and will therefore continue to sink in power and popularity.  Meanwhile, Fox News, as the dominant reporter of the truth, will continue to grow in both power and profitability.

Sanity Prevails: Scozzafava Drops Out of NY-23 Race

A lot of conservative attention is focused on defeating the Democrats’ health care “reform” that would put one-sixth of the economy – and literally peoples’ very lives – under the domination of a partisan, corrupt, and power-hungry federal government.  And that is clearly a good goal.

But the best way to accomplish that end may very well be to secure victories in the three major races in 2009, and allow Democrats’ own fears to jar them back to common sense.

To that end, the news that Dede Scozzafava has dropped out of the race for the 23rd district in New York is welcome indeed.

“In recent days, polls have indicated that my chances of winning this election are not as strong as we would like them to be. The reality that I’ve come to accept is that in today’s political arena, you must be able to back up your message with money—and as I’ve been outspent on both sides, I’ve been unable to effectively address many of the charges that have been made about my record,” she said in a statement.

“It is increasingly clear that pressure is mounting on many of my supporters to shift their support. Consequently, I hereby release those individuals who have endorsed and supported my campaign to transfer their support as they see fit to do so. I am and have always been a proud Republican.”

Her decision came as a Siena Research Institute poll released Saturday confirmed that her support has all but collapsed over the last month. In her statement, Scozzafava acknowledged that while her name will continue to appear on the ballot, “victory is unlikely.”

The Siena poll conducted Oct. 27-29, in line with other recent polls, showed Democrat Bill Owens holding a razor-thin lead over Conservative Party nominee Doug Hoffman, 36 percent to 35 percent.

Scozzafava trailed far behind at 20 percent, with 9 percent of voters still undecided.

I take my hat of to Scozzafava.  She did the right thing for the right reasons.

What could have happened is my personal nightmare scenario, in which conservatives – who easily have the numbers to win – divide themselves rather than unite for the common good.

Obama won Virginia, won New Jersey, and won the New York 23rd district.  Now he is in danger of losing them all, standing as a strident referendum against his agenda.

Hopefully, the quite liberal Scozzafava’s example of withdrawing as the handwriting appears on the wall will be followed by other candidates running against Democrats — whether they be “Republican” or “Independent.”

The New York 23rd district is somewhat strange.  It hasn’t had a Democrat representative since the Civil War era, and yet Obama won it by 5 points in ’08.  The question in this race was clear: would Republicans be able to reassert control, or would Democrats use the momentum from the Obama election to take control?

One thing needs to be pointed out: one of the major reasons that Obama appointed John McHugh to become Secretary of the Army was so Democrats would be able to seize his district from the Republican Party.  Obama won the district in 2008, and the White House believed New Yorkers would say, “Yes, we can!” to Democrat rule.

Time Magazine had this to say:

But then, the race in the 23rd is no longer about local issues. It’s about a Republican Party with little power in the Beltway searching for a way out of the wilderness. And it’s about conservative Republicans sending a message: the future of the party is the conservative base. (It’s also, incidentally, about money; according to the Federal Election Commission, more than $650,000 has flowed to the candidates from independent groups just since Oct. 24.) “The 23rd has as little significance as Gettysburg. It’s just where the armies met,” says Bob Gorman, managing editor of the Daily Times and my old boss. “Everybody was looking for a fight, and that’s where they found each other.”

Well, it turns out that Lincoln’s Union defeated the Democrats’ Confederates at Gettysburg — and the Party that fought to preserve the union ended up winning the war against the Party that wanted to radically change it.

After Lincoln prevailed at Gettysburg, he was able to turn his attention to taking the war to the enemy in the South.  Gettysburg – that little nowhere locale – was the turning point.

I see such a turning point again.

Virginia, and now NY-23 (thanks to Dede Scazzofava’s doing the right thing), are now locks for the Republicans.  And I believe that Chris Christie will hang on to defeat Jon Corzine in the Democrat bastion of New Jersey.

No one can say with confidence what’s going to happen in the race for the New Jersey governorship, but I believe that Scott Rasmussen – who was the most accurate pollster in the 2008 election – will prove right again.  He has Christie up by 3.

Frankly, the right thing for independent candidate Chris Daggett to do is put the interest of the country over his own interest and do the right thing as Dede Scazzofava did.  Scazzofava dropped out to help push an independent over the top; it’s time that independent Daggett did the same to push a Republican over the top.

Ronald Reagan correctly pointed out that conservatives could not win if they divided against themselves.  It’s time we get back to basics and take his advice.

If you think that Chris Daggett staying in the race with his 8% support is more important than stopping the Democrat juggernaut’s drive to impose socialized medicine, then please don’t call yourself a “conservative.”

Dede Scozzafava was liberal on a whole host of positions, and incredibly, she was even more liberal than the Democrat candidate on many issues.  But I have a lot more respect for her integrity and character than I do Chris Daggett if he doesn’t put himself aside and put his weight behind the most conservative candidate who has a chance to win.  I can only hope that Daggett will demonstrate his own character and willingness to put the interests of the nation ahead of his own, and drop out and put his support behind Chris Christie.

What’s at stake in these races is whether we embolden Democrats to pass a liberal domestic agenda, or let them know that they will do so at their gravest peril.

It is widely believed that if Obama loses these races, Democrats will quit following him and start looking to their own political survival.  That will derail Obamacare; it will derail Cap-and-trade; it will put the kibosh on a whole host of incredibly destructive Democrat agendas.

If you are a Glenn Beck-style “conservative independent,” please realize that.

Media’s Bias, Dishonesty Re: Reagan Vs. Obama Unemployment Bodes Ill For America

Our founding fathers believed a free and independent press – which would serve as a watchdog protecting the nation from the lies, corruption, mismanagement, and demagoguery of politicians – would be utterly essential for a functioning democracy.

It would be nice if we had one.

The fact is that going back decades, the media have become anything but either “independent” or a “watchdog.”  Rather than guarding and protecting the truth, they have become the “lapdogs” of the left, licking the faces of Democrats and turning viciously on Republicans, without regard to the truth or the facts.

A study comparing the media’s response to IDENTICAL job loss numbers between Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama pointedly demonstrate the deceit and hypocrisy of the mainstream media.  In short, Reagan was given negative coverage 91% of the time, whereas Obama received negative coverage 7% of the time.  For some reason, the same media that has repeatedly claimed that Obama “inhereited” the recession could never bring themselves to make a similar claim about Reagan’s inheritance via Jimmy Carter.

There are some useful charts and videos on the Businessandmedia site which hosts this article.  I cite the article here merely to preserve the record.  My discussion of the ramifications of the article will follow.

Networks Flip Flop On Jobs

Identical Unemployment Numbers ‘Good’ News for Obama, But ‘All’ Bad under Reagan.

Full Report

A study from the Business & Media Institute

By Julia A. Seymour

Executive Summary
PDF Version

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These are tough times. More than 3 million people have lost their jobs just since February 2009 and consumer confidence fell unexpectedly in September. The unemployment rate has spiked from 8.1 percent to 9.7 percent in the first seven months of Barack Obama’s presidency and is expected to climb even higher.

Despite that grim news, the major news networks have spun their unemployment reports into “good news” and presented Obama positively. Journalists tried hard to present rising job losses in the best possible light.

ABC’s Charles Gibson called the loss of 539,000 jobs in April a “marked improvement” May 8, 2009, because fewer jobs were lost than in March. In June 2009, Gibson was talking again about “hopeful” signs in the job numbers as more Americans were out of work.

But flashback 27 years ago to 1982, the unemployment rate was in roughly the same range as it was in 2009. Yet, network reporters consistently presented the U.S. economy under President Ronald Reagan as the “worst of times” by showing people living out of their trucks under a bridge and collecting free food at a food bank.

CBS reporter Ray Brady told a “tale of two cities” on June 4, 1982. He found the “worst of times” in Waterloo, Iowa, where the unemployment rate was the highest in the nation: 25.4 percent. That was nearly 16 percentage points higher than the national unemployment rate of 9.5 percent. He contrasted Waterloo’s joblessness with 4.6 percent unemployment in Sioux Falls, S.D. where things were “close to” the best of times.

Brady’s report addressed two very different employment situations, but most 1982 reports focused heavily on places where “desperation has turned to hopelessness.” The unemployment rate under Obama and Reagan was nearly identical, yet they received almost exactly opposite treatment from ABC, CBS and NBC reports. Reagan was mentioned negatively in reports 13 times more often than Obama.

While in Obama’s case, reporters found bright spots – like 25 police recruits’ jobs being “saved” by the stimulus package – during Reagan’s term, journalists found tragedy everywhere. They interviewed a battered wife, a family that had run out of food and many unemployed people. One NBC anchor even warned that suicide and murder rates increase in such hard times.

Although there was a difference between the two presidents in how long they had been in office, the spin was still significant. Unemployment numbers rose similarly under both Reagan and Obama, but journalists continued a long-standing trend of spinning the numbers.

The Business & Media Institute analyzed network unemployment stories on the evenings that data was released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics between March 2009 to September 2009 and March 1982 to September 1982. There were 66 stories in all – 35 stories in 2009 and 31 stories in 1982.  BMI found that network reports were 13 times more negative in their treatment of Reagan than Obama.  In fact, 91 percent of stories (20 out of 22) mentioning Reagan’s administration portrayed it negatively – while only 7 percent (1 out of 15) of Obama administration mentions were negative. Obama was mentioned positively 87 percent of the time (13 out of 15). There was not a single positive mention of the Reagan White House.

Blame for ‘Wicked’ Reagan, but Praise for Obama’s ‘Important’ Stimulus

In 1982, network reports showed desperation, sadness and tragedy as a result of rising joblessness. NBC pictured lines of people waiting outside a food bank and interviewed crisis counselors in Seattle on May 7.

“More callers talk of despair and even suicide,” Don Oliver reported that night, before interviewing Jim and Pam Smalls. Oliver called them “victims of unemployment depression and anger,” because Pam had to seek help from a battered woman’s shelter.

Another network showed people living under a highway overpass out of their trucks because they couldn’t find work. But under Obama the networks found a man “doing backflips” when he was asked to return to work at a Minnesota window company and another man who was thrilled to be hired by a hamburger stand in Arizona.

Network reports on unemployment were mirror opposites. They made Reagan look bad in a huge majority of stories and conversely made Obama look good.

Broadcasts journalists tied “rising” unemployment to Reagan in 1982 by mentioning him in 71 percent of stories (22 of 31), but linked Obama to the economy slightly more than half as often in 2009 – only 40 percent of the time (14 of 35).

When the respective presidents were mentioned, political attacks on the Reagan administration over job losses were commonplace in the 1982 network coverage. Union leaders, Democratic politicians and the unemployed were all quoted blasting Reagan for his economic policies.

NBC’s Irving R. Levine found a soon-to-be unemployed textile worker who “blames President Reagan” for his situation on March 5, 1982. That worker, Gene Biffle, told NBC, “When he went in there he said it, he was gonna get jobs and help the economy, but don’t look like he’s doing too much about that.”Following Levine’s segment, anchor Roger Mudd took Reagan to task himself by responding to statements from the administration:

“Spokesmen for the Reagan White House are coming to dread each month’s unemployment numbers because it gets harder and harder for them to explain. Economic Adviser Weidenbaum says today the figures may mean the economy may be bottoming out. Communications Director Gergen says that while unemployment may get worse, the recession seems to be bottoming out. Meanwhile, more and more people are getting bottomed out.”

In August 1982, Sam Donaldson of ABC highlighted the “partisan savagery” of Congressional Democrats, including Rep. Parren Mitchell’s, D-Md., claim that Reagan was pursuing “sadistic fiscal policies.”

The dark and gloomy tone of 1982 reports was a near polar opposite of the tenor of 2009 unemployment stories.

In 2009, the networks praised Obama for merely trying to stop rising unemployment – even when he wasn’t succeeding. And month after month reporters tried to find the “good news” or signs of a turnaround.

All three nightly newscasts mentioned Obama favorably March 6, 2009, even though 651,000 jobs had been lost in February and unemployment had jumped half a percentage point to 8.1 percent from 7.6 percent. And all three of those broadcasts emphasized a mere 25 jobs “saved” by the stimulus package.

NBC’s Chuck Todd gave Obama credit that night saying, “For these 25 new police officers here in Columbus, Ohio, the president’s stimulus plan didn’t create these jobs, it saved them. Without the money these folks would be looking for a new line of work.”

CBS Anchor Katie Couric revealed her faith in Obama’s stimulus plan that night as well saying, “I know the government is going to be creating jobs, as we’ve mentioned, through this stimulus package.”

After the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced May 8 that more than a half million jobs were lost in April, another CBS anchor, Maggie Rodriguez, looked for a ray of sunshine saying, “There is new hope the sun may be starting to peek through those economic storm clouds tonight,” before delivering the news that unemployment had jumped .4 percent to 8.9 percent nationally.

Rodriguez’ optimism led into Anthony Mason’s report. Mason quoted Obama and emphasized his call for education as the solution to joblessness and request that states allow people to maintain unemployment benefits while going back to school.

Identical Unemployment Rates, Opposite Treatment

The unemployment rate reached 9.4 percent under Reagan and under Obama (twice), but received completely different treatment from the networks – and in one case from the same reporter.

In 1982, Dan Rather reported the rate as “9.4 percent and rising.” Dan Cordtz called it “rising steadily” on ABC, while Ray Brady warned that “job loss is still spreading.” NBC found lines at food banks “four times what they were six months ago.”

In 2009, ABC found “glimmers of improvement” for an identical unemployment rate. CBS’s own economic “grim reaper,” Anthony Mason said the “economy’s showed signs of improving.” NBC also found “positive trends” to discuss – specifically mentioning “2,100 new reasons” to be “hopeful” in Georgia.

But Charles Gibson illustrated how dramatically different the network coverage of Reagan and Obama really were.

Gibson, who was a Capitol Hill correspondent for ABC in 1982, told viewers May 7, 1982, “[T]here really isn’t any good news in the statistics. All the numbers are bad.” He then quoted two Democratic attacks on Reagan including Rep. Henry S. Reuss, D-Wis., who charged that Reagan’s “policies aren’t just mistaken, they’re wicked.”

But as an ABC anchor in 2009, Gibson was full of hope. He introduced that night’s story saying “sometimes a bad jobs report can look good.”

“345,000 Americans lost their jobs in May, a big number to be sure. Traumatic if you are one of the 345,000. But the number was smaller than economists had predicted, and that’s good news,” Gibson said before admitting that the unemployment rate of 9.4 percent was “pretty bad.” Neither Gibson, nor reporter Betsy Stark mentioned President Obama at all that night.

On Aug. 7, 2009, Gibson suggested “the economy may be finally turning the corner.”

Methodology

The Business & Media Institute analyzed network unemployment stories on the evenings that data was released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in similar seven-month periods – between March 2009 to September 2009 and March 1982 to September 1982. There were 66 stories in all – 35 stories in 2009 and 31 stories in 1982.

A story was counted as a mention of Obama or Reagan if it named the respective president, the administration, the “White House,” or any administration spokespeople. Each mention was then graded positive, negative or neutral based on context.

Conclusion

Despite having similar periods of rising unemployment, Presidents Reagan and Obama were treated very differently by the network news media. This fit the theme of the network news when it came to economic reporting.

Jobs and unemployment have been one of the most significant economic measures because they impacted everyone so directly. Network viewers who watched coverage of unemployment during the Reagan years were consistently told things were bad. For identical numbers under Obama, those very same networks claimed the economy was improving. That was clear-cut bias.

And it isn’t new. The Business & Media Institute released a Special Report in 2004 called “One Economy, Two Spins” which showed the way similar economic conditions (unemployment, inflation and GDP growth) were presented negatively during the re-election campaigns of George W. Bush’s Republican administration, but positively under Bill Clinton’s Democratic re-election bid.

BMI found that jobs stories in particular were positive more than six times as often under Clinton than Bush. The networks continued to distort the good economy under Bush in 2005 and 2006 giving negative stories more air time and using ordinary people to underscore those downbeat reports.

The Media Research Center also reported in 2004 that the news media sought to discredit Reaganomics with their news coverage. Virginia Commonwealth University professor Ted J. Smith III found that out of 14,000 network news stories between 1982 and 1987 the amount of network TV coverage shrunk and became more negative as the economy improved. When one economic indicator got better, the networks covered it less and focused on something unhealthy about the economy.

Recommendations

State the Facts: Unemployment data, like all economic data, should be presented as is without reporter opinions being inserted into the broadcast. Forecasting job losses or gains should be left only to the experts.

Be Consistent: If 9.4 percent unemployment is bad, then it should be treated so regardless of who is president. If the number discredits a Republican administration, it should also discredit a Democrat.

Use History as a Guide: It is up to the networks to ensure that they cover stories consistently over time. A reporter working on a story about unemployment being the worst in 26 years should consult the coverage from that time for guidance.

Don’t Spin the Economy: Reporters should be embarrassed when they highlight 25 jobs gained after telling viewers 651,000 jobs were lost. If a story is negative, then tell it that way. Don’t allow White House spin from either party to distort the final result.

Because of the media’s dishonest and deceptive propaganda, we end up believing half truths that fundamentally amount to whole lies.

As I set up why this propaganda is so fundamentally dangerous, let me quote myself:

When Ronald Reagan took office from Jimmy Carter, inflation was at a meteoric 13.3% and the country was in the throes of a fierce recession.  There was a real question as to whether workers’ wages would keep up with the costs of living, which made people afraid to either spend or save.  And nobody knew how to control inflation – which had risen from 1.4% in 1960 to the aforementioned 13.3% in 1980 – causing a real erosion of confidence in the future.  Jimmy Carter answered a reporter’s question as to what he would do about the problem of inflation by answering, “It would be misleading for me to tell any of you that there is a solution to it.”

Reagan DID have a solution, and the result was the Reagan Revolution.

Unemployment had risen to 11%.  More businesses failed than at any time since World War II.  The picture of the economy was grim, indeed.

And then the Reagan policies – ridiculed by the very same liberal economic theorists whose policies created the inflation to begin with – began to work.  And the result – from such terrible beginnings – was the 2nd largest peacetime expansion in American history.  And now – to prove that there really is nothing new under the sun, liberal economic theorists are STILL ridiculing Reagan’s successful policy over twenty years after its success changed America.

Carter was at a self-confessed loss to solve the problem of inflation that his own administration had created.  It was Ronald Reagan who had the answer to the problem that Democrats had created and which Democrats could not solve.

I refer to the “Network Flip Flops On Jobs” article to evidence the fact that the liberal establishment thoroughly attacked Reagan for his policies.  But history clearly reveals that it wasn’t Reagan who was wrong; it was the liberals who attacked and sought to undermine him.

These same entrenched liberal establishment (and in the case of Charles Gibson, as one example, the very same people) have never learned.  They continue to believe that up is down and that down is up.  As they regard the world through a fundamentally flawed worldview, they simply cannot understand the world as it really is.  Rather, they project a liberal abstract template over the world (such as Marxist or socialist theories) which they continue to believe in — no matter how many times it is refuted by history.

We have a media that keeps seeing “unexpected rises in unemployment” and increases that – while clearly bad in and of themselves – are billed as either “better than” or less than expected” and therefore as good news.

An example of such bias is found in a New York Times article on the result of the Bush tax cuts that liberals have tried to kill ever since.  The article bagan:

WASHINGTON, July 12 – For the first time since President Bush took office, an unexpected leap in tax revenue is about to shrink the federal budget deficit this year, by nearly $100 billion.

They would NOT see that lower taxes stimulated more investment and productivity.  It simply HAD to be something else, something that their liberal filters could account for.

Under Bush, good news kept being “unexpected.”  Under Obama, it’s always bad news that’s “unexpected.”

As one poster put it:

Funny how when unemployment fell under Bush, it was always billed as a “Surprise Drop in Unemployment Numbers” or “New Job Growth Greater Than Experts Anticipated.” But when Obama is President it is always the Job losses and rising unemployment that “surprise” the experts.

In this critical time in our nation’s history – when we are more vulnerable to depression than we have been since the Great Depression itself – it is not merely the media’s bias and unfairness that is at issue anymore, though.  It is the fact that their unbalanced and prejudiced optimism is leading us toward disaster as they continue to support bad policies.

We are now the Titanic about to run full speed into the iceberg that will sink her.  There are icebergs aplenty: icebergs of shockingly high unemployment; icebergs of huge mortgage defaults which will only continue to rise; icebergs of massive and unsustainable debt; icebergs of a devalued currency; icebergs of soon-to-spiral inflation; icebergs of an-out-of-control government that WILL NOT recognize its folly until well after the soon-coming crash that will make the last one look like good times.

Stop and think about it: we’re told that we had a rise in unemployment that was worse than expected.  The median expert forecast had been 175,000 jobs lost; the actual number was 263,000.  Try way, way worse than expected.  The forecasters were a whopping 50% off.  But don’t worry; the mainstream media is still quite cheerful and optimistic.

The same media that unfairly and unrealistically demonized Reagan’s highly successful strategy is now unfairly and unrealistically praising Obama’s badly failing strategy.

The actual unemployment rate is 17%.  And yet the mainstream media presentation (with only an occasional moment to reflect on sobering news) has just been unrelentingly optimistic.  While conservatives and Republicans should rightly be outraged over the media’s bias and propaganda during Republican eras, the greater risk is the destruction that is increasingly likely to occur because the media refuses to critically examine the worsening negative effects of Obama’s policies.

The same people who continued to believe that Reagan was so, so wrong in spite of all evidence to the contrary now just as steadfastly believe that Obama is so, so right.  And that should terrify you.

This isn’t just “emperor’s new clothes”; this is wearing a View Master featuring a scenic roadway while driving the country right off a cliff.

Glenn Beck No Friend To Conservative Cause

I’ve watched Glenn Beck and listened to his radio program.  Aside from his frequent snide attacks on Republicans, I’ve usually enjoyed the program and thought he brought out interesting facts and ideas.

But when he appeared on CBS with Katie Couric, he jumped off the cliff into crazy town located far, far below:

Fox News host Glenn Beck, whose ratings and profile have soared this year as he has pummeled the Obama administration and become a rabble-rousing protest organizer, once again demonstrated his flair for creating viral new media moments, if the widely reproduced advance video excerpt from the show is any indication.

“John McCain would have been worse for the country than Barack Obama,” Beck told Couric. He also said that he might have cast his vote for Hillary Rodham Clinton rather than McCain if he had been faced with a choice between the two.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, I think I would have much preferred her as president and may have voted for her against John McCain,” Beck said, explaining that in his world view “McCain is this weird progressive like Theodore Roosevelt was.”

Well, Katie Couric is happy.  The left is happy with this latest fracturing within the conservative ranks.  “Conservative” independents are happy with the demonization of Republicans as a means to help their various “third party” causes.  And Republicans are trying to pull the knife out of the middle of their backs.

This morning on his radio program, a caller protested Beck’s damnation of Republicans as progressives and fakes.  Beck interrupted him repeatedly and ultimately implied that he was crazy for supporting Republicans (“What’s the definition of insanity?” he asked, with the obvious answer, “Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”).

When the caller tried to point out that Republicans have been the only opposition to the massive liberal agenda (the $3.27 trillion stimulus, the 9,000 earmark-loaded Omnibus bill,  the government takeover of 1/6th of the economy otherwise known as ObamaCare, and the terrible Cap-and-trade fiasco that would cost every American family $1,761 in additional regressive taxes.

For the record, ObamaCare would cost Americans a boatload of money, too.

Beck’s ridiculous answer was that the Republicans were only voting against it because they were out of power.  As though a sane and serious person believes that the GOP would have been proposing and passing these things if they WERE in power.  Does anyone seriously think that?  Socialist health care?  Cap-and-trade energy policy?  Seriously, Glenn?  Because that is just really asinine.

As for Beck’s bringing up the definition of insanity, let me just say this for that heckled caller today: rightbackatchya, Glenn.

You tell me when hoping for a third party victory amounted to anything other than a Looney Tunes fantasy.

Glenn Beck calls himself a Libertarian.  Do you know how many Libertarians there are in national office?  Zero.  That’s how many.  And there are only two independents in national U.S. politics, Joe Lieberman and Bernie Sanders.  Sanders, by the way, refers to himself as a “democratic socialist.”

Now ask me how many Libertarians have stood up against the massive liberal onslaught that can be exemplified by the following articles:

From the New York Post:

Under President Obama, the 2009 budget deficit is set to reach a staggering $1.8 trillion. It took President George W. Bush seven years to run up $1.8 trillion in debt.  And these deficits aren’t merely a temporary result of the recession; the president’s budget would run deficits averaging nearly $1 trillion a year for the next decade.The national debt would double. In other words, Obama would run up as much government debt as every president in US history from George Washington to George W. Bush — combined. Put simply, he’d dump $84,352 per household of new debt into the laps of our children and grandchildren over the next decade.

From the Wall Street Journal:

Mr. Obama’s $3.6 trillion budget blueprint, by his own admission, redefines the role of government in our economy and society. The budget more than doubles the national debt held by the public, adding more to the debt than all previous presidents — from George Washington to George W. Bush — combined. It reduces defense spending to a level not sustained since the dangerous days before World War II, while increasing nondefense spending (relative to GDP) to the highest level in U.S. history. And it would raise taxes to historically high levels (again, relative to GDP). And all of this before addressing the impending explosion in Social Security and Medicare costs.

From Heritage:

The Office of Management and Budget has released its annual mid-session review that updates the budget projections from this past May.[1] They show that this year, Washington will spend $30,958 per household, tax $17,576 per household, and borrow $13,392 per household. The federal government will increase spending 22 percent this year to a peacetime-record 26 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP). This spending is not just temporary: President Obama would permanently keep annual spending between $5,000 and $8,000 per household higher than it had been under President George W. Bush.[2]Driven by this spending, America will run its first ever trillion-dollar budget deficit this year. Even worse, the President’s budget would borrow an additional $9 trillion over the next decade, more than doubling the national debt. By 2019, America will be spending nearly $800 billion on net interest to service this large debt.[3]

That’s right.  Zero.  Not one.

In fact, out of the 537 elected national politicians (President, VP, US Senators, US Representatives), the only two who are “independents” vote with the Democrats.

The conservative “Pipe Dream Party” that Glenn Beck thinks will one day sweep into power aint going to happen.  Except in the minds of the brain damaged.

And he’s mocking this caller as insane?

One of the things I concluded long ago was that, if we ever by some miracle got a third party off the ground with enough power to change things, it would become every bit as corrupt as the other two.  Or does Glenn Beck think his politicians would be sinless, morally perfect saints?

If you think a third party would do everything right, you seriously need to wake up and quit being so foolishly naive.

Another thing: Glenn Beck admires Sarah Palin, as I do.  But Sarah Palin RAN with John McCain.  She’s continued to praise him.  If McCain is that terrible, than Palin is terrible too.  She’s tainted by McCain.  We can do one of Glenn Beck’s chalkboard exercises and draw double arrows connecting Palin to McCain.

If McCain is worse than Obama, then Sarah Palin deserves to be thrown into the junk pile of history.

I’m perfectly consistent in continuing to support Sarah Palin; Glenn Beck is not.

Mark Levin, a man whose books I’ve read, and a man I respect, said this about Glenn Beck’s remarks:

“I think there’s enormous confusion and positioning and pandering. It may be entertaining, but from my perspective, it’s not. It’s pathetic.”

Beck is great at criticizing Republicans’ motivations.  Let’s see him justify his own damned motivations.  He is pandering to divisiveness and anger.  He is appealing to the type of people who would rather take their ball and go home than grow up and try to build the Republican Party into what real conservatives should want it to become.

Conservatives easily outnumber liberals, and have for some time.  And that conservative majority is growing:

(CNSNews.com) – Self-identified conservatives outnumber self-identified liberals in all 50 states of the union, according to the Gallup Poll.

At the same time, more Americans nationwide are saying this year that they are conservative than have made that claim in any of the last four years.

In 2009, 40% percent of respondents in Gallup surveys that have interviewed more than 160,000 Americans have said that they are either “conservative” (31%) or “very conservative” (9%). That is the highest percentage in any year since 2004.

Only 21% have told Gallup they are liberal, including 16% who say they are “liberal” and 5% who say they are “very liberal.”

Conservatives overwhelmingly outnumbered liberals while Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid took over the House and Senate, and conservatives overwhelmingly outnumbered liberals while Barack Obama became president and liberals increased their stranglehold over our government.

And the simple fact of the matter is that they’re going to keep doing that unless “conservatives” decide they don’t want to keep eating liberal crap and start making their votes count.

As a practical matter, what Glenn Beck said on Katie Couric’s show was that he supports the hard-core liberal agenda more than he supports the conservative agenda.

Being able to work off the anger at the worst president in American history sure has done his pocketbook an awful lot of good.  Methinks Beck doesn’t want his gravy train to end with a conservative takeover.

This isn’t the first time talk of conservatives forming a new party has happened.  It happened in 1977, too.  Ronald Reagan responded:

I have to say I cannot agree with some of my friends—perhaps including some of you here tonight—who have answered that question by saying this nation needs a new political party.

I respect that view and I know that those who have reached it have done so after long hours of study. But I believe that political success of the principles we believe in can best be achieved in the Republican Party. I believe the Republican Party can hold and should provide the political mechanism through which the goals of the majority of Americans can be achieved. For one thing, the biggest single grouping of conservatives is to be found in that party. It makes more sense to build on that grouping than to break it up and start over.

What Reagan said is every bit as true today as it was in 1977.

It was Ronald Reagan’s philosophy – NOT Glenn Beck’s – which led conservatives out of the wasteland and into the promised land.

Democrats Attack Sarah Palin for NOT Having Had An Abortion

It is time to realize that liberal feminists Democrats are ugly, hateful, and evil.

S.C. Dem chair: Palin primary qualification is she hasn’t had an abortionSouth Carolina Democratic chairwoman Carol Fowler sharply attacked Sarah Palin today, saying John McCain had chosen a running mate “whose primary qualification seems to be that she hasn’t had an abortion.”

Palin is an opponent of abortion rights and gave birth to her fifth child, Trig, earlier this year after finding out during her pregnancy that the baby had Down syndrome.

Fowler told my colleague Alex Burns in an interview that the selection of an opponent of abortion rights would not boost McCain among many women.

“Among Democratic women and even among independent women, I don’t think it helped him,” she said.

Told of McCain’s boost in the new ABC/Washington Post among white women following the Palin pick, Fowler said: “Just anecdotally, I believe that those white women are Republican women anyway.”

And if you’d like me to, I’ll tell you what I really think.

Sarah Palin’s former preacher – who suggested that people who vote for Democrats like Fowler are going to hell – has a damn good point.