Just Ignore Him, Maybe He’ll Go Away. Ron Paul and the Media

Watch this video from the CBS Evening News last Sunday, December 4.  At this point it was clear that Herman Cain was ending his run for the presidency and a new Des Moines Register poll had just shown that Newt Gingrich was the new front runner.  Iowa is one of the first states to select its convention delegates, and thus it is closely watched by all involved in and interested in politics.

So according to the report, it’s now a three way race between Gingrich and Romney.  This in spite of the fact that second place in the Des Moines Register poll went not to Romney, but to Ron Paul.  He’s pretty much ignored in this report.  I first noticed the phenomenon when it was pointed out on The Daily Show on August 15, 2011 just after the Iowa straw poll and Pawlenty dropped out of the race.  In this clip, Jon Stewart notes the media’s reluctance to treat Paul as a serious candidate, even on ultra-conservative Fox News.

Continue reading

Already? & What’s That Got to Do with Christmas Anyway?

Peace on Earth, Good will to AllIt’s the Holiday Season again. Until recently I’ve had very warm and fuzzy feelings toward Christmas, including all the usual associations of friends and family gathered, good food, gifts, and music. As a very earnest, religious child, I truly believed in a Spirit of Christmas that could surround the world once a year.  I didn’t know anything about non-Christians then, but even when I learned of them, I just knew in my heart that Christmas was a time when you showed generosity and magnanimity toward everyone, and they too would feel cheer joy. I truly believed in the greeting of the angels to the shepherds in the fields, “Peace on Earth, good will to all.” The story of a humble child born in a manger that would save all of humanity for sin, remains compelling even today, but Christmas has definitely lost it’s luster.

In fact, I have come to dread the season. Christmas music invades the malls, radio and television as early as October, so that long before December 25 that it by the time the holiday actually rolls around the music I’ve loved since I was a child starts to seem like the music military units incessantly blast into surrounded compounds in order to get those inside to surrender. The bombardment of advertising that starts even earlier makes me tense about the financial pinch so many of us are in this year. And then there’s the traffic and crowds to content with.  I could go on, but you get my point.  It’s stressful.

There seems to be so little joy and merriment left in the season. In fact there’s an ugliness to it, stoked by rantings about an imagined “War on Christmas” and a siege mentality many people seem to genuinely feel, though I can’t discern any  any credible cause. I’ve already gotten my first Facebook message denouncing the White House for not having a Christmas Tree because they are accused of calling it a “Holiday Tree.” My heart sank when I saw the message. Are we really starting this again? Don’t we have enough to deal with as a country that we don’t need to pile this issue on?

First off, let’s be clear about the veracity of the rumor. It’s essentially the same email/Facebook status message that circulated last year and the year before, just with the dates changed.  It is FALSE! NOT TRUE! It was false in 09.  It was false in 2010, and its false now. President and First Lady Obama had two little girls and will celebrate Christmas in ways that are pretty much like every other Christian, American family, except with a lot of extra security and much less privacy.  Check out the pictures from last year.  They are almost too perfect, just like White House Christmas photos generally have been, ought to be, and probably how you want your family photos to be.

Continue reading

Fox News Chairman says NPR Executives are Nazis, “of Course”

Fox News, a News Corp subsidiary

Honestly, I am think that Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes and most at that network live in a reality that is different than mine.

I was just pointed to an interview with Howard Kurtz in which he said that President Obama “has a different belief system than most Americans” and that on his recent travels he “told by the French and the Germans that his socialism was too far left for them to deal with.”  I don’t know if Ailes believes this or if it is part of the continuing campaign of the right to paint the President as so radically different from us that he is somehow threatening, but the statements are not simply wrong, they are absurd.

President Obama is a capitalist and he believes in our system of representative, Constitutional democracy.  He has given no indication otherwise.  He would not have risen in the party system were that not the case and he certainly would not have got elected to the highest office in the land, either.  The Presidents differences with the the opposition are differences of degree, not belief systems.

As for France and Germany telling him that his socialism is to far left, well that is ridiculous.  Germany, France and the United States do have differences on approaches necessary to stimulate their economies because in a global economy what is done in one country impacts the others, but the questions concern the means and scale of intervention and have nothing to do with ideology.  France and Germany are also democratic, capitalist states, but both are fundamentally more socialist in character then the US.  Both have and have had for some time, state funded systems of education, government owned rail systems, universal health care, strong labor movements, etc.

Continue reading

Gretchen Carlson plays pretty good fiddle

I feel terrible! I always thought you had to be stupid to be an on air personality on Fox News. But I misjudged, and fell into a stereotype. Apparently you don’t. You just have to act dumb. Jon Stewart has shown me just how unfair I was being.

Apparently Gretchen Carlson, a Fox on air personality who, at times, seems like she must be the inspiration for every dumb blod joke ever told, isn’t as dumb as she wants us to believe. She was valedictorian of her high school class! She got her undergraduate degree at Stanford and studied abroad at Oxford. Jon outed her on national television. That wasn’t nice. Maybe it’s a tough place for a woman to work. Maybe she has to dumb it down to not be threatening and keep her job. I mean, look who she works with.
Continue reading

Fox News: The New Liberals? The Jon Stewart Proof

Leave it to Jon to point out the hypocrisy of the pundits.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c
Fox News: The New Liberals
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show
Full Episodes
Political Humor Healthcare Protests

cialis on line Sadly though, this wonderful gift of nature, that quietly goes about its work, is taken for granted or worse still ignored and abused. Adverse health effectsIn September 2010 Canada was crowned first country to declare bisphenol A, better known as BPA, a toxic substance. ordine cialis on line Bear in mind that discount pfizer viagra the lowest price does not always mean that you are getting quality medication. Nonarteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy (NAION) generic viagra store and other tablets used for treating erectile dysfunction. * Kamagra is available in a number of different shapes and forms.