Andrew Breitbart’s Imaginary Republican Primary

Posted by on December 27, 2011 at 3:37 pm. 2 Comments :

Last week Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment published an unintentionally hilarious column that sought to offer Democratic alternatives to President Obama. The choices included non-Democrats like Fox News anchor Chris Wallace and Independent senator Joe Lieberman.

Not content to embarrass himself with his incoherent analysis of Democratic politics, the author and editor of Breitbart.com, Joel Pollak, followed up the story this week with even less plausible suggestions for his own Republican Party. Pollak advocates for a brokered convention that would nominate a candidate not currently in the field. He runs down the GOP wish list of familiar names like Mitch Daniels and Chris Christie, and threw in some of the most unpopular characters the Republicans have ever hatched like Eric Cantor, Jim DeMint, and Paul Ryan. These folks might get the Tea Party extremists sweaty, but they would alienate the general public to an unprecedented degree. However, Pollak saved his top recommendations for last, and they are doozies.

Pollak’s number two choice for president is one of the nation’s most ridiculed and disrespected politicians, Sarah Palin. Despite starring in a documentary bomb, ironically titled “The Undefeated,” Palin has a resume chock full of defeat. She bailed out of her governorship half way through her first term. She lost the 2008 vice-presidential campaign and is credited with having been responsible for the fall of the ticket. Her book sales have been declining with each new release. Her canceled Alaska tourism program on TLC lost viewers almost every week it aired. She is currently trying to pitch a new TV show featuring her husband’s snowmobile exploits, but no one is biting. When Republicans are polled as to whether they want her to run for president, majorities say unequivocally NO! So of course, she’s the perfect candidate.

Well, almost perfect. Palin was, after all, Pollak’s second choice. So who could Pollak come up with that would surpass Palin’s extraordinary credentials? He would have to dig deep to uncover someone even more ludicrous than Palin. And Pollak does not disappoint when he reveals his first choice, the governor of Wisconsin, Scott Walker.

There may be no politician in America who is more reviled by average citizens and working families. Scott Walker is renowned for his arrogant attempts to roll back collective bargaining rights that were in effect for decades. He managed to anger nurses and firefighters, and even his own police departments, as he battled for lower wages, pensions, and budgets that would mandate extensive and dangerous layoffs. His state has lost jobs for five consecutive months as job creation grew nationally. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics place Wisconsin last in the nation.

But the biggest obstacle to Walker being drafted for a presidential run is that he is about to be recalled. The organizers of the campaign to recall Walker have already announced that in less than half the allotted time they have over 500,000 of the 540,000 signatures required for a recall election. Walker’s popularity in the state is abysmal and his prospects for fending off the recall are, let’s say challenging. Earlier this year Democrats successfully recalled two of Walker’s Republican legislative allies.

The notion of a brokered GOP convention is music to the ears of Democrats. It’s an admission that the candidates put forth so far are inadequate to the job. Should one of them prevail in such an environment they would emerge greatly weakened. Should a new name emerge, it would be someone that did not endure the primary process of vetting that is so critical to assessing the viability of a candidate. Imagine if any of the previous Republican frontrunners (Bachmann, Cain, Perry, Trump) had been selected by acclamation in a brokered convention. They would have been quickly dispensed with in the general election because their obvious flaws would not have been revealed until it was too late. That will surely be the fate of any of the candidates that Pollak is setting up now.

So I wish him well. I completely agree with his choices. It would bring me great pleasure if Walker or Palin or Christie or DeMint were thrust to the head of the line and were chosen to face Obama in the general election. Obama has some very real hurdles to overcome in his quest for another term. The economy has to continue to show signs of improvement. Unemployment has to keep going down. And any number of international hotspots need to be carefully managed in order to avoid tragic flareups. But the most consistently positive advantage that Barack Obama has over his prospective opponents is that he is running against the sort of contemporary Republicans that have lost all semblance of sanity. How lucky can a guy get?

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2011, The Year In Review: Politics, Protest, And The Press

Posted by on December 27, 2011 at 9:17 am. NO Comments :

A look back at 2011 reveals a year wherein notably consistent themes tied together a seemingly chaotic rabble of events that tested the American experiment in self-governance. The year began inundated in a cacophony of corporate-sponsored Tea Party caterwauling, but ended with a new and more robust voice of the people occupying public spaces in direct defiance to the authority of the financially and politically powerful.

In an attempt to capsulize some of the broader subjects that defined 2011, I have selected three stories that have had a significant impact on our nation and world.

POLITICS

Debt Wish XI: The GOP/Tea Party Plan To Tax The Poor
America’s Republican/Tea Party contingent, who are defined by their dogmatic devotion to lower taxes as a panacea for everything, have finally found a sector of society that they can comfortably saddle with a higher tax burden: The Poor.

That’s right. These anti-tax zealots have concluded that fairness cannot be achieved in the country’s tax code as long as there are disadvantaged freeloaders who are allegedly not paying into the system. While they fight tooth and nail to protect wealthy individuals and corporations from contributing even modest amounts to the nation’s recovery, the rightist brigade is marching lock-step in favor of soaking the poor in order to heal the malaise on Wall Street and the misery of long-suffering bankers. Their battle cry goes something like this: “Half of the Country Doesn’t Pay Any Taxes At All.” Fox News has been pushing that theme for quite a while. For the past two years they headlined it on Fox Nation right at tax time.

Fox News Tax Payers

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PROTEST

CLASS WAR VICTORY! The Wealthy Have Surrendered, So Who’s Still Fighting?

“Conservatives say if you don’t give the rich more money, they will lose their incentive to invest. As for the poor, they tell us they’ve lost all incentive because we’ve given them too much money.” ~ George Carlin

The national debate triggered by the Occupy Wall Street protests has given the wealth gap a renewed focus in the public arena. And with good reason. That gap is wider today than it was just prior to the Great Depression; wider, in fact, than it has ever been. The brutality of that economic disparity has thrust our nation into a bitter and persistent recession. But it has also inspired millions of Americans to step forward and demand reforms that not only restore fairness, but readjust the balance of political power.

Conservatives regard this new activism as a declaration of class war. But it’s important to note that they only call it war when we fight back. The war was already in progress and, as Warren Buffett said, “We (the rich) are winning.” Now a new survey reveals that Buffett is not the only one-percenter that is fighting on our side. The Wall Street Journal (ironically) is reporting that…

“A new survey from Spectrem Group found that 68% of millionaires (those with investments of $1 million or more) support raising taxes on those with $1 million or more in income. Fully 61% of those with net worths of $5 million or more support the tax on million-plus earners.”

Shared Sacrifice

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THE PRESS

Murdochalypse: Ruse Of The World
It’s too bad that Rupert Murdoch shut down the News of the World. If there were ever a time that it was needed, it’s now. The NotW’s specialty was sordid, scandalous, misbehavior by important persons and institutions. The fall of the House of Murdoch fits neatly in that mold: A billionaire media baron brought down by flagrant violations of law and morality. Numerous arrests and resignations. Billions of dollars in asset value evaporated. Just imagine how the NotW would have covered this story:

Murdochalypse

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CONCLUSION

This has been a tumultuous year during which many Americans suffered in ways not seen since the 1930’s. It has been a year that revealed the depths of the ethical depravity that a major international news enterprise would sink to in order to get a story and to tighten its grip on power. But most of all it was a year of hope demonstrated by committed Americans who brought the fight for fairness, equality, and an end to corruption, to the streets and parks and civic centers of cities across the nation.

2012 will likely be dominated by election news. The Republican clown car will roll across the country with Bachmann, Perry, Santorum, Paul, Gingrich, and Romney, as its passengers (and occasional hitchhikers, Palin and Trump). And the media, led by Fox News, will invent scandals and crises with which to batter progressive advocates and values. They are already fomenting fabricated predictions that the President’s reelection campaign will be the nastiest in history. This is from the same folks who, for the past three years, have been bashing Obama as a Kenyan socialist bent on delivering America to its enemies. But the people will have the final say, and by this time next year we’ll know whether the nation has recovered from its temporary Tea Party insanity.

Happy New Year Everybody!


A News Corpse Christmas Carol

Posted by on December 24, 2011 at 3:21 pm. 2 Comments :

Here’s something to think about on this holiday from the Ghost of Christmas Past, Jacob Marley, who learned too late that there were more important things than business:

“Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!”

Jacob Marley

Happy Holidays,
News Corpse


Merry Christmas Karl Rove, From Fox News

Posted by on December 24, 2011 at 10:18 am. 1 Comments :

In the spirit of the holiday season, Fox News has given a Christmas gift to former George W. Bush political strategist, and current Fox employee, Karl Rove. The gift was a generous one that is worth tens of thousands of dollars, and it is exactly what Rove asked Santa Claus for: Free Advertising.

Rove’s latest attack ad bashing President Obama has received free air time on a variety of Fox News programs including Hannity, The Five and others. And the ad was not merely shown in the context of a news report, it received high praise from Fox pundits and presenters. Also, in most cases Fox never bothered to mention that the ad, which was produced by the American Crossroads PAC, was in fact Rove’s vehicle for raising millions of dollars from secret corporate donors.

This is blatant electioneering by Fox on behalf of the Republican Party. They should be required by law to report it as an in-kind contribution. It is additional evidence (as if any were necessary) that Fox’s claim to be “fair and balanced” is transparently dishonest. Can anyone imagine Fox giving the same sort of treatment to this ad by Priorities USA, a rival Democratic PAC (that coincidentally features Fox’s own Karl Rove)?

Yeah, that’ll be the day.


Andrew Breitbart’s Imaginary Democratic Primary

Posted by on December 23, 2011 at 12:38 pm. 4 Comments :

The chronically choleric Andrew Breitbart has published an amusing speculation as to who the Democratic Party could field for president instead of Obama. This is really just an attempt by BigGovernment to sow new discord among the unusually united Democrats.

The article was written by Joel Pollak, the editor-in-chief of Breitbart.com, and features a roster of barely Democratic names who are arguably more conservative than many Republicans (i.e. Harold Ford and Joe Manchin). It also includes a couple of Democrats that would be bitterly opposed by the BigGovernment crowd if there were any real chance of them running (i.e. Hillary Clinton and Andrew Cuomo). However, two names stand out for their surreal presence on any list of of reputed Democrats.

First is the anchor of Fox News Sunday, Chris Wallace. Pollak’s basis for including Wallace on a list of Democrats is a five year old article in the Washington Post that reported that Wallace was a registered Democrat. Unfortunately, Pollak didn’t read the whole article that quoted Wallace as saying…

“The reason I’m a registered Democrat is that in Washington, D.C., there is really only one party,” Wallace told us yesterday. “If you want a say in who’s going to be the next mayor or councilman, you have to vote in the Democratic primary.”

So Wallace’s registration is just his way of being able to influence the outcome of primary elections for a party that he opposes. We know that he opposes the Democrats because of the way speaks about them publicly and slants his reporting. For instance…

  • Asking the Weekly Standard’s Stephen Hayes “is it unfair to say that this is a president whose heart doesn’t seem to be into winning the war on terror?”
  • Asking Rush Limbaugh what Obama has done TO the country.
  • Awarding ACORN pimp, James O’Keefe, the “Power Player of the Week.”
  • Calling Democrats “damn fools” for declining to appear on Fox News.
  • [My favorite] Admitting that he “generally agrees” with Sean Hannity.
  • Jumping to the defense of George W. Bush after director Ron Howard suggested comparisons to Richard Nixon.
  • Declaring Sarah Palin to be a “new star in the political galaxy.”
  • Asking George Bush if he was “puzzled by all of the concern in this country about protecting [the] rights of people who want to kill us.”
  • In a criticism of Democratic health care plans, making the absurd observation that “people don’t even contemplate end of life until they’re in an irreversible coma.”

Never mind that Wallace has no experience in politics or government, and has never run any enterprise that might prepare him to be the manager of an Olive Garden, much less the presidency.

But the number one Democratic choice by the BigGovernment editor to replace Barack Obama is —-> Sen. Joe Lieberman – who is NOT a Democrat. Lieberman was run out of the Democratic Party by the voters of his own state who chose Ned Lamont in a senate primary. Lieberman’s ego refused to step aside, so he ran as an independent and was returned to the senate by a majority of Republican voters who abandoned their own nominee in favor of Lieberman.

Pollak’s article is a joke that has failed to inject a sense of humor. It is his effort to distract Breitbart’s flock so that they don’t focus on the hilarity of their own cast of characters running for the GOP nomination. I don’t blame him. If Democrats were running a pack clowns like those in the GOP, I’d want a distraction too.


Media Matters: Bill O’Reilly Covers The War On Christmas More Than Actual Wars

Posted by on December 22, 2011 at 4:49 pm. 3 Comments :

Media Matters reviewed the content of Bill O’Reilly’s December programming and discovered something that reveals the truth about his long-standing “War on Christmas.”

“Every year, ‘Culture Warrior’ Bill O’Reilly devotes considerable time on his Fox News show to the ‘War on Christmas.’ This December, O’Reilly has covered the imaginary ‘War on Christmas’ more than three times as much as the actual wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.“

Bill O'Reilly's Christmas

That should tell you something about O’Reilly’s priorities. But it’s not really a revelation about his sanctimonious persona and fixation on pretending that Christmas is under attack.

If Christmas actually was at risk from clandestine secular-progressives bent on deposing Santa, O’Reilly would be amongst those responsible. His own concept of Christmas is a perverse vision of greed and consumerism. This is how he expresses the meaning of Christmas:

“Every company in America should be on its knees thanking Jesus for being born. Without Christmas, most American businesses would be far less profitable.”

Heartwarming isn’t it? It’s a sentiment that just oozes with the season’s warmth, joy, and humanity. He seems to believe that Christ died on the cross for your net receipts and a favorable business environment. That’s a far cry from the guy who threw the moneychangers out of the temple.

O’Reilly is not much of an advocate of the values that Christmas represents to so many Americans. Neither is he much of an advocate for those who are burdened with fighting real wars. His idea of supporting the troops is sending them free copies of his unreadable books.

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The Not-So-Subliminal Messaging Of Fox News

Posted by on December 21, 2011 at 1:57 pm. 2 Comments :

The Fox Nationalists are not even trying to mask their dishonest misrepresentations designed to keep their flock ignorant and ill-informed.

Fox Nation

Indeed, the approval rating of Congress is dismally low. However, the House of Representatives is controlled by GOP Speaker John Boehner and a majority Republican caucus. But when Fox publishes their story about the floundering body they accompany the piece with a picture of Democratic Rep. Nancy Pelosi. Boehner, et al, are nowhere to be seen.

This deception is even more unseemly when you take into account that it is the Republican Party that is held in far lower esteem that the Democrats. And particularly with regard to the current debate over the Payroll Tax, the American people are incensed that the GOP has refused to allow its extension to come up for a vote. The result will be that 160 million workers will get a tax increase beginning January 1.

Merry Christmas America,
Yours Truly, The Republican Party.


Politifact Lie Of The Year Confirmed True By Fox News

Posted by on December 20, 2011 at 7:35 pm. 5 Comments :

The widely respected and Pulitzer Prize winning Politifact has announced their annual selection for “Lie of the Year.” Unfortunately, they have selected something that is demonstrably true: “Republicans voted to end Medicare.”

There has already been a tidal wave of criticism for this selection, which I will not regurgitate. If you’re interested in reading some of the takedowns, Media Matters has complied a few and posted their own cogent remarks.

“Paul Krugman and Dan Kennedy and Steve Benen and Jonathan Cohn and Jonathan Chait and Matthew Yglesias and David Weigel, among countless others, have debunked Politifact’s ruling, which holds that as long as something called ‘Medicare’ has something to do with health care for the elderly, it’s a lie to say the program has ended, no matter how ‘dramatic’ the ‘change of course’ has been.”

My contribution to this discussion will be to point out that Fox News reported on Politifact’s finding that the claim that Republicans voted to end Medicare was a lie, and at the same time published an article wherein Republicans advocated an end to Medicare:

Fox Nation

That’s right. The Fox Nationalists, who ordinarily revile Politifact as just another liberal mainstream media outlet, now regale in this award. But they also publish an editorial wherein the resident Fox News MD, Marc Siegel says this:

“Not all practicing doctors will readily admit this, but we all look at Medicare (and all health insurance for that matter, public or private), the same way. Medicare is cumbersome, an unnecessary interface between us and our patients…”

The fact that Republicans have been trying to kill Medicare is irrefutable. And now the evidence is right on the web site of the GOP PR machine, Fox News. It takes some massive cajones to place these conflicting stories in such close proximity, but that’s what Fox was created for.


The Annual Fox News Tradition Of Bashing The Obama’s Holiday Greeting

Posted by on December 19, 2011 at 4:07 pm. 7 Comments :

It’s that time of year again. The time when winter’s chill nips at your nose and poinsettia blooms abound. The time when children’s laughter echos through the streets and families come together for joyous feasts. And the time when Fox News lambastes the President and his family for not celebrating the holiday in the manner that they think good American, Christian, patriots ought to.

Fox Nation Christmas

What would the season be without Fox News dredging up this absurd and insulting story as they do every year? It is a tradition that really makes the holiday complete. And this year it is extra special because they brighten it with the cheerful words of Sarah Palin who calls the Obama’s holiday greeting “odd” and “strange,” and, in the spirit of the season, she complains that it doesn’t reflect the…

“…American foundational values illustrated and displayed on Christmas cards and on a Christmas tree. […] It’s just a different way of thinking coming out of the White House.”

Indeed, the current residents of the White House are so “different” than the rest of us. They look different and think different and pray different, but mostly look different. And they express their warm wishes to the nation differently than other “normal” presidents like, for instance, George W. Bush, whose Holiday greetings also didn’t mention Christmas:

Click to enlarge:

Along with the Bush family, Rupert Murdoch declined to mention Christmas in his greeting to the tens of thousands of people who work for him. And Fox News itself aired “Holiday” greetings to their television viewers.

But the cherished holiday tradition of bashing a family for choosing to include people of all faiths (or none) in their hopes for joy and peace and well being, is reserved only for the Obamas. It’s that special treatment Fox saves for those they hate during this season of love.

[Addendum] To complete the hypocrisy, Fox has unveiled their own Christmas card that Palin might also consider lacking the “American foundational values.” In fact, it is downright mean-spirited as it delivers a message of competition and acrimony.

Fox News Christmas Card

The card mockingly depicts the Fox sled (drawn appropriately by sheep) as winning the race against ABC, NBC, and CBS. What a heartwarming tribute to the birth of their savior, a man of peace and acceptance, who beseeched his followers to love their enemies. And in addition to being self-serving and tasteless, the card is also a barefaced lie. The highest rated program on Fox News (The O’Reilly Factor) has about half the audience of the the lowest rated network news program (CBS Evening News). So the Fox sled should be in the rear, if they cared about telling the truth.


Judge Not: Newt Gingrich Adds Another Zany Plank To His Platform

Posted by on December 19, 2011 at 9:30 am. 5 Comments :

GOP frontrunner Newt Gingrich continues to adopt some of the most lunatic positions from the right-wing fringe. First it was calling child labor laws “truly stupid.” Then it was calling Palestinians an “invented people.” Now Gingrich wants to go after judges he doesn’t like.

Newt Gingrich

Gingrich was questioned about his prior comments that he would, as president, eliminate judges and courts that he regarded as overstepping their authority. As an example he suggested that the entire Ninth Circuit could be done away with. On Face the Nation, host Bob Schieffer noted that Gingrich’s proposal would violate the Constitution, and asked the former Speaker how he would enforce this. Would he send the Capitol police to arrest such judges? Gingrich replied…

“If you had to. Or you’d instruct the Justice Department to send a U.S. marshal.”

This may go down in history as one of the stupidest, and most dangerous, statements from a presidential contender. The notion that a president could unilaterally punish judges for decisions with which the president disagrees is fundamentally unconstitutional and anti-American. Such power would mean that judges would have to live in fear of losing their job if they displeased the White House. It would mean that they could not decide cases on the merits, but would have to decide based on the political repercussions of their ruling. That would, in effect, make the judiciary an irrelevant appendage of the White House, rather than an independent and impartial administrator of the law.

It will be interesting to see how Gingrich’s Tea Party supporters respond to this repulsive stance. The Tea Party has always tried to portray itself as opposed to big government and the encroachment of power by government institutions. There is nothing more representative of a power grab than one branch of government asserting that it has the authority to eliminate another branch. And that’s exactly what Gingrich is proposing.

But I wonder if Gingrich has thought this through. If President Obama were to adopt Gingrich’s view today, he could have Justices Thomas and Scalia arrested and thrown off the bench. Then he could appoint two new judges to take their place. Somehow I don’t think that’s what Gingrich had in mind? In fact, were Obama to try that he would be swooped on by outraged Republicans and Tea Partiers and castigated as a traitor.

And if it wasn’t disgusting enough that Gingrich would propose something so contrary to American values, Fox Nation characterizes this as Gingrich criticizing “Anti-American Judges.” That’s a loaded term that implies that any judge that makes a ruling that a president doesn’t like is anti-American and, therefore, subject to impeachment. Of course, it’s the policy advanced by Gingrich, as well as the spin given to it by Fox, that is anti-American, not the judges that Gingrich yearns to impeach.

[Update] Fox Nation doubles down with a second column on Gingrich’s dictatorial aspirations. This one sports a curious headline that lamely tries to tar Bob Schieffer of Face the Nation as having been “jacked up” by Gingrich and calls the program “Slay the Nation.”

Fox Nation

Also note that on the morning following the death of Kim Jong Il, the Fox Nationalists place this rehashed story at the top of their web site above a much smaller link to a story on the deceased leader of North Korea.