When Truth Isn't Good Enough, Just Lie! Part 2

On December 18 2014, I posted about an article in Rolling Stone magazine called "A Rape On Campus:A Brutal Assault and Struggle for Justice at UVA" by Sabrina Rubin Erdely [see photo] about a student at UVA who had been brutally gang-raped by a group of frat boys when she was a freshman in 2012 and how the "facts" of the article had all been found very quickly to be a complete fabrication.

When Truth Isn't Good Enough, Just Lie!
[the link to the original RS article is no longer available]

Much has happened since December. Firstly, at the end of January 2015, the local Virginia police department made public the results of their exhaustive investigation and concluded that they could find no evidence of a rape at the UVA Phi Kappa Psi fraternity house had taken place. They softened the blow, by stating that something may have happened to "Jackie", the subject of the original article, but it didn't happen at the frat house or by the frat boys. Oh, yeah, she refused to participate in the investigation.

At the same time, Rolling Stone asked that the august and learned fellows at the Columbia School of Journalism conduct a thorough investigation to find out exactly what went so terrible wrong. Their conclusion which was published Sunday evening (to minimize the damage), boils down to Sabrina Erdley and the editors of Rolling Stone pretty much broke every rule of journalism...read the report - A Rape On Campus: What Went Wrong?.

The result of this exhaustive self-analysis? Writer, editors, fact-checkers, and publishers were all to blame and they have promised to do better from now on. No one loses their job or livelihoods and certainly Sabrina Erdley will be hired to write other articles for Rolling Stone. Hey, s**t happens. Let's all move on...except for the giant, very expensive lawsuit that those falsely accused frat boys are filing even as we speak.

Interestingly, Sabrina Erdley and all the feminists at Salon and Jezebel who so rabidly defended the story and vociferously called out anyone who dared to question the facts of the story are now ironically claiming to be the victims. And Erdley refuses to take responsibly for her own journalistic malpractice as she claims she was just duped by "a really expert fabulist storyteller” - Jann Wenner's pathetic description.

And the media wonders why we don't trust that what they report is the truth...

If you are interested in more, here is an article from thedailybeast.com posted by John McWhorter that explains how this is a "story about media addicted to seeking sensationalism over accuracy...[and] the idea that the pursuit of justice can be separated from facts; that metaphorical truth can be more important than literal truth. The Truth About UVA and Ferguson Isn't Good Enough for P.C. Crowd

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Fox (Not-So)News

When you’re in a hospital, your choices typically become limited. Indeed, most of your options will tend to come from the mass market, generic side of things. That’s how I found myself watching Fox News again for the first time in a very long time, because that is what was being offered. I found the experience depressing. Apparently, the good people at Fox are trapped in a bubble that has them reliving 2010 all over again.

The show opened with the anchorettes pulling their skirts up another three inches and the boy anchors practicing their outraged faces... grrr... grrr! They immediately dove into the vital stories of the day:

● Why does Hollywood hate a genuine American film like American Sniper, whaled the anchor! (I guess being nominated for Best Picture is evidence of hate?). A panel was introduced and they all accused Hollywood of anti-American and anti-military bias, but provided no support for these assertions other than their supposed “hatred” for films like this... again, no support was offered. Then they finished by bizarrely telling us that “this the type of film Hollywood and its liberal base” won’t make... even though they did make the film and even nominated it for big awards.

● Like lightening, we suddenly switched to the “story” of a bright young GOP presidential candidate named Marco Rubio. The whole story entailed Charles Krauthammer stating on another Fox show that he guesses Rubio has a 30% of being the nominee. That was the whole story.

● Next, they told us the GOP has a new plan to stop ISIS, and since Obama hasn’t jumped on board this plan within the first few days, the talking heads became outraged that “Obama just won’t do anything to stop ISIS!” They then bolstered their opinions by noting that Obama promises to close Gitmo, a promise he first made a decade ago and has repeated every year since.... and never did anything about.

● Then they turn to the smugrage of the day. Apparently, some school lunch server sent a nasty note to the parent of a child over the contents of the child’s lunch. What prompted this was the massive amount of junk in the lunch. Fox, however, presented this differently. First, they noted that the parent is a doctor, as if that puts them beyond reproach rather than increasing the reproach for the horrible lunch. Then the anchor looked at the obviously obese child and he announced: “You look healthy.” Really? He then asked if she ate this every day, which she said she did, and he declared that it looked delicious. He finished by expressing his outrage that a school official would tell a parent that their fat-inducing lunch, which is unacceptable under school policies, would dare say such a thing!

● Finally, we came to Romney. A panel was called to discuss what his run could mean. They never really talked about him though. Instead, this group concluded that this represented a rare moment for conservative Republicans... yep. See, Romney, Christie and Bush will split the “powerful moderate vote” three ways, allowing a genuine conservative like Rubio to “finally” give “conservative a voice.”

Interestingly, they seemed to assume a world in which conservatives have never had a way to get moderates to listen to them... as if the Tea Party or Religious Right or Goldwater or Reagan or Newt never existed.

What really struck me watching this half hour of Fox News was how completely blind they have been to the last ten years. Their analysis basically assumes there was never a Tea Party and they recommend that conservatives band together to rise up and take over the party, as if the last election wasn’t the undoing of that very thing. And didn’t Rubio rise and then explode on the fickle shores of genuineness?

Even more, though, it struck me that Fox is trapped in the petty politics of the past. These same stories first appeared on Fox in similar forms almost ten years ago. What’s more, look at the utter lack of news value to any of these. Some lunch lady sent a nasty note. So what? How does that affect anyone other than those two people? Should we designate Rubio as the frontrunner based on the opinion of one of our anchors? Talk about fabricating stories. So the party is dominated by moderates who only lose when they split the vote three ways, yet Fox asserts that the public wants conservatism?

This is the most tired of tired scripts. I almost expected stories related to Clinton’s infidelities, White Water, and the response to the OJ verdict. This is what a worn out propagandists looks like... not a news service.

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When The Truth Isn't Good Enough, Just Lie!

You may have read the endless reams of articles about the little kerfuffle at Rolling Stone magazine last week. Here is a link to the original story published November 19 - A Rape On Campus:A Brutal Assault and Struggle for Justice at UVA by Sabrina Rubin Erdely.

It's a horrific story about a young freshman who was invited to a frat party and ended up being brutally gang raped by a group of frat brothers as part of some frat initiation. This horrific story spawned campus protests and caused the University Board to suspend all fraternity activities and issue a statement condemning the incident and any kind of campus sexual assault. Well, except that the story was not the least bit true. Yeah, it turns out that Ms. Erdely, in her zeal to find a victim to highlight and perpetators to condemn, failed to do what any credible journalist would do before accusing people of a horrific criminal act. She failed to do any kind of fact-checking at all. She took what this young woman said as the truth because she trusted her instincts and just ran with it. And so did the Rolling Stone editors. As a matter of fact, once someone bothered to actually check the facts and "discrepancies" in the article, it did not take long to find the story to be an almost complete fabrication. It caused a firestorm on Twitter and here is just one of many articles from the Washinton Post - The Full Demise Of Rolling Stone Rape Story on December 10.

Now this is really beside the point. It is Erdeley's explanation as to why she feels she has done nothing wrong that is truly disturbing. According to her...and I am paraphrasing here...so what if none of it was actually true. It COULD have been true and that is good enough because there is a rape culture on college campuses today that must be stopped. But of course, that begs the question that if this "rape culture" is so rampant, why does she have to resort to fabrications to make her point? But even more hideous were her condemnations of any who would dare to take umbrage with her fabrications and distortions and then accusing them of being "rape deniers" and "supporters of rape culture". And the inevitable accusations of "blaming the victim" except in this story, there WAS no victim. Well, except the young men who were falsely accused, of course. But then, that's okay because they COULD have done it.

Anyway, you can read all you want about this issue with a simple "google search" if you want, but I find it scary that seemingly credible "journalists" now have no qualms about printing lies if it furthers their narrative. We used to call that "fiction", but now it is "journalism". This is just one example of the slippery slide downward into some kind of Orwellian nightmare.

Oh, and if you really want to see scary, check out the same type of kerfluffle surrounding HBO "Girls" writer/actress Lena Dunham's autobiography Not That Kind Of Girl and John Nolte's investigation for Breitbart - LINK. In her case she alleges that she was raped by a conservative, Republican student named "Barry" while a student at Oberline College. But this time her false accusations may cause a pretty hefty libel suit...here's her "brave" excuse - Lena Dunham on Rape Backlash

As always feel free to comment on this or any other issue...

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Obama Rated A Failure

The Washington Post seems to be getting a real dose of reality lately. First, they put out an article admitting that the reason the Democrats are likely to lose the Senate - something the Post hasn’t admitted before - is Obama’s unpopularity dragging down their candidates. Now they put out an article admitting that a majority of the public sees Obama’s presidency as a failure. Yep.

The article in question addresses the results of a poll taken by The Washington Post and ABC News. It found that 52% of Americans believe Obama’s presidency is on balance “a failure.” Only 42% think his presidency has been “a success.” That’s horrible!

And it gets worse when you dig down into the numbers.

● 54% disapprove of his handling of the economy
● 56% disapprove of his handling of foreign affairs
● 65% say the country is on the wrong track
● 59% disapprove of his handling of immigration
● 56% disapprove of Obamacare
● 55% think Obama has done more to divide the country than to unite it

Yeah, that reeks of failure. And truthfully, I don’t think there is anything Obama can do to change any of this. He was counting on Obamacare becoming popular once people were forced into it, but it’s only gotten less popular over time. Beyond that, his legacy is bare.

Even one time sycophant Michael Moore said this of Obama's legacy: "When the history is written of this era, this is how you’ll be remembered: 'He was the first black president.' Okay, not a bad accomplishment, but that's it. That's it, Mr. Obama." Ouch.

As an interesting aside, the Democrats are mentally relying on polling showing that the GOP is way more unpopular than the Democrats as a way to tell themselves this isn't a problem. In that regard, this poll showed that Obama’s disapproval was at 54% and the Democratic Party’s disapproval is 61%, but the GOP’s disapproval is 72%. So they are somewhat correct. Nevertheless, their reliance on this is misleading. For one thing, when asked if people will change their vote to prevent a GOP senate, only 25% said that they were scared of a GOP senate. More people, 32%, actually say a GOP senate would be a good thing. Thus, people are more likely to vote for their local candidates than they are to worry about their approval of the GOP. Said differently, the 72% disapproval number is meaningless.

Even more to the point, however, the GOP’s low approval rating comes from Republicans, who won’t vote for the Democrats. Indeed, whereas 63% of Democrats approve of their party, only 34% of Republicans do. So this 72% number is entirely unreliable. Most importantly, though, Obama can’t really base his legacy on the opposition being less popular... life doesn't work that way.

Thoughts?

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Opposition to Obamacare NOT Racist

Cynthia Tucker is a black, female journalist who gained prominence in the 1990s, and all the negatives that entails, i.e. she’s steeped in the race/gender wars. This last week, she laments that it’s hard to understand the “irrational hatred of Obamacare” (which of course is code for racism). But let’s put that aside. What Tucker doesn’t get is that the hatred of Obamacare isn’t irrational. Let’s discuss.

Tucker does what all politicized hacks always do: she creates her own facts to support the conclusion she wants you to reach. She begins with the fraudulent advocacy technique of talking about some woman she knows who is happy to finally have insurance. Whoopee! Anecdotal evidence is meaningless. In fact, I can counter with someone who thinks we should ban insurance. So what have proved? Nothing, Cynthia.

Anyways, she buys into Obama’s 7 million number and calls it “stark evidence of the overwhelming market demand.” Isn’t that cute, she’s a moron! Let us consider the seven million number and her point:

● First, it’s nonsense to call something that is forced upon people by threat of fine as creating “market demand.” That’s like saying Hitler created “market demand” for Nazism in every country he occupied by forcing it upon people. “Markets” imply willing buyers and sellers, not the coerced.

● Secondly, the 7 million number is obviously fake. Quoting it uncritically only demonstrates bias. Let’s see how many people actually have Exchange-sold policies three months from now, then we’ll talk Cynthia.

● Thirdenly, even if we accept the 7 million number, this is “stark” evidence of a lack of demand, not evidence of demand, you dingbat. There are 49 million uninsured. If we assume that all of the 7 million were uninsured before, then still only 1 in 7 signed up despite the threats of being fined if they refused. That’s evidence of horribly weak demand.

● Further, the evidence suggests that only 800,000 of the signups didn’t have insurance until Obamacare came along. That means only 1.6 in 100 of the uninsured responded. Again, how is that evidence of anything except disdain?

As for the other 6.3 million, those are people who were insured, but lost their insurance because of Obamacare and had no choice but to buy this inferior product at inflated prices. It’s not evidence of demand to ban all other alternatives and then point to your sales.

She then tells us that even though it’s too early to call Obamacare a success, it is a success. According to her,

● “It made great strides in improving access to health care.” Uh, not really. More people lost insurance than gained insurance. And only an idiot would say that disrupting the entire system to get 800,000 coverage is making strides.

● She says it will be a “boon” to the economy that young people can stay on their parent’s plans.... as if that made any sense at all.

● Now you can’t be denied coverage! That’s true, but you can be denied treatment. Which would you rather have? In fact, the biggest problem Obamacare will encounter is that people will buy this insurance, but won’t be able to find doctors, and certainly not good ones. Basically, Obamacare will cause the “two America’s” dystopia liberals always whine about, with rich people getting to see great doctors and getting treatment anywhere they wish, while poor and average people get handed worthless policies that leave them dying in the waiting rooms of third-rate converted animal hospitals. Thanks Cynthia, may it happen to you and yours first.

● Now you can get affordable insurance away from your employer! LOL! Actually, Obama killed the affordable policies. So to restate this truthfully, “Now you will lose your employer-sponsored plan and you can go buy way overpriced, underprovided phantom-coverage from Obama’s website.

Next she takes on those nasty, racist Republicans. She points out that they should love Obamacare because it “adheres to market-based ideas.” Yeah, right. There isn’t a market-based idea in the whole bill. Further, she whines, the Republicans are free to offer alternatives. This is, of course, revisionism. This bill was written in secret by a couple Democrats and the insurance companies. It was voted on without amendments, without reading, without Republican input or public input being allowed. It even got pushed through on an abusive procedural motion. I guess Cynthia wasn’t paying attention.

Of course she finishes with a nasty, slander: “Could it be that Republicans are simply furious that millions of Americans like [her friend] finally have health insurance?” No, Cynthia, racism is your obsession, not ours.

Anyways, let’s cut to the chase. She just doesn’t understand the hate. Ok, how about this...

Why should we like a law that forces us to buy a product we don’t want, a product that costs more and provides less coverage than we could have obtained on the open market before Obama banned those policies. A law which ham-fistedly attempts to reshape 1/12th of our economy. A law which has cost nearly ten million people the insurance they liked (more to come), that has severed their relationships with their doctors, which put many independent doctors out of business, which cost people their jobs, which cut down the part-time hours available for part-time workers, which forced churches to provide abortion coverage and old people to pay for pediatric issues and males to pay for feminine issues and young people to massively subsidize the elderly. A law which promises huge, rich insurance firms subsidies all paid for on the backs of the middle class. A law which may yet wipe out unions. A law which will break various state and federal budgets.

Maybe that’s why people hate it, Cynthia. And if you weren’t a racist who is looking for anything you can spin into “white people hate us!” perhaps you would see this. The problem isn’t that Obama is the first black president, it’s that he’s the first abusive, incompetent, shithead black president.

Hating Obamacare is not an irrational response. It is quite rational. In fact, I wonder how Cynthia would respond if we passed a law which forced everyone to buy a 45 caliber (or above) handgun for home defense and we made blacks pay twice as much to subsidize old whites. Do you think she’d marvel and fake confusion at all the irrational hate coming from the left? Would she finish with, “Could it be that Liberals are simply furious that millions of Americans like old Earl finally have access to home protection?” Somehow, I doubt it.

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Buying A Paper

Jeff Bezos just bought the Washington Post for $250 million and I find this really interesting. A lot of people have been buying a lot of newspapers lately, each with different reasons. This is the first to really excite me. Let’s take a look at the possible consequences and talk about Amazon.

● Is Nothing Sacred?! To start, let me point out that there is nothing sacred about newspapers or their ownership. While I’m sure they want you to believe that somehow they are pure because some of them used to be owned by families who ran them at a loss blah blah, they’re just businesses and they don’t live by some special code. In fact, the history of newspapers is that most were “partisan rags” before they became “partisan rags pretending to be nonpartisan.” That’s why you get names like “The Arkansas Democrat”... because they were established to spread party propaganda.

● Recent Buyers: Several rich people have recently bought papers for different reasons. Most billionaire buyers of newspapers buy as a vanity project and end up losing their shirts and dumping them. Some buy them for other reasons, however. Warren Buffett bought up a bunch of newspapers. His purpose seems to have been to get them to pimp things he’s invested in. That shouldn’t work, except that Buffett bought small town papers, which don’t get scrutiny, and he fired and closed lots of them, which likely created a loyalty incentive.

The Koch Brothers are apparently attempting to buy various newspapers including the “Chicago Tribune” and the “L.A. Times.” Their purpose is ideological. They apparently aren’t planning to impose a new ideology on these papers, but instead intend that conservative/libertarian viewpoints finally be heard along with liberal ones.

I’m doubtful this will work. On the one hand, I’m glad they’re doing this as we need conservatism brought into the MSM and this might do it. On the other hand, I think this is destined to failed to reach the nonaligned public because the left will smear them. They will claim over and over that the Koch Brothers are trying to control the news and they will use the Koch Brother’s association with conservatives to make the claim – along with the claims that they want to add conservative view points. The better strategy would be to entirely disclaim ideological intent and then do it through other means. Even better would have been to set up a front owner who makes himself out as a leftist, and have him push conservatism. The left wouldn’t have a clue how to handle that and you would probably be able to get a solid reputation as unbiased.

● Amazon: So what about Bezos? Let’s start with the obvious. Amazon is an amazing company. They will dominate the world one day. I have watched as they have slowly, but sure taken over everything online and they’ve done so with incredible skill. This is a company that consumers, employees, sellers, and stockholders all love... every stakeholder in the mix. This is because they are more than fair in things like salaries and royalties, and they generate intense loyalty because of it.

Indeed, the only people who hate them are the people in the industries they invade, and that is because they come in and destroy things like monopoly margins and the need for middlemen. To give you an example, published authors earn 6% on books they sell... after expenses, which can drive profits down to around 2% in many cases. Publishers and retailers keep the rest. Agents get around 15% of what the author makes for acting as a middleman. Amazon gives 70% royalties directly to authors (or 35% depending on some things). It wipes out the need for publishers and agents. Thus, consumers benefit from way lower prices, authors benefit from massively higher profits, and Amazon benefits from a strong profit margin. Moreover, Amazon does a LOT to boost sales. They are constantly tinkering to improve marketing... there isn't a week where I don't see them test something. Amazon does the same things now with music, games, and videos, and it is expanding into every other area of retail as well. This is a company with huge long term plans and is willing to invest to make that happen. And each time it expands, it brings lower costs for consumers and higher margins for producers by wiping out the middlemen. It is WalMart circa 1985.

Anyway, back to the Washington Post. I think Bezos buying the paper will be a great thing. For one thing, Amazon is amazingly creative. They are super fast as making changes to see how consumers respond. I’ve seen them test different formats on different products and go with the one that improved sales. I’ve seen them test different forms of marketing, dumping those that failed and keeping those that worked. They play with their search algorithms constantly too. They are constantly tinkering.

Moreover, they are totally consumer oriented in their thinking, which is something no one in the media is. The entire media, from newspapers to television to magazines, sees themselves as the modern version of an ancient industry that does certain things rigidly. They see themselves as being above the market and telling the people what they need to know. Amazon isn’t like that. They embrace the public and they try to give the consumer what the consumer wants, not what Amazon thinks they should want... huge difference. They are also intensely nonpartisan. This means they don’t take sides and they happily cater to both sides.

I expect that all of this means we’re going to see a lot of innovation coming to the Post. I expect they will rethink the paper to try to provide more value to consumers, particularly online. I also expect they will broaden the ideology so they reach more people. I could be wrong, but that’s Amazon’s history... “Republicans buy sneaker too.” (Michael Jordan). If I'm right, this actually could lead to change in the entire industry, a change which may dramatically shift the ideology of the newspaper industry, away from radical liberalism to “non-aligned customer service.”

It’s going to be interesting to see if that happens. I think it will though. And if it does, this could do more to change the MSM that a dozen conservative billionaire buying news channels or newspapers. I guess we’ll see.

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Malpractice In The Martin Case

I’m going to take apart an article and some comments about the Trayvon Martin issue. Before we start, let me point out that this isn’t about really about the verdict itself as I don’t care about that. What I find interesting is the “journalism” and some interesting comments from the prosecutor.

The article in question was written by Liz Goodwin of Yahoo, whose qualifications for the job are no doubt unquestioned. Actually, I meant that differently... being Yahoo, I’m sure no one questioned her qualifications before they hired her. Anyway, Lizzy wrote the article that Yahoo linked to initially. It is a classic display of advocacy hiding as impartiality.

● Hey, That’s Racist! I had to laugh that Lizzy right away described Martin as “a 17 year old black boy.” For those who’ve dealt with race issues, you will quickly discover that there are two things that will always be called “racist” – conservatives calling blacks “black” rather than “African American” and calling any black male larger than about 10 “boy.” If Rush starts his monologue by calling Martin “a black boy,” you can be sure the squealing will begin.

In fact, think about it and ask yourself the last time the media called any older teen “boy,” just as they don’t call near-adult women “girls.” Those are considered offensive terms. Hence, the preferred term is “teen” (something Lizzy returns to after her opening). So why start with “black boy”? Well, Lizzy wants to give the image of this large, black male near-adult as a small child.

She also continues to call Zimmer “half-white and half-Hispanic,” in an attempt to paint this as white on black crime, even though Zimmerman would be considered Hispanic if he were the victim. Selective use of race is racism. Moreover, should race actually be relevant here? Race came up because NBC edited a video to create a racial controversy and because the usual black suspect wanted to paint this as a race crime: white man with Jim Crow evil in his heart hunting small black candy-carrying boy. But there’s no evidence of that. Basically, this case came down to a dipsh*t wannabe cop, who happened to be Hispanic and who got himself in over his head and ended up in the fight of his life. Where does “white” enter that picture unless you want to put it there?

● Facts Are What I Want Them To Be: Beyond that, Lizzy does a good job of advocating for the prosecution. She outlines the prosecution case in vivid detail, but gives the defense only a clinical nod. . . apparently the defense position was that Zimmerman “was within his rights” when he did whatever the prosecution alleged... forget that the defense denied everything. No mention is made of how the prosecution’s case imploded on witness after witness. There’s no mention of anything to support the claim of self-defense. Did you know Zimmerman was injured? You didn’t hear it from Lizzy. She makes it sound like Zimmerman shot Martin from a distance. Did you know that there were numerous witnesses (non-family members) who said that it was Zimmerman calling for help? You didn’t hear it from Lizzy, though you did hear about Martin’s noble parents saying the voice belonged to Martin. Did you know there were “witnesses” to the incident? What did they witness? Well, Lizzy never says, except she ties this in to Martin’s parents saying it was Martin calling for help. If you knew nothing, you would wonder why the jury ignored those witnesses.

She also tries to blow this into something more than it was. Did you know the case sparked a “national debate over self-defense laws and race, prompting marches and demonstrations around the country.” Yeah, only outside of the retards on Twitter the few attempts I recall to organize anything were all in Florida and they involved a couple hundred people. By that standard, there’s a national demonstration at my local Costco every time there’s a sale.

Oh, and there’s no mention to the prosecutor humiliatingly backing down to manslaughter. Instead, Lizzy just mentions that the jury also could have considered that, as if it was just always kind an option.

● The Persecutor: Anyway, then we come to the prosecutor. This turd takes the cake. He overcharged in the hopes of getting famous. He’s been stoking the racial angle from day one. And when he got to court, reality caught up with him and his witnesses refused to say what he promised and he ended up imploding on witness after witness. So either they all lied unexpectedly, or he lied to the jury about what they would tell him, which is both unethical and insanely stupid.

Ironically, at his post-loss press conference, he said, “We have from the beginning just prayed for the truth to come out.” Uh, f*ck you. First of all, truth requires you to find it, not obscure it, jerk. And what this guy tried to do repeatedly was to obscure the truth and to present a false truth. Secondly, the job of the prosecutor is to prosecute crimes, not make Hail Mary attempts to throw someone in jail to make a political statement... that’s called persecution. As an aside, he also appealed for calm even though there is no violence, which sounds a lot like incitement to me.

Anyway, what really caught my attention with this turd was this little statement from his closing argument: “Ask yourself, ‘Who lost the fight?’” That statement in a nutshell is the problem with liberals. The issue is NOT who lost. The issue was whether or not Zimmerman acted in accordance with the law or not. This idea of “let’s charge whoever lost the fight” is twisted. It is highly unjust as it makes the law arbitrary. In fact, even worse, it completely ignores morality and right and wrong for a fake-substitute version of “whoever I connect with emotionally was the victim.” This is the same BS thinking that underlies all liberal theories on criminal justice and history. . . if you lost, then you were the victim and the other guy was the bad guy.

This is why you can’t trust liberals. It makes them fools. This is why attorneys paint their little murdering sh*ts as angels and put them in suits, this is why liberals feel that mass murderers should be let out of jail once they look old and sad, and this is why liberals so often fall in love with murders and butchers, because everybody else treats them so poorly! Boo hoo.

Put simply, this is why you cannot rely on liberals to assess right and wrong, because their standard is not based on conduct, it’s based on who they see as the victim at that point in time they are asked to judge.

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Where Is The Rage? Boo hoo hoo

Guns. Duh. Must stop guns. Durrrr. There are few issues that expose the inability of people to use their brains as clearly as gun control. Willful blindness and rank stupidity are the order of the day. Take, for example, an article in which the Christian Science Monitor tried to figure out why the public wasn’t outraged about the failure of the gun control bill in the Senate.

Said the article:

“Only 47 percent of respondents said they were ‘disappointed’ or ‘angry’ that the Senate last week failed to advance a bill to expand background checks to gun shows and online sales. Yet in February, a Pew poll found that 83 percent of respondents supported an expansion of background checks to cover gun shows and all private sales – measures that would actually be stricter than what the Senate rejected.

If Americans overwhelmingly support strict background checks, why aren’t they angrier that the Senate failed to pass even moderate background checks? How could 39 percent be "happy" or "relieved" by the result? Where is the outrage to which President Obama was appealing when he called the Senate vote ‘a pretty shameful day for Washington.’”

The article then goes on to look at some of the possibilities. Some apparently suggest that the reason gun control failed is because Americans have an “enduring libertarian streak.” Apparently, “Americans are loath to tell their neighbors what to do.” Maybe, but that doesn’t explain this issue. If it did, then you wouldn’t have the first poll showing that 83% of the American public support background checks, would you? Or are we to believe that people lie on polls to jack up the support for things they plan to oppose?

Others suggest that this shows that the gun lobby lies. In fact, a political scientist quoted in the article says “that’s the only way to make sense of that many people being happy with the outcome.” Idiot. This is usually how morons argue – the bad guys lied, the voters are low-information voters, etc. This is simple delusion for people who don’t like the fact that what they want doesn’t sell.

Others said that maybe the problem was the public realized that this bill wouldn’t have changed anything. Indeed, even the bill’s sponsor Dianne Feinstein “conceded that none of the proposed laws, including her assault weapon ban, would have stopped the [Newton] massacre.” Could be, but then why not be angry that Congress didn’t fix the problem?

In the end, the writer scratches his head, tries to evolve, and fails fails to reach any conclusion.

Ya know... this isn’t that hard. In fact, the answer is actually pretty obvious. When you ask a question in a vacuum, people will respond whether the issue matters to them or not. In other words, asking a question in a poll only tells you how they would answer that question, not whether they care about that issue. Thus, it’s apples and oranges to assume the 83% number in the first poll actually means anyone cares about this issue. And if they don’t care, they won't be angry, will they? This about it this way... if we asked people if they want lobster if given a choice, we may find that 90% of the public says yes, but odds are that few of those people have had lobster lately or intend to have it again in the future. It’s the same thing here. People might support background checks by 83% when asked to state an opinion, but they just don’t care about the issue when they aren’t asked. So why would they be angry if it doesn’t pass? Oh, we don’t get lobster, gee, I’m angry now.

This interpretation actually was born out by the “anger” poll, which showed that only 40% of respondents were following the vote.

IN OTHER WORDS, the public doesn’t care about gun control. We know this because six in ten weren’t paying attention even though this was an issue the media covered obsessively and which Obama talked about incessantly. Even worse for gun-control advocates, of the 40% who cared enough to pay attention, 31% said they were happy the bill failed (only 22% were angry). The rest were non-committal. That means the country breaks down this way on gun control:

That’s right: 72% of the public did not care or actively opposed the bill. 8% favored it. And 20% were open to it. That’s not a chart that’s going to change anything.

Another reason the failure doesn’t make anyone angry is that there is a huge difference between supporting something in principle and supporting the specific bill in which it’s included. Supporters admitted this bill wouldn’t solve the problems they claimed it would. So why would anyone care if it fails unless they are an ideologue who wanted this to pass on principle? Moreover, they tried to fill the bill with all kinds of things with which the public did not agree. Again, this is something only ideologues want and, apparently, there are only 8% of them.

So there’s no contradiction at all between these two polls. To me, it’s pretty obvious that what’s going on is that the public just isn’t ideological on the gun control issue. They will accept reasonable restrictions if they think they will work, but they don’t want solutions that don’t work and they don’t want ideological crap rammed through on the back of the reasonable stuff. Sadly for the ideologues, that’s not enough.

The lessons here are that the liberal media is out-of-touch with the public and this should be a huge warning bell for them -- I kind of laughed when I saw an article the following day talking about how the Republicans who voted against this are now in danger with the voters. Talk about delusional. The other lesson is that the public remains much less emotional and much less ideological than people think.

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WHCD = Bias

Our media is pathetic, but then you knew that. They are biased. They are ideological. They are sycophantic. What’s even funnier though is when they pretend that they aren’t, like with the recent White House Correspondent’s Dinner.

The WHCD is a tradition which goes way back. Basically, the idea was that for one night a year, the media would call a truce with the politicians they supposedly ruthlessly cover like bulldogs, and they would all get together for a few drinks, some heavy petting and more drinks. An honorable tradition... wink wink.

But now, sadly, things have gone off-kilter. See, at one point, this was just journalists and a few politicians trading favors in darkened restrooms and coat closets. But now, Hollywood has gotten into the act. Thus, luminaries like Tom Brokaw are upstaged by Lindsay Lohan (right). . . which made poor Tom denounced the WHCD.

Poor Tom, what has become of his noble profession.

Ok, enough facetiousness. Let’s state the obvious: this whole idea is rotten to the core. The theory behind journalism is that journalists are unbiased reporters of all the ugly things that powerful people don’t want told. Indeed, being unbiased and avoiding the appearance of bias is such a big deal that it’s part of their code of ethics. It’s also the excuse they use for horrible misconduct like the guy Bev reported about who watched someone get killed by a train rather than helping or for being disloyal, like when Mike Wallace claimed he would not warn US soldiers “if he learned the enemy troops with which he was traveling were about to launch a surprise attack on an American unit.” Apparently, his duty as a journalist comes first... humanity and loyalty come second.

So how can journalists be unbiased and avoid the appearance of bias if they attend a big old get-together with the people they’re supposedly covering so mercilessly? They can’t and they know that, but they still try to justify it.

Take for example, Roger Simon of Politico, who lashed out at those attacking the ethics of those who attend the WHCD. He notes that this is just a party and it’s no different than singing the Star Spangled Banner at the ballpark. Really? So let me ask this... assume that Fox News held such a shindig for conservative politicians, do you think Simon would just excuse that as a party and being no different than singing the Star Spangled Banner? I doubt it. He’d be attacking the ethics of Fox News.

The New York Times has taken a strange, hypocritical stance on this dinner. They used to sponsor a table, but now they don’t. According to the Times:

“[W]e came to the conclusion that it had evolved into a very odd, celebrity-driven event that made it look like the press and government all shuck their adversarial roles for one night of the year, sing together (literally, by the way) and have a grand old time cracking jokes. It just feels like it sends the wrong signal to our readers and viewers, like we are all in it together and it is all a game. It feels uncomfortable.”

Interesting. So the problem is that this creates the appearance of bias because it makes it look like journalists and politicians are all playing a game together... YET it wasn’t a problem until all the celebrities started showing up and people started seeing what was going on. In other words, secret violations of ethics aren’t violations of ethics. Incidentally, the Times won’t criticize anyone who goes because they always protect their friends.

This is yet another dagger in the heart of the public’s perception of the media. According to a Pew Poll, 80% of the public thinks journalists are influenced by powerful people or organizations, 77% think they favor one side, 72% think they try to cover up their mistakes, and 63% think journalists are biased. Do you think attending this party will help or hurt those perceptions?

As an aside, here are some other interesting findings from Pew. Apparently, 46% of CNN’s coverage and 45% of Fox’s coverage in 2012 was devoted to news. The rest was opinion. Pew thinks that’s bad because it means the public is less information and it used to be well above 50%. Oh... and I should mention that MSNBC was examined too. They didn’t do so well: 15% news, 85% opinion. No wonder their audiences are idiots.

Here are some other things you may find interesting about the media:

● There are now 40,000 fewer employees in newsrooms than in 1978.

● Local TV news coverage of government politics has been halved since 2000.

● One in three people reported that they stopped going to particular news sources because they felt they no longer offered them the news they were used to getting.

● In 2012, only 27% of statements about candidates records were from news reporters, the rest came from partisan talkers, which is a complete reversal of 2000, when 67% came from reporters.

None of this bodes well for the media. On the plus side, it does seem to open the door for whoever is smart enough to seize the market the media is abandoning.

Thoughts?

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Our "Elite" Enable Terrorism

The Boston bombing is frustrating on many levels. For one thing, it’s obviously frustrating that people were hurt or killed and that lives have been disrupted. Yes, people die every day, but it’s frustrating that this was done intentionally. What’s really frustrating, however, is that so many of our chattering/political class seem intent on giving these terrorists exactly what they need.

Terrorism is an act of impotence. Essentially, there are two types of people who commit terror. The first group is the impotent loner. This is someone who is so pathetic and insignificant that they decide the only way to make themselves into a complete person is to commit some act of heinous violence so the world finally pays attention to them. These weirdos are usually shooters.

The other type is the radical. This is someone without the brains or muscle to sway the public to their cause and without the courage to stand up publicly for a cause they think is right. In effect, they are impotent to create the change they want and they think that if they can kill enough people, then the world will take them seriously and will bend to their will.

What both groups have in common is a screaming NEED for recognition. They NEED the public to take an interest in them. The impotent loner gets off on the attention. To him, this is the moment that he enters the history books, the moment where he becomes something special instead of a nobody. These losers revel in the attention – good or bad, because it gives them what they need. . . it gives their lives significance. The other group needs the public’s attention too. They need the public to hear about their pathetic cause, be it some idiotic black-helicopter cult that thinks it stands for freedom or some gutter-religion that somehow thinks their flying spaghetti monster told them to kill non-believers. They need the public to acknowledge them and to fear them.

This is what they have in common. Without attention, they are nothing.

So what does this tell us? It tells us that the only way to fight terrorism is to deny terrorists the one thing that makes it worthwhile: attention. Indeed, it is a law of human nature that people don’t do things they don’t think will give them what they want. So to stop conduct, you take away the benefit. This works with kids, it works with dogs, it works with everyone.

Unfortunately, this is where things go wrong. In our modern media world, the chattering class loves to exploit terrorism for their own gain. Within minutes of the bombing, journalists are salivating at the opportunity to throw out crocodile tears to earn ratings. “Good God! There could be a Pulitzer if I find the right words!!!” They can’t get enough. The papers, the radio, the television all go into uber-coverage mode. Every detail must be revealed, analyzed and speculated over a million times. “Oh... what does this all mean?!!!”

Then the political savages get started. The conspiracy nuts spread their poison to make themselves feel important too. Meanwhile, the Chris Mathewses of the world try to use the event to smear groups they don’t like. “Must be the Tea Party!!!” The Democrats actually called a press conference to blame the Boston bombing on sequester. At least none of them tried to wear a bloody shirt this time. The conservative chatterers are no better. They start pointing fingers at Islamic terrorism within seconds. Soon the left and the right are hacking away at each other, with both giving all the terrorists of the world. . . exactly. . . what. . . they. . . want: attention and significance. Suddenly, the impotent terrorist isn’t really so impotent because the whole world seems to be dancing to their tune.

These enablers even do stories pointing fingers at other people for encouraging terrorism.

Then comes the next wave. This is when everyone cancels events and holds vigils and does entire shows dedicated to talking about the horror of these events and how the world has changed. This is when bloggers and talk radio hosts and whatnot demonstrate how impotent they are against the terrorists by struggling to find ways to express how helpless they feel. Sure, they talk about being resolute, but their words ring “helpless.” This is the moment the impotent terrorists realize their power as they see the helplessness of their victims.

Finally, we get a break in the case. We find out who did it! Woo hoo! It’s time to really exploit this sucker! Journalist after journalist will dive right in. They will splash the name of the impotent fools all over the news. They will analyze everything they did and why they did it. They will repeat manifestos and lists of demands and will carefully explain why we should all care about this weirdo’s cause -- often with a fake disclaimer that they don’t endorse the manifesto they are publicizing. This completes the cycle. This immortalizes the impotent-loner or the forgotten-causer. For a brief moment, their pathetic, impotent little cause is the most important story on Earth, and their names now sit next to Jesus, Caesar, Hitler, and Reagan in the history books. And the only reason that happened is because our media and our political class are so determined to play right into the terrorists’ hands.

This is the problem.

If you want to stop terrorism, you deny them the benefit of being terrorists. You don’t spend time dwelling on what happened. You never explain why they did what they did. You never tell the world their names. You make it impossible for these impotent little pricks to find satisfaction through terror and you let them die unknown. That deprives them of everything they were after.

Unfortunately, our entire chattering class is determined to do its damnedest to help these people succeed. They are to blame here.

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News Round Up

All right, we are in a very, very slow news period as we wait to see what immigration reform will look like and how Obama’s gun regulation scheme will prove to be a paper frosted tiger. So let’s do a news roundup and talk about a few random things.

● Moving to Texas: Rick Perry sent out letters to gun companies in states like Colorado and Connecticut where Democratic legislatures have passed anti-gun ownership laws. He’s apparently bagged his first prize: Colt Competition of Oregon, who make high-accuracy AR-15-type rifles for shooting competitions. Others may soon follow. Several gun equipment makers in Colorado have claimed they will leave as well, but we’ll see if they do. Let’s hope they do because it’s time to show people that legislative stupidity has consequences. And losing jobs is the best way to show that. Speaking of jobs...

● Jobs, Jobs, Jobs: The jobs report was ugly. The media tried half-heartedly to blame this on sequestration, but no one believes that because almost no one feels the effects of that. Others blame it on seasonal hiring, which is more likely the case. In the end though, bad economic performance falls on the president and his party. The media is trying to deflect this, but when the best they can say is, “both parties should be embarrassed by the latest depressing jobs report,” then you know they know they have problems.

Right now, people are worried that the next three years of Obama won’t be any better than the first four. And there’s really no reason they should be. None of the things holding back the economy have changed. Basically Obama tossed some money out the window of his car as drove through the streets, that didn’t work and now he’s begging for gas money to do it again. No one has considered finding ways to lower the cost of labor or to make working more profitable. Maybe it’s time for a change? Maybe it’s time for Hillary...

● Hillary Clinton: The leftist media is starting to go all fan-boy over the prospect of Hillary running for President in 2016. Indeed, many of the articles I’ve seen on this are practically orgasmic:

“It was another week in American politics highlighted by the overwhelming and deep yearning by Democrats that Hillary should run for president in 2016, and the overwhelming and powerful support she would receive from Americans if she does.”

Yeah, everyone would love our Goddess... unlike that black guy, that pretend-messiah who can’t solve our problems. In fact, this particular article said something that struck me as rather interesting on this very point:

“It would be spectacular if Bill and Hillary Clinton would work with the Clinton Global Initiative to devise major new jobs proposals.”

This is interesting because it suggests that our slobbering author has given up hope that Obama will solve the jobs crisis, doesn’t it? And if Hillary can come up with a jobs plan as this hack believes, then why doesn’t the hack want Hillary sharing this with Obama? Why hope that Hillary waits to unveil it in her own run? I’d say the media crush is shifting to Hillary.

In fact, in the past few weeks there have been a series of things that make me think the media is done with Obama. There’s been a ton of coverage of the failures of Obamacare. There’s been extensive coverage of Obama’s “gaffe” of complimenting a chick attorney general on her looks. There’s been coverage of how big business is raking in the cash from Obama’s programs. There’s been coverage about Obama’s gun push failing because he didn’t really plan it right. And there’s been a lot of anger about the jobs report directed at “both parties.” These aren’t things that would have been covered in the past and the fact they are now suggests that the media is ready to be harsher on him.

Back to Hillary, the only real question right now is whether or not rank and file leftist fruitcakes are on the same page as the limousine media leftists. I have my doubts. So while it looks like Hillary will be anointed the heiress apparent to the pretend messiah by the media, I’m not so sure she’s going to do all that well in the primaries.

At least there’s only one Clinton, right? Uh...

● Spawn of Clintons: As if this will surprise anyone, Chelsea is now dropping hints that she might one day very soon be interested in being handed an elective office. Shocker! I’d rather vote for a Kardashian.

Anything I missed?

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Of Liberals And Redskins

One of the sites I follow is a football site. It’s unfortunate that this site has such good information because I really despise the guy who runs it. He’s paranoid. He’s a rumor monger who is prone to fantasy. He’s a lousy human being. And he’s liberal. His latest blast of liberalism involves the Washington Redskins and is worth discussing.

The guy’s name is Mike Florio and he’s a barely competent (I’m begin generous here) West Virginia lawyer who converted connections to NFL agents into a rumor site that NBC eventually bought. The guy is a real piece of work. Basically, he spends his days trying to spin everything he can into paranoid fantasies and worst case conspiracies. He’s also barely literate, which is why it’s good he’s got assistants because they’re the only ones worth reading.

Like many other liberal sports “writers” he’s also a race baiter extraordinaire. To give you an example, he “wrote” a book about a talented black quarterback and an average white quarterback who get sent back in time and discover just how racist football was in the past – writing books on racism in sports is apparently the easiest way to become a “journalist” in the sports world and you’ll find that most of them have written such a book. Moreover, every year, once the NFL season ends, Florio dives into the issue of how many black coaches there are in the league – he uses the word “minority” but he only counts blacks... Asians, pacific-islanders, women, Hispanics, Muslims need not apply. And no matter how many black coaches he finds, he always finds the number to be shockingly lacking. He’ll then typically pimp for some black coach who didn’t get enough interviews in Florio’s mind. This year, it was Lovie Smith who was fired as the Bears coach after not winning a playoff game in 7 seasons... gee, who wouldn't want to hire him?

Anyway, this year, he came up with a new way to race bait. See, it turns out that the name “Washington Redskins” is offensive to some people. Hence, the dictates of political correctness tell Florio that something must be done to eliminate this evil.

Now, before we go further, let me say this. First, I don’t doubt that the name is offensive to some people, though I know it was never meant to be offensive. . . team names are always meant to honor something. Secondly, I firmly believe those people have the right to be offended and to demand that the Redskins change their name. Third, I firmly believe that the Redskins have the right to use the name even if people are offended. Fourth, I honestly don’t care. This is the great thing about America. Everyone has a right to be upset about whatever they want, and the rest of us have the right to ignore them. If you can get enough people on your side that a business or sports team thinks it’s smart to change, then more power to you. . . just don’t use the government. Indeed, this is exactly what freedom is about: the right to insult, the right to be insulted, the right to not care, and the right to bear the consequences of your words and deeds.

Now, back to Florio. Florio is a typical liberal and this issue really highlights what is wrong with liberal thinking.

First, like all liberals, Florio pretends he’s nonpartisan even though he’s a heavy partisan hack. He’s like another idiot sports writer (and friend of Florio) Peter King, who claims to be nonpartisan and then goes on anti-gun rants, pro-Al Gore rants, pro-union rants, etc. So realize that he starts by lying about his biases.

Secondly, like liberals who seek to “raise awareness” and that garbage, Florio doesn’t actually take a stance himself. Nope. He doesn’t decide not to use the name or to stop showing the team logo. No, sir. He’s not a man of principle until he can get someone to force everyone else to stand on principle with him. It’s like a vegetarian who eats meat until everyone else is forced to give up meat as well. So much for principles.

Third, like all liberals who love to use other people to achieve their ends (see e.g. taxing the rich so liberals can spend their money and feel smug about helping people), Florio doesn’t even undertake this crusade himself. No, sir. Florio tries to force Washington Redskin quarterback Robert Griffin III to do it. Indeed, that’s what got this issue noticed. Rather than saying “the Redskins should change,” Florio takes the position that RGIII need to be advocating for the change.

How nice is that to dump this on a kid who is new to the NFL and tell him that he better be out there running your crusade for you? Indeed, what a typical liberal ass to (1) try to hijack someone else’s popularity for his own cause, and to (2) dump his own responsibilities onto another person – responsibilities Florio himself won’t even partake in until RGIII changes the world so everyone needs to do as Florio wants

Moreover, did you notice that Florio simply assumes RGIII must agree with him? Indeed, it never occurs to Florio that anyone could disagree except for the Redskins’ owner who must be a racist. Let me suggest that there is actual racism in Florio picking RGIII. RGIII is black and it very much strikes me that Florio assumes that blacks must have solidarity with this issue because political correctness and identity politics assumes groupthink among minorities. In other words, because RGIII is black, Florio assumes he must be a fellow traveler.

Fourth, when Florio started drawing heat for this, he started phrasing his articles in the third person to suggest that this wasn’t an issue he had made up, but was instead an issued which everyone was already talking about. For example, if he asked person X about this in an interview, he wouldn’t say that he asked person X, he would instead describe it as if “people” were talking about this including person X. This is the same garbage leftists have been doing for a century – pretending that groups of people are clamoring for something they aren’t.

Fifth, the Washington Redskins responded by pointing out that a great many high school teams across the country use the same name and logo and that none of them have ever had a problem with it. Florio pounced on this by claiming it doesn’t matter how many people find the name non-offensive since that defense is “the equivalent of saying, ‘Well, some of my best friends are Redskins.’” See what he did there? He’s implying that if you agree with the Redskins, then you’re a racist. Further, think about this point. Florio claims that it doesn’t matter how many others aren’t bothered, so long as someone is bothered. If we take this at face value, then it’s a ludicrous position to take. All anyone needs to do is claim offense then everyone else would need to adjust. Essentially, Florio is advocating a world where we can all hold each other hostage by calling ourselves victims. This, of course, is exactly what political correctness is all about. It’s about letting tiny minority groups terrorize and demand concessions from whomever they want. It’s about letting the hypersensitive control the language and the culture.

Moreover, let me assure you that Florio’s position is disingenuous. In his world, he’s the arbiter of what is offensive and what isn’t, a right he denies the rest of us. If I contacted him tomorrow and I said that I found the name Florio offensive because it reminds me of hillbilly rapists, I can assure you he would not say, “well, Price is offended and it doesn’t matter how many people aren’t, the name needs to change.” No, he would say, “I’m not offended and I don’t believe other people will see the offense either, so I’m not changing.” But Mike, that’s like saying, “some of my best friends are Florios.” Assh*le.

Anyway, I expect this campaign will continue to go nowhere, but I thought it was worth pointing out this turd’s thinking because we see it over and over across the liberal spectrum. Liberals really are vile people who lie, distort, mislead and try to use others for their own purposes, all in the name of forcing others to “do the right thing,” a thing they don’t feel obligated to do themselves. Don’t ever believe it.

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Handling A Scandal

Who knew it was wrong to visit underage hookers in the Dominican Republic while lying about who paid for the trip to get you there? Oh, and did I mention that the person in question is a US Senator? Did you know the donor who paid $58,000 to make these trips happen via private jet is under criminal investigation for Medicare fraud? The Democratic Senator in question is New Jersey's Robert “Come here little girl” Menendez. The reason you haven’t heard much about this is what I want to talk about because this highlights several lessons the Republicans must learn.

● Media “Silence”: This scandal has been a virtual paradigm of how the MSM helps Democrats. Under normal circumstances, when someone is accused of a sex crime, the media can’t get enough. . . because they’re perverts and they love that stuff. Add in a political angle and you’re guaranteed to have “journalists” camping out before homes and chasing down limousines to get you pictures of the perv all the while using the word “alleged” to avoid legal problems. This time, however, there is near total silence.

Why? To put it simply, because the MSM would rather protect a kiddie-phile than be forced to unseat someone of their ideological liking.

But the MSM couldn’t get away with total silence, so what they’ve done is a rather fascinating bit of advocacy. First, the leftist New York Times ran an article saying that Menendez should lose his committee chairmanship in the Senate until this thing blows over. Notice that they didn’t call on him to resign, nor did they demand a witch burning, as they would have done had Menendez been anything other than a sitting Democratic powerbroker. The purpose of this article was two fold. First, it saved the reputation of the NYT in the event Menendez finally goes down because they can claim they were calling for his head from the beginning. . . even though they didn’t. At the same time, the article actually buys the Democrats time by suggesting that a pointless slap on the wrist is the appropriate punishment and it basically advocates referring this issue to committee. . . where all investigations go to be forgotten. In effect, they are telling the public to be placated if Menendez simply maintains a low profile until the thing blows over. But they are keeping their options open to claim they were after him should things turn ugly.

Meanwhile, fellow travelers like The Washington Post are running articles quoting unnamed sources who assure us that there is no truth to these allegations, that the allegations are politically motivated (even if true), and that there is nothing to see here. This is a classic whitewash.

● Harry Scumbag Reid: Harry Reid has handled this perfectly too. First, he has refused to say anything other than to repeat the mantra that this is under investigation and we need to learn the facts first. This does two things. First, it makes him sound like he is taking this serious at the same time he’s telling people that this is not a big deal. Yet, it also leaves the door open for him to jettison Menendez should things go wrong for Menendez. Moreover, by refusing to say anything more, he shifts the focus to the investigation itself, and with the investigators not talking, the story basically dies. . . as there are no journalists doing their own digging.

At the same time, you may notice that not another single Democrats has uttered a word about this. This is a lesson the Republicans really need to learn. Every lawyer knows this. . . when your client is in trouble, you shut up, you tell them to shut up, and you tell their friends to shut up. Why in the world Republicans always think they need to opine on any scandal against one of their own is beyond me, but it’s stupid. Seriously, if you can’t say anything good, then stay away from the microphone until it’s time to put a knife in the guy.

● Republican Silence: There are many lessons here for conservatives. First, follow Reid’s example when one of your own gets into trouble. Don’t volunteer to try the guy in the media. Don’t offer juicy quotes of support or condemnation. . . send it to committee unless you’re sure how it will turn out, and then act decisively with a total defense or a total condemnation.

Secondly, the MSM will never do their job when a Democrat is at risk, so it’s time for conservatives to develop their own journalists. The Democrats couldn’t hide this if there were a dozen real conservative journalists digging into this story and writing story after story about it. That would force them to respond, which will smoke out the Harry Reids and the Menendezes and force their hands before they are ready. Right now, there is no one doing this. . . conservatives just spin AP stories, they don’t investigate.

Third, where are the people screaming from the sidelines? This is perhaps the biggest lesson. If Menendez had been a Republican, every Democrat on Capitol Hill would have attacked this as illegal, disgusting and a breach of Congressional ethics. They would be filing complaints, demanding censure and demanding ouster. Every head of every interest group would be doing the same. Feminists would be screaming about the abuse of women. Child-advocates would be talking about the abuse of children. Immigrant groups would be talking about the abuse of foreigners. Child-sex people (con) would be out there screaming that Menendez is worse than Hitler. Child-sex people (pro) would be calling him a hypocrite. And it wouldn’t matter to these people if this was true or not, they would be screaming away. And if it turned out he wasn’t guilty, so what. . . they move on to the next target with no sense of shame.

So where are the conservative groups? No one on our side is screaming about him, disrupting his office or his press conferences, writing editorials, putting up billboards, whatever. Nada.

I think this is the result of several factors that need to change:

● Conservatives need to learn that politics is bloodsport and they need to learn to attack everything. You can’t kill an idea, but you can kill the messenger, so start aiming for the people. There are no points given for manners or nobility. Honor is for chumps.

● Despite the fact conservatives whine about the MSM, they bizarrely turn to the MSM at moments like this and trust that the MSM will “do it’s job.” This is sheer stupidity. Stop relying on institutions that oppose you. Conservatives need to become journalists and generate their own stories.

● The real issue, however, goes back to conservatives no longer caring about people. Conservatives are happy to talk about budgets and theory, but the moment they need to actually talk about a human being (and especially specific human beings) they clam up. For reasons I do not understand, conservatives just don’t like talking about things that make the blood boil or which are likely to upset people on a personal/emotional level. They dismiss this as a sideshow or as Jerry Springer. The truth is that these are the issues from which public perception is made. To give Menendez a pass is to help the Democrats maintain their image as non-corrupt and decent. It’s time conservatives start realizing that the public, like soylent green, is made from people, not robots, not computers, not economics or theologians. . . people. Reagan campaign guru Lee Atwater once said that he read the National Enquirer ever day because that helped him keep a pulse on what people are thinking. Conservatives need to put down the textbooks and start looking at what really matters to people.

Thoughts?

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Too Inside Baseball

I respect Michael Barone. He’s knowledgeable and he’s insightful. I have, however, lost a good deal of faith in his insight lately. It’s not so much that he got the election results so wrong, it’s that I haven’t seen any evidence that he’s really grasped yet why we lost. His article the other day about Eric Cantor highlights the problem. In fact, it highlights the problem with the entire beltway pundit-ocracy.

I’ve made no secret of the things I’ve learned and the things I’ve come to realize about the defects with our side right now. We offer nothing that anyone except a few purists could care about. We offer nothing to assure people that they will have jobs in the future, much less better jobs. We offer nothing to protect homeowners, to make investments less of a rigged game, to help people send their kids to school, to ensure people’s retirement, to ensure people’s health or safety, or to protection people’s privacy or civil rights. And the public knows this. They see that we don’t offer any of these things.

You would think that someone whose job it is to analyze our political system, our parties, and our electorate would recognize this huge glaring defect staring us in the face. Yet, our pundits don’t. Everywhere I look, our pundits are jerking themselves off over Benghazi or whatever tactical advantage they think the Republicans have over “sequestration”. . . a term not one in 100 Americans has even heard. They still think there’s an “advantage” to be gained by forcing the Democrats to pass a budget. . . an issue the public again doesn’t care about in the least. Or they think Reid’s fake attack on senate procedures matters to people. Whatever.

The problem here is that every one of these people is too “inside baseball.” They live in a private club and they don’t realize that the public doesn’t care about their club. Think of it this way. Every year industries like the marketing industry and Hollywood hand out all kinds of technical achievement awards for things that excite all the experts but which the public never notices. It’s the same thing here. The public does not care about process or about achievement or about gamesmanship. . . they only care about the big picture and results. Our pundits don’t seem to get that anymore because they’ve been in the club so long they mistake the club for America. It’s not.

That brings me to Michael Barone and, by extension, Eric Cantor.

On Thursday, Cantor gave a big speech that was supposed to lay out the new and improved vision for the Republican party. This was supposed to be the unveiling of the new consumer-friendly strategy. . . the grand opening of the NEW GOP to win the people back.

That sound of crickets you hear is coming from the public.

The sound of gushing you hear is coming from the insiders.

That’s the problem.

Michael Barone wrote about the speech in rather glowing terms. First, he wastes the first half of his article by talking about the fiscal cliff being an “insider’s game” but then wrongly arguing that the sequestration issue will be different. See, this time the Republicans have the upper hand because they can stomach the cuts and Obama can’t.

Oy. That’s just wrong. That again mistakes the inside baseball stuff for the public. First, the fiscal cliff was only an insider’s game to the extent of the potential Republican victory. In other words, what the Republicans were trying could at best score points with people who are part of the club -- the public couldn’t care less. BUT, the risk of playing that game was that the Republicans would be seen by the public as harming the country to score political points. Those are stupid odds to accept... heads you win a token victory, tales you lose big. Secondly, sequestration IS the fiscal cliff all over again, and Barone should see this. The best the Republicans can achieve if somehow everything goes right is some meaningless insider-victory. Nothing they can achieve will mean anything to the public. Yet, the cost will be that the public will see the Republicans as irresponsible obstructionists who want to stop military pay, let doctors go unpaid and kill old people. Barone would see this if he wasn’t so tightly wrapped up in this insider bubble.

Barone then finally addresses Cantor’s speech and he gushes (as least for Barone) over the speech because this introduces the Republican’s “outsider game,” i.e. their plan to talk to the unwashed public. What made him so happy?

(1) First, Cantor spoke “not of educational block grants, but of having federal education [dollars] ‘follow children’ to schools their parents choose.” Then he noted that Cantor talked about some specific members of the prole class who this would help.

(2) He brought a 12-year old girl who needed treatment for cancer “to illustrate Republican support for funding basic medical research.”

(3) He then brought some Chinese grad student who is here on a visa and he endorsed the Dream Act and “citizenship for illegal immigrants brought here as children.”

Barone then smiles and tells us that he’s not sure how effective this will be, but he’s glad the Republicans are trying.

Shoot me now.

Dragging kids to speeches is cute, but the public wants solutions. . . not photo-ops. So praising the photo-op is more insider garbage. The education idea is a decent one, but it only addresses a tiny portion of the debate. It ignores colleges entirely, how parents would know which schools are good, reforming schools that are ok but not great, etc. This is just the same old voucher pitch that has won a little, but hasn’t really set the world on fire.

The cancer research thing is ridiculous. For one thing, funding cancer research is not something the public is screaming for. You don’t see that anywhere on the public’s list of concerns. They are much more concerned with health care generally. Moreover, when issues of research do come up, the Republicans are usually the ones screaming that “God don’t like that” and wanting it stopped. Dragging a cancer patient from her bed isn’t going to change the public’s perception. . . only a change in policy will change that.

Third, his immigration stance is absolutely the worst of all worlds. His solution will anger Hispanics because it keeps open the door to deport them, i.e. “it changes nothing.” But it will also anger conservatives because it will stop us from deporting some of them, i.e. “it’s a total surrender.” The only thing his position is guaranteed to do is to anger everyone and to keep this debate alive and angry for another several decades.

Finally, let me point out the big problem once again. This was supposed to be a speech to the American people to get them to see value in our brand again, but what is being offered here? Jack squat. As usual, there is nothing here to assure people about their jobs, their homes, their assets, their pensions, their health, their retirements or their rights. There is a little on education if you fall into the small group who could use vouchers, there’s a nice photo-op if you get turned on by images of cancer patients, and there’s a promise that we won’t deport the kids of illegal immigrants. That’s it.

The fact that Barone doesn’t see this flaw is troubling. He’s one of our more insightful analysts, and if he can’t see this GLARING problem, then clearly it’s time for a change. It’s time we imposed term limits on pundits because these guys are so lost inside baseball that they don’t even know why fans watch the game anymore.

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“Fact Checking” Must Die

Conservatives are always behind in the information wars because they don’t understand how the culture works, and it’s about to get worse because they are missing something big. The left has created a new weapon which conservatives need to learn to counter: the fact check.

The “Fact Check” is the name given to a type of article now run by most MSM news organizations after all events. What these articles are, in theory, are unbiased journalists examining something like a speech and comparing what was said to the facts. These are particularly catchy articles because of the promise of delivering truth to the reader instead of spin. Basically, the reader “knows” that by reading this article, rather than listening to the speech, the debate or the press conference, they will get both a synopsis of the important points made during the event and an analysis that cuts through the lies and spin and tells them what to really believe.

That’s a pretty powerful promise. . . but it’s a lie.

In reality, these fact check articles are written by leftist journalists with an agenda. They spin and distort what was said and then they label things as true or false to fit their agenda. To back up their assertions, they cite garbage studies or analysis performed by leftist groups as if those things were unbiased and uncontroversially proven true. Sometimes, they even cite directly to organizations like Fact Check as unbiased sources who have researched various claims. Fact Check, however, is left leaning and I can tell you that (1) they almost never accuse a leftist/Democrat of being untruthful and they almost never admit a conservative is being truthful, (2) I have found many examples of lies and distortions within their data, (3) they resolve all policy disputes in favor of the left’s position as being truthful and the conservative position as being merely an unfounded assertion, and (4) their research relies on leftist think tanks or newspapers and is woefully incomplete and biased.

. . . but the public doesn’t know this.

So when they hear “an unbiased research organization has declared this a lie,” they believe it. This is a serious problem in the making. DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE THIS!

At first, these fact check articles were only used in debates, where the lies and distortions come fast and furiously. But now I’m seeing them everywhere. They fact check Obama’s speeches and find them almost entirely truthful. They fact check Republican speeches and find them to be packed with lies. Before Christmas, they fact checked a speech by the NRA and tore it apart even though I could actually cite proof to refute the fact check article.

Unfortunately, this is where conservative blindness kicks. Most conservatives will dismiss that as “well, it’s the MSM, we expect that from them so who cares?” The public cares. . . that's the problem.

This is critical. The left, through the MSM, is staking out ground as the arbiters of what is true and what is not, and the public doesn’t have the tools or inclination to know that they are being spun. If we let this go unchallenged, you will find the public being slowly pulled into believing that leftist analysis and spin is truth. Conservatives cannot let that happen.

So how do we fight this? The conservative instinct, as always, will be to point out the bias. But that’s hopeless, that will come across as someone with a bias attacking an unbiased organization because they don’t like their side being exposed. Instead, there is only one way to fight this and that is to destroy of the idea of the “fact check.” To do this, conservatives need to create “unbiased organizations” to watch every single speech, debate or announcement (liberal or conservative) and they need to start running “fact checks” on those. And those fact checks need to be heavily partisan -- partisan that they get mocked by the left. That will get the left to do our work for us by discrediting the idea of the “fact check.” At the same time, conservatives need to start referring to all other fact checks a “liberal” or “leftist” and never admit they are right, even when they are. That is the only way to put the idea of the fact check into such ill repute that the public stops paying attention. If conservatives don’t do this, they can forget winning the info-wars because the left will be in charge of telling people what is true and what is not. This is a problem.

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Politico: "Obama Falls Flat"

You know things are going poorly for a Democratic president when the MSM turns on them. And the last month has seen a significant number of journalists doing just that. Some have been more obvious than others. The left-leaning Politico in particular has turned on their crush. Observe.

The morning after Obama gave his big speech at the convention, Politico ran a huge headline: “Obama Fell Flat.” This is quite the shocker, even if it is true. Even more interestingly, they pulled no punches in the associated article. They noted that a “long parade of Democrats and media commentators” didn’t think much of the speech and described it as “a fizzle – an oddly missed opportunity to frame his presidency.” They pointed out that even those who like the speech graded it as little more than “effective. . . in a tough-minded if prosaic style.” They said it paled in comparison to Michelle Obama’s and Bill Clinton’s. They said it “underscored the limits of Obama’s oratorical skills in the context of a grind-it-out campaign.” And they even pointed out that Obama’s campaign knew the speech had failed by evidence of senior staff sharing focus group results with reporters, something that would never have been reported on in the past.

Others has similar reactions, especially on the left:

● The Daily Beast: “Let’s be blunt. Barack Obama gave a dull and pedestrian speech tonight, with nary an interesting thematic device, policy detail, or even one turn of phrase.”

● James Carville: “Certainly not the best speech of this convention.”

● Mother Jones: “I didn’t feel any real passion in the delivery. It felt more like an actor soldiering through his lines. There was nothing memorable, nothing forward looking, and nothing that drew a contrast with Romney in sharp, gut-level strokes. Obama was, to be charitable, no more than the third best of the Democratic convention’s prime time speakers in 2012.”

● Nathan Daschle (former head of the Democratic Governors Association): “Disappointed. It was sort of a metaphor for his entire first term.”

These aren’t things Democrats or leftist television hacks normally say. Indeed, this is the silly season of politics where nothing you read isn’t pure spin anymore. So for them to criticize Obama now is truly amazing.

And it doesn’t stop there. Right after telling us how the speech flopped, Politico ran an article under the headline: “Jobs report challenges Obama’s economic message” in which they point out that last Friday’s jobs report completely undercut the entire Democratic message that things are getting better. The article even opened with this line: “President Barack Obama’s convention honeymoon lasted all of eight hours.”

And indeed, that jobs report was dismal as it showed dramatic slowing of the job market and hundreds of thousands of people dropping out of the search for employment altogether.

A few hours later, Politico pointed out under another blaring headline that the number of viewers for the convention was DOWN FROM 2008! (35.7 million compared to 38.4 million). That they didn’t downplay this drew a lot of angry comments.

And this follows a growing trend over the last several weeks where they did articles debunking Obama’s claims and pointing out that while both campaigns have been negative in terms of attacking the other’s policies, the personal attacks are coming overwhelming from Obama. They particularly noted the constant charges of criminality, racism, and the repeated comparisons to Nazis by Team Obama. I find this fascinating.

The MSM never takes shots at Democrats this close to the election, but here they are. I think there are three reasons for this:

● Street Cred: If the media believes Obama is finished, and I’ve stated a pretty strong case for that, then now would be the time for them to regain their credibility with the public by attacking him and debunking his lies. They will need that credibility if they want to be able to criticize President Romney without being dismissed as partisan. And if Obama is going down, then there’s no reason not to pile on now.

● The Left Is Angry: As much as some conservatives like to think of Obama as a leftist ideologue, he certainly hasn’t lived up to their expectations. His Wall Street reform bill was a sop to big banks. Taxes are still low compared to where they were even after Reagan’s first round of tax cuts. Obamacare sucks, but he didn’t socialize anything. . . it was basically a sop to insurance companies. There aren’t any new social programs. He didn’t grant an amnesty. He never pushed for equal pay amendments for women. He finally started talking in favor of the gay agenda, but hasn’t delivered. And his environmentalism is all crony-environmentalism. About the only thing he did was send taxpayer money to unions.

I suspect a big part of what we’re seeing here is that the left has decided Obama deceived them and that he will never come through for them. So I think they are willing to take him on.

● Journalists Just Don’t Like Him: Finally, Politico has been running a fascinating series of articles detailing how many journalists simply don’t like Obama. They’ve described him as arrogant, detached, petty and uninspired. They don’t like the way they’ve been treated by the campaign. They don’t think much of his skills. It is very difficult to treat people fairly when you have personal animus toward them, and I suspect there is a large amount of this going on as well.

Whatever the reasons, it’s clear to me that the MSM is not Obama’s friend, not at the moment.

Thoughts?

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