Crush Liberalism

Liberalism: Why think when you can “feel”?

Quote of the day

This is juicy in several different yummy flavors! Get this, from Newsbusters:

Thursday’s edition of “Good Morning America” featured a Diane Sawyer anecdote that revealed the low opinion Americans have of journalists. After wrapping up a segment on people who avoid jury duty, the ABC co-host recounted the “hurtful” experience she had in a courtroom:
[Link to video]
[Wrap up of segment on getting out of jury duty.]

Diane Sawyer: “You know, I wanted to sit on a jury once and I was taken off the jury. And the judge said to me, ‘Can, you know, can you tell the truth and be fair?’ And I said, ‘That’s what journalists do.’ And everybody in the courtroom laughed. It was the most hurtful moment I think I’ve ever had.”

I don’t know what’s funnier: the jury’s laughter (and laugh they should), or that Dim Diane was clueless and naive enough to think that normal Americans hold her and her MSM brethren in such high esteem.

July 12, 2007 Posted by | media bias, quote of the day | Leave a Comment

This blog is rated…


Apprently, “This rating was determined based on the presence of the following words”:

gun (10x)
murder (5x)
bomb (3x)
steal (2x)
death (1x)

That’s outrageous! I mean, I could have sworn I’ve used those words a helluva lot more times than that!

The rating isn’t based on racy photos, on threats, or on foul language (since I avoid the former and try to keep the latter to a minimum). Interestingly, according to this same “rating” site, my blog is more risqué and less tame than the Kos kooks’ site (they got a PG-13) and the DUmb#ss Underground site (rated G??)! You ever see the level of profanity, veiled threats, and vitriol there? Yikes.

Hat tip to RV for alerting me to this.

July 12, 2007 Posted by | non-political | Leave a Comment

We should embrace the Fairness Doctrine?

Many of the points below have been made here by me and commenters, but this is a good way to tie all the points together. From Bruce Chapman:

Liberals are hailing a report that calls for federal regulations to end the “structural imbalance in political talk radio.” Two think tanks, the Center for American Progress and the Free Press, complain that more than 90 percent of the programs on talk radio feature conservative hosts and themes while only 10 percent are “progressive.”

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., has promised to examine the report’s recommendations for possible legislation and Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., says flatly, “It’s time to reinstitute the Fairness Doctrine. I have this old-fashioned attitude that when Americans hear both sides of the story, they’re in a better position to make a decision.”

That really is a good, old-fashioned attitude, all right. But under the so-called Fairness Doctrine that the Federal Communications Commission pursued until 1987, many broadcasters observed that government regulation actually stifled the free market in opinion and effectively politics to little-watched schedules on Sunday mornings. It was known informally as “the public affairs ghetto.” Stations presented only as much public debate as they needed to secure renewal of their public licenses.

But the new think tank study insists that talk radio is “imbalanced” and that the imbalance is due largely to the preferences of large radio conglomerates that are run by middle-aged white men. They demand that the government step in and break up the big radio chains and require as much progressive programming as conservative.

At this point Republicans, perhaps surprisingly, are rubbing their hands and hoping for a fight on the Fairness Doctrine. They think the threats from liberal legislators will backfire, helping to unite and activate the nation’s 50 million or so talk radio listeners, most of them conservatives, and get them to the polls.

But the right could be making a mistake. Instead of opposing a new “Fairness Doctrine,” perhaps conservatives should embrace it — providing, that is, that the new policy is extended to all media, not just talk radio. (Do I notice some “progressives” throwing down their papers in disgust?)

Let’s start with that most public of federal broadcast entities, National Public Radio. Increasingly, its sponsors range from foundations with an ideological ax to grind to law firms and national teachers unions. Conservatives find that stories they care about just don’t make it onto NPR schedules. When the rare conservative gets invited to participate on an NPR issues panel, somehow there are two or three liberals facing him, with a liberal host recognizing the speakers.

Next, the new Fairness Doctrine should apply to television, including not just PBS, but also CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN and MSNBC, as well as the FOX channel. When newscasters seek legally required balance on a given issue, let’s see if they can be persuaded to find the most articulate conservative — not the most egregious and unpopular — to reply to the liberal voice.

In addition to cable broadcasting, the new Fairness Doctrine also should reach into the press. I know print media have always been exempt, but, hey, judicial precedents change. Newspapers and news magazines not only use the public mails to ship some of their goods (often at subsidized rates), but they also run their delivery trucks over public roads and park their corner coin-boxes on public sidewalks. The current philosophy of government seems to be, if it moves, the government has a say in it, so why should newspapers get away with sitting in aloof Olympian judgment on everyone else?

It is never going to happen, you say. Well, OK, but let’s just open up the fairness issue as wide as possible and see where the debate takes us.

It should be exciting, especially when we have congressional hearings that extend the concept of political and cultural “fairness” still further — to Hollywood.

Or maybe the left would be smart to drop the matter altogether.

“Smart” and “left” should rarely go in the same sentence, Bruce.

July 12, 2007 Posted by | Fairness Doctrine, hypocrisy, media bias | 3 Comments

Irony alert: Johnny Mac violates campaign finance law?

You reap what you sow, Senator McCain. From the Old Gray Hag:

About 3 p.m. Tuesday, Senator John McCain ducked off the Senate floor, entered the Republican cloakroom and took out his mobile phone. Just hours after accepting the resignation of his two top campaign aides, he was making a conference call to his top fund-raisers to urge them to keep up the fight.

The call, however, may only have exacerbated an already tough week for Mr. McCain. Senate ethics rules expressly forbid lawmakers to engage in campaign activities inside Senate facilities. If Mr. McCain solicited campaign contributions on a call from government property, that would be a violation of federal criminal law as well.

There is no evidence that Mr. McCain has made a habit of making such calls or otherwise exploiting his office for political gain, and he is hardly the first lawmaker to call a donor from under the Capitol dome. But he made the call as he was in the spotlight because of the staff shake-up, sagging poll numbers and disappointing fund-raising of his Republican presidential primary campaign.

It was the kind of technical mistake that seasoned aides — like the ones his campaign is now letting go — are supposed to prevent.

Mr. McCain was well aware of the rules. Ten years ago he led Republican calls for an independent prosecutor to investigate accusations of violations of the same rules by Vice President Al Gore. Mr. McCain went on to make the episode a cornerstone of both his 2000 Republican primary campaign and his argument for the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law.
…
Back then, the need for campaign finance reform was one of Mr. McCain’s favorite themes, and he often mocked Mr. Gore’s argument that there was “no controlling legal authority” forbidding his fund-raising calls from another federal property, the White House.

“The American people deserve a controlling ethical authority,” Mr. McCain used to repeat on the campaign trail, “as well as controlling legal authority.”

Johnny Mac and his boy Russ stepped all over the First Amendment, with an assist from Jorgé W. Bush and the Supremes, with that awful Campaign Finance Reform Act. How fitting that he is now running afoul of it.

July 12, 2007 Posted by | irony, McCain | Leave a Comment

"Al Gore And NBC: Birds Of A Feather"

Abso-freakin’-lutely awesome piece from Investors Business Daily (via CNN):

Politics: Was what Al Gore called “the largest global entertainment event in all of human history” also the largest in-kind political contribution? And where’s the Fairness Doctrine when you need it?

Considering that here in the U.S. the Peacock Network’s three-hour Gore infomercial on global warming lost out in the ratings to “Cops” and “America’s Funniest Home Videos,” Gore’s claim may be open to question. Live Earth, in fact, may have been America’s funniest home video. Ever. (Ouch! – Ed.)

But thanks in large part to the 75 hours of free airtime that NBC gave Gore on its various stations, starting with NBC and including CNBC, Bravo, the Sundance channel, Universal HD and Telemundo, Gore may now be the 800-pound gorilla this political season.

Gore insists he’s not running for president. Yet, as we have wondered before, why would a man who insists that global warming is the biggest threat to mankind, bigger than nuclear terror, not want control of the reins of a major world polluter and chief resister to Kyoto?

Dan Harrison, an NBC corporate senior vice president, called the Gore effort “an initiative we believe in” — the “we” presumably including corporate parent General Electric. (NYSE:GE) Yet he insisted: “I don’t think climate change is a political issue.”

From the other side of his mouth, Harrison opined: “If it’s a political issue, it’s whether the political will exists to address that change. We know we need to do something, and this is a way to heighten awareness.”

So he considers it NBC’s mission to generate that political will in an election cycle in support of a man who once ran for president.

NBC and GE have other interests in hyping climate change. Let’s not forget GE is the parent of NBC and stands to make a wad of cash from selling alternative energy products from wind turbines to solar panels to those compact fluorescent bulbs containing mercury.

So when Gore prances on stage to demand we stop building coal-fired plants, that’s music to GE’s corporate ears.

NBC’s Ann Curry certainly thinks global warming is a political issue. During prime-time coverage, she almost got down on her knees to beg the jolly green giant to run for the White House.

Interviewing Gore from the site of the concert in New Jersey, Curry gushed:

“A lot of people want me to ask you tonight if you’re running for president. And I know what you’re answer is gonna be, believe me. I gotta ask you though. After fueling this grass-roots movement, if you become convinced that without you there will not be the political will in the White House to fight global warming to the level that is required, because the clock is ticking, would you answer the call? Would you answer the call, yes or no?”

Certainly Gore thinks global warming is a political issue, appearing earlier this year before Democrat-controlled House and Senate committees pleading for action. During his opening statement before the House, he famously said: “The planet has a fever. If your baby has a fever, you go to the doctor.”

After Gore’s testimony, a better course of action would have been to ask for a second opinion.

When a conservative appears on talk radio, liberals cry for the Fairness Doctrine. Seventy-five free hours for Archbishop Gore’s Church of Climate Change? Not a peep.

Nope…no liberal media bias!

July 12, 2007 Posted by | global warming, Gore, hypocrisy, media bias | Leave a Comment

Al Qaeda at pre-9/11 strength?

From Breitbart:

U.S. intelligence analysts have concluded al-Qaida has rebuilt its operating capability to a level not seen since just before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, The Associated Press has learned.

The conclusion suggests that the network that launched the most devastating terror attack on the United States has been able to regroup along the Afghan-Pakistani border despite nearly six years of bombings, war and other tactics aimed at crippling it.

Still, numerous government officials say they know of no specific, credible threat of a new attack on U.S. soil.

A counterterrorism official familiar with a five-page summary of the new government threat assessment called it a stark appraisal to be discussed at the White House on Thursday as part of a broader meeting on an upcoming National Intelligence Estimate.

The official and others spoke on condition of anonymity because the secret report remains classified.

Two observations:

1. If this report is true, then this is horrible news for America (which means it’s good news for Democrats).

2. This story is based on an anonymous source leaking classified material pertaining to national security, which is a crime. Therefore, I am just sure this will attract the same level of outrage, if not higher, among the left that they had when a non-covert pencil pushing desk jockey’s name was given to Richard Armitage, right? For those of you on the left, the prior sentence was sarcasm.

July 12, 2007 Posted by | hypocrisy, religion of peace | Leave a Comment

   

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