Reported Outbreak of Journalism at CNN

A.C. 180 Profiles Obama Stimulus "High-Speed Rail"  

High-speed rail is a lovely idea. The thought of being able to speedily go where one wants while watching the lovely countryside pass by is an appealing one. Maybe on trains we will get seats that accommodate us better than coach class on a plane could ever hope to. We ought to applaud the Obama Administration’s efforts to make high-speed rail a reality, right?

Well, maybe not. You see, the folks at CNN decided to be journalists, and exposed the $12 Billion high-speed rail stimulus spending as a boondoggle that it is:



Kudos to CNN for their reporting. I suppose there is no reason why we couldn’t have had this brand of reporting last year, when there was a presidential election going on. For the moment, however, I will suspend my rancor and instead encourage more such reporting from the network. After all, I am sure that there are a great many other administration boondoggles worthy of excoriation on prime-time television.  

Even More Hilarious Than Before........

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The New and Improved Obama Media

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Full Speed Ahead........A Ship of Fools

Babalu

So, I am hearing from people like Frank Luntz, and others, that Obama won over voters because he ran a negative, mean and nasty campaign, and campaign ads filled with lies ... and Romney lost because he didn't. I thought in the last few elections we have been told the American people didn't want any part of negative campaigning. Which is it, huh ... because I really am fed up with the moving of the goal posts every election on this reasoning?

This is hard enough, but it appears as if all sanity is gone. Really, Florida?Rep. Allen West may possibly be out of the House.

That flaming idiot Alan Grayson has been voted back into the House.

And just to be fair, Ohio ... you really are a hopeless pathetic mudhole. Just keep digging...

Meanwhile, the Hurricane Sandy-stricken east coast is under another bad storm. But just so you folks suffering through being kicked while still down, Chris Matthews wants you to know your losses were the bestest damn thing evah for Barack Obama.

 

America, THIS is the filthy mentality YOU threw-in with... This is where you get your information and truth from. The deaths of over 110 people and billions in destruction was just friggin great for Obama, according to Chris Matthews. I am certain Matthews won't find any disagreement in the White House, just as long as he keeps sipping from the Obama bed pan he has been carrying for the guy for the last five years.

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The Media and Mormonism, on the Eve of the Election

Human Events 

"At the end of August, Ed Klein, author of The Amateur: Barack Obama in the White House, wrote an editorial for Fox News in which he described a meeting headed by Obama’s campaign manager, David Axelrod. “According to my sources inside the campaign, Axelrod & Co. discussed what might be called the nuclear option: unleashing an attack on Romney’s Mormon faith via the mainstream media,” Klein wrote. The primary strategic goal would be turning evangelical voters, a key element of George Bush’s winning 2004 coalition, away from Romney.

Klein’s sources told him Axelrod was considering this risky strategy because the polls were closing in Wisconsin, Florida, Colorado, Nevada, Ohio, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. Seven weeks after Klein wrote his editorial, most of those states have indeed become very tight, and there are polls showing Romney ahead in most of them.

There has been sporadic media interest in Mormonism throughout the campaign, ever since Mitt Romney became the likely Republican nominee. Quite a few stories were popping right around the time Klein wrote, and he listed some of them in his piece, from GQ Magazine and hyperventilating MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell (currently a minor sideshow attraction for challenging Romney’s son Tagg to a fistfight) launching high-octane tirades, to more respectable media outlets producing lengthy “special reports,” of the type they would never dream of directing at Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s Church of Racial Hatred."

Keep Reading.......  

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Obama’s Aura Of Defeat

Well I’ve found my favorite paragraph of last week, in The New York Times of all places (granted it’s on one of their blogs), penned by Ross Douthat.

"Losing campaigns have a certain feel to them: They go negative hard, try out new messaging very late in the game, hype issues that only their core supporters are focused on, and try to turn non-gaffes and minor slip-ups by their opponents into massive, election-turning scandals. Think of John McCain’s desperate hope that elevating Joe the Plumber would change the shape of the 2008 race, and you have the template for how tin-eared and desperate a losing presidential campaign often sounds — and ever since the first debate cost Obama his air of inevitability, he and his surrogates have sounded more like McCain did with Joe the Plumber than like a typical incumbent president on his way to re-election. A winning presidential campaign would not normally be hyping non-issues like Big Bird and “binders full of women” in its quest for a closing argument, or rolling out a new spin on its second-term agenda with just two weeks left in the race, or pushing so many advertising chips into dishonest attacks on its rival’s position on abortion. A winning presidential campaign would typically be talking about the issues that voters cite as most important — jobs, the economy, the deficit — rather than trying to bring up Planned Parenthood and PBS at every opportunity. A winning presidential campaign would not typically have coined the term “Romnesia,” let alone worked it into their candidate’s speeches......"

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New York Times Hacks State's Voter Rolls

A few days ago the NYT revealed that they had attempted to hack Washington State's voter rolls in order to test its vulnerabilities. In three minutes they were able to “update the registrations of several prominent executives in Washington State.”

What they did is get hold of publicly available voter information, then simply use the Secretary of State’s website to change a voter’s address. Voila! The ballot gets re-routed, and the voter wonders why they didn’t get a ballot. The article cites the potential of thousands of registrations being changed this way, impacting the outcome of elections. Is that really a danger?

Theoretically, yes. Even Secretary Reed’s staff admitted it could happen, although they cited several security measures already in place that would make it difficult to do on a grand scale. This is one of the many vulnerabilities with a vote-by-mail system, where someone really could submit ballots for a hundred other people and not be noticed. It’s a little harder to pull a hundred levers in a polling place without being stopped.

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Tonight's the Night

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Obama Deputy Campaign Manager Stephanie Cutter Visits the Ladies of "The View"

Things aren't going well at 'Obama For America 2012' Headquarters these days.....

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The Media Quietly Awaits Its Daily Talking Points

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Media Snark.....

A Harley Biker is riding by the zoo in Washington, DC when he sees a little girl leaning into the lion’s cage. Suddenly, the lion grabs her by the collar of her jacket and tries to pull her inside to slaughter her, under the eyes of her screaming parents. The biker jumps off his Harley, runs to the cage and hits the lion square on the nose with a powerful punch.

Whimpering from the pain, the lion jumps back, letting go of the girl, and the biker brings her to her terrified parents, who thank him endlessly. A report has watched the whole event. 

The reporter addressing the Harley rider says, ‘Sir, this was the most gallant and brave thing I’ve seen a man do in my whole life.’ 

The Harley rider replies, ‘Why, it was nothing, really, the lion was behind bars. I just saw this little kid in danger and acted as I felt right.’ 

The reporter says, ‘Well, I’ll make sure this won’t go unnoticed. I’m a journalist, you know, and tomorrow’s paper will have this story on the front page… So, what do you do for a living and what political affiliation do you have?’ 

The biker replies, “ I’m a U.S. Marine and a Republican .”

The following morning the biker buys the paper to see if it indeed brings news of his actions, and reads, on the front page: 

“U.S. MARINE ASSAULTS AFRICAN IMMIGRANT 

AND STEALS HIS LUNCH”

… and THAT pretty much sums up the media’s approach to the news these days ..

via Stealth Magnolia 

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Hey Vintage Media: Investigate This..........

Diogenes - Tuesday 6/19

Last week was the 40th anniversary of Watergate and the media have taken a look back at the state of investigative journalism; they're not happy with what they've found. They're shocked, shocked that investigative journalism has gone the way of the 8 track player! Sure, there are a handful of little-known sources they've found, but they're the exception, not the rule. "We need investigative journalism!" they cry from their Ivory Towers!

Let me ask you big-time mainstream vintage media advocates of investigative journalism a simple question. Have you looked in the mirror lately? As much as you whine about the lack of investigative journalism, you fail to see the reason for its alleged decline is, well, you.

The journalism profession has become little more than a public relations firm working for the Left and any cause it deems vital, no matter how apathetic the public is about it. While media sources spent precious minutes on Mitt Romney's stupid behavior in high school, barely a passing mention or time spent doing a serious story about the national security leaks coming out of the Obama White House. Remember the story about Obama bullying a student in school? No? Not surprising because you guys didn't think it was important enough to address. But Mitt Romney, he's fair game!

Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on your point of view), bloggers are doing what Woodward and Bernstein were doing during Watergate. I know you media types don't consider blogging to be legitimate journalism because of the lack of accountability when a story is factually wrong (by the way, has the New York Times recovered from the Jayson Blair fiasco?). However, the blogosphere is proving you don't need to go to Columbia to point out corruption in the world around us. And given the state of what passes for mainstream journalism these days, the blogger sitting at home in his PJs is out-hustling the big name reporters you rub shoulders with at dinner parties where the topic of the so-called death of investigative journalism is discussed over Brie and Chardonnay.

Maybe the reason the media are lamenting the "death" of investigative journalism is because you're afraid to dig into their own side's misdeeds. After all, it's always much more fun to try to take down the high and mighty when you have a personal vendetta, right? Ah, but when you realize your side, the one you've put so much personal stake into, is no better than the side you hate, it's not so fun, is it? There was a time when investigative journalists would put their feelings aside and go after the crooks, letting the chips fall where they may. But when you can't separate the personal from the professional, you're going to play favorites and, in doing so, help to kill investigative journalism through politically blind neglect.

If you really give a damn about investigative journalism, stop playing favorites and start sending out reporters to shine a flashlight into the dark corners of the Left. Sure, you may not get invited to as many dinner parties with those Leftists, but at least you won't get scooped like the National Inquirer did on the John Edwards story. Or are you just in it for the big bucks and the shrimp cocktails?

Maybe you in the media could take a short lesson on how to go about it here. 

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The New Huffington Post Online Magazine Launches ........ on Obama.

Damn, Even They Get!

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Third Annual Biden Clown Bash for the Press

NBC biggie Tom Brokaw’s criticism of press schmoozing with the president and his team hasn’t put the kabosh on one of the most exclusive annual newsie-administration love-ins: Vice President Joe and Jill Biden’s Beach Boardwalk Bash.

Reporters who’ve received the invitation to the third annual shindig say it occurs Saturday June 9 from 1-3:30 p.m at their Naval Observatory home. The event in the past has been focused on kids and complete with clowns, plates of chicken nuggets, pizza, waterslides and super soaker guns.

Read More...

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After 70 Years Mein Kampf to Reappear in Germany

 April 25 - 2:13pm

With the rise of Anti-Semitism in Europe, this is not good news. 

The German state of Bavaria is preparing to publish Hitler's memoir, Mein Kampf, in 2015, before the book's copyright expires.

The book is not banned by law in Germany, but Bavaria has used ownership of the copyright to prevent publication of German editions since 1945. Copyright restrictions stop at the end of 2015, 70 years after Hitler's death. 

The Bavarian government says it is preparing an edition for students which will include a critical commentary. Hitler wrote Mein Kampf (My Struggle) in 1924, while serving a prison sentence for attempting to stage a coup. Part biography, part political and racist rant, the book outlines the core of Nazi ideology. 

It has not appeared in German since the end of World War II but until 1945 around 10 million copies were sold.  After Hitler came to power in 1933 couples were given the book at their wedding, as a present from the Nazi state. 

The decision to publish was taken after talks with advocates and opponents of publication, and explained that it was aimed at "demystifying" the book. 

By publishing in 2015 before the expiry of the copyright, Bavaria hopes to make future German editions as "commercially unattractive" as possible. From 2016 there will be no restrictions at all on the book's publication, unless it is used to incite racial hatred. 

While the book is widely available on the Internet in translation, poor immigrants without  Internet connects will be able to absorb the hatred for themselves.   

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Breitbart is Here........Around Town

..... Wonder how That Happened?

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Democrats Call for Bill Maher to Apologize

From the New York Times:
To the Editor:

Re “Please Stop Apologizing,” by Bill Maher (Op-Ed, March 22):

 We’re both women who have worked in Democratic politics and the media for decades and find Bill Maher’s misogynist treatment of women candidates deeply disturbing. Coincidentally we both hail from Alaska — where women are treated as equals — so perhaps our threshold for this kind of behavior is less than here in the Lower 48.

 Mr. Maher has implicitly attempted to tie his own demeaning attacks on women to the unrelated issue of partisan-motivated fake outrage, which we agree is tiring. While others have been held to account for their sexism, Mr. Maher remains unrepentant for his attacks on women in public life.

 How can we expect women to run for office when they are essentially told to “lighten up about” and accept misogynist attacks? The Women’s Media Center has found that such attacks on women candidates have a measurable negative effect on how voters view them.

 Our message to Mr. Maher and his ilk is: Please start apologizing.

PENNY LEE

KIRSTEN POWERS

Washington, March 23, 2012

Ms. Lee is the former executive director of the Democratic Governors Association. 

Ms. Powers is a political commentator who worked in the Clinton administration.

[snip]

Mahar has a history of going far beyond the normal satire people open themselves up to by being part of public life. His ugly, sexist and misogynistic attacks on women don't entitle him to hide behind comedy or large contributions to political campaigns.

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Don't Let the Media Worms Get to Your Head!

New From Diogenes' Cellar Laboratories!

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Krauthammer Schools the PBS Libs.......Again.

You can't see it in the video, but rhetorically Charles Krauthammer again pulls his saber and drives it deep into Nina Totenberg's bag of leftist propaganda, this time on the so called Republican "War on Women" and public opinion. .....Its a beautiful thing to behold.

"Liberal echo chamber elite cocooning.”

NewsBusters

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Eleanor Roosevelt She Ain't

Arianna To MO: Watch The Bel Air Trips

The Radio Equalizer: From our establishment media friends, nearly every criticism of Michelle Obama these days is blamed on the usual vast, right-wing conspiracy. But what happens when objections come from the left?

During the most recent edition of Both Sides Now with Huffington and Matalin, co-host Arianna Huffington used the airwaves to let Michelle know she has appeared indifferent to suffering in America, focusing instead on hobnobbing with wealthy donors in Bel Air and elsewhere. She wondered, why not visit South-Central Los Angeles during one of these fundraising trips?

I'd love Michelle to be more like Eleanor Roosevelt right now, because the country needs an Eleanor Roosevelt who's going to go around and at the same time that she's doing fundraisers in Beverly Hills and Bel Air, she should go to South Central [Los Angeles], I mean, if I were Michelle Obama right now, I would not go anywhere for a fundraiser without going and seeing the places where there is pain, where there is struggle, where there is homelessness, where there is unemployment. - ARIANNA HUFFINGTON

This begs the question: is ALL criticism of Michelle Obama off-limits to our media friends, even when it comes from the left? And within the gushing "progressive" movement, is she above even constructive advice? Expect the usual approach from the left to this type of development: silence.

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