Tag: Media Coverage

Say It Ain’t So, Joe!

I watch MSNBC in the early morning especially the Morning Joe Show….I appreciate Scarborough, a conserv, because he will take on any and all about things in the news….while deep down he is still a Repub he is NOT one of those extreme ideologues we deal with in Washington these days….

I have been trying to correct the common thought of creeping socialism or loss of freedoms and crap like those bumper stickers of the Right these days….but I have to admit the Joe handled it much worse then I usually do….but I give him an “A” for deliver……..watch the vid of his analysis of something the Newt recently said….it is priceless……http://bit.ly/ist03d Joe Scarborough gone wild….

Well said Joe!

Lamestream Media

Daily Agitator

Sarah Palin was RIGHT!  (Progressives read the entire post before the condemnation)

For years I have bitched about the media in the US….that they NO longer report news but rather drive the news….and I am talking about both sides of the political spectrum…they should be seen for what they are….HACKS!  Professionalism in journalism…..is dead and now it is a joke!

The photo question about Osama’s death has been answered…and it is NO…let it go…to keep the issue in the news is just short of irresponsibility….the American people do not care one way or the other…just say thank you to the special ops guys and move on!

The next piece of crap is the endless reports on the details of the raid and the subsequent killing of Osama….the media is really upset the the details keep changing and they have to have expert after expert paraded across the tube trying to get a handle on the details….

Here is the answer you dipshits are seeking…..it is called DEBRIEFING!…as the team is debriefed more and more details come out and then is passed on…there is NO story in this….only in the peanut brains of those trying to make a story where NONE exist…there is NO suspicion….only in the conversation that the media WANTS to have and the news they want to manufacture……..

The media, both lib and conserv is truly exactly what Palin called them…..LAMESTREAM MEDIA…….time to find REAL news and do what is expected of you, not by the corporate bosses, but rather the people, that you pretend to inform…..there is real news out there but that would mean you twits would have to work for it….I guess it is easier to make the news up…that is why I search out sources that do not have an agenda to drive.

This whole story about the photos and the details is just plain PATHETIC!

Taking It To The Streets

Once again it is the weekend and I need to cleanse the way for next week’s political fecal matter…..this is how I keep from losing my mind…indulge me…..

50,000 people take to the streets of Madison……100,000 protests march in the streets of London…..a million people crowd the DC Mall to hear Glenn Beck rant……over a million people squeeze into Tahrir Square in Cairo…..and the beat goes on……

You hear of crowds like this almost daily….have you ever thought   “how the Hell do they know that?”  After seeing a photo of the event?…..Well I have wonder just how they go about their counts or estimation…..

In a recent article on BBC:

There are two ways of estimating numbers, he says. One is drawn from having a rough idea in advance of the capacity of streets in the area where people gathered for the start of the march.This advance planning involves studying very precise maps with measurements of streets, and then multiplying the width by the length to get the area, he says. Then you apply a rule of thumb that three people per square metre is comfortable and four is like a rock concert.

But then a second stage of calculations is required, to allow for the fact this is a moving group, with many people joining the march late. This requires some knowledge of how long the march takes to pass a particular point in the road.It would be better to always supply a caveat of a 20% margin of error but the media demand for accurate numbers is an impossible one to meet.

But there is a political dimension to the numbers game, and organisers of any demonstration are always open to accusations they inflate the numbers for their own ends.

And now you know how they calculate how many people are part of any protests or gathering…..so my fellow activist you can now do you own calculations and disputer any of the figures that may appear by the opposition or the media…..

Just doing my part for the cause……

It Is NOT Yellow Journalism!

Daily Agitator

Or is it?

Recently a noted conservative investigative film maker (his definition not mine) did a hidden camera piece with the guy from NPR and of course this guy babbled on and on about the evils of the Tea Party and funds for NPR to the point that it became big news….this was the same little dude that helped bring down ACORN, you know that truly radical group that helped the poor…..but anyway, the Left has been condemning this guy for the work that he did saying that it was “yellow journalism” and of course the radical Right has defended him saying he was doing undercover investigative reporting……

What do you think?

But before you answer this….how about the blogger that made the call to Gov. Walker during the protests pretending to be one of the Koch Brothers, who BTW have a vested interest in the success of the TP….anyway the Governor was offered a trip and said that he would use plants in the crowd and that it was all about a lot of things but NOT about the deficit…..the blogger was condemned as a coward and a crank for the phone interview by those on the Right……

But if the blogger was wrong in using trickery to get the interview…how is that different from the wannabe investigative film maker?  If one is yellow journalism, why is not the other?

What do you think?

Is not it a little sad that the only way we can hear the truth is through trickery?  No matter if you want to lean Left or Right the truth should always be paramount when dealing with the public…….I cannot believe that the American people are still as stupid about their politicians as ever…with all the scandals, lies and misinformation……something never change and the people never remember…Like I said….STUPID!

My grandfather always said, “the best thing to do with a retired politician is to flush him down the toilet with the rest of the Sh*t”…….

Say It Ain’t So!

First of all, the title is sarcasm!  We can only hope that somewhere a microbe of intelligence is sneaking back into the American political psyche….

For years I have been one of those who does NOT see any use for Glenn Beck….his delusional conspiracies and a search for a boogey man behind anything that is not radically right….has lowered the IQ of the American voter by 100 points…..he has NO political use other then dumbing down the electorate….

But there is a minor glimmer of hope for a return to political sanity on the horizon…..as reported by the UK’s Guardian:

what sounds like a dream come true: Fox News is considering parting company with Glenn Beck, the rococo conspiracy theorist who inspires those on the swivel-eyed right and infuriates anyone to their left.According to the New York Times’s media correspondent David Carr, unnamed Fox News executives are said to be “contemplating life without Mr Beck” when the conservative shock jock’s contract ends in December.

There may be a simpler reason, or two in fact, behind Fox News’s apparent case of cold feet. One is that Beck’s dense conspiracy theorising makes for terrible television. While it had a novelty value at first – Beck’s act has only been on Fox News for two years – it is far more intellectually demanding than anything similar on cable news. He rarely has guests and often appears before a blackboard covered in charts and arrows. In many respects Beck’s hectoring resembles not much more than a tedious Open University lecture from the 1970s, but without the kipper ties. Another word for the format: dull. Hence the inevitable loss of viewers.

The other simple explanation is that Fox News can afford to play hardball because it has a ready-made replacement on hand: former CNN anchor Lou Dobbs, a host with a similar appeal to Beck but with none of the downsides. Dobbs is conveniently parked on the Fox Business channel, and can easily switch places.

Will FOX and Beck really split the sheets?  But Dobbs as a possible replacement….well we would go from terrorist causing all the problems to Hispanics being the boogey man in the closet…..so either way dullards would still have their boogey men……

How About The Hate Speech!

With all the hoopla in Wisconsin, I have heard many conserv pundits like Joe Scarborough of MSNBC scold the Left and the media for not calling out the protesters in Madison for all the hate speech that is flying around….they want the media to weigh in like they did during the summer of discontent (2010) of the Tea Party and similar groups……tghey say that the media is NOT being fair by their silence…..

OK, let me be one of the first….as soon as I see Walker caricature as a clown or Hitler or Stalin, I will be there to condemn it…..as soon as I see Wisconsin protesters totting guns and calling for some sort of violence, I will yell the loudest…..as soon as I hear or see a protester wearing a mask of Walker and calling him a fascist you will hear me….(I am NOT saying that some of this is NOT going on….just I have not seen it)

So far all the scenes that I have watched have signs calling for a return to democracy or support for unions or a call for people to get involved….that sort of stuff……NO guns…No Hitler signs…..No joker signs…..No….well you get it……and so far the people interviewed have been polite for the most part…they have given facts (as they see them) and call for a return to sanity….

I have NOT witnessed anything near the crap spread by the Tea Party and its supporters back last summer…basically, all the hoopla in the conserv press is part of the right wing agenda….they are losing the battle in Wisconsin and want to find someone to blame….the media is a convenient bad guy

Conservs cannot justify their attacks on labor and they are pissed and will refuse to accept that they are mostly wrong……or that it was a fool’s choice to fight this battle….

So….where is the hate speech?  Granted I am not there and may have missed something but neither are the pundits on the news…….

There is NO hate speech coming out of Wisconsin except from those that do NOT like seeing Americans stand for something……..Get over it!  I pray that it is contagious and for more issues than just labor……Working and average Americans need to take their country back….from special interests and from those that do NOT want a vocal majority…..

Change The Story Line!

From the VOMITORIUM

So far I have tried to stay out of the WikiLeaks story….I posted one about the comparison to the Pentagon Papers of my day……and recently there has been a concern that the Army PFC that has been accused of leaking the documents may be treated harshly for what he is accused of…..many stories have run that he is becoming disoriented and even catatonic to a small degree because of his treatment in the military brig….like solitary confinement for 23 hours a day….being put on suicide watch for a couple days which took away what little time he had in the air and made him strip down to his underwear and then there is the sleep deprivation….all in all a cruel and unusual punishment….and somewhere I think it is written that that is NOT suppose to happen in this democratic free country…..of course, I could be mistaken….

I will not go into whether what manning did was illegal or not…..or that the people may have the need to know what the government is doing….those will be questions for a trial….if there is ever one…..

Anyway…..these stories are putting the US and especially the military in a bad light….a light that they would prefer to be focused elsewhere…..and some in the media are doing their part to shut off that light on the military……the story is trying to be returned to focus on Assange……

Julian Assange’s wariness of government spooks ran so high that the WikiLeaks founder resorted to disguising himself as a woman when traveling, according to a profile published Monday by The Guardian.

As Assange’s entourage moved from London to the village of Ellingham, the battered red car they rode in periodically pulled off the road with lights killed to make sure it wasn’t being followed.

The media is portraying Assange as this sick paranoid…..all to throw off the media scrutiny of the brig and back on the man they have been trying to discredit in many ways…..and it looks like it is a bit successful….I have seen at least two stories so far about this on cable news media…..and none of the fate of Manning…..I mean some dude dressing like a woman is NOT news……a person that may be in a US military brig being subjected to cruel and unusual punishment IS!

Americans are ALWAYS quick to condemn and slow to seek the truth……if this story plays out as I expect it to….then the point is well taken……

They Will Do Nothing!

As the media circus continues on the shootings in Tucson, there have been many calling for some sort of gun reform…..and of course there are many that will run out and buy guns because the government will outlaw them….well, if you believe that then you are truly a Mental Midget!

Just like the crisis in education…..this has been a concern for as long as I can remember….it gets lots of press and lots of air time….but just what has been done to improve the education in this country?  As usual, the Congress has done NOTHING!

What is that old saying?  Oh yeah….talk is cheap!

We have known for sometime that the environment is in deep trouble….at least for the last 35 years…..and what has been done?  Lots of talk, lots debate, lots of lies, lots of theater….but what, in reality has been done?  once again….NOTHING!

And now with the Tucson shootings, we will have the circus again, but this time it will be about guns…..all the old BS will come out again……the government is coming for your guns, that it is stomping on the 2nd amendment, that NRA will protect you from the government, that…..well you probably have heard all the crap before and will hear it again and again and……what can we say…..no one is serious about making sure that actions like this will never happen again…..all the debate will do is give lots of fodder for the political campaigns to come….

With all the talk and debate (if you can call it that) will go on and on and in the end the same thing will occur……They Will Do Nothing!  And doing nothing will almost guarantee that this situation will happen again and again……

GOP’s Tuscon Point Man

Since the horrible situation in Arizona, the shooting of all those people, the GOP has been on a relentless trip to vindicate all the hate speech that has been leveled at Obama and the Dems in the past couple of years….terms like armed and dangerous, use your 2nd amendment right, need to reload, and all the gun violence symbolism……they are trying desperately to shirk their responsibility for these illustrations that they used to win elections and inflame the base……

Now the GOP has as point man for all the criticism, Gov. Pawlenty of Minnesota, he has taken to the airways and given the same interview no less than 8 times…the same talking points with very little variations….here are some of his talking points….

“There’s a term for that in politics. They say, “Go out and give them the red meat.” And so, it’s…think of that imagery of dangling raw meat in front of, you know, the predator. But all of us, in the case of the politicians, I don’t think we want to get to a point where we’re deterring or chilling free speech or passion or enthusiasm or the kinds of things that fuel grassroots politics…

Basically, what he is saying, at least in my mind, all the rhetoric of anger and hate is just isolated occurrences…..but words of hate and anger DO have consequences…..as I keep saying….it is NOT the intent of the speaker but rather the perception of the listener…….

Maybe instead to spending all one’s time trying slough off the responsibility they should turn now to sanity and rationality…just like yelling “fire” in a crowded room is NOT free speech,  maybe it is time to look at the lunatic talk that goes on and ask that a toning down of hate would be prudent…..

Yes, we cannot blame anyone but the person that commits the violence…..but on the other hand, he got the idea from somewhere!

It Is All So Much Worthless Rhetoric!

The media and politicians spend a lot of time talking about the problems and the so-called solutions….the media spends a couple of weeks a year dedicated to energy or education or the deficit….they talk with experts and the talk with normals and they program this spot or that….all highlight the problem and all appear to want to be sincere….and then there are our politicians, you know….. those elected ones that cannot act like a mature adult once they get their votes and rent an office in Washington….. the silly ballet that we call the US Congress.

CBS, MSNBC and others have spent time, a couple of weeks a year,  and money on “Green is Universal” and other such catchy titles where they discuss the problems of energy….we listen to the oil man Pickens who wants to make more money with Nat Gas….or some leader of some foundation that throws a wealth of stats at the view to make their point……and then they stress the dire need for some action on this front…..and then we wait and wait…..nothing has been done after nearly 40 years of these “talks” and programming…..it is all so much worthless rhetoric!

And they choose a couple of different weeks to focus on education…we hear how we need to change the system because we are falling way behind the rest of the world….we hear from this expert and that group, we hear about a successful program in Harlem and then we hear from lawmakers who want to make a difference….and then we wait and wait….and once again…It is so much worthless rhetoric!

Then we have to sit through endless hours of the media bitching about the deficit and then we must listen to the media talk with all the Congress people about the problem and the solutions….we have elections where the people loudly voted for more action on the deficit…..and then the Congress goes and votes for the largest increase in the deficit in years…..over a trillion it will cost for the new tax plan and NOT one job will be created from all this action……and yet again….it was all so much worthless rhetoric!

All this valiant effort is nothing but a sugar high!  A temporary action that has NO lasting outcome or an effective solution other than some feel good moments for those participating in the so called “solutions”….all they accomplish is some questions with NO answers and little promise of solutions….it is all so much rhetoric!

Take a look at what you are getting from the people you elect to protect you from disaster….

Some perspective on the tax cut deal from Ezra Klein: “The $858 billion package does more damage to the deficit than anything other piece of legislation passed during the Obama presidency. It’s also expected to receive the largest bipartisan majority of any major piece of legislation the Senate has considered in the last two years.”

I do not know how much long Americans can go through life with blinders on…..For the love of God……find some people that will be willing to do what it takes to make us energy independent or an educated country or at least find some politicians that are NOT wind bags of worthless rhetoric!