Media – Page 43 – Doug's Views

October 17, 2008April 18, 2020

Joe vs Sam on tax cuts

Sorry, this part would have been in the previous post had I seen it earlier — dlb

John Seery, a Professor of Politics at Pomona College, wrote an article for the Huffington Post that was published yesterday.

In it he talks about Sam the Gas Station Guy, who he met at his gym the other day. Sam is a small business owner. He owns more than 100 gas stations and 25 restaurant franchises in southern California and has over 800 employees.

While talking about the current political scene Sam, a life long Republican said he would be voting for Barack Obama.

“My gas station businesses are hurting. I make the same profit margin–5 to 8 cents per gallon–no matter whether the price of gas is $1.99 per gallon or $4.99. The big oil companies are the ones raking in the profits when prices go up, not me. I can make money on gas only through volume sales–and if people are hurting, I make less on gas. Or I start to lose money, like now. Where I make money, though, is when they come inside and buy discretionary items–food, drinks, lottery tickets. Right now, people aren’t buying. I know 20 of my gas station colleagues are about to declare bankruptcy. It’s bad.”
“So I’m fed up with the Republicans. Tax cuts for the rich, the war–all that stuff. The middle class needs help. I’m finally convinced. I’m going for Obama. First time in my life, I tell you.”
I asked him about paying higher taxes.
“I don’t care about that. If I’m making money, I don’t care. I’ll pay my taxes. But I’m not going to make any money if the middle-class guy doesn’t have money in his pocket to buy my gas or my food. I don’t need the big tax cut right now. That’s not going to bring the customers into my gas stations.“
Joe the Plumber Meets Sam the Gas Station Guy

So there you go.

That is a better said reason why I don’t like McCain’s and the GOP’s view on taxes. Small businesses aren’t going to make money if the middle-class guy doesn’t have money in his pocket. Cutting taxes for the rich and those who invest doesn’t put money in people’s pocket quick enough to help small businesses – if at all.

Cutting taxes for the middle class are jumper cables for a broken economy and we need jumper cables right now.

October 13, 2008April 18, 2020

Childhood influence passes on

Someone who influenced my life, even though he didn’t know it, passed away on Saturday.

Dick Daugherty was a DJ at WFIN radio for as long as I could remember. He hosted a Big Band show on the weekends on the AM station. It was on that show that would get my first taste of some great music that popular in the 1940’s and Daugherty would pass on trivia or other tidbits about the artists or music.

I learned about Glenn Miller, Bennie Goodman, and all the stars that younger people today may not have heard. Big Band music is one of my favorite forms of music.

Daugherty also had a hand in the summer concert seasons at the Band Shell at Riverside Park and he played drums for some of the bands that played there.

WFIN back then had an eclectic weekend of programing – from church programs, polka music, and for several hours Mexican music.

October 10, 2008April 18, 2020

The “Republican” Courier rides again

I‘ve said it before. I don’t normally read or consider Editorials published in newspapers because it is the view point of the non-working members of the paper and is usually expresses the view point of the owner or publisher of the paper. They are free to express a point of view of an issue or an election but sometimes they write some howlers not grounded in reality. The October 9th endorsement of John McCain for President is the Findlay Courier’s howler of the moment.

It starts out well enough:

We endorse John McCain for President of the United States.By the issues, here’s why:
Elect McCain

Then it is downhill from there.

First there is this

Energy: Like many Americans, McCain has undergone a complete change of heart regarding offshore drilling, as evidenced by the choice of running mate. Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is strongly in favor of developing and using our domestic resources.

Oil companies hold about 5,500 offshore leases that are not being used. Oil refineries are already operating at maximum capacity in the United States, and no new refineries have been opened since 1976. And any effect on supply or price wouldn’t be felt for at least 10 years it takes to bring that oil to the market, if at all.

Then there is this:

Health care: McCain’s plan is one of his strongest policy proposals. He wants to replace the current tax deduction on employer-provided health insurance with a tax credit of $2,500 per person (or $5,000 per family). This would go to everyone, whether or not their employers offer health insurance, so more people could buy private insurance.

McCain’s health insurance plan will tax your health care benefits for the first time ever and pass those so-called credits to insurance providers. Some plan. He also wants to encourage people to purchase health insurance across state lines – like people do with fireworks, cigarettes, and liquor – and turn it into a “free market” like he did Wall Street and we know how that turned out. He also plans on cutting Medicaid to pay for his plan.

Then there is this:

Courts: McCain has promised to name “strict constructionists” to the Supreme Court, or in other words, justices who would strictly interpret the law as written and intended. That’s as it should be.

So I wonder if that also means the Courier supports a return to slavery and treating women as the property of their husbands?

From the beginning, McCain seemed to comprehend far better than the Bush administration that Iraq was a huge project. He knew more troops were needed, and called for such long before the “surge” was implemented.
McCain’s military background is perhaps the greatest asset he brings to the presidency. He understands the principles on which this nation was founded and he’s utterly committed to America. He has a realistic view of nations like Russia and Iran, but also would use caution before pushing us into another war; he knows first-hand what wars do to our military. He has shown courage and fortitude, and would continue to do so as president.

Really? As for McCain being better than the current occupant of the White House about Iraq, both were left in the dust because Obama was correct about everything on Iraq and Afghanistan and the war started before January of 2007. Obama is so right on this issue that not only does the Bush administration admit it but so does senior commanders in area. McCain – and the Courier – seem to be the only one to think McCain is right.

Then toward the end of the editorial was the ultimate howler:

It’s worth pointing out that McCain lacks the negative baggage his opponent carries: the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, William Ayers, ACORN, etc.

How about McCain’s involvement with the Council for World Freedom that was involved with the Iran-Contra deal (which included selling weapons to Iran) and Latin American death squads during his time on their board and how could the Courier ignore the Keating 5. How about his association with the anti-Catholic and antisemitic Pastor John Hagee? Then there is Sarah Palin’s association with the anti-American Alaska Independence Party. If associations matter then they missed the forest for the trees.

This is what happens when talking points are used to “support” an endorsement.

As a side note, back when I was a lad, The Courier was known as “The Republican Courier”. It had the name for decades and was a left over from the days when Findlay had newspapers that were strictly aligned with political parties of the day.

I think it was in the early 80’s, the owners of The Courier decided to drop “Republican” from its name because they were concerned people would be suspect of their journalistic objectivity. The actual news they print has always been, for the most point, objective, but it is clear, with this endorsement, that the owners are still shilling for the GOP.

October 7, 2008April 18, 2020

Why I hate the mainstream media

Ever since the mega corporations took over the main stream media networks, there has been a lack of journalism on them. Outside the celeb-centric, missing white woman, serial killer style tabloid style, the networks have stopped being an advocate of the public. Nowadays, the news, especially the cable talk shows are nothing more than press releases read on the air. There is no follow up, no questioning of what is said. The flacks on the shows are allowed to say their version and we are suppose to believe the “journalists” are being fair and balanced. The Networks

That is a bunch of BS.

If someone lies, or gives knowingly false information, it is the duty of the host to call the person on it right away. Facts are not opinions to be debated. They are either true or false.

Here is an example:

The New York Times’ John Harwood wrote that Gov. Sarah Palin “assert[ed] that” Sen. Barack Obama’s “relationship with Bill Ayers, the onetime Weather Underground figure, constitutes ‘palling around with terrorists.’ ” But Harwood did not mention that two days earlier, in an article that Palin herself referenced, the Times itself reported that “the two men do not appear to have been close. Nor has Mr. Obama ever expressed sympathy for the radical views and actions of Mr. Ayers.”
NY Times’ Harwood quotes Palin’s “palling around with terrorists” claim, but not Times’ own reporting otherwise

or this one

CNN’s Kiran Chetry failed to challenge a McCain campaign adviser’s criticism of Sen. Barack Obama for “claim[ing] that the American military was just air-raiding villages and bombing civilians” in Afghanistan, even though Chetry herself has reported that Defense Secretary Robert Gates has offered “personal regret[s]” to Afghanistan over air strikes that killed civilians.
CNN’s Chetry did not challenge McCain adviser’s misleading attack on Obama’s Afghanistan comments

or this:

On Morning Joe, host Joe Scarborough did not challenge Sen. John McCain’s false assertion that Gen. Dwight Eisenhower wrote “a letter of resignation from the Army” in case the D-Day invasion failed, a claim that McCain also made during the September 26 presidential debate.
Scarborough did not challenge McCain’s false claim

And this one that just pissed me off:

On the September 28 edition of NBC’s Meet the Press, during his interview with McCain campaign senior adviser Steve Schmidt and Obama campaign chief strategist David Axelrod, host Tom Brokaw did not challenge Schmidt’s false assertion that Sen. John McCain “called for the firing of Don Rumsfeld” as Defense secretary. As Media Matters for America has repeatedly documented, and the McCain campaign reportedly admitted, McCain did not call for Rumsfeld’s dismissal.
Rather than noting the established facts debunking Schmidt’s claim, Brokaw concluded the interview by stating, “In fairness to everybody here, I’m just going to end on one note,” then cited the results of a poll question favorable to McCain.
Brokaw allowed McCain adviser to falsely claim McCain “called for the firing of Don Rumsfeld”

Brokaw not only didn’t call Steve Schmidt on the lie he told, he also quoted an old poll about a question no other national poll asks just because it was favorable to McCain. There is also information that Brokaw has been talking behind the scenes with the McCain campaign which included getting Keith Olberman and Chris Matthews removed from anchoring further MSNBC political events.

Yes, the same Tom Brokaw who is moderating the October 7th Presidential Debate in Nashville.

October 3, 2008April 18, 2020

No moose in the headlights, but Palin still lost the debate

Well it seems Sarah Palin knows how to cram for an exam. Her debate with Senator Joe Biden lacked any “moose in the headlight” moments, mainly because there were no follow ups, but her folksy question avoidance didn’t win her or her ticket any help in the election. Tactically she did a good job but she lost the war. Her effort was a white flag of surrender for McCain-Palin.

The people have spoken:

CNN vote of debate watchers: Biden 51, Palin 36
CBS poll of undecideds: Biden 46, Palin 21

Most scary moment:

IFILL: Governor, you mentioned a moment ago the constitution might give the vice president more power than it has in the past. Do you believe as Vice President Cheney does, that the Executive Branch does not hold complete sway over the office of the vice presidency, that it it is also a member of the Legislative Branch?
PALIN: Well, our founding fathers were very wise there in allowing through the Constitution much flexibility there in the office of the vice president. And we will do what is best for the American people in tapping into that position and ushering in an agenda that is supportive and cooperative with the president’s agenda in that position. Yeah, so I do agree with him that we have a lot of flexibility in there, and we’ll do what we have to do to administer very appropriately the plans that are needed for this nation. And it is my executive experience that is partly to be attributed to my pick as V.P. with McCain, not only as a governor, but earlier on as a mayor, as an oil and gas regulator, as a business owner. It is those years of experience on an executive level that will be put to good use in the White House also.

Yes, she wants more power than Lord Cheney. Did you feel that chill?

In the lead up to the debate the right punditry went nuts about the fact that the moderator, Gwen Ifill, had written a book about blacks in politics – as if this some how made her biased. The right also complained about Palin mucking up her Katie Couric interviews – blaming the bad old liberal media and its “gotcha” journalism.

It is a the usual classic conservative attack mode – attacking the media.

Glenn Greenwald in Salon magazine summed this up perfectly:

Go pick whatever right-wing journals or polemicists you want and (with some isolated exceptions) what you will find is this simultaneously self-loving and self-pitying worldview permeating virtually everything they say, think and believe. You can reduce most of their arguments, and all of their group-based drives, to a rudimentary logical proposition: “I am X, and X is both superior and treated with deep unfairness.” It doesn’t matter what “X” happens to be for any one of them — conservative, male, Republican, Christian, Jewish, religious, white, Western, American — that is the formula that expresses how they perceive the world and their role in it.
Petulance and self-pitying grievance is what fuels them. This endless need to self-victimize would be one thing if the groups to which they belonged were small minorities targeted by a hostile and more powerful majority. But the exact opposite is true. By and large, the groups to which they belong (and therefore see as oppressed and treated with unparalleled unfairness) are the most numerous and the most powerful in the country and always have been. Yet still — nothing is their fault; they face hopeless obstacles imposed by Evil and Omnipotent Forces which hate them; “I am X, and X is both superior and treated with deep unfairness.”
They have run the country for the entire decade. For the last 14 years, they’ve controlled the House for all but 20 months. They spent substantial parts of the last eight years in control of all branches of government simultaneously. They’ve won 7 out of the last 10 presidential elections. The country’s largest and richest corporations — including the ones owning the most powerful media outlets — pour money into their party and perceive, correctly, that their interests are served by the Right’s agenda. But still — they can’t get a fair shake; everything is deeply oppressive to them; it’s all so unfair.
The right’s two-pronged religion of rage and self-pity

So as we get closer to the election – including the next 2 presidential debates – look for more whining from the right as they assume their place on the victimhood mantle.