Even in a far-left city such as San Francisco no one listens to progressive talk radio. Green 960 will be replaced by a conservative talker KNEW, and KNEW’s old spot on the dial 910 AM will be relaunched as KKSF AM, another conservative talker. Both stations are owned by Clear Channel, which was obviously tired of bleeding money on the previous failed enterprise.

Predictably, progressives immediately developed the vapors. Comments via JWF:

“Obama should have fixed this mess by nationalizing radio. Then the good stations like KGO could re-hire all the people they let go. Green 960 could stay on the air.”

“Dec 1st and near 70f here in the eastbay…and conservative radio will never even accept global warming..so Neanderthal talk will thrive.”

“Conservatives have time to listen to these cranks because they are sitting around in dead-end jobs, if they work at all, blaming their failures on liberals instead of their own stupidity. Liberals are too busy. ”

“Why don’t we liberals listen to talk radio? Because we don’t need the constant reinforcement that perpetually insecure, professionally paranoid conservatives do to valid our political ideas. Conservatives desperately need their “bubble.” But I recall seeing an article forecasting the end of conservative talk blather in the next 5-10 years, as its 55-dead demographic is both dying off and unattractive to sponsors. “

The first reaction is to blame the FCC over a private entity’s legal decision; secondly, to call for Obama to “nationalize” radio a la Mother Russia; and third, to claim that progressives are “too busy.” Really? Then why all the free time to “occupy” Wall Street?

Gren 960 makes its money from its advertisers, who are sold on ratings. For the picture book crowd: the number of listeners makes up your ratings. Clear Channel exists to make money, not to do progressives’ bidding. If operating Green 960 made money for Clear Channel, the company would keep it on the dial. All progressives had to do was listen and support the advertisers.

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Love the creativity that went into Wilson Getchell’s do-it-yourself recording and video.

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I loathe when American conservatives define themselves as “right wing” anything, even in jest — just as I loathe when the liberal press uses it as identification for American conservatives — because it is an inaccurate use of the term.

Via Wikipedia:

The terms Right and Left were coined during the French Revolution, referring to seating arrangements in parliament; those who sat on the right supported preserving the institutions of the Ancien Régime (the monarchy, the aristocracy and the established church). Use of the term “Right” became more prominent after the second restoration of the French monarchy in 1815 with the Ultra-royalists.

[...]

In the successive legislative assemblies, monarchists who supported the Ancien Régime were commonly referred to as rightists because they sat on the right side.

Ancien Régime is an ideology diametrically opposed to that of American conservatism, which advocates for the bare minimum of authority. The terms are also used to describe a split in modern-day leftist (by the correct definition, “far right”) ideologies in WWI Italy.

A key element in the creation of fascism was the fusion of agendas of nationalists on the political right with Sorelian syndicalists on the left, around the outbreak of World War I.[19]

[...]

Nationalist and militarist influences that had begun to combine with syndicalism since 1907 created a split in the political left.[19] This split was strong in Italy, where nationalists and syndicalists increasingly influenced each other.[19] Maurassian nationalism, close to Sorelism, influenced radical Italian nationalist Enrico Corradini.[56] Corradini spoke of the need for a nationalist-syndicalist movement, led by elitist aristocrats and anti-democrats who shared a revolutionary syndicalist commitment to direct action and a willingness to fight.[56] Corradini spoke of Italy as being a “proletarian nation” that needed to pursue imperialism in order to challenge the “plutocratic” French and British.[57] Corradini’s views were part of a wider set of perceptions within the right-wing Italian Nationalist Association (ANI), which claimed that Italy’s economic backwardness was caused by corruption within its political class, liberalism, and division caused by “ignoble socialism”.

The Italian Nationalist Association?

Corradini occasionally used the term “national socialism” to define the ideology which he endorsed. Though this is the same term used by the movement of National Socialism in Germany (a.k.a.Nazism) no evidence exists to indicate that Corradini’s use of the term had any influence.[4]

In 1914, the ANI began to tilt towards authoritarian nationalism with its endorsement of the creation of an authoritarian corporate state, a radical idea created by Italian law professor, Alfredo Rocco.[3] Such a corporate state led by a corporate assembly rather than a parliament, which would be composed of unions, business organizations and other economic organizations that would work within a powerful state government to regulate business-labour relations, organize the economy, end class conflict, and make Italy an industrial state which could compete with imperial powers and establish its own empire.[3]

In this instance, “left wing” and “right wing” was used to describe a fracture on one side only. No where in political history is “right wing” used to describe the ideology of limited government except during recent times by the left to discredit American conservatism — and many American conservatives allow such an uneducated misuse.

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Forget about the liberal “new tone” that was touted in the wake of the tragic shooting in Arizona by a crazed political party-less lone wolf. It’s open season for media talking heads, who continue to marginalize conservative women because they embrace a right-of-center form of feminism.

The most recent — and altogether unsurprising — culprit is Bill Maher, who sat down with CNN’s Piers Morgan to spew his misogynistic rhetoric Monday night. Morgan proposed a choice between either Sarah Palin or Michele Bachmann. That part of the interview went something like this:

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The left is always a bundle of contradictions. On one hand leftists set themselves up as the ultimate in “tolerance” and a guarantor of “freedom” to do as one wishes. Most leftists imagine themselves interested in making sure everyone is free to do as they wish to the point where that they are almost libertine about it. Until … until it comes to the freedoms of those they oppose. Then, all of a sudden, their tendency toward fascist group-think comes out in full force.

Joe Schoffstall of the Media Research Center highlighted that liberal “for me but not for thee” tendency in a recent video in which he asked a handful of Washington D.C. liberals if they’d like to sign a petition that bans conservative’s free political speech. Naturally, they were happy to do so.

One of Joe’s signers had that liberal confusion down pat. “I think there is freedom of speech,” the young woman said, “but sometimes … there has to be some kind of control. I mean, look at the tea party, you have all this hate going on,” she blathered. She went on to say that freedom of speech is “not something this country needs any more.”

One would imagine that if her freedom to speak were curtailed she’d suddenly find that hoary old First Amendment something she could not live without.

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I don’t mind that Meghan McCain wants to redefine RINOism or, conservative liberalism, as “Republican” because no actual conservative takes it seriously. I do mind that she talks about the tea party without actually knowing the scorecard.

“I think the tea party is dying out a little bit, I think in the last election a lot of their candidates weren’t elected.”

If Meghan is such a Republican why is she parroting baseless progressive talking points on the effectiveness of the tea party?

She has said of the movement:

“These people are not as relevant as they say they are,” she said. “I think my father would be president if they were really that powerful.”

No, your father isn’t president because the same people who opposed his nomination later came together to form the tea party (yours truly included). This why she bears it so much hostility. John McCain couldn’t even get enough Republicans to vote for him, to say nothing of independents.

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From AFP:

Canada’s first right-wing 24-hour television news network was launched Monday promising to shake up Canadians’ views on politics and the day’s events.

But the Quebecor-owned Sun News Network assailed by critics as “Fox News North” continues to suffer from staffing slip-ups and still has not sorted out its distribution.

The specialty channel aims to “challenge the English Canadian TV news establishment,” Quebec media mogul Pierre Karl Peladeau said last year when he unveiled plans for the network.

“Far too many Canadians are tuning out completely or changing their dials to American all-news channels,” he said. “Quebecor sees an untapped market opportunity in English Canadian TV news.”

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If I were to write a birthday card to President Reagan on his 100th birthday what would it say?

Happy birthday, Mr. President!

The phony liberal media loves you (now that it is politically convenient). Your son, Ron, Jr., who you did not agree with in life, also loves you. In fact, Ron, Jr. loves you so much that he has written a book about you, and for the purposes of publicity, has continued to allow himself to be used by the MSM to condemn your Republican Party and the Tea Party Movement in the build-up to your centennial birthday celebration.

It is a sorry state of affairs when your own son would allow your legacy to be misstated and abused for political purposes.

In his book, My Father at 100, Ron Jr. writes, “I argued plenty with my father when he was alive; I have no intention of picking a fight with him now that he’s gone and can’t defend himself.”

However, Ron Jr. apparently sees no problem in helping to enable the MSM in its 2012 strategy to recast what it means to be a conservative – his father’s true legacy. This week, we witnessed more comedy masquerading as journalism and Ron Jr. aided and abetted the effort to undermine and misstate his father’s belief system, a belief system that was in full public view for eight crystallizing years.

One case in point was a story by AOL News’ Andrea Stone, with the headline, “Son Says Reagan Would See Today’s GOP as ‘Mean-Spirited and Stupid.’” In the piece, Ron Jr. says, “I feel comfortable saying he [Ronald Reagan] would be very, very disturbed by the vitriol, very disturbed by the ‘birther’ business, that (President Obama) is a ‘terrorist,’” Reagan said. “All of that kind of stuff he would think was way, way over the top and just mean-spirited and stupid.”

How interesting.

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Background: In my hometown of St. Louis a controversy is afoot. Bristol Palin was invited to be the keynote speaker February 7th at Washington University during the school’s Sexual Responsibility Week. As part of a four-person panel, Palin is slated to discuss abstinence.

Bristol Palin has been selected as keynote speaker for this year’s Sexual Responsibility Week at Washington University.

Student Union Treasury on Tuesday approved a $20,000 appeal by the Student Health Advisory Committee (SHAC) to sponsor a four-person panel featuring Palin. The appeal was initially set at $25,000 and renegotiated.

The $20,000 comes from the Student Activity Fee collected from each undergraduate student at the beginning of the year. The Student Activity Fee is fixed at one percent of tuition.

While Palin has not formally agreed to the appearance yet, she is expected to do so shortly.

I wasn’t even fully aware of what was happening until a number of Wash U student conservatives reached out, upset at their treatment when they would defend the student union’s decision. Protests are organized and two Facebook pages have been created. Above all else the protest against Bristol Palin stems from no other reason than her last name is Palin.

That’s it.

No one knows what sort of speaking fee Palin is collecting yet some left-leaning students immediately assumed it was eleventy frillion dollars and are attempting to use that as justification for their protest – except when you read the comments on Facebook or in the student paper it’s always followed up with some politically-charged remark about her being Palin’s daughter. Also, some in the community don’t believe in redemption or grace, thus think that once you err you are forever doomed thus, no way can Palin be an authority on abstinence, even though she has more experience than most young adults her age at the result of not practicing abstinence.

A young woman is attempting to say something positive, something about which I think we can all agree. From Huffington Post:

While the politically-charged nature of the selection has caused some minor turbulence on campus, one of the organizers behind the event explained to StudLife that her presence would help round out an annual happening that is often criticized for being one-sided.

“We thought a big name like Bristol’s would help to start a dialogue,” Student Health Advisory Committee President Scott Elman told StudLife. “We also wanted to target abstinence because SHAC and Sex Week have been criticized for being too liberal and too one-dimensional, and that the abstinence conversation hasn’t been brought up.”

Sadly because her mother is who she is, some are seeking to silence Bristol Palin’s voice. It’s bullying, plain and simple, all while the “It Gets Better” anti-bullying campaign is all the rage in Hollywood.

Apparently that doesn’t apply to conservative youth. And especially if you mom’s name is Sarah Palin.

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Government media is wringing its hands at the predicted losses their party will suffer at the hands of an informed electorate this fall. All options to fight back are on the table, including spinning the failure of liberal policy into a yarn about rejection of female candidates.

From Politico:

Nearly a quarter of the 56 female Democrats in the House are considered vulnerable, including once rising stars like Ann Kirkpatrick of Arizona, Betsy Markey of Colorado and Mary Jo Kilroy of Ohio.

[...]
Even if female GOP hopefuls like Sharron Angle in Nevada, Carly Fiorina in California and Kelly Ayotte in New Hampshire make it to the Senate, the elections will still quite likely bring a net loss of women in Congress.

But the impact will be more than just a gender numbers game: It could have broader implications for policy and the political culture of the Capitol in an era in which women have made a significant impact on the House and the Senate, ranging from passing legislation such as the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act to establishing a Democratic Women’s Working Group and holding key committee leadership positions. The impact of more women in Congress has also trickled down to smaller, cultural changes, like installing breast-feeding rooms for new mothers on the Hill.

The article makes no mention of the history being made on the other side of the aisle – also in the name of women.

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Drudge Report readers woke up this morning to the news that GOP senatorial candidate Sharron Angle won the Republican primary last night in Nevada.  Associated Press writer Michael R. Blood’s linked piece on Drudge represents the MSM’s template in its upcoming biased reporting against Angle, and other conservative GOP candidates.  It’s all in the language.

Blood’s piece begins:

Nevada Republicans Tuesday picked tea party insurgent Sharron Angle to take on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid…

“Tea party insurgent.” Blood’s lede links a broad citizen movement with a word that connotes roadside bombs and civilian casualties. Angle is a…

…conservative renegade who wants to turn Washington on end.

Not just a “conservative,” but a “conservative renegade.” When John McCain was a “maverick” – a label first given him by the New York Times – he was the GOP favorite of much of the MSM.  When Barack Obama promised to turn Washington end, he was a “transformational candidate.”  Sharron Angle, though, is a “renegade.” The spin is in the chosen language. (more…)

Sitting through a Rachel Maddow commentary is difficult enough in the best of circumstances. Listening to her tortured logic (employing the word loosely) as she tried to expose the “perfidy” of lobbyist Rick Berman and Big Government editor-in-chief Michael Flynn was enough to make one’s ears bleed. Either unable or unwilling to discuss the merit of Berman’s and Flynn’s positions with regard to any particulars, Maddow relied upon a classic liberal theme song to make her point: whatever government or so-called public interests groups want to do is both altruistic and good and whatever conservatives and corporations want to do is selfish and evil.

No doubt this background music, which permeated her latest sneering rant, resonated like a symphony when heard by MSNBC’s enraptured audience of a couple dozen or so of the leftist faithful. For the rest of America, growing ever more disenchanted with the munificence of big government, it was just more liberal static.

But, once again, we must ponder the ultimately-unanswerable question: What’s the most annoying thing about Rachel Maddow?  Is it the condescendingly arrogant way in which she delivers her message, or is it the appalling ignorance that forms the foundation of her message? In this particular case, I lean toward the latter. (more…)

Last month, I attended my first ever CPAC. It was quite the experience, complete with one extended chat with Max Blumenthal. I’ve wanted to meet Max ever since he launched an attack on James O’Keefe.  I figured maybe if I asked nicely he would issue an apology to James. But to my dismay, he didn’t feel like it at the time.

I guess attitude and environment really is everything because Max was clearly not ready to switch from confrontational mode to apologist in front of several cameras and dozens of on-fire conservatives in the middle of CPAC 2010.

My parents raised me with to have a “no fear” mindset and carefully select the environments I subject myself to. It has taken lots of trial and error in my life to perfect these skills, but nevertheless, its something worth understanding.

When I was 15 a lot of exciting things happened to me: I got into surfing, I got a car, I had an exciting job and I started home-schooling. (Quick note on the homeschooling thing: it was totally my choice and I had to beg my parents to allow it. Not hard to believe if you’ve done time in the Miami-Dade Public School system.) (more…)

Two years ago today, William F. Buckley moved on to the great Firing Line in the Sky where he is, no doubt, still debating the wisdom of turning over the Panama Canal with the Gipper. Buckley’s legacy lives on, not only in the remarkable generation of writers that he spawned after he first dared to stand athwart history and yell stop but, in an odd sort of way, in the manner in which some of the liberals he defied over the course of five decades seem to pine for the great man’s genteel ways.

On a personal note, Buckley was one of the two great influences in the creative life of this particular – not particularly humble – correspondent. The other was that irascible Chicago newspaperman/Everyman: Mike Royko. It’s difficult to imagine an odder couple, but Buckley and Royko shared at least a couple of common characteristics. One took them on at one’s peril (and very few ever successfully did so) and neither could be neatly constrained within an ideological box. Royko was classically liberal, but he openly scorned the liberal elite. Buckley became the symbol of the conservative movement, but he refused to let the movement define him, cutting his own path through the ideological jungle when necessary, most famously when he argued for the legalization of many illegal drugs. Agree or disagree, both Royko and Buckley were thinkers, and honest thinkers to boot, who had a knack for expressing their thoughts with the kind of panache that left their readers breathless in awe. (more…)

In the wake of yesterday’s tragedy in Austin, it’s certainly worthwhile to ask what caused troubled software engineer Joe Stack to crash a plane into an office building that housed 200 Internal Revenue Service employees. But will the media get the story right? Perhaps, just perhaps, I’ll be blessedly wrong about this, but I don’t think so.

We know how these stories seem to go. The “unbiased” journalists from the old media working in the field first develop the story, establish the “factual record” and – once that job is done – the would-be opinion makers move on, using that “factual” docket to make their pious cases. The narrative has begun, as this AP story demonstrates. Joe Stack hated the IRS, felt that this oft-criticized agency had done him wrong and – the conclusion is easy to see – was therefore another right-wing nut job who went over the edge. He was a victim, if you will, of the hatred and fury that festers within the conservative and libertarian movements. His friends, the AP tells us, never saw it coming:

They never heard Stack talk about politics, about taxes, about the government — the sources of pain that Stack claims drove him to his death.

But, nowhere in this story does the AP drill down any further. If you read Stack’s 3,000+ word on-line suicide note, it’s clear that he didn’t hate the IRS because he despised big-government per se. He hated the IRS because he believed that the agency was in collusion with the ultimate enemy: big business. A few telling examples from Stack’s manifesto: (more…)