In a recurrence of its bout with Bush Derangement Syndrome, MSNBC recently relied on a left-wing, green activist to assert that the whole Solyndra scandal was really started by George W. Bush. Yep, it’s Boosh’s fault once again. Of course, the facts speak otherwise, but let’s not let truth get in the way of a good left-wing trope, shall we?

On the Friday September 23 episode of “MSNBC Live,” host Thomas Roberts was discussing the wasted loan of half a billion in tax dollars to the later bankrupt green company Solyndra and he brought on a the left-winger to address the mounting scandal plaguing the Obama administration. Naturally Thomas and guest were desperate to find someone other than Obama to blame this mess on. And who better to blame than the left’s favorite fall guy, George W. Bush?

Thomas had showed a video clip of Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart (R, Fla) who called the loan “waste” and “corruption,” but Thomas next went to left-wing, green activist Dr. Mijin Cha who earnestly told the audience that, “the administration actually didn’t do any wrongdoing, right,” because “this loan was begun under the Bush administration.”

Sorry, Dr. Cha, but you’re wrong.

It is true that the loans for Solyndra were first broached in the Bush White House. But as noted on Sept. 14, the Bush White House also declined to approve them.

Per ABC News:

The results of the Congressional probe shared Tuesday with ABC News show that less than two weeks before President Bush left office, on January 9, 2009, the Energy Department’s credit committee had voted against offering a loan commitment to Solyndra.

The facts are that the Bush administration did not approve these loans. The same cannot be said for The One’s administration.

Not only did Obama’s crew approve the loans but recent investigations and news reports have shown that the loans for Solyndra were actually rushed through by the Obama regime.

(more…)

Knowing what you know about the “mainstream media”, allow your mind to wander to a place where a former White House adviser for a Republican was now part of a “mainstream” think tank. On the side, this adviser is involved with other, shall we say, not-so-mainstream organizations. Most of those other organizations revolve around the same subject matter for which he was a White House adviser. They’re just not very well known. For the sake of discussion, we’ll call this person the former “Getting Oil Out of A Rock” Czar. He is no longer a White House adviser because he once signed onto a cause that held some pretty far out views.

After leaving his position at the White House, the former czar kept a pretty high profile as a speaker at “Getting Oil Out of Rocks” events, etc. Despite the controversy which led to his ouster, he remained a well-respected member of the movement. His fans in government and academia still think he shouldn’t have been let go. They think he was a victim of politics instead of a victim of his own unorthodox views. Then one day, it became known that the former adviser was now a board member for a group that believes rocks should have the same rights as humans. Remember, he advised a Republican president. How do you think the media would react to this news?

(more…)

(more…)

Oh, it’s the beginning of the holiday season so I am full of positive feelings and nice thoughts so it’s time to give credit where credit is due. Maybe I’m just full of turkey, but either way optimism is in the air.

Spending 30 years in local TV news has made me pretty cynical about the reporting. Much of what I have seen over the years has been documented here on BigJournalism and I have barely started getting into the silliness I have witnessed. The stories designed to scare women 18-54 into watching the next newscast and the foolish “investigations” into who might be stealing your recyclables from your curb before the refuse men get to it. Yes, the November ratings period just ended and local TV lost its mind once again. Not to fear, the February “book” is right around the corner.

Occasionally local TV news does a story that deserves recognition and when those moments happen they should be acknowledged. Jonathan Humbert of KLAS TV in Las Vegas uncovered  a “clean energy” bust in Nevada that cost taxpayers 8 million dollars. Stimulus dollars were used on the project and there were high hopes that wood chips would provide green energy, rehabilitate prisoners and – I’m guessing somewhere in there somebody professed that this project would help Save The Planet.

Of course, it did none of these things and this fraud could’ve/should’ve been spotted from the start.

(more…)

These fire and brimestone preachers of the left give the Southern Baptist with which I grew up a run for their tithing. As a kid spending weekends in the Ozarks, I remember my granny’s preacher shaking his fist, his jowls waving in the wind not unlike a bloodhound’s, excoriating the congregation and condemning it to hell. It’s a similar feeling whenever I watch some of the more virulent personalities on the left, the ones who, while reminding me of the aforementioned southern preacher, simultaneously remind me of Carrie White’s mom.

(Chick hated freedom AND hair conditioner.)

(more…)

I love to grab a weekend lunch at the fabulous Tomboy’s Burgers in Manhattan Beach, and when I’m there I always pick up one of the discarded LA Times front sections lying by the bottles of Tapitio hot sauce.  “Maybe this time,” I think as I munch fries, “I’ll find that they’ve clued in, that I can re-subscribe and once again walk out to my driveway and carry back a real paper each morning.”  But every single time I come away wondering when this great metropolitan newsroom became the newspaper equivalent of Jonestown.  I envy the guy holding its Kool-Aid concession — he’s going to be making a mint right up until they finally shutter the place forever.

So it was no surprise that I nearly spit out my mouthful of cheeseburger when I read Tim Rutten’s opinion piece about how the Citizens United decision will destroy our nation by interpreting the First Amendment to actually mean what it says.  There, on the Los Angeles Times’ editorial page, was one of the dying fishwrap’s premier columnists arguing furiously that it should be perfectly acceptable for the government to toss someone into jail for talking about a politician.

This week’s Supreme Court decision granting corporations the right to spend unrestricted amounts of money supporting or opposing candidates in federal elections is so strained in its reasoning and so removed from the realities of American life that it would be grotesquely comedic, were its implications not so dire. (more…)